Opportunities

The Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild has begun work on an opportunity quilt made from some of the blocks in Tula Pink's City Sampler.  I saw it as an excuse opportunity to try some of these blocks.

Also as a rationalization opportunity to buy the book.  It's been sitting on my wish list for a while.

I wasn't able to make it to the first sewing day to work on blocks (and buy a copy of the book at Thread Bear) and I started thinking that buying the Kindle version could be the way to go for me.

I waffled then downloaded the free sample to my iPad to see how I liked it first.

Which also meant, I made the blocks that were included in the sample pages, #1 through #5.

The sixth block (upper left corner) is a duplicate of one of the blocks ... made with fabrics that were cut too narrow. It seemed to fit with the themes of crosses so I decided to include it.

I found I didn't really care for using this book in the Kindle format. In the hard copy version, directions for each of the 100 blocks are spread across two facing pages, with the block photo on the left and the cutting directions and layout showing assembly on the right.  In the Kindle version, this is spread across three pages (cutting and layout are on separate pages) and I ended up swiping back and forth a lot to see which fabrics go where. Your mileage my differ ... and I'd love to know about others' experiences using e-books for quilting.

Yesterday, I drove to Las Vegas for the guild meeting. I left (too) early, so I could feel unrushed–autocorrected to uncrushed, so yea, that, too–and enjoy the drive and the beautiful spring day.  Most of the 70 miles between here and there look a lot like this–open road, blue skies, rolling hills and mountains in the distance.

I don't make this trip often and didn't think to check for construction ... there was some, but not enough to slow things down much.

I was looking forward to the opportunity of seeing everyone and the results of their round robin. I had seen the quilts near the beginning and now the tops were done and being returned to the owners.  I was also curious to see how well my sampler blocks would play with the rest–I had serious doubts about a couple of them.

After potluck dinner and show and tell, the round robin quilts were revealed.

Bridget's quilt started out quite Amish and ended looking very much like a piece of Modern Art.

It's almost impossible to see Beverly's center in her quilt, the additions were so well integrated in the design.

Lin's piece came with an optional circle which could be added to the center ... which was auditioned in a few places–this was my personal favorite placement.

There was a question about orientation for a few of the quilts.  This is Betty's quilt, in the orientation decided by consensus.

Ann's quilt was rotated around the design wall, trying every side up. They all look the same size here, but Ann's was the smallest of the group.

Michael wanted his quilt to evoke the feeling of centrifugal force–if I'm remembering that right. I think the quilters delivered.

The last quilt is Linda's.  It's missing a "round" (because life happened) and there was a lot of discussion, at the wall and around the room, about what could/should be added.

What would you add?

And, in case you're wondering ... here are my City Sampler blocks, again,  mixed in with the rest made so far.

I think it's a good start. Now that I have the book in hand, I am sure it will continue to be an opportunity to sample some more of these blocks.