Monthly Archives: August 2017

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I taught middle school math for 11 years (and yearbook for 4 of those) before having kids. This Fall I'll be putting my teaching hat back on, but this time the content will be quilting workshops! I'm excited to debut my first workshop this Fall. Planned Improv: Scrappy Squares, featuring the technique I used to create my challenge quilt, Greenery.

My first two class samples show the diversity of the technique. Start with scraps you love and I'll lead you through designing your own improv layout and planning the construction to piece the puzzle you create.

 

The technique lends itself to a variety of quilting motifs. In my purple sample I chose an all over floral quilting motif, and in my blue sample I used each square to feature a straight line motif, with an all over free motion motif filling in the background of the quilt.

 

I'll be teaching Planned Improv: Scrappy Squares at Bay Area Modern in Palo Alto, CA on November 11. I will also be presenting a short demo of my technique at Quilting 101 for Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association in Saratoga, CA on November 14.

I'm currently booking to teach locally (within 50 miles of San Jose) and will book regionally for dates starting in mid-2018. You can contact me at sarah@goer.org to inquire about me teaching at your guild or shop.

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Round three of the Kids Quilt Round Robin really turned into a slog at our house. We didn't get started on the sewing for July until after our week of sewing camp. That meant that my kids were a little burnt out on sewing.

R wasn't too late in finishing the large flying geese for her row for Norah. I love these colors and R really enjoyed sewing on the marked line for making the geese. This is a great block for young quilters. The large size was great for her. The geese finish at 5" x 10". R's row is on the right. Norah's first row is in the middle, and the row on the left was made by the sister team of A & C.

 

G, on the other hand, took much of August to finish his 20" x 20" block. Sophie's theme was stars and constellations. I didn't realize what a big task we'd created for him when he decided he would make seven 3" wonky stars to make the Big Dipper on his block. It was a lot of sewing (and a bit of resewing) to make those adorable stars. In the end, he set the final layout of the  stars on my design wall and I puzzled it all together by adding the background fabric to bring the block to size. This is a great example of a block that was a little too ambitious, but I love how it turned out! It was sad for me to see it go.

Sophie's original block is in the top left and the bottom right block was created by Hannah.

 

Both of my kids are excited to be in the home stretch. We'll finish up the final round this weekend and look forward to receiving their projects back with all the blocks the others made for them.

You can check out everything going on with the eight quilts in our Kids Quilt Round Robin on Instagram.

Kids Quilt Round Robin KQRR

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I'm in a little bit of disbelief that I made it! 100 blocks in 100 days. What a whirlwind... the Tula Pink City Sampler quilt along, hosted on Instagram by Angie of Gnome Angel.

My final two blocks:

 

And here are all 100 together (in number order, not the order for the final quilt). They all feature Tula Pink prints and Kona solids.

 

I love all the cute critters sprinkled throughout the blocks. My daughter's favorite block is the one with the horses.

I have plans to border each block with navy, and I'll be using the Lazy Stripe in Gunmetal between blocks for the Trellis setting from the book. The 100 days were intense. I'm so glad I participated. A great big thank you to Angie for organizing, to all the sponsors, and especially to all the participants. So much beautiful eye candy on our hashtag, #100days100blocks2017. There are over 70,000 posts at this point. Amazing! (You can see all my blocks on Instagram at #sgq100blocks.)

If you haven't seen my earlier posts, check out my week 1 blocks.

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