12 x 12 show opening party on 12/3 from 1-4

2017 12x12 Bay Quilts emailCome join me and 25 other artists for this year’s 12 x 12 show. We have been meeting once a month for a year. Each month I make a 12″ x 12″ quilt. Not everyone is doing quilts. There are mosaics, and other media as well. I hope to see you there!

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More wonky log cabins

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Here are three wonky log cabin blocks in some of my favorite fabrics. I made them in an EBHQ workshop. They are quite free form, and also not square. I also didn’t keep track of the usual order of adding each in a continuous spiral. I did put an orange-red block in the center. This pays homage to the tradition of putting a red square in the center of log cabin blocks to symbolize the hearth of the actual log cabins. I’m very happy with how these turned out. As my daughters would say, they are “me-ish.”

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Mini Maker Faire in Oakland

I had so much fun on Sunday! I was at the Mini Maker Faire with EBHQ , teaching kids and adults how to make “nine-patches”. All of the nine-patches will be made into quilts that will be donated to people who lost their homes in the fires up in Santa Rosa. Most of the young folks I taught not only had never used a sewing machine before, they had never used an iron either.

I don’t have any photos of our quilts but I do have photos of other parts of the fair. Here are some creatures made from gloves, called Glovetopus.

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Looking at two wonky log cabin blocks

wonky log cabinHere we have two wonky log cabin blocks, one which I like, and the other I really don’t. The upper one is the one that disturbs me. I made it a couple years ago.  I look at it and think I was trying too hard to be wonky when I made it. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t like the way the last border of magenta frames it? The lower log cabin feels more successful to me, but I’m having trouble articulating why.

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Leave me a comment if you can figure out what’s off about the upper one.

This second one is the one I made following Cindy Griselda’s instructions, from the video promoting her book, Artful Improv. See my post from September 19th for the link.

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Another Sujata inspired block

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Here is a block from Sujata Shah’s book, Cultural Fusion Quilts. Her process for making it is not what I expected it to be from looking at the finished quilt. She takes a stack of four 7″ squares of fabric, and stacks them dark, light, dark, light- or blue, red, blue, red. In mine I’m treating red and yellow as if they are the same color, since both are light. She then cuts off the corner triangle from all four sides, kind of like making a snowball block. Then she moves the top corners to the bottom of each stack, and sews red triangles to the blue squares and blue triangles to the red squares. This makes a wonky snowball block, which is squared up and cut in half both horizontally and vertically, to make four smaller squares, each with a small or large triangle of the other color. Then you sew all 16 squares together, and you get a “wave” block like the one I pieced above. I really like how the colors shift across the block.

Now that I’ve made it, I don’t actually have any plans for it. It will probably go into my M.O.E.S. box. M.O.E.S. stands for mistakes, orphans, extras and samples. When I need a quick present for someone, I go to the M.O.E.S. box and turn something in there into a quick pillow, potholder or small quilt.

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A lovely time was had by all.

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Here I am with my new friend June, at Quilting in the Garden in Livermore.

I am now the co- workshop coordinator for EBHQ. I was worried that Sujata Shah’s workshops might be canceled because there weren’t enough people signed up. I sent an email to the Lib-Quilters, (an online quilt group I’ve been part of for years), that offered anyone in driving distance a place to stay for the weekend if they signed up for Sujata’s workshops. June was the only one to take me up on my offer. We had a wonderful weekend together. We have corresponded in the past, but this was the first time we ever met in person.

In 2012 I wrote 300 words about why I love the Lib-Quilters for Quilters Newsletter Magazine. It’s on my blog on the “publications” page.

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Blocks from Sujata Shah’s class

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I had a lovely 2 days, learning free form blocks with Sujata Shah. We made her hourglass blocks, lattice blocks, endless mountains, and crossroads blocks. The blocks on the bottom left are a mistake that I salvaged by adding a piece of grey fabric to one side. ( Sujata suggested that I add fabric to it. The grey was my idea). The blue and yellow zigzag is what Sujata calls endless mountains, but placed sideways. The second day we spent the whole day making crossroads blocks.

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Above are are the crossroads blocks. They look like wonky flowers to me.

 

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Wonky log cabin

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I found a really well made tutorial for wonky log cabin blocks. It’s called Artful Improv Demo with Cindy Grisdela. It’s a promo for her book, which is also called Artful Improv. Here’s my block, made following her directions. Hers was made entirely with solid colors. I decided to go with a combination of solids and prints. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this block. I just wanted to try one while the directions were fresh in my brain.

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Stenciled bag

I found an old canvas bag, and stenciled both sides.

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The hamsa stencil was made from the freezer paper left over from designing a 12 x 12 hamsa. The mandala was a raizelech or snowflake, also cut out of freezer paper. I stenciled each color carefully, one after the other. The leaves are some of April Sproule’s stencils.

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Video of me!

Here’s a brand new video of me teaching you how to make a paper-cut hamsa. https://www.bimbam.com/paper-cutting-hamsa/ There are two more videos coming soon.

 

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