What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

     My husband's mother and grandmother quilted and sewed clothes. I learned a lot about quilting from them. My husband's mom, Rosemary, was a wonderful woman and mother who left us too soon at 66, younger than I am at 68. Very sobering. She used to make improv quilts before anyone claimed them. She used polyester double knits left over from sewing clothes (six kids) to create lap quilts and hand sewed the pieces using the herringbone stitch and perle cotton. These quilt wear like iron, never fade, are warm and have a certain charm that many dismiss.
    Victoria ...

Remember this Quilt Top? 

I spent some time in the Thread Shed

yesterday piecing the last 2 seams 

of the Wild Goose Chase quilt top:

I put it back on the design wall

and noticed that the very last flying goose

on the bottom right corner...

is upside down.

Time to get out the seam ripper !

Wild Goose Chase 56 x 66

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This is what the improv piece looked 

like a week ago on the design wall: 

I am in the process of adding a new row 

to the right side...

then I can piece all ...

In the last 2 weeks I have spent some time

with my latest improv project...

 Well haven't I been a horrible blogger these past few months? Geez. I will tell you I've been so busy making things I haven't made the time to blog! I guess that's a good thing, right? Anyways, I have some serious catching up to do. Let's start with today's finish, shall we?

Way back in February, I posted here about my plans for this year's 100 Day Project. Just to recap, I purchased recycled men's dress shirts at the Goodwill and planned to make 100 improv quilt blocks inspired by The Great ...

I am trying to finish up some improv pieces

I started back in 2020... 

In June 2021, Ellyn and I started the Quilts Unscripted Bee. Currently we have 11 improv quilters and each month we create 2-3 improv blocks for one quilter. I've been so excited to see finished quilts and quilt tops in recent months that I wanted to share them with you. My beemates have shared their photos with me. Enjoy!

You may have seen Sarah Ruiz's Unscripted quilt that was awarded first place at QuiltCon 2022. She gave us a color palette and asked us to each choose letters so she would end up with an alphabet of blocks ...

I am making progress on this

Improv Quilt Top:

while attending a quilt retreat in Idaho

CLICK HERE to view

This improv piece has been sitting

around for almost 2 years...

It has waited long enough.

The top consists of Pick Up Stix blocks...

This is a piece I hand dyed and

         silk screened.

I sliced it up and created borders...

The quilt top is ready to be basted and

go under the needle...

 The "official" 100 Day Project begins on February 13 this year. I have really enjoyed doing this the last two years. You can read about my bojagi project (2020) and my monster project (2021) here on the blog. Both of these focused on learning a new skill, which I thoroughly enjoyed. This year, I'm heading in yet another direction.

I was inspired by the phenomenon of the Great Resignation of 2021, where Americans resigned from their jobs en masse, initially as a covid response then later as a general strike against workplace policies/pay and government replies. I decided ...

I've been blogging recently about the quilts I managed to finish during the last nearly two years while isolating because of the Covid pandemic.  I was in a funk for about the first six months of isolation and not sewing at all, but then I started making up for lost time.  Now I'm playing catch-up on my blog.  

After I made the quilt for Shirley A using orphan blocks (read about that here) I had a few teal crumb blocks left and set them aside to do something else with. 

I shopped my stash and found these 2 ...

 The Quilts Unscripted Bee continues to challenge and amaze me month by month. You can see posts about my past blocks here. I thought I'd share the rest for 2021 today.

Well, despite all my fussing, I did finish 20 quilts for my Through Ellyn's Eyes project before the end of the year! As I had speculated, it's TINY! Finishing at just 7"x9", thus the name itty bitty improv, it would make a good mug rug. 

I played with some spiky triangles, one of the very first techniques I learned when Debbie (A Quilter's Table) came to teach our guild years ago. It's one I return to often and was fun to revisit in just two colors, Kona Corn Yellow and Glacier. Quilted very quickly on ...

 Even with the business of the holiday season, I managed to complete quilt #3 in my Through Ellyn's Eyes series! I give you Scalloped Rainbow. 

What began as a stack of improv quarter circle blocks made on a whim at the day retreat center became this fun mini that measures 14"x24". Grid quilted and faced all on my domestic machine. I used the full rainbow of colors from my series for this one: Kona Red, Orange, Tangerine, Corn Yellow, Chartreuse, Glacier and Capri. 

I might be finishing up one more (tiny!) quilt to bring the number to a ...

What has happened to me? I've been feeling a bit of a cold coming on for a couple of days. Instead of doctoring myself up and drinking lots of water and hot rum - OK, maybe not the hot rum, I let it go. How could I possibly get a cold when I haven't really seen anyone. Although one of the ladies who came to the retreat did stay home the first day because she wasn't sure she wasn't getting a cold herself. 

Anyway, as the day progressed, so did my sniffles, and when I went to ...