Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin REVEAL DAY! (7/24/2013)

Hi hi!  How are you?  I am busy!  It has consistently been in the 80s-90s here and that is just TOO HOT for me to be in my sewing room.  So, I've been working in the yard, playing at the coast and getting some good time in with my girls.  Mom came up for another visit - that was fun too!

Enough about all those things, I'll post about them in a day or so.  Today, you are here for the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin Reveal Day!  First, a big Big BIG THANK  YOU to Michele of Quilts From My Crayon Box for hosting the MMMRR for 2013.  I saw that I missed it last year and was very intrigued.  I participated in the Quilt U Be Mine Round Robin she hosted and had a blast, but I almost overdid myself, I did two spots - AGHHHHHH!  I was just going to sit out and drool over this round but Michele asked if I would like to participate and that was the kicker, I was in!

There were 6 of us in each group, at least one international participant.  I shared my round with these lovely ladies:

Diane

Kim

Bea

Ann

Laurel

All five of these lovelies sent me awesome pieces to work on and I hope I did them justice.  I did try to keep the "modern" part of the MMMRR with what I did, one of the blocks I just did plain borders with a flange, I was totally stumped as to where to go with it.  For some reason I didn't take ANY pictures of what I did to Laurel's block which is a bummer because I really enjoyed working on it.  Here is what I did (outer border of each - minus Laurel's block).

Upper Left - Ann's was free-form applique; Upper Right - Bea's was just straight up lines;
Lower Left - Diane's was from a pattern called "London Tube"; Lower Right - Kim's was a fun butterfly print and flange

When I sent my block off I asked the ladies of the group to keep it with the browns and gold tones.  And they did!  I was inspired by the pictures I saw over at Fabric Mutt, you can see the original explanation here.  Here is what I sent off to the group.

Fun huh?  I love, love, love that giraffe print in the middle.  Well, what I got back was even more fun - these 5 ladies are amazing.  AH-MAY-ZING (Zing Bot couldn't say it better BB fans!)  Check it out.  The is the first 4 rounds, my center block and the magic they swirled around it. 

Trust me, what you're gonna see next will knock your socks off.  Here are some close ups of the fifth round - appliqued Masai and goats. 

  

Totally pulls that giraffe print into an African theme and POW.  Right?  Right?  Finally, here is the finished piece, the final round pulling everything in and making it nice and tidy - just my style :o)

I love this piece!  I got it the first week of June and it has been hanging on my bedroom wall ever since, every time I walk by it I smile.  I still haven't figured out how to quilt it.  I'll definitely do it on the longarm, I think I prefer it over FMQ on my Juki.  Any ideas?  I know I want to mimic the patterns in African print fabrics - geometrics and lots of repeats. Back onto the bedroom wall with it!

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to make sure and visit the others linking up with Michele for the MMMRR Reveal Day!

Here is some Molly love.

woof woof meow

MMMRR Round 2 Sneak Peek (3/28/2013)

Hi all!  Sorry for the long time between posts - things have been crazy here and my head hasn't been in the game (or on my shoulders sometimes) for the past few weeks.  I did find some time to get into my sewing room though and cranked out the borders for my Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin group.  I had fun doing them!  The first border was super stretchy so I needed something to stabilize it so I went with the strips to help keep it from changing shape everytime I looked at it.  I think the design mirrors the middle block a little and like I said, I had fun designing and sewing them up.

Now its off to the next person and I am awaiting the arrival of my next round.

Here's a little Sandy Annie love.

woof woof meow!

FNSI and Modern Mini Mystery Peek (2/25/2013)

Hi hi!

Last Friday Josh was in Portland so I signed up for FNSI at Handmade by Heidi and set to work!  I didn't get anything finished, but I did finish cutting a project, almost finished another (needed more fabric) and started designing my MMMRR border.

I finished cutting up Baby Jackson's fabric (and I am still drooling over it)

I started cutting up the fabric for the Costa Maya quilt, but ran out of one of the fabrics so I had to order more.  Luckily I found some, Children at Play by Sarah Jane came out in 2011 and the flannel was even harder to find.  But - Aspen Fabrics had a yard left and I snatched it up!

Then, I started designing the borders for my first round of the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin going on with Quilts From My Crayon Box.  I finished it tonight, so here are some photos.

Just photos, I don't want to give too much away!

 

 

And, a little Doodle love:

woof woof meow!

Quilt U Be Mine (2/14/2013)

Reveal Day is here!  And I am so excited to show off what the lovely ladies of my groups did with my center block!

First off, I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to Michele at Quilts From My Crayon Box for putting the Mini Mystery Row Robin together, keeping track of all of us, and for providing awesome support to those of us who had mini crises of what to do!  She rocks and I am so happy to be part of this Row Robin!

I was in two groups, since I am a glutton for punishment and decided, "Hey, its almost the holidays and I will be gone for at least a week in November and December.  Why not commit to TWO groups when I have never done something like this before?  How hard could it be?"  Yeah - maybe if I didn't care what I put out could I get things whipped out every month the next day, but I am too picky and not skilled enough yet.  I agonized over some of them!  So many ideas and only a month (or two weeks if you take into account that I had two blocks a month) to do each!  Gahhhh!  But, in the end, I had a blast and both of my groups were full of ladies that are totally awesome.

I had a few borders that I did that were my favorites, most I didn't for some reason take pictures of, but the last three I did get snaps of.  Here is the post for the pictures I did end up snapping.

My first group was Group 4:

Vicky

Rachel

Renae

Me

Here is what they came up with:

Isn't that too cool?!?!

My second group was Group 6:

Melinda

Terrie

Vicki

Me

And here is what they did with my second block:

Hee hee - happy dance here!!!

I sent out the same block to both groups - very different results no?  These ladies are fabulous!  I can't wait to see their tops revealed on their blogs and over at Your Crayon Box, the blog Michele has set up for those who don't have blogs to share their tops too.  So, go here to Michele's blog for the linky party and here for the non-bloggers' posts and share the bloggy love, it is Valentine's Day!

woof woof meow

QUBM and MMMRR peeks (1/29/2015)

Hi hi!  I just sent off the last rounds of the Quilt U Be Mine Round Robin to my two groups.  I had a blast doing all the rows!  I can't wait to see the reveal on Valentine's Day.  I also can't wait to see my two mini quilts.  I sent off the exact same block to both groups so it will be interesting to see what the differences are in each (or similiarities?).

For some reason I only took pictures of the last two additions that I made.  By far my three favorites though!  The first is a Dresden fan row.  Didn't get enough of the Dresdens when I did Dare to Dresden.

The second and third are both paper pieced rows.  They took me most of the weekend to do, but I still really liked doing them and am very excited for the lady who gets them - I could frame them and put them on my wall by themselves!

I am also sending off my center block for the Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin 2013.  I've been staring at a box of batiks from my Safari Quilt that I dug out of the closet a few weeks ago.  When I saw the pictures that Heidi over at Fabric Mutt took at the Road To California Quilt Show, I was inspired by one of the quilts to make my wonky centered block.  And those batiks were calling to me, and the giraffe fabric was REALLY screaming at me.  This is what came out.  I love it!

I hope the other ladies in my group enjoy working with it - I can't wait to see what happens to this one too :o)  Off to work on the baby quilt for my sister in law - lucky baby, all these great batiks, I want it!  I'll just settle for being the first to drool on it instead ;o).

woof woof meow

WillaMutt Strut, Hexies and Tetris (8/5/2012)

This weekend was a hot one!  We got over 100 at the house on Saturday and that was in the shade on the front porch.  Early Saturday I loaded up the girls and we headed up the Riverside Park in Salem for the WillaMutt Strut 5K, a benefit for the Willamette Humane Society.  I usually try to two or three things a year for an animal shelter with the girls.  An annual must is the Santa Paws photos in December and I wanted to run with the girls at least once this summer, so we added this to our 5K.  No photos - I had my hands full.  I did finish with a sprained ankle (my first experience with trail running probably shouldn't have been with the dogs too), but the three of us met another GSP that spends time in Sweet Home training and another dog from Lebanon.  Off we went home, I propped up the leg on the couch and got to work on my second block for our Row Robin.

I finished one last weekend.

This month's theme is hexagons.  I love paper piecing, however...English Paper Piecing is a little more than I like - hand stitching is ucky.  The theme of the quilt is an asian fabric, so I decided to do a little bit of hexies and fill the rest with some foundation paper pieced paper cranes.

I pieced five of the cranes in coordinating colors and sashed them in the asian fabric.

Then to add some length since I was just a bit off, I added some stripes of the coordinating fabric.

I finished the second hexie block Sunday around noon.  This is what the finished row looks like (the white cloth is wrinkled - been under a cat!).

Then the power went out Sunday afternoon.  Great.  Just sat down to cut the pieces for my tetris blocks #2 and #3 (I missed week 2 with Mom and Josh here and just got 3 done).  The Tetris blocks are part of a quilt along over at Happy Quilting.  I got all the squares cut, then the heat chased me out the door and downstairs.  I crashed on the couch with the girls for an hour, then the power came back on.  Here's week #2 Tetris Block:

 

Here's week #3 Tetris Block:

Week #4 starts Tuesday!  I'll have some 9-patches up tomorrow.

I JUST ... Pieced a Row Robin Row (5/16/2012)

The quilt guild I belong to, Santiam Scrappers Quilt Guild, is doing a Row Robin this year.  The concept is fun and has given me a little bit of an impetus to get cracking on my pattern designing.  Here's the lowdown on a Row Robin:

Owner creates a row for a quilt - their theme, their ideas, their wishes.  The original row is passed to another person who creates a row to go with the original using the Row Robin Theme for the month and the owner's ideas, theme, wishes, etc.  This continues month-to-month with the quilt rows being passed on to another person each month with a different Row Robin Theme.  At the end of the Row Robin time frame (for us it is six months), the owner will have 6 rows to put together into a quilt.  There will have been 6 people who contributed to the quilt which means a lot of variety and creativity.

This month is the third month and the theme is Triangles.  I have Marjorie M.'s rows and she had red, white and blue fabric and stars as her only theme ideas.  I added the yellow to match a previous row and made the pinwheels in a wavy pattern.  There are six blocks total with three pinwheels apeice.

Here is a close-up of two of the blocks.  The smaller pinwheel is floating in the background and all three pinwheels are different sizes so this wasn't an easy-peasy slap together row.  It was challenging to get them to fit, but I enjoyed myself.

The journey of the pattern will be in future posts.