Quilty Pleasures-Mi Familia

Friend Ann, owner of my local quilt shop Threadbear, asked me if I'd like to work with her on a quilt, so we have been collaborating for a couple months on something very different.

The center panels are from a collection by Jesus Cruz called Mi Familia (My Family) by Andover fabrics.  I apologize for the photo quality. I think I messed up my phone camera lens so everything looks a little fuzzy.

We thought it would be fun to work on this quilt collaboratively, not really knowing what the end result will be,  making parts like the four patches and flying geese and trying them out as we go. Some parts we made worked, and others were, "What the heck was I thinking?"

Working by the seats of our pants can be scary and absorbing at the same time. "Stop Staring and Start Sewing!" is our refrain.

Mi Familia is still a work in progress, but the way Ann decided on the orange border is neato: Ann had a quilt top in her "whoops" collection. You know those projects you start and almost finish, but have enough misgivings you don't want to complete them? I have a few of those and I'll bet you do, too.

Anyway, the discarded quilt top looked like this, but multiply it by a zillion circles because this is just a piece.

Ann cut each row of circles in half. We thought a scalloped border would be interesting and tried that, but then she started playing around and staggered the rows of half circles until they made a type of serpentine pattern.

She's been fussing around, sewing the two half circle rows together, offset, and making sure they are all the same size. As you can see in the first pic, Ann needs to fill in some spots which requires cutting and matching half circles, not always matching the fabric.  Recycling in action! And it looks really cool!

I made some flying geese using hand dyed fabric supplied by quilting friend Linda S. and the "sky" for the geese is a cosmic, spacy looking black fabric.

There are still more borders to go, so we will keep you posted on how it's going.

Have you ever made a quilt with someone else? Have you ever "winged it," not really knowing what you were going to do with your quilt before you started?

If you haven't, take some time to play a little.  Whether you call it liberated, intuitive, or improvisational quilting, you will have a real mind stretcheroo and may find yourself standing and staring at your in-progress quilt for much longer than you realize.

You may even start dreaming about your quilt. And that's a good thing!

Quilty Pleasures-Make Two Quilts At The Same Time!

"Leaders and Enders" is a term I first encountered on Bonnie Hunter's blog, Quiltville's Quips and Snips. For years I have used scraps of fabric to start and end my piecing because it eliminates having to hold the thread tails taut as I begin a seam (to eliminate that bird's nest of thread you get if you don't). I never thought about actually making another quilt with those scraps!

Essentially, leaders and enders are scraps of fabric that will eventually go into a quilt, chain pieced in between the beginnings and endings of the main quilting project you are working on.

Let me show you because it's kind of hard to explain without looking at it.

I am working on Bonnie's Mystery Quilt called Easy Street, piecing the blocks, which are purple, turquoise, green, gray, black and white.

 Here are some half square triangles (Honey Honey by Kate Spain for Moda Fabrics)
because I want to make a quilt out of them someday in the future. So I "lead" with two half square triangles, right sides together. Some people use two inch squares and here's a guy who uses Dresden plate blades.

 I was thinking about Gwen Marston's and Freddy Moran's "parts department," where you make pieces for a quilt, just to stock up for when you want to make one.

So here we go, starting with the triangles. Don't look at how they are a tad uneven and definitely don't tell the quilt police. And this close up of the lint on the machine? Pictures don't lie! OMG! Get out the lint brush!

After the triangle, I move right ahead to the Easy Street quilt without stopping and chain sew along as far as I can go.

 When I finish chain piecing the Easy Street quilt, there's another pair of triangles ready. I chain right onto the new triangles.

I sew right up to the end of the triangles, the "enders," and leave the fabric under the foot, ready for the next round of sewing.

 I snip off what's behind it,  all the chain piecing I just did with a little triangle stuck to the end.  I clip off that triangle.

 And I toss it into a box.

So far I don't have many half square pieces, but eventually they will add up and I will have enough parts for another quilt. 

Not only do I have some new "parts," but I've saved time and thread, too.

I hope this is a clear explanation. If it isn't, feel free to leave your questions and comments. Also, what have you made with your leaders and enders?