A Quilter Can Change Her Mind, Right?

If you're looking for the "Tip Tuesday" post, scroll down to the end of this post, click HERE or click on the "Tip Tuesday" tab above.

I was working on the Quilt As You Go Braid yesterday and decided that although I like the method, I was having a few issues that I needed to change if I wanted this quilt to look decent. (Perhaps being able to find the original post with information would have helped me avoid some of the issues I had.)

I decided that I should use 100% cotton batting instead of the 80/20 blend that I did. The batting was stretching a bit and I think that would happen less with the cotton. Also, I need to be much more careful and accurate when I cut the batting. I cut the batting 8" wide, but found a few spots that were as small as 7.75" plus, one piece was 72" and another was 73". The length wasn't a big deal, but the width could be. (I have to admit that I have some 100% cotton here, but I was trying to be frugal and use up some of the scraps of batting that I have. You know you get long pieces when you trim up the sides of quilts before adding binding and I've been saving those for a rag quilt or something similar.)

Also, I need to be very careful accurate with the angle when I place the first few strips and check it every so often. I got a bit off and that error really became visible quite a few strips later. I was just so excited to try this and I really didn't think it through. :-(  Slow down and quilt with purpose to avoid spending some quality time with your seam ripper.

And one other thing that I really need to do is check that the strips are actually 2.5" wide. It really wouldn't matter if I was using lots of strips of different sizes, but when they are all mostly 2.5" or close and then a 2.25" strip gets sewn in, it really throws off the matching points and it is a real challenge to get back on track. I'm beginning to think that some of these strips were set aside and not used on other project because they weren't 2.5". If you've ever used jelly rolls, Bali pops, etc., you know that can sometimes happen. It's not a big deal, but I didn't like how it looked because it was so random.

So, what's a quilter to do when she's working on a project that isn't "working" for her? Well, she has a few options. She can pack it up and save it for another day. (Yea, like I'll get back to it in this lifetime!) Or she can get out the rotary cutter and make two doll quilts for the grand kids!! Guess which option I chose.

In case you missed it before, this is what the braid looked like yesterday.

Here's what I have now. Looks more like a chevron than a braid, but I like them. After trimming and cleaning up the "issues," these measure about 30" x 36" and I'm OK with that.

And, I had two pieces of fabric that I think make perfect baking for these. I even had enough extra backing fabric to I could make binding strips, but I'm swapping the binding so that the blue/pink binding will be on the other quilt. 

If you click on the above picture, it should enlarge the picture so you can see the simple quilting lines I did. I used a variegated thread on the top and bobbin (King Tut #918) and am really pleased how it turned out. 

Based on the backing alone, I think I know which quilt Sadie will choose. She LOVES purple, while Quinn is more partial to pink.

This was a fun and productive learn experience. Now I really need to get busy working on some projects that have been sitting around here for a while. That, or start cutting out my papers for the Prairie Star quilt that I'll be working on when I'm with Judy Niemeyer at Tennessee Quilts in February.

Check out what other quilters are doing today. Go to i have to say... for show and tell Tuesday.

Tip Tuesday! - Fabric Selection

Welcome to

"Tip Tuesday!"

I love learning new things and then sharing that knowledge with my quilting friends. So, every Tuesday I'll provide some tips, hints, tricks, tutorials, shortcuts, etc. that I've learned over the years and share them here on the blog. 

"Tip Tuesday" will be a collection of information about a wide variety of subjects garnered from a large variety of sources.  I am not an expert by any means and do not take credit for being the great wizard behind all of these hints and tips. I will gladly give credit where credit is due whenever possible.

These tips will be archived and accessible to you just by clicking on the "Tip Tuesday" tab above. 

Read, enjoy, and be inspired! 

Fabric Selection

Even though I said there would be no real order to these posts, I decided to start with the question I am most asked by students. "How do I chose fabric for quilts?"

I used to stress about picking fabrics for my quilts and quite honestly, I sometimes still struggle with this; but I've come up with a couple of different ways to look at choosing fabrics and maybe one will work for you. Trust me, once you quit worrying about it, fondling picking fabric is fun! (This post might be a bit long. Sorry, but I think the information is very valuable!)

Choosing fabric really is no different then getting dressed in the morning.

We decide on a main article of clothing (focus fabric) and then start adding accessories (coordinating/supporting fabrics).

Maybe a pair of pants is where we begin and them we chose a blouse or sweater. That's pretty easy. In terms of quilting, you've just picked your focus fabric and main coordinating/supporting fabric.

Ok, now do we want to add a scarf? What about your jewelry? Maybe earrings for that touch of sparkle, or a necklace to help blend or tie all the pieces together. These are all coordinating/supporting fabrics also, but there is just less of them. They are important and can take your quilt from just ok to spectacular!

Now, for the finale. What about your shoes ? How do we wrap up this outfit to have a great, yet stunning ending? Your shoes do the same thing for your outfit that binding can do for your quilts. Pick something stunning and daring!

Easy Peasy!!

Ok, if the outfit thing doesn't work for you, how about an analogy to food? Food is always good, right? Especially if chocolate is involved!

So, let's make choosing great fabrics like fixing a great meal. You need ingredients for a meal and your fabrics are the ingredients for your quilts.

Main Dish or Entree' = Focus Fabric

Choose a print or fabric that you love! Consider the scale of the print when making these chooses. Quilts look great when there is a mixture of small, medium and large scale prints. Large scale prints look great as borders, but they can be cut up and pieced into blocks as well. What is that the Life Cereal commercial used to say? "Try it Mikey! You'll like it!"

Side Dishes =  Coordinating/Supporting Fabrics

Remember that when you're fixing a meal, you should try to have a good mixture of color and texture on your plate for a more healthy and balanced meal. (That healthy option often includes those surprisingly tasty green and yellow veggies. Who would have thought they would be so good?) Just like adding side dishes to compliment your main dish, use your focus fabric to help pick the coordinating/supporting fabrics. Remember, you get to choose how many, what colors, what prints, etc. Don't be afraid! Pick a couple of color families and start pulling fabrics from them to use. For a more scrappy look, vary the color values within each family (pale lavender to deep purple, for example), or mix and match the prints and textures of your selections.  

Condiments = "Touch of Spice" Fabrics

Sometimes you just need to add a touch of salt, pepper, vinegar, etc. to flavor your food. Well, adding just a dash of an unexpected color or print can do wonders to your quilt. Think about adding a narrow plaid border, or a red piping. What about those dreaded stripes? They just might be the answer to the question of how to "fix" a boring quilt. Just try it! Audition the fabrics. Be sure to remember that just like salt, less is actually more. You may decide that although you love that orange print, a little goes a long way - just like spinach.

Dessert = Backing/Binding/Quilting

There isn't much better than capping off a great meal with a fabulous dessert. Think of your backing, binding and quilting in the same way. Piecing your backing can add a whimsical or dramatic touch to your quilt. It may even look like you have a reversible quilt - two quilts in one!

Variegated or metallic thread can really add a wow factor to a project. While you're at it, why not choose an unusual quilt design. Although stitch in the ditch is really cool, quilting meandering stars would really make your red, white and blue quilt light up the sky like the fourth of July! 

Explore how prairie points or cording might look to finish off your quilt. Why not choose that plaid fabric and cut it on the bias to bind the quilt? You know it'll look fabulous and trust me, it really isn't that hard to do!

See? I told you picking fabric can be fun.

What's the worst thing that could happen?

The fabric you chose isn't exactly what you wanted. 

Look at it this way, you've just had a Stash Enhancing eXperience (quilters' sex)! 

Design Wall Monday and An Announcement

It's been a long time since I posted a Design Wall Monday project, but I actually have something on the wall. YIPPEE!!

Quite a while ago, I read a blog post about a quilt-as-you-go braid quilt. It was a bit different than any others I've read, mostly because you piece the top and batting together then add the backing. There are not sashing strips to add to combine the quilted pieces and there was minimal quilting to hold the top and back together, but it wasn't needed and it looked great.

Now, do you think I can find that blog post or remember the author of that post? Of course not, so that means I'm "winging" it to figure out what to do. If you know the blog to which I'm referring, please let me know so I can give credit to the author. Thanks!

I have a bunch of 2.5" batik strips (some full length and others cut) that have been left over from various projects, plus I had a Paint Box Batiks roll that only had 20 strips in it so I decided to use it on this. I'm kind of embarrassed about how many 2.5" strips I have tucked away here. Well, this should use up a bunch of them!

Here's what I have so far.

 

I started with batting strips cut 8" x 72" and I will be piecing 8 of these strips, making the finished quilt around 60" x 72". That should be a pretty good size throw, don't you think?

 

I'm not paying much attention to the order in which I use the strips (as you can probably tell), but it hasn't bothered me yet. I can see in the picture above that there are a few places where it looks like the same fabrics are zigging or zagging together, but that isn't the case. That really has been the only "rule" that I've been following - no two like fabrics next to each other. We'll see if I can continue to do that on the final 5 strips that need sewn.

 

I was going to sew all the columns and then put them together, but I was a bit anxious to see how they would turn out. The first to columns are sewn together, but the third one is just lined up to the others. The second column has a few issues and is a bit wonky, but I hope to be able to correct or at least contain that when I add the third strips. 

 

School was cancelled for today so I may just have some time to work on this and get most of the strips made. WooHoo!!

 

ANNOUNCEMENT - BIG NEWS!!

 

Tomorrow I will be introducing a new "series" for my blog. 

 

During the past few years that I've been teaching, I've tried to provide my students with helpful and practical hints on how to piece more accurately and basically just how to make quilting even more fun. About six months ago, one of my students asked why I didn't write down all these suggestions so she could get a copy and have them more easily accessible. Mmmmmm.... 

 

That got me thinking, so starting tomorrow, every Tuesday I will post a tip, suggestion or hint of some sort that I've used in my quilting. The posts will be called Tip Tuesday and there'll be a tab at the top of the blog page with links to the original posts. I hope you'll find the tips helpful and enjoy reading, and implementing them as much as I enjoy writing them.  :-)

 

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today. Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times to get inspired! 

Can You Say Obsession?

I think I may have an obsession! (Ok, you can quit laughing now.)

After all the pieces were cut, and there were a lot of them, I went from this (33 rows, each measuring 117" long)...

 

to this (all rows sewn together and neatly folded)... in less than a week

 

 



 

A bit of the backstory here...Right around Thanksgiving,  I signed up for the Wake Up To Kona! blog hop. I thought that participating in this hop would give me a good swift kick to begin working on a pattern that I've had since winning it way back in August of 2012. While reading one of the blogs that I follow, I became enchanted with the pattern and had wanted to participate in the Quilt Along that was scheduled to help promote the pattern. I started thinking about colors, fabric, etc. and then WHAM! something else took my attention. (Imagine that!)

I did get so far as to buying fabric and I even labeled them so I wouldn't get confused as to which one was being used where in the quilt. The fabric and pattern were nicely folded and put into a project bag, just waiting for me to get started. I always knew where that "kit" was and often pulled it out to look at it, but I could never bring myself to start cutting the fabric, let alone begin to sew.

Fast forward to late November and me signing up for the blog hop. I knew that this was the project on which I wanted to work. That was until I realized that I had decided to make the large quilt (99" x 117") and that there was no way I was going to get it done in time. Heck, I was still teaching and there were quilts to be quilted, Christmas stuff to do, etc. I swallowed the reality pill and came up with Plan B.

I finished Plan B and figured that I would at least begin cutting the fabric for this pattern. Well, once everything was cut, I figured that I might as well do a bit of piecing. What could it hurt? The worst case scenario is that I ended up with another UFO.  :-)

Well, I started sewing the strips for this quilt last week and tonight I finished the quilt top. WOW! I love how it turned out and can't wait to show you. 

Obsessed? Maybe, but I'm ok with that.  :-)

Making Progress

Remember this picture?

That's the stack of rows (33 rows that each measure 117") for the LARGE project that I'm hoping to complete before the 9th when I share my Wake Up To Kona! post.

Here's the stack now.

 

I'm down to 11 rows! Looks like I may be able to show at least a quilt top on the 9th. Stick around. I think you'll like what you see.

 

YIPPIE!

Recap and Old Friends

The snow is falling and it's very quiet here today. Jack and I were blessed this past few weeks to be surrounded by family and friends, and it was wonderful! Although I didn't get a lot of pictures (How did I not take any pictures of the annual holiday feast, Ann, Tony or Claire, opening gifts, etc. is beyond me.), but we had a grand and glorious time! Here's a quick pictorial recap of just a few of the highlights.

Quinn and Sadie decided that the tree was missing something. Fabric!!

 

This might have just been a ploy to avoid going to bed (notice the pajamas), but how could I resist? Sadie was not interested in being in the picture, but Quinn sure was proud of how it looked.

 

 

 And here it is in the daytime. This may have to become a part of our annual celebration.

 

 

I am participating in the Wake Up To Kona! blog hop next week and I decided to see if I could get another project done for it. Actually, this was the project I had set out to do but I quickly realized that it was going to be awfully difficult to get this thing completed in time so I went to Plan B. Well, Plan B is done and I decided to start organizing Plan A and see what happens. Of course I can't really show you any details, but here's a teaser for you.

 

 

This is my progress so far on Plan A. I can't wait to finish this and show you. Keep your fingers crossed that I'm really productive the next couple of days. If I don't get it done by Sunday, I'll show what I do have completed and then keep you posted as I work on it. (It will be fairly slow after this weekend, as I will be subbing full time again for the month of January and then I head to Tennessee Quilts for a week-long Judy Niemeyer workshop. YIPPEE!!)



 

The snow started in earnest yesterday and continues today. I love watching the snow fall. I don't love the plowing, driving, etc., but I do love to see it falling and covering the trees and ground. This is the view from the room where I sew. I am so lucky.

 

 

Welcome Back Old Friends!

 

With all the recent commotion, routines often fall by the wayside. We usually heat with wood, but with so much going on, we decided to just use the furnace for the last week or so. I started a fire this morning and it didn't take me long to remember how much I enjoy the fireplace.

 

 

And of course spending time with a truly wonderful and recently ignored old friend is a perfect way to spend a snowy winter day!

 





 

Enjoy yourselves and Happy New Year!



Catching Up!

First of all, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I know it's difficult to read, but this banner was made by my granddaughters Quinn and Sadie today, and they had help from my niece Claire. I think it's fun and wish you could see how many of the letters were colored in a patchwork pattern. It sure make me one proud quilting grandma/aunt.  :-)

 

 

We celebrated our Christmas today and had a wonderful time. My sister Ann and family joined us for the festivities and we are so glad they're here.

 

For a number of years now (I think it's been 12 years), we've celebrated Christmas on December 23rd with a special dinner that consists of crab legs and various other fun side dishes. This year, because of work schedules, other family obligations, etc. we decided to celebrate today, Dec. 29th. It really doesn't matter what day we pick, it's just fun to be together.

 

Here's the picture I sent Nikki and Lynn yesterday while they were at other holiday parties. I just wanted them to know that I had begun the preparations for our party. Can you see the crab legs and shrimp. Yummy!!

 

 

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but I've been very busy.

 

My family had our Thanksmas (Christmas and Thanksgiving combined) Celebration in Middletown and it was wonderful to spend time with my siblings, their spouses and children. It was the first year without Mom and I missed her terribly. There were a lot of youngsters there and I love how they interact with each other. Ronan REALLY wanted Avery to try the pretzel.  :-)

 

 

I had my first cookie order due on December 12th. This year, I also made a few different kinds of candy to go along with the cookie orders. They were simple candy to make, which is why I chose to make them. Back in September, I had made the decision to reduce the number of orders I would take for Christmas cookies and as it turned out, that was a very wise decision.

 

 

Crock Pot Crack!

 

Turtles

 

Although I like most of the cookies and both kinds of candy, I think the turtles are my favorite! 

 

I continued to substitute teach until December11th and then I spent the next five or six days quilting for the shop.

 

 

I was so happy that Ann was able to spend a long weekend with me. She was amazing and so helpful. We were able to get a lot of quilts done in a very short period of time. It was amazing how quickly we could load a quilt, and while I was quilting, she was making the binding, trimming quilts and attaching the binding. She even hand stitched the binding on three quilts. I'm sure I could not have finished everything that needed to be done without her help!

 

Unfortunately there was also sadness during my blogging hiatus. My brother-in-law Ray suffered a massive stroke and died on December 17th. It was a shock to everyone and we all miss him. Ray loved to fish and I think this a wonderful picture!

 

Even though it was rushed, Jack and I were able to spend a day with Sheryll and family, and David stopped over on Christmas Day. I look forward to a time when we can spend time with our ENTIRE family. It doesn't have to happen on a holiday. Any day will do. I don't know if and when that will happen, but I sure hope it will be soon.

 

Nikki and family will be leaving tomorrow and Ann and family will leave some time Tuesday afternoon. It sure will be quiet around here. I think I'll sew and I'm sure Jack will spend some time on the radio.

 

Neither Jack or I work this upcoming week, but we both return to our busy schedules the following week. I will be teaching English 10 and 12 for another four weeks (all of January) and then be heading to Tennessee for a week-long workshop with Judy Niemeyer. I am looking forward to that, but I have some work ahead of me to be prepared. I have to get a little more fabric and then get it cut. I plan to work on the Prairie Star while I'm there. If you aren't familiar with the pattern, you should click on the link above and check it out. I love this pattern and will be using red and white fabrics.

 

So much for the quick rundown of my recent whereabouts. Thanks to those who have e-mailed asking if everything was ok. I know you were worried because I hadn't posted recently. I'm sure things will be back on track soon and you'll be wondering why I post so much.  :-)

 

As I stated in my last post, I'm participating the a new blog hop that starts very soon. It's the Wake Up to Kona! hop and I'm really looking forward to it. I wish I could give you a sneak peak at my project, but you'll just have to wait. I post my project on January 9th so be on the lookout.

 

Have a wonderful day and a Happy New Year!