Lutherdale 2017 Gala Quilt

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time at Lutherdale with the goal of assembling quilt blocks into a top to be auctioned off in August.  The weather was perfect, the food was great and the company was lovely!

I asked the new camp director if we could be given a tour of the gardens, chickens and beehives.  The beehives are scattered around the grounds, but we did get to meet the chickens that provide us with the eggs used in our meals.  They have one handsome rooster, too.

 

In March, I spoke to the folks that attended the Gala Luncheon and explained this year's block.  Then we gave them kits of pre-cut houses and sky.  It's always a challenge to find a pattern that is forgiving for a group to sew and will still be stunning to motivate people to bid high!

On Friday, we were certain we would have this top assembled before going to bed.  Well-- we did assemble most of it pretty quickly, but then things slowed down.  We had all the rows together before bed and held off to put the borders on in the morning.  It was a good thing, too!  Looking at it with fresh eyes, we decided the proportions were a bit off and we needed to add another row to make it longer.  Some of our houses were...ahem... a little short.  We grouped the short houses together into the same rows, so they could get along.  But-- with multiple shorter rows, the length was sacrificed a bit.  No worries!  We zipped out another 14 houses like nobody's business.

Here is our quilt, pre-borders (the borders are simple yellow that matches the background):

And here are some of the people that worked on assembling the top:

L-R: Jim, Janine, Me, Kitty, Yvonne, Heather

I had a inkling that would would be able to finish that top up pretty quickly, so I brought a few other projects with me.  This is the project I started with the other January Quilters.  I want to assemble this into a random, non-traditional layout.  Janine did this arrangement and I started to sash some of the smaller stars together this weekend, but that's all the further it went.  Hopefully I can finish this up in time for the auction?!?

Insted of getting the stars assembled, we focused on getting this string block top together! I started these blocks several years ago. I had a lot of blue and green scraps and thought this would be a good scrap buster.  I don't know about that?!?  Every time I would work on it, the volume of scraps seemed to increase!  For quite some time now, I had the scraps I wanted to use for this in a small bin.  But it was overflowing, so I had to keep it on the closet floor and was starting to be a bother to me.  Now I'm thrilled to report that it is a top!  Of course there are still some scraps left over-- oh well.  Time to find another scrap project to mix them into.  I had about 2/3rds of the blocks done prior to this weekend and several people helped cut, press, and sew. Janet and I sewed the blocks and rows together. I might add a skinny white border and maybe some blue?  Not sure yet...

 xoxo,
Kristin

ps
Happy to have Judy Hansen  at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts take over the Design Wall Monday Reigns from Judy LaQuidara.  Thank you to both Judies!! =)

Flashback Friday Finish - My own bed quilt!!

Last December, I finished one of my oldest UFO's-- a quilt for me to use on my bed. True to form, I didn't do a final 'finish' post with pictures of the quilt at 100% complete.  I'm trying to improve and document all of my quilts when they are done.  I did write a nice summary of the journey of this quilt
here.  In that post, I said how I couldn't wait to snuggle under it and I am certainly happy to have this on my bed.

On Saturday, the Mad City Quilt Guild had a small workshop on photographing quilts.  A professional photographer talked to us about considerations in choosing how to display a quilt for a photo and the biggest take home message was to think about the light source.  Outdoor light is best and indirect, less harsh sunlight is good.  Having the light source angled from the direct plane of the quilt will show texture by creating shadows.

We all enjoyed our time and experiments with photographing in different manners and we are hoping to set up a recurring time, once or twice a year when we can use the guild's quilt stands and lights to take nice photos of our quilts.  A member of the community was clearing out a family member's estate and donated a stand and two floor lights to us, plus the guild had invested in a very large stand several years ago.  The location that the guild meets at has a spacious community room with a nice covered porch that is that ideal setting-- indirect sunlight and protection from the wind.

xoxo
Kristin

ps
linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish Up Friday

Gudrun Erla Workshop

Last week I was fortunate to attend a trunk show and workshop by Gudrun Erla.  She is from Iceland, lives in Minnesota and drove to Lodi for our event.  It was a great time and after her trunk show, I wanted to make almost all of her patterns.  I purchased one book, one pattern, and her Creative Grids Stripology ruler.  And she gave everyone a pattern for attending!

For the workshop, I selected 'Hekla', a Scandinavian star wallhanging. Hekla is the name of a volcano in Iceland. The pattern is just a little tricky, but still fun.  The center is almost complete and I have one triangle border left to do.  I can't wait to get this together and see how it will look.

xoxo
Kristin

ps
Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday and Lorna's Let's Be Sewcial