Road to California 2018

January 26, 2018January 24, 2018 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Ready, set, go into a busy week:

Tuesday: Cynthia England’s class with Lisa, my pal, who has moved away to Utah. That’s Cynthia’s class sample, above. I loved taking a class with Cynthia as I was there in Houston the year her quilt won the Best of Show and launched her career. Upshot? Here’s another UFO for my collection, but I’m glad I took the class and learned the technique.

Wednesday was a day off: I picked up my new glasses, blocked a quilt I’m working on for Paintbrush Studios’ booth for QuiltCon in a month, cleaned the house, and did the laundry.

Thursday: I went in early with Leisa, another pal, and killed time until the show opened, and when it did, made a beeline to find my two quilts.

Here’s Shine hanging in its cubby with a dazzler gem quilt, which quite overshadowed it. (See below for the link to Instagram, where I did post a lot of the quilts and their names/makers.) But the fun was being juried into Road!

Then to find the second quilt: Oh! Christmas Tree, hanging with its buddies. Again, a real thrill to see it there.

Now to tackle the shopping. The layout, above.

First stop, Pineapple Fabrics, where they stock my favorite solid fabric: Painter’s Palette Solids, by Paintbrush Studio. Even though I learned about these solids by designing a quilt for Paintbrush Studio, I’m quite in love with their solid fabric and needed a few colors. Pineapple Fabrics sells them at the best price of anyone out there.

After Pineapple, I started out in the “Pavillion” which is really just a monster-sized commercial tent with awkward lighting. The first row facing the courtyard was well-lit (above, a Kaffe booth that has a great selection), but as soon as you round that corner, the booths are less well-lit. Actually I found the lighting overall to be a problem in the main ballroom, too. It was fine in the small ballroom. Turn up the lights, Road!

I zipped over to see Dora Cary of OrangeDot Quilts, as I follow her on Instagram, and love her work.

For some reason, this show seems to attract the scooter/walker/cane crowd. At the entrance they have about 40 of these scooters lined up to rent. Here are some scooters parked alongside a booth. Will I stop coming to these when I hit this stage? Who knows, but I am counting on the fact that the online presence will be so strong that I can stay home and hit the vendors that way.

Here is “saw-though-the-head” and “scissors-through-the-head.” I also saw “hairbrush-through-the head.” I suppose, as a vendor, you’ll do anything to make your booth stand out.

Fun to see a bee-mate’s quilt hanging up in the Ventura Quilt Guild’s booth. It looks great, Joan! And here’s the instructions and the place to send the blocks if you want to contribute to the Thomas Fire Relief Quilts.

I didn’t just shop or take classes (more coming up), but I also took time to look at the quilts. The one made from a Wendy Williams pattern (above) caught my eye. I have a lot of the quilts, plus the placards that tell about the quilts, up on my Instagram feed beginning here. Use the right arrow to advance through them, and I apologize again if you follow me on IG and I blew up your feed.

I had many favorites and wrote about them on Instagram, but I also kept looking at the quilting, trying always to improve my FMQ.

Leisa finished her class with Gyleen Fitzgerald on Pineapple Quilts, and on the way home we stopped by Blaze Pizza for an early dinner (and to catch up with our non-quilt-show lives), because we had…

…Caitlin’s baby shower to attend that evening. I was the gift scribe, and being the oldest of the bunch I needed a translation program that spanned several decades. For example, I would write “squeaky toy” and Caitlin would say “Thanks for the teether.” I would then line out “squeaky toy” and write down what she called the plastic giraffe. This happened over and over, and left me certain that I was waaaaaay past the child-bearing years. The language was so different, it was like a different world. The favors were tiny succulents, the food was divine (I need to get the recipes) and we took a marker and wrote a message on the diapers in the wire basket, above — messages that Caitlin would read at those midnight diaper changes.

Okay, back to the show.

Friday: Lisa, Leisa and I took the Mystery Triangles Class from Jenny Doan. Another class where I chose it for the person teaching it, as Jenny Doan is fabulous. This was the most relaxed class, and I really enjoyed it. The quilt above is all the techniques/options rolled into one quilt.

Lisa finished a baby quilt top, using Christa Watson’s new line of fabrics, that have a lot of wow-factor. Cute!

We ate lunch every day upstairs overlooking the dramatic hallway with the hanging quilts, and I loved this quilter’s bag, made for her by her daughter, who asked her what were the four most important things in her life. I agree, except I’d have to make room for my husband’s name on there. (Maybe leave off gardening?)

We did some shopping, then headed over to El Torito. where our little quilt group gathered for our annual dinner. Some years we’ve been fewer in number, and some years we’ve been higher in number; this time Lisa’s friend Margaret from Idaho joined us (in the red). Then we all hightailed it back to the show, where we took in Jenny Doan’s Trunk Show that night. It was fun and funny and good to be there with everyone.

Saturday: I walked all the vendors one more time, then about noon, Leisa and I left.

Sunday: I had to pick up my quilts at 4:30 so I went early. My experience has taught me that the show is pretty emptied out near the end, and I could walk the quilts and look at them one more time, taking photographs without any people in them.

I re-visited the Cherrywood Fabrics booth with all the Van Gogh-inspired fabrics and snapped these two panorama shots (which distorts the photo–it’s really quite rectangular). Next year the theme is Prince, with purple fabrics, if you want to jump in. They’ve had three collections so far: Lion King, Wicked, and Van Gogh. I have loved them all. Click to enlarge the above two photos.

The dates for next year’s Road to California are January 17-20, 2019. Make plans now to come to a terrific quilt show!

Frivols 1 Is Finished!

January 23, 2018January 4, 2024 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Caitlin’s Baby Quilt • Quilt #192
40″ (approx) square

I finished the first Frivol and I finished it early — before the end of January, so I was pretty happy with THAT deadline. As I was making it, I was thinking about my friend Caitlin, who is having a girl after two boys. I decided she just needed this feminine quilt that isn’t so fussy, that it couldn’t be thrown down on the ground when the family has a picnic.

It’s my first finish in this year; 2017 saw sixteen finishes, but a lot of them were smaller quilts, so it’s nice to lead off with a good-sized quilt.

I used Carolyn Friedlander’s white-on-white cross-hatch design (from her Architextures line) for the sashing and accent, and then used another white-on-white heart print for the borders.

A lot of contemporary quilters are notorious for not owning up to the traditional name of the block, and this group was no exception. The block has several names, the most common being “Chimney Sweep,” and it was first published in 1929 by Ruth Finley (I get all my info from Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns). It’s also known as “Christian Cross” (from a book published by the Shelburne Museum that listed all their quilts).

This backing is from a fabric from about a decade ago.

I quilted it in an overall lazy large meander, and bound it with a fabric that was a nice companion to the Bonnie and Camille line, interspersed with bits of the fabric from the leftover squares, as I don’t plan to make an extra block for a sampler quilt (one feature of the Frivols tins).

My review: if you are a Bonnie and Camille fan, this box is for you. I haven’t ever sewn with their line, and part of why I’m doing this is to learn about other styles of fabrics. I found the repetitive blocks easy, once I learned about the misprint measurement. Resolved: I’m going to look up any errata (errors) first, before I start cutting. But overall, it didn’t hold my attention, nor was I fascinated with the fabrics or the block. I guess I’ve spent too much designing my own quilts as well as working in highly saturated colors and splashy patterns. But, like I said, good to have a change.

It will be perfect for Catlin’s little baby girl. On to Frivols #2 in February.

~~January 2018 • No. 1 – Hello Darling by Bonnie & Camille~~ DONE!
February 2018 • No. 2 – Polka Dots & Paisleys by Minick & Simpson
March 2018 • No. 3 – Eliza’s Indigo by Betsy Chutchian
April 2018 • No. 4 – Windermere by Brenda Riddle
May 2018 • No. 5 – Petite Prints Deux by French General
June 2018 • No. 6 – Strawberry Fields Revisited by Fig Tree
July 2018 • No. 7 – Songbird Gatherings by Primitive Gatherings
August 2018 • No. 8 – Bread ‘n Butter by American Jane
September 2018 • No. 9 – Little Miss Sunshine by Lella Boutique
October 2018 • No. 10 – The Cookie Exchange by Sweetwater
November 2018 • No. 11 – Sew & Sew by Chloe’s Closet
December 2018 • No. 12 – Blue Barn by Laundry Basket Quilts

Gridsters · Quilts

Gridster Bee Begins 2018

January 19, 2018January 9, 2018 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

Carol kicked off the Gridsters this year, doing a little throwback to fall, for she said she wanted to make herself a quilt for autumn. She asked us to use this tutorial from The Cloth Parcel. I had fun finding orange fabrics that would work, and picked up some bold orange Grunge dots to work into the pumpkins. She had mailed us the navy Grunge for the background, and after I finished my first pumpkin, I found I had enough for another, so I sent two. These come together quick and easy, so if you are thinking ahead…or behind…it would be a fun quilt for fall.

Quilts

Frivols! (Time to Do Another Undone Project)

January 12, 2018January 4, 2024 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

I think I mentioned somewhere along the way, that I had collected a full set of Frivols tins, shown above. Two other quilters, Kelley and Karen, mentioned that they had a full set, too. I wrote back and forth with each of them, wondering if they wanted to liberate their Frivols from their tins and make 2018 the year that we finally get them done.

There is this temptation to leave them fully entombed, I realize. They are so cute in their little boxes, and what will you do with all those little quilts? (Well, some aren’t so little.) But I can think of many places that you can donate these quilts, if you want (try starting with the Preemie unit at your local hospital, or a Domestic Violence Rescue shelter, or your granddaughter’s doll crib, just to name a few). The point is to have fun, to free up space in your sewing room and to get rid of Another Undone Project.

If you want to join in with us, too, we’re going to try to tackle one a month until all twelve are finished. If you want to work ahead…well, you have the instructions and the fabrics. You can still find Frivols tins if you do a search, so you can join in the making.

Here’s January’s: “Kindred,” using the Hello Darling line by Bonnie and Camille. The quilt finishes at 40″ by 40,” a perfect table-topper size. And here is the Mode blog announcement for how the cutting directions are wrong. It’s true–the quarter-square triangles should have been cut a bit larger; more on that later. I’ll always try to link over to Moda’s blog so you can update any errata/changes in your Frivols.

I love how each tin has a little treasure inside. This tin has some woven tape with Handmade with Love written on it.

And here’s the fabrics. I started with their lovely diagrams, cutting the blocks into pieces:

I stacked up two stacks of “twin” blocks–the instructions say to cut using two of the same fabric blocks, and no I don’t know why I have extras (on the left). In every Frivol there is a “bonus” block that you can make so you’ll have a sampler quilt. I’m not doing that, so instead I’ll keep the extras in my stash.

I cut them according to the sketch. So far so good.

I stacked up the pieces of one block, with the exception of the Half-square Triangles on all four corners. Then I kept going:

But I should have checked the Mode blog first, as I cut some of the white side triangles too small. You can see the problem here:

I will simply true them up a little smaller when I finish all of them.

Six down, ten to go. I’m making good progress while listening to the sixth book in the Maisie Hobbs series:

I’m hooked on this series!

If you want to join in, dig out your Frivols tins and let’s get going. If you leave me your name and blog address or Instagram name, I’ll start making a list at the end of each final monthly Frivols post, with links. Lisa Bongean, of Primitive Gatherings, has a great write-up about “her” tin with her fabric line. Have fun hunting your tins down, getting ready to join up with us. I’ll do an introductory post near the beginning of each month, as well as a final post, on the last day of the month.

I would like to commit to getting the quilt top finished each month, with quilting, if I can. As I mentioned, the quilt tops are not too big that you can’t finish them on your domestic machine, and that will give us all a chance to practice our quilting. I’ve got a good start for January’s block, but I’m taking a break to go to Road to California, where I’ll have two quilt tops hanging in the show. I’m also taking three classes, so it will be a busy week.

January 2018 • No. 1 – Hello Darling by Bonnie & Camille
February 2018 • No. 2 – Polka Dots & Paisleys by Minick & Simpson
March 2018 • No. 3 – Eliza’s Indigo by Betsy Chutchian
April 2018 • No. 4 – Windermere by Brenda Riddle
May 2018 • No. 5 – Petite Prints Deux by French General
June 2018 • No. 6 – Strawberry Fields Revisited by Fig Tree
July 2018 • No. 7 – Songbird Gatherings by Primitive Gatherings
August 2018 • No. 8 – Bread ‘n Butter by American Jane
September 2018 • No. 9 – Little Miss Sunshine by Lella Boutique
October 2018 • No. 10 – The Cookie Exchange by Sweetwater
November 2018 • No. 11 – Sew & Sew by Chloe’s Closet
December 2018 • No. 12 – Blue Barn by Laundry Basket Quilts