Virtual Round Robin Quilt..come play with me

I own EQ7, EQ6, and EQ5.  I’m organizing a virtual round robin in my guild; but I’m extending the invitation to all of you in cyberspace.

I’m thinking this rough layout; subject to amendment by suggestions from all of you..

1. RSVP to skraterfield@gmail.com by Oct 23, including the EQ versions you can do
2. Target kickoff Nov 1
3. Plan for 3 rounds.  Want more?
4. I’ll send each participant lists of the people  & quilts they’ll work on.

You can accompany your project with special instructions, like “skies the limit” or “no patches < 1 inch”.  Some may use this only for EQ design fun; others might actually plan on turning it into a real quilt.

Any participant must freely permit use of their work by other participants.

For some more information on these things, try..Club EQ at electricquilt.com.  I’ll follow their general rules.

post Ricky Tims Super Seminar; swirling ideas crowding my brain

Got home 10:30 last night after the Ricky Tims seminar in Asheville.  What a great 3 days!  Even though I’d seen him on TV and the net, this was worth it.  Here are a few of my “take aways”.

Next round robin?  Definitely a convergence.  Maybe a big floral with 3 of the colors for the other quadrants — Google shows many successful versions of this formula.  Maybe a night sky.. aurora borealis, stars, planets, and  earth.  Maybe a castle, forest, sky, and roses (briars) for Sleeping Beauty.

I *have* to make a rhapsody quilt; it’s so in my wheel house.  It’s a Hawaiian quilt (which I love doing) on steroids.  Maybe celtic knotwork designed to fill the sections.  For celtic I’d definitely do it by hand; it wasn’t fun by machine.   If  I do appliqué I might try his machine method for some of it to see if I liked it well enough to give up the hand work for some speed & delicate inside points.

Marking your quilt top by stitching through the templates onto the top with soluble thread?  Brilliant!  Maybe I’ll finally do some quilting that requires marking.  I usually draw in chalk on the *sandwich* — just a bit at a time.

All-machine binding with piping?  So elegant!  I bought the Berina feet he uses, but I’ll need that little pearl cotton when I actually do it.  He said it takes  4 hours; definitely an improvement.  His binding was .5″ visible; slightly big for my taste so I think I’d prune that.  And it was a double binding.  With enough fabric, fine, but  I’d do a single binding by putting the piping on the edge of the binding strip if I didn’t a yard of binding fabric.   He attributes this method to the book by Debra Wagner’s  Traditional Quilts, Today’s techniques (1996), although he says he’s made some adjustments.

All 3 of them were wonderful speakers.  The first day I laughed so hard  tears were streaming down my face when he recounted his first visits to a quilt guild.

I made *several* mistakes on this trip…

1. I needed a light jacket.  The hall was cold the middle day & the weather turned cold so the *bus* was cold on the way back.  Picture me huddled on the bus in the dark with my arms pulled to the inside of my gauzy rayon top embarrassed beyond belief to be so stupid.
2. I brought no camera.  I didn’t realize his personal collection would be hung with photography permitted.  I wish I could have taken closeups of the quilting, appliqué,  and bindings.
3. I brought no allergy pills.  Nuff said.