The latest quilting projects

First up is the 12 1/2 inch purple hippopotamus block. The quilt guild has a viewers choice contest for children's blocks at the December meeting. This is my entry for this year. I found the hippo by searching images of online coloring pages. (Always a great source for finding applique shapes.) I used four different purple fabrics to build my hippo.

Next up is the paper-pieced feathered star. Sandy (Damon's Aunt) bought me the pattern and bought one for herself in the summer of 2009.

I have been wanting to do a feathered star for quite a while, but if you know anything about quilting you will understand why it is a somewhat intimidating pattern to take on.


I paper pieced the individual parts at the quilting retreat in November and put together the parts and removed all the paper backing last weekend. I like my choice of fabrics - it gives off a nice frost look. I just have to figure out what I want to do with it. Feature this one block in a small quilt or wall hanging or do make more and make a bigger project?

Still Working on the Scrap Pile

As I mentioned earlier this summer I am working on reducing my pile of scrap fabric. My vague notion was to reduce it by half. But of course I did not measure it or weigh it, so deciding when I reach half is based on the 'I guess that is about half' system.

Pictured here are the blocks I have been making for my second scrap quilt of the summer. I still need to sew them together. They are scraps from making my nieces' and nephew's quilts (see blog post dated Saturday, July 3, 2010). The blocks are 6 1/2 inches unfinished.

Once this quilt is finished - including quilting and binding I think I will have made enough of a dent in the scrap pile. I can go back to working on several other projects that have been waiting for attention. I do have plans on working on more crumb blocks at this fall's quilt retreat though so the scrap pile doesn't start growing too much.

Of the 2 scrap quilts from this summer, one will be donated to the Quilt Guild's Community Outreach program and the other will be given to the Guild for its 'Latte Lotto' raffle at the quilt show next year.

Vermont Quilt Festival - 2008

As usual the VQF was great. I took 3 classes, attended the Saturday night lecture and even won a door prize.

The first class I took was Susan Cleveland's 'Piping Hot Curves' which included learning how to make pipping and applying it to curved shapes and making block. The first photo is the book and a few of the blocks I made in class.

I also took Judy Mathieson's 'Twilight Star' class. The star is a 20-point sort-of paper pieced project. I say 'sort of' because it really isn't the traditional paper piecing method, but I found it easier and very accurate so I am sure I will use it again. The second photo is a copy of Judy's book and the part of the star I got done in class.

Finally, I also took Susan Cleveland's half day 'Bold Needle Threads' class, which was great because it was basically a time to play with different threads and stitches on your sewing machine, and I hadn't had a chance to play with all the cool stitches since I bought the machine last year.