Twin Baby Quilts!

I finally finished sewing on the labels of these two baby quilts for a twin boy and girl.  I, once again, did my 4-patch 1-patch pattern from Ursula Reikes' book "Quilts for Baby."  I really like the way that the continuous curve machine quilting looks across the piecing.  I love this pattern so much but I need to make a different one once in a while LOL!  I just bought Ursula Reikes' new book "Even More Quilts for Baby"so maybe I'll find some inspiration there ;)  I also mitered the boards on the blue quilt.  I don't usually do that for a baby quilt but I didn't have anything suitable for corner-stones and I figured that it would take me just as long to piece a 4-patch to put in so I mitered the boarders instead.  Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do ;)

I got the new McCall's ~ America Quilts for Christmas and on page 54 there is a place-mat pattern called Forever Green that has trees on it that I really like!  I noticed that the triangle in a square unit on the boarders is the exact size of my 3" Triangles in a Square die for my Accuquilt Go!!  Using the die would make these place-mats so fast and easy since i wouldn't have to use templates!  I think that this might be a nice teacher gift perhaps.  Or maybe it's just a good excuse to use my die ;)

Happy Sewing all!!

Tumbler Quilt

Hey all!
I've been teaching a lot and working on hand-outs lately so not a lot to post.

 But, I have been working on a tumbler quilt from a couple of big block kits I had sitting in my stash for several years ;)  I decided to pre-wash these brushed cottons since I wasn't using them for a rag-quilt.  I find that brushed cottons tend to shrink a lot so I usually pre-wash them.  Pressing these fabrics after they came out of the dryer took a loooong time!  Not a job I enjoy very much I can tell you that!  Look at all those threads hanging off the sides!  Yuck!  The plaid in the back is what I will use for my binding.  I'll cut it on the bias since I really prefer plaid bindings cut on the bias instead of a cross-grain cut.  It makes the plaid look really pretty!
I cut the quilt blocks using my Accuquilt Go! tumbler die and I can say Wow!  What an easy way to cut a fussy block!!  The dog-ears have been cut off at exact angles so that the blocks line up perfectly every time.  Some people have trouble with this but I can honestly say that when I took the time to really line up the tumblers they came out perfectly ~ when I didn't take the time ~ they didn't!  And, I tend to sew at a scant 1/4" seam ~ the seam-allowances included in the dies are a full 1/4" not a scant one so I had to watch that I was sewing the blocks together properly.  So the issues that I did encounter were actually user error and not the fault of the Accuquilt Go!

I randomly started sewing blocks together and started running into some issues of colours linking up etc so now I decided to lay out the blocks and plan it out a bit.  Some of these tumblers are sewn together and some are not.  I thought that I would snap a picture of the tumblers at this stage so you could see what i was talking about ;)  So far so good.  I can't decide if I should leave the edges all uneven like that or square them off.  When it comes time to do the binding I'm pretty sure that the thought of all of those mitres will make me square off the sides ~ but I will decide that after the quilting is finished I think!  I'll keep you updated on this one to let you know what I think about sewing the rows together.  So far I am in love with my Go!  I think that it was a good investment for me right now ;)  I can really see how the dies could become a serious addiction!

At the very least I took a whole bunch of fabric from my stash ~ that had been sitting there for years ~ and am making it into  a nice throw quilt!  I liked these brushed cottons when I bought them but I just really didn't want to do another rag quilt and do all that snipping :-P

Any questions or comments please feel free to leave them here ~ I would love to hear from you and I would love it if you would consider following my blog ~ it's the button on the right hand side.

Happy sewing all!

Fat Quarter Transportation Tip!

I just had to share this tip!

Today, when I was teaching my Crazy Shortcut Quilt class, one of my students walked in with her fat quarters all ready and pressed for class and hanging on a pants/skirt hanger so that she wouldn't have to fold them again for transporting them to the class!  I always ask people to make sure that their fat quarters are pressed flat before class to save a lot of class time; but, they get a little crumpled again by the time they get to class so we have to do a little pressing again.  What a great, easy and extremely effective way to transport pressed fat quarters!  I've brought yardage to class on hangers before but never thought of fat quarters.  Everyone in the class thought that it was an absolutely wonderful idea so I just had to share it with all of you because I never thought of this.

As always the Crazy Shortcut Quilt class was so much fun with lots of excitement over the unique and very non-traditional quilting techniques used that make this a fun and easy method to achieve spectacular results.  I can't wait to see what everyone brings back to the second class when the blocks are pieced!

If you have any questions or comments feel free to share them here ~ and ~ if you are enjoying my blog I hope that you will click the FOLLOW button on the right.

Happy Quilting all!

Look at What I Got!!!

Yey!!!  I finally got one!  I got an Accuquilt Go!! machine and a bunch of dies!!  Woot!

I am so excited about this machine for appliques.  I hate tracing and cutting out shapes so this will definitely make things a lot easier for me.  You can't really see it well in this picture - sorry - but on the very right is the critters die and I just love it!!!  I think they would be sooo cute cut out of batiks.  Or in baby fabrics - maybe this will make me do a different baby quilt instead of my usual 4-patch 1-patch quilt ;)

I think that a great quilt would be the tumbler blocks - in batik - with the critters in the boarder.  Too many possibilities.  I also want to get the rag dies and the Rose of Sharon die.  I think that the rag die is brilliant and takes away the yucky snip - snip - snipping ;-)  I have a couple quilts I need to quilt before I can play too much with this baby but I am really excited by the possibilities.

What dies do you guys have?  Which do you find the most useful or smartest?