Saturday, August 25, 2018

Hexified Panel Quilt Workshop Retreat!!!

with teacher Liz Granberg-Jerome 
of Gypsy Dreamer Quilts
Friday-Sunday, November 9-11
118 S. Main St., Spring Hill, Kansas 

Join Liz Granberg-Jerome of Gypsy Dreamer Quilts for a full weekend workshop retreat of creating Hexified Panel/One Block Wonder variation quilts at The Creative Place in Spring Hill, Kansas! Liz, your personal teacher, will be guiding you through the process from start to finish. Get hours of hands-on instruction and support as you create your own beautiful art quilt with your teacher by your side. There will be lots of “teaching moments” throughout the weekend as Liz floats around the room offering advice and assistance as needed. You will work on layering and cutting your panels, sewing units together, and creating your own unique color-flow layout during the free sew hours. 
Download your registration form and send it with your deposit check today to reserve your space!

Check in between 3pm & 5pm on Friday, Nov 9. Check-out on Sunday, Nov 11 at 2pm. Meals provided include a light supper Friday & supper Saturday, brunch Saturday & Sunday. Bring a favorite snack to add to the munchies table for snacking between meals and late into the night. Limited space available so sign up today!

Your personal teacher, Liz Granberg-Jerome, owner of Gypsy Dreamer Quilts, will be guiding you through the process from start to finish. Gain inspiration from her quilts and her instruction throughout the weekend. Liz and her husband Les have made over 30 Hexified Panel Quilt/One Block Wonder variation quilts, two of which were published in One Block Wonders of the World book by Maxine Rosenthal and Linda Bardes, as well as three sample quilts made as guest quilt artist for Timeless Treasures Fabrics.
 
Check in between 3pm & 5pm on Friday, Nov 9. Check-out on Sunday, Nov 11 at 2pm. Meals provided include supper Friday & Saturday, brunch Saturday & Sunday. Bring a favorite snack to add to the munchies table for snacking between meals and late into the night. Limited space available so sign up today!
 

Cost:
Overnighters $225 ($100 deposit) limited to 12.
Commuters/Day-trippers $125 ($50 deposit) limited to 5.
Deposits due by Sept 29; full payment due by October 27.
Cash or check only.
 
The Creative Place has a full kitchen with refrigerator, stove, etc. Please bring items for any special dietary needs you may have. Please also bring your favorite snacks and beverages.

Sleeping arrangements at The Creative Place are dormitory style with twin beds and individual lockers for each overnighter. Bed linens and pillows are provided but feel free to bring your own pillow! Two full baths (walk-in showers) are available (one is fully ADA compliant) and towels (bath, hand, washcloths) are provided with soap and shampoo in each shower. 
 
For more information about and photos of the Creative Place accommodations, be sure to check out their website.

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

New-To-Me Easy Piecing Grid

Who among us saves the triangles trimmed off of flying geese for use in future projects? Do you have them tucked into drawers and in baggies all over your sewing room like me?

Well, on July 4th, while watching various programs on the History Channel and enjoying being inside in the air conditioning, I decided I needed a project for the day and wanted to do something completely different. I found a large number of half-square triangles that I had saved when I made Autumnal Equinox for my guild, using Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery quilt pattern in 2015, as well as a number of random HSTs from other projects. I set to pressing all of the seams open, with plans to make something out of all these little HSTs. 
While we enjoyed a relaxing holiday together, my husband started trimming them down to 1.5" squares as I continue to press. There were two large piles of green & yellow HSTs and green & neutral HSTs.
When I was done pressing, I took several piles and started trimming, too. Before the fireworks were over, we had over 600 half-square triangles trimmed to 1.5" and a large number trimmed even smaller at 1.25" that will be used in some future project. 
My husband had told me about a picnic quilt he had made using a fusible grid as the foundation. Although I'd seen some products like this, I wasn't sure it was for me. He convinced me that I should try it out, so we had purchased some of each size from TenSisters Handicraft with finished block sizes 1", 1.5" and 2". Making something out of all of these scrap HSTs was a perfect time to try out the TenSisters Easy Piecing fusible grid in the 1.5" cut/1" finished size. 
Now I had to come up with some layouts to use up all of those 1.5" HSTs so I could decide for myself whether the easy piecing fusible grid was worth it. I must say I found it excellent and fast! In two afternoons I had laid out five different designs, adding the pink squares to only one of them. Otherwise they were all made up of only HSTs. I did my layout first on a flannel board. Then one row or small section at a time I pressed each piece with Best Press to get them good and flat. Once they were well pressed, I started gluing them to the bumpy side of the fusible grid with a glue stick. By gluing them down first, you can reposition or move them if your design gets messed up in transition from pressing to the grid. Once you've decided you're happy with your design, then you press it to fuse the squares to the interfacing grid.   

The grids are actually slightly larger than the 1.5" unfinished size. This allows you to center the piece in the box and when you fold the rows together to stitch, that little bit of extra interfacing is in the fold and your seams come out perfectly matched up.
Stitch all of the rows together in one direction.
Press all of the rows one direction first and use a little Best Press from the right side to be sure all of your seams are fully pressed over.
Next, clip the interfacing between seams so that each row can then be pressed in opposing directions. This helps them nest together when sewing the long seams in the next stage.
Once the nested seams are sewn, you are ready to give it a final press. What would have taken hours, if not days, of piecing individual 1.5" HSTs together, was done in a matter of hours.
As you can see here, that's a 3.5" square ruler and the blocks did, indeed, come out at just about 1" when all seams were sewn. Every point matches and with very little effort! The grid does all of the hard work for you. 
It's just amazing how many different designs you can come up with using only HSTs! These five mini's are just a sampling of what you can do with waste HSTs and this grid. Next time we will be using the 2" finished as Les has collected fabrics to make another picnic quilt for us to keep. Being a perfectionist when it comes to his quilt piecing, he will definitely be using grid for his foundation. If you have occasion to try it out, definitely check out TenSisters Handicraft online or in your favorite quilt shop.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Friday, May 18, 2018

Quilt Goes to Market Without Me

I've been honored to be asked to make several of my hexified panel quilt One Block Wonder variations for Timeless Treasures Fabrics over the last several months. The first two, In The Garden and Tuscan Poppies, were each featured in January and February of this year on their blog, my blog, and across social media to promote the Reverie and Tuscan Poppies fabric lines designed by Chong-a Hwang. After those were complete and shared, I was asked to make a third sample to be featured at the 2018 International Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon. Despite the fact that life got complicated in the midst of this project, my husband Leslie and I managed to still make the deadline and, indeed, Dancing in the Moonlight is now hanging in Portland!

The request for the third sample came in early February from their new marketing director, Hayden Lees. The skew sheet for Chong-a Hwang's Fly By Night was emailed to me as the fabric I would be using for the next quilt, but told it wouldn't be in from the manufacturer until at least mid-March. We sent Hayden our yardage request, enough to make the quilt including borders and backing, and waited. The deadline was to have it shipped hopefully by May 1 to be photographed before going to market in mid-May; however, there was a little flex there if needed. We finally received our shipment around March 22 and were ready to get started.
Unlike other hexified panel quilts we had made, this one was requested to finish about 80"x80", much larger than we were used to, not to mention square! Les and I put our thinking caps on and went to work. We cut the strips at 2 3/4", which has become our favorite size to get a large number of hexies to work with, as well as to concentrate the color within the units for better designing. We worked together to sew all of the units into two halves, all chain pieced in sets of 12. Once the sewing was done, I spent an evening pressing all of the seams open and pinning the halves together so we could go to the design wall and get started on the layout. 

Because of the overall quilt size we needed to end up with, we used a double repeat of the yardage for the center. Using a nearly square center, it would be easier to build the hexies around and come out with a square quilt when we were done.

Luckily we have two 4'x8' sheets of insulation board covered with batting that are mounted on the wall to be used for designing.
The layout evolved over several days into what felt like two trellises climbing up the sides of the central panel, with the gold dragonfly hexies scattered across the top as though dancing across the midnight sky of hexies.
Even before the layout was complete, we pinned the accompanying fabrics up that would be used for borders to get a feel for where we would be going to reach the final size. The design wall luckily is large enough that we were able to accommodate the entire layout including experimenting with borders along one side.
As we neared the finish of the design process and started sewing the strips together for final assembly in early April, my husband managed to tweak his back and ruptured a disk. Our focus shifted overnight to running to doctor appointments and physical therapy. I continued to work, but lost my drive as I worried about my husband. I was finally ready to pin the layers just before May 1. Suddenly I was so grateful for the flex to ship it directly to Hayden in Portland just before Market and have him take photographs later.
The quilting process started about the same time Les learned he would soon be having surgery. I worked long hours to get it done as quickly as possible so I would be free mentally to be there for Les when he went in for major back surgery. In reality, I didn't finish quilting until after he returned home from his 5-day stay in the hospital. While he slept, I quilted, knowing the deadline to ship was fast approaching. 
I worked with a new design that hopefully would better fill each triangle of the hexies, thereby balancing the overall quilting with whatever I would put in the central panel. The experiment worked for the most part; although, I still had some serious waves when I laid the finished quilt on the floor to check it. The pebbles and outlining of the individual dragonflies in gold were still too much to balance and create a flat, square quilt without blocking.
As a final process, I stitched an overlock stitch on my sewing machine all the way around, put the quilt in the washer for a rinse and spin, and pinned the damp quilt to the design wall. With Les's help holding the T-square, I used blue painters tape to outline the quilt on three sides. Lots of pins later, we let it dry overnight and then I spent the day binding, looking at the clock every 30 minutes and wondering if I would make the deadline.
Before sending Dancing in the Moonlight off to Portland, I took one more picture of the completed quilt for my records, boxed it up, and headed to the FedEx office in Lawrence. It, indeed, arrived as requested in time to hang before Market started. Whew! I truly didn't know what to expect when we dove into this project, but am completely satisfied that, together, we did something amazing once again. The unexpected life event that threw us off has been resolved. Les is now recuperating from his back surgery and is back to his sewing machine a little each day. We are taking a short breather before diving into our next project. Many thanks to Timeless Treasures for trusting us to come up with a sample worthy of hanging at Quilt Market this year!

More snippets from the sewing room soon...
Liz

Fraternal ties extend to quilting!

The past several years, I have been blessed to be asked to help make very special quilts for the state officers in the Kansas Order of the Eastern Star. Several of the Past Grand Matrons who are in charge of making the quilts for the incoming Worthy Grand Matron and Worthy Grand Patron each year are quilters, and some are not. I've worked in tandem with the quilters, helping with assembly as well as quilting, and have made an entire quilt for a non-quilter. Each project has been so special and seeing the recipients with their quilts is quite a thrill knowing I had some small (or not so small) part in making their gifts.
My journey with these wonderful gifted quilts began in 2014 when I made 20 personalized mini-quilts for the grand officers to be gifted by then-Worthy Grand Matron Donna Fagg. She and I worked back and forth to get the colors right; make sure the names, offices, and escorts were all correct; and come up with a finished design that met with her vision. It was somewhat of a challenge as these were made of silk, shantung, and cotton. I used a pinking blade in my rotary cutter to reduce fraying and produced what felt like pounds of silk "dust" that was everywhere in my sewing room. In the end they were wonderful and so gratefully received by each officer.

Later that same year, I was asked by the officers to make signature quilts for WGM Donna and WGP Mike. Two identical quilts, each with blocks signed by all of the officers, were made and gifted at their Christmas party.

In late 2016, I was asked to make quilted wall hangings for the new WGM Susan and WGP Pete to be presented at their Christmas party. These were, again, customized to represent each of their themes and emblems for their year in office.

For the incoming 2017-2018 Worthy Grand Matron Wanda Ryan, I was blessed to be able to help with the making of her special quilt as well as quilting it. Past Grand Matron Pam Abel pieced all of the snowflakes, while I pieced the central Eastern Star emblem, using Wanda's father's neckties for the colored star points. Wanda's father had recently passed away and PGM Pam and Wanda's family thought using the ties would be a wonderful memorial to be included in her quilt. 
After the quilt was assembled and bordered, I got it back and quilted it using lots of ruler work to make the secondary design of stars in the quilting itself. I was able to be at Wanda's reception to see her receive this special quilt.

The current 2018-2019 Worthy Grand Matron Mary Hayselden and Worthy Grand Patron Steve Boyer received their special quilts just in the last few weeks. I quilted WGM Mary's Hawaiian applique that was hand appliqued and made by PGM Pam Abel.

I was asked by PGM Susan McGinnis if I would be willing to make WGP Steve's quilt since she is not a quilter. I chose the Two-Fabric Bargello pattern, added just a touch of purple as a third fabric to highlight one of his colors for the year, and worked with a black-to-silver ombre and a coordinating Effervesance fabric. The overall look of the finished quilt reminds me of a sound wave that I felt suited his interests in music and radio, and had it quilted by my friend Sandra Morgan Cockrum with flames that tie into his love of Harley's.

In future years I have no idea whether I'll be honored with the opportunity to help on these special quilts again; however, if asked I will definitely say yes! Eastern Star has been part of my life for over 40 years and I love being involved both in my local chapter, as well as helping at the state level with such special projects.

More snippets from the sewing room soon...
Liz

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Rulerwork on a Sit-Down Quilter--Beadboard or Piano Keys

Recently I have seen several videos showing how to stitch piano key or beadboard borders while quilts are loaded on longarms. Their tips are good, but don't always translate to sit-down quilters like the HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen and similar machines. I happened to be quilting just such a border this week and had my husband shoot some photos for me so I could share my experience. We also shot a short video, but I'm not much of a techie in the way of adding videos to blog posts, so that is posted separately to my Facebook page at facebook.com/gypsydreamerquilts

The first time I quilted piano keys on a border a couple of years ago, I didn't know nearly what I do now. I was just beginning to experiment with ruler quilting on my HQ Sweet16. I was adding the piano keys outside a feathered border, filling the space between the feathers and the edge of the quilt, but only used the edge of the feathers and the edge of the border as guides. I believe I used the lines etched in my ruler as guides, but nothing to help me stay square with the quilt itself. My lines often leaned one way or the other, sometimes quite obviously. I entered that quilt in a county fair and remember the judge commenting that the piano key lines needed to stay straight. Lesson learned.

Since then, I have added piano keys or beadboard to several quilt borders of my own and to customer quilts with great success. Although I had quilted both, I learned only recently the difference: Piano Key are single lines spaced evenly like the keys on a piano. Beadboard are double lines placed close together (mine are 1/4" apart) and the doubles spaced about an inch apart, similar to beadboard panels used in construction. The quilt pictured below had several smaller borders and a larger outer border. I treated each inner border separately and then quilted the beadboard in the final outer border.
This quilt had a double outer border that I treated as one with beadboard quilted from the black inner border to the edge of the quilt. 
I find what helps me stay straight is working with a long enough ruler so I don't have to move it while stitching the straight line across the border, and using various tape lines to line up my ruler with the quilt and adjacent lines. The HandiGadget 12" HQ Straight Edge Ruler is my favorite for quilting borders. Also, using the Sure Foot for my HQSS is important as the ring is taller making it more difficult for rulers to slip under the ruler and cause problems.
On the most recent project, I placed a strip of blue painter's tape across the ruler to line up with the edge of the border I would be quilting, and a piece of quilter's glow-line tape the length of the ruler at the interval I wanted to maintain between the lines.
By using these guides and placing my hands on either end of the ruler, I was able to stay straight, even after turning corners and finally coming to the point where I started. My spacing was close enough without pre-planning or measuring the layout along the border that I had only about 3/8" to absorb between rows, adding 1/8" at a time every other line. When complete, that little bit of adjustment, spreading the lines out an extra 1/8", was not noticeable, and all lines remained straight and square to the quilt & border.
At the corners, I drew and later stitched a diagonal line from the quilt corner before the border to the outside corner of the quilt, as if it were mitered. As I quilted the double lines down the border towards the corner, I used that line as my guide to stop go back to the border along that line, and then meet those same lines after turning the corner. The effect turns out quite well!
Quilting piano keys or beadboard in borders is a great way to finish off a quilt! It can also help absorb any fullness in an outer border as you quilt. Use guides to help you stay square to the quilt and you, too, can have great results with this easy ruler work finish.
More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Thursday, February 1, 2018

A Different Look for a Hexified Panel sample for Timeless Treasures



What to do with another fabulous set of panels from TimelessTreasures? Create another hexified panel quilt, my twist on the original One Block Wonder technique, of course! This new adventure began when two of my quilts including my Poppy Explosion, a quilt made with one of Timeless Treasures' fabrics, appeared in One Block Wonders of the World. I was first approached by Joy at Timeless Treasures in late October 2017, soon after the book's release, and asked if I would make two hexified panel quilts for them to be featured on their blog and in social media. Of course I agreed! From the options they sent me, I selected two different panels, both designed by Chong-a Hwang, one of my all time favorite fabric designers. In The Garden, made with the Reverie line, was completed by Christmas and was featured on their January 8 blog post. Quilt #2 was scheduled to go live on my blog by the first week of February, so on January 3, I dove in fresh as I pulled out the next set of panels, Chong-a Hwang’s Tuscan Poppies, and started cutting. Oh my goodness!!!


I went through the same process of layering the panels, cutting strips, and sub-cutting 60 degree triangles as described in the January 8 blog post for In The Garden. On this full width of fabric panel, I again cut the six panels in half near the fold, so I would have two sets of six layers approximately 22"x24". I placed a pin through the point of the same leaf shown below on each of the six layers near the selvedge end, and in a similar spot near the cut end of the first set of six layers, so all of my strips would be as perfectly aligned as I could get them in order to make great hexies. I repeated the same process on the other half of the panel layers.


Once lined up, each set of six layers was trimmed on one edge, and then strips cut at 2.75”. I prefer this strip width because it makes the finished hexies small enough to focus the color from the print, as well as create a large number of hexies to play with in the color flow layout. This particular panel yielded 192 sets of six triangles or a total of 1152 individual triangles! Because we had a deadline by which to complete this quilt, my husband, Leslie, also an amazing quilter, worked with me in tandem to get the units made. We each cut strips and triangle sets to speed up the process.

The hexies were stacked in sets of six layers as they were cut, alternating direction, so they would be easy to grab as we began the process of auditioning layouts and sewing the half hexies in sets of three triangles each.

As always, we auditioned the 3 layout options for each of the 192 sets of triangles that would become hexie units. Picking which layout option to use as the final look when sewing the units together can be time consuming. A variety of things are taken into consideration when we pick a layout. In this case, the block on the left would read black/dark with the dark star center; whereas, the block on the right would read red with a flower center. We try to keep in mind what decisions we made previously and create the units with enough variety that there aren’t too many of any one type of design. More variation makes for a more dynamic layout in the end.

The sewing was, once again, all done on our Singer Featherweights. Glennie-Marie, my 1936 Singer Featherweight, has the best stitch quality of any of my machines and just purrs! Les's Featherweight, Ms. Lacey, is named after his granddaughter whom he learned to quilt for and is his go-to machine for piecing. We both use a stitching guide set 1/4" away from the needle so all of our seams will be uniform. My preferred guide is a narrow strip of Dr. Scholl's mole foam pad stuck down to my machine. The mole foam pad (found in the foot care department of your local pharmacy) is about 1/8" thick, so provides a raised guide to run your fabric pieces up against as you stitch the seams.

Once all of the half-hexies were made and halves pinned together, I put the single uncut panel up on the design wall and started building the structure of the frame around the panel. I place all of the hexies with the centers aligned vertically so they will line up next to each other in horizontal rows, and nest alternately in vertical rows. This makes pinning and sewing the long vertical columns of half-hexies together much easier in the assembly process.
Once the frame is complete, then I begin placing all of the hexies around the panel without doing too much in the way of organization. I just want to see everything I have to work with. The notched edges around the panel will eventually be filled in with half-hexies to make the inner rows straight. Also, halves will be removed on the outside rows to make the outer edges straight before finishing. This is done after the layout is complete and I’m done moving hexies around to improve the color flow.

Now it’s time to really play and begin shuffling the hexies to create a dynamic layout. As I started moving units around, I found that I was coming up with a design very similar to In The Garden with her angular lines. I wasn’t really happy with it becoming a different version of the same layout, but wasn't sure what I wanted it to look like. 
Les agreed it was too similar and had definite ideas of how to change it. He is a retired ceramic tile installer, so he visualizes mosaics in ways I can't even imagine. Before he started shuffling hexies, he asked me maybe twice or three times, “You’re sure it’s okay. I’m going to tear it apart. You’re sure.” Apparently I’m not as accepting of his critiques as I thought I was. 😊 I agreed, trusting him to come up with something unique and amazing. I watched him begin his design process, moving hexies around to create a more fluid color flow. After shooting just one picture of the transformation into softer, flowing lines, I left the room so he could work in peace. 

When I returned a couple of hours later, it was completely different and utterly amazing! Together we looked, snapped a picture, worked more, snapped again. Moving one hexie at a time until we finally were satisfied with the layout and called it complete.

Once the layout was done, the stitching began. Long columns were sewn, then those rows were sewn together into sections, as well as the short sections above and below the panel. Here one of the stitched sections is being pressed before going back on the design wall. All units are pressed with BestPress starch alternative throughout the assembly process--first as half-hexies, then in individual rows, and finally in sections, in order to give the top good structure so the many bias edges won’t stretch.

Here you see each of the sections sewn together except for the final two columns on the right side. Once that section is complete, the next step will be to trim the zig-zag edges off of the bottom of the top section and the top of the bottom section, and then attach them to the top and bottom of the panel. The top section is typically stitched onto the panel first. Before stitching the bottom section on, the center section is put back on the design wall where the adjoining hexies are lined up between the center and two outside sections, both at the top and at the bottom. Once the matching half-hexies are lined up, the bottom section is marked for cutting 1/2" above the bottom of the panel, which allows for the two 1/4" seam allowances when sewn together. When the bottom section is stitched on and pressed well, the completed center section goes back on the design wall to confirm all of the matching parts fit properly before sewing the long seams to complete the top. Matching half-hexies above and below the panel are pinned together first to assure all of the hexies will be complete, and then the panel is pinned to the remaining hexies on the side sections.
Once the entire top is together, a 3.5” black border was added to frame the entire top. This quilt did not get the flange frame around the panel that we have used on previous quilts.

Now it was time to pin the layers and begin the quilting process. The quilting would be done by me on my HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen sit-down machine. Since no frame is involved, all of the projects I quilt are pinned. The quilt is moved under the needle to create the quilting motifs.
This quilt called for something completely different in the way of quilting. On my previous hexified panel quilts, I have quilted orange peel/gentle curves in the hexies themselves, and thread painted the central panels. Because Les created a dynamic layout that blended the panel with the hexies so seamlessly, we decided not to add a flange delineating the panel from the hexies. The quilting would need to blend the panel in with the hexies, working with the softer and more flowing layout design. After some experimenting with an 18" square of plexiglass laid over the quilt top that we could draw on with dry-erase pens to audition quilting designs, we decided the green and black flows would have swirls, and the flower cluster hexies would have rippled petals with star centers. Across the top in the sunset section, swirls were quilted across the panel and hexies, blending two colors of thread that shifted in color across the area so the colors blended and complimented the color flow in the quilt top. Being a busy top, showing the difference in the quilting designs on the poppies and leaves from the back shows better the direction I was going.
I drew from my growing collection of polyester quilting and machine embroidery threads for this project in order to get all of the colors in that I wanted. Included were 8 shades of red/orange/yellow and 3 shades of green selected from Glide, Floriani, and Madiera threads. As I was quilting the swirls across the sunset with two threads through the eye of the needle at a time, I found after I was done that in several places one thread had "slipped" and created a small thread nest on the back. Rather than rip them out and risk breaking up the flow of the swirls, I decided to leave them and consider them part of the character of this particular quilt. Not every thread or combination of threads will work perfectly. My tension was good, so I was satisfied with the results despite these little glitches. 
On the panel, all of the flowers, stems, and leaves were outlined in matching colors, and the black background was quilted with black 100 wt Invisafil thread with a small stipple.

Finally, texture and accents were added to the flowers in two colors of red to add depth and dimension to the poppies.
To finish, we decided to add a flange to the binding. I stay-stitched the quilt layers together around the outside of the black border, and then marked a chalk line about 3/8” in from the edge. I used this line as a guide when stitching the double wishbone motif in dark green thread around the black border. When the binding was sewn on and hand stitched to the back, the front binding and flange were placed perfectly to still expose the entire of the border quilting.

It was finally time to put the finished quilt up on the design wall to see the finished product! To say we are pleased is an understatement. When I first chose the Tuscan Poppies to be one of the two sets of panels I would make as samples for Timeless Treasures, Les was truly not so sure about this panel. He just couldn’t visualize it initially. However, giving him the opportunity to create a beautiful flowing design, it has now become one of his favorites!

Despite it being a cloudy day when we finished, we went out to the Baker University’s Lister Stadium in Baldwin City, Kansas, to take some pictures. Built in the mid-1930s by young men who worked in exchange for university tuition, the stadium features beautiful rough hewn stone walls surrounding the entire stadium area. A sunny day would have given us better results, but we are still pleased with the way the quilt looks against the stone walls of the stadium.

We waited a couple of days for the sun to shine again, and were rewarded with gorgeous color and texture on these close up pictures of the quilting. You can really see the thread painting on the floral panel, as well as the swirls and rippled petals quilted in the hexies.


Seeing the texture of the quilting from the back gives you a true sense of the level of thread-painting done to enhance the panel, while still blending in with the surrounding hexies. 
This final picture is a closer detailed view of the bottom half of the quilt showing the color flow with quilting, the double wishbone border quilting, and the two-tone flanged binding.



A final note. One of the interesting things about making a hexified panel quilt or any variation of the One Block Wonder technique is that not every hexie gets used. The layout may be such that there is an uneven number of hexies and using them all won't make complete rows. Other times, a few hexies might not blend color-wise and get left out, or there may be too much of one color to make a balanced design. Sometimes just a handful remain, yet others a large number are not used.  When the design of Tuscan Poppies was complete, 38 hexies and 10 orphan halves were left over. These are being saved and a future project is already being planned that will be shared soon.

My sincere thanks go out to Timeless Treasures Fabrics once again for inviting me to be a featured quilt artist on their blog! Being able to create such amazing works of art and share them with the quilting world is a true blessing.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz