Piggies – OccasionalPiece

This year’s main quilting events: Shoulder surgery in January, which pretty much sidelined me for a long time. That’s at the top of the list, because whatever I did after that was like icing on the cake. My achievements — or lack of, depending on your view — can be found under the tab “200 Quilts,” a handy way to navigate the morass of blogland.

But here’s some eye-candy, quilt-style.

and a few more…

So, in spite of a lame start, I did manage to get a few things made. That’s why I do these posts–they are more for me, to say…hey, you didn’t do so bad. So often we only notice what we don’t do, what we can’t make or achieve, as you’ll notice by my language in the intro, where I denigrate my accomplishments.

I did some some traveling, which expanded my horizons a bit, to the European Patchwork Meeting…

…as well as Seoul and Tokyo (accompanying my husband to his meetings). Next travel is to Ontario, California for Road to California, and to Pasadena for QuiltCon 2018. Luckily both are within an hour of my home.

I’m joining up with Cheryl’s Linky Party, because I’ve found it so fun to browse what everyone else has been doing this year. My top five posts for 2017 are:

Mini Sew-Together Bag. I recently moved the pattern up to Craftsy and am happy that it has helped find a wider audience of bag enthusiasts. The rest of my patterns are on PayHip (link to the right).

2. Christmas Tree Skirt. Although there is a brief pattern, there is enough information on this post so you can make your own. It’s a fun skirt and works up quickly.

3. Shine–the Circle Quilt Post is a busy place, as I make available many EPP patterns for free, so you can make a circle block either for a quilt, or pillows or wall-hangings. And this year, the quilt will hang in Road to California.

4. Two posts are virtually tied for the same place: the post on how to convert a Chuck Nohara block illustration to a pattern, and the posts showing the tutorial on my Piggies quilt.

5. Christmas Tree Block Swap tutorial.

I hope you do your own tallying up, and sail into 2018 with the wind at your back.
Happy New Year!

Thanks to all who entered the Paintbrush Studios giveaway for the Painter’s Palette Solids. I used the Husband Random Number Generator, and he picked Lisa J. for the scraps and Susan H. for the Paint Chips. It was fun reading all your comments!

Piggies_front

I’m sure you’ve seen piggies flying across my screen on Instagram…piggies and more piggies. It’s because I was Queen Bee for this month’s Gridster Bee, and all my beemates were quick and sent them right out. So I honored them by sewing them all up into rows and getting the quilt top done. (Don’t you hate it when you make blocks for bees and they all seem to go into someone’s bottom drawer, never to be seen again? That happens, even to the best of us.) Piggies_2

I made a few more piggies, but imitated the heart in this curlicue pigtail from Carol. Piggies_1

I started to run into troubles because some piggies were facing left and some were facing right, and some were going uphill and some were going down, so my advice is have fun making them go left and right, but keep count, so you know how many you need of each. My husband made the suggestion to have the half-rows facing each other, so I did that in the middle of the quilt.

Another suggestion, from Mary, is to sew the grass on last, instead of first (like I wrote it in the tutorial). She’s right. I thought it wouldn’t matter much after the trimming, but it does. So that’s why I added the scrappy strips of green underneath the rows of pigs.

And last, arrange your piglets up on the wall, decide on the balance/color,etc. THEN start tilting them uphill or down. I also alternated the uphill/downhill at the start of the rows. It wasn’t that hard, if I just worked sequentially.
Piggies-signature blocks

I started sewing the back together, then realized I was missing a beemate’s signature block. It’s come to a halt while I wait for it to arrive, but it will be great to have them all. Flowers2017

These white flowers (smallish, about 1 1/2″ across) are all over my bushes out front, and the whole yard is blooming. We’ve had a lovely rainy winter, so everything in the yard is very happy. So am I, to see these! fabrics spring 2017

And I did a little spring shopping at our local brick and mortar quilt shop, finding some backing for the En Provence mystery quilt (still in process) on the sale shelves. April Gridster Bee 2017b

April Gridster Bee 2017a

For April’s Gridster Bee block, Nancy of Patchwork Breeze drew up her own design, and asked us to make it up in some bold large-scale prints. This was a paper-pieced block in some places, and just plain pieced, in other places, and I think they turned out great.
new york beauties book

This book will open your eyes up to color and piecing possibilities for New York Beauties, coupled with Flying Geese. I love it. You can find the author, Carl Hentsch on Instagram. I’m in love with another one of his quilts:

Hentsch_Color Block