Quilts

Mini-Quilt Swapping

July 7, 2015July 7, 2015 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

I know I’m late to this particular party on Instagram, but I have recently jumped right in and signed up for three swaps. These are little groups of crazy people who have more than enough to work on but think it would be fun to make a gift for some unknown person, include a boatload of treats in addition to the mini and send it off, hoping it arrives.

So here they are:

Mini-house Swap. This was started because the Denise, the organizer was moving and wanted to do a swap around the idea of a new house (blog post showing general info is *here*). I like house quilts, and had never tried a swap, so decided to try it. Then all these terms started floating around like Swap Mama, Swap Angel, Swap Moderator (which I think is the same as a Swap Mama). I thought I would just sort of play along and pretend I knew what they were talking about. Since I’m such a non-shopper, I’ve been taking screenshots of people’s “other extra items,” and will try to head out and find some since I’m such a newbie at this. For this swap, we have an organizer, and a Swap Mama, who has sent out emails letting us know what’s up.

The first picture (above) is the confirmation I received after I signed up, then the logo for the main swap, then the logo for the group with our own “Swap Mama.” Believe me, the State Department has more code words than these do, but we do come close.

Kaffe Fasset Swap. How can you pass up something like this? The sign-ups closed July 5th, with partners posted on July 13th, so I haven’t heard anything from Leslie Piper, who is the organizer. Here’s their Facebook page, though.

Simply Mini Swap. This may turn out to be my favorite because all we can send is a mini quilt and a hand-written note to the recipient. Brianna, the organizer has already sent out guidelines, and I love everything she is doing. We have three check-in dates, a request to post a Mosaic, and shipping dates. Above you see the interest post, then the IG post that the swap was a go, and the rest of the images are pretty self-explanatory.

She also gave us a link to a fine post about Rules for Swapping from Karri Garza. Loved it. If you click on Karri’s “swapping” hashtag on the bottom of that post, there are a few other posts she’s written about swapping. From this I learned that some people sign up their dogs. (!!) And their children. (!) Hmmmm. I’m hoping I’m on the receiving end from another grown-up human quilter, and that all these turn out to be a cool way to meet new people and create something fun.

If you want to try a swap, Amanda of Openquiltswap on Instagram has started a clearing house of swaps–such a great idea to help people like me find their way. I did a search on other “swap rules” posts. Here are some:

Katie Bastie on 52 Quilters

Schnitzel & Boo, who I think kind of pioneered this whole swap thing on Instagram

A Pinterest Board of mini quilt ideas from the New Jersey MQGuild

I also found out that there is an informal Black List that circulates among the swap organizers of flakey quilters who receive a mini quilt, but never send one out. I’ve been in block bees like that, or have received quilt blocks that were at best questionable and at the worst, hideous. So maybe being in a swap is like a big fun roll of the dice.

Are you in any swaps? Have you thought about being in a swap? Any interesting stories to share?

Quilts

Happy Fourth of July!

July 4, 2015 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

America Is a Tune: It Must Be Sung Together
Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Here’s a little patriotic quilty eye candy for you, plus a mural that is on the hallway ceiling in the United States Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

(Back of the quilt that uses a tea towel showing lot’s DC’s Memorials.)

The boys and I hope you have an outstanding Fourth of July!

Quilts

Ready, Set, Begin: Summer Fun 2015

June 25, 2015July 12, 2015 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

To truly begin summer off correctly in Southern California, you need a fire, and we have a doozy of one going on right now, only a few miles from my house. The above map, from today, shows 21% containment, and I could see clouds of billowing smoke yesterday when I went to the grocery store. Usually we like to END our summers with a fire, but not this year, the fourth year of the drought.

So my friend and I decided to hit the road this morning, in order to recover from the ardor of Registering for QuiltCon 2016 (no, I didn’t get the Gwen Marston class), and visit the newest shop not too far from our town in the neighboring city of Temecula: Needle in a Fabric Stash.

Our only other dedicated-modern-shop is in Los Angeles, way too far away for a casual stop, so it was nice to find out about this place.

Sue Stone, the owner, has a well-curated selection of fabrics, from Alison Glass to Cotton and Steele to Dear Stella, and isn’t locked into one line too heavily, but instead displays them to encourage mixing between the designers.

Some fun displays and stacks of fabrics.

The displays and patterns are well organized and encourage browsing.

Here Sue is helping a young customer choose fabrics for a quilt.

A nice selection of solids, plus more lines.

Needle in a Fabric Stash is owned and managed by Sue (above).

She’s been in operation about 7 months, and has already set up some great classes.

We grabbed some lunch and kept going. . . over to Primitive Gatherings Quilt Shop, not located in Wisconsin (that would have been QUITE a road trip) but in the next town up, in Murrieta.

This friendly fellow, an import from Wisconsin, helped us get signed up in their store system, and showed us around. Since I used to live in Wisconsin, we traded that old joke about there being two seasons in Wisconsin: Construction and Winter. I knew the one about three seasons: June, July and Winter. He admitted that he would like to be back there during summer, but come winter. . . he was happy to be in California, where the car doors didn’t freeze shut.

As the name of the shop implies, the bulk of their fabrics are Civil War era prints, and they have lots of very cool displays.

The Modern Section.

I was amazed by the teensy tumblers quilt they had on display–along with teensy precuts to go with it.

We both liked their mini tote designs–they had several.

All in all, a good outing on a hot summer’s day!

Quilts

My Small World, June 2015 edition

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 Elizabeth E.22 Comments

I don’t often jump on the Latest and Greatest Thing in QuiltLand, but this one called my name. It’s Jen Kingwell’s My Small World and was printed in the oh-so-elusive QuiltMania Spring issue 2015 (picture above is from the QuiltMania website). I don’t know why you are making it (there is a My Small World QAL on Instagram and other places), but I know why I am making it.

It’s because in the 1960s, when wearing white socks with your loafers was considered cool and women always wore pantyhose with their bare legs, I came here. Our family was on our way home from living for two years in Lima, Peru. It was in the days of Disneyland with tickets, and we seemed to have enough for our family of seven children to go on this ride. Since I had a broken leg, I went on it more than once.

The ride, first fabricated for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, was installed in California’s Disneyworld in 1966, which will make it fifty years old next year. I live about an hour from the original Disneyland, so it’s my patriotic duty to honor this institution, right? Of course we all know THAT song:

“Children of the World” was the working title of the attraction. Its tentative soundtrack, which can be heard on the album, featured the national anthems of each country represented throughout the ride all playing all at once, which resulted in disharmonic cacophony. Walt conducted a walk through of the attraction scale model with his staff songwriters Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, saying, “I need one song that can be easily translated into many languages and be played as a round.” The Sherman Brothers then wrote “It’s a Small World (after all)” in the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which influenced the song’s message of peace and brotherhood. When they first presented it to Walt, they played it as a slow ballad. Walt requested something more cheerful, so they sped up the tempo and sang in counterpoint. Walt was so delighted with the final result that he renamed the attraction “It’s a Small World” after the Sherman Brothers’ song.” (Wikipedia)

While I have no idea if Jen Kingwell was influenced by the smart geometrics, towers and shapes (Tokyo Disney, above), to me there is a clear connection.

Judging by the photos on Instagram, we all start here: cutting sky pieces. I did neutrals for a while, then started adding in whispy blues, just to make it more interesting, as I’d seen others do it. It’s that idea of collaboration, as expressed in my last blog post.

Section One’s Sky. I was listening to a book on Audible, that I finally had to turn up to 2x speed just to get through it. I’m not recommending it.

Now I’m back to Inspector Gamache, written by Louise Penny. I’m going to hate it when I get through reading this series!

Buildings and some sky. Now to start on the details. I found reading Susan’s entries on her PatchworknPlay blog was helpful, too.

I used some leftover leaves from the Pineapples and Crowns quilt to make this square.

Susan’s idea to start the tiny pinwheels by cutting two inch squares, then making HSTs, then on to the pinwheel was a good idea. I threw in some of my New York City fabric, with the words Radio City Hall to liven up this section.

It took me forever to figure out what text thing to put at the top of the building, but I went for this one, since Betsy is a childhood name. I also had fun fussy cutting a hot air balloon in the Sky Section for Section 2. You can see the bits of blue sky in the neutrals now. Here is the progress I’ve made so far:

And here’s my contribution to the Errata: In section 2, the center square for the churn dash is incorrect. It should measure 1 1/2″ no 2 1/2″. Having said that, I have enormous appreciation to Jen Kingwell for this pattern–it has a LOT of moving parts and to even get some sort of pattern down on paper is amazing.

In my real small world, I’ve taken a couple of trips since the semester finished.

The first one was to Phoenix to see my daughter’s husband graduate from Dental School. I think he had the oldest children of any of his fellow graduates there! They have happily moved to their new city, and he has started work already. But this week, they are on a trip to Disneyland to celebrate their achievement.

And to start the summer off with a bang, I also took a couple of trips through these two machines as a spot on my lungs showed up in my yearly X-ray. It is because of *this* that my oncologist checks everything. Twice. The diagnosis from these humming machines revealed it was nothing to worry about, although for three weeks I did — a lot. I couldn’t really talk about it at the time, so I’m glad it’s behind me.

However going through all that certainly made me feel like a basket case. No, I didn’t know about this when I started this quilt, but it certainly is appropriate! Now I should really get to the closets that need cleaning out, the papers that needs tossing. It’s nice to think about regular life again.

I’ve also been busy sewing up more Circles Blocks as I want to finish that quilt and get it quilted. I have one more to go, then I’ll have sixteen total. Block #13 will be up on the blog in a couple of weeks. Here they are stacked together:

What’s been going on in Your Small World?