"Curiouser and curiouser" is finished

"Curiouser and curiouser" is finished.  I finished hand quilting it Tuesday night and put the binding and rod pocket on yesterday.  The photo above shows a detail of the quilting on the final border.  I didn't mark anything--just did roughly parallel lines in the body of the quilt and then followed the printed design of the final border.  This is my favorite kind of quilting.  This quilt and "Mérida Remix" will be entered in the Piedmont Quilters Guild Show in October.  More on that when it's closer to the show.

Our first teachers' meeting is tomorrow.  The librarians all meet on Monday and then Wednesday, the students arrive.  It's been a full summer, but I'm sure going to miss my time in the studio.  Posts will be fewer and farther between again, but I promise to stay connected.  Happy school year to those of you so involved.

Pruning my fabric stash for a good cause

A large portion of this last weekend was spent cleaning out and reorganizing all the stuff in the closet of Safety Pin Studio.  Now that the studio is clean and neat, the state of the closet started eating away at me.  When we moved in, I was more concerned with getting things put away and didn't always pay enough attention to where things were kept nor to how accessible they were.  I've now got all the supplies I need for stamping under the work table.  Sewing and drawing supplies are stored together in the closet and are easily accessible.  I also got some no-skid shelf liner to put under the ironing board and now it doesn't move around on the work table.   There is more floor space around the work table and I have begun to prune my fabric stash.

With the Piedmont Quilters Guild show coming up in October, I decided that one of the ways I can help is by cutting fat quarters and making charm square packs for the boutique from my fabric stash.  Many of the canvas boxes will not close because there is just too much fabric inside.
I did a little investigating online and found that most charm square packs have 30 pieces of fabric in them--either all unique or a small variety with duplications.  Since most charm  squares are pinked, it was also an opportunity to use my pinking rotary cutter.

Here's the pinking blade and what it does.

First I pull out thirty different fabrics from each color bin.  You will remember that I have a great deal of orange because of Alexis' wedding bento box quilt.

In addition to cutting charm squares, I also cut a certain number of fat quarters.

Once I've got thirty squares cut, I make a wrapper for them and then I'm on to another color.

The newly pruned orange bin is not only neat, but will now close.

Blue Bento Box Finished

My quilting friend, Linda got the blue bento box quilt machine quilted and I sewed the bias binding on before I left for Charlotte on Wednesday. During my free time in the hotel, I managed to get the binding sewn down. This Thursday at the Piedmont Quilters' Guild meeting, we will share the other quilts that were completed after Make a Difference Day.

Pictures are uploaded, but I'm still working on the post about the American Association of School Librarians meeting in Charlotte. More soon.

Make a Difference Day

Here are some photos from Piedmont Quilters' Guild's Make a Difference Day. In our room, we made quilts for Project Linus. Most people were making the bento box pattern, but a few made the traditional big square Linus quilts.



This is Linda who really revolutionized the entire process by discovering a strip piecing technique online that really sped up the construction process. I still like the scrappier construction method I started with, but for our purposes last week, the speed method was terrific. Thanks, Linda!



Lucille worked on the red bag of scraps that I provided.



The yellow quilt was a tough design problem because it was harder to find light and dark contrasts.



Susie started on the green bag.



Several people brought tops already constructed, so we had a table for pin basting. Two of the quilters have longarm machines at home and they took many quilts home to machine quilt.



Major string piecing going on here with the big block traditional Linus quilt construction.



When Lucille had to leave, we snagged a quilter from one of the other projects to finish the red quilt. I finished the blue quilt and it went home with one of the machine quilters. I have the binding, so I should be able to get a photo of it before it goes back to the guild for donation.

The Girl Scout Learning Center was a spectacular place to work: tons of great task lighting as well as lovely big windows, nice tables, comfy chairs, and, of course, the gorgeous setting in the woods. Among our volunteers were several Girl Scouts, their moms, and siblings. Thanks to the Carolina Peaks to Piedmont Council for the use of the hall.

Working with the Girl Scouts

USPS Commemorative stamp of Juliette Low issued October 29, 1948

As I posted earlier, I've been volunteering with the Girl Scouts and last Tuesday was the third session. I've been taking some photos of the progress the girls are making on their quilt. They are working on the journey called "In the Pink" about breast cancer awareness. We made fused pink ribbon blocks and then they pieced pink ribbon blocks. The center of the quilt is a portrait of Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, who was a victim of breast cancer. Gerry, Mary Jo, and Anne from Piedmont Quilters assisted us as did Andrea and Charlotte from the Girl Scout organization.



One of the scouts pressing her block.



Gerry and Andrea finished piecing a block for one of the scouts who was absent on the second night.



Anne helping one of the scouts chain piecing her pink ribbon block.



Mary Jo helps one of the scouts with her pressing.



Gerry gives one of the scouts some pointers on chain piecing.




Andrea putting the unfinished blocks in bags for the next time.



Mary Jo working on squaring up the border blocks.



Gerry working on the border blocks.



Everyone signed the back which was composed of several donated breast cancer awareness fabrics.



The Girl Scouts working on the portrait.



One of our scouts had some good art class experience and mixed colors for the portrait.



Nearly finished with the portrait.



Gerry piecing the border blocks.



Mary Jo piecing border blocks.



Charlotte was kind enough to take this photo of most of the gang.

Mary Jo, Gerry and I are going to the girls scout meeting in November to show them sandwiching and basting of the quilt. It will hang at the Peaks to Piedmont administrative offices at Magnolia Manor for a time, then hopefully move around to women's hospitals. I had a wonderful time working with these girls and their leaders and look forward to doing more teaching with the scouts.

A little vent and preparing for Make a Difference Day

Well, our Thursday night Piedmont Quilters Guild meeting was supposed to be spent preparing for Make a Difference Day (MADD), but because so many other projects have been loaded into this day, nothing really got accomplished. The MADD organizers know what they are doing. They tell you to work on one project so that you can get it finished. I mentioned this several times and was ignored. Well, I tried. Consequently, I spent all of yesterday and half of today doing the preparation work. I have made a sample block for each of the colors, I've cut the backing fabric and a 22 inch square for each of the bias bindings we will need. Most of the fabric is in two and a half inch strips already.



Here's the orange block. The multicolored flower fabric is a little much, but I wanted to use the donated fabrics.



Here's the yellow one. With larger scale designs, you have to fussy cut the fabric or it just looks like nothing. That's what I did with the Care Bears fabric.



I fussy cut the fish fabric and the large scale design with the nice light background actually worked pretty well.



I love the red block. The frog fabric worked great.



The flower fabric in the green block worked well because I kept the direction going the same way.



The pink blocks are all sewn together and ready to be sandwiched and quilted. You can see the whole top in this post. I did demonstrate making bias binding at the guild meeting for a small group of people, so that's also ready to go.



Everything is in a bag and ready to travel to the Girl Scout Learning Center on October 24th. Wish me luck.

Workshop for Make a Difference Day

Here's a finished bento box baby quilt top. Tomorrow night at the Piedmont Quilters Guild is our preparation workshop for Make A Difference Day. Making the quilts with nine blocks means that we don't have to bother with borders. They will be 36 inches square which is a good size for a baby quilt. I'm going to demonstrate making bias binding as well as composing the blocks. I have three blue blocks that I'll be working with tomorrow night. Hopefully, we will have another top by the end of the evening. I have really missed my design wall doing these blocks.

"In the Pink": Quilting with the Girl Scouts

Image from Girl Scouts of the United States of America

Thanks to some great online resources, I have worked up three samples and gathered the materials for the first of my sessions with the Girl Scouts this week. They are working on a "journey" (badge from the old days) called "In the Pink" in which they educate themselves about the causes, detection, treatment, and prevention of breast cancer. They will all have gone to an information session before I see them where they will learn (among lots of other things) that the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low, died of breast cancer in 1927. She is the inspiration for the quilt we are going to create.

I'm planning on showing them Susie Shie's work to spur their creativity. I'm hoping we can do a drawing of Juliette Low as the center piece, paint it, and then the girls can write some of the things they found meaningful in the background of this drawing. We will use the pink ribbon blocks to border the drawing.



This is the first ribbon block. I used the Wikipedia template for the ribbon. The ribbon is three sections fused to the block with Wonderunder.



This is a pieced block that just uses blocks and half-square triangles. Designed by Lesley Brankin, it is found at the My Quilt Patch site. I'm planning to show the girls chain piecing to put it together.



This paper pieced or foundation block from the about.com site may be too tough so I'm going to wait to see what kind of sewing skills the girls have before I bring this one out.

October is turning out to be my month of service. Besides the three sessions with the Girl Scouts, I'm also working on Make a Difference Day with the Piedmont Quilt Guild.

Phone Ripley! She's back in the studio.

For the first time in recent memory, I've actually spent most of the day in Safety Pin Studio. After fixing the hem on a pair of Jim's pants, I did a quick straightening up and went to work making more bento box blocks for the black, white, and yellow quilt that will be a Christmas present.



I love finding the light and dark fabric combinations to make these blocks. And I find it so satisfying to use so many scrap fabrics that I've had around for years and years.

I'm hoping to get this one ready to sandwich and pin baste by the end of the weekend. Next weekend will have to be devoted to pink and blue blocks so I can get two baby quilt tops ready for Make a Difference Day (MaDD). At our October Piedmont Quilters' Guild meeting, we are going to do some prep work for MaDD so that all the various stations (sewing, ironing, basting, binding, sandwiching, machine quilting) will have work at the beginning of the day.

In the benchmark area, this is my 200th post!

What's happening this week in Safety Pin Studio

Aside from a little cooking and cleaning, I spent most of the weekend in the studio which was very good for my soul. On the OP Challenge front, I'm getting ready to finish the back of the "Mérida Remix" piece: the label is printed, and the bias tape is made. I just have to print out the scanned pictures and then all my materials will be ready. I'm anxious to compose the back. Pat Sloan is apparently going to be doing a block this coming weekend during the virtual retreat, so I may encorporate one of her blocks into the back.


When I taught the crazy piecing workshop for the Piedmont Quilter's Guild several weeks ago at Randy's Quilt Shop, I used two demonstration pieces. This apron was my finished piece to demo embroidery and embellishment. (I won't show the crazy piecing demo piece yet because it's going to be a birthday present for one of our nieces.) I found the Soul Food t-shirt at Goodwill, cut out the design, and Wonderundered (I'm not really sure if that's a legitimate verb or not!) it to the muslin base, then crazy pieced around it. Crazy piecing something like an apron that's long and not so wide means that you sometimes end up long strips at the bottom. I like to cut that up visually by making strips with several fabrics and then sewing and flipping them.

The other thing I did this weekend was to get the new baby quilt pieced. I took a ton of pictures and I'll get those posted in the next few days.

Crazy Piecing and Embroidery Workshop

Yesterday was my crazy piecing and embroidery workshop. A small band of brave participants showed up and worked on vests or aprons. I brought several vests I've made as well as two small wall pieces.


The black and white is called "Morning Pages" and the red one is called "Te Amo Mucho". Both were in my last one woman show at Crawfordsville District Public Library. I really enjoy crazy piecing and learned lots from Judith Montano's books. My technique developed over the years and I added some beading and other embellishments along the way.