Blocks and Cables

The Pine Burr quilt is coming along. Here's Block 11:


And Block 12:


I should point out here that this is paper-pieced. The pattern is "Pine Burr Made Modern" by Konda Luckau from May/June 2012 McCall's Quilting. I've had the pattern and the foundation sheets in my notebook since it came out, but wanted to improve my paper-piecing techniques before trying it. The "Delectable Pathways" quilt gave me a good start. A recent class and the purchase of an Add-a-Quarter Ruler made it a lot easier for me to do paper-piecing. I'm going almost totally scrappy on this quilt, unlike the one in the magazine. With all different background fabrics, the piecing of the background will show up more. I think the effect will still be nice, though.

Here's a photo of the first 12 blocks on my design wall. (Sorry about uneven lighting. I have track lights in my studio.) This isn't how they will be arranged. I'm going to play with them when I have all 16. There will be sashing, cornerstones, borders, etc., too.


Now there are more, but it's hard to get a photo of them all together because of the table in front of my design wall. 

Here's Block 13:


And Block 14. Only two to go!


Thursday was a very busy day. Common Threads met at Karan's again. She's working on a hot-air balloon mobile for her first grandchild. It will be a series of little hot-air balloons with the little baskets to carry the tiny imaginary people up into the clouds. She has two of the balloons done.


She's also making progress on her "Flying South" cardigan.


Susan has been working on "zentangles," something I had never seen before.


Ginny was there, too. She's still hand-quilting her pillow shams.

Then, Thursday evening, the Park City Quilt Guild met. We were supposed to bring examples of how we worked with color or how we chose the colors.

Linda brought this great quilt top, where the border fabric was an inspiration for the other fabrics.


Several people mentioned that they often choose a fabric with colors they like together, then use that to pick the other fabrics for a quilt. You don't even need to actually use the inspiration fabric in the quilt.

Colleen blew us away with this awesome Baltimore Beauty:

She had a class a few years ago with Elly Sienkiewicz. That's when she started this. It's all done by hand. She shifted the traditional red-green color scheme off a little, to great effect.

Davidene showed how using one unifying color could make mismatched fabrics work together.


This quilter challenged herself to use orange and pink together in this great tulip quilt (Jill's sister, I think, but I've forgotten her name). : 

Jill brought this Twister quilt to show:


And here's what she made with the leftovers:


Jill took this quilt top entirely apart because she didn't like how it looked. This is the new, better, version.


I took my "Thousand Years of Friendships" quilt, where I took a ball of olive-colored yarn with me as I chose the fabrics.


I also took "Antique Diamonds," made from the Keepsake Quilting Millennium Quilt kit given to me by a friend who was cleaning out her quilting studio. The color choices here were made by eliminating any wild fabrics and then matching up lighter and darker fabrics for contrast. Then I strung some colors together just to emphasize those colors.

Both of these are hand-quilted. (I didn't photograph my quilts at the meeting, because I was busy holding them up but these old photos show the colors well.)

In knitting news, the first Johan sock is done:

The yarn is Stroll Tweed in Flagstone Heather, sort of a slate gray in real life. (It sort of looks blue-green on my monitor.) The pattern is "Bavarian Twisted Stitch" from Cat Bordhi's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles," but I tightened up the gauge for my skinnier feet, didn't twist the purl stitches and used a regular flat toe.

I started these socks on the trip to Oregon last summer to meet Johan, our new grandson. Guess I've been suffering from "first-sock syndrome." The second one will go fast. I just picked up more sock yarn at Knit Picks latest sale, and I have lots of plans for socks I'm dying to make.

I tried something new (to me, anyway) with this sock. I always wear out the bottom of the heel, so I knitted with two strands across that area, cutting the extra strand when I reached the gusset/instep stitches. Here's how it looks on the inside:

I think the extra strand will stay put. Watch this blog for a report on how this works in practice!

I'm ready to start March of the Fibres sweater, but I decided I needed more gray Palette yarn, so I have some on the way.

On Saturday, the pups and I went for a short "hike" in Toll Canyon, an area adjacent to our neighborhood. It was a nice day, and we met other people along the way. There wasn't enough snow for snowshoes, but my Yaktrax would have been welcome.

Sunny and Rocky have 4X4, so they were able to run. I just had to be careful.

Sunday was church, the opera and practice for The Messiah Project...performance this coming Sunday.

What's on my needles: Working on the Johan Socks, one sock done. Also still working on the second Martha Washington's Wreath appliqué block for my First Ladies quilt, not much progress this week, and worked some more on hand-quilting my "Spring Flowers" quilt.

What's on my Featherweight: Pine Burr, ready to start block 15.

What's on my wheel: Full Circle spinning fiber in "Pigeon."

What's on my loom: Still some warp for another scarf.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Music from Park City's Messiah Project. Finished listening to An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor, then Breakfast With Buddha by Roland Merullo, both recent "Daily Deal" offerings from Audible and both very enjoyable and beautifully written. The second book is a novel about a road trip a man takes with his sister's guru. It's about the nature of religion, anger and joy. Very special. Now listening to The Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L. A. Meyer, the second in the Bloody Jack series about a British street urchin who disguises herself as a boy so she can work on a ship as a cabin boy. This one was available from my library as an audio download, so I'm listening on the Overdrive app. Finished reading Beyond the Cliffs of Kerry by Amanda Hughes on the Kindle app. It was an interesting story, but the writing didn't flow. Just starting Jennifer Coburn's Tales from the Crib, also on the Kindle app.

What's in my wine glass: Corbett Canyon Merlot. ("You had me at Merlot.") Always a decent wine.

What's my tip of the week: When tracing templates on fabric or otherwise drawing on fabric, place the fabric on top of a piece of sandpaper. The sandpaper will keep the fabric from stretching as the pencil moves across it. Slight pressure on the template helps. You can glue the sandpaper to a stiff surface, like a piece of wood, plexiglass or heavy paper to keep it from sliding around.

I found this item all ready to go at a quilt store. the plastic can also be used for glueing, but I don't do that very often.


Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.