March 2020 – Page 2 – OccasionalPiece

FirstMondaySewDay_March6

We had our First Monday Sewday this week, and the little group grew by two new participants. For those who don’t know about how we started, it began because a young woman in our church wanted to learn how to quilt. Then we found out a couple of more wanted to learn also. I rounded up a couple of capable experienced quilters, and they agreed to teach and serve as a resource, and Beth offered up her home for us to congregate.

Above is Amber, who finished this month’s block. It’s called Tipsy Two-fer, and was designed by the fabulous Simone, shown below giving her little mini lesson.

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Illustration March 2020 handout

Download the block pattern from Simone’s website at simonebradford.com, where you can also see lots of different ways to put the block together. I also have a First Monday Sew-day handout you can download (PDF file; sample above): FirstMondaySewday_3_2020

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Hayley and Caitlin are working on their blocks.

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We had eight children under the age of six here, and Beth was also getting new fences. Vanda’s mother (visiting from the Czech Republic) agreed to keep an eye on the ~~chaos~~ children.

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And it was Beth’s birthday, shown here hoisting up her son to help blow out the candles.

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Since I’m a record-keeper, here we all are together. I’m impressed that Vanda could smile as her son was trying to bolt off her lap to Grandma (who took our photo).

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Since you know what I’ve been doing for weeks and weeks (house painting and trying to cram it all back in my sewing room), it gave me the opportunity to cull through some fabrics; I took four shopping bags of fabrics that quickly were sorted through and taken to new homes. I also brought some magazines, and remembered that I had a quilt published in the back of this Quilty issue. Amber jokingly requested my autograph, and we laughed together — but really it was all about the good mood present. Not a whole lot of quilting went on, but the young moms were able to talk and visit and we had cake and a Simone-block and a really great time.

Other First Monday Sew-day handouts are here:

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This handout is about the basics: rotary cutting, accurate seams and pressing. Simone also talked about how to choose colors for a quilt. That day we sewed four patches together.

Click to download PDF file: FirstMondaySewday_D19 FirstMonday Jan2020 Sample

We tackled half-square triangles and snowball corners on this day.

Click to download PDF file: FirstMondaySewday_Jan6_2020

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Flying Geese were up next, with Laurel teaching the lesson. All the secrets for Flying Geese are in this handout.

Click to download PDF file: First Monday Sewday_Feb 2020

Golden California (Small World)
Quilt #229 • 55″ wide by 36″ high

I mean, you already know what this quilt looks like, having seen various permutations of this on my blog, on the web, on Instagram. It’s kind of like the quilt that keeps on giving, rolling out forward from the talented mind of Jen Kingwell, and until we all finish up all those My Small World UFOs, it’s likely this quilt will become a quilter’s version of eternity.

[Aside: a cook’s version of eternity is defined as a ham and two people. An old joke.]

I had a Before…back when the pattern was in the magazine and it sold out like hotcakes. Then this quilt languished until I had vowed to make Three Hard Quilts in 2019. It was mostly finished then, but I didn’t have binding sewn on until just before Road to California, where I was taking classes with Ms. Kingwell, herself, and wouldn’t you know it? ~~I don’t have ONE photo of myself with her and this quilt. I thought I took one, but, nope. Can’t find it.~~

Breaking News!! My friend Lisa sent me a photo of the quilt with me and Jen Kingwell, so here it is. Thank you, Lisa!

To keep myself sane when working on a long project like this, I take little snapshots of progress, title and date them, and keep going. It reminds me that quilts — like children — will one day be all grown up.

My photo shoot locator (AKA my husband) suggested we head out to the neighboring town where they had some cool tile murals of different parts of that city. We battled the shadows, however, but he was right: they were cool murals.

For the backing, I chose something that had cities in it, and two pieces that represented quilters.

See that golden sun? One of California’s monikers is The Golden State, so Susan suggested to me that instead of just taking on Jen Kingwell’s name for the quilt (based on the drawings of the Small World ride in Disneyland), I should incorporate something to suggest this quilt’s origin. So I did.

Each of my posts about this quilt have the tag “My Small World” so you can click on them to be taken to other posts about this, if you are still making yours. Carry on! Keep on! and soon yours will be finished, too.

Golden California_9 — Show and Tell at our Guild’s February Meeting. Now this quilt will go for a long rest, while it waits for me to put on the label.

Small WorldMagScreenShot — *Original magazine layout of quilt, from the QuiltMania Special Spring Edition, 2015 (now out of print). Kingwell sells the patterns on her website.*

Next week, March 10-11, I’ll be at the Orange County Quilters Guild, giving my Abecedary of Quilts lecture, and teaching a workshop. Here’s a screenshot from their webpage (kudos to the Communications people for this nice display).

This week I’ll be giving a hands-on lecture at the Inland Empire Modern Quilt Guild, teaching them an abbreviated version of my all-day workshop on English Paper Piecing. Excited to teach and meet new quilters!