Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival 2011

Man, I am a bad blogger. Just when I think I'm doing well again, something like this happens: I don't post for six weeks! You'd think I'd have more to show for it, but no. Anyway, the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival is this weekend. If you haven't gone yet, there's still tomorrow! As I've mentioned in the past, my Monday night quilt group, festively called "The Other Women," often does round robins. This year we were able to put several of those quilts in the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival!

The way a round robin works is, everyone makes a center or a row. Then everyone passes it to the next person who adds on, and you add on to the one you've received. In the end, you get your quilt back. So for these two quilts, I did the initial piecing and then I also quilted it. Other bits were added by my friends.

For this one, I started with the center.
For this one I started with the row that has the blue waves. It's above the ducks.
My oldest sister, who lives in Oklahoma, was part of two of our round robins. This one is her quilt. I added the top and bottom rows with the half-circles.
This one is also my sister's quilt. I added the little tulip row.
If you want to see these or any others in progress, just click this link.

I didn't buy too much this year. I'll post photos later!

So this happened

Yeah. It's my daughter's latest craft project. It's alpaca wool felted around a lump of soap. I think it looks more like something the cat coughed up, but her little hands made it, so... yeah. It smells the way you'd expect a wet alpaca to smell. The idea is that the soap gets embedded in the felt and comes through as you use it. So, of course Molly wants to take a bath with it now. Lovely.

And here's a glimpse of my latest contribution to the row round robin I'm in.It's 3:22 a.m. and I can't sleep. I'm really happy because I got off a video call a while ago with a close friend who I haven't seen in a long time. He lives in Australia now, which makes timing a bit tricky, but we slipped into conversation as if it had been only ten days since we last talked instead of nearly ten years. The internet is a wonderful thing. Now I want to send him something I've made.

Row quilt

Well, tomorrow the next row on my row quilt is due. For those of you who don't know, it's a round robin but we're doing rows. So, one person starts the quilt, then passes it along to the next, who adds a row, who then passes it along to the next person who also adds a row, and so on. The original person gets the quilt back. We do ours as a surprise, so I can't show the whole thing in case the owner is reading this. But here's what my row looks like:
They're three dimensional flying geese. So, you could stick your finger under the legs of the triangles. They were really easy to sew. There's a video here at Ricky Tims' and Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show.

Remember how I said it was due tomorrow? I started it today. Yeah, I know.

Trip and row and guitar case

It may be difficult to believe, but I do intend to update this blog more than once a month. It's just been a very busy December. I know, excuses, excuses. But we did spend several days on a trip to Wisconsin. We took Amtrak and got a sleeper car. It was great! No complaints, except that our room was hot, especially on the way out. I'm not a good sleeper, so this mostly affected me. Molly was fine, though. When you get a sleeper car, you're considered first class, which means you get free meals and you get to hang out in the first class lounge for layovers.
I also did a little (very little) sewing. Last Christmas, after a scare, RT bought a Wii. This fall, after I found out about the breast cancer, RT went out and bought Beatles Rock Band. I wonder what I need to do to get a new sewing machine. Anyway, Molly especially loves it and she has become quite the Beatles aficionado. Since we had practically unlimited baggage restrictions on Amtrak (another plus), we decided to bring it. We wanted to transport the guitars carefully, so we went to GameStop and bought a case for RockBand guitars. Unfortunately, our guitars were too big. So, at 5:00 the evening before we were to leave, I decided to make a quilted guitar case.
This baby holds two RockBand guitars, separated by a quilted panel. It's not quite done; I want to add a zipper to the top. For the trip, I had to saftey-pin the case together. It just made it look more badass if you ask me.

Yes, those are little batik rainbow skull and crossbones, thanks for asking!
I also finished my row for my round robin, only a month late. Oh well, as people keep telling me, I have a good excuse.
In health news, I will probably start radiation next week. This is sooner than expected. I'll find out more at my simulation appointment tomorrow.

Round robin

Have you ever been in a round robin? I highly recommend doing one if you haven't. They're a great way to flex your creative muscle. Since you never know what you're going to get, you end up have to come up with a way to make it work, even if the piece you have has unusual colors or measurements that seem to be from another planet.

The round robin I'm in now is the fifth one I've been in. Two others were with my Monday night quilt group (as is this one), one was with a group at the shop and the other was with the guild. That last one didn't go very well, but that's another story.

Anyway, my Monday night group is doing another one. There are twelve of us participating, and my sister who lives in Oklahoma is one of them. There are enough that we have split into two groups. In this case, we're doing row quilts. So, you make your row, then pass it on and receive a row from someone else. In the end, you get your row back, with other rows, made by other people, as part of the quilt. Amy is in this round robin, too, but she's in the other group.

So, here's my sister's row before I added anything to it. It's huge!
I can't show you all of my row, partly because it's supposed to be a secret (though my sister doesn't actually read my blog anyway, so it's not like it matters that much), and partly because I don't have it all done yet. It's not due until Monday night, so I have tons of time! This is a very small part of it, maybe 3 inches wide.
If you haven't tried paper piecing before, you should. It greatly expands the choices you have in blocks. You can do some amazing things with paper piecing.

Row Round Robin

Tonight is the start of my Monday night quilt group's round robin. This year we're doing row quilts. It's the same round robin that Amy is in, but there are so many of us participating (12, I think), that we split into two groups. We swap every other month, so, the first group had their first swap in May. This way everyone gets to see some new progress every month. We do our round robins as surprises, so the owner (the person who did the first row) won't see it until the end. This means that I won't be able to post very many details about them for the next year or so. You'll have to wait until the very end!

Aaaaaanyway, I enjoyed the curved piecing so much, I decided to go with it some more. I managed to break the shaft part of my Curve Master foot, but that's okay. I also discovered that I don't actually need the adapter they give you. This design was similar to what I have had in mind for this row quilt all along; it's just executed a little differently. Here is my row. It's nearly width of fabric:

It's supposed to look like water. So people can add sky, fish, plants, whatever they want. Here's a closeup:
Goodbye, sweet little row! See you at the end of next summer!