Flier for my Trunk Show:
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the Janet Goeske Senior Center, in Riverside, California.
Early-May Accomplishments
I finished my Gridsters Bee block for Rachel. She asked for buzzy bees, as she is a beekeeper in the Midwest. Her tutorial is *here,* as well as links to her pattern, but I didn’t cut apart the pieces. I just straight paper-pieced the thing, then joined the head section to the body section. We blew up the basis 6″ pattern to make 10″ finished bees. I can’t wait to see what she does with them all.
This is beginning to feel like the never-ending quilt.
I’m making small (2-1/4″ finished) plus sign blocks to go in between all the Chuck Nohara blocks that Susan and I made together last year. Our blocks are 6″ finished, so after I worked out the measurements, I drafted a pattern for the sashing. Here is the PDF: Chuck Nohara SashingFinal
I started the plus blocks by cutting strip sets (2 low-volume and 1 bold), then seaming the two low-volume onto the bold on either side. Cut those across the strip set into 1-1/4″ wide strip pieces. These pieces are both the a) top and bottom of your plus block, and b) the center of the “dot” block, shown in the intersection of the sashing, above
I then cut matching pieces of fabric into 1 -1/4″ x 2-3/4″ bits. I sewed a matched set of two strip-set-blocks, one on top, and one of the bottom to make a “plus.” Then I sewed 1 -1/4″ x 2-3/4″ pieces of low-volume on either side of a “dot” to create the mini block that is at the intersection.
Then the low-volume center piece, in between the two plus blocks, measures finished at 2-1/4″ by 1-1/2″ (so cut 2-3/4″ by 1-3/4″).
The “plus” and “dot” units finish at 2-1/4″ square, so trim them to 2-3/4″ square (size before sewing).
Sew two “plus” units on either side of the low-volume center piece. Arrange them all around, then sew the row with the blocks and plus-units first:
Then I sewed the “dots” and plus-units together:
And then I finished sewing them all together:
I’m now trying to figure out the borders. After all the piecing I did for the sashing, I can guarantee you it won’t be like the borders Chuck Nohara showed in her book:
I’ve finally progressed to the place in my physiotherapy (I like the way the Australians say it, as we just call it “PT”) where I could try out my Sweet Sixteen quilting machine again. After 3-1/2 months. It took me a while to get the thread tensions balanced, but then was I able to get going on my quilt from the Traveling Threads Bee, made of Alison Glass fabrics (with a few others).
Bliss. This block, from Toni of HoosierToni, is coming along nicely. I’m limiting myself to 30 minutes/session so I don’t break my surgery (my one big fear in life).
Lastly, you are all invited to our Raincross Guild Meeting this coming Tuesday, May 16th (6 p.m.), where I’ll present a trunk show of my quilts–well, only 25 of them. My husband helped me get them from our closets, walls and cupboards, so I can decide the order and what to say. I just clicked over to the Guild’s website, and in true humbling fashion, I’m not even listed. But Latifah Saafir is, on the day I’m supposed to teach a class for the Guild, too. What will I be teaching?
My Home, Sweet, Home mini quilt. I think they have a few openings, but I’m not sure. I’ll be emailing the class members prep instructions, that if they complete them, they will finish their quilts in class. That’s June 3rd, from 9 a.m. -2 p.m., with a 30-min lunch break (bring your lunch).
Last time I taught this class, I was able to snap a photo of three Home Sweet Home quilts. They look awesome! Patterns are for sale in my Craftsy shop, just in case you aren’t able to attend that day.
Happy Quilting!
Belle Etoile du Jour
Belle Etoile du Jour
Quilt #181 of 200 quilts, 88″ square
Began December 2016 • Finished May 2017
A couple of weeks ago, I had my son and grandson hold up the unquilted top of this creation, and I include it here so you can see the quilt top. I was late starting this quilt, as everyone else in the world began making it in November when Bonnie Hunter announced her En Provence Mystery Quilt for 2016, based on colors she’d seen in her trip to France. 
I decided that if I made the various units, as described in the mystery, then stowed them away, I might be able to get back to the quilting even when I was convalescing from the planned rotator cuff surgery. I was able to finish all but two steps. When it was time for me to do those, I figured out how to sew one-handed, and my saintly friend Lisa trimmed up 60 blocks for me. 
I did my best to get it up on my garage-door-photo-studio today, but I had a wrinkle in the quilt that I just couldn’t manage to ease out, so I have to resort to other photos to show it off. I like looking from the back of the quilt outward, like it’s stained glass. I had purchased about 5 yards of backing fabric, unable to remember how big the quilt top was. I needed more, so spliced in a yellow coordinating print, then took it all over to my Cathy, my quilter.
She was a good sport and let me choose a new pantograph for her collection, which I think really works well with the quilt. The original quilt called for purple fabrics in those 18″ blocks, but I went instead with periwinkle, a favorite color of mine.
The title comes from an old poem, where the poet calls flowers “Day Stars.” I had Google translate “beautiful day stars” into French, then ran it by my French-speaking husband who said it was fine. (I didn’t want to be swearing in French, or something.) I don’t really believe there is a top or bottom to this quilt, so I sewed the label on an angle, just for fun.
And again, if you haven’t started your listing of your quilts, start now!
Four-in-Art Quarterly Challenge: Stained Glass Shadows
Shadow owes its life to light.
~an old saying
I am to provide the theme for our next quarterly challenge, and I choose Stained Glass Shadows. I love the saturated lights left on floors, walls, and benches in cathedrals by brilliantly lit stained glass windows and I wanted to make that my challenge.
Sometimes the colors play with what’s already there: think of the duality of jewel tones spilling ephemerally onto hard marble surfaces.
I like how sometimes they look like they’ve been through the Holi Festival of Colors, as if the surfaces had been doused in brightly colored chalks and powdery hues.
Think of transparency and playing with color blending. Many edges on stained glass shadows are soft, blurring into the other colors.
While the opposite of light is dark, in shadows, the darkness is doubled down, softened, the shapes revealing as well as obscuring. A whole new conversation can happen with shadows.
Reveal date is August 1, 2017.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 