June is MAKING me crackers!

So the June 2015 block went up....earlier.  & since day one it has been making me, well crackers.  The image(s) seem to have some underlying flub that causes (some of) them to be interpreted as code & this does not translate well with Blogger & whatever you use to view this blog.  I have reloaded & resized & I am so sick of it I could spit & I still cannot get rid of the "bad spot".  So I am starting again.  Nothing has changed, deadlines are deadlines (I know several people have already started anyhow) & at least the directions were always in a separate link. 

Here goes:

I took some extra time getting the next Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group block posted & then ended up taking more (sorry!).  There were some problems that I don't really want to go into again (they remain in the original post if you are curious) but the upshot is I need to know if (any remaining part of) the problem is with my directions or if this is going to happen not matter what soooooo this time we are using direction already out there, tied & true for both JUNE & AUGUST.  Yes, I did write the August block directions but that was a long time ago & no one seemed to have a problem at the time so I am calling them tried & true as well.

For June we are making the tradition cracker lock which can be found here:  http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ss/cracker-quilt-pattern.htm

We are using the provided measurements & assembly techniques.  I am NOT providing my own how-I-made-it directions; please use the directions in the  Cracker Quilt Pattern by Janet Wickell on the quilting.about site & do a read thru & then come back here.  For our swap we are working in light versus dark & you should use two (2) fabrics.

1. One of our fabrics should be either a solid light or a solid dark.  In my original post I said read-as-solid & if you have already started & are confident you know what "read as solid" means you can still do so BUT given the tenor of messages I have gotten re: the June block, there are still people who aren't sure their fabric actually reads-as-solid.  My advice is don't use it; instead stick with solid-solid.
   
   So one fabric is either a solid dark OR a solid light.  I mean true darks & lights not something that is darker or lighter than whatever it is paired with. 
2. The second fabric should be either lighter than the dark you used OR darker than the liht you sued & it can be anything at all.  Floral? Yep. Large scale floral? No problem.  Large scale floral overlaying a psychedelic plaid? as long as it is either darker or lighter than your light or dark solid, it is just fine.

In my example, I used a bleached muslin & a dark, small scale floral.   It would not have mattered, but I used the floral to outline the cracker & the bleached muslin for the center; you can use either of your two fabrics in either place.  So, two fabrics one dark/one light, one solid/one anything you want to use up (maybe even another solid).

& that is pretty much it.  Blocks are due in-house the last Saturday in June, June 27, 2015.  think about making a "practice block" as the direction are very specific & accuracy (in cutting, in sewing) matters for this block. 

We swap in sets of five (5) blocks. If you make more than two sets, please be sure to vary your fabrics; please do not send more than two identical sets of blocks.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2015: Blue & yellow 9-patch tiles

What can I say about this quilt that isn't more than a little bit embarrassing?  I guess I will just jump in:  In February 2009 the Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group...did not exist.  It was still a mailing list in those days.  & our swap block that month was 6.5" unfinished/6" finished equal-parts 9-patch of any kind limited to (mostly) blue & yellow fabrics.

What surprised me most was the variety of 9-patches we got!  These are nine of them, set on point (first framed in a plain bleached muslin border to make them a uniform size) & then sashed in blue & yellow strips I had kicking around.  What could be easier, right?

Unfortunately this top was finished sometime in ?2010? & then sat until almost the end of April 2015 before it was basted & quilted.  It would have sat longer but in a fit of I-don't-know-what-I-was-thinking, I entered it in a quilt show.  Not yet quilted.  Because I am like that.  I basted it not having the faintest idea how I was going to quilt it (I mean I knew HOW, I was going to use my Bernina & cotton thread but the pattern was up in the air).

After it was basted & rolled (I more or less always knew I would begin corner to corner), I settled on a square flags sort of thing.  I could tell you it was inspired by Buddhist prayer flags (which it could be) but really, I was also cleaning some old house stuff files & found Corian samples from when we redid our kitchen.  I started playing with them.  Truly, playing.  Mostly I was making clicking noises with them.  The quilt just happened to be on the table; yes, I have the world's shortest attention span. 
After it was all done, I recognized the Corian sample was the same square dimension as a single unit of the patch of the 9-patches:  2 inches more or less.  This is probably why the shape & size of those squares looked "right".  Also, they make a cool mahjong tile clicking sound.  But if anyone asks I am going with Buddhist prayer flags from now on.

I quilted it in a variegated very pale blue & white cotton thread.  The thread is so pale I was surprised how much the stitching does show in the pale blue border sashing scraps.  because I was quilting when I could find the time, it all got done rather piecemeal. Sooooo.  The corner to corner nature of things got twisted around as I lost my place & those Buddhist prayer flags are just blowing every which way.  

The quilt went to the every-two-years quilt show held by the Tree City Quilt Guild in Gainesville, FL & then came home a week ago Sunday.  It was hanging on the wall during bookclub earlier this week & M****** saw it for the first time & immediately recognized the blue sashing strip as scraps from a blue & white quilt currently on her couch.  This quilt was more collaborative than I even realized!

This quilt is 50" x 50" ; it is actually square!  It was made from all cotton fabrics as far as I know & 100% batting- of this I am certain.  It was quilted with a cotton thread which is probably a factor in why the stitching is very visible, even on the same shade of pale blue fabric.  I am entering it in the Home Machine Quilted category at the Blogger's Quilt Festival for Spring 2015. 

Garden stones in August

For our August 2015 swap block, the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group is having their first ever flashback block swap.  No worries, though, we are not making the exact same block as we did for June 2009.  That swap was all about using baby fabrics & this time we are using garden fabrics.  Yep, that's the only difference. 

The already written up directions can be found in the original link, but the highlights are you have a choice of making a set of five 9-patch snowballs, five 4-patch snowballs or five one-patch snowballs. The blocks, whichever one you choose, should be 9.5" unfinished/9" finished.  

If you elect to make the one patch snowballs, your single patch should be special.  It should have some piecing or embroidery or broderie perse or applique or something.  You cannot just take one big single 9.5" square of fabric, make the snowball folds at the corners & call yourself done.  This was true in June 2009 as well, which might be why only one person did this.  Because this is a garden themed block, your special feature should be garden themed.  A foundation-pieced flower perhaps.  let me repeat:  this special extra thing is ONLY an issue if you elect to make the one-patch snowball...

Most people made either the 9-patch or the 4-patch.  If you make the 9-patch, you will begin with nine 3.5" squares & four 1.5" squares to cover each corner of each of these 3.5" squares (thirty-six 1.5" squares).  If you make the 4-patch, you will begin with four 5" squares & four 2" squares to cover each corner of these 5" squares (sixteen 2" squares).  All of this is exactly the same as the block we made back then.

Now the differences:

• this is a garden themed swap so one of the fabrics either the large squares (the snowball itself) or the smaller squares (the background) should be a floral. Or at least garden-y, so vegetable fabrics would also be acceptable.  Or trees.  Or just leaves, even.  Firetrucks on the other hand...no.  Unless they are covered in vines.  & if you find firetrucks covered in vines fabric. PLEASE post a picture to the group because I am writing this assuming it does not exist.  Wow! I got sidetracked there:  the short version is if your fabric has a visible garden element, it is OKay to use.
• the second fabric can ALSO be a floral (or whatever-garden), just please not the exact same floral (or whatever-garden). It can also be any solid or read-as-solid or even just mostly one or more of the following "garden" colors:  blue, green or brown.  I am prepared to interpret blue, green or brown very very loosely but please do no use anything that is obviously not predominantly blue, green, or brown. 
• please limit your block to TWO fabrics.  One fabric should always be the snowball & the other fabric should always be the background.  You can of course mix fabrics across blocks: the fabric that was the snowball in one block can be the back ground in another BUT within the same 9-patch or 4-patch just one background & just one snowball fabric PLEASE.

• while you are making your blocks, please cut away the extra fabric underneath the corners.  After you have stitched & pressed each component of your block, you will notice you have THREE layers of fabric; if you stitch these together, you will have seams that are SIX layers of fabric thick.  It's too much!  Please cut away that extra corner fabric as you go.

• once you are all done & your block is pressed, please double check that it does indeed measure 9.5" unfinished/9" finished (so you will be looking for a 9.5" by 9.5" square).

In my two examples, the fabrics sort of blend together  Sorry about that, it is not a requirement.  They can be super high contrast if that is what you want.  I was apparently in a smooooooth sort of mood the day I made these.  As we get closer, I will make more that are crazy-busy, I promise.

These blocks are due IN-HOUSE the last Saturday in August, August 29, 2015.  Blocks will be swapped the following weekend (which is Labor Day weekend so they will likely get in the mail later that week, not Monday).  As always we swap in sets of five: you send five, you get five back.  You can send as many sets of five as you wish but please do not send more than two sets of five (ten blocks total) that are exactly alike. 

June is for crackers

I have been taking some time getting the next Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group block up because we have been....experiencing some difficulties.  I wanted to take that time to go through the problems, see where I was going wrong, maybe identify a problem swapper or two (this is not a blame thing, just an information misfire that happens when particular features align...like when I say "low volume" when describing fabric to people for whom English is maybe a second language...or a third.  Yes, this was a thing).  I think I have plugged some of the larger holes, but it is going to be an ongoing process over the next few swaps. 

Which brings me to our June 2015 block, which is the traditional cracker block with some swap-specific features sort of sprinkled in.  First though, the directions.  They can be found here.  Yes, I do usually recreate even available directions just to have the pictures, but this time I am not going to.  I figured these directions have worked for slews of people before & lets just leave them as is.  So go ahead to the Cracker Quilt Pattern by Janet Wickell on the quilting.about site & do a read thru & then come back here.  Also, there have been a few complaints about my directions so I want to see if this helps.

You will have noticed this link has directions for a whole quilt top.  We will be swapping one component of one block.  In other words just this piece: 


You will need two fabrics for each of your blocks:

• either a solid or read-as-solid DARK or a solid or read-as-solid LIGHT.  Interpretations of dark versus light & read-as-solid have varied over some of the swaps so I am going to make this suggestion.  If you cannot tell if your fabric is dark, it probably isn't.  Ditto light.  We want true darks (black, dark navy, dark green, dark brown, etc.) for the darks & true lights (white, cream, pale pastels, etc.) for the lights.  You only need one or the other so this really should not be hard to find.  As for the read-as-solid portion all I can suggest is it should be a blender in a uniform color & if that is still too vague (I accept it might be), maybe just use an actual solid.  Bleached muslin will fit the bill nicely, as would a black broadcloth. 
  
  As I said above, the term read-as-solid has been yet another tripper-upper so I wish I could give a more exact description.  The best I can come up with is a fabric that is patterned but very subtly with a minimum of contrast in color: both shade (light to dark, dark to light) & hue (blueness VS greenness, for example).  If you are looking at a fabric & are not sure if it does read-as-solid, please put it aside.
  
• the second fabric is YOUR CHOICE with one guideline:  if your first fabric is a light, please do not use another light.  If you first fabric is a dark, please do not use another dark.  The rest is up to you.  Large bright cartoon characters? Fine.  Pastel florals? Also fine.  Another solid the opposite (light or dark) of your first fabric?  Still fine.  When your block is finished, the lines should be sharp & clear; this is easy to test for by putting on piece of the fabric against the other.  If the edges blur, those fabrics won't work together.

In my example I used a bleached muslin for my solid/read-as-solid light side & a densely patterned floral that is indisputably dark but not read-as-solid for the other side.  You will need enough fabric for one strip to make the on-point center (again, please see block directions in the link) & the two corner triangles that set it on point in one fabric & exactly the same + one more strip of the other.  You will notice I am carefully avoiding giving dimensions here; they are all in the link & they are VERY SPECIFIC. 

Bringing us to another problem we have been plagued with recently.  I usually let blocks that are within <1 1="" 9-patch="" a="" adding="" allowance="" also="" am="" amp="" another="" anyone="" as="" at="" been="" being="" block="" blocks="" but="" can="" cannot-sew-a-straight-line="" cause="" check="" cut="" cuts="" dark="" dimensions="" directed="" doubt="" each="" especially="" fabric="" for="" frequent="" full="" have="" href="http://www.metric-conversions.org/length/inches-to-millimeters-table.htm" i="" inches="" individual="" into="" is="" issue="" it="" last="" less="" light="" link="" look="" making="" matter="" nbsp="" no="" not="" of="" only="" or="" particular="" picture="" piece="" problem="" pun="" reads="" really="" reason="" recurring="" seam="" should="" size.="" size="" small="" smaller="" solid="" surprisingly="" swap="" swappers="" target="_blank" tell="" than="" that="" the="" there="" they="" this="" three="" time="" to="" too-deep="" too="" unfortunately="" unlike="" up="" urge="" was="" way="" were="" whatever="" when="" whether="" with="" wrong="" you="" your="">metric conversion chart
(you might need to change the INCREMENT field to 1/4) although I feel I should add NONE of the way-off measurements came from metric countries.  NONE of them.  I think the lesson here is that people who know they need to check their measurements are not having an issue, instead people who assume they do not need to are having the issue.  Measure twice, cut once was never more apt. 
These blocks are due in-house the last SAT in June (June 27th).  I will swap the following week-end (because of some delays with the post office) BUT your envelope must be postmarked before the deadline & if you have not received confirmation the envelope arrived by the deadline (SAT June 27th) you need to let me know it is en route.

As always we swap in sets of five, send five get five back (or send twenty-five & get twenty-five back).  If you do make more than two sets of five (or ten blocks), please mix up your fabrics when you get to the third set.  Because this is a not-frequent but not-rare I am going to restate this in a different way:  if you send more than two identical sets you are guaranteed to get some if not all of your own blocks back. 

UPDATE MON May 11, 2015:  it appears that Blogger had a few updates during my hiatus & this post appeared briefly when it should have & has been reappearing & disappearing (mostly depending on which device I used to upload the photo &/or how your device handles the out-of-date photo-format) ever since.  The problem is now resolved (I upgraded my Blogger photo-posting tool anyhow, & it all seems to be working) but this means some people will have less than the preferred two months minimum to work with the block.  Still, everyone should have more than one month & that should be plenty of time. The in-house due date remains that last SATURDAY in JUNE. 

Take my heart in Feb 2015

I realize that a swap deadline of February 28th would suggest pretty much anything but a heart block is timely, what with it being exactly two weeks (a fortnight!) past Saint Valentine's Day but I figured what the whatever.  After all, I have received a handful, maybe not even that many, of heart quilt block requests for February over the years.  So few in fact that they might all be from the same person (I keep a list & when I get a request I put it on the list, when I get a second request, I put a tic mark, etc.  Maybe I need a better system, but for a long time this was the easiest way to look at all kinds of different ideas on the same plane). 

That's right I have been getting "let's make a heart block"-type requests for a while.  & ignoring them.  Then for whatever reason hearts just clicked & over the past six months I have gotten four more requests for a heart block (trust me, that's a lot).  So without further ado the February block for the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group CAN BE a greater than or equal to 4.5" unfinished/4" finished heart block of your choosing.  Or it can be a double set of 12.5" unfinished/12 finished 9-patches or it can be as many sets of different heart blocks & two, exactly two sets of 9-patches.  Because that clears it up, right?

Let me back up ever so slightly.  For February 2015 you CAN make a heart block, either by piecing it or appliqueing or embroidery or whatever OR  & this is a big OR...OR you can make something much much simpler, but you have to make more of them...

I wanted to offer a block that would also work for a beginner (or even someone with less time), along the same theme but I wanted to make the exchange fair.  I realize that a set of blocks that takes a week-end & a dozen FQs to make is just not the same as a block that takes two fabrics & two hours so this is what I came up with:

If you do not have the time or skills or motivation to make a set of the more advanced heart blocks (below) you have the option of making a set of TEN 9-patches (well, eleven if you keep one for yourself). 

Your nine patches MUST be three x three of 4.5" squares.  You should use two & only two different fabrics BOTH of which must be low volume & one of which should (but not must) have a heart theme- in the event you cannot locate a heart theme any other "romance-y" type print (flowers for example) would be acceptable.  Frankly even two read-as-solids or even actual solids would be fine.  .  Everyone can send TEN & ONLY TEN of these 9-patches (you can send as many sets of the more complex blocks as you like).  By low volume I mean colors that are "soft " i.e. pastels or creams or whites & patterns with a minimum of contrast (for example I own & LOVE a fabric with pale pink & coral poppies on a white background BUT they are outlined with a thick black line therefore, despite a majority of soft colors, this would NOT qualify as a low volume).  The example above might look dark, I assure you it is not; the darker tan color is way lighter than the latte I was drinking when I started this blog post Sunday morning.  & I don't mean the day before yesterday.

For your ten 9-patches you will get either ten 9-patches back OR you will get one more complex heart block for two 9-patches (so you might get 10 9-patches OR eight 9-patches & one pieced heart block OR six 9-patches & two pieced heart blocks etc. all the way to the very unlikely possibility you will get five pieced heart blocks & no 9-patches).  The converse of this is also true:  if you send five pieced heart blocks you might get back five pieced heart blocks & that is it OR you might get ten 9-patches (which I dearly hope doesn't happen but that is a bit out of my control).

I don't want to reinvent the wheel so I am directing you to this link for the basic 9-patch instructions.  Our nine-patch unit is 4.5", so you would need 4.5" squares (or strips if you were strip piecing) & then you can pretty much follow the directions here.  You will end up with a 12.5" unfinished/12" finished 9-patch.  Big, simple & fading to the background.

***

Now for the heart blocks.  Again, you can make ANY HEART BLOCKS YOU WISH in ANY TECHNIQUE.  For the hearts, you do not need to limit yourself to low-volume fabrics, but please do try to stay in the range of pink-red-purple-blue-black-gray for your darker/brighter shades.  Your five blocks should be at least 4.5" x 4.5" unfinished BUT they do not need to be any particular size & they can even be rectangle.  The end result will be a hodgepodge of sizes & shapes (at least one of the examples I am giving is a rectangular block) that can be used for a sampler.  & yes, it is possible you might make a rather large, many pieced heart (perhaps like this one), or a foundation pieced heart (like the Feb 2013 or even the Feb 2012 from Block Lotto)  or even something less complex like these free patterns from Simplicity.  Or maybe something here will make YOUR heart go pitter-pat.  Like I said, try to limit your not-low-volume fabrics to the Valentine-y color range (pink, red, purple, blue, black & gray) & try to use at least three fabrics; try but don't make yourself nuts.

As always, we swap in sets of five (so make six so you can keep one for yourself).  If you choose to make only the 9-patches please make to sets & limit yourself to just two sets (for a total of ten blocks).  For the heart block send as many sets as you like, you can also send two sets of 9-patches if you wish, but you don't have to.

Let me restate that so it is clear:  for the low volume fabrics there are no color restrictions (a pastel green or yellow would be perfectly acceptable) but for the darker louder colors the preferred palette is  limited.  & only not 9-patches can have anything outside of low volume; all the 9-patches should be low volume fabrics only. 

***

The heart block I made was about as easy as it gets.  I began with a log cabin center:  two 2.5" squares, one pink & one dark gray & added a 2.5" strip of the pink to make the heart.

 

& if you are wondering about that strip of fur at the bottom of the frame, someone I love thought I was taking a picture of her.

I added a strip to the side, decided it looked too wide & cut it down to 2".  I then took two 7.5" squares & cut them corner to corner to put the whole thing on-point.

 

 

& that black edge in the lower right corner?  They got tired while I was arranging & forgot they were supposed to be posing.  Yes, they sleep like that all the time.  One of them has separation anxiety.  Guess which one.



 

This brought me to three fabrics.  Also, notice the busy fabric is a combo of low volume (pink, white pale gray, pale brown) & the preferred dark colors (red, black, dark gray) & just the smallest amount of dark brown.  The dark brown is not great BUT it was next-to-impossible to find fun (i.e. with hearts & dogs) fabrics w/out some "other" colors which is why I used the word "preferred" when I said red, pink, blue, purple gray & black. 

 



But you don't have to make this heart, you can make my heart, there really are tons of blocks out there.

Last but not least the bullet points

 

• You can send exactly ten 9-patches or as many sets of five hearts as you desire or exactly ten 9-patches & as many sets of five hearts as you desire
   
• The 9-patches are low-volume only, two fabrics only & ideally one will have a romantic print.  These 12.5" unfinished/12" finished blocks should fade to the background
• The heart blocks can be square or rectangle or whatever just at least 4.5" on each side.  They can be low volume or darker/brighter colors (try to stay in the pink-red-purple-blue-black-gray if you can)
• Blocks are due in the last Saturday in February 28, 2015.  Please remember to review the guidelines about what you need to do such as send (an envelope to return your blocks in), the address is in the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group file "mailing label", etc.

Jars swap ajar for JAN 2015

Last year (way back in 2014), the Facebook Quilt Bock Swap Group ran the second annual beginner-friendly year-long swap.  I was in a word "not good".  Actually that's two words & an exaggeration.  It was mostly good but just enough not good to muck up the works.  Because it was a sign-up only swap, people who missed the deadline (& yes, there are reasonable reasons to miss the deadline) sort of gummed things up as I either scrambled to find an alternate or waited until they could get their blocks in.  The further (it seemed) from the date a person had signed up, the less likely they were to actually make the deadline & so on & so on until the late blocks (or the on-time blocks that were not correct, wrong size mostly & in one instance entirely wrong blocks) were dragging well past the deadline of the next swap & then I ended up with a massive traffic jam on my dining room table just in time for year-end holidays.  I ended up making a few extra sets of alternates myself (on of them below, but missing the white-background header piece to bring them to the required height of 12.5" as apparently I never took final pictures) which was less than ideal for me & for everyone who had to wait for me.

Which brings us to now.  I STILL have some SEPT 2014 swap blocks in house!  & I am still missing some sets that far back.  Yikes, I know.  & there is still one month (this month JAN 2014) to go on this swap & at least one of the people currently signed up has been ignoring my where are your blocks messages from the NOV swap.

So.

So I have decided to open the gates & make the JAN 2014 sign-up only swap NOT sign-up only.  If you did sign up & still want to go forward with it (& some of you have already sent your JAN jars THANK YOU!) that's great.  If you signed up for JAN & want no part of it, fine. Please do let me know (in the group, in the comments of the same message that has the sign-up lists) if you can, but if not it doesn't much matter because what is here is GOING just as soon as I can get it out.  Now for the good part:  if you did not sign-up for JAN & wished you could have or if you signed-up for a previous month & missed the deadline (or sent somehow-wrong blocks) you can still jump into this one. 

In other words, what had been a sign-up only swap for JAN is now open to everyone, whether they signed up for it or not.

The deadline for this swap is in-house JAN 31, 2015 & I will not be extending it so much as one hour past that date.  Seriously, I have an overflowing laundry basket of lingering block swaps-more my fault than anyone else's, I accept but it still must go!  The mailing address is in the group under the file Mailing Label & let me repeat the blocks should be IN-HOUSE by the 31st, not in transit. 

The block directions are unchanged & can be found in the original post from last FEB.   I would encourage anyone jumping in now to limit themselves to a single set of five for this last Well Preserved swap, as it would require eleven extra people to ensure no one gets doubles of any block, but if you want to make extras knowing you will get duplicates & maybe your own back, be my guest.  All the other ordinary rules apply, SASE envelope to get the swapped blocks back, etc. 

Last & probably not least, I have decided to table any other sign-up swaps for the foreseeable future.  We will no doubt do another another time, but for now we will be sticking to the no-sign-up model (& therefore no inconvenience if a deadline is missed...except to the person who misses the deadline).

Once more, for the new year

The good news is I am back.  Well & truly back on-line.  Our (minor) internet problems seem to be all resolve (not the reason I disappeared anyhow).  Our holidays are OVER, THANK GOD.  Despite every effort to make them no-effort-what-so-ever somehow they were a bit overwhelming.  Seriously, how can two adults, with no children & no plans be so damn busy for so many days?

Anyhow, as I dig out, pretty much the last thing I am dealing with is blogging & the first blogging thing I am dealing with is the upcoming quilt block swaps.  So starting tomorrow, as promised I will begin to roll out the next six months worth of swaps.  There is a not very surprising surprise for January, a holiday themed February, a Sara's choice for March (Sara's choice blocks are invariably the most popular-she is a better block picker than I am) & a real surprise for June-a real surprise because as of this moment I am not sure what it will be myself.

That's what's pending.  What has already happened:

I have broken my 15 minute mile cap.  It is now more like 14 minutes 45 seconds but whatever.  Also, I can maintain this average speed over two sets of 3+ miles each & a one minute walk in between.  Surprisingly I have gone done one clothing size.  Not even, almost as I am still wearing the petite size of the size I wore before, but we did do some clothing shopping over the break & I actually purchased pants that ARE a size smaller & with no spandex & no elastic waistbands.

I have started knitting again.  A lot.  In late October I did a two hours for two days program at the library on learning continental style knitting which was a bit too well attended.  I was fried after the first 15 minutes & last week a person I would swear I had never seen before in my life asked me when I was doing it again as she enjoyed it so much the first time.  Oy.  Maybe late April.  Since then though, I have the knitting bug again & have been making hats like a crazy person (more on that in a future post)

I am up-to-date with my bookclub reading.  People have gotten used to seeing me leaning against the car, speed reading through the current book while I wait for whatever I am waiting for but not this month! This month I am done & ready to discuss Mistress of the Art of Death.

Baby-quilt-a-palooza continues with nothing but baby girls as far as the eye can see.  I have gotten so bored with pink in all its many splendored shades that I am now making GRAY baby quilts with hot pink accents.  Also I have an idea that gray might hide the barf stains better.  Hopefully people have already started switching to boxers or whatever.  Seriously, the last baby boy I made a quilt for is in ?second? grade. 

& what hasn't happened:

My bathroom.  It is largely unchanged since these pictures.  Turns out my husband is VERY ALLERGIC to whatever it is that fills the air when we try to take down the old wallpaper.  In March he leaves for a week to go to a conference so I am waiting until then. 

Which brings us to now.  Mostly.  & starting tomorrow I am heading into the future.  The future of quilt block swapping, but whatever.  I am trying to break down the future into very small, bite-sized blog entries.

Some overdue books

Ideally, I would have gotten this Books by the yard nudge up before this past weekend at the latest, but it was not to be as May & even April had lingering effects.  & this particular blocks does not have firmly fixed instructions, as each block of books is bound to have slightly different widths & heights so that each shelf (or border, if you plan to use your books to wrap around a story quilt of some kind) which makes directions a trickier business.

Let me begin with the broad strokes:

• When you are all done your block should be no less than 8.5" tall & if you go up to 8.75" no one will fault you.  In the same vein your block should be at least 8.5" wide & if you go a bit longer (more on this in a bit) that will be OKay, too.
• Your background should be WHITE fabric.  Solid white is goo, white-on-white design is OKay, too.  If your background has anything but white & this means cream or gold o teeny tiny little dots, you will get your blocks back.
• Your block should have at least five different books.  It may have more; it cannot have fewer.

I have found the best way to begin is with the individual books themselves. & mostly I chain pieced these.  I cut a length of white muslin between 4.5" & 5.25 inches wide.  I am not trying to be difficult, I just sort of sliced.  In my original direction I suggested the background be less than 1/2 of the completed 8.5", so 4.5" seemed like a good number.  The extra is because as I assemble, things will be staggered for a bit (you'll see, I promise).

In this see, you can see one of them was actually a three-parter; I added the black band at the top of one to give it a bookier look.  Also, it stretched out what was a too-narrow book strip because if the background is in the ballpark of 4.5" the book strip should be not less than 5.5".

 

I know I said it in the original post but here it is again: 

• The background piece should be less than or equal to 1/2 of the finished block + 1/2" by the width of the number of books you hope to make; the book pieces should be greater than or equal to 1/2 of the finished block +1/2" by that same width. 

To add a variety of books spines (otherwise they I would have had massive amount of one or two book&background strips, which is not al that useful) I also took a strip of background & added a few scraps along it.  Most of them will make at least two books widths, that yellow one maybe four.

 

 

• I cut the book&background strips in widths between 2" & 3" wide & I mean anywhere in between.  So long as the edge was straight I did not worry about widths being precisely on the  1/2" or even 1/4" mark.   The idea is to have a variety.

 

So that I could have a frame of reference, I cut one strip to roughly 9" tall & then built my block out around it.  This gave me a top & bottom point that I knew I needed to overlap with each subsequent book.  It also helped keep me from bringing book tops too close to the upper edge (you don't want to make your books so tall that background disappears completely above it).

 

 

 

For each end, I used a particularly wide book.  This way, if whoever gets it needs to cut it down to fit in a row, no harm is done.  I cut this particular block to 8.75" tall by 9" long but in truth I need to make it a skosh narrower-9" wide is too wide.

 

& that is it really, another way (other than outlined in Books by the yard last January) of making these blocks.  They are due IN-HOUSE (not postmarked by) the last SAT in June which is June 28, 2014.  We do not have a 6th block person for this swap so if you sent 6th blocks you might get them back or they might be swapped.  Either way, you will get the count you sent. 



Solstice prism for December 2014

Last year's year-long Rainbow Connection was one of the more popular swaps & it probably never would have happened if this idea had occurred to me when I was choosing blocks.  I was trying to put together a single block that had the complete ROYGBP that is the quilters rainbow & could did come up with one until after the Rainbow Connection had already begun, so I back-burnered it until a year had gone by.  This is the traditional quilt block "Northwind" with a rainbow twist.  It is also a big block; the block will be 12.5" unfinished/12" finished.  The pieces within the blocks are also big (in my version the smallest square you deal with is 4.5") but that is where the simplicity ends.

Which brings me to a caution:  this is not an easy block.  It has a lot of wide open bias edges, the sizing of the pieces is weird (all 1/8" stuff if you use the Quilters Cache version & "match this edge to that corner & never mind the extra" if you use mine) & so forth.  If you have never done an open bias to bias block before your should expect to make one just for practice because I guarantee something is going to get squished, stretched or somehow damaged making the block unswappable.  Even ordinary mistakes that can be fixed with a seam ripper are a headache in this block (because ripping a bias edge ALWAYS stretches it).  On top of all that you need to keep track of what colors you are using where because while one half of the fabric will be a background, the other half will be one each o red, orange, yellow, green, blue & purple.  I am not trying to discourage anyone from trying the block, I am saying there is a learning curve. 

To begin, I am pointing you towards directions in Quilters Cache, which are perfectly adequate, but we are making a few changes.  The block is North Wind (if this link does not work, you can go to Quilters Cache, find the list that includes blocks that begin with "N" & scroll to North Wind).  Even if you plan to use my directions, do yourself a favor & go to Quilters Cache & print these as well.  My directions are specific to our color scheme, but otherwise they are not necessarily easier. 

For our swap, instead of a straight two fabric block, one half of the block will be your background fabric, which is either black, white, black-on-black or white-on-white.  You are likely to get a mix of black or white blocks back; I will not be sorting only black to people who sent black, etc.  So far, so good. You will need five smaller pieces (for the images below I cut 5" squares) & one larger (I used a 9.5" square). 

The other half will require one scrap each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue & purple.  You will need more of one of them; all together they make the other half of the complete block.  Again, you can follow the Quilters Cache directions or you can use these-whatever works.  You will need five smaller pieces (for the images below I cut 5" squares) & one larger (I used a 9.5' square).  I don't care which color is larger; I used whatever I happened to have the most of & leftovers for the others. 

Below are the pictures/directions for making it my way.  Again, you can use the Quilters Cache way if you prefer so long as you use our colors: a single background fabric of black, black-on-black, white, OR white-on-white & one each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

I paired three of the 5" colors with three of the 5" backgrounds & made six 1/2-square triangles.  take one of each color combo & out the other aside (this is not a block you can make many at once, at least not at first).  Press these blocks open, either all towards or all way from the background & cut down to 4.5" square.  From the remaining background & color pieces (two 5" squares & one 9.5" square) I cut corner to corner making open bias triangles.  I put aside half of them & then laid out the pieces to make sure I had one of each color.

Divide the center part into three columns.  One column will be a 1/2-square triangle & a background triangle, one will be a 1/2-square triangle & the third (the center column) will be a 1/2-square triangle with both a background triangle & a color triangle. To make these columns, line up the right angle of the triangle piece with the corner of the 1/2-square triangle square.

If you find yourself stitching a color edge to a color edge or a background edge to a background edge STOP.  There is no such join in the entire block.  Then lay everything out & check it again.

I suggested that you press either to or away from the background (depending on whether your background is black or white).  If you did that, then you can lock the seams of the two outer columns with the center column.  Your straight edges will all square up & you will end with a piece that looks something like this.

Now it is a matter of snipping those dog ears from the center & lining up the center of your end triangle with the center of your strip of piece triangles & 1/2-sqaure triangles.  I found what worked for me was pressing a crease from the right angle to the bias edge but this can be tricky as any stretching is a bad, bad thing.

When it all goes together you might need to square it up to 12.5" unfinished, but you might just have to clip the dog-ears & be done. 

Blocks are due in-house the last Saturday in December which is December 27, 2014.  Because mail gets slower around the holidays (even if there are a lot fewer holiday cards being snail mailed, there are also a lot fewer postal employees & they take time off just like the rest of us!) I strongly suggest getting everything in the mail no later than the Friday before Christmas which will be Friday, December 19th. 

Colorful cats for October 2014

I had already thought of, written the directions & made the samples for our December 2014 Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group block, but I find that sometimes there is residue that lingers.  So, yes, that one did influence this one, just like that one was influenced by the Rainbow Connection that ran 2013 through January 2014.  Hopefully, there is enough in the mix that no one feels like they are making the exact same thing over & over again.

The block we are making is the very straightforward Puss In The Corner which is a center square with either lighter or darker borders & the same fabric in the center repeats in each of the four corners.  The block will be 8.5" unfinished/8" finished. 

You can use as few as two fabrics & they need to be a light & a dark of the same color.  I don't care which color it is (although not white or black, obviously).  You can use two different shades of pink or green or orange or red or blue or brown or even gray (if I left out a color it was an oversight, not a restriction).  It does not matter which you use for the center & corner blocks & which for the borders just so long as one is clearly lighter & the other is clearly darker & they are both indisputably the same color (no yellow corners & centers with orange borders PLEASE).  I understand it can be hard to find single color fabrics w/out some white or black so some white or black can be used but the idea is a light of one color & a dark of SAME. 

You have the option of doing something extra with the center block if you want; if you do decide to use other fabrics, they must be in that same color OR a mix of that color &/or white &/or black.  In general, these will be fabrics that read-as-solid (are the same color throughout) although some white or even a very little black would be OKay.  Please DO NOT use a fabric that is more black &/or white than whichever color you choose & DO NOT use a fabric that has more than one color (a blue with green polka dots, for example would NOT be correct, or pink with yellow flowers or anything with any different color).

Begin with a 4.5" square.  This can be a single fabric OR it can be pieced from lights, mediums & darks of your chosen single color.  You can make a traditional 4-patch or 9-patch or what-have-you so long as you end up with a 4.5" square. IF you use a third (or fourth or whatever fabric, this is where you will use it).  I am going to come back to this, later actually, so lets move on.

From your second fabric (or third or fourth, if that is what it has come to, depending on what you did for your center) you will need four strips, 2.5" by 4.5".  Please do NOT use this fabric anywhere else in the block.  In other words, if you do choose to piece a center block, this fabric should NOT be in it.  The idea is for the borders to be clearly different than the center & repeating fabrics can blur this..

From your first fabric, or one of the fabrics used in the 4.5" center, or yet another fabric that is light to the border's dark OR dark to the border's light but otherwise the same color, you will need four more 2.5" squares.  The corners should all be from the same single fabric & they should be either a light to contrast with the dark border fabric OR a dark to contrast with the light border fabric.

• Again, the corners & the center (if it is not pieced) should be light or dark. 
• The side borders should be whichever (dark or light) the corners are not. 
• The fabric you use on the side pieces (those 4.5" by 2.5" that press against the edges of the enter block) should NOT be used anywhere else in the completed block. 
• If you elect to piece the center square, you will need to find a third (or fourth or fifth) fabric that is in the same color (i.e. all shades of blue).  You can use at least some of the corner fabric in the center block; you CANNOT use your side border rectangles anywhere else in the block even if you piece the center

Now back to the centers.  You can use just one fabric, the same as your corner posts if you wish.  You can make any traditional or non-traditional 4-patch or 9-patch.  You can even go crazy with open biased edges if you like (usually I discourage this but since you will be the one adding a border to it, go for it). 

Lastly something a bit different.  You are welcome to send as many sets of five as you like (we always swap in sets of five unless you are sending a 6th block in which case you send six & get five back) but FOR THIS SWAP ONLY within each set of five you are limited to one color family & you should not repeat that color in your second, third, etc. set.  This means if you make only one set they should all be a single color (all blue or all green or all orange).  If you make two sets each set should be one color but the two sets should be different from each other (one set of blue & the other of red or one set of purple & the other of brown  or whatever just so long as set one is one color & set two is a second color....& set three is a third color).  If you send more than FIVE sets (that would be 25 blocks in five different colors) then & only then can you repeat a color you have already used. 

These blocks are due in-house the last Saturday in October, which is October 25th.  This is one of our earlier last Saturday's, making October a short swap month.  I mention this because people have been caught by surprise in the past; the last day of October is a Friday & blocks are due the Saturday BEFORE not the Saturday after (which is in fact the first day of November).

Rosebud (& I don't mean the sled) for August 2014

Every year I try to include a traditional block in the Facebook Quilt Block Swap Groups set of blocks.  Also, a garden themed block.  & a component block, which is a block where each swapper makes one part of a complete block.  This year I am trying to address all of these with just one block, our August block.

The traditional Rosebud block has been popping up all over lately.  I have no idea if it is having a revival or if I just noticed.  You can see a version of the compete Rosebud block on Quilter's Cache right here.  & because I have found sometimes these direct links go all screwy, you can go to the main Quilter's Cache page, go to Quilt Blocks Galore, select the alphabetized list that includes "R", & then select the 12" pattern "Rosebud".  Or last but not least you can type in http://www.quilterscache.com/R/RosebudBlock.html.

As you can probably guess, if the completed block is 12.5" unfinished/12" finished, then 1/4 of the block (the component we are actually swapping) makes a block that is 6.5" unfinished/6" finished.  You can follow the directions on Quilters Cache (making our color changes, described below) right up until you put the four pieces together; we are swapping the individual pieces.

You will need two fabrics:

One of them should be either a solid or read-as-solid (which means that while there might be a small pattern...or even a large one, the fabric is predominantly one color & there are no dramatic changes in from dark to light). This same fabric should be limited to the following range of colors:  pink, maroon, red, orange, gold, peach, yellow, cream OR white.  The reason I say "OR" is almost any fabric with two or more of these colors will not read as solid.  So, just one of these colors please (I am going over this because in the past year there has been a great deal of confusions about the term read-as-solid, to the point where one person submitted a rainbow plaid, which is about as far from read-as-solid as I can imagine.  So now I want to be clear).  This will be the "bud" fabric & we are aiming for traditional rose bud colors. 

The second fabric can be anything with a garden theme, a novelty fabric, or anything at all that says "garden" in a conventional sense.  A floral or leaves or trees or birds or even small repeating wheelbarrows would be acceptable; while I accept that it does have an elegant garden/park area, a small repeating Eiffel Towers- probably not.  I would encourage people to limit themselves to small scale prints, or even medium scale prints.  This is not the best place for a large, dramatic print even if it is a floral.  Also, if you are at all unsure about whether or not the print you have in mind says "garden", please do not use it.  In the event you cannot locate a floral or garden themed fabric (I recognize it is not everyone's cuppa tea), you could use a solid or read-as-solid green or a solid or read-as-solid white.  This is the background.  Yes the background will potentially be a patterned fabric.  It will be OKay, I promise. 

Let me clarify:  if you use a solid or read-as-solid white for your first fabric, please do not use the same or a different solid or read-as-solid white for your second fabric.  I know 99 people reading this are asking them selves who would do that?  I am here to tell you I have seen it done.

From the bud fabric please cut two squares, one of them a 5" square & the other a 3" square.  Pair these with the same from the background fabric & make 1/2-square triangles.  The 5" squares will become two 4.5" 1/2-square triangles (you will need one of these for each block).  The 3" squares will become two 2.5" 1/2-square triangles (you will need both for each block).  Lastly, from the background only cut one strip 6.5" x 2.5". 

I have made 1/2-square triangles before & you can find those directions here, but the technique I use is put the two squares right sides together, one of them marked with a line from corner to corner.  You can stitch 1/4" from either side of the line, cut down the line & then press the unit open.  It is possible you will need to cut the squares down.

Once you have the pieces, please be sure to lay them out & assemble them so the strip is to the left, with the background of the larger 1/2-square triangle & the bud portion of the smaller 1/2-squre triangles butt up against it (see picture below).  This way, the blocks you swap & the blocks you get back for them will all fit together consistently.  I had to rip out two of the eight blocks I made because I put them together backwards.

I realize some will be concerned about the busy background.  I made examples using eight different fabrics, including two different whites, one as the rose bud & the other as the background, a mostly solid green background, two different busy floral backgrounds in two different colorways in the hopes you can see that the strong read-as-solid bud color really will dominate. 

Four of our swap blocks will make one traditional rosebud block, 12.5" unfinished/12" finished.  As always, we swap in sets of FIVE, but you can always send more than one set.  If you do send multiple sets, please be sure no more than two are the same.  As always the blocks are due here the last Saturday of the swap month, in this case that is Saturday August 30th.  & as always we are collecting 6th blocks.  You have the option of sending a 6th block with your five swap blocks; you will get five back & the 6th will go to whichever member of the group asked for them to make a quilt to donate to in her community.

Knot garden from last summer for this spring

I am up to my eyeballs in pending projects, some of them quilting projects, some of them farm projects, some of them tied to the end of the semester & naturally I am attracted to those projects with no discernible deadline.    Or those I can do nothing about.

Earlier this month I was obsessing on the next stage of the Cotton Robin, which is absurd as I will not even know what I am working on until the next part arrives & the deadline for that is a week away.  I needed to stop looking at what I had done before & what I had made for my own centerpiece (I was inspired to make two exact centers & I am working along on my own & am looking forward to seeing what happens when two quilts jump off at the same point & one travels & the other stays home). 

What I am not doing is double checking the Facebook Quilt Block Swap block directions for AUG, OCT & DEC (yes, blocks are planned that far out).  I have also not finished my own block swap commitments due at the end of this month.

Instead, I pulled out blocks from a swap-gone-by & have been working steadily on a quilt for no one in particular, no deadline in sight & no reason I could not table it until I was way less busy.  But it is SPRING!  Almost.  & I want to do something with flowers & gardens & it is still too sketchy outside (80s F last week, below freezing last night) to do much other than knock down old dead vines & think about where to put those rose bushed currently residing (by nigh) in my bathroom.

So to the Knot Garden I went.  The block pattern was put forward by S***, another block swapper who made the mistake of competently answering questions on the board so I made her co-admin (HA!).  I made a ton of these for the swap , but was not even in the top five swappers; it was wildly popular & I can see why.  Among many other good qualities, it is easy to chain piece & uses scraps wonderfully. 

I decided on a 7 by 7 block layout which meant I needed to make quite a few more blocks & have been making one or two or three whenever I have suitable fabric out.  I wish I had made them way-back-when because it would be a lot easier to make several of the same & swap them around than to make one or two like I am now.  I also plan to put a border on it (right now I am leaning towards pieced corners, & maybe a center side medallion, but nothing too snazzy).

My hope it to have my spring quilt finished (or the top, anyhow) in time for Spring.  Because Spring springs early in central Fladidah, kinda.  It coils up a few times & fools you & then BOING!  it's summer. 

The color & the shape, revisited for April 2014

I have been having some troubles getting older photos on to Facebook & in the end I took a new set of photos & I am putting up some different looking blocks for our April 2014 Quilt Block Swap block.  There has not been much interest in this block; yes, I realize it is hard to get interested in a block with no pictures in the group but I am also not expecting much because...

This is our first ever applique-mandatory block.  In the past, once a year or so, we have made blocks that could be appliqued but they could also be pieced.  Almost no one ever does applique instead of piecing despite more applique being one of the more frequent wishes from group members.   Yes, I realize the subjects up for applique (boats, "joy", funky town, flower baskets, etc.) are certainly a factor.  Some of these swaps were big, some were small, but either way the applique blocks were in the minimum.  That it is a raw edged applique may also make it less attractive; it has certainly been the reason the people who like applique have given for not participating.

But I think mostly people are having trouble visualizing the blocks (yes, yes, pictures would help), but more what would anyone do with the blocks once they made them.  I think the answer is simple, but that's me.  Also I have had a lot more time to think about it, since blocks get planned not less than three months & sometimes more like a couple years before the group ever sees them.  I plan to make a fabric book with my six blocks (I make six keep one, swap five just like everybody else).

I have also suggested a baby quilt to other people who ask.  Think about it:  those fluffy edges will be nice & touchable but there is no way little hands could rip the whole thing apart & swallow any small bits (not that there are any small bits, there really isn't).

The directions are simple (& can be found in the link: http://uselessranch.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-color-shape-for-april-2014.html ).  Begin with a 10.5" square of a solid (not read as solid, not mostly solid, an actual single color, no shading SOLID fabric).  Unlike most of our blocks, this fabric can be any 100% cotton fabric (of quilting weight-no denim please).  In the photos above the blue square is an old sheet; in other examples it has been flannel.   Stitch a shape (I used mostly squares, you don't have to but if you start with a triangle, you will fins things get tight quickly) using another cotton fabric.  Stitch down a third shape.  They can be on stacked or overlap or just side by side. 

& that is the bare minimum.  In one of the blocks above, I added yet another square, just for fun.  I also used the decorative stitches that came with my sewing machine.  You do not have to do either of these things.

The block are due in-house the last Saturday of April (more information about how many & where to send can be found in the Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group).

A friendlier Friendship Star

I meant to start 2014 with an easy block, but most days I get another message outlining problems people are having with this block.  & the problems are really mostly one problem:  after making the 1/2-square triangle in the manner I outlined, the component they end up with -the 1/2-square triangle that is four of the patches in the nine patch is just a skosh too small.  Sometimes more than a skosh.

The cause of this is almost always the same thing:  an ever-so-deeper than 1/4" seam allowance.  & it is not just this block, this is the most frequent problem block swappers face in any swapped block (say THAT ten times fast!).  It has been more of a problem this time around because only four of the nine patches are pieced; the other are cut to the correct size (3.5" squares) making the mismatch clear almost right away.

There are only two solutions & one of them is practice practice practice.  In general, people who are struggling with seam allowance are not crazy about this suggestion.  Too deep a seam allowance means things don't fit, too shallow they all apart down the road...also they don't fit.  Yes, there are presser feet & sewing machines with that seam allowance marked or guided or whatever but that costs $$ & maybe it isn't worth it to you (it wasn't to me; I eventually bought a 1/4" foot but only because it was grouped with other feet & marked clearance at a quilt shop's going out of business sale; I should have bought it sooner-I love that silly foot). 

As for whether or not the seam being marked on the machine itself, that has more to do with what the manufacturer thought you were going to sew than anything else.  I have hear of people marking the 1/4" themselves either with masking tape or a thickish stack of post-it notes, but I am making a different suggestion:  cut the squares that will become your 1/2-square triangles a bit large.

First, you would need to abandon the make eight at a time method I went over in the original Friendship Star post & go back to the pair of squares makes a pair of 1/2-square triangles method.  You can see the hows of it in many places on the interwebs, including instructional videos etc., but I am sending you instead to a past Facebook Quilt Block Swap group block:  the Massachusetts Star.  Those directions have photos for making the 1/2-square triangle beginning with two 4.5" squares. 

You will also begin with two 4.5" squares, one background (which is limited to white, etc. as per the original Friendship Star post) & one whatever other fabric you have chosen either dark or light red, white &/or blue (again, please refer to the original Friendship Star post). 

After you have made the center line, stitched a slightly too deep 1/4" seam (that is why we are here, after all), pressed the two blocks open THEN take your ruler & cut the 1/2-square triangle to 3.5" square.  I know this is a bit wasteful, but not as wasteful as chucking the whole thing because it is too small.

Now comes the next challenge:  assembling the nine patch without losing more than 1/4" in each seam.  I know this does not feel like a lot, but consider that every block has two seam in each direction.  This means that you are taking up 2x whatever extra you are using in each block.  You would be surprised how much that adds up. 

So this is my suggestion:  after you have pressed etc. the 1/2-square triangle, flip it over & measure the seam allowance.  Make a note of the overage.  Find something to compare it to:  is it maybe the width of a sharpie heavy duty marker line?  Is it the width of the French tip on your manicure?  Find SOMETHING that is equal to the overage. 

& this is where we have no choice but to practice, practice, practice.  Sew some straight strips together moving the fabric way from the place you have been starting in by the width of whatever that familiar thing is (the sharpie marker line or the toothpick or the bobby pin or whatever.  Do this a couple of times.  You should start moving towards a more-better 1/4" seam allowance. 

I might be crazy, but I have always found it easier to add & subtract real things (width of a nickel, head of a glass topped pin) than to try & memorize the numbers, apply them & then manipulate them.  But maybe that's just me.

Well preserved quilt block swap, year round beginner friendly swap

Last year's Rainbow Connection swap was a huge success.  I know I am taking a chance going in a different direction with this year's beginner friendly year long swap but I am hoping it will appeal to a new group of beginners (we have many more members than we did just last year at this time) & maybe not-so-beginners as well.  We will be making...jars. 

I was looking for a very simple block that could support some variety & still forgive typical beginner mistakes.  At the same time, I was seeing (& remembering seeing) a number of "things in jars" quilts crash & burn because it was so much trouble finding enough different things to put in all those jars.  & I understand not everyone wants a quilt of nothing but jars, but these jars can be used with other blocks (among them our June 2014 block Books by the yard) or as a row in the row quilt trend that is exploding right now.

You can make pretty much any jar style or size you like, but I am asking that all jars include the following elements: 

• for each jar you will need a jar fabric (more on that later).
• a lid fabric.  For the lid fabric, please use a solid or subtle print of any color or colors except solid white or even mostly white, because that won't show against the background (if that seems obvious, keep in mind this is a beginning quilter swap & nothing is obvious to the inexperienced).  This is not the ideal place for any high contrast pattern as it will hardly be visible; this is not enough space for a large scale pattern to play out, so save that for another project.
• & a background fabric.  Your background fabric MUST BE WHITE.  Ideally, plain old garden variety bleached muslin, although white broadcloth would be fine.  You could also use a white-on-white (WOW) fabric, but please do not use anything with any other color than white for the background.  This boycott includes fabrics that are mostly white with a subtle, almost invisible cream patterns or white with tiny pastel polka-dots or flowers or whatever.  I am harping on this because there was not-a-lot-but-some confusion last year re: what constituted "white fabric for the background".  A number of the examples in the links below have black backgrounds but please do not be confused:  the background for this block must be white & only white. 

& now the jar fabric.  This was a bit of a dilemma:  should it be limited to only things that are real (no stars in jars)?  or even more specific, as in just bugs?  or should we only have opaque jars (I tossed that one right away because wouldn't that be just too dull)?  In the end I decided anything goes for the jars.  I mean anything.  Anything anything anything.  That being said, please try to put yourself in another person's shoes.  I have some fantastic dachshund fabric & while I love doxies (& I know there are quite a few other doxy lovers in the group), I will not be putting dachshunds in jars because it is unlikely to be generally useful.  I am guessing most people are likely to be working on a Kitchen theme or even a Mother Nature's Pantry theme or Kids Classroom theme or Sorcerer's Apprentice theme or whatever & there are just so many better choices that would work with most if not all of those.  Also little weiner dogs floating in a jar is, in my view, just too creepy. 

For this example jar I looked for something generic jar-wise (like seashells or ladybugs or feathers or flowers or you get the idea), & in the end I choose a neutralish fabric that sort of reminded me of a set of canisters I once saw at Ikea & I am still kicking myself for not buying.  For other (practice) jars, I have used solids & added text from another fabric.  One fat quarter of a fabric with random text was adequate to make labels for six jars with plenty left over to do spines for a few books in Books by the Yard (our swap block for June 2014).  I also made a "conventional" bug jar with ladybugs & so forth.  I have some more off-beat fabrics, but I am keeping them for my own jars & swapping those that are more universally useful.

Now, I am going to make a jar & provide the directions, step by step.  The jar I am making is more or less, but not exactly the same as the basic jar block found here.  The key differences are:  I am using a WHITE BACKGROUND (if it seems like I am harping on this it is because I am), there is no background fabric below the jar (this is so all our jars can line up on a straight line), the background piece at the top is slightly larger (to meet our block height requirement of  12.5" unfinished), & lastly, the background piece on either side of the jar begins with a 1.5" strip (although this is optional UNLIKE the other changes, I strongly recommend you stick with this as it is narrow enough to let the jars line up closely but wide enough to forgive a too-deep seam allowance).

Take your jar fabric (you will only need one piece of jar fabric for each block although you may choose to piece a jar with a label, or applique a label or whatever) & four small squares of background fabric (again not all jars need to have four rounded corners, tis is just my example).  In this example I began with a jar fabric square of 8.5" by 8.5" & four white background squares of 2" by 2".  You can pencil a stitching line on the back of each of the smaller background squares, but they are so small, you might be comfortable just pinning & stitching.  Because you will be stitching along this line, please avoid anything that will bleed through as it will show on your finished block.   Cover each corner of the jar fabric, stitch, flip, press & clip.


Alas, I did all this & forgot to take photos, so these are smaller jars but the exact same technique

Next you will make the lid piece.  Take the lid fabric & add the two background rectangles to each end of the lid.  I cut a piece of lid fabric 5" by 2" but this is the kind of thing you can strip piece as you get more comfortable.  My background pieces were both 4" by 2".

As you can see, this made a strip that is slightly longer than the jar.  Because this is a beginner swap, I left some wiggle room for slightly undercut strips (a common problem with beginners) & too deep seam allowances (another common problem with beginners).  As you get more accurate (or if you are already accurate), you will not need this buffer & you can calculate the exact dimensions for your own jar.  In the interest of being perfectly honest, I rather wish I had gone .5" to .75" longer with the lid fabric, but this is a live-&-learn type block so I am moving forward wit it as is.

After I centered the lid on the jar, I stitched it, pressed it & carefully cut the extra background from the over-long lid strip.  Then I added the 1.5" strip of background to either side of the jar. 

At this point experienced quilters may have noticed that while I have provided a block height (the unfinished height of your block, from the base of the jar to the top of the background should be at least 12.5" & not more than 12.75"), I have not provided a block width.  This is because the widths will vary depending on the kinds of jar you choose to make.  Beginners are likely to make big square jars (I encourage you to start with the big square jar given here), but more advanced quilters are free to challenge themselves with something more elaborate (or something that works better with the fabric they have on hand).  You also do not need to make a square jar like I did, there are plenty taller than they are wide jars out there, jars with handles, jars with nobs on the lid, there are lots & lots & lots of different kinds of jars.

So you have your jar, with 1.5" background strips at the sides.  Press it & measure the height (from the bottom of the jar to the top of the lid).  In the case of this jar, my block was 10" exactly.  If yours is not 10" exactly do not beat yourself up; turn over the block & look at it.  Chances are the problem lies in the seam allowance attaching the lid to the jar.  If this seam allowance is 1/4" or larger go ahead to the next step (yes, yes you want to work on that seam allowance as it will plague you in the future, but you don't need to be perfect here).  However if the seam allowance is less than 1/4" (or if your seam allowance is wobbly & dips bellows 1/4")  you MUST rip it out & redo it.  A seam allowance of less than 1/4" will not stand up to ordinary wear & tear.  Actually, even if your seam allowance is plenty deep, you should still rip it out if it is wobbly; wobbly seams are a curse to work with & no one wants to get a block like that.

In my example, I cut a background strip of 3.5", stitched it to the top of my jar.  After pressing & trimming the edges (being careful not to cut into the background on the side of the jar but instead using that as the guide) I had a block that was taller than it need to be.  I lined up the 12.5" line on my ruler with the bottom of my jar, & cut along the edge of the ruler to get a block that was exactly 12.5" tall.  Please stop & measure & make sure your block is between 12.5" & 12.75" tall.  If it is more than 12.75" double check your measurements & cut it down to size.  If it is less than 12.5" tall rip off the background piece you added to the top of the jar, recut your background piece & try again. 

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES just add a bit more background.  This passes the problem on to the next person.  I have been on the receiving end of blocks with .5" strips around the perimeter to bring them up to size & they are a bear to work with.  So let me be clear, if there are PIECED BACKGROUNDS above or to the side of the jar, you will get your own blocks back.

Now for a few examples.  I found several free jar patterns & most any of them will work for this swap with a few changes.  The Two Bug Jar Quilt Block Pattern offers two different sizes.  Neither jar has the corners at the bottom & that is perfectly fine.  You will need to make the side pieces slightly wider (remember all our side units begin as 1.5" strip) & you will need to add more background to the top (both of these blocks finish at 9" while our block should be 12.5" unfinished).

The Tall Jar Quilt Block, would also work.  It makes a slightly shorter & much narrower block, but again we are aiming for a uniform height & a variety of jars.  You will need to eliminate the background fabric from beneath the jar, be sure to use WHITE for the 1.5" background strips at the side & reconfigure the background piece at the top to give you the correct 12.5" unfinished height we are looking for. 

In addition to these, there are slews of other jar patterns.  Some have more elaborate sides or lids, some are tipped over with contents spilling out (not a great choice for a beginner but might give you something to aim for).  There are ginger jars & mason jars & cookie jars & so long as you meet the requirements (white back ground, no back ground below the jar, 1.5" strip of white background on either side, white background above bring the block to 12.5" unfinished in height) you can go as crazy as you want.  Below are two of the blocks I made, one is the block made with the instructions, the other is made the same way but began with a 5.5" square.  Notice how the smaller jar is a narrower block but just as tall.

You do not have to specify what block you are making when you sign up; there is the distinct possibility that some of the jars will be similar but I am confident there will be plenty of variety. 

As in 2013, I am limiting sign up to six people each swap.  You make six blocks of the same jar, using the same jar fabric, send five & get five different jars back.  You can sign up for more than one swap BUT you must use different jar fabric each time & I would encourage you to try a different jar each time (maybe the same jar but a different size).  Sign up is only through the Facebook group, the deadlines etc. are specified there, but this will be more or less the same as last year.  The six spots for jars due the last Saturday in March 2014 will open ASAP.  Once those are full, the next set due the last Saturday in May will open, etc.  No one can sign up for more than one set in any given month & if you fail to meet the deadline for a swap for which you have signed up, your name will be removed from any future swaps you might be signed up for unless you have a really good reason.