Opportunity Blocks

Today I have been working on combining some "opportunity" blocks I purchased at the Pensacola Quilt Show. The guild collects blocks from members for about 12 months before their show and then sells each of the blocks for $1.00 each. It's a great opportunity to purchase blocks for an easy quilt.

This year the block was this lovely string star (below) made up of 4 small rectangular string blocks and a center square.


I'll use these three blocks for a sample for my "Stretching the String" program and class.


The blue and light yellow blocks from the layout above will be used for a small give-away quilt.

These blocks are ready for narrow purple strips between rows and then a purple border plus an outside border.

I bought 26 blocks in all and will get a sample and 2 small quilts and still have some leftover for later use.

Ho Hum

Tuesday evening I was privileged to give a program to the Phoenix Guild of Decatur, GA (metro Atlanta). They meet at the lovely Intown Quilters quilt shop on Mistletoe St. If you happen to be "in town" on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, check them out. They're a very talented and friendly group, and you can visit the quilt shop up to an hour before the 7:00 meeting!


Not much creativity going on around here today, except perhaps creative storage. It's reorganization day as I'm puting away the supplies from the Phoenix Guild Program and preparing to give a Program on Monday evening to the Quilters in Stitches in Grayson, GA, another wonderful group. This will be my second visit to QIS and I'm very much looking forward to it.

When I'm not preparing for teaching lately, I am (still) storing fabric and scraps from the 600 yards I dyed for the Pensacola Quilt Show.



These scraps will be put to good use...fabric beads, miniature string quilts, ribbon for gifts, fusing projects and more.

Using Scraps

I've been looking at a heap of fabric scraps I created while trimming hundreds of yards of dyed fabric for our vendor booth last weekend. What to do with them? I have so many scraps that it can be overwhelming, so today I decided to develop an idea I've had for a while; I used the tiny scraps to fill homemade pillow forms. Here's how I did it...

Scraps alone can be very heavy, so I cut up an old foam insert (good springy foam)...



...and mixed the pieces with fabric scraps. I also cut old batting scraps into "noodles" (1/2" strips) to add to the stuffing mixture.

To make a 15" square pillow form with 5/8" seams, I cut two 16-1/4" squares of fabric. Don't be afraid to sew together scraps to make the two 16-1/4" squares; they won't show when the pillow form is in use.

I sewed the squares together leaving an opening on one side, and then trimmed the corners and turned the shell right side out. Next, I stuffed the pillow form with my recycled scraps.



This is the pillow form before I stitched the opening. The filling can be seen through the shell, which is fine for my quilted pillow covers, but if you'd rather not see the scraps through the white cotton shell, try this...

Cut two squares of thin batting (I used cotton) the same size as the cotton fabric for the shell, then layer them this way: 1) cotton batting 2) cotton fabric right side down 3) cotton fabric right side up 4) cotton batting. Pin the layers and then use your walking foot to stitch the pillow shell together, being sure to leave an opening on one side for stuffing.

After sewing the 4 pieces together, trim the batting close to the stitching all the way around, and trim the corners through all thicknesses (keep the scraps for stuffing). Turn the pillow form right side out and then stuff.

Adding batting to the pillow form will keep colors from showing through and will also give a smoother finish to the stuffed pillow form.

The Booth

We had a wonderful time at the Pensacola Quilt show this weekend, talking to longtime friends, visiting with folks and enjoying the quilts.

Our booth was large and spacious (12' x 17' !) and very comfortable...



"The Man", Bill, was in charge of the booth for the most part and set everything up beautifully.

We have plenty of photos of the show quilts, but I still need to get permission from the makers to put them on my blog.

The Light at the End

It has been a long 8 weeks of dyeing fabric and making pincushions, but last night I dyed my last batch of fabric for the Pensacola Quilt Show. When all is said and done I'll have about 775 yards in folded fabric and probably 150 yards in 4" x 20" pieces for sale.

My favorite stack of fabric has been the browns...

Some of the browns are actually Bill's rust dyes.

This is the staging area...simply because it's the only empty space in the house. Like I wrote a couple of entries ago, this has been a whole-house event.

I priced the wool pincushions yesterday...about 60 of them. They are delicious!

Some of the multi-colored fabrics turn out beautifully too.

I'm off to rinse the last batch of dyes...

Quilted Rust Dye

My friend Frances just finished a beautiful quilted wall hanging with one of my husband's rust-dyed fabric pieces. Check it out here.

The doily under the vase is machine quilted and is totally amazing. Frances wrote about how she got the right perspective; click here for that post.

Whole House Studio

It's been a while since I posted last and in a moment you'll see why.

We've been dyeing, pressing, trimming, & pricing fabric, making wool pincushions, placing orders for products and supplies, and staying quite busy around here. Our entire house has turned into a studio in preparation for the Pensacola Quilt Show in two weeks. It's also been a lot of fun!

This is our couch...it's covered with a white sheet and then the fabrics are spread on it when they come out of the dryer.


The dining room chairs serve as holders for the pressed fabric until I cut and price it on the dining room table to the left.


These are the 4" x 20" pieces that I cut off of almost every chunk of dyed fabric. Each dyed piece of fabric is cut larger than the finished piece will be, and then these 4 x 20's are trimmed off. They are sold loose in big baskets for appliquers and string piecers at our vendor booth.


These wool pincushions are drying in the sun. Wool is wonderful for pins; the lanolin in the wool keeps the pins slick for ease of use.


And finally, the piles are growing. The reds, blues, and brights are nearly finished, and the blacks, purples and browns need more. There are browns and blacks on the couch and dining room chairs.

In case you're wondering, the laundry room is housing the dye studio right now. We've had a cold winter, so my garage studio is too cold to use. The kitchen desk is where we've been printing business cards and class pamphlets. My regular studio is where I'm sewing and quilting, and the guest room is housing the quilts which will hang on the walls of the booth. The master bedroom handles the two tired folks who need to rest at the end of the day. So, yes, this is a whole-house studio.

I asked Bill if it bothered him to have "stuff" everywhere, and he said "We use our house more than anyone I know, so it was a good investment". Ha! On March 1 we'll be putting it all away ...until the next show.