Category Archives: convergence

Quilt Finishes While Computer is Down

Posted on by
4

I have been disconnected from the computer world for the past week. My computer crashed on May 4 while I was on line talking to a friend on line. Thanks to my daughter sharing her laptop with me throughout the week, I was able to keep limited contact with my on-line friends. Thanks to the computer talents of my son, my computer is now back up and running and I have rejoined the blogging world and I am back “connected” to all of you.

While I did not have my computer, I did manage to make good use of my time and finished off some quilts.
This is my dryer sheet diamond quilt. This quilt was completed to the flimsy stage on May 27, 2007 and was long arm machine quilted using the Baptist Fan template on January 6, 2008.

This is my Hibiscus Convergence quilt. We made this quilt on a FAB Saturday in March. Although it is hard to see in this picture, this quilt was long arm machine quilted with the clam sheet template.


This quilt is the product of a couple of challenges and a FAB Saturday. LindaJ‘s quilting group challenged themselves to use the feature fabric in this quilt, the merrkittys in a quilt. Pam challenged the FABs to use the yellow star fabric in a quilt using the 9 Patch Pizzazz pattern. The FABs are donating their finished 9PP quilts to Pam’s M2M project. Tada…presenting IIWII (It Is What It Is), my Merkitty 9 Patch for Mexico quilt! Now don’t say that three times in a row! LOL

Busy Times

Posted on by
14

I haven’t posted in two weeks, but I have been busy working on quilting projects.

After working on my first Convergence quilt with the FABs on March 8th, I decided to make a second Convergence quilt the following day. This is my Sunflower Convergence.

I love the formula of using a large floral print fat quarter and three contrasting fabrics drawn from the colours of the print fabric to make this quilt pattern. I use up what extra floral fabric I have left from the fat quarter on the border and then pull one of the solid fabrics from the center to finish off the border. This is the second Convergence using this method of fabric selection and I just love how it turned out!

I ended up quilting this piece 2 1/2 times. I had it half quilted and I didn’t like the thread so I picked it out, then I fully quilted it and didn’t like the quilting design so I picked it out, then I quilted it for the last time which is the design you see now with the “sun’s ray’s” coming from the upper right hand corner.

Friday, March 14th was my Mother’s birthday. This is the Spring/Easter table center that I finished for her using the Spiral quilt pattern I have shown before.

And this is the Birthday Girl posing with her cake.

Saturday, March 15th was National Quilting Day. Did you know that the third Saturday in March is officially designated as National Quilting Day? Quilters love a celebration – especially when fabric is involved – so over the years, observance of National Quilting Day has unofficially been expanded to the whole month of March! To read more about National Quilting Day, follow this link: http://www.nqaquilts.org/NatQuiltDay.html

I celebrated National Quilting Day by working on my We Care quilt –started during our guild workshop on March 1st. (see earlier post)

This is me with my We Care quilt. My daughter took the picture just before I left for my guild’s monthly meeting on Wednesday night. Look who decided to get in on the picture taking — peeking out from behind the quilt!

I loved the fabric on the back of this quilt–dragonflies!

FABs Converged on Fabulous Fabric Projects

Posted on by
18

For the second Saturday in a row, I had the privilege of quilting with friends when the FABs converged on another FABulous FABric project. This time the friends were not located in the same place as I was–they were in three different locations in the U.S.

The chosen project was Ricky Tim’s Convergence quilt. We have been chatting on line for a while now about this project. Some of us were counting the days, some were counting the sleeps. Some were so excited that they had to hide their pattern so they wouldn’t work ahead of the scheduled day and time.

We decided to start working at 7:00 am Saturday morning. The most preparation you were allowed to do was to cut your four 16″ squares of fabric. LindaJ was first to start as she is two hours ahead of the rest of us time zone wise. Pam decided to keep LindaJ company and started with LindaJ at 7:00 Linda’s time. I knew I wouldn’t be able to start quilting at 5:00 in the morning with the two of them (I am two time zones behind LindaJ) so I decided to adopt the Mountain time zone and started at 7:00 am Mountain time (6:00 am here). Cher started closer to 7:00 Pacific time–she was probably the smartest one of the bunch because she made sure she was well rested before taking out her rotary cutter or turning on her sewing machine!

These are the fabrics that I chose for my Convergence quilt.

This is a picture early in the process. You can see the various widths that the strips are cut. Yes, the narrowest strip is cut 1″ wide–a pain but effective in the final quilt.

This is a picture after the strips are re-arranged, just before sewing them together into pairs.

These are all the strips sew together again. At this point, you turn your project 1/4 of a turn and repeat the cutting into strips, rearranging the strips, and then sewing them together again.

This is the finished top–with borders added. I have since quilted my piece and I am planning to block before binding as suggested by Ricky in his book.
This was a great day. This was a pattern/technique that I have wanted to try for a long time. I enjoyed working along with my friends and figuring out the pattern together. Having friends pulling along with you helps keep the project out of the UFO pile. Thanks to the Internet, computers, digital cameras, and IM it is possible to quilt with friends in different parts of the world!
Oh, Pam, I don’t think any of these projects turned out like POCs so your mailbox is safe!
We had so much fun that we are already planning the next quilting day.

Confession is Good for the Soul….

Posted on by
12

Confession is good for the soul…..and great incentive to finish projects! Or, I should say, the thought of having to go on line and confess that once again I was stalled on the borders for a quilt pushed me to the finish line (or at least the flimsy stage) last Friday night.

I expected to hear from LindaJ at some point on the weekend and I was sure she would want to know how I was making out on my Bargello Bowl quilt since she had finished hers on retreat the previous weekend. I had the fabrics picked out for the border, I just had not gone that extra step and attached them. Once I got going, it didn’t take that long, what was the hurdle? I am not sure what was keeping me from attaching those borders, but I do know that I was not going to face confessing that I had not yet finished this project, so I soldiered on and this is the final result–my completed Bargello Bowl flimsy!

This finish was just in time as the FABs are scheduled to tackle a project together–Ricky Tim’s Convergence. We are scheduled to start at 7:00 am Saturday morning. We have agreed that we can go as far as cutting out our 4 – 16″ squares of fabric and that is all! No starting ahead of time–even if it means hiding the pattern so we aren’t tempted!

Who knew that confession and temptation had anything to do with quilting?

A Cure for Quilter’s Block

Posted on by
7

I belong to a small group of on-line friends that have been discussing our next quilting project. We are all planning to make Ricky Tims‘ Convergence quilt.

I had been to a quilt show once where someone made a Convergence quilt using a Michael Miller chicken/rooster print. I thought this would be the opportunity to make that quilt myself, after all, I do own a meter of that wonderful print!

While I was at the quilt shop yesterday looking for coordinate prints, another quilter asked me what I had planned for the gorgeous chicken fabric. I told her I was making a Convergence quilt. She had never heard of the pattern so I explained how you use four prints and cut them into strips and sew them back together. (Obviously simplified instructions.) She was horrified and couldn’t believe that I would consider cutting up these beautiful chickens. At that moment, I realized that I couldn’t go through with cutting this gorgeous fabric up–I couldn’t see these chickens “in jail” behind bars of contrasting fabric!

I went ahead and purchased two coordinates but I vowed to find a different way to display my beloved chickens. (The red fabric was already in my stash.)

When I got home, I remembered that I had previously purchased a copy of Judy Sisneros‘ book, 9-Patch Pizzazz. This is a more appropriate use of my chicken fabric as this book makes excellent use of large scale prints by leaving them intact, in large chunks–6 1/2″, 12 1/2″, 18 1/2″, etc. As long as each side is divisible by 6 and add 1/2″ you can make use of the square or rectangle in this pattern.
Now that I have a pattern to use the chickens appropriately, I turned my attention back to selecting fabrics from my stash for my Convergence quilt. This is the first combination I put together. I have decided that the fabrics may be too “matchy” and there isn’t enough contrast between all pieces so I discarded this selection and went back to searching.

Then I came across a bright floral FQ in my stash. I started to pull fabrics from the floral and came up with this combination. Unless I come up with another combination before we start cutting into our fabrics, this is what I am going with for my Convergence quilt!

Thanks to the FABs and on-line discussions about this new project, I am officially curred of Quilter’s Block…….at least for now!