Quality Time

I got to spend some quality time with my seam ripper last night.

 

I had a plan for these 2.5" strips of Poems from Pebbles, but once I got started on it, I didn't like it. 

Friday night, I sewed 26 strips into sets of twos. I put them up on the design wall to be sure that I didn't mess up the sewing order when I decided that I needed to make changes. But, no matter how much I moved them around, it just wasn't working. 

I set them aside thinking that a new day would help; but when I went back to them last night, I still felt the same way. I pulled out my seam ripper and got busy.

I spent some serious, but quality time with the ripper and I'm okay with that. I sure am glad I made the decision to rip early in the construction process!

I hope to get time to work on the new plan later today but I have a few other things on my plate first though. 

I'm excited to say that next Sunday I will be the guest blogger at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I'm super excited about it and hope you all jump over there and take a gander at the tutorial I'm posting that day. 

I'm also one of the sponsors for the 2015 Hands2Help Quilt Challenge and Sarah's post yesterday announces all the wonderful sponsors. I'm thrilled to be a part of the challenge and honored to be a guest blogger and sponsor.

Happy Monday! 

March Recap

March was National Quilting Month.

What did you do to celebrate?

I was fairly productive during the month, but what I am even more excited about was the fact that I had numerous opportunities to share the joy of quilting with new quilters. (I sometimes feel like a "quilt pusher" who gets a kick out of introducing people to MY drug of choice - QUILTING.)

I've shown various projects throughout the month that I've completed, but here are a few tops that are ready for quilting. The bottom four have the backing and binding ready to go and all that needs done is to get them on the frame. I hope to have the backing and bindings ready for the top three by next week. Most of these are donation quilts or class sample quilts and although there are deadlines, they aren't super soon.

Here's the Mondo Bag and Strip Quilt that I made using just one Jelly Roll and 2 yards of fabric. That was fun and I'm making another set, only this time I'm using more modern fabrics - Poems from Pebbles. I got my Jelly Roll from M&E Quilt Shoppe and I know they have more, along with Charm Packs and Layer Cakes. (See I AM a quilt pusher!)

I was very lucky to spend National Quilting Day (and rest of the weekend with a couple of my favorite people.  :-) 

There was a lot of laughter and even some sewing.

Of course there was also some eating! 

Tony, Claire and Ryan worked hard and made a wonderful dinner Saturday night. There was a lot of team work during the cooking process, but don't let the pictures fool you. There was a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen too!

And even though this isn't what I had intended to make, these blocks (plus three more) got sewn and are ready for sashing. These are a version of a Disappearing Nine Patch.

The original plan was for Ann, Jerry, Connie and I to follow the same Disappearing Nine Patch pattern and see how our fabric choices made the blocks look different. We spent quite a bit of time Friday playing with the block construction and none of us liked what what happening so we decided to work on our own projects. I didn't take much else on which to work, so this is what I did. I don't love it, but that's ok. I'll finish it and move on to my next new and exciting project.

But, none of the quilting projects completed during the month of March compare to what Lynn and Ty completed. 

Peyton Louise is simply adorable and a wonderful blessing to us all! 

I see a future quilter here. :-)

Snow for Easter?

I made this Easter carrot table runner  and needed to move it from the table last night when Nikki's kids were here because I knew they were going to color. I wasn't sure if the kids had seen the "giant carrot" yet, so I wanted to put it up someplace that was out of the way, but where they could still see it. I thought this was the perfect solution.

Sadie was the first to see it and her expression was like, "What the heck is that giant carrot doing hanging on the wall?" 

Then I lifted up the carrot to show them this.

I wish you could have heard them laugh!

Unfortunately it's not too big of a stretch to think we could have snow on Easter. 

Tip Tuesday! Bindings with a Flange - Updated

"Tip Tuesday!" - Bindings with a Flange

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 due credit 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!

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For a couple of years now, I've been intrigued with trying to figure out how to make my quilt bindings pop. I've made scrappy bindings, I've used a fabric and color that is completely new to the project and not found anywhere in the quilt. I've played with different sizes of bindings, although I must say that unless I'm trying to maintain points along the quilt edge, I still like my 3/8" bindings on larger quilts and 1/4" on smaller ones. I've used stripes on the bindings that create a barber pole effect or bias bindings that just looked fun. 

Although I like all of the above binding treatments (some much better than others!), I am always on the lookout for something new, fun and different. 

I think my intrigue was with unique bindings was piqued a number of years ago when I saw Susan K. Cleveland's Piping Hot Binding tool and its results. I loved how the edges of her quilts just sang to me. I took a class from her while she was in Cleveland and loved it; and I proceeded to use the technique quite a few times. Here's a YouTube video of the technique.

Fast forward a few years of not using the tool or technique (not sure why I stopped doing it), and I happened upon a website that showed how to apply a flange binding totally by machine. Although I like Susan's method and results, I am always intrigued with learning something new so I read the information and decided to try this "new to me" technique. I loved it and have used it on at least four quilts since February. 

Of course I am having difficulty uploading pictures! I guess that for right now you only get to see pictures of one of the quilts with the flange binding. :-( I'll keep trying and see if I can get them here for you to see. 

UPDATED - I finally got one of the pictures to load and I'm pretty sure it was user error and not the program. :-)

These are the three quilts I quilted for my sister Kathie, who is a new quilter. I did the binding for her and since I was learning a new technique and I wanted to add something special to her first quilts, I added a flange binding. I really like how it looks. 

Even though this first picture isn't great, I think you can see the white flange along the binding.

Here's a close up of a corner. It's just the little bit of pop that I wanted and it reinforces the white outlining of the letter in the quilt center. LOVE IT!

Here's the picture from 52Quilts that caught my eye.  Doesn't that look fun? I'm not just talking about the binding either. I love that polka dot fabric!

Below is a link to the tutorial. It is well written and pictured which makes it easy to follow. 

http://www.52quilts.com/2012/05/tuesday-tutorial-susies-magic-binding.html

And now there's a video tutorial! YIPPEE!!:-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8N6nv90H2c

Thanks!

I need to do this more often!

What about you?

Tip Tuesday! Sew4Home

"Tip Tuesday!" - Sew4Home

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 due credit 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! 

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There is nothing wrong with admitting that you don't know everything! As a matter of fact, it's pretty darn cool to not have to be responsible to know all the answers.  :-)

Every so often, I'll post a website or two that I find interesting or especially helpful, and today's site is Sew4Home. 

There is a ton of information on this site and today I'm going to provide all five of the links that deal with Quilt Basics. I have recommended this site to a number of new quilters. It has awesome pictures and things are explained quite well. Here's a quick rundown (and links) to the five parts of the Quilt Basics.

I really enjoyed reading part one! Besides a quick history of quilting (I love history and especially quilt history!), part one deals with the basic tools, notions, etc. that you need to start quilting.

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/quilt-basics-tools-notions-other-stuff-you-need-part-1-5

Part two deals with rotary cutting basics.

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/quilt-basics-rotary-cutting-trimming-part-2-5

 

Part three introduces basic block designs

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/quilt-basics-quilt-blocks-squares-rectangles-triangles-part-3-5

Part four, which is divided into to Part A and Part B, deals with machine piecing blocks, including the 1/4" seam allowance, chain piecing, nesting seams, strip piecing, half square triangle construction, etc.

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/quilting-basics-piecing-quilt-blocks-machine-part-4a-5

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/quilting-basics-piecing-quilt-blocks-machine-part-4b-5

And finally, part five deals with quilting your project.

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/quilt-basics-quilting-quilt-part-5-5

Enjoy!

Block Swaps

I used to participate in a number of block swaps but for a variety of reason, I stopped doing so quite a while ago. Well, last year, our Modern Quilt Guild organized a swap for anyone that wanted to join and it was based on the book Block Party - The Modern Quilting Bee.

Even though I was pretty new to the group, I was excited to participate and have posted a few pictures of the blocks I've swapped. I wasn't able to attend the meeting last night so I took a couple of pictures of the blocks I made for Barb and e-mailed them to her. She told me to just bring the blocks to the meeting next month, but I figured she might be like me and want to see them.  :-)

So, here are the two blocks I made for Barb. She asked for anything that would fit the description of "wonky square" and she sent along the fabrics.

I hope she likes them!