August 27 Meeting Report

 Here is Joyce's latest quilt and #27 of our donation quilts.  This is probably the first time you are seeing it on the blog because Joyce is very shy about letting us photograph her quilts before they are finished and labelled.

Sorry about all the wrinkles.  It was squished in my bag but I will lay it out flat so that it will be nice and flat very soon.

Here is a closeup of the blocks and sweet prints in this quilt.  

Joyce's label with a peek at the yellow and white polka dot flannel backing and the serpentine stitched binding.

Isn't this a great family quilt?  Betty made it for her father who either played the trombone or liked it enough to have a whole quilt dedicated to the instrument.  This whole quilt was hand tied.

These machine embroidered trombones were obviously a labour of love and required lots of precision work.  I don't think that was a stitch that came with Betty's machine.

After Show and Tell Penny got out some fabrics to get some opinions about turning them into a Disappearing Nine Patch quilt.  Penny had the diagrams printed out and this will probably be next on her list.  I think she is planning a trip to Fabricland to pick out the background fabric.

Joyce also had some fabrics looking for advice on her next project which will be a baby quilt.  I'm not sure if she got much help since we thought they all looked great together.  Sometimes you just have to sit with some fabrics for awhile until the right pattern just materializes.

Sue was the only one actually working.  She's sewing the binding on Joyce's Disappearing Nine Patch I Spy quilt.  Sounds like Sue's big reno will be wrapping up soon since John bought a new house and is moving to the Island.  Deadlines are good for quilters and builders.

The other excitement was that Betty had another wildlife sighting which we all got to see--this time a good sized black bear having a snack from Joyce's green bin.  Let's hope the bear enjoyed the snack since it was probably his last.  Joyce reported today that she passed a bear on her way home who was probably the victim of a collision with a car.  Tough being a city bear... 

Home from Alaska

 I got home from our cruise Monday morning. It was a successful holiday. Marcus and Macey met a TOC that they knew and I believe she knows some of you as well. I think her name is Miss Chen.

Here are a couple of pictures for you. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing you all for awhile. I’ve come home with a nasty cold.

The Cloth Shop Granville Island and Dressew

 I went for Sunday Brunch at the Dockside Restaurant today and arrived two hours early to take advantage of the free parking before 11 am.  Unfortunately that no longer exists so I had to pay for four hours parking which was still reasonable enough at $3 per hour.  Apparently it is cheaper during the week.

I visited the newly renovated Cloth Shop.  Except for the new layout I didn't really notice much difference in the type of fabric they are stocking.  Their line is still all contemporary prints, with I think less emphasis on infant's and children's prints although it could just have been that they carry more of the others.  They had a big selection of Kona cottons and Fireside and it looks like they are no longer going to carry batiks since the few that they had were all mixed in with the regular quilting cottons.

They still have their 1 yard and 4 fat quarter sale bundles just inside the door at $14 and fat 1/8 bundles at $12 (I think).  I bought a couple of the 1 yard pieces.

The hours until the end of September are 10 am until 6 pm, changing to the earlier closing of 5pm at the beginning of October.

Other big news is that Dressew is closing.  That's sad since they have been a Vancouver staple since 1961.  They are still getting in new fabric and notions but this will be the last year for Halloween costumes.  The building is for sale and I guess when that happens the rest will be wound down although they might relocate to a different location.  It seems they were another victim of the pandemic.

August 20th Meeting Report

 Due to a glitch my first meeting report disappeared so this post will just be about Show and Tell and all the non tutorial events and discussion.  I will post all the tutorials directly to the Tips and Tutorials Page in the near future.

Here is Leng's pretty donation comfort quilt which she has named Square Dance.

Leng's hand made label with a little hand embroidered heart.

Note the interesting edge to edge quilting.  This is an easy walking foot pattern that works with lots of different blocks.  You can mark your quilting lines with the edge of a plate, lining it up from corner to corner or just quilt a gentle serpentine curve from corner to corner, sewing one curve on the upper block and pivoting to the lower block at the intersection.  When you get to the end of a row turn the quilt around and sew back in the opposite direction.  

Quilting lines as seen from the back of the quilt

Detail of the boder quilting--free motion loop de loops

Nancy's scrappy Plus Sign quilt.  Note the offset rows for a more interesting layout than a completely symmetrical grid. 

Detail of quilting that Nancy did with her mid arm quilter and ruler work.  And if anyone still thinks machine stitched bindings are less polished looking than a hand stitched binding have a good look at Nancy's perfectly applied binding on this quilt.  Clicking on the photo will give you an enlarged view.

I think Nancy will have to do a post on her fab low volume backgrounds which we've seen on two of her quilts now.  Nancy, where do you find your prints, what is your criteria for choosing them, do you have a stash of them, etc.?  The ones you used in this quilt are different than those in your links quilt.  

Arlene's finished quilt.  Nancy kindly volunteered to finish off the quilting on this beautiful quilt.  She also unpicked all the unfinished hand quilting in the sashings and erased the pencil lines.  This will be a gift to Michi at a future get together, probably in September.  We will be visiting Michi at her new care home and having a little party to celebrate Joyce's birthday as well.  Joyce will let us know the date.

Finally we'd all like to wish Marybeth and Leng happy travels and look forward to seeing some photos--maybe even some posted to the blog.

Disappearing Nine Patch

Yesterday at our get together, Sue was busy working on the binding on Joyce's most recent I Spy quilt.  I believe it was Penny who commented on the interesting pattern and Joyce told us that it was a Disappearing Nine Patch pattern.  

As soon as a quilt block or pattern comes up in our discussions it never fails that I come across it the next time I am on the internet.  I have no doubt that my computer knows everything about me so I am never too surprised about this but it is a little creepy.  

So, it was probably no coincidence that the following post appeared on Joyce's Facebook pages today:

I remember what a sensation this was when it first starting doing the rounds.  Quilters' Haven had a class and there was one displayed by the cutting table.  We used to stand in front of it trying to work out how a nine patch could be converted into that final block but it really is easy/peasy as the post says.  

I confess that I took the class but misunderstood a key point--that the middle block should be the same colour on all the blocks to create a diagonal pattern.  I made all my blocks, cut them up but couldn't figure out why my blocks didn't look like the quilt at Quilter's Haven.  I ended up giving my blocks away to my friend, Georgina and she turned it into a nice quilt.  But, I still like this pattern and think it would make a nice baby quilt so will probably try again.

We now have Disappearing Hourglasses, Pinwheels and Flying Geese to name just a few.  Click here for a Youtube Channel dedicated to unique "disappearing" block quilts.

Donna Jordan's Trip Around the World

 Our group owes a lot to Eleanor Burns and her Trip Around the World quilt for getting the group started so many years ago.  You can read a little about it in the About Us page if you are not familiar with the story.

The quilt that started it all.

Fast forward thirty years or so.  It's 2020 and we were at home in shock and isolation trying to stay safe from the Covid 19 pandemic.  Many of us spent time on Youtube catching up on quilting tutorials and discovered Donna Jordan's many wonderful tutorials.  Donna's videos are concise and well edited and highlight her time saving tips as well as her tricks for accurate piecing.

I'm sure those of you who have made a Quilt in a Day Trip Around the World Quilt will be fascinated with Donna Jordan's Christmas Around the World and her brilliant method for piecing it.  It's interesting that she chose to tie this quilt and use a puffy poly batting.  She is a long arm quilter and you can learn a lot about choosing quilting patterns and thread colours from those segments at the end of her videos.  This method for quickly finishing this hand tied quilt is also a good alternate when we want to get something done in a hurry.  

Floating Points and Borders

 Recently there was some discussion in the group about what width binding we preferred and why.  Those of us who favoured 2.25" vs a 2.5" had found it avoided cutting off the points that end at the outer edge.  Betty mentioned that she always added a border to her quilts and so never had that problem.  

We always aim for perfection but most of us can accept a few misaligned seams and a some wonky quilting stitches.  But one thing I think we all hate is working so hard to make our blocks only to cut all the points off at the end.  Aaarrrggh!

I had never considered Betty's solution before and wondered if other quilters had discovered this trick so I went online and learned about floating borders.  This was completely new to me and it's useful for avoiding cutting off points but it is also a pretty cool way to square up a quilt before you add an outer contrasting border.  In both cases it is much easier to hide adjustments in seams in a matching fabric than a contrasting one where a fluctuating seam allowance is going to show.  Here is an example of a floating border:

The purple strip between the outer fuchsia strip and the pinwheel blocks is the floating border.  This strip is your first opportunity to square up your quilt after the quilt top has been assembled and to make sure that your inner pinwheel border will fit around the quilt.  Since it matches the setting squares the center "floats" on top of the background.
 

You can just barely see the inner floating border on this quilt but any problems that arise from having those four huge bias setting squares are eliminated by adding a floating border where all your subsequent squaring up can be hidden.  And the floating center has more impact as well.

No need to cut off any flying geese points at the horizontal axis.  Add the floating border to the inner and outer edges of the flying geese and square up the whole border along the inner edge of the floating border.  

Two floating stars

You can also plan your block construction so that the points don't come near the borders.  Here is a tutorial for making floating stars.  

Here is a link for a free pattern for this floating square quilt.  Both the inner and outer squares are floating.  

Labelling options for TAQ donation quilts

There have been some questions lately about what options are available for labelling our TAQ quilt donations.

At some point early on we decided as a group that each of our quilts needed to have a label and to save us the bother of making our own we did a search for labels that we could have printed at a reasonable cost.  I found some beautiful labels at Choke Cherry Quilts.  Unfortunately, the shipping was prohibitive and now the company is no longer making labels.

Shortly after that search I found a Youtube tutorial on how to make similar labels yourself using T-shirt transfer paper, satin ribbon and a home printer.  This was the result:

Two sided label to be sewn into the quilt binding.

Some of these labels are still available and I can make more, but I don't believe any have been used except one or two.  They are just basic, plain Jane labels but they have all the required info and are easy to attach.

A second option is to use one of the many labels we have collected that are occasionally available preprinted on quilting cotton.  Here are a few examples:

Preprinted, hand-written labels from our stash

Despite the big selection of these labels that we have it is surprisingly difficult to find one that matches the quilt and is big enough for the necessary information, which is:

        Made by the Tuesday Afternoon Quilters (or The TAQ's) 2024

                                       Burnaby, BC

                           Machine wash, warm/cold

                           Tumble dry, medium heat

                                        Do not iron

It's a lot of information but we decided that the care instructions were important, including the Do not iron, as the texture of a quilt changes quite a bit after it is washed and we do not want anyone to feel they have ruined the quilt by washing it. 

Some of us have just resorted to making our own labels:

So, the choice is yours but if you really don't want to label your quilt it won't be a problem finding someone in the group to do it.  At one point we had a lot of unlabelled quilts in our collection and lots of our members volunteered and got them done.

Some afters and befores … (Will see if this works!)

 

Meeting Update for August 13, 2024

 

Almost finished!  Here is Penny showing us one of her latest projects with just a little more stitching on the binding left to complete it.  This one is for Kaeto.

Here is Betty's very first quilt which she fittingly made for a Victor Borge party.  This must be the quilt that got everyone in the group thinking, Let's take up quilting, because it probably was pretty soon after that the Trip Around the World, quilt in a day (haha!) idea was hatched.  Still a cute quilt with an actual "piano key" border.

Joyce once again got out her I Spy fabrics which are reproducing in the cupboard and encouraged us to take some.  Sue organized and folded them so it at least looks like the pile got smaller.  I snuck a piece of Joyce's latest baby quilt into the photo in the background.   We will have the official reveal when the binding is sewn on.

Those are all the photos since everyone was being very camera shy today.  Sue made a slide show of the work that has taken place in her yard and garden with spectacular results.  In only three days it has gone from bare earth to a lovely seating area with pavers and the rest is a lush green lawn.  The garden beds have been evolving in the meantime and everything looks really gorgeous.  Lots of headaches and hard work for Sue but a really lovely result.  Sorry, I have no pictures to post here but perhaps Sue can send us all the slide show via email.

We talked a lot about our first sewing efforts whether that was at home or home ec.  Little did we know then how much time and money was going to be spent on sewing in our futures.

We also talked about getting ready to donate our quilts (24 on hand at the moment, maybe 25 by the end of today if I get up to my sewing room).  Nancy brought some handouts which described the Quilts for Survivors program--a possibility for the coming year.  Heron's Nest and Project Linus should take most of the baby and toddler quilts that we have on hand.  And the fire season isn't over yet so we should keep some on hand for that, just in case.

Next week we are going ahead with the demos--see the Next Meeting Page for more info.  I now have more info for the photos from the original group so will get those posted within a day or so, so check out the About Us Page as well.  Please add any stories you remember to augment the history.

Finally we talked about an outing soon, maybe two weeks from now.  We could make a trip to Fabricana (think good parking) or to The Cloth Shop on Granville Island.  Any other ideas?  And of course we will have lunch wherever we decide to go.

That's everything I can think of for now.  If I have forgotten anything, please let me know and I will update the post.

August 6th Meeting Report

 

One more star to embroider and it's finished

Star embroidery on Marybeth's quilt

Variegated twisted embroidery thread looks really pretty but a bit difficult to work with because of the thickness of the thread

Marybeth taught her granddaughter, Macey how to make these beautiful cross stitched book marks and now she can whip them up in no time at all.  I like the fringed edges, too.  Sharon used that edging on her labels as well.

Two little aprons that Sharon has finished, featuring cross stitched labels with their names, Riana and Shelby

Detail of Sharon's cross stitched label.

Sharon's little flannel baby quilt all finished and labelled.  

Betty's scrappy quilt with the binding applied and ready for hand sewing.

The back really shows up Betty's edge to edge quilting and the colourwash strip is a really pretty addition too.

Another masterpiece from Leng.  This quilt was completely hand appliqued and quilted.  It was inspired by the "ugly" cream coloured print that had been hanging around Fabricana for too long and Leng decided she was going to turn it into something beautiful.  

Detail of hand quilting

Nancy's lovely sashiko pillow

Practice patch from the front

Practice patch from the back.  Apparently the knots are a no-no but we're all rebels in our group so anything goes.

Nancy was volunteered to finish off the quilting on this quilt that Arlene started.  It was a thank you gift to her from Liz Charboneau for cat sitting Snickers.  When finished this quilt is going to be a gift for Michi.  It looks like the binding has already been done.

Joyce obviously hasn't been monkeying around because this quilt is now all done, including the label.

Joyce tried out Marybeth's suggestion to machine sew the binding on with a serpentine stitch.  Looks good on front and back and the corners.

Good work on the label, Joyce.

Joyce now has the binding on the quilt for Kenny's girlfriend all ready for a chilly fall.  We all loved that purple Minky on the back which really shows off the quilting.  

Penny's adorable whole cloth baby quilt all finished and labelled.  This will be a PSQG Community Quilts donation.

Here is a close up of the print and Penny's cross-hatched quilting.  She managed to get them all perfectly spaced with the aid of masking tape and the spacing bar on her walking foot.

This is Penny's latest, probably a TAQ Heron's Nest donation for September.

Next week we will be meeting at Marybeth's again and it will be a demo day.  So far Joyce, Nancy, Sharon and I have demos lined up.  If anyone has a trick they want to share or would like something tricky demoed for them, please let me know and I will put you on the list.  Please plan for something that can be demoed in 10 to 15 minutes.  No need to bring sewing machine, etc.  Marybeth will let us use hers.  Hand outs would be appreciated.