Weekend Happenings

Hi all!
Here in the Ottawa Valley we got a lot of snow this weekend but that didn't stop us from playing with our new toy!  Yey an out-door fire-pit!  We played with our out-door cooking items; from left to right:  pop corn maker, sandwich maker and hot dog cooker.  Yum!  My youngest was obsessed with this thing all weekend and wanted to be constantly cooking on it LOL!  I love cooking out-doors as much as the next person but keeping an open fire going while the snow is coming down is challenging at the best of times!

I didn't manage to complete anything this weekend but I did putter a lot and do a lot of smaller jobs.; so, this post may ramble a bit.

I  got the chance to try a backing technique that I have never used before.  I was working on a baby quilt, from my stash, and I had this piece of yellow flannel that is perfect for the back except for one thing ~ it wasn't wide enough.  Luckily it was longer than I needed so I cut in on the diagonal and moved the right side down until it was wide enough to fit the quilt.  Pretty cool!  John Flynn came up with this method ~ and there is math involved if you want to do this on a larger quilt ~ but I just eye-balled it and gave it a whirl!  I would do the math if this was for a larger quilt.  I'll show pictures of the finished quilt once it is quilted.

 Here you can see a bit of the baby quilt.  Yes ~ it is another Twister LOL!  I love these guys!  I made my own twister ruler for this one since it doesn't, yet, come in the size that I wanted.  I wanted to start with a block between 5" and 10" so I used my 6 1/2" square to do this.  I can honestly say, though, that if they come out with one this size I would buy it.  I love the little gripper feet on the bottom of their rulers.  It makes life much easier.  I used the excess fabric that gets cut away to make some nice blue stars for the boarder.  Again, I will show a picture once it's all done.

 Next I played around with my 2 1/2" strip bin and used a You-tube video I found on using 2 1/2" strips to make Layered Pinwheels.  You get two mirror image blocks for every set of units so I was just playing with the 6 blocks I made here.  I'm not too crazy about this layout.  This lay-out uses both sides of the mirror image.  I think that if I was to do this I would need some sashing between the blocks.

I think I like the mirror image blocks separated better so that you get the effect of two pinwheels instead of it looking choppy.   These were just some trial blocks to see if I liked the technique.  I do!  The only thing that I will say is that I had a couple pieces of "cheaper" fabric in there aka not quilt shop quality but rather Fabricland quality.  Fabricland is like Joanne's in the USA I think - sorry but I've never been so I'm not really sure.  Anyways, those couple fabrics really stretched under the roller of my Accuquilt Go! machine!  Nothing else did - just those two fabrics.  When I was squaring up my blocks the fabric even shifted under my ruler so I know that it was in fact the fabric and not the cutter that did it.  Some people have commented about fabric stretching under the Go!  I'd have to say ~ check your thickness and quality; and, perhaps compensate with a nice dose of spray starch!  I <3 Mary Ellen's Best Press.

I'm working on the first boarder of my latest leaders and enders project and got 50 of these little guys trimmed and pressed.  just 150 more and the boarder will be ready to piece!

I plan on throwing all those little triangles out ~ I know!  Some of you are cringing at the sight of it LOL!  If you piece minis I would be happy to send them to you just leave me a comment here.  The are 1 1/4" from long flat end to point; so, much smaller than I am willing to do anything with ;-)  With my latest purge and cut phase going on I just can't keep saving things like that. 

And last but not least I cut another 154 3 1/2" square of the background fabric.  Yes, yes I checked and re-checked and checked again to make sure that it was the right fabric!  I actually had to make myself stop checking the fabric and just get cutting.  Once bitten twice shy I suppose?

Now I think I may baste the baby quilt that I am working on so that I can get ready to machine quilt it when the urge strikes!  I have a bit of time yet to complete it but I do want to finish it before the next guild meeting so that I can show all my Twister quilts together.

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What have you been working on this weekend?