record-breaking heat
It was 107 Fahrenheit (42 Celsius) outside when I met up with Jacquie (Tallgrass Prairie Studio) and Lauren (Aunt June) in Lawrence, Kansas.
We cooled it down with some lunch.
Then heated it back up with a trip to Sarah's Fabrics.
That's my pile. I spent $105. I could easily have spent more--truly excellent selection--but was trying to be good as I still had a week or two left on the road and want to be able to, you know, eat.
Jacquie, who had just announced she's moving from a big house to an apartment, was trying not to buy any fabric, but then she did (and tried to hide it in her purse).
lt was awesome to meet these ladies in person after reading their blogs for a few years and admiring their work and quilting with them in the Mid Mod Bee. Speaking of the Mid Mod Bee...the Kelp Quilt did get pieced together finally:
I did this in June, but haven't had a chance to photograph it properly until now. It was quite a process to decide how to put this together as I shuffled and re-shuffled the strips from my bee members. It kept looking weird...too balanced, too unbalanced, too blah.
Ultimately, I figured out that I needed to focus on the white kelp bits, not the background colors. This layout, you may notice has the strips with a lot of white at the bottom, the strips with the least in the middle, and the "medium" ones up top. I love it like this. I had to make a strip, change one bee member's strip a bit (centering it), and shuffle, turn, shuffle, shuffle, turn, to sort this out. I don't think I've ever spent that long arranging blocks. Usually, I throw the pieces on the floor, tweak a tiny bit and then I'm happy. How long do you usually spend arranging blocks? Does having blocks from a bee (rather than all from oneself) seem to make this longer?
Obviously, it needs squaring up. Then, I'm thinking I'll get some solid purple for the back, orange thread for the quilting and drop it off at the quilter as soon as I'm back in Ann Arbor (this weekend, yay!)
We cooled it down with some lunch.
Then heated it back up with a trip to Sarah's Fabrics.
That's my pile. I spent $105. I could easily have spent more--truly excellent selection--but was trying to be good as I still had a week or two left on the road and want to be able to, you know, eat.
Jacquie, who had just announced she's moving from a big house to an apartment, was trying not to buy any fabric, but then she did (and tried to hide it in her purse).
lt was awesome to meet these ladies in person after reading their blogs for a few years and admiring their work and quilting with them in the Mid Mod Bee. Speaking of the Mid Mod Bee...the Kelp Quilt did get pieced together finally:
I did this in June, but haven't had a chance to photograph it properly until now. It was quite a process to decide how to put this together as I shuffled and re-shuffled the strips from my bee members. It kept looking weird...too balanced, too unbalanced, too blah.
Ultimately, I figured out that I needed to focus on the white kelp bits, not the background colors. This layout, you may notice has the strips with a lot of white at the bottom, the strips with the least in the middle, and the "medium" ones up top. I love it like this. I had to make a strip, change one bee member's strip a bit (centering it), and shuffle, turn, shuffle, shuffle, turn, to sort this out. I don't think I've ever spent that long arranging blocks. Usually, I throw the pieces on the floor, tweak a tiny bit and then I'm happy. How long do you usually spend arranging blocks? Does having blocks from a bee (rather than all from oneself) seem to make this longer?
Obviously, it needs squaring up. Then, I'm thinking I'll get some solid purple for the back, orange thread for the quilting and drop it off at the quilter as soon as I'm back in Ann Arbor (this weekend, yay!)