Quilt Courier

I wish I could take credit for this quilt, but I'm just the courier. The seven blocks of this quilt were submitted to the Modern Quilt Guild as part of the QuiltCon Block Challenge. The Modern Quilt Guild's goal is to put a quilt on every bed of the Austin Children's Shelter - Austin is where the Modern Quilt Guild is holding its first convention in February 2013. These 7 blocks were sent to the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild for our donation quilt to the shelter. Thanks to a clever layout by Iris Johnson and even cleverer execution of this layout by CMQG Program Chair Sarah Shulman, Debbie Bookman, and Debbie Pine, this top (and look at the wonderful backing), this quilt is ready for quilting. The top and backing have travelled 50 miles from Vernon Hills to Lemont, the home of T and F Quilting Studio and Terri Karls.

Once this is quilted, bound in orange, and washed, I'll do another post. (The last time I used the word courier in a blog post, you wouldn't believe the spam the post generated....)

Happy New Year!

It's good to find time to sew. A year ago I was setting blogging goals for the year, and I have followed as some of my blogger friends have assessed their year's work and set goals for the new year. With all that has happened, I am thrilled to find any time to sew. Setting and assessing goals isn't for me right now. My mom is slowly rehabbing at Plymouth Place, a mile away. So it's easy to pop in for meals or therapy sessions. The background of this picture is the back of a baby quilt for my NYC niece Jen. Her shower is January 19, and I'll blog about this quilt then. Meanwhile, it does provide a nice backdrop for some improvisational and foundation-pieced blocks, preparation for the January CMQG meeting!

Ready for Christmas

Christmas sewing is done.  One little zippered pouch for Kim, and Mors Bags for the worker bees at Plymouth Place.  They are all neatly packed away in one of my totes and ready for delivery today and tomorrow. 

 Ok, so maybe this is my last entry of the year...

An Odd End to theYear...

 My mom fell Nov 29.  After elbow replacement she was transferred from LaGrange Hospital to Plymouth Place on Dec 13.  Her progress is slow, especially since she's still in a cast and learning to use her left hand for the first time in over 80 years.  So I'm obviously not spending much time in my studio.  Instead, I've been practicing my hand work. These 12 x 12 blocks aren't fabulous, but at least a needle is feeling more comfortable.  I still have the lower right one to finish.  What will I do with these four?  Not sure...yet.

I have started a new project and don't want to say too much about it at this point.  This is one-half of a quilt, design copied from Jacquie G at Tallgrass Prairie Studio - I need to tell her...  It  felt very good to be cutting and measuring and ironing. 

 The staff at Plymouth Place are gentle and kind.  I know I will be there Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day as well.  Going empty-handed isn't an option.  So I'm working on a pile of Mors bags (Qff Wayne, what would I have ever done if you hadn't taught me about Mors bags?) as a tiny thank-you to those who take daily care of my mom.  So far I've made three, have 6 kitted and ready to sew, and have 5 more sets of handles.  Fourteen will have to be enough.

And of course there are quiltlets from the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative coming in.  I'd like to complain about them, but here's the thing.  There are three of us who do the quilt scanning.  Diane was diagnosed with breast cancer and is in the middle of chemo.  Eileen's father died last week.  And me - well, my mom being in the rehab center gives me a bit of time.  So I'm the one with the least to complain about! 




Bloggers like to set goals at the beginning of the year and then post about whether they've been met.  Quilters are madly finishing presents.  Some are trying to get all their UFO's completed.  Me?  I'm trying to do what I can with the timing of the holiday and my family.  I didn't make the goals I set for myself last January.  I think this will be my final blog post of 2012.  I haven't made much in the way of presents - the Mors bags are taking priority.   My sister-in-law Kim has requested a little zippered pouch - I would very much like to do that in the next few days.  But this is all okay.  I'm at peace and doing what I can daily - for my mom, for my husband, and for me.  And here's to 2013!

The Studio as a Guestroom

My mom has been hospitalized for 10 days - tomorrow she is having elbow replacement surgery.  And I think she'll be there another almost week before going to a rehab center.  This has been rough, especially since she has no memory at all of anything.  All of us have slept at the hospital, but as brother Al pointed out, there is no coffee maker in the room and people keep coming in all night to do vitals.  So yesterday my studio became a guest room for Paula. 

I've never thought about napping in the studio.  Suddenly it's appealing.

And what a great surface to lay fabrics out on!

An odd birthday for my sister

Paula is 60 today.  Every year I blog about her present ahead of time and ruin her surprise.  This year I didn't blog, cleverly wrapped her present, putting one bag inside of another inside of another, kind of like those nesting dolls, and mailed it off to St. Joe, MI.  And then my mom fell.  She's in the hospital awaiting surgery - a new elbow - and letting her cracked pelvis heal and be less sore.  So Paula came here.  And her present is in St. Joe.  And seriously, are these nice or what?  A duffle/tote, a Mors bag, a Roundabout purse, and wide-mouthed ditty, and a drawstring bag, all in wonderful Asian fabrics.  The outside of her tote bag on one of the special fabrics I bought in Scotland this past fall. 

Gotta get to the hospital and let Paula go back to St. Joe for a bit!

Mors Bags for Anne!

A fellow volunteer I met at Chicago's Rally to Restore Sanity in October 2010 saw the blog post about my Chicago Modern Quilt Guild's food drive for the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the 225 cloth grocery bags we made. Anne G remarked that she could use a new cloth grocery bag. Anne, these are for you! Happy-Shopping-With-No-Plastic-Bags!

Baggage

Jen's Bag

 Some guildsters came over to play bags, and working together - with a completed project at the end of the day - is a great way to roll.  We all made the WOW bag, a neat tote that expands and become a duffel bag.  This clever pattern is one I bought from the Jinny Beyer website and made in her fabrics - see it here.  Here's the one I made for CMQG's secretary Emily, who just turned 25. 

Natalie's Bag

Sarah's Bag from Fat Quarters

Inside of Sarah's Duffel, with gusseted pockets

Outside of Sarah's Duffel

Melissa's Bag with its fancy pockets

 Guild member Erika volunteered to help the CMQG organize and unify its approach to social media.  Although we have yet to put her 7-page plan into action, we are appreciative and will implement many of her suggestions soon.  As a thank you, I asked her to give me a yard of a fabric she cherishes.  And here's the result.  I can't wait to give it to her.  But not until December 9!

Erika's Duffel

Erika's Tote with a little matching tiny tote

 If you want to know more about the WOW bag and the pattern, contact The Dusty Attic at dustyatticquilt@verizon.net.  The creator of this pattern is Mary Beth Scarborough. 

A Very Mo Thanksgiving

Ben, Jack, Grandpa John, Natalie. Nikki, Brandon, Sam, Ryan in back

Evolution of Pattern Following

Look at these cute little bags from the Runaround Bag pattern by Lazy Girl Designs. They have a lined interior, a back pocket, a zip closure, and are 7" x 9". As the pattern says, "A great little purse to runaround with."  I saw one made by guildster Sara Hochhauser in a terrific fly fishing fabric.  At a fabric swap during the fall retreat of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild I got this fabulous black and red Oriental fabric from guildster Debbie Bookman and decided to use it for the trial run for this pattern.  Except for the strap being a bit too short, I do like this.

The black pocket on the back needs something - some quilting? something. Using a great fabric with green trees and a coarsely woven fabric (on loan from Eileen), I created two more, trying to figure out where the feature fabric should go and what should be plain, and missed the mark on both. The bags are nice. But not great. The straight-line quilting on the green bags helps a lot to make the bag interesting. Of course it does. I'm a quilter. I like texture. Of course I know this. But somehow I forget something this basic when making a new pattern.

So - using my handy-dandy,never-ending supply of scraps - I began doing some improvisational foundation piecing to create the bag front. And then another improvisation piece for the pocket. And I love the result. This bag is the keeper! When I returned the rest of Eileen's fabrics to her, I gave her her choice of bags - she chose the one with the quilting. Still need to create some nify zipper pulls for these. Guess Eileen will have to do her own.

This pattern is fat-quarter friendly and just needs 2.