Guest Post: MMQG

I did a little guest post over at the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild blog today about digging into the "good stuff".  It's about fabric but can apply to whatever is "good stuff" to you!

Bits and Pieces

Well, that was fun!  

I made up a few blocks for our Bento Box swap with the MQG in Baltimore.

Here's how it works. Make a block...

and cut it into pieces.

I will keep these three and add the nine pieces that I get from the swap to complete a whole quilt.  If you look too-closely you will see that the seams don't all match up perfectly.  I hope those folks in Baltimore don't employ the quilt police!  

Some of my favorite words on the Walker Art Center

Bento Beginnings

I work in a fantastic new space.  I work for myself.  I am my own boss AND my own assistant.  I don't have to answer to anyone!  I am so grateful to be in this position, but one of the few things I miss about my teaching job is being part of a community.  So, one of my goals has been to create my own community. 

 One of the ways I have done that is to be an active member of the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild.

We are doing a bento box swap with the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild.  It is an example of why I love being part of a Guild (especially the Modern Quilt Guild).  I would never have been motivated to give this a try, or even known what a bento block was otherwise.  Three cheers for being pushed out of my comfort zone!!!

I am going to attempt three blocks using this tutorial, and we'll see which ones turn out well enough to head to the swap.

SnowBall Block Lotto

I always love the Mpls Modern Quilt Guild block lottos.  This month we did a snowball block.  I think making "snowballs" in April in Minnesota is hilarious because, even though we had an incredibly mild winter, the last thing we want to hear about in April is snowballs!  But I can certainly deal with this kind of snowball.

 We made four small blocks instead of one larger one.  So simple to do and...

...so many options to put them together.  We have yet to see a finished quilt from any of our lottos, and I have not won one yet.  My odds are getting better though because once you win a lotto, you can't win again until you complete the quilt.  It seems like everyone still likes to contribute blocks even if they can't win, so hopefully my day will come soon.  This block is definitely one that I will use again in my own quilting.

The Birkie Quilt

Well, it's not the prettiest quilt I have ever made, but the recipient might be pretty happy about that. He requested "nothing fancy" when I decided to get started on it.   I made this quilt for a Mpls Modern Quilt Guild challenge where we needed to use only repurposed materials in the quilt.  I used t-shirts and race bibs from the Birkeibiener Ski Race that my husband does every year to piece the front.  They have seen over 500K of snowy hills in the northwoods of Wisconsin over the last 10 years.  There are a few pieces of his worn out pants and shirts in there as well.  I used a thrifted sheet for the back and an old blanket for the batting.  For the binding I used an old sheet that was given to us as a wedding gift to hold it all together.

Hello, My name is Lisa and I am addicted to fabric...

Check out this fantastic name tag made for me by Tracy! We finally decided that we needed to draw names to make name tags for each other in our MMQG instead of waiting for motivation to make them for ourselves. I couldn't be happier with mine.
This is the name tag I made for Flaun. We drew names from a "hat" and made that person a name tag. The ultra-small size was a challenge for me, but I managed to put something together. I missed the meeting when we exchanged and am excited to see what everyone else came up with when we have our April meeting next week!

Modern Challenge

As a member of the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild I have really enjoyed the challenges, big and small. Our April challenge is to make something from all repurposed fabric. Each year, for the last 10 years, my husband has completed the American Birkebeiner. We have been saving race-bibs and t-shirts to someday be made into a quilt. Well, today is the day. I don't have much of a plan yet, but thanks to this recent challenge, the Birkie quilt will become a reality.

Something new...to me at least.

I belong to the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild and we have been doing a block lotto for the last few meetings. It has been so fun to try out new things that I wouldn't ordinarily have tried. This month we are each contributing a string block. I had to do a little googling to get a handle on exactly what that was. I found this great tutorial to get me started.

I dug out a bag of OLD scraps and got after it. I have never paper-pieced before, so that was an interesting process in itself.

One suggestion from the tutorial was to shorten the stitch length to make the paper more perforated in order to remove it more easily. Removing the paper was not necessarily difficult, just fussy. I tend to like my gratification to be more immediate, but the added time to remove the paper was balanced out by the preciseness and stability of my block.

The finished block...may not be perfect, but it sure was fun. Not too sure that I will be making 20 of these for a whole quilt, but I see a string block pillow or two in my future.

Wonky Maverick

Thanks again to my quilt guild for pushing me out of my box again. I gave the wonky star a try for our November Drawing. This was my first attempt and it was pretty easy. I didn't end up making it to the meeting for the drawing, but it was so fun to try something new. I used this easy to follow tutorial...

I'm looking forward to seeing what will come of the block drawing idea at our monthly meetings...