Happy Zombie

Another round of the Traveling Quilts Bee was just at my house, not once but TWICE with both Faith’s and Jacquie’s beautiful quilt-in-progress quilts. If anyone isn’t familiar with our Traveling Quilts Bee, be sure to check out our Traveling Quilts Bee flickr group.

I started with Jacquie’s, and it took me a few days of looking at it to figure out what I was going to do. It was not unlit I looked at the quilt through my iphone that I saw the big “t” in the quilt. Again, my iphone is one of my favorite quilting tools. Thanks, Apple! I took that “t” and ran with it, and I added a row of t’s to the top. My favorite one is the “one of these t’s is not like the others” t. I think it’s the one constant in almost all my additions to everyone TQ’s - is I make one or two of block grouping in kind of reverse. A little zig amongst the zag.

On Faith’s, it was a bit more challenging, but in a good way because there was the quilt-in-progress plus a handful of block made by others. I could either do something with all the blocks or I could add to the QIP. I chose the latter because I LOVE MAKING STARS.

I made 12 little star blocks, a few that were zigged instead of zagged.

I made two rows of six blocks. Twilight colors in one row, sunrise colors for the bottom row. I heart seams.

Get ready Daniel, I’m sending Jacquie’s and Faith’s TQs off to you today!

RESOURCES:
- My Traveling Quilts Bee blog posts: tagged Bee Serious
- The Traveling Quilts Bee flickr group

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Round 7 of the Traveling Quilts Bee was just at my house with Ashley’s beautiful QIP (quilt in progress). If anyone isn’t familiar with the Traveling Quilts Bee, be sure to check out our Traveling Quilts flickr group and be a-freaking-mazed.

When I received Ashley’s QIP, I decided I wanted to do a similar ish improve log cabin like I did on Alissa’s QIP. What make’s what I did for Ashley so different is that I used prints scraps that long ago came from Ashley. This may be close to 2 years ago - Ashely had passed some scraps on to Elizabeth, and then the scraps from the scraps were passed on to me by Elizabeth. And now they’re going back to Ashely inside her Traveling Quilt. The circle of life in a cotton and linen blend.

I think so far with every QIP I’ve done, my addition is in an L shape. On Ashley’s I added the left side and then around on to the top. I guess that’s more of a backwards 7. Or an E without an arm and foot. Or an F all smart-assy, “look at me, no hands”.

Ashley’s QIP has gotten so big I had to enlist both my husband and son to hold it up. The guy in the socks and crocs… sorry ladies, he’s taken.

RESOURCES:
- My TQ blog posts: tagged Bee Serious
- The Traveling Quilts flickr group
- Ashley: Film in the Fridge

PS,
I’m trying something new. One of my favorite things about blogging is the social aspect of it, and I’ve made many friends via commenting on blogs (both receiving and giving). Because I receive a crazy amount of S P A M, have an unruly inbox, and because I find Instagram to be a way more effective way to socialize - I’m turning off my blog comments and am encouraging anyone who wants to leave me a comment to do so on my Instagram. I love that Instagram is so social and encourages conversions with multiple people, and isn’t one sided and private like blog comments are. Click here for this post’s corresponding Instagram.

Round 6 of the Traveling Quilts Bee has made it’s way to my house. I received John’s beautiful QIP (quilt in progress).

I added my addition to the top of the QIP (photo at bottom of this post), and I had just got done flying so I was in airplane travel mode and that influenced my addition.  Plus I want to do some handwork for John.  Not so much in how the handwork looks or what it is… I just wanted to give John’s QIP a little extra lovins from something I so dearly love to do.  Why?  Because QuiltDad is my Homeboy, that’s why.

I love this bee in so many ways, and one of the reasons is because it’s assembled by creativity and not by rules. Some participants don’t add on to the QIP itself, but rather make elements for the QIP. Some of the participants have used the elements and added them on to the QIP or into their own addtion. This round I decided to use those elements and add them on vs passing them on with the QIP.  This round included some blocks by Amber and a big block by Heather.

It really hit me the community aspect of this bee as I was pressing Amber’s and Heather’s blocks. In Amber’s case - there’s an ocean between us - and yet it kinda felt like she was there as I was pressing her blocks. Weird and indescribable - but that big, fat ocean was more like a puddle all of a sudden.

I joined and set the blocks to resemble the arc I used in my addition. I hope John likes it!

John’s QIP is now on to Daniel’s house for his addition, and I can not wait to see what Daniel does next!

Round 5 of the Traveling Quilts Bee has made it’s way to my house. I now have Amber’s beautiful QIP (quilt in progress). I wanted to carry on in a sewing theme after seeing Elizabeth’s beautiful ruler addition.

So one night at sewing circle (aka Yam time) while I was sewing on Amber’s QIP, a bee flew up my bum and I thought about adding something extra, extra special to Amber’s QIP. So I jumped on to some aerial photography equipment…

… and added a beautiful Yam border!

Mo, Traci, Gibby, Fini (Irene’s sister and Instagram rock-star visiting from Hawai’i), Irene, Jen, Shelly, Joan & Kristin.

BettyCrockerAss‘ wobble, but they don’t fall down.

My fo’realsies addition to Amber’s QIP includes a pieced spool (from Camille’s pattern)…

… and some appliqued “thread”.  I was just about ready to pack it all up and send it off to Dan…

… when suddenly there was an angry commotion amongst the staff.  And there were threats.  Turns out I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to see this get quilt-top get sent on.

It was going to take some serious scheming and warfare to get past these guys.

Luckily I had help… but there was either a casualty or some narcolepsy.

Order was soon restored by the IT guy - the office/sewing room bad-ass. Amber’s QIP is now safely on it’s way to Dan. And by on it’s way I mean that it’s on my dinner table waiting to go to the post office tomorrow.  Ish.

To see who made what - click on the photo to take you to it’s flickr page, then mouse-over the photo to see the segments and their creators.

I can’t wait to see what Dan does next!

Round 4 of the Traveling Quilts Bee has again made it’s way to my house. I now have Alissa’s quilt-in-progress with the addition’s of Elizabeth’s quilt-werks and Heather’s quilt-werks. The QIP started with Alissa’s center block, which Elizabeth built around it, Heather built on to the right side, and then I added to the top and left side (if you view the photo in Flickr, you can mouse over the photo and internetgalaticamagicly see who did what).

Bottom right is Alissa’s “starter block”.

I crazy love the citron-ish yellow (Art Gallery’s “Empire Yellow”) solid Alissa added to her traveling bundle, especially with all the greys.   Mad love.  I see a shopping trip to Fat Quarter Shop in my very near future.

I turned some of the fabrics around - it’s like getting a bonus fabric. The little Echino in the center is a scrap that started at Ashley’s house, then went to Elizabeth’s house, and then came to my house… I just HAD to use it. At some point it’ll go back to Ashley house once the Alissa’s QIP makes it’s way there. I wonder if the fabric will recognize her? Mommy, Mommy… is that really you?

I had so much fun making my addition, and each little log cabin was a different treat. Elizabeth had a great idea that I attach my lil’ loggies in the same manner as I did her QIP and Heather’s QIP.  I liked her idea, and maybe the L7 is now my new thing. The fun thing is not knowing what I’m going to do for the next person until I get that person’s QIP.

This bee is the ultimate in creative challenges and so much fun. Most fun I’ve ever had on a quilting project/group adventure. And speaking of fun… I’m DYING over Penny’s addition on my QIP!

Round 3 of the Traveling Quilts Bee has made it’s way to my house.  I now have Elizabeth’s quilt-in-progress (here).

The beauty of this round robin bee is that the rules are really liberal - some participants are building to the quilt-in-progress (QIP) rounds, and some participants are making building materials.  I’m too chicken to use someone’s building materials (ie, Heather’s beautiful blocks) for fear I’ll muck them up, so I’m sticking to being a builder.

The instant I saw Elizabeth’s QIP, I KNEW that I wanted to have some fun in 8-bit and do something iconic 80’s like Pac-man.  I found some awefreakingsome paper piecing Pac-man patterns by Jennifer Ofenstein posted here.  It’s bananas how Jennifer has so many killer patterns.  How do people do this??  My mind boggles.

I printed the patterns at a smaller scale so I could border them into 5″ finished blocks.  I don’t know what I did, all I know is I got printer-lucky.

I grey’d-out Pac-man’s traveled path as he makes his way towards Clyde.

As Pac-man heads toward Pinky and Inky (ish), I decided to do the “dots” in tall segments vs alternating squares of black and white with long white boarders.  In my head I heard Pac-man chomping his way over the dots - and I feel like the segments enhance the visual chomping sounds, and the long white boarders would have felt like Pac-man would have been gliding over the dots.  Pac-man is not a glider.  Not that there’s anything wrong with gliding.

All done, and now Round 3 is off to Dan’s for Round 4.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the secrecy ban has been lifted in the TQ pool (yay!!!), and now we can all watch the QIP’s as they grow.  For example I got to see Dan’s addition to my QIP, and just recently got to see Elizabeth’s addition to Amber’s QIP.  Yeah, incredibly, amazing stuff to see.  An abundance of awesomeness!

I have to throw something on my blog so the first thing I see is not me with a toilet seat cover on my head.  Speaking of which, my mom told a lady at her gym what I and my girlfriends did, and the lady replied that she used to do stuff like that in high school, too.   Awkward.

I belong to the Traveling Quilts bee, and up until recently - we were not allowed to show our round robin progress other than peeks.  Not saying there was public outcry, or veils of threats (there may or may not be a table flipper in the group)… but the secrecy ban has been lifted, all who want to watch all the progress now can!   So for slight-of-hand-taking-focus-off my last post… this is a peek of my progress for Elizabeth’s traveling quilt.

And now to go finish it so I can send it off to Dan.

I’m in a bee. Seriously! My first bee (I’m SUCH a bee-newbie that I still have that new bee smell), and wow… what a bee to be in!  I’m thrilled and terrified at the same time. Not only are my fellow Traveling Quilts bee’rs AMAZING quilters, but this bee is a round robin and on the last rotation the person quilts and binds their person’s quilt. Oh sure, no pressure - I only have to quilt Dan Freaking Rouse’s quilt! It’s like building a car for Lamborghini or decorating Martha Stewart’s house.  Nooooooo sweat (beads of sweat dribble off my face and on to my keyboard).  But as scared as I am, I’m also thrilled and honored, and honestly - quite giddy to be the person who gets to quilt Dan’s quilt.

The premise of the bee is really simple, we all start with a “seedling”, which can be a block, a cluster of blocks, or whateva. It then travels from house to house, and everyone builds upon what the last person added.  I made “boarding pass” buttons for everyone in the bee - but I accidentally put us all in the same seat. I guess we’ll be needing that seat belt extender.

My block is a modified version of my You Are Here block (now it’s become my You Are Home block), and the center house block is a modified schoolhouse block from Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine.    I only did one chimney so it looks more like a home than a schoolhouse, and I also reduced the size so it would finish at 4.5″. Lots of trial, error and wishful thinking on the printing.  I’m not sure what the final % was, I just got lucky.  I’m going to take advantage of my supersize shot, because from here on out I can only show sneak peek pics. And some people think I’m neat, tidy and organized. Bwhahahaha.

I made up a little saying for my block and embroidered it to the bottom. Actually, I embroidered it twice. Because four nights of embroidering it wrong is how I roll. Oh well, I wasn’t feeling the love for the font on the first one, anyway.

Now all I need to do is write in my journal and off it’ll go to Dan’s house.  And by write I mean that I’ll scribble something in my journal and include a legible (typed and printed) errata to go with it.

I’ll be sending my quilt-seedling to Dan in California, and then so on and so forth to –> Penny in Colorado to –> Jacquie in Illinois to –> Faith in Illinois to –> Ashley in Vermont to –> John in North Carolina to –> Amber in Hawaii to –> Alissa in California to –> Elizabeth in Oregon to –> Heather in Oregon to –> me in Oregon and then back to Dan with a finished quilt!

As much as I want to hand deliver to each month’s package… ohhh, I danno… like a meet-up at Amber’s house (I wonder if Hawaiian Airlines will accept our boarding passes?), we’re going to have to rely on the planes, trains and trucks of delivery services.  This is gonna be so fun!  Deeeeeeeeep breath…. wish me luck.  Or rather, wish my partners good luck!

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