This is me and Nell! Couldn’t we be sisters?
Nell and her mom Loretta drove down from Valentine, Nebraska through a snow storm to get down here to Plano Texas, where the weather is not much better!
It’s been raining all day, temps just above freezing, and we know that is going to be turning to ice as soon as we get further into evening time.
The plan tonight is to get out to dinner early, get it done, and get back to the hotel where things are safe and warm.
I am posting yesterday’s Weed Whacker workshop photos this evening since this morning was all about the Grand Illusion Mystery reveal, throwing us off a bit on our regularly scheduled ways of working with things. In other words, we are playing CATCH UP!
Weed Whacker is one of those quilts that just WORKS with EVERYTHING!
When I moved to South Carolina from Texas about umpteen years ago, I took over as the Charity Quilt chairperson for my guild. Upon finding that the guild had LOADS of “deep stash” donated fabric, that NO ONE wanted to sew with because it was “UGLY” and wanting to grab this challenge by the reins to show these gals that you CAN make great, fun, colorful and useful quilts out of otherwise seemingly “Out dated” fabric, I set to work designing this quilt and kitting up blocks to be sewn by the members for one of our charity quilt workshop days.
Does it look ugly from here?
Strips are sewn into pairs, sew & flip corners are added, bonus triangles are gleaned, and trios of triangled units are sewn together to create each block quarter!
Allison with her block in “mostly” civil war repros!
Deb, doing the pose with two of her brown/aqua blocks!
The block QUARTERS finish at 9”, so the block is a whopping 18” square! 4 blocks makes a great baby quilt center!
Our new quilter, Collette, is visiting her Mother in Law, Valerie! She was going to town on a sweet 1950s Singer 201 hand crank!
Sew, Collette, Sew!
Click the image below if you are unable to view the slide show on your mobile device. You’ll be taken to the photo album for viewing.
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| Weed Whacker, Plano, TX 2014 |
And of course, you can find the free pattern for Weed Whacker under the Free Patterns tab at the top of the blog. Give it a try! it’s tons of fun and will help you with that resolution to shop the stash in 2015!
Great way to use up that older, outdated stuff...and frankly it looks great like this! May just have to make one myself!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Bonnie - Thank you for the GIMQ reveal?. The weed whacker pics are great and everyone looks like they are having fun. I will be adding it to my list of Bonnie quilts to do. Stay warm!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the back story on the Weed Whacker block. It makes perfect sense to me and I am filing away this factoid for the future when I will probably head up the Charity project for our guild again. I love that it uses strips plus the stitch and flip corners and that the blocks are fairly large.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago I emailed you to use the weed whacker pattern for my guild's charity project. You said yes immediately and that was a wonderful quilt "mystery" that I put together with this pattern. I told them to use anything in their stashes they did not like! The quilts were fabulous. To this day, I love the quilt I made. Thanks for so freely sharing your patterns with us. It often makes my life as charity chair of our guild a lot easier.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year and thanks so much for the wonderful mystery.
This is a cool pattern. Can we see what you can do with the bonus triangles that are cut off? I can't picture them done with the strips.
ReplyDeleteThanks for GI. Can't wait to see it done!
Love the weed whackers! Bonnie, do you have any thoughts about the width of the strips getting changed to 2-1/2"? I realize it would change everything. It's what I have--
ReplyDeleteThanks!
trwittern(at)aol(dot)com
I think you have to use 2.5x12.5" strips and 4.5x4.5" squares. The blocks will be 12x12"
ReplyDeleteIngrid from Moers/Germany
Happy new year from France!
ReplyDeleteKatell
I've just stepped down from being President of our guild for two years but I am assisting with charity. Thank you for this post as we have loads of ugly fabric already cut into two inch strips! My goal this year is to use it up! Thank you for all you do. Working on MQ!
ReplyDeleteNope nothing ugly there at all. Very beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI made mine out of homespuns, and it is still one of my favorites. I also loved the backstory on the pattern and if you have any more, I am sure we would love to hear them! Kind of like where a song writer, or story writer gets their inspiration. We always would love to know. They make the most interesting stories, well, to me anyway...!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely day, thanks Bonnie
ReplyDeleteValerie