Hands 2 Help 2022

I am participating in this year's Hands 2 Help effort with three quilts destined for Mercyful Quilts. 

All three tops, backs, and bindings will go first to Alycia to be quilted and bound.  She will then send them on to Mercyful Quilts.  

First up is Pandemonium - one of my 2021 AHIQ Symmetry or Not challenge quilt projects. The top (click here) measures 54" x 66" and is shown here with its prepared backing and pre-made binding. 

You can read back through all of the Pandemonium-related posts by using the label at the end of this post.

Second up is FORTY-SIX - my 2021 AHIQ String Tulip challenge quilt project.  This top (click here) measures 48" x 60" and is shown here with its prepared backing (bottom) and pre-made binding.

You can read back through all of the FORTY-SIX-related posts by using the label at the end of this post.

The third quilt is Drama Queen, one of my 2021 ETC. quilt projects.  This top (click here) measures 51" x 70" and I'm sending along a pieced backing (see photo below) plus pre-made striped binding.

You can read back through all of the Drama Queen-related posts by using the label at the end of this post.

I have linked this post to Mari's Round-Up gathering showcasing more of the quilts being donated as part of Hands 2 Help 2022.

CLICK HERE to see what others are contributing.

* * *

Update July 2022

You  can see the three finished quilts via these links to Alycia's reveal posts on her blog:

Drama Queen

Pandemonium

Forty-Six

Thanks Alycia for your beautiful quilting and finishing work.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real.”

Donald Wills Douglas

Drama Queen - the Flimsy

Drama Queen has achieved quilt top status.

51" wide x 70" long

For those who have asked

how I keep the top from getting caught

while webbing the top together -

I use this narrow folding table

to help keep the overflow

nearly level with the main surface.

This top absolutely makes my soul sing.

And to think Drama Queen wasn't

even on the radar eight weeks ago.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Of all the hues, reds have the most potency.  If there is one electric blue, a dozen reds are so charged.  Use them to punctuate white, burn into bronzes, or dynamite black.”

Jack Lenor Larsen

Drama Queen and Recent Musings

Drama Queen with all of the 

bright on black blocks on the design wall.

Drama Queen with ALL of her blocks on the design wall.

I'll let this arrangement sit for a day or so  

as I make sure there aren't any  adjacent blocks 

with the same upper or lower edges touching.

Then it will be time to web the top together.

Since January when Ann issued the

current AHIQ challenge with appliquéd tulips, 

I've been thinking a lot about the fact 

that I have categorically refused to learn

how to properly hand appliqué.

(I do have arthritis in my right thumb joint

but if I'm careful I can manage limited amounts 

of hand work, just not for hours on end)

I'm tired of not having that tool in my skill set

and, in all fairness to myself, I need/want to learn.

Even though I seriously doubt I'll ever adopt

hand appliqué as my method of choice,

at least I won't automatically run for the door

 when hand appliqué is mentioned. 

To that end, I have signed up for Irene Blanck's 

Matilda class during the upcoming

virtual Vermont Quilt Festival.

(that's her Matilda quilt above)

My goal is to complete one flower grouping

before I decide whether or not to make more.

I will also be watching and possibly playing along 

with Jo Avery's upcoming quilt along.

Her Bedding Plants design includes

machine piecing, foundation piecing,

curved piecing, and hand appliqué.

I am not planning to make the whole quilt

but I do want to play with parts of it.

Along this same line of thinking about

major techniques that are missing from my toolbox . . .

I have developed a strong dislike of paper piecing

stemming from one of my earliest LQS classes.

When I took the virtual Ricky Tims Quilt Luminarium,

I learned that he uses a product called Stable Soft.

(the paper part dissolves in water 

and only the very thin webbing remains behind,

leaving the quilt soft and supple

with NO paper tearing/removal issues)

I have a package of Stable Soft now

so I'm going to test it in June during a live online class

with Sarah Bond called Coming Full Circle.

(samples of one block from the class above)

I'll let you know how it goes.

Finally, for those of you who have been 

getting my posts in your email Inboxes,

I'm testing out the new Bloglovin widget 

as a possible alternative for the Feedburner widget 

that is going to cease working soon.

To help me test this new widget

(look at the top of the sidebar)

I hope you'll subscribe AND then

let me know how it works for you.

Thanks!

Quiltdivajulie

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“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”

Georgia O’Keefe

DQ and FMQ Updates

This has been the plan for Dumpster Diving 8 - Bella

ever since I finished the quilt top last July.

Yesterday I finally figured out WHY the quilting 

of this one has been waiting for almost a year.

I changed the backing and binding fabrics and VOILA!

I now have two Dumpster Diving quilts 

pin basted and ready for FMQ action.

(that's 8-Bella on the left and 10-Do Tell on the right)

Drama Queen has a few more blocks on the design wall.

* * *

Google/Feedburner announced yesterday

that the FollowByEmail widget

used by over 500 of you

will cease working in July.

It appears there are no plans to provide

an alternate method for email following.

(Blogger is run using very old software 

and as other interfaces update their products, 

Blogger's functionality is being left behind too often -

I don't relish the thought of starting over

on a new platform but that possibility 

is slowing moving up on the reality check scale)

Deep breath . . . 

I use Bloglovin to follow most of the blogs

I read on a regular basis.

I'm sure there are others as well.

Hopefully you can find a new way to follow along

before July arrives and the current widget quits working.

Quiltdivajulie

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“There is nothing permanent except change.”

Heraclitus

Drama Queen and My Plate Method

This is where I left Drama Queen Monday evening.

With each new addition, I am loving it more and more.

(each of the blocks will finish at 9.25 inches tall)

Jan, a no-reply blogger, left a question on the last post

asking about my Plate Method.

I'm sharing my answer here

in case others didn't understand my reference.

I bought a few packages

of styrofoam plates at a dollar-type store.

I've been using the same plates for several years now.

(I've only needed to discard a few 

that developed cracked edges

because of the way I picked them up)

I lay out one plate for however many

 blocks or columns/rows/etc.

that will be part of the project.

As I am cutting out the fabric pieces and parts,

I use the plates to make sure 

each block has all of its requisite elements.

Alternatively, I cut out the needed elements

(in this case strips for Groundhog Day) 

and then use the plates as a sorting system to 

ensure the colors are distributed across the blocks

before the blocks are sewn together.

Once the pieces and parts are sorted,

the stacked plates take up far less real estate

on my work surfaces which is always a plus.

For projects with pieces larger than the plates 

(in this case, the spiderwebs that became Feisty)

I use my cafeteria trays ordered through Amazon.

* * *

And in case you need other ideas - 

Lynne uses metal baking sheet pans.

Wanda uses aluminum foil sheet pans.

And others use paper plates or even sheets of copy paper 

to separate their in-process block groups.

Take some time to find something 

that works for you and your space.

It's worth the effort.

Quiltdivajulie

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“I will go down with my colours flying.”

Virginia Woolf

Drama Queen Takes Shape

I made more blocks and put them on the design wall.

(see previous post for the beginnings of this project)

For giggles, I rearranged the blocks into

the namesake layout suggested by the pattern's designer.

And just like that my first idea flew out the window.

To balance things out, 

I plan to add a full-size column of red on the right side.

 

It's feels great to know exactly

where I'm going with Drama Queen.

(why is it that some quilts make decisions so "easy" 

and others like Forty-Six make progress so challenging?!?)

Next I pulled out this backing yardage purchased

 online from eQuilter a year or so ago . . . 

Oh my goodness - be still my heart!

(Tuscan Poppies by Chong- A Hwang

 for Timeless Treasures)

I am so in love with this . . .

(and if you look closely enough,

you can see that one strip in each block was cut 

from the very long lengths of already-sewn-together

short segments from previous dumpster diving projects)

I spent much of the weekend sorting/cutting strips to length

and stacking them in sewing order using my plate system

so that when I have a few minutes to sit and sew

I can work without having to make all those design decisions.

(pre-sorting and prepping the blocks also let me 

clear the massive piles of strips off the top 

of my sewing table  - making it easier to breathe)

Elsewhere in the studio,

these quilt tops/backs were noodle-rolled 

to FMQ in April -  so while I will absolutely keep 

making Drama Queen's 48 red/40 bright-on-black blocks 

(plus sixteen brights-on-black partial blocks), 

I will also take time to pin baste and quilt/finish 

the final three Dumpster Diving quilts.

(Nos. 8, 10, and 11)

Quiltdivajulie

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"RED is the ultimate cure for sadness"

Bill Blass

Introducing . . .

I made a "sharp left turn" in my last post

when I shared that I am NOT going to make

the twelfth Dumpster Diving quilt.

I also shared that the boxes of reds and brights on blacks

would be repurposed into a different scrappy quilt -

one that didn't require so many hours of prep work.

Well . . . guess what?

THIS is what those strips are going to become.

I made a Lava Lamps quilt named Milestone 

in 2010 but later sold it to a co-worker.

Since then I've always wanted to make 

another non-KF version for myself.

That time has finally arrived.

I cut paper shapes slightly larger than the outline of my templates

and set to work piecing a few test blocks.

I want to piece each block one strip at a time

so I can use wider pieces at the top and the bottom

instead of making yards of random strata

and cutting the block shapes from that. 

I really don't enjoy paper piecing so I'm using my own method

that incorporates Marit's "flip the base out of the way" technique

much like I did when I made Feisty last year.

Except this time I am taping the first strip of fabric

to the base shape so there will be no paper to "rip" away.

Here are two test blocks for the partial end blocks.

If you look closely you can see my template

laying on top of the red strata.

(DH made them for me when I made that 2010 quilt)

Here is one of the red strata with the full block template on top.

OH, MY!  

YES!  YES!  YES!

This one is not likely to go back into the "pending" closet.

I am going "off script" in order to make

44 brights on black and 44 red blocks

PLUS

however many of each color I'll need

to make for the partial end blocks 

since they are not "one orientation fits all."

* * *

I hinted at the project's name at the top of the post.

Introducing . . . DRAMA QUEEN.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Red protects itself.  No other colour is as territorial.  It stakes a claim, is on the alert against the spectrum." (Derek Jarman)

AND

“Women who wear black lead colorful lives.”  (Neiman Marcus)

Enough is Enough - Decisions Made

At some point in time I decided I would make 

a series of twelve Dumpster Diving quilts.

Since then I've made myself dizzy with ideas.

This past week I decided enough was enough.

Dumpster Diving 9 - Blue Springs Road

will feature these blue and white strips cut from

an impulsively purchased fat quarter bundle.

I'll mix in some yellows and possibly bits of gray

and use the free Spring design 

by Valori Wells for Kaufman Fabrics.

I'll use this yardage for DD-9's backing.

The color palette for Dumpster Diving 10 - Do Tell

was inspired by the thought of 

a bouquet of full blown pink peonies in 

one of my grandmother's vintage aqua mason jars.

(name inspired by an award-winning

 lush pink peony variety from the 1940s)

I've gathered these pieces from the resource and crumb boxes

ready to be run through the die cutter when the time comes.

This is the yardage I chose for DD 10's backing.

Dumpster Diving 11 - Mischief Maker

is underway as one of my RSC 2020 projects.

January's blocks are here.

February's blocks are here.

March's blocks are waiting to be made.

The yardage above (right) will be DD11's backing

and the yardage on the left will be it's binding.

Dumpster Diving 12  - Journey's End

will feature black and white and red.

I have a design in mind

but need to do a bit more planning

between now and the time this one begins.

EDIT ADDED LATER -

DD 12 - Journey's End did not happen.

The red and black strips eventually became

an Etcetera Quilt known as Drama Queen,

which was donated to Mercyful Quilts 

during Hands2Help 2022.  

You can use the Drama Queen label at the end

of this post to see the posts for that quilt.

And this will be the backing for DD 12.

* * *

Meanwhile . . . 

Dumpster Diving 7 - Respite 

is still waiting to be quilted

and

Dumpster Diving 8 - Bella

is ready and waiting for block construction.

* * *

It will obviously be a while

before the rest of this series is worked on

but at least I can quit thinking about how

I'm going to finish out this series of 12 quilts.

Decisions made.

Quiltdivajulie

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“There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others.  When that happens, you do it.  Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else.  Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it.”
Anonymous