Category Archives: FABs

Quilt Finishes While Computer is Down

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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

9 Patch Pizzazz Progress

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These are all my 9 Patch Pizzazz pieces cut and ready to go. The FABs have been having lengthy discussions about block layouts. I am prepared to go with the layout in the book and have cut the following:

From my focus fabric – Merkitties – two 12 1/2″ squares, four 6 1/2″ squares, one 2 1/2″ strip.

From my wave fabric (I believe the author of the book calls this one your companion fabric) – I only had 1/2 yard piece of the merkitties and so I am using the wave fabric to substitute for merkitties. I should have had one yard of merkitties if I was going to follow the pattern exactly – cut one horizontal rectangle 6 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ and two 2 1/2″ strips

From the yellow challenge fabric – I cut three 2 1/2″ strips, one vertical rectangle 12 1/2″ x 6 1/2″, four 6 1/2″ squares

From the green and pink fabrics – I cut three 2 1/2″ strips of each colour

I managed to finish putting together the top (less the borders) by 1:00 pm (that’s starting at 8:00 am). I only managed to make one mistake — I reversed two of the nine patch blocks. I am not going to change it–as Pam says, IIWII (it is what it is). I made another quick switch and unless you really knew what this pattern layout was supposed to look like, you would never notice my mistake. It is now part of the charm of this quilt.

I am not sure whether I am going to go with the border treatment in the book or if I am going to make up my own border design. sometimes these things have to age a bit and you have to consider options before making a decision.

This was a great way to spend the morning–quilting with Internet friends!

9-Patch Pizzazz FABs Weekend

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This is the quilt pattern book that the FABs are going to use this weekend during our Quilt-In. We won’t be making the quilt on the cover of the book (this one is on point). The quilt that we are going to make is called, Lily Pond. Each of us is going to make our own version of Lily Pond or some version very close to this depending on what we come up with on our design walls when we lay the blocks out.

These are my fabrics. The merkitty fabric at the top came from LindaJ. I believe it was LindaJ’s quilt group, the Belles, that were making quilts for one of the charities they support as a challenge project. LindaJ supplied me with some of the challenge fabric so I could play along. I never got to making my quilt, so I am going to use this fabric this weekend. The yellow fabric with the blue stars and white dots on the far right was supplied by Pam. Pam sent all of the FABs a piece of this fabric to use in our quilts this weekend. By coincidence, this fabric matches my merkitties, so I am able to use both challenge fabrics — from different challenges — in my quilt. Once our quilts are finished, we will be donating them to Pam’s M2M project.
There are a few rules for this weekend that we agreed to already:
– It is ok to cut out your quilt pieces and it is ok to sew the strips for the 9 patches…but you may not cut the strips into sets.

– Sewing will start at 8 a.m Saturday. You can choose between central time and pacific time…since we are in 2 time zones

We have sewn together as a group. We use e-mail, digital cameras, and IM to let one another know what we are up to, where we are in the pattern, to answer each other’s questions, and to cheer each other on to the finish line.

A couple members of the group are “keeners” and have already drafted their quilts using their quilt software. My quilt layout is still in my head and will not likely get drafted in a formal way. I plan on cutting out the pieces and using a design wall to decide on final placement.

FABs Converged on Fabulous Fabric Projects

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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.