Liquorice Allsorts

I had this idea of making a quilt of liquorice allsorts a few months ago and finally had a reason to do it.  The band I'm in is doing a concert this saturday and all the music have food in the titles.  We're playing Cherry Red, Green Onions, Raise Your Glass, Bach's Lunch, First Suite for Military Band, The Peanut Vendor, Agua de Beber, Dixieland Jam, and more.  I wanted to call the concert "The Hunger Games", but "Smorgasband" is what the rest decided.

We usually have a silent auction so I thought I'd make the Liquorice Allsorts quilt for this.

 I pieced in the square ones, and appliqued the other three.  I did the used dryer sheet trick for turning them inside out and getting the seam allowance tucked in.  the fabrics are 30s repros that had the right soft colours and are quite kid-like. 

 Here's the front.  I auditioned the candies on several colours and felt they really "popped" on this bright yellow-green.

 

The back has smaller allsorts that are staggered rather than angled.

 I got the label on with the band name and the quilt guild name.  It finished to 37 x 48 - 3 feet by 4 feet - a great size for a baby quilt.

 The quilting is a bunch of overlapping squares about the size of the allsorts filled with big zig-zags.

This was a really quick project.  I had the top started and pieced mostly on Friday after work.  I got the rest of the front and back pieced on Saturday (with a quick run to the LQS - local quilt store for more background) and then just layered it - spray glue 505- and got 1/3 of it quilted by Sunday evening.  Since the quilting is the part I like the least, i did little bits and pieces on Mon, Tues, Wed and put the binding on it Wed evening and got it washed.

Now it's off to the concert on Saturday to raise a bit of money for the band.

Trunk Show Part 4 - First Steps into Modern

Wonky Squares Quilts

I'm in a community band.  When I mentioned that I quilt, three of my band mates said they always wanted to make a quilt, so, we started a little quilt group and met at my place when ever we could and each made two quilts.  We started with a Wonky Square quilt and each made blocks in our own colour palate, and level of wonkiness.

Here's mine

I was thinking about avocado and harvest gold appliances when I chose the fabrics.  Each block started with a slightly skew rectangle and was then built out in rings with different widths of the same colour.  At the end I squared up the blocks with white and used my 12.5 inch square ruler to cut it to size.  When I laid it out, the blocks were too close together, so I added in a 2 inch sashing of the background colour and got a nice overall wonky feel.  I quilted it in small overlapping rectangles on my oldest sewing machine - the one mom and dad got just after they were married.

Kenzie's quilt was all yellow-orange and purple-blue.

Her blocks ended up more square and she "engaged the edge" by cutting some blocks in half and putting them around the quilt as if her quilt is just a small part of a larger pattern.  She used batics as well as prints.  She didn't use any sashing, and with these blocks, you really didn't need to get the intersections to match up, since it's all white around each block.  This is a really good beginner quilt since there's really no corners and seems to match up.

Lawanda's quilt is jagged blue, green and brown.

These blocks were trickier to square up since there's big areas of white triangles around most of the blocks.

Hisayo's quilt is pink and light green

Half of her centres are black and half are maroon and two are green.  It took her forever to figure out how to lay it out such that she was happy with it.  Some people just can't embrace wonkiness! 

Here's all of the quilts together

Before we quilted them, we made a kids sized disappearing 9 patch quilt and practiced our quilting skills on them, then went back to the big ones.

Lawanda and I gave our quilts away to friends with babies.  Kenzie kept hers for her own baby boy who was born soon after the quilt was made.  We all used the same red sailors and yellow puppies and light blue boats fabrics.  I did 3 stacked coins strips across the back of mine and appliqued a P for Preston.

Girlfriends Quilt update

I finished the Girlfriends quilt and it's now ready for the silent auction at our upcoming band concert.

 I used the same red for the binding that was used in three of the picture mats.

 And I found some great plaid flannel for the back.  Perfect for these outdoorsy girls.  The birdwatching girl is actually wearing a plaid bikini!

 The stippling is a big curvy stipple and the frames are just quilted with straight lines 1/4 in in from the edges.

I took it into rehearsal on Thursday and the band members love it, so I think it'll be a hit and will hopefully get some high bids.

The Neighbourhood Quilt and my Quilting Buddy(s) from band

I was going through some boxes that were in storage and found my old camera and on it was pictures of a quilt I made a couple years ago.  Here it is.

This is a good time to introduce my quilting buddy, Lawanda.  She and I are in a band together, she plays flute and I'm on the euphonium and we've known each other for about 8 years now.  She did the quilting and the binding on this quilt.  Here's her loopy quilting stitch.

We made this one for a silent auction for the band we are in and it went for $120 at our concert!!  Here's the label we put on the back.

Three years ago she found out that I quilt and said she always wanted to learn how.  Within a couple weeks three other band mates and I started a weekly quilt circle.  I picked a wonky log cabin block for their first quilt and each of us went shopping and bought a bunch of fabric that were the colours we each liked.  I was very general about how much would be needed and how many fabrics to use and I opened up my stash once we all got some fabric so that we could all add more if we needed.  Lawand's fabric was browns and blues, Kenzie's was blue/purple and yellow/orange, Hisayo's was pale pink and green and mine was yellow, green and brown.

Oddly enough, all of us had a sewing machine that someone had given us, or left behind when they moved, so we had 4 machines set up in my garage.  We set up a cutting station and an ironing board that we all shared, and each had our own machine to sew with.  We cut strips of random width from our fabric then started with a square or 4 sided shape.  We added a strip on opposite sides, ironed, trimmed, then added strips on the two other sides, then ironed and trimmed again.  Then did it all for 3 or four rounds.  We ended with white strips around the entire block, then trimmed it down to a 12.5 inch square with a ruler.  Then we did it all 23 more times so we each had 24 blocks.

Kenzie plays euphonium too and has been in the band longer than Lawanda.  She alternated blocks of warm and cool and cut a bunch of them in half for the edge.  We had read about "engaging the edge" of the quilt and this way it looks like the quilt goes on and on and on.

My quilt is green, yellow and brown and a little more irregular.  The back has one huge block on one half and then 4 more to fill in the space of the other half.

 

Lawanda's blocks turned out really sharp and pointy.  I think they look really retro because of the blue brown green colour scheme.  She did a staggered little blocks strip on the back so it looks like a zipper.  I'm sure I've got a picture somewhere.

I can't find a picture of Hisayo's pink and green quilt, so I'll add that later.  She's another flute player and has been in the band for 3 years now.  I'm the ancient one in the band these days (20 years now).  I joined the band a month after it started.

These quilts are a great starting quilt for new quilters.  There are no exact seams to match and no corners to line up, so new sewers don't need to worry about accurate quarter inch seams.  By the time you're making your 20th block, though, you've gotten quite good at straight lines and being consistent with your quarter inch seams.  Squaring up the blocs at the end is easy too, just put the white strips around them then use a 12.5 inch square ruler to cut off the extra and square it up.  Sewing all the squares together isn't that hard, and if you're not matching the corners too well, it's not noticed since it's all part of the white background.  There's also no sashing needed - which can be a little hard for a beginner - so if you want the quilt bigger, just add more white to the squares and square them up with a bigger square like a 16.5 inch or a 18.5 inch square.