A Cure for Quilter's Block

I belong to a small group of on-line friends that have been discussing our next quilting project. We are all planning to make Ricky Tims' Convergence quilt.

I had been to a quilt show once where someone made a Convergence quilt using a Michael Miller chicken/rooster print. I thought this would be the opportunity to make that quilt myself, after all, I do own a meter of that wonderful print!

While I was at the quilt shop yesterday looking for coordinate prints, another quilter asked me what I had planned for the gorgeous chicken fabric. I told her I was making a Convergence quilt. She had never heard of the pattern so I explained how you use four prints and cut them into strips and sew them back together. (Obviously simplified instructions.) She was horrified and couldn't believe that I would consider cutting up these beautiful chickens. At that moment, I realized that I couldn't go through with cutting this gorgeous fabric up--I couldn't see these chickens "in jail" behind bars of contrasting fabric!

I went ahead and purchased two coordinates but I vowed to find a different way to display my beloved chickens. (The red fabric was already in my stash.)

When I got home, I remembered that I had previously purchased a copy of Judy Sisneros' book, 9-Patch Pizzazz. This is a more appropriate use of my chicken fabric as this book makes excellent use of large scale prints by leaving them intact, in large chunks--6 1/2", 12 1/2", 18 1/2", etc. As long as each side is divisible by 6 and add 1/2" you can make use of the square or rectangle in this pattern.
Now that I have a pattern to use the chickens appropriately, I turned my attention back to selecting fabrics from my stash for my Convergence quilt. This is the first combination I put together. I have decided that the fabrics may be too "matchy" and there isn't enough contrast between all pieces so I discarded this selection and went back to searching.

Then I came across a bright floral FQ in my stash. I started to pull fabrics from the floral and came up with this combination. Unless I come up with another combination before we start cutting into our fabrics, this is what I am going with for my Convergence quilt!

Thanks to the FABs and on-line discussions about this new project, I am officially curred of Quilter's Block.......at least for now!

Quilter's Block

Last weekend I was experiencing Quilter's Block.

Quilter's block is a lot like writer's block--a temporary loss of ability to begin or continue quilting, usually due to a lack of inspiration or creativity.


Last weekend I managed to complete two very small projects:

1. I put the binding on my tulip Spiral table center. I think it goes quite well with the quilt I currently have hanging in the dining room.


2. I made a very small table center for St. Patrick's Day. This table center is made with the same Spiral pattern as the tulip table center above, just smaller--only one round. This is a picture of the table center at my Mother's house with her shamrock plant, all ready for March 17th.

So this was the best that I could do last weekend--binding a table topper and making a small table center with the fast turn method (no binding).

Double Four Patch - Complete

You have seen this quilt before in various stages of construction. Here it is again--this time complete. The last stitches were taken on the binding a couple of weeks ago. I was waiting for the rains to stop so that I could take this quilt's formal shot outside--today was that day. The sun shone today, people were out of hibernation walking around the streets, and I could almost be convinced that Spring is really just around the corner!

I have been working less on my own quilts lately and more on customer quilts. The tally so far this year is 13 total quilts brought in for quilting--3 of which were mine. I have finished two of my quilts completely, the third is waiting for its binding to be sewn on. Of the 10 customer quilts that have come in this year, only 3 are waiting in the wings--one of those was received today.

I have also been working on the "less is more" lifestyle. Pam has been talking about reducing the clutter in her life and this seemed like as good a time as any to follow suit. We have been re-organizing, sorting, reducing, throwing away, donating, and refusing to introduce anything futher into this house that we don't absolutely need. As my husband said today, "Sadly, despite all the stuff that we have gotten rid of lately, it is hard to tell the difference!" Although this statement seems very true right now, I believe that if we continue to soldier on, you will be able to see a difference when you enter this house. It may take a long while, but we will get there. Eventually we will be liberated from all this clutter!

Bargello Progress Report

This is just intended to be a quick post to update you on my Bargello quilt progress.

I have now completed the fourth strata. I actually finished to this point on Sunday but I have not had a chance to post to my blog since--it has been a busy week!

LindaJ and I have been working on this project together for the past two weekends. By LindaJ's recent posts, it looks like we are on again for this weekend! It is so much easier to stay on task when someone is working along side of you! We have had so much fun working on quilts this way, we are planning more.

I know we both want to work on our Christmas Patience Corners quilts. My quilt was started some time ago (Inspired by FINN), and LindaJ wants to start one for herself. If we keep each other on task like we have with this Bargello quilt, we will have them finished in no time at all! Hop on over to LindaJ's blog HERE, say hi, and cheer her on! Neither one of us wants this project to end up on the UFO pile!

Bargello Weekend #2

This is the bargello quilt that I started last Sunday.

I added the third strata today.

I am committed to finishing this one to at least the flimsy stage as I don't want anything further to add to the UFO pile!

Bargello Progress

This is the progress on my Bargello Quilt--2 stratas complete. My third and fourth stratas are still sitting in the 2 1/2" strip stage--no piecing completed on them yet.

Notice that my two stratas are a total of 13 strips wide, not 12 as suggested in Bonnie Hunter's pattern.

Because I am continuing with the same fabrics across the quilt and not making my quilt in the random scrappy pattern suggested by Bonnie, I wanted to avoid two identical squares appearing side by side as would happen if I put together two stratas of only 6 strips each. By adding a strip of squares between the two stratas and offsetting the squares in this strip, I have completed the "point" of my zig zag pattern.

Further work on this quilt top will have to wait until the weekend.

Bargellobowl '08

Today was Superbowl Sunday. We aren't NFL fans in this house so the game was not on here. However, after LindaJ suggested that we take this Sunday to play along with the many bloggers that were quilting on Superbowl Sunday and making Bonnie's Scrappy Bargello quilt, I was in.

LindaJ and I spent a couple of evenings during the week chatting on line about the pattern, what fabrics to use, what size to make the quilt, etc. We both fell in love with a couple of versions of Bonnie's pattern that were completed in Christmas fabrics by KarenO and by Marcy Brower. LindaJ and I definitely like the idea of using the same fabric right across the quilt so that the "wave effect" is prominant.



When I looked in my Christmas fabric bin, I found a stack of strips already cut to 2 1/2" wide. I am not sure why I originally cut these fabrics but since they were already cut and waiting, I decided to put them to use. I needed to add a few more greens and reds to ensure that my quilt looked like a Christmas quilt and I was ready to go this morning.



LindaJ decided to make her version in scrappy fabrics. Since LindaJ intends to keep this quilt for herself (rare since she donates most of what she makes to charity), she has included fabrics received from on-line friends.



We had a family dinner to attend tonight at my SIL's so I had to stop working on this quilt about 3:00 in the afternoon. At that time I had completed the first strata and I had three seams to sew to complete the second strata. A good start to this project.

This is a picture of the first strata.

It is always great to sew along side a quilting friend -- even if that friend is in cyberspace -- so you have someone to check with when directions are unclear. Thanks for the assistance with the pressing directions, LindaJ! I know from previous projects that if the seams aren't pressed the correct direction in the first place you can create a lot of extra work and frustration later on in the project. Hopefully, we can complete our tops together next weekend if we can get all the other obligations in our life organized and out of the way!