To Border or Not To Border?

Hi all!

If you have been following my Facebook page you'll know that I've been playing with these fabrics for the past little bit!

 

These fat quarters have been in my stash for years!  So I decided to pull out my Accuquilt Go!  and cut them up :-D

 

I grabbed my Isosceles Triangle die and went to town

 

Soon I had two very nice stacks of perfectly cut triangles!  Yey!!  Can you imagine how long this would take by hand!

 

Without any really clear plan I began sewing them together into the print and an off-white; and, then I sewed them into rows etc.  I really didn't colour plan this I just wanted it random.

 

After a LOT of pinning the top went together and I really like the effect!  What do you think?

Now I need to decide if I want to put borders on this or not.  I can put on borders in the off white but I don't have yardage of any of the prints.  I knid of like the idea of a one-block quilts but I might add on to get the size a little bigger.  What do you think?

Psst I will square it all up either before I add borders or after the quilting is done - don't worry ;-)

So what do you think - to border or not to border?

Look What I Found!

I thought that I might squeeze a little sewing in before I had to cook tonight and while I was pulling out a current project  I found a bag with these in it!

 

I remember putting these scraps away years ago but they didn't end up in my scrap heap so they didn't get processed when I did my big purge.  These were scraps from a quilt I had made, called Eureka, as a wedding present and when my LQS-owner saw it she loved it and wanted me to teach a class - so - I made a twin to this quilt.  This was back in 2008!!!  These have been scraps for 4 years *blush* Since I made two identical quilts I had some scraps to work with on the next quilt and now I have these left.

Ok now what to do with this?  This is quite a bit of fabric - with curved piecing.  Should I just scrap process it into 2" squares and strips or do I make something from it?  Keep in mind I really don't need another table runner - sigh.  And, this doesn't look very baby-ish for a preemie quilt

What would you do with this?

Christmas in July!

Hi all!

I hope that you have been enjoying your summer so far.  Here is is HOT and very DRY!  We are crying for some rain and a break from the heat.

I decided to get a head start on some samples for my fall classes since it is too hot to do much at all.  I found this neat pattern online and decided to give it a whirl.

 

 

 This is the Sew Easy Strata Star by Ruth Eckersley and it is a really fun pattern to make!  It is all 1.5" strips - which - I of course cut all on my Accuquilt Go! cutter so the cutting was really quick and easy.  I love how this turned out I decided to do my first one in Christmas fabrics because I could just see it in Christmas fabrics.  Now I will have to make more!

 

The one negative about this pattern is the amount of waste.  This isn't even all of it - and it was just too much to throw away.  So, I started to think about what I could do with these strip sets.  I decided to re-cut them into 1.5" strips again

 

Then I randomly joined them back together to make a piece of fabric.   Doesn't that just look like a hat mess?!

 

Next, I trimmed them down (ahh that's better).

 

And, I added some borders so that this was just over 6" wide.  I layered it with some Timtex and did a little top-stitching to hold everything together.  Can you guess what I am making yet??

 

 Next, I cut them into 4 sections all 6" x 4" - now can you guess?

 

Yep!  Christmas fabric postcards!  I got out my plain fabric and my postcard stamp and made some backs.  Every year I do Christmas fabric postcards to send to friends and family.  If you'd like to see some of my previous years cards you can check them out here, here, here and here.

 

Last, but not least, I added my favorite uneven zig-zag stitch around the outside.  Since I usually need around 30 of these every year I was really happy to get a bit of a head start and use up what was going to end up in the garbage :-D

What do you think?  Am I crazy for starting my Christmas work in this July heat?

Machine Quilting Fun!

Hi all!

I hope that you are all enjoying this hot weather!  Here in the Ottawa Valley it is extremely humid and hot!  Too hot to want any fabric touching me.  So, when a friend asked if she could drop off a quilt with me to quilt for her I said sure!  I don't have to be touching the fabric to quilt it on the frame ;-)

 

Isn't it a beauty??!!  I absolutely love the fabrics - they really POP!

 

I spent a couple of days quilting this for her - not because it was difficult or anything - but because once I got to the black it was later in the day and harder to see; so, I finished it up the next day.  Isn't it beautiful!  I am really happy with how it turned out.

 

I quilted this in a  60 wt variegated red to white thread in an all over meander wave pattern in the center and then switched to a 50 wt black for the borders.  Here you can really see the quilting on the back.  The fabric is actually black but it didn't really photograph well :-(   I love how striking  the thread is on the back (in real life LOL).

I hope that you are all enjoying this summer weather!  Anything quilty in the works?

Charity Bags

I thought that I would share this photo with you all.

 

This is a shot of the area behind my quilting frame where I have been storing some of our guild charity quilts.  Cool huh?!  The closest to us are the hospice quilts that are completely finished and ready to go.  Thrre are about 8 still to come in this month.  The farther ones are all preemie quilts!  So far we have 120 to donate to our local NICU!!  I am so thrilled!

But, I will say, I am looking forward to ALL of these quilts getting OUT of my quilting room LOL!  Although, I love to do charity work - the quilts have taken on a life of their own and are taking up a lot of room in my sewing room ;-)

11 Little Preemie Quilts All In A Row

I finished another 11 little preemie quilts for our local NICU today!

 

I have to say I am so happy that these are finished as well!  This makes 15 preemie quilts for me so far this year.  My other 4 preemie quilts can be found here.  I usually do between 5 - 20 of these a year.  My youngest was in a NICU for just 5 days but it really impacted our family - so I try to give a little back for the excellent care we had while my son was there.  The nurses and doctors really, really cared about the babies and did their absolute best for us.  That's why I brought the preemie quilt charity program to our guild years ago.  Since then, it has taken on a life of it's own and grown and stabilized.  It is wonderful to see.

I usually make my preemie quilts out of my left-overs from all of the baby quilts I make; but, sometimes I find a great deal on some kid fabrics and I buy it up!  It feels so good to give to others in this way.  This might be the only baby quilt for a lot of these babies.

If you would like to see how I make my preemie quilts you can find my preemie quilt tutorial here.

I encourage you all to make a few little preemie quilts!  They are an excellent way to use up some scraps of left-over blocks and they go to a great cause.  Just check with your local NICU to see what size etc they would like first.

Happy Quilting All!

Where Have I Been??

Where have I been?  Why haven't I been blogging for a bit?  Well, I will tell you - unless you are a member of my Facebook Page - then you already know.

I have been marking this quilt to get it ready for hand-quilting.

 

Remember this quilt?  I finished the top in March of 2011 and put it into my quilting closet until now!

 

Take a look at all that marking!  I marked this with the Clover wash-away blue pen at 7/8" cross-hatch.  Wowzers!  This quilt is about 98" x 120" and this marking took me FOREVER!  I think it took around 40-50 hours - or season one of Game of Thrones and seasons one and two of Ghost Whisperer.  Crazy huh?  All the blue lines I had to mark and we will hand quilt along those lines and in the ditch around each of the red units.  The quilting will take a while but it will be worth it I think!

 

Here it is loaded onto the hand quilting frame with a few stitches in.  Looks great doesn't it?

I am so happy to have this on the frame!  Now I can move onto other things - yey!!

It's Finished and Ready to be Given Away!!

Yey - Yey - Yey!!  It is finished finally the maple leaf is quilt is DONE!

 

Didn't it turn out well?  I love it.  This quilt will be donated to the town of Arnprior to celebrate our 150th Anniversary.  The maple leaves symbolize our logging industry.   Our local guild members made the blocks and I put them into a quilt top.  A guild member long-armer machine quilted it for us and she did an amazing job.

 

Didn't she do a nice job??

 

The quilting is lovely Thank you Shirley Cavanaugh fo a wonderful job.

 

Next I pressed myself to get the binding, label and sleeve all finished so that I could hand it off in two days.  Wowzers what a lot of work!  I always forget how many hours go into the finishing touches!  I got pretty nervous though because the thread that I had, that worked with the binding, was right down to the little bits to finish!  I kept thinking - oh no - what if I don't have enough??  Everything is closed for the long weekend - I was fine!  Yey!

 

The label was another thing to do - we had two extra blocks come in.  You know when you organize these type of things you don't expect to get all the blocks back?  Well, we did!  So we had out two extra that went onto the back with the label.  Nice effect huh?  I like it!

Anyways, this is done and ready to be handed off on Wednesday!!

Finally!!

I finally finished the top!!  My latest leaders and enders quilt top is finished and ready to be loaded onto my quilting frame!!  Well, ok, I have to find/make a backing for it first but you get the idea ;-)

 

Is it weird that I am THIS excited about finishing this top??  I have been working on this top for soooo long now so it just feels really good to have completed it!! 

 

Here's a close-up of the quilt top.  It is completely pieced!  that was the challenge that I set for myself with this quilt.  There are no long straight strips to this quilt it is completely pieced.  Whew!!

If you are not familiar with the leaders and enders technique you can check out my video here:

Leaders and Enders Video

And if you would like to see how I pieced this quilt using my 2" squares you can see it here:

Crossroads Quilt Video (aka this quilt)

This quilt is completely Accuquilt Go! friendly!  It requires only 2 dies - the 2" square die and the 3.5" square die - or of course you can rotary cut this as well.  I love the simplicity of using only 2 different sizes of squares to make this quilt!  However, if you have the 1.5" finished half square triangle (HST) die you could use that instead for your X-Blocks and you would have a bit less waste.  If I was to make this quilt again I think I would construct it this way since I now have that 1.5" finished HST die ;-)  When I made this quilt I didn't.

Ok now to find something for the backing and to decide how to quilt this!  I am thinking a loose all-over pattern in the center - this will be used on a bed so I don't want the quilting too dense.  Any thoughts??

 

 

 

Asian Steps

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope that all of the Moms, soon-to-be-Moms and the want-to-be-Moms out there have an amazing day filled with love and laughter!!!  We are having an absolutely beautiful day here - lots of sun shine and warm weather.

I thought that I would share a picture of the finished Asian Steps quilt that I had so much trouble deciding how to quilt!

 

It is completely finished, bound and labelled - yey!  I really like this quilt now - probably because it is finished ;-)  But hey, I am not going to complain about that at all!  

This quilt was, almost, completely cut on my Accuquilt Go! cutter using the 2 1/2" strip die; so, it made this quilt so quick and easy to put together from my Oriental fabric stash.  Pulling the fabrics for this quilt didn't seem to make a difference to the amount of fabric in there but hey!

This pattern as the Planet Patchwork New Year's Day Mystery Quilt that I took part in.  The top was finished on New Years day but the quilting was finished in May.

Now what to do with this quilt?!!

Quilting Update

Sometimes the best thing to do when you're having trouble doing something is to just admit that you're having trouble with it!

I had so much trouble deciding how to quilt that quilt top and I let it sit there since January.  Too sad.  I just didn't know what to do so I let it sit.  I think that my problem was that everything that I thought to do would suit a different fabrics - they would not suit these orientals in this pattern.

This was a mystery quilt so I had no idea what pattern we were doing, and, if I could do this quilt over I would choose different fabrics.  Although I like the quilt, I would do it differently next time.  I really like the pattern but I think that I would go with some bold colours next time.

 

I finally decided that I was going to decide and so I did!  I decided to do a sort of oriental wave and cloud all-over design.   Done!

I used two different threads on this one.  I used a YLI 40 weight variegated thread top and bobbin in the body and borders and a 40 weight rayon thread in the first border and corners. 

All's well that end well - it's quilted!!!  Thanks for all the suggestions!

I'm Stumped!

So, I am stumped!

 

 

How should I quilt this?  I've been waiting since January 1st for inspiration to strike and it just hasn't happened yet; so, I thought that I would ask all of you for ideas?  This doesn't usually happen to me so I'm very puzzled.  I like this quilt and would like to load it onto my frame and work on it.   It is the New Years Day Mystery Quilt from Planet Patchwork and I would like to git er done!

So what do you think?  Can you help a girl out??!!

Scrap Quilting!

So sorry I have been MIA!!!

My MAC had to go in for repairs and them I had the great pleasure of re-installing and configuring everything - joy!  I thought that computers were going to save us all time LOL!!

So, I had some time to do a little scrap quilting.  You know when you feel like doing some piecing but you don't want to work on anything too specific necessarily?  Well, I find that doing some scrap quilting is a great thing to do.  So, I pulled out my bin of 1.5" strips and made some more log cabins.

 

 

 I am in love with these!  I have lots of fun laying them out and seeing the possibilities with them.  Such a traditional block; but, what a GREAT scrap buster!!  My bin is down quite a bit now - But, not that much.

Does anyone else love log cabins as much as I do??

 

While I was working on these I pulled out my Cheddar Bow-Ties a la Bonnie Hunter!  I decided to do mine with scrappy oranges and so far I am loving it!  I really like how this leaders and enders project is coming along.  I should really finish my current one but I really felt like working on this one - so I did!

So, that's it for now!  What have you all been working on?  Something new?  Something old?  Something scrappy?

You'll Never Guess What I Found for Free!!

You'll never guess what was sitting on the side of the road for FREE today when I was driving home from class!!

Can you guess what it is??

 

Yep!  It's a sewing cabinet!!!!  I pulled over and opened it up a bit and thought - OMG!!  

 You can see the sewing area and serger area and everything.

The gentleman that owned it was really nice and came running over to help me load it into my car.  he said that they had cleaned out a woman who had passed away house and this was in it - and they didn't want it - so they put it out on the road for FREE!  He said that they have a few more boxes of sewing supplies but they are going to look them through first.  I gave him my card and told him to give me a call if they wanted to get rid of the boxes.

 

Here is the sewing machine area.  I think all the odd holes are for older sewing machines?

 

It's clear this is a Singer cabinet!  Look at the thread holders.

 

Look at the hydrolic lift!!!!!!  It works really, really well and just pushes to each of the three positions (sunk completely, flat to the sewing table and raised)  with just a gentle push of your finger tips.  I mean how lucky can a girl get!

I don't know what I am going to do with this but I COULD NOT leave it there.  I'll find a use for it - don't worry.  I'm sooo lucky!

Another Tumbler!

Hi all!

I just finished putting the last binding stitches on this tumbler quilt!  I was able to pull all these fabrics from my stash and I thought that they looked really cool together and that they would make a really nice lap quilt.  

So, I pulled out my Accuquilt Tumbler die and cut them up in just a few minutes. I just love the tumbler shape!

 

Next, I loaded it onto my frame and quilted it using an all-over wave pattern in a 50 weight Wonderfil Tuti thread top and bobbin.  I love that thread!

The variegated thread looks just great across all the colours!

Now, what am I going to do with this quilt!  Maybe I should sell it?  What do you think?

New Leaders and Enders Project!

Hi all!

Ok I know that I am late to the party but I only just found out about Bonnie Hunter's Cheddar Bow ties leaders and enders challenge and I decided to give it a whirl!

I pulled out my 2" square bin and pulled out pairs that I had a little bit of fabric left over to also cut 2 squares 1.25" and stacked them together.  I also pulled out all my cheddar/orange prints and put them in pairs too.  So far so good.

 

Only one problem though - I seem to have too many leaders and enders projects stacked up and ready to start before I've finished the last one LOL!  That is the one problem with L&E projects - they take a long time to finish if you really do them as L&E!

If you want to see Bonnie's tutorial on how to do the bow-tie blocks make sure that you follow this link to her blog.

A Couple of the Jelly Roll Race Quilts

Hi all!

I thought that I would share a couple of pictures of the Jelly Roll Race quilts with you all.   A couple of quilts were already handed in to me and I thought I might as well get a jump on them!  Since I was using a wide-back and a wide batting I decided to rack them together on my frame to quilt them quicker.

 

So, I loaded them together and quilted them loosely in a large meander.  Since these quilts are comfort quilts we decided on a nice flannel backing and to quilt them loosely so that they would be more cuddly.  I used a 50 weight cotton, off-white thread top and bobbin.

 

Here they all are quilted and trimmed with the binding ready to be prepared and sewn on by volunteers.  I think the quilting adds a lot of texture to the quilts myself!  

All told I quilted three quilts in the last couple of days!  Since we did 22 Jelly Roll Race quilts all together - that leaves 19 more to be quilted! Luckily I'm not doing all of them LOL!

Any quilty plans for the weekend?

Even More Rose of Sharon

Hey all!

I wanted to give you all an update after my last post on the Rose of Sharon die and units since we have some clarification of the whole issue.

Sherry Rose of Cherry Bomb Quilts went straight to the lady herself, Sharon Pederson, and asked her the questions we have all been asking and she got some answers!  I'm not going to quote her though - you'll have to go on over to Cherry Bomb Quilts and read it yourself as it is a very good read and really clarifies things for those of use that love the Rose of Sharon.

http://cherrybombquilts.blogspot.ca/2012/04/clarification-of-rose-of-sharon.html

The article really made me feel good about using my die again!  Yey!  I actually grabbed the packaging and am sitting here glancing over at the table runner pattern that comes with it and thinking it might be a nice little pattern to do.

So thank you Sherry for taking the bull by the horns and getting the straight facts for us - yey!!

Copyright and the Rose of Sharon

Lately there has been a lot of talk online about copyright and how it pertains to fabric designers, pattern designers and die designers etc.  Who has the rights to what and how it affects us as the end users of products.  I don't want to re-hash everything that has been said in the blog-o-sphere.  I just want to add my $0.02 in on how it affects the users of the Rose of Sharon die.

As many of us know the Rose of Sharon (ROS) patterns have been around since about the 1840's.  Lately we have been hearing about how Sharon Pederson has copyrighted her die and how we would have to accredit her as the die designer and give 10% of any winnings or profit made from  from said item to her charity.  Really I thought?

So I pulled out my book The Best of Blatimore Beauties:  95 patterns for Album Blocks and Borders by Elly Sienkiewicz copyright 2000 to check out some of the patterns using the ROS images.  This book is a "best of" from her series.

 

Page 211 I found this ROS pattern and compared it to my die.

 

Looks very similar huh?

 

I cut out some of the shapes that looked like they would fit.

 

Hmmm, the smallest circle is EXACTLY the same!

 

I placed the small leaf and the medium flower on the pattern and WOW!  They are exact!  So which came first?  The chicken or the egg?  The ROS quilt units or the new copyright?

 

You might want to increase this picture to see the explanation about the block.  The pattern for this block was taken from a quilt, on display now, that was made in 1847-1848.

So what do we quilters do about this?  Does Sharon Pederson have the right to copyright images that are exactly the same size and shape as those produced in the 1840's?  If she does - shouldn't she have to give a percentage of HER profits to Elly Sienkiewicz? Or to the family of the Rev. Dr. Roberts that the quilt was originally made for?

My answer - no!  The ROS units are in public domain if I cut them with a die or scissors!  Does Sharon Pederson have the right to copyright the designs that were submitted to her for the block contest she ran a while back?  If people relinquished their rights to the blocks of their creation - then yes she does.

If I produce an award winning quilt made with ROS units will I give anything to Sharon Pederson or to her charity?  No.  I can simply say I made templates from The Best of Baltimore Beauties book - done.  Maybe I did - maybe I didn't - this sure would be hard to prove when exact images are in a book that was published well before the die was made.

This type of senseless copyrighting is not doing anything for anyone except causing needless paranoia and making quilters feel that they don't own the rights to their own creations.   So, what am I going to do?  I am going to use my dies like I use my rotary cutter or my scissors - as a tool to bring what is in my head to life.  Will I copy other people's designs/patters?  Maybe, but I would give credit to the designer like I always do.  But, I will not let give credit stop me from creating or adapting or having fun!  And, I don't think it should stop anyone else either.

End of the day - I'm just one quilter and these are my thoughts - I'm not a lawyer.

Happy Quilting All!!

We have a Winner and an Oops!

Woops!

 

I was making tea and I set my favorite tea coy down on top of the burner!  Luckily I got it off in time.

 

So, I pulled out this tea pot fabric and some left-over solid brown binding fabric and Voila!  I have a newly re-covered tea cozy that I like even more!

 Ok I have kept you waiting long enough!  We have a winner.  Sorry this is later than I promised but the weekend got away from me and I spent Monday trying to catch up.

Using a random number generator I picked #31 out of 84 valid entries!!

Béa has left a new comment on your post "Book Review and a Give-Away!":

I follow her blog by email 

 Congratulations Bea!  You are going to love your book!

Thanks to everyone who entered!