The Second "Whacky Basket" Quilt

Here is the SECOND Whacky Basket quilt our Bee made this year, black/white baskets and colored backgrounds--the one that was for ourselves.

I finished the borders on the top last week and brought it to the SpoolSpinners meeting. Everyone admired it, we put all our names in a box. The winner is the woman on the right, Timmy. She will have to finish it. But I am glad that the borders seemed to meet with everyone's approval, and I can say my part is DONE.

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Here is what the "real" quilt, or "Whacky Baskets" #1, looked like before it was given away in the Guild raffle. These blocks had COLORED baskets and black/white backgrounds.

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As you can tell, we have some expert applique-ers in the Bee. And these borders got lots of compliments at the Quilt Show.

[My borders on #2 were a great deal more simple!]

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There is an explanation of the method of making the baskets in my post on January 19, 2008.

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Sara

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Gratitudes:

A sunny day tho' snow was expected

Chicken soup and leftover apple crisp for dinner

Phone call from Martha

Convergence now doll quilt

Not real happy with the way it looks from afar---but I am happy with the effect of the quilting. Finally found that I did need to go around all/most of the circles. And I "dotted" the centers of the big circles. This now will go on the small pile of doll quilts for the Santa Claus Girls. And it is my second finish on Finn's challenge.

Next: Finish the borders on the SpoolSpinners' (my bee) second Whacky Basket quilt, so we can have a drawing among our members. All the baskets were from an idea of Gwen Marston, which we doubled by cutting two layers at once. I set this group in the twist-'n-turn manner.

I first tried a white fabric with colored polka dots as a narrow inner border, and after a night's sleep took it off. It was too close to the baskets, making them look cramped. So now I'm working on an addition of more black strips before anything different.

Sara

Gratitudes:

November waited this long before appearing

Saturday TV quilting shows

Spaghetti and meatballs!

Daughter of Whacky Basket

Here is an old photo of our Whacky Baskets quilt, before the binding was put on.

When the SpoolSpinners Bee made all the Whacky Baskets for our raffle quilt (given to the Guild for the Quilt Show in early October), we made double the number needed so that we could make a second quilt. That way we could have our our "lottery" among the Bee members for the second quilt.



I have charge of the "second" quilt (not shown yet), but even after that top was made, there were more blocks left.

Lynda DeVries said that she would make some additional items so that MORE of the Bee members could have something. This month she brought them to our meeting---and she had made enough for EVERYONE!

Here is mine.
They are covers for spiral notebooks. She put this lime green binding around all of them.

These are so much fun!

By the luck of the draw, my notebook uses a basket that myself had made. I plan to use it to keep a diary of my quilting progress.

Thanks, Lynda!

Sara

Gratitudes:
RED red maples along the driveway
Only one more week of policial advertisements
Ready-made meatballs

Raffle Quilt - Whacky Baskets

Hoo-ee! Our SpoolSpinner raffle quilt for the Guild has been quilted!

Next the binding---which will be the same striped fabric that was used in the inner border.

Here is a close-up of a "blank" corner, where you can see the imaginative quilting showing up against the black.

Boy! It doesn't show against those baskets.

Also you can see the applique flowers, made from basket scraps, better here. I sure didn't participate in that part of the project.

Just for scale here is a photo of the discussion following the Reveal. Catherine Martin, who did the machine quilting, is in the light green.

Everyone is delighted with how it has come out. Lots of "ooo-ing and aah-ing".

The remaining basket blocks are going to made into quilt tops for Bee members, two or three tops of different sizes. I have my part put together in a top, but maybe I will add borders as well. We figure out some way to draw names or ??? at our December party.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Birthday Lunch for Kathie and Dee

Intestines calming down

Open Space preservation meeting went well

Spoolspinners Bee anniversary

Here is a photo of the only member of our Bee that has been in it since the beginning, Carol Kuipers. She was awarded two tiaras--both with SPOOLS on them, for SpoolSpinners. We celebrated with ordered-in pizza, salad, and desserts!

Then we had our regular meeting with a talk by our Big Spool on quilting designs, Secret Sister gifts, and Show & Tell. Lots of fun.

And I did get to show the completed top, or center of the second Whacky Baskets quilt. I had finished sewing the blocks together at about 5:30 pm, just before I had to leave for the meeting.

These blocks we made did not all turn out to be the same size. In fact they were quite a few sizes! I picked out 7" square blocks and 7 x 8" rectangles for this quilt. Each row of three has one rectangle in it, which helps to make everything more tipsy.

This now leaves 20 blocks that didn't fit into either top. Twelve are the same size, and 8 are really various. Should we put them all into one wall hanging sized quilt top? Should we divide them into several table-toppers? Should we just put the block in the drawing? No answer from the group tonight. We'll cogitate on this in the background and consider it again next month.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Yea! Job accomplished!

Got a glimpse of the eclipse last night

Woman at the well meditations

Whacky Baskets #2 continued

There is plenty of black fabric for this sashing. Enough was bought for the backing. And I now have 18 blocks together in three strips of six. And I have three strips of three that are pinned on the bottom of them.

[These should be lying on my bed, so they are easy to rearrange and then pickup, in order, and rush to the sewing machine. However, THAT MAN has decided to go to bed! My goodness! It's only 10:48 pm. I could get a lot more done by midnight if my largest work area was still available!]

The black fabric is striped, which is making it look almost quilted already. I hope the blocks don't really show that they are two sizes, but only that the blocks are dancing around a little. After all, they CAN'T be evenly placed, since there are two sizes. The whole thing will be six by nine blocks, about 50" x 80". Then the applique folks will get to thinking about borders. Since the two tops are different, the same border treatment probably will not work.

The Spoolspinners Bee monthly meeting is this Thursday, so that is the deadline I am working against. Should be OK with two days.

Sara

Gratitudes:

I lasted 10 minutes longer swimming laps

Leftover stew and chili mixed for dinner

Making progress with Leader/Ender project too while working on this project

The Other Wacky Basket quilt

I'm working on the task I have been avoiding: The OTHER Wacky Basket Quilt. My Bee, the Spoolspinners, is making two quilts of liberated baskets. One is well on the way, and the borders are being appliqued with baskets of flowers. Photos are in earlier posts.

I'm working on the OTHER one. That is, I have been thinking and thinking and thinking about how to place these blocks together. They are about four different sizes. And this has stumped me for about three months.

I have finally decided that I will use TWO of the four sizes to make a large quilt top, and use the rest to make a smaller quilt.

Today I have been measuring, and re-sizing, and counting, and drawing diagrams, and you see the six blocks that finally have their sashings attached. The Twist and Turn setting was the best I could come up with.

Before I cut any more sashings tomorow, I need to be sure that I have enough of this black striped fabric to do the whole thing.

But right now my brain is fried. Time for a little escapist reading.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Exercise class friends ate most ofthe remaining turtles

GRWC practiced "Salmon Run" tonight

Loaded more songs on Ipod without Martha's help this time

All day Chorus practice & Whacky Basket How-To

Spent all day at a learn-the-new-spring-music event with the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus. It's a good way to get a running start on the numbers we are adding for our Spring Concert. We met at the Franciscan Center for the first time, and it was very nice--clean, spacious, good kitchen, great views, lots of pianos, and no one else was using the place. I was able to walk around the halls three times for 22 minutes after lunch. But I was REALLY ready to go home at 3:45. Unfortunately we didn't end until 4:30! Maybe it's because I haven't yet found that I LOVE the music. More work may well improve my attitude. No more work today, however.

Here's how the Whacky Baskets, shown Thursday, were made.

Take two squares of fabric, about 8", both Right sides up, and cut roughly through the middle.

Then cut the bottom half into three pieces. This will be the shape of the basket part of the basket. So think about that before you cut.

Now switch the pieces so that you will have two sets. Each set will have the opposite coloration from the other. This explains how our Bee made two quilts at once! Or, I should say, we made two sets of blocks at once.

I assume you know how to make a bias tube for the handle. Use a different or a matching color for your handle. We HAND sewed these onto the top piece of fabric for each block. We were forcing the Non-applique-ers in the Bee (I'm one) to do a little bit of applique. The handles could have been sewn down by machine, but not in our case.

Check that your handles will actually attach to the bottom of the basket when you are placing them!

Then sew the two halves of the basket block together. At some point square up the blocks. We're letting ours stay a little various in size.

SpoolSpinners are putting all the blocks with colored baskets in one quilt, and all the blocks with colered Backgrounds in the other quilt.

Here's a layout of some of the blocks that are not yet put together. I am planning a Twist-n-Turn setting with black sashing.

I need to work on this tomorrow afternoon and Monday so I have something to take to the Guild meeting on Tuesday. This is a design by Gwen Marston and she is the guest speaker. We want to show her what we are planning.

Sara

Steps today: 4620

Gratitudes:

Sparkling snow floating in the air

Sour slaw to put on my sandwich from the deli

Finished extra Stars for Caroline Crossroads

SpoolSpinners meeting & GOEs

Spent most of today working on the Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt. I decided that I want to change out some of the fabrics I was using for the Accent. They aren't bright enough to show up in the bigger blocks. So once I figured that out, I made some new parts. And then I realized that the un-sewing was a perfect activity to take to the quilting bee evening meeting. Usually I don't have ANY hand work, and certainly nothing I can dream up for the evening. This makes the two hours good only for conversation. So tonight I was able to "frog-stitch" (rip it, rip it) while engaged in conversation.
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Here is the current status of our contribution to the Guild Raffle. We earlier made two sets of Whacky Baskets, using a design of Gwen Marston with polka dot fabrics for the baskets, and black & white backgrounds. Now our bee's applique experts have designed the borders and they are ready to go home with four different people for home handstitching.

Quite a number of the Bees in our Guild make a quilt for the Raffle, in addition to the main Raffle Quilt. This is the major moneymaking endeavor for the expenses of the next two years, AND for our support of The Tie That Binds (Neo-natal unit in regional hospital). The Raffle will be drawn at the Guild Biennual Show next October.

We are making a second basket quilt, which will go to someone in our own Bee. This will be a first. We have never known the person who won our quilt! I'm in charge of putting this one together, and the borders will not be nearly so complex! I'm thinking "A Tisket, a Tasket, a green & yellow basket". How many letters is that?

I will be reading the (Episcopal Church) General Ordination Exams again this year at the end of the month in Baltimore. I finally remembered to look up the questions tonight. Don't yet have the examinations to read, but I can be studying the questions and the background matierial for the readers. There are half-day essay exams for seven different areas of study. So 20-25 pages to read for each person taking the exam. I'll have a partner as well as a supervisor who also reads the essays of the six persons that the two of us are to evaluate.

"Are there any acts that are intrinsically evil?" That's the Ethics question. Hmm, looks like I'll get to learn a lot, as usual.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Bill McLaughlin teaching about Magyar music on NPR

Secret Sister interested in her gifts

A no-sugar cake at the Bee meeting!