February Bee Block Recap

February was a great month for bee blocks!  I have been wanting a design wall for a long time now, and I finally dusted off my hammer, found some tacks, and made it myself.  Seeing my bee blocks up there brought a smile to my face!

I ended up making the chevron block twice due to reader error on my part (the request was for solids, duh!).  So I took lots of photos the second time to write a tutorial for the block which hopefully I will post soon.

And I got some improv practice with the blocks for Make It Modern and Stash Bee. 

Notting Hill fabric was appropriate in the Pippi Longstocking block since its recipient lives in a town called Nottinghamshire in England!

I can’t wait to see what March brings!

Sweet Squares Baby Quilt

My husband’s coworker has a little girl last month. You know I have a thing for Aneela Hoey’s sweet fabric lines, so this quilt includes Little Apples, Sherbet Pips, and Walk in the Woods.

Oh how I love the foxes, mushrooms, and little doggies!  The girl on a swing is my favorite image from all her lines.  It reminds me of my daughters so much!

One of my favorite things about this quilt is I used all stash fabric for the entire thing.  I had these little dogs from Pampered Pooch by Moda just sitting on my shelf for years.  I’m glad they’ve finally found a purpose!  The pink fabric with stars was a clearance fabric from Connecting Threads.  The finished quilt is 36 x 42 inches.

Of course the whole thing is machine bound.  You can see how straight my stitching is getting on the back.  Practice really does make {almost} perfect!  Something I learned this time around about straight line quilting is to increase my stitch length to 4.0.  I read that somewhere online and would have never tried it.  Usually I do 3.2, which I thought was pretty long, but the advice was spot on.  The stitches look so much better longer.

Have a fantastic day!

Make It Modern Sponsor Quilt Taffy

Quilt Taffy is a friendly online fabric store run by Corrie and Des out of their home state of Idaho.  When I started sewing a few years ago, it was by sheer luck that I found their store first through eBay, and then later through Etsy. 

I love the custom charm packs in their store.  And they carry the newest collections and trendy designs.

Corrie has always been fast to respond to my requests for custom orders and even helped me purchase a Christmas present from her store and deliver it to my friend, writing a note to go inside the package.  She provides great service and fast shipping, usually the same day I place an order.

The latest fabric to hit their shelves is Denyse Schmidt’s Shelburne Falls.   They’ve also got jelly rolls, layer cakes, and fabric by the yard.  This sushi print from Robert Kaufman would make a cute tote or lunch sack.

If you follow Quilt Taffy’s blog, you can enter a giveaway every Thursday for fabric prizes like charm packs and fat quarter packs. 

One lucky Make It Modern winner will get her choice of charm pack from Quilt Taffy’s Etsy store.  Make sure you’ve mailed your blocks and uploaded your photos to Flickr by midnight on February 28th.  A winner’s name will randomly be drawn on March 1. 

Thanks, Quilt Taffy, for providing such an awesome sweet treat!   What would you pick if you won? 

I’d pick this sweet Little Matryoshka charm pack!

I’ve created a monster!

For Christmas, Bea got a Janome DC1050 and the book Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts from Santa. 

She and I marked the quilting lines with a washable pen. I was a little worried that since it sat around 2 weeks before she actually quilted it that the blue marks wouldn’t wash out. But they did!

Santa also brought two doll clothes books that came with instructional DVDs.  We sewed this dress on Christmas day.

I love the little appliqued daisies with button centers.

According to Bea’s first grade teacher, she writes about sewing in her morning journal nearly every single day.  And these came home in her folder in January.  Of course I saved them!

I’m not sure what one person would do with 100 sewing machines, but it sounds good to me!  I love the little drawing of a sewing machine she put at the bottom.

My husband jokes that one day “the student shall become the master.”

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.  Have a great weekend and hope you get lots of sewing done!

Finished Starburst Quilt Top?

Have you seen the gallery of quilt tops from the Starburst QAL?  I thought I finished my top over the weekend, but after seeing all the beautiful quilts on Flickr, I think I might be adding a border to it before it’s ready to quilt.  What do you think?  Should I add a border?

My husband and I went to brunch on Sunday for a late Valentine’s “date” and we took the quilt top along to try to take photos somewhere other than in the front yard.  It was a beautiful, but very cold and windy, day.  We went to our favorite restaurant where we used to eat every weekend while we were dating and in grad school.  We would split a bottle of wine between the two of us, but we can’t handle that anymore!

After making all the blocks for this quilt top, I changed my mind about one of them and remade the block.  I am so happy that I went with my gut.  The new block is much improved.  It has some of my favorite fabrics—Pezzy print, Heather Bailey, and Denyse Schmidt. 

When we got home, Bea and I did a few photos in the front yard.  In December when the Pantone 2013 color was announced I started obsessing about the color emerald.  I saw this coat at Lands End in December and had to have it to include it in one of my emerald project photos!   A silly reason to buy a coat maybe, but I wear it plenty since it’s been so cold this winter.

Linking up to Plum and June, Freemotion by the River, Fabric Tuesday, and WIP Wednesday.

Week 3: “Easy As Pie” Quilt Along

This is the last post in the “Easy As Pie” Quilt Along series.  We’re going to lay out and sew the quilt top together, add borders, and cut the binding.  Post your quilt top (blocks together and borders sewn on) on Flickr and you will be entered to win a quilt kit from 1 Choice 4 Quilting for their next Sew Along!

Sewing the Quilt Top Together

You have all your blocks and rows sewn!  Now it’s time to choose a layout.  Make sure all your blocks and rows are pressed smooth and flat.  Seams should be pressed open.

You will lay out your pinwheels and stars in alternating order.  Place one sawtooth row between the top rows and bottom rows.  The brick row goes in the center.  When you are happy with the layout, you can begin to sew the star and pinwheel blocks into rows.

Sew your blocks together by row, pressing seams open.  When you sew the rows together to make the quilt top, align the seams and pin them before sewing.  Ignore that my seams are not pressed open in this next photo.  I pressed some seams open and some to the side to experiment which was easier and worked better.  But I found out pressing open is better for lining up your seams and creating less bulk.

I pin both vertically and horizontally when joining rows to keep the fabric from shifting around.  The vertical pins keep your fabric from shifting side to side, and the horizontal pins keep your fabric from shifting up or down.  If you pin both ways everything should stay lined up perfectly while sewing.  I know some people who split the difference and put their pins in diagonally, but this doesn’t work well when you are trying to line up seams.

Cutting the Borders

Once your rows are together, you will add the borders.  Change your rotary cutter blade and have a cup of coffee or tea to perk you up and get your brain stimulated!  You must cut this part correctly because there is no fabric left over. 

Start with the skinny border from the gray apples print.  With fabric folded and selvage ends together, cut six 1.5” x WOF strips.  Trim up the selvage ends to straight edges.

Since you are on a roll and your fabric is already pressed and squared up, go ahead and cut your binding fabric, too.  Cut seven 2.5” strips x WOF.  Put your binding fabric aside.  There should be virtually no fabric left over.

Now let’s cut the solid border.  If you bought the quilt kit, the solid is the Moda Bella saffron.  Find your leftover piece.  Press and fold so selvage ends are together.  Cut seven 2 1/4” x WOF strips.  There should be virtually no fabric left over.

Join your gray apples fabric together end to end to form one long strip.  Press your seams open. 

It is important to measure your quilt top and cut the borders accordingly so your quilt doesn’t ripple at the edges.  Measure the width of your quilt at the top, middle, and bottom.  Your width should be somewhere in the ballpark of 48.5 inches.  Take the average of your 3 measurements.  Cut two strips this length from your skinny gray apples strip.  

Sew one strip to the top of the quilt.  Pin vertically and horizontally to keep the fabric from shifting.   In the photo below, the skinny apples strip is underneath the quilt top.  I put it underneath so I can make sure my seam allowances stay open when being sewn.  You can also see in this photo that this time I pressed my seams open.   Once you’ve sewn the border to the top of the quilt, press the seam toward the border.  Repeat the steps to sew the other strip to the bottom of the quilt.  Press toward the border.

Now measure the length of your quilt from top to bottom on the left, center, and right.  Take the average of these 3 measurements and cut two strips from the skinny gray apples strip.   Sew one strip to each side of the quilt, pressing toward the borders.  Once your skinny apples border is sewn on, square up your corners.

You will basically repeat the same steps for the solid border, measuring the width and length, sewing on the strips, and pressing toward the borders.

Yay!  Your quilt top is finished!  Don’t forget to post your pics in the Flickr group!  I can’t wait to see your Easy As Pie quilts!

Pink Lemonade

  

Melissa of Happy Quilting is hosting a Starburst Quilt Along that ends in a few short weeks. That this quilt has been challenging for me would be an understatement.  Melissa’s tutorials and directions have been clear and well written.  I think this is just my first quilt that I’ve had to follow the directions exactly and that’s where I have a little trouble…and of course picking the appropriate fabrics is always hard.

I ended up having to go with scrappy star centers because I made a few mistakes sewing pieces together.  I was short enough fabric to fix the problem, so I just decided to go scrappy.  It worked out to my advantage though because I had cut 3 green stars and 1 pink, so I was able to balance them out  and make it 2 and 2.

Then the adventure began when I put the blocks together and I realized the burst points were unbalanced, too. So I scrapped one of the blocks and remade it.  The top is complete and once the weather cooperates, I’ll take some photos.

If you have a moment, you should check out the Starburst gallery on Flickr.  There are some real beauties!

Spring Sprouts

I made this tablerunner for the Pantone 2013 Challenge.  The color this year is emerald.  Last year it was tangerine.

It’s quilted about 1 inch apart with a long (3.2) stitch in cream thread.

The background fabric is Essex Linen in ivory. 

The backing fabric is canning jars and is reversible.  I sent this tablerunner to my sister who loves to can almost as much as me!

I machine attached the binding as usual.  I don’t know if I’ll ever hand stitch a binding ever again.

Hurry up, spring!

Traceyjay Quilts shared this diagram on Flickr that I used to make this tablerunner.

Week 2: “Easy As Pie” Quilt Along

This week I am going to show you how to put together the wonky star blocks and center row. 

The first step is to locate the ten pieces of layer cake with the larger prints that you put aside.  This fabric will become the centers of the stars and the leftover parts will become bricks in the center row.

I starched and pressed these ten squares before cutting them.  Then, pick ten “motifs” from these squares and fussy cut them out in 4.5” squares.  Try to keep as much of these squares intact except for cutting the 4.5” squares out of them.  You will need the leftover fabric for your center row bricks.

Fussy cutting means you pick a specific motif (or scene) and cut it out of the fabric so it’s centered in the cut.  This is a fussy cut of a tree.

 

This is a fussy cut of ring-around-the-rosy.  Only cut around the motif and leave the rest of the fabric uncut.

You need ten total 4.5” squares.  Save all the remaining fabric.

Next cut your solid fabric.  The solid fabric is Moda Bella Solid in Saffron if you purchased the quilt kit.  Cut eight 4.5” strips.  Subcut these strips into 4.5” squares to make a total of 64 4.5” squares.

Gather all your leftover layer cake squares.  You will need eight 10” squares.  You are going to cut each square into eight triangles.  Simply cut in the middle across and down the center (making four 5” x 5” squares).  Don’t move the fabric.  Then cut across the two diagonals.  Now you have eight triangles. 

You need a total of 64 triangles.

Each wonky star requires four star point blocks.  To construct a star point block, start with one solid 4.5” square and one print triangle.

Place the triangle right side down so that the long side of the triangle goes past two sides of the square.

Sew down the long side of the triangle using a 1/4” seam allowance.

Line your ruler up so the 1/4” line is on the seam line.  Trim off the seam allowance.  (You should just be trimming off that solid fabric triangle.)

Fingerpress the seam open.  Then press, flip the block, and press on the right side.

Now square up your block to 4.5”.  You will have one star point.

Take the other triangle and repeat on the other side, making sure the long side of the triangle goes past the two sides of the square.

Sew down the long side of the triangle with a 1/4” seam allowance.

Trim at the 1/4” seam allowance again.  Fingerpress, press the seam open, and flip and press the block on the right side so your seams lay flat.

Square up your block to 4.5” square.  When you have made four star point blocks, you can lay out your wonky star block.  Working across, sew the three blocks together to make a row, pressing seams open.  Then sew your three rows together, pressing seams open.  Square up your block to 12.5” square.  Make eight wonky star blocks.

To make your center row, gather all your leftover print fabric and cut twenty four 2.5” x 5” rectangles.   I tried to fussy motifs from the larger print fabric left over from making the center of the wonky stars.

Sew these together, pressing seams open, to form a row that measures 48.5” long. 

Link up your photos to the 1 Choice 4 Quilting Flickr page and get your quilt top finished by February 25th to be in the running for a fantastic prize—a quilt kit for their next quilt along!