Symphony of Solids group project 2015 - It's Go Time!

Syncopated Ribbons, group project 2010

I'm finally back and sort of normal after almost three weeks in Europe, visiting the husband and enjoying a big old family trip wherein each of my three daughters declared they will be living in Europe as adults. Clearly they have not heard about the VAT mess. Clearly I have to complain louder at home.
Update, though. I was able to keep my Craftsy store open by blocking all non-US currency at the PayPal level. I'm hoping to be able to narrow it down to just the 28 EU nations, but that is not as easy to do as it sounds, and currently our laundry piles are still threatening to eat us alive. Hopefully by mid next week I'll have been able to spend the reported 5 hours or so on the phone with Pay Pal that it takes to get this straightened out, and I will certainly keep you updated. Not that I want to block anyone, and I certainly hope no one takes this action I've been forced to take personally. Well, with the exception of the VATMESS organizers. They can feel free to feel my wrath all day long.

So Bonne Annee, Happy New Year, and Prospero Ano everyone! It's 2015, it's January, and that means a little snow, a little cold, and the opportunity to have a little frolic in your fabric to help me out with another group project.

Happy Jacks version 1, group project 2014

Happy Jacks version 2

 I'm so excited!

Each January, I like to ask the quilty world at large to join in and help me out with a new design by making some blocks for me using my directions, which are new and untested. Quilters are asked to create a certain number of blocks (this year, 4) in a certain color scheme or fabric style (this year, solids for one block, whatever you want for the other three), and let me know if the directions make sense. Then the blocks are mailed to me by a certain date (this year, mailing cutoff is 1/27/15) and I take one from everyone (this year, I'll be taking the solid block everyone makes) and create a group quilt that will be on the cover of a new pattern. The rest of the blocks are shuffled around, using a "throw them all up in the air and see where they land" method or similar, and each participant will receive three blocks back to use to start their own quilt, make a small project, or throw in their UFO bin to use later in life or to have their kids sell at a yard sale when they die. It's all up to the individual. 

I gave a lecture recently to Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild in Wellsboro PA where I talked about my group quilts, and I just love the member who raised her hand to comment at the end "This is so great! I'd love to make a group quilt, but I don't see how I could get people to give me blocks. I mean, you are YOU so you can just ask people to make stuff for you and they will, but I'm just little old me. But do people really do this just for fun and to help out? Do you give them anything in return?" (sic - I'm not sure of her exact words as I typically do not bug myself with a secret recording device during lectures, but obviously she loved it all and implied that I was famous which I basked in the glow of for days and this is the gist of it, so hopefully she won't sue me for slander.)

Kickin' Stash, group project 2012 and my bestseller of all time

I answered that I always am shocked and humbled by the willingness of quilters to help me out for fun, but also that I do always give all participants a shiny fresh copy of the new pattern at first printing, complete with their name listed as a tester, and that along with the block swapping fun that seems to do it. I love that quilting is such a social hobby and people enjoy a quick project and a swap enough to help me out!

I'm very proud to say that the patterns in my repertoire that have started as group quilts are consistently best sellers, and I couldn't do it without such amazing help! So I hope you'll consider joining the fun this year.









To review, key points about this year's project:

• Four blocks to make. Unfinished size is 7 1/2".
• One block MUST be solids and will be kept by me
• Three blocks can be whatever you want and will be swapped
• Each block takes about 15 minutes to make
• Deadline for mailing blocks is 1/27/15
• Participants can expect a pattern and swap blocks by the first week of March
•  

Oh, you want to see a picture of the block I'm asking you to make? That might be nice of me.

OMG. There are points. Stop the presses

 This is a little different for me. There are points. I'm asking for solids, which is way modernesque of me, the girl who rolls her eyes at "modern" as a thing rather than what is available in the stores now. It may or may not be a block that appeals to most. But I cannot stress to you enough how much I am in love with the layout I have created for these blocks, and I cannot wait to sew it together!

So I hope you'll join me. To get started, all you have to do is send me an email to evapaigequilts@ charter.net and I'll send you the info and instructions and you will be on your way to a special place in my heart I reserve for my group quilt makers! I really could not do this without you!

You Don't Know Jack...and Remembering Jack about 2013

It's weeks since I've been able to write a blog post. One would hope it was because I was extending my pledged two hours a day for DAGMT into six or seven hours, but unfortunately the truth is that February is like to destroy my will to live this year.

Well, okay, maybe I'm being slightly dramatic. I live in a house with three girls; drama is life around here. And between snow days and the evil-est of all weeks of the year, February Break, those three girls and I have spent much of the last three weeks together and while we have hours on end of fun wowza does that mess with my productive little 9-3 schedule. At the same time, please note that Mr QH has entered his yearly phase where he must have me GET THE TAXES DONE AND TO THE ACCOUNTANT YESTERDAY AND DID YOU GET THEM DONE TODAY DIDYOUDIDYOUDIDYOU? and any work time I can squeeze out of a packed day of nonstop fun has been spent rolling fully clothed in receipts rather than naked in the stash.

Sing it, sister.

Which totally sucks.

But is not without its entertaining memories of the year that was 2013. It's always fantastic to relive, through the joy of the tallying of mileage, all the days I spent on the road with guilds, trying to convince them to throw away their seam rippers and/or make some quilts with some friends.

Still love these Sunflower and Sky ladies!

And reliving the fun of certain fabric purchases when I get to their receipts.

Wish I could say this planned project had actually been started by now.

And even finding all the good in the pile of receipts that represent what often feels like every profit I ever made to attend Spring Market, because I got to meet Kelli finally.

And also some chick named Tula.

 And remembering why I drove 152 miles to help at a show in Maine, because I got to meet this woman, who stood in front of me and proclaimed me brilliant and went off for 10 minutes about how Kickin' Stash is her favorite pattern ever.

Obviously I love her.

Eventually DIDYOUDIDYOUDIDYOU will be answered with OMGOMGOMG...YESIDIDENOUGHALREADY!, and it will be back to being able to sew at will, minus the needs of various family members. Until then, I must be satisfied with a little bit of progress on the 2014 group quilt pattern in the form of the twin and baby sizes both sewn together. Woo hoo!

Not that I am going to show you what the layouts look like, but here they are, lying side by side all crumpled up for you.

 And I've chosen the blocks I'll be putting together for the queen sized version.

In a shocking turn of events, I chose to use the greens, teals, and purples from the blocks sent to me.

As of this moment, the pattern is still nameless, although I have gotten some good suggestions, mostly centering around the idea that the block resembles a jack. My personal favorite was suggested by a participant in the block swap: "You Don't Know Jack." However, as much as I enjoy that title, it may be a little too crass for some fainter hearts, and with the memory of  Accidental The Word For a Male Part Machine Quilting-gate firmly in mind, I am still contemplating my options.

In putting these blocks together in a fairly modern setting (A clue! A clue!), I'm also contemplating a big question for me, that being "To Border, or Not To Border." I'm normally a big fan of borders, and I think I do a fairly good job of designing borders to compliment my quilts, but this one is kind of telling me to leave off the borders.

So what do you think? Is a quilt not a quilt until a border maketh it so? Is a border the quilting equivalent of a mullet when it comes to dating a design? I'd love to hear your opinions, but don't think I'll show you more of it just to give you more to go on!

May the Pillow Fight Begin!

It's always a joyous day when the husband announces he will be using the computer in the studio to attend a conference call from 8 to noon. And then MAYBE he will go into work. Let the record show that it is almost 1:30 and he is still on said conference call. This is especially delightful when just yesterday we had Family Day of Unbridled Togetherness, ie Snow Day Number 3, and I had been looking forward to a day of finishing the quilting on my Scrap Squad project. Of course I could fire up the quilting machine and let 'er rip, thus abruptly ending the conference call and possibly my marriage, but I am nicer than that.

Usually.

So I've decided to use my DAGMT time today to work on pattern writing and finally share my second finish of the year.

This thing is a Tactile Extravaganza

 If you've been stalking my Facebook page in the last few weeks, you've likely seen this photo or snippets of the project in progress. But what good are photos without a little bullet list backstory?

• Found a 14" pillow form during my studio cleanup. 
• Wanted to try rope piping on a pillow.
• Continued my love affair with these cool 3D petals I've been making with the Leaves Galore TM templates.
• Moda layer cakes from Sample Spree combined with yummy fabric from Lemon Tree Fabrics and BOOM! I love it.

As does Eva, who found it on the couch upon coming home from school and proclaimed it her own. Someday she will sell it for a dollar in a yard sale, but for now it has a special place in her heart.

As you may be able to tell from this closer, in progress photo, I like to quilt the background piece before I add the petals and applique them. I also like to think I invented this method of applique, but that's just my ego talking. I don't know who discovered it first, but I do know that quilt-then-applique really keeps the piece a lot flatter than the other way around, as you don't have a bunch of little areas of unquilted quilt sandwich under each applique piece. Maybe you'll try it out. Maybe you won't. But there it is, hanging out in your brain and planning to nag at you until you break down and try.

You're welcome.

For the middle, I used some blue dyed-ish Modas from a second layer cake cut apart, sewn together end to end, and ruched to within an inch of its life.

This reminds me so much of a snake made from yo yos that my sister had as a toy as a kid.

The snake becomes a sweet little ball of joy. If only that happened in nature rather than any snake becoming my most terrifying reptilian nightmare.

I have no idea what possessed me to buy these layer cakes other than the colors, because 10" squares are not really my thing. However I have to say they were the perfect amount for this project. Five squares anyway. Five down, 72 to go.

I read a few tutorials on covering a rope with fabric for piping. Weirdly, none of the tutorials mentioned what you should do when your local hardware store only has the yellow plastic-y rope that is all scratchy and you don't feel like driving 20 minutes to Home Depot.

Fun fact: The yellow scratchy stuff works, but is a little stiff.

The pillow is put together envelope style, which eliminates the need for buttons or snaps or anything that would cause more work for me. I edged the back pieces with the same fun fabric as the piping.

Not my best FMQ, but it's going for a dollar someday, so who cares.

Sandwiched and sewed it all together, threw the pillow form inside. And then it was done. Woo hoo!

In case you forgot what it looked like.

A little tweaking and a little writing, and the pattern should be available on Craftsy for download soon. Someone just needs to kick me in the butt about getting it written.

Since I wasn't allowed to make noise in my own studio today without forcing Mr QH to run out of the room to hear the oh-so-important business going on in DC, I decided to start choosing which of the blocks were my favorites from the ones I've received so far in the swap. These fit my vision the closest, and I love that I can see a field of violets when they are scattered around the floor.

MLK had a dream. I have a vision.

Finally, I hope everyone participating in DAGMT is having a slammin' good time knocking out UFOs and amazing yourselves with what all you are accomplishing in 20 minutes a day. I am SO enjoying seeing all the photos on Flickr and Instagram #dagmt, Make sure to check them out and be inspired.

The conference call appears to be over. Cue the angel choir singing "Allelujah!" Maybe I can get a few minutes of quilting in before the short people return home.

C'Mon Get Scrappy! 2014 Group Quilt and Block Swap now accepting participants!

I'm not really sure why, but lately I've been all about the flying goose. Not the type where you unexpectedly sneak up behind your daughter and gently pinch her butt to see her scream with delight and jump in the air, although those are fun too, but the quilting flying goose. There are just so many ways to arrange them, and for a traditional block, they can look pretty modern.

You may be thinking, and rightly so, that with their points and precision they don't quite fit in my "Fun Over Fuss" motto. To you I say - I could not care less if your points are perfect. Just make some geese already.

Copyright 2014, EvaPaige Quilt Designs

I always think it is going to be just so darn easy to come up with a block I like for the annual scrappy group quilt, but in looking back at all the drawings I have in EQ each year prior to deciding on a block to use, that is definitely not the case. This year was particularly entertaining, with 32 blocks in the sketchbook not making the cut. Apparently number 33 is the charm.

But 32 rejects just for one project. That is definitely a record for me. And a whole lot of unreached potential for goose pate, in this case. I was starting to feel the mojo was gone forever. Never fear! We're on track to creating a stunning new group quilt, and I hope you'll all consider joining the fun.

For those unfamiliar, each year I host a block swap that results in my being able to make a cover quilt for a new scrappy pattern. I will be honest in saying that I am totally using you: for your scraps, for your testing abilities, for the fact that every quilter makes a resolution in January to use up their scraps, and so I don't have to make as many blocks and get a cool new quilt out of the deal. But I do try to be a giver as well as a user, and that's where the block swap part comes in. Each year it is a little different than the last as far as how many blocks you make and get back, but I have yet to hear a complaint from any participants. Seriously. I've just sat here and tried to think of someone being unhappy that they participated and/or felt used and slighted and I can't do it.

Feeling the love.

So, you want to make me some blocks and get enough back to make the baby version of this pattern-in-development? Read on for the basic details:

In this swap, you will make five 12 ½” (unfinished size) blocks. More details on how the block is made, what colors to use, etc, is available and will be sent to participants individually once they sign up.

Swap rules and guidelines:

•   Make five blocks and six border geese using the directions provided.  Use white solid or white tone on tone (no cream please) for the background fabric.
• Place all five blocks into a ziplock bag which has been labeled with your name and address.
• Procure two large mailing envelopes – the kraft paper kind is fine, no need for USPS flat rate or priority. Self address one of them. Place the SA envelope, the directions whether or not you have made notes on them, and your ziplock bag into the other envelope, and mail it all to me by 2/10.  
• One block made by each person will be kept by me to use in the cover quilt for the pattern. The other four will be swapped about by me and each participant will receive four blocks back made by other quilters, which will be enough for you to complete a baby quilt in the layout I have determined for the pattern just by adding a border and some setting blocks. Coolness.  

 If you are interested in participating in my 2014 Scrappy Group Quilt, email me at evapaigequilts@charter.net right now! Operators are standing by! Or they might be sewing! Or doing laundry! But in any case, they will get back to you with directions and all the extra details as soon as possible. I will take signups from the moment I hit Publish until Monday, January 13.

 So, who's in?
 

First Finish of 2014, aka All Praise the Hard Deadline

I'm sure many of you, like me, are wondering when the holiday season will officially be over and we get to go back to being just our normal, pleasantly cranky selves who vacuum no more than twice a week and are in pajamas by 8pm, from the hopped up.always "on," always perfectly groomed and silver polished party animals we have been since late November. I was kind of banking on yesterday for the transition back to school and normalcy, but Mother Nature decided I needed a full two weeks of fun and excess with the fam.

So you can imagine the amount of sewing that has been accomplished.

I was feeling pretty down about it yesterday, actually. It's no secret I've been in and out of a design slump since May, and as Murphy's Law would have it, it always seems that the second I get a few ideas in my head and am ready to sew my face off for a few days straight, summer vacation hits. Or a hurricane. Or Christmas break turns into 16 full days off. It's really very similar to the way our snowblower has been broken for two years, and Mr QH decided to finally send it out to get fixed the morning we were expecting 10" of snow.

 We were clearly made for each other.

I'm thankful the girls are older now, and do now and then allow me to accomplish something while they are in the house, but there is nothing that kills a sewing buzz faster than the seven year old sneaking downstairs and asking "Why is your phone talking with an English accent, and what is a corset? And by the way, Paige started a fire on the stove."

So, you know. It's been fun.

In order to make myself feel slightly better about 2013's stops and starts, I took a page from Debbie Grifka, whom I called Debbie Esch on my FB page yesterday, of Esch House Quilts. Debbie is a fellow quilt designer whom I met in person in Portland after knowing her virtually through various designer forums, and she is very talented and prolific as well as just a very sweet person. She had made herself a photo collage of the highlights of her design year, and I decided to do the same.

I won't lie. It did make me feel a little better.

Reading it like a book, we have 1. All A-Flutter, Quilter's World Jan/Feb 13. 2. Flirtation, a Craftsy exclusive. 3. Ripple Effect. 4. Drop and Give Me Twenty 2013, my UFO busting blog creation. 5. Garden's Gate cover remake. 6. Taking Names. 7. My booth at Spring Market. 8. Quilt made from my QM 100 block and featured in the same volume. 9. Ka-Bloom! 10. Hope mug rug, a Craftsy exclusive. 11. Hidden Garden block, Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks. 12. A little something I'm trying to make cuter but I'm kind of in love with it so I included it.

Which all goes to prove that when I'm given the chance to rally, I can be amazing.

You know what else makes me amazingly prolific? An actual deadline. We independent designers get a few of those every year, and I personally have to set many more for myself or else my photo collage would be more of a photo triptych. And just like in other careers, deadlines often happen at completely inopportune times, as was the case with the "Embellishment Sampler" class sample I had to get in the mail to a guild program chick no later than 1/2/14.

There's a terribly convenient deadline. Add in hosting family for Christmas and two back to back sleepover birthday parties for the 11 year olds right after, and we had extra people in this house for 8 days straight. Not exactly conducive to sewing deadlines. However, since I am Superwoman, I did get it done, with moments to spare. And therefore I think I can officially call this my first finish of 2014.

Another finish I look forward to is our planned January project of turning this sewing cabinet the thing is lying on into our powder room sink.

 I've known I will be teaching this mini-class to a guild in eastern MA in March for like a year. However, the logistics of a sampler that would encompass all the techniques I wanted to touch on was kind of escaping me. Enter the approaching deadline, and all of a sudden it came to me - stop trying to design something TO embellish, and just design something that is ALL embellishments. So I did.

The class will include these cool three-dimensional petals I kind of invented. I think. I've not seen other people do them yet, anyway.

I'm completely in love with this flower.

 It will include gathered ribbon techniques and working with Phoomph.

Are we not in love with these colors? I know I am.

  It will include couching and playing with iron on ribbons and threads.

Leaf? Rabbit ear? Either way.

 And of course, it will include smacking a whole bunch of beads on in about 3 seconds by using Jewel-it.

Casual elegance at its finest.

I love that I tried something new in quilting the base piece, which was just a simple block made from a bunch of batiks, in its entirety first, and then added the appliqued petals onto the entire quilt sandwich. I did it because I wanted everyone to be able to try all of these techniques on a quilted piece, as many of them really need to be done only after the quilting is complete, and to my delight it totally eliminated the whole "poofiness of applique areas" that can happen when you applique first and then quilt the background around the applique shapes. I think I'll be doing this a lot more often.

I highly recommend trying something new this year. I'm so cool I can check that off already.

According to the USPS, the sample should arrive at its destination today, well ahead of their guild meeting next week. Booyah and KaBam!

Now it's on to the self-imposed deadline of January 8, the day I will formally announce the details for the 2014 group scrap quilt. I'm still working out the final design, but I can tell you that the block itself features up to 12 scrap fabrics, all of which can be cut from the leftovers of 2 1/2" strips, because they are all exactly 2 1/2" wide. I'm going for ease of cutting for you. Check back on Wednesday for the rest of the details!

I can't wait to hear about all of your finishes of 2014!

Round Robin in a Day With the Seven Hour Wonderkinds of Amoskeag

This past Saturday I had the honor of running my "Round Robin in a Day" workshop for the fine ladies of Amoskeag Quilt Guild in Manchester NH. It was a seven hour odyssey of quilting craziness, and as always, I left completely inspired by the awesomeness of these ladies. They begged me to write a post about them (and by "begged" I of course mean "asked with great trepidation if I was going to mention them by name on my blog"), and being the people pleaser that I am, I of course said I would leave off last names.

I've taught in many locations - church halls, library meeting rooms, community centers, senior centers - but this one will likely go down as the most unique. It was a classroom at a nursing school, so we had a few students I wasn't expecting. They were pretty quiet, but man were they lazy.


There are no further words.

I have to say I was slightly freaked out by them at first, but I did manage to get beyond the weirdness. Since the members of this guild always have workshops here, they were used to it, although they did mention that there was one time they had to cover the dummies up completely as one class participant was pretty shaken by them. The whole thing was rather amusing, but I digress.

This is one of my favorite workshops because it proves one of my tenets of quilting, that when armed with six hours and hopped up on a triple espresso worth of caffiene, quilters can go from an 8" center block to a 30" wallhanging in one day. The short version is this: Everyone brings a center block they have created and about 4 yards worth of fabric from their stash that they would like to see in their quilt. The center block and fabric are given to someone in another "pod" (more on that below) so that they can't see what is going on with it, and a 4" border is added. Then after 1.5 hours, the quilt moves on to another quilter and a second 4" border is put on. Finally a third quilter puts a 6" border on, and then we do the big reveal and everyone goes home with a completed wall hanging.

The ladies were set up in three pods of quilters, and everyone started with a center block that came from another pod. Each block then moved about within that pod for the duration of the day. That way the quilters in the pod will, in a perfect world, be unable to see their own quilt all day. Of course people cheat (Danielle and Judy). And now and then you see things you shouldn't when you are at the ironing station (Diana). But most of the time you are too busy creating to worry about what is going on with your own quilt.


Pod #1 hard at work, Donna #3 dancing in the background.

When I run this class, if everyone doesn't seem stressed out enough over the time limits, I love to up the challenge by having them pull out of a basket (or in this particular case, a rubber glove box) an element or technique that needs to be included in the first two rounds. For the first 4" border, we drew "strip piecing", and I love how simple and elegant this strip piecing turned out.

Is it any surprise there were several fall-themed quilts in the New Hampshire bunch?

The strip piecing didn't have to be fancy, it just had to be strip piecing.

Nancy was thrilled that Donna #2 was able to use up the small amount of her orange/yellow/brown print in the first round as it was one of her favorite fabrics ever.

But Diana couldn't help herself and went a little crazy.


Two centers were bunnies. We put them in separate pods so as to avoid having four to eight by the end of the day.

The next round was to include half square triangles. People really had fun with this one, and once again HSTs proved themselves to be one of the most versatile blocks in quilt design.

The black just totally popped this quilt, which started out as Donna #1's simple NH-inspired panels and ended up crazy awesome.

Yvonne (not Y-vonne) was one of our newer quilters, but was always among the first ones done with each round and did a fantastic job. She was in the process of making her HSTs into a star pattern around the center when I snapped this photo of her mat and her foot.

It isn't your imagination, that fabric really does look like a dress my mother wore in the early 70s.

A truly great thing about this class is all the fabric sharing which goes on, especially once you get to the final border, which is quilter's choice and is meant to tie the entire project together. Cathy and I dug around everyone elses' fabrics and finally found the perfect orange for a skinny border strip.

Cathy's bedside manner is delightful, don't you think?

As the quilts were finished, we lay them on a bed. Because we could.

By 3:30, it didn't seem all that weird anymore.

Everyone was delighted with the final projects, which is great because I really hate when people start crying, gnashing teeth, and yelling "You RUINED my quilt!"

Judy was done first. Her simple borders were perfect for this quilt, which Danielle plans to add some applique onto for good measure.



The red border was borrowed from another quilter to "tone down" this quilt.

Picture the acorn right side up, and you will see one of my favorites as it is meant to be seen.

Love this. So much. I almost wanted to be Sandy so I could take it home.

Ten smiling quilters, all of whom survived my reign of terror and whip cracking and went home with a gorgeous creation. I am so proud of them all!

Kickin' up my heels at the Festival of Scrappiness

I came across Stitched In Color's blog last week, and I am so happy I did. Not only is it a fun place to visit, but I was just in time to plan my entry for her Festival of Scrappiness (and how "me" is that name?) today through Wednesday. It's a fun linky party where you can enter any scrap quilt you have completed in 2012.

Might I pause to mention that I love that by "completed", she means the top is done. A woman after my own heart. So given the fab linky party name and the flexible definition of done, I obviously had to participate.

You think you know what I am entering. You are only half right.

It's "Kickin' Leaves" - my second group quilt sample of Kickin' Stash, top completed last Thursday and until today unseen by almost everyone in the world. So now, direct to you from its recent engagement hanging off the side of my garage, I give you, "Kickin' Leaves".



This quilt was the second of the two group quilts I was able to make when I was inundated with volunteers to participate in my latest group project/block exchange. For more on that and where this quilt had its beginnings, you can read this post so that I don't send everyone who is painfully familiar with this project screaming from my blog, never to return.

I absolutely love this block and the resulting quilts I've made from it (three so far this calendar year!) because it is a scrap buster of immense proportions. The fabric requirements for each block are so minimal that if you have a 6" x 10"ish piece of fabric, you've already got 1/4 of the block taken care of. The widest of the pieces are only 2 1/2" wide, too, and what does that mean? Even the leftovers from jelly rolls are perfect for this block. Which all means that other than background fabric, you most likely have all the fabric you need and then some to make way too many of these blocks already in your sewing studio.

Suffice it to say that the inundation of block sewing volunteers for my project and their enthusiasm for block making lead to owning way more blocks than I could use in one quilt, so lucky (greedy) me, I got TWO! We can also suffice it to say that this tidbit of incredibly poorly thought out direction-giving: "Any color family will do. Really, I cannot stress enough how little I care which color family you choose" led me to more than one fit of distress as I tried to organize the blocks into two attractive quilts. But I think I did pretty well. (The other group quilt, which is done, bound, and already on the pattern cover can be seen here), along with a bunch of blocks that were sent to me. Again, I don't want to bore anyone who has seen it a million times already!



I love the batik tan I used for the border and spacer blocks. It really sets off all the different creams in the backgrounds of the blocks, and is a great fallish blender color, too. The scraps for the border came from my own scrap stash, and I so love that when I showed it to some guild friends last week one of them gasped and said "Wow - all of the pieces in your border are the same size! I didn't think you ever did that!" Why yes, I don't normally, but now and then one has to prove that they do actually know how to follow a quilting rule or two.

The plan is to get "Kickin' Leaves" quilted at my guild retreat this weekend. But I'm fresh out of good ideas how to quilt the thing. So....got an idea? Please feel free to comment!

Another plan is to make a fourth KS quilt at the retreat, from all blues with a cream background, due to the fact that my blue bucket of scraps was threatening to come to life and smother us all in our sleep. Here's my pile of pieces, ready to go:



Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of the linky party! Always a great excuse to check out some beautiful quilts while getting nothing else done all day.

Scrappy New Year! New Group Quilt needs you!

*********UPDATE 3/3/15**********

WELCOME TO ALL PINTEREST PEEPS! It has come to my attention that this block is all of a sudden very popular over there - which I LOVE! I've received a lot of requests for the pdf and I've finally figured out where it was coming from. Sometimes it takes me a day or two. Anyway, please note that while you are welcome to read all about this block and how it started life as one of my group projects, the project ended three years ago and resulted in "Kickin' Stash," my most popular pattern ever designed and still going strong - in fact, it was recently picked up by Checker. If you'd like the pdf of the pattern, it can be found for instant download on Craftsy and Patternspot.  However I am no longer giving away pdfs of the block as that was just for the group project and testing period in early 2012. Thank you so much for your interest and while this has been a bit of a crazy mystery for me over the last few days, it's been kind of awesome too! I hope you'll check it out!

Original post:

It's that time of year again. The time when I look at my overflowing boxes of scraps and think "Really, I need to get a handle on this situation, and while I'm at it I probably should make a new scrap quilt" and then seven minutes later I see something shiny on the other side of the room and thoughts of a new scrap quilt have vanished for another year. Granted, I know you are looking at that photo and saying "She calls THAT a scrap problem??? I can't even shut the door of my studio closet because I have 16 trash bags full of them/My husband has threatened to start using my scraps as oil rags because they have taken over the half bath/The Red Cross called me last week because they heard I could supply them with bandage rolls until 2037/What-evah, girl!", but yeah, I call it a scrap problem. Don't judge my scraps, I won't judge yours. I admit I don't tend to save pieces that other people consider scraps, say anything under 8" square, and have been known to stand idly by watch my friend Angie Callbeck trash barrel dive for my discards at quilt retreats and then pretend to be properly remorseful while she and others to chide me about throwing away perfectly good 4" pieces of fabric, promising never to do it again while crossing my fingers behind my back. Maybe this will be the year I finally do the kind thing and just hand them over to her rather than make her go into the trash for them. But I digress. Yes, I do find these scraps to be a problem, few as they may seem.

But hotties, let us mark 2012 on the calendar as The Year I Finally Did Something About My Scraps. And you get to help me.

I've played around with EQ and drawn a block that I really sort of like for numerous reasons, but the main ones are thus:

• It is pretty simple
• It doesn't have matching points
• It looks cool in a lot of different settings
• and most importantly, I have a prayer of getting rid of at least a few scraps

So in the interest of combining my scrap reduction with a new group quilt, let this serve as the official announcement - Scrappy New Year Group Project is ON!
Some of you may have participated in my group projects before, so you know I'm pretty easy going when it comes to running them. In 2008 I did a version of Syncopated Ribbons with 16 people participating, including an 8 year old boy and 10 year old girl, and it went on to become my cover photo for that particular pattern and is a stunner wherever it goes.

Last winter I ran my infamous Diamond Dazzle group project, wherein I almost lost my mind trying to reason with computerized design, but the actual group project part was great fun. Over 20 quilters participated in that group quilt, and while I got to use the prototype as my cover quilt for the pattern again, everyone who participated received enough blocks in return to make a table runner or baby quilt.
SNY will be the third group project of this type I have run, and I'm happy to say I've already got several people signed on who are threepeats themselves, so it must be at least a little bit fun, right? Are you chomping at the bit to get started yet? Let's get back to that block I showed earlier and tell you what we're going to do with it.
Here's the actual, real, fabric block I made.

It took me about 40 minutes start to finish, including time to locate proper fabrics, becoming distracted by many other pretty ones, cutting the pieces, winding a bobbin, breaking a thread, and an iron that I forgot to plug in. So in a perfect world, it would take 22 minutes or so.
Note that like the drawn block above, it has a white background and four fabrics from the same color family, in my case lime green. That's what we're going for this time. White background, four fabrics from the same color family. It's that simple. I am not going to tell you what color family to choose - that is up to you, and how you choose it can be as simple and scientific as seeing which of your bins is most overflowing (my method of choice), or asking everyone you know what their favorite color is, charting all the answers on a bar graph, and then throwing the bar graph out and choosing your own favorite color. Any color family will do. Really, I cannot stress enough how little I care which color family you choose.
You will make four blocks using directions I will provide to you. All four blocks can be made of the same fabrics and/or be from the same color family, or you can make four completely different blocks. Again, my apathy on how you choose to proceed with that is stunning. One of these blocks I will keep to include in the group quilt I will put together, the other three will be shuffled about and you will receive three blocks back, all made by other quilters. Kind of like a mini BOM. You can either make a few more blocks and whip up a baby quilt with a group flair, or make them into pillows, or use them as handkerchiefs or dishrags - again, I cannot stress how little I care what you actually do with them when you get them back - they are YOUR blocks, so YOUR choice! Each participant will also receive a Quilting Hottie button to prove to the world that they are awesome, and, if they so choose, will be allowed to borrow both the finished group quilt and myself for a half price "Plays Well With Others" group quiltmaking lecture for their guild anytime in the next few years, but is under no obligation whatsoever to do so. Just an offer I'm putting out there because I know this quilt will be beautiful and will want to be seen.
I anticipate wanting all the blocks in the mail to me postmarked by 2/8/12. If this is a good time frame for you and you are at all intrigued, I hope to hear from you!
Potential participants, please contact me directly at evapaigequilts@charter.net and I will email you the pdf of directions. Like all my group projects, I know this one will be a blast.