This came out of a Guild workshop on a new technique for making a 9-Patch block. We used a layer cake (10″ Squares) and I must say that picking fabric from a single collection is a great way to go. Once the 9-patches were done I put the project away for awhile. It eventually turned up as one of my UFO Challenges.

About the same time that I was looking to sew the blocks together a blog I was following came out with a quilt-along to do a Disappearing 9-Patch. I thought that would be an interesting way to put the blocks together. The blogger gave so many choices that it was too hard to choose which look I liked best so I used four different ways to slice and restitch those blocks.

But I wasn’t done experimenting yet. I wanted to try my hand at a quilt-as-you-go technique; the Guild was having a class but it was on a Thursday and would interfere with my regular sewing session. So I looked online, got some help from my Tuesday stitchers and it was done in no time.

I enjoyed the technique particularly for the quilting. I used different quilting patterns on the different blocks – some showed up better than others but it was certainly easier to play when the space you were working on was smaller than the entire quilt.

There was a lot more hand stitching involved with this method than I realized. All the backing on the blocks is hand stitched to the block beside and beneath it. I chose to do this one without a sashing, but my next one (and I already have the blocks finished) will be with a sashing.

This was passed on to the Guild as a donation.

This is a 3-Yard quilt from the patterns Stacia, Deloise and I brought back from our trip to Houston. Some of the fabric came from the Guild’s collection; they were handing out bundles for the members to work on. I didn’t like some of the fabric in my bundle and I was able to substitute it with some from my own stash.

My Thursday ladies thought it was pretty bright (they were too polite to say too bright) but once it was together they liked it.

This second quilt was also a 3-Yard pattern. I used the bundle of fabrics I was given but the two pinks very much faded into one another so you can hardly see the star. I tried to quilt it to highlight those stars; if you look closely you may be able to see the stars.

I didn’t piece this quilt but after our Community Quilt weekend this was my “door prize” as I was walking out. The quilting is very simple and it went quickly. The Guild always tells us we should be using these donation quilts to learn or practice a technique – they generally mean fancy free-motion quilting or ruler work. I decided to try doing a machine-stitched binding rather than the hand stitching finish I usually do.

I have mixed feelings about the technique. I’m not convinced it is any faster and I enjoy the hand stitching on a binding. I attached the binding to the back first and then pulled it around to the front but if I do it again I’ll reverse that and sew to the front first.

I bought a booklet with eight patterns on a trip to Saskatoon and decided for my miniatures I would go through the book and make each one in order.

I made this miniature top when I was quilting with Stacia and Deloise last fall. I had it in a package to take to Texada to do the quilting. I hope that it was because I didn’t have the right sized scraps that this ended up so wonky.

When it was nearing time for another miniature meeting at the Guild I pulled out my book and started piecing. This time I used the precision piecing method (gluing each seam before sewing) and it came out much better. Note to self – always use the precision piecing method when you are dealing with squares as small as 1.5″.

It wasn’t until I was quilting the two of them one after the other that I realized how similar they were. Could that be right? Surely I hadn’t made the same pattern twice.

That, in fact, is exactly what I did. They ended up in two different sizes so they could be passed off as different I guess, and the wonkiness of one makes it appear quite different from the other.