Here is my Lone Robin with the second element: flying geese blocks. I chose to put them only along the top. There are now 100 quilters signed up for the Lone Robin with EBHQ, and possibly an equal number at SFQG, though there, they don’t sign up, they just do it. There are also a few quilters in the Liberated Quilters FB group making Lone Robin quilts, including one from New Zealand, who posted her Lone Robin on the SFQG page.
Here is the postcard I made and sent to Fredda. I used some of the fancy stitches I rarely use on my machine.
Above is the lovely postcard that Fredda mailed to me! She put a lot of hand stitching in it.
Here is a lovely paper collaged, hand embroidered card that Ernestina gave me just because!
In the EBHQ Meet Up group next Thursday, we are going to have a postcard swap. People will be grouped into pairs and send each other postcards through the mail. Here are some postcards I’ve made over the years.
I finally found the ombre fabric I wanted for the triangles. I bought 1 and a half yards at Bay quilts of the wrong blue. (i had only seen the color in an email). Then I looked online at the Missouri star Quilt Co. They had several pages of ombre fabric! I bought 3 yard and a half pieces. They said it might take 15 days to get to me because of Covid, but it came much quicker.
This is the beginning of a new quilt, called a lone robin. It’s an idea from my friend, Julia McLeod, who is in charge of the block of the month for the San Francisco Quilters Guild. She couldn’t figure out a way to do block of the month during Covid, without people having to mail quilt blocks back and forth. So, everyone is going to work on their own quilt, with a monthly prompt, from Julia. May’s prompt was curves or circles. So, above is my first block, which hasn’t been sewn together yet. The next rounds can be added as borders, like a traditional round robin, but could also be more improvisational, and just be added to one side, or more than one side.
Now that I’m looking at it on the screen, I’m not so sure about the layout. Maybe it’s better like this, below? I have 4 small rectangular blocks and 4 larger ones to experiment with. They are samples from the last time I taught circular rectangles at Hello Stitch.
Here’s what Julia says about the process, so that I can refer back to it.
Let me introduce you to a new quilting game I like to call the Lone Robin! It’s part progressive quilt, part mystery quilt, and will be a whole lot of fun when we compare quilts at the end of it! We’ll do this for six months: Each month we’ll complete a stage of our quilt, following that month’s instructions. For those of you with traditional tastes, this will likely mean you make a medallion quilt, building the quilt by adding a new round each month. For the rule-bending modern/art quilters you can choose to add any kind of compositional element—one strip, one chunk—that follows that month’s brief. We’ll all be following the same basic recipe because we’ll all add the same components in the same sequence, but there are no rules about color choices, dimensions, or placement. You can choose how much detail you want to put into this quilt. A plain border with one single motif-of-the-month still qualifies! Instructions will be released May through October via our newsletter, E-Blast, and Facebook page. November will be a “catch up” month and December will be the big reveal! Here’s our starting point for the month of May: Your first element must be something that involves curves or a circle. Go for a paper-pieced block, cut your curves free-hand, appliqué something circular, or even feature a face! This first block can be any size or shape. It’s up to you. Have fun, Lone Robins!
Here’s the simplest option, above.
Here’s another simple option.
Now it’s getting complicated. Here are 4 different options. All are ombre fabrics. I only have a yard of each of these fabrics, so there’s probably only enough fabric for 2 triangles from each fabric. This isn’t a good photo of the colors, but at the moment, I’m leaning towards blue.
I decided that this baby quilt needed another color. I was thinking purple or hot pink. Some online quilters in the Lib-quilters suggested gold, to go with the giraffes on the back. I went with a cranberry.
And here’s the back:
But to appreciate this fabric, which my daughter brought back from Taiwan for me, you need a close up:
You might need to click on it to make it larger to really see the giraffes.
I’ve been busy making fabric face masks for the past month. But I’m back to quilting, at least until I finish this baby quilt. This is the top. It’s finished.
Here is the back, but it wasn’t big enough, so I had to add a strip to the top and the bottom.
When I first pulled out fabric for this quilt, i found a fabric that was perfect as far as color, but I decided not to use it, because, even thogh it was supposed to be a flower, it looks too much like a Coronavirus.
I’m working on another quilt that uses this fabric!
I made a new hamsa block for the center. I combined what I liked the best from the 2 other versions. Here it is all sewn together. Now I need to decide what color the 4 triangles will be.
Here are more than 4 options, for the triangles to put it on point.
I’m trying to decide which version of this quilt I like better. If anyone reading this has an opinion, I’d love to hear it! This will be a double bed sized quilt, so it will get much larger. If I went with the top version, I would put it on point, so it would also have a diamond in a square format.
