Design Wall Monday

On my design wall today is one lonely 12" block. This is for the Aberfoyle Fall Fair quilt block challenge. They collect blocks to make quilts to raffle to raise money for the fair expenses. The block theme is "a variety of vegetables" and it has to include the feature fabric that is on the outside of the top left and bottom right blocks. I also fussy cut the centre blocks from the feature fabric.
The pattern is the #14 Blockheads square in a square block. Half way through block construction I was wishing that I had used a paper piecing pattern instead, but it turned out okay in the end.
The challenge was to create enough contrast in the block when using only very busy vegetable prints. I tried to create contrast by carefully considering the scale and value of the prints.  Still... it's very chaotic looking. I'm telling myself that it's just like a healthy vegetable garden should be! Fair submissions are on friday morning and I'm delighted to not be finishing at the last minute - you quilters just know how we are! 
Linking up with Small Quilts.

And in other vegetable news...
as soon as the weather gets cooler, my soup making interest reappears. This is the leftovers from the first batch of vegetable soup this month. It's made of all the veggies that were sitting in the fridge... carrots, zucchini, celery, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, and tomatoes. It's a totally delicious way to get your vitamins!

Canada Block Challenge

This is the challenge block I made for the St. Jacobs Quilts Show Block Challenge. The theme for the challenge was "Canada", and all blocks had to include the maple leaf fabric.

I got the inspiration for my block from the Quiltmaker blogpost for the 4" Bitty Basket Block pattern. 
I made 4 baskets and realized that when I sewed them all together the block would only measure 8", and the rules stated that the block must be 10".  So I added 2" of sashing through the middle to bring it up to the correct size. 

There are 97 pieces in this little block and although it looks big on the computer screen, it really is small out in the real world! It was fun to sew but I am glad it is finally finished, because today is the last day to submit the challenge blocks. 

Santa blocks

Victoria from Bumble Beans Inc. (who has just published a new book!) offered to mail out the center Santa squares to any quilter who was interested in making a block - any size...any pattern. 
I couldn't resist the challenge!
I had fun searching through my favorite 100 block magazines and picked out block #289 from volume #3 by Scott Murkin called "Filmstrip".
To see the collection of other Santa blocks that these will be joining - click here, and to see the new blocks that arrived with mine, click here. It will be a real challenge to corral all these various sized blocks into a quilt top and I can't wait to see what Victoria makes with them!

Tonight is Friday Night Sew-In. It snuck up on me this month. If it snuck up on you too, it's not too late to hop over to Heidi's blog and sign up - click here. I hope to be able to sew all night but am on call for work, so don't know if I'll be sewing or working. You can probably guess what I'm hoping for!

Saturday Sewing and the fall fair block challenge

The plan for today (until my night shift at the hospital) is to sew and sew, and maybe have a little nap :)
I might sew some brown scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but I was also wondering about working on my brown "dirt or chocolate" mystery quilt instead...we'll see.
I also hope to sew step #2 for my "Jack of Hearts" mystery.

Continuing with my blogposts about fall fairs, I wanted to post the photos from the Erin Fall Fair block collection. I just love it when quilters use their collective creativity to work on a group project. The theme for the block challenge was "Sew & Sow". This is my block, which only addressed the first part of the theme! 

I was really impressed by the 25 creative blocks that were submitted, with such a wide variety in techniques and design. I had to stand there and take in each unique block, made from the same starting theme and fabrics.





Some quilters focused on the "sew" and some focused on the "sow". 
Isn't this block clever?!?

And look at the teeny tiny flower stitchery on this one...it was really delicate.



And this block was my favorite although I don't know who made it. I love the original design, the flow of the gentle curves, the use of light, and the adorable details...love it!


And I also really enjoyed how creatively the blocks were displayed with the tiny sewing machines. Sew fun!
If you haven't entered a guess in my fall fair game, click here and give it a try!

St. Jacobs Quilt Challenge Blocks

I made the trip over to St. Jacobs to see the challenge blocks. They are hanging in a different building this year (The Mill)  but they were easy to find.

I always like to take my time voting for my favorite... drives my husband crazy! I have to look at each one and think about it. I loved the block on the top row second from the right, but they added black and you were supposed to use just the colours on your paint chip, so I couldn't vote for it. The piecing was amazing on that block! I always worry about how they will be able to put the quilt together, especially with so many different colours this year, but they always do an amazing job. Can you guess which block I voted for?!?

I'll send a Fat Quarter to the first three commenters who correctly guess my favorite block!

St. Jacobs Block Challenge

Have you ever tried to make a block for a challenge and found yourself with a bigger challenge than you bargained for?!? I wanted to make a block for the St. Jacobs Block Challenge- click here and scroll down. You pick up a paint chip and make a 9" block in the colours of your paint chip. I picked pink, since I had a lot of pink in my stash. But can you believe, not one single piece was the right colour?!?!? So I went shopping and bought 3 fat quarters and started sewing. My first block attempt was Washington Star. Even after fiddling around with the printer settings, I couldn't get this pattern to print out properly.

Can you see that the 3 sections were different lengths!  I did my best to sew the block but it was still too small...and one section was even upside down according to the pattern!
So I abandoned the paper piecing idea, and went for something a little easier...






I tried to piece a block called Another 9 Patch Star. 
What happened this time?
Well, it was a 12" block that I had to resize to 9".
First, I sewed the wrong layout (on the left). That took a while to fix!
Once I had the correct layout, I  discovered that my resizing attempts resulted in the wrong sized block!  
So now I had made 2 blocks that were the wrong size!




 I added a couple of borders and also made a quick (easy) 2nd block (called Alabama) to boost my sagging sewing self esteem!

My paint chip is in the middle of my 2 blocks which finally measured 9". The colours vary in these photographs because it has been so dark here, with rain and snow every day, which makes it difficult to take photos. 
The block challenge is viewer's choice, so if you live near St. Jacobs and want to go see the wonderful blocks they received and vote for your favorite,  the blocks will be on display at The Mill from March 12th - 26th. I'll post a photo of all the blocks as soon as I can get over there.
To see a photo of the blocks from the challenge 2 years ago, click here.

Quilt Auction

One of my favorite quilting events is the annual Mennonite Relief Sale and Quilt Auction.  I have attended this event for many years, sometimes having worked on a quilt being auctioned, and/or having donated a block to one of the group quilts. Last year I helped create a butterfly quilt - you can see it here, and this year I was excited to see the Black and White block challenge quilt auctioned (you can read more about it here).  Here is the quilt hanging on the rack waiting to be auctioned. Unfortunately they placed the quilt way down the list (quilt #179) and I had to leave the auction before it was sold, so I don't know what the sale price was. Does anyone out there in blogland know? I will call the organizer tomorrow and see if I can find out.

On the right is a photo of the quilt auction. New this year was a big screen which projected a large photo of each quilt being auctioned. There were less attendees at this year's auction for sure, and the highest selling quilt when I was there was the featured quilt (click here to see it) which was sold for $7000. 

Here are the 200+ quilts hanging and waiting to be auctioned. I will check the newspaper tomorrow to see how much money the quilts raised for world relief efforts.

**Update**

I just talked to the challenge organizer and she said that the B & W quilt sold for $2,600!!  And the little wallhanging (9 blocks) that went with it sold for $500!

Black and White Quilt

I drove to Elmira today to do some hand quilting on the Black and White quilt. You can read more about the block challenge here and see all the submitted blocks here.

I was wondering how they were going to set the blocks together, and this is the creative setting that was chosen. Each block has a thin red border, and then is set with a black sashing on 2 sides which gives a neat 3D effect. And then there is grey sashing between the blocks. There were enough blocks for a large queen size quilt and also a wall hanging for the auction. Around the outside of the quilt is a wider black border that has a cable design - one of my favorite designs for hand quilting.

Here is a photo of me quilting with the some of the Mennonite ladies. They gave me the honour of quilting my own block! I was really excited about that until I started quilting and realized that it was very hard to quilt because of all of the seams in my paper pieced block! It was a relaxing and fun day and a special treat to be included in the Quilting Bee.

As if that wasn't enough fun, I found out that I won first place in the block challenge, which was "viewer's choice"! I was delighted to win, but was further encouraged by the lovely comments that the voters wrote on their ballots. What a great quilty day it was!

Black & White block challenge

I forgot to post the results for the Black and White block challenge. You can see the block I made for the challenge here. This is a photo of the blocks that were submitted. The wide variety of techniques was amazing and I enjoyed looking at each one and trying to figure out how it was made. If you live in the St. Jacobs area, don't forget to go over to Riverworks and vote for your favorite block...you only have until Saturday!

Retreat projects report #2

One of my goals for quilt retreat was to piece a block for a black and white block challenge at Reichards. All participants were given a square of black fabric and were asked to make a 9" block. The blocks collected will be assembled into a quilt that will be auctioned at the Mennonite Relief Sale in May, with all the money raised going to relief efforts around the world.
Before the retreat I had printed out one of my favorite paper piecing patterns in Electric Quilt in a 3" size. I figured out the white and black placements and wrote the information on the back of the papers. At retreat I spent a lot of time fussy cutting the centre fabrics for each block, and cutting the wavy fabric so it would go the right direction to form a diamond shape in the block.
And here is the finished product. I was happy with how it turned out, but unhappy with the amount of time it took to construct!! Winners of the block challenge (which are decided by viewer's choice) can win various cash amounts, and I promised the retreaters that if they voted for my block and I won, I would use the winnings to bring treats (ie. fabric!) to quilt retreat next year!! I have seen some of the blocks submitted and the variety of the results are just amazing. I will post a photo of the quilt when it is finished.