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).

I got the waiting blues

The deadline for the next Cotton Robin turn around is fast approaching & I am still waiting for my project to arrive.  Yes, yes it is possible it will hit my mailbox tomorrow afternoon.  Maybe not.  Back in....I want to say December but I might be wrong, the Robin Ringmaster polled everyone & said "are you sure?" & everyone said "you betcha - I have time for this over the next four to five months".  & not long after two people dropped out. 

I don' t mean to be unsympathetic.  It is more than possible two people were visited by unforeseen tragedy.  Ten, no make that fifteen years ago I would have accepted this without question.  More or less without question anyhow.  Now of course I have a ringside seat to why people drop in, drop out & generally get pissy when others do not rearrange their own lives to accommodate what is all too often a minor concern (yes there is the occasional cancer scare or stroke-both of these have actually happened but mostly it's "oh that was this month?").  I have also ranted a-plenty about students who think professors are sitting at their desks waiting like empty hand puppets for some bright young thing to walk through the door & engage them.  Aren't you glad I am not in charge of the next generation's education?

I should back up & say this year's exam season was a breeze compared to previous years.  My guess is this newish policy of linking students' current grades to whether or not their bright futures scholarships continue for the next semester/year has resulted in a much more alert classroom.  Yes, there are still breakdowns: the crying jags, the dead grandmothers, the roommates who plot against them, but the easy-going slackers who used to take the short term F until they could repeat the class are gone.  What we never realized was how much of the problem those easy going slackers were:  the calls, the meetings, the parents.  It was quite the time-drain.

So I have built up quite the head of steam & have no place to release it except the Cotton Robin.  Or the Facebook Quilt Block Swap, but I am already barely touching base with many of these people.  I have been so absent, the other group admin is now getting the fun questions like "how many inches in a yard?"  I was not meaning to stick her with this crap but I guess I don't mind someone else knowing what backstage looks like. 

Which brings us to this week-end.  I had hoped to be sorting at least SOME of the quilt blocks due this coming Saturday, but as you may have guessed almost none of them have arrived.  So I dug out an overgrown garden, moved some ginger varieties to a new location (we now have a shade garden in the front yard, not what I was going for but I could not bear to take out the volunteer oak three years ago & now it is rather grand).  We road tested a few zero-turn mowers & in the end A decided to spend the bulk of a day fixing the old one which was just fine with me; I was not looking forward to learning a whole new style of driving. 

On the other hand, a semi-pointless ride-along was probably just the thing for the mood I am in. 

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.

What Burgoyne begat

I know you have all been sitting on the edge of your seats wondering what was going to replace the Bird Trap quilt block swap in 2014.  Because that swap as so popular.  Actually, it was popular for looking but not for doing.  What I mean is I think the images interested people but they were a bit overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) by the guidelines versus instructions.  There were too many variables & how to make them all work together in the end.  Now I have the opportunity to resolve all of that....but I am not going to.  This is white water quilt rafting, people!  You can go anywhere & paddle in the shallows but this swap is going off-road.  Again. 

I have been eyeing the Burgoyne Surrounded block for a long time.  It's an oldie, but a goodie, has a certain amount of variation & is more about the planning than the execution (it's all straight lines, no 1/2-square triangles).  At least that's how it begins. 

You will need:

FIVE nine patches.  One of them should be different from the others in either size or fabric choices or something & the other four should be more or less the same. You can make ANY nine patch you desire, so long as it has a clear light &/or dark making an X or some kind of contrast pattern.  Ordinarily, it is the darker that makes the X & for your first foray you might want to stick with that, but you certainly don't have to.  As for the nine-patches themselves: you can do a conventional black & white nine patch for the one & smaller shoo-fly for the other four.  I don't care, it is up to you.

As for color, fabric, etc.  it is mostly dealers choice.  All we care about here is light versus dark.  Or light versus medium.  Or medium versus dark.  Your nine-patch fabrics should have two clear values...& if you feel like muddying it up a bit further into the block, be my guest.  Just so long as there is a at least the suggestion of a Burgoyne-type movement from the corners to the center...or off-center, however that works out.

In my first sample, I made the single nine-patch & the set of four from 1.5" strips but different fabrics, but you could differentiate them in other ways (I was also trying to make the smallest possible units for the sake of having a jumping off point).

NEXT I added what I call half a log cabin border to adjacent asides of the four same-y nine-patches.  You might find it easier to flesh out the block & then add outer borders like a normal person (that is what I did for my second block).  This half border could consist of two planks & a corner stone, maintaining the light or dark or medium X in the usual Burgoyne style, but feel free to mix this up.

These four now-asymmetrical nine-patches are the corners of your completed block.  The other nine patch is the conceptual center....but depending on what you do next may not be the actual center.  Bear with me, I promise it will get clearer.

Putting the stand alone nine-patch centerish & the others at the outer corners, you need to fill in the space between.  Your dark (or light, or medium) X should hook-up from the center blocks to at least two of the corner blocks, but it can hook up to all of them.

You can fill in with whatever you like.  You can use a single piece of fabric or you can piece something.  For my first go round, I intended to limited myself to two (2) fabrics -which did not quite work out, but at least hey are all in a theme, more or less- & decided to keep the center in the center & did minimal piecing in the filler areas & you can see what I got.  Once I had one block under my belt, I was more comfortable adding variables, changing up widths etc.  You can add the more sashing if you like you can make your center off-center, you can use any 9-path variation you like in place of any basic 9-patch.  The idea is to stretch, & stretch again.  Then stretch some more. 

For my second pass I decided to go with one wider than the others edge & flip the lights versus darks for one corner.  & yes, I had A LOT of Bird Trap scraps left over & a few of them may have found their way here.

Your complete blocks should be SQUARE.  It can be anywhere from 13" square to 25" square but it must be SQUARE.  The 13" is based on the minimum number of pieces needed to meet the requirements all being 1" finished, & only the bare minimum of pattern being represented, the 25" is for when you want to stretch a bit (& you will want to stretch, I promise).  When you get back not-equal squares, you can bring them up to snuff with outer borders reinforcing the cornerstone feature.  That should help bring the whole thing into some kind of balance, anyhow.  Also this is where you would add the sashing that is the final Burgoyne movement, with those additional cornerstones & those side bits....  Or not, it is up to you naturally.

Finally, yes, I am putting this up early.  Bird Trap doesn't wrap until the last Saturday in November; you can even sign-up for it up until Hallowe'en, but ever since the Bird Trap quilt made its public debut, I have been getting "what's next?" questions from people who are interested, maybe but don't think there is enough time to do the Bird Trap quilt block swap if they start from scratch now.  Since Bird Trap (& Burgoyne Begat) require a little bit of warm up, I think they might be right. 

Also, today in 1777, General John Burgoyne surrendered to Major General Horatio Gates.  But actually, he didn't.  Burgoyne negotiated freedom for his men if they left their weapons & then left the colonies.  Eventually everyone reneged & then it was ON.  The important thing though is that after a thrilling campaign that included the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, Burgoyne was surrounded in Sarasota on his way to capture Albany.  It seemed timely.

Home for the Holidays

A few weeks ago I floated an idea in the Quilt Block Swap group on Facebook & the response was mostly positive (it was unlikely to be negative as even if a person said they were not interested, that was helpful in gauging average interest/disinterest & since participation is never mandatory...).  Anyway.

A few weeks ago I started toying with the idea of a holiday-themed quilt block swap.  Generally I hate these.  I am not shy about telling people why-as a person who observes none of the religious holidays that have gone mainstream here in the US, except maybe Christmas & that one just in a look-at-the-pretty-lights kind of way, imagine how disappointed I was when I participated in a large swap themed SPRING & got nothing but indisputably Easter blocks.  Yes, yes Easter does happen in Spring, but so do so many other things.  & while a nice flower basket block or a some birds (Bird Trap!) would work in an Easter quilt, there is nothing a person who does not celebrate Easter can do with a blocks of crosses & embroidered "Bathed in the Blood of the Lamb".  Except donate it to a Christian quilting circle.  Which is what I did.

So.  There I was thinking how to make a holiday block swap while not feeling like I am cutting people out, either because they didn't want a quilt centered around a holiday they don't celebrate OR because they would rather make a quilt about something they do celebrate & then it came to me:  what about a neighborhood?  This epiphany was a long time coming.  The pieces have been there, rolling around for a while, but when Block Lotto made I-SPY houses earlier this summer is all rolled together:  I can decorate my own house to celebrate whatever I want & so can my neighbor.  The result will be something like the town I grew up in:  Christmas trees & menorahs, sometimes both in the windows of the houses.  Or it might look like the neighborhood we drive thru to get home now, where one house has a HUGE crèche in the front...pasture & a giant wooden sign that says "Jesus is the reason for the season" & the house across the street has an equally large sign that says "Reason for the season: Axial Tilt".  It's a fun town.  & the point is, it is your house, celebrate what you want & realize the house next door will do the same.  Or not, as holiday neutral, just seasonal houses are also acceptable.

Enough about that, here are the rules:

• The complete unfinished block should be 10.5" by 10.5.  Please make sure decorative elements are AT LEAST 1/2 inch away from the outside border, so nothing gets chopped when the blocks are sewn together.  Please limit decorative elements to those that can be easily machine washed.  In other words, no paints or that kind of thing.  Applique or embroidery should be fine so long as it is stable & washable (so no silk ribbon embroidery, etc.).
• Each house should consist of a façade & at least one glimpse inside, either via window or door or what-have-you.  The house must have an exterior of some kind. You can put your house at the bottom of your block & make the background all sky or you can put a strip of lawn at the front with the background all garden, as you please.
• Your house does not have to be a house, it can be any building you might see in a neighborhood:  a hospital, a fire station, an apartment building OR it could be any house, anywhere:  a teepee or yurt, a houseboat.  Any shelter of any kind in any landscape in which a person might voluntarily or otherwise spend a holiday.   Yes, this could include mangers.  Or prisons. Or luxury hotels.
• Your house should have a reference to some holiday or event in DECEMBER, somewhere on earth.  Christmas: yes, Chanukah: yes, Kwanzaa: yes, Solstice: yes, New Years Eve: yes... BUT there are also many other celebrations, observations & anniversaries in December.  Here in the US, there is anniversary of the Pilgrims landing in Massachusetts, the Trail of Tears, the 13th amendment was ratified, prohibition ended, there is Pearl Harbor Day, the actual original Boston Tea Party took place in December & so on.  Outside the US we have the Battle of the Bulge, Nobel prizes are awarded, Boxing Day, Feast of Stephen, National Day of Reconciliation in South Africa, the Emperor's birthday in Japan, the first day of summer in some places, the first day of winter in all the others.  & this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Your house is your house, decorate (or not) to celebrate what you will so long as it takes place in DECEMBER.
• We are swapping in sets of FIVE.  You should make SIX blocks, keep one & send FIVE.  All of your blocks of one set should be roughly the same.  Because this is free-form-ish, there are likely to be differences, but they should all represent the same holiday(s) & be constructed on more or less along the same idea.  If you make one trailer home celebrating Christmas in the tropics, you should make SIX trailer homes celebrating Christmas in the tropics.
• I am asking EVERYONE to pin a slip of paper or use a post-it note (please no staples!) that has their name & the holiday being observed.  Like "Beth Jones, Summer Solstice" or "Mary Smith, Winter Solstice".  These should be affixed to the block in some way (making teeny post-it notes ideal) as they will go with your block to the person who receives your block. 
• I will create a sign-up for ten people, & after that is full, add spaces for the next ten amp; so on.  You can sign up more than once, but only once in each group of ten.  Each of your block sets should be different; either the building or the landscape or the holiday should be different from your previous set.  I will leave sign-up open until the last day of JUNE 2014, so there is no reason to rush.  In fact, it is my hope that people will sign-up, complete a set, only if they get inspired sign-up & complete a 2nd set.

& finally a few ideas:


This Chanukah house from the October 2010 Funky Town post would need something more like land underneath &/or sky in the background (it could sit at the bottom of the block & have just sky), but otherwise works fine.  It is NOT my entry into this swap, it has long since gone to a different home, but it should give you an idea. 

The I-SPY house blocks I made for Block Lotto would need to be bigger.  & maybe have some holiday or anti-holiday themed window content, but they would also work.  Keep in mind, it is not the house (or building) that needs to be bigger, it is the block.  You can make a smaller house & do most of your December stuff on the outside.  Another place for ideas might be the Block Lotto I-SPY neighborhood that coalesced the whole thing for me. 

There is always the traditional house quilt block.  This one is a bit big, but you could size it down.  Or tease out the smaller house elements from this one.  I really like the outside trees in this block.  Or just Google/Bing whatever & look at other whole neighborhoods.

Sign up is required for this swap & this being managed over in the Quilt Block Swap group on Facebook,  just ask to join. 

Bird trap swap, not for the faint of heart

I have had my heart set on making a birdtrap quilt like the one at the Belger Art Center since I first saw it in Maude Wahlman's book Signs & symbols : African images in African-American quilts.  I have even made a few passes & I think I have come up with a very broad set of guidelines that will work well for a swap.

Before we begin however, I would encourage everyone who thinks they might be interested to take a look at the quilt I am talking about.   The bird trap quilt was made by Pecolia Warner in the 20th century, but it looks like it could have been in use a hundred years or more ago.  The design is simple, sort of, but there is a lot going on, & not just because it is made of leftovers & scraps.

The basic design is a center piece of some kind & then four sides "built up" in either the traditional log cabin style or courthouse steps style or some combination of the two, made either by wrapping the planks around the center or building out from the center by adding a border to two opposite sides & then the other two sides.  If this is hard to  follow, I think a quick look at the links will clear this up.  Mixed in with the solid planks are pieced planks, most often strips of 1/2-square triangles.  & last but not least, not one of these blocks is perfectly square.

To make our bird trap swap blocks you will need a minimum of four fabrics (& very likely more-remember use those scraps up!) :  one fabric must be an actual solid, one fabric must be a large scale print, one fabric most be a small scale print & the fourth is your choice.  The fifth, sixth, seventh, etc. are also all your choice as well.

You will begin with a center block of not less than 2" square & not more than 4.5" square.  If the center is less than 3", it can be a single solid piece, but if it is 3" or more, it should be pieced.

Next you will add your "planks" to all four sides in whatever order pleases you.  You must have at least two planks on each side, but you may have more.  At least one plank in the completed block should be partially or wholly made of 1/2- square triangle pieces.  Lastly, at least one plank in the completed block should be a different width than the others.  They can all be different, actually, but only one must be.

Finally, your block should be between 10.5"-12.5" by 10.5"-12.5" when finished.  It is entirely possible your block will not be square & that is just fine-neither were any in the inspiration quilt.  The swapped blocks you get back will also be of different shapes & sizes (well not too different, the blocks are that are not square, will certainly be rectangle).  As in the inspiration quilt, you can use your sashing to unify them & pull the whole thing together.

Right now, sign-up is open to as many as want to participate.  Each person should make nine (9) bird trap blocks, keep one & send eight.  If we have nine or more participants, everyone will get a block from a different person.  If we have fewer, the blocks will be shuffled between everyone.  You will certainly get more than one from some people BUT as the block itself is so scrappy this should not be an issue.

Blocks are due the last Saturday in November, November 30, 2013.  You can sign up either in the comments here or in the Facebook Quilt Block Swap group.

Rainbow connection quilt block swap for beginners

Last year, well this year but it's almost up, I did not do any bigger swaps.  That is, we had no longer lasting than the every other month, nothing needing a sign-up or much in the way of planning.  Well this year, we will have two.  The first, this one, is on the easy side. & so, here are the rules:

FIRST- pick a color red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple.  Every participant MUST sign up for their color in the Quilt Block Swap group on Facebook.  I'm sorry but I have wracked my brains & cannot think of any other way to keep it straight.  After the first round of ROYGBP has been claimed, I will open up another set & once that one is filled, etc..  You can sign up for as many colors as you like BUT only one in each set & you cannot sign-up for the same color more than once.  Every time one set of six has been filled I will open a new set & I will do this right up until Thanksgiving, so there will be as many chances as there are people who want to swap, I hope.  Also, there will be a rolling deadline, approximately 2-3 months after a set opens for sign up, through-out all of 2013 & into 2014.  As each new set is opened the deadline will be posted; the deadline for the first set is the last Saturday in March, March 30, 2013.

SECOND- choose a block, any block.  The final block should be 12.5" unfinished but there is nothing wrong with choosing a 10" block & then adding a border to bring it up to 12.5".  

THIRD- get your fabrics together.  You will need at least one fabric in your color choice.  You can of course use more than one fabric, so long as the color you chose & only the color you chose (with maybe, just maybe a bit of black &/or white but NO OTHER COLOR) is in the fabric.  The easiest thing to do is to limit yourself to read-as-solid, but a tone-on-tone pattern is also perfectly acceptable.  You will also need a background fabric; please limit yourself to white (muslin is fine) or a white-on-white print.  This is the same fabric you would use to "border up" if you make a smaller block & need to bring it to 12.5".  You can also use black or a black-on-black print if your block requires something to make it pop, but black should be used very sparingly if at all.

FOURTH- make six blocks.  Keep one for yourself & send the other five in with a stamped, addressed return envelope.  Once ALL the colors from your set have arrived, you will get back one each of the other five colors (yes, I know the traditional spectrum is actually seven colors, but I decided to merge indigo & violet into a single purple).

& that is it.  Naturally, when choosing & working on your block, you should make the blocks you wish to receive, quality-wise.  This swap is open to (designed for, even) beginners who want to challenge themselves, so please reach beyond the usual 4- or 9-patch.

I have included a picture (the traditional rolling stone block) as an example of what you could make.  In this case, the color is obviously BLUE.  The color fabric has several shades of blue & the slightest bit of black but no other colors & the background is a white-on-white pattern. This particular pattern block is already 12.5" unfinished so it would not need any additional background to bring it to size.  As it happens, this block is NOT part of this swap, so don't go looking for it in the blocks you get back; this is just an example of the kind of thing you could make (& honestly, as it is a pattern any advanced beginner should be able to tackle, you could use it as a guide to the kind of pattern you could make).

If you think this swap might interest you, please go to Facebook, find the Quilt Block Swap group & ask to join