Fun with the Lil' Twister Ruler!

Hi all!
I recently bought the Lil' Twister ruler by CS Designs and I thought that I would give it a whorl today.   The pattern says to start with a 5" charm pack for these; but,  I've had these 4-patch blocks sitting around, from a block exchange at my local quilt guild, for about a year and I thought that they would be the perfect thing to try this ruler out on.  The individual blocks were 4 1/2" cut - so a little small for this project - but I was just extremely careful.  Some of them I had to tea-dye to get the backgrounds darker since they were just too white for this project.  I arranged the blocks into a layout that I found pleasing and then sewed them together and added the red fabric on the left as boarders.  It was interesting sewing with other people's cutting and piecing.  I haven't done that for a while so it was a bit of a challenge since some of the blocks were different sizes and had to be squared up or re-pressed.

After piecing the top I got to cut up the quilt top using the Lil' Twister ruler!  It was so cool!  Basically you cut the quilt top into squares again and "twist" the blocks so that they form interlocking pin-wheels.  The added boarder becomes a pieced boarder for the quilt!  I just couldn't stop cutting and piecing today since I really wanted to see how this turned out.  The design looks so challenging when you see those interlocking pin-wheels but it really is easy and fun to do this. I just couldn't stop until I had the whole center pieced and pressed.  This part is about 28" square so I decided to add some boarders.

I think that a little yellow flap at 1/4" finished would look nice but I can't decided between the two boarder fabrics.  I'm leaning towards the top fabric since it is just blue and cream.  the bottom fabric has a touch of yellow and green in it.  I think I may need to see these in day-light since it is already starting to get dark here.

Any thoughts?  I would love to hear your opinions about the fabrics!

I used the smaller ruler today but there is also a larger Twister ruler that you start with layer-cakes or 10" squares with.  And there is a companion book that you can purchase as well called Let's Twist:  Pinwheels . . .  Fun Fast and Easy.  There are projects in the book that are really cute and look like they wouldn't take much time at all to whip up!  As soon as I decide on the boarders I'll quilt this little guy up.

Don't forget about my GIVEAWAY!  If you're interested in entering you can see all the information here.

If you're enjoying my blog I hope that you will click FOLLOW on the right under my picture or leave me a comment!  I love comments.

Happy Quilting All!

Crazy Quilt Fabric Postcard Tutorial and GIVEAWAY!

Hi all!  I had a few people asking me for a tutorial on my Crazy Quilt Christmas cards so I figured before I put away all the fabric and tools I used I should do a tutorial.

First you need to start with a base.  I use 6" x 4" piece of Timtex a stiff fabric used for hat brims but you can find it in quilt stores for fabric bowl and purses etc.  i used a slightly different product called Stiffy in mine since I could get it in bulk.

Cut a 5 sided shape and put it roughly in the middle.  You can use a glue stick to glue this down if you want to.  I didn't really find this necessary though.

Pick a scrap of fabric and sew it to one side - sewing through both layers of fabric and the timtex.  Press to on side.  Some people use a wooden iron or finger press but I prefer to use my small iron on a small board and actually press it.  I like the flat seam a lot better to work with.

 Keep repeating this process around the 5 sided middle piece.  Don't worry about the over-hanging pieces - they don't affect the card at all and I just leave them there.

I've now added fabric pieces to all 5 sides of the shape and pressed them.

Just repeat this process a second time and add another layer of pieces.

Note:  If you use larger pieces in the first round you can finish the cards in just one round instead of two; but, I had some tiny scraps that I really wanted to use up on these cards.

 Here is the card with the piecing finished.  I used larger pieces for the second round.  It's just roughly trimmed at the edges at this point.  That is fine for this stage.

 Now change to a decorative thread or some colour that will look nice with your fabrics and add some decorative stitches along the seam lines.  Start with your smallest seams first and work out to your longer seams so that the starts and stops in the small seams will be caught in the longer lines of stitching.

Note:  Many of my cards went out without the decorative stitching done since, frankly, I ran out of time.  They look really nice without the stitching but beautiful with the stitching.

 Here's the back-side of the card so far.  you can see the piecing lines and the decorative stitching lines on the back.

Now it's time to take this to your cutting mat and trim it up so that the edges are nice and neat.

To make this into a postcard we need to add a backing fabric and some address lines etc.  I bought a postcard stamp on Ebay that I use to stamp my fabric to really speed up this step but you can draw these on yourself.  The first year I did these I drew mine on.  There are also templates online that you can print out onto fabric using your printer; but, I find this to be the quickest, easiest and most economical way to do this for me.

 Now we need to go back to the sewing machine and finish that edge off.  You can use a zig-zag stitch or a satin stitch - but my favorite stitch for the edges is this uneven zig-zag.  When it is done in white it looks like icicles.  You can also bind the edges or use bias tape etc but I love this effect the most.

 An extra step that I like to do, when I have time, is to hand sew a metal loop to the back of the card so that people can hang the cards easily.  I have several friends who have been saving the cards and hanging them on their trees every year.  This is just a little jewelry finding that you can pick up at lots of places and they are inexpensive.  you don't need silver or gold - just metal works really well.

Using a gel pen or a zig pen you can now write directly on the fabric.

The postal system is getting very picky about what they are able to process now - I think it's because fabric post cards are getting very popular now and things are falling off them or getting caught in the machines.  So now I put stamps on my cards and take them to the teller at the post office for them to hand cancel.  Then I put my cards into these self sealing plastic envelops and they go through the mail perfectly like that.  The stamp and the marks are still directly on the card, which I think looks really nice, but, the post office is happy and my cards arrive in perfect condition.

Now for the Giveaway!  Are you thinking about making some of these cards yourself?  Let me give you a hand and send you 10 of the self-sealing plastic envelops, 10 pieces of the Stiffy interfacing, and 10 metal rings to finish off your cards!  All that you have to do is
1 Follow me here - the link is on the right hand side under my picture and tell me you did so here in the comments.
2 If you would also like to Like me on Facebook - the link is bottom right - and leave another comment here telling me that you liked me on Facebook that will get you another entry!  I'll use a random number generator to get a winner.  you can have two chances to win a little fabric post card starter package!

So don't forget Follow me here and comment.  Like me on Facebook and comment!  If you are already following me you can still enter by leaving a comment here.

Please remember to leave me some way to get in touch with you!  If you sign in as anonymous I need an e-mail address please!!!

The GIVEAWAY is now closed ~ congrats to Sunshine our winner!

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them!!

Happy Quilting all.

Happy New Years!!

Happy 1-1-11 Everyone!

I thought that I would share a picture of a cute pin cushion that I made yesterday while my husband and boys were out skiing!  Isn't it adorable??  I made it using Kaffe Fassett scraps from a quilt I made a while back.

The pin cushion pattern is from a tutorial on Jo's Country Junction blog.  She provides a video blog that is just wonderful!  Jo uses the Accuquilt Go Double Wedding Ring die to easily cut out her elliptical shapes.  Although I don't yet have this die I do have a Plexiglas template set that I was able to use to cut out the shapes.  It was such a great little project and so quick and easy!  I love how Jo uses part of the template in a completely different way to create something different!  Since I got my Go cutter people have often asked me about the value of the dies and if they are worth the money.  The dies are certainly not cheap!  But, it is projects like this one that really make you look at the shapes with a different eye and see potential in them beyond what they were intended.  Now that I think about it these same shapes would make wonderful large flower petals! 

Thanks for sharing the tutorial Jo!

Happy quilting all!!

Finally finished my Christmas Fabric Postcards!!

Yes!  I finally finished my Christmas fabric postcards!  I got the idea to do Crazy Patch Christmas cards since I have been teaching Crazy Shortcut Quilts this year.  I did the stitch and flip method to piece these using the Timtex as a foundation.  (Please feel free to post in the comments if you would like a tutorial on this)  I used a lot of scraps from my Christmas Crazy Shortcut Quilt which was great!  I only did a few with the decorative stitches on them since I was seriously running out of time and the clock was ticking to get these in the mail.  Well, needless to say these were more labour intensive than I planned LOL!  So the decorative stitches across the blocks had to be sacrificed or I would still be doing these.  Next year I am promising to start my Christmas fabric postcards in September!  I know - I say this every year :-)

The two top right hand cards are enclosed in a clear plastic self-sealing envelope that I send my cards in through the mail.  I take them into the post-office open and have the teller manually stamp the card - then I seal the envelopes and then hand them to the teller to go through the mail.  This way the stamp and card are ink stamped and not the clear envelope.  I think this really adds to the card.

I ran into a problem with these cards that was purely of my own making.  I usually use Wonder Under to fuse the backing onto the cars.  This year I decided to try Heat and Bond Ultra instead to make the cards really stiff.  What a mistake!!  With all the layers and the timtex I just couldn't get the edge stitches to work!  No matter what I tried it was skipping stitches :-(  Unfortunately I had fused all of my cards before I realistic this.  Note to self; test a new product on one card first!  I ended up just doing a straight stitch on some of the cards to finish the edges off.

I thought that I would share a picture of the two Accuquilt Go dies I got for Christmas.  My Mom gave me the feathers die and the Fall Melody die.  I can't wait to have some fun with these guys.  I am thinking about wool applique with the fall melody!!   I'll do the blanket stitch by machine though and just make it really large to look as close to hand as I can.  I absolutely love a lot of the things I've seen done with the feather die as well.  I think it would be amazing on boarders for an amazing effect.

I hope that you all had an amazing holiday season and are happy and healthy!  And please take a second and click follow on the right under my picture and follow Sunshower Quilts on Facebook as well!

Happy New Years all!!

Christmas Day Sewing!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!  I hope that you are all having an amazing day today ~ and ~ I wish you all health, happiness and peace this holiday season.

My one son got a few more Zhu Zhu Pets for Christmas today.  Have you seen these little guys?  They are robotic hamsters that run around on a track and hamster wheels etc.  They are so cute and cuddly!  Well my son wanted beds for his hamsters and I find them quite expensive to buy the official ones in the stores.  I looked online and and found a quick and easy tutorial on the Sew, What's New blog.  I had everything I needed at home, here in my stash; so, I let my son pick out his fabrics and whipped up beds for all his hamsters in just a few minutes.  The left-over squares of fleece make great blankets for the little guys as well!  Now all the little hamsters can sleep in their own beds LOL!

I really like that my son appreciates the hand-made beds instead of really wanting the official Zhu Zhu Pets beds.  It's great when they appreciate a hand-made item. 

I also found these neat machine embroidery designs at Sew Weird.  Sooo cute!  I don't think that my son is interested in a lot of the clothing items but I do think that they are so sweet!  There is also a little tutorial for making clothing here, here and on the Girls in White Dresses blog. 

Machine Quilting

I've been working, for the past few days, on machine quilting this quilt for a friend.  It's a beautiful Christmas quilt that is all fusible applique.  I am going around the outside of the images with invisible thread just to make it pop out a bit.  This is very time consuming work and the wool batting is making the quilt a bit harder to manipulate because of the bulk but I am slowly getting through the 12 applique blocks ~ 6 are finished now!!  I'm going to stop for the day since my hands and shoulders are a bit sore LOL!

I'll do holly leaves in the sashing and boarders and I think that will go a lot faster than this fussy work.

Has anyone else made this quilt?  I'd love to see some pictures of how you quilted it!

To Pre-Wash or Not to Pre-Wash

To pre-wash your fabrics or not to pre-wash your fabrics?  Isn't that a major question for quilters??!!  If you want to get a room of quilters divided in less than 5 minutes bring up the subject of pre-washing your fabrics sometime.  When I first started quilting everyone pre-washed their fabrics.  It was what you did.   Then several years ago books/people/magazines etc started to say that pre-washing wasn't necessary if you used only good quality quilt shop fabric.  And when the dye magnets hit the shelves many of us figured that throwing those into the wash would be good enough.  There are a couple brands of these on the market but they are still relatively hard to find.  Basically you put them into the wash and they catch any excess dye that might bleed out so that it bleeds onto the little sheet instead of your quilt.  So guess what?  I stopped pre-washing.

Well quilters ~ I have a confession to make ~ I have gone back to pre-washing my fabrics 100%.  I've had a few instances of colour bleeds outside of the washing machine.

First I was machine quilting a quilt and rubbed out a chalk line with a damp towel.  Walked away for a few minutes and guess what?  The red had bled into the cream fabric.  I got it out but it still made me start to think about my choice to stop pre-washing.

The next instant was with a little Christmas table-topper I made using unwashed fabrics.  We had it on the table and some water got spilled on it.  The red ran soooo badly and the green ran a bit too.  I scrubbed and scrubbed but that red dye remained no matter what I did ~ and so that quilt sat like that for over a year.

The last thing that happened to me, that really cemented my position, was when I had my scrap Christmas Quilt,  or close-up here, on the bed for the Christmas season.  I always sleep with a glass of water beside the bed and when I woke up to take a drink of water I spilled a little bit!  Ooppps!  Guess what?  In the morning the binding fabrics and boarder fabrics had bled into the white boarders.  I scrubbed and scrubbed to get it out but no luck.  That was the last straw for me.  Dye magnets would not have helped in this situation at all.

All fabrics now go through the washer before they get to join my stash.  I want what ever is going to happen to those fabrics to happen before it goes into a quilt.  I will even set my fabrics with Synthropol to make sure that they are really set.  And then I love Mary Ellen's Best Press to starch them to a nice finish.  Since I have started doing this again I haven't had any surprises and I am much more confident with how my quilts will hold up.

Since we are now getting to the Christmas season again I decided to try to get the dies out of the quilts again.  So I took a bit of a desperate step.  I used a Tide Bleach stick and rubbed it over the white fabrics where the dyes had bled into them.  I gently rubbed it in until the dyes went away then immediately submersed it into water.  And rinsed and rinsed and rinsed.  I did this with both quilts then immediately got them into the washing machine.  As soon as the wash was over they went into the dryer so that they didn't have a chance to sit.  And guess what?  The horrible bleeding colour was gone and I didn't end up bleaching the colours surrounding it!!  Yey!  Two Christmas quilt salvaged and I am one happy but very resolved quilter ;)

So tell me?  Do you pre-wash or not pre-wash?

Sew SImple Starry Table-Runners are Finished!

I am sew pleased to report that I have finally completely finished my Sew Simple Starry Table-Runners!  They are completely finished and even bound ~ so that is one more thing I can tick off my Christmas to do list!  After looking at all the corners to turn in the stars I decided not to do a zig-zag stitch around each of them but rather just free-motion quilt and applique, 1/16" inside the applique, at the same time and travel and use a meaner with loops to travel around and between the stars.  I LOVED this effect a lot and it made the applique sooo much easier than doing a zig-zag.  Since there is fusible behind the stars I'm not worried about them fraying or anything like that.

Since I bought 6" strips of the gold and silver fabrics I had a 2" strip left over from each of them so I decided to cut them into 20" segments and use them for a scrappy binding.  Then I put on a gold rayon thread ~ my fav ~ and used the herringbone stick to machine finish the binding.  It really adds a bit more bling to the project.  I just loved the effect and I loved not having the little strips left in my stash ;)

This was such an easy project to do by using the star die on my Go! cutter.  I can honestly say that I really don't think I would have finished this project had I traced and cut these out manually.  I can see me getting to the tenth star and giving up!  I actually have a hand-full of stars left-over from this project!  Maybe I'll make one of these for myself ;)  OR if you've been debating whether or not to buy one of these machines and would like to see the quality of the cuts feel free to leave me a message here and I'll send you a message to get your contact info and send you a few stars.

How are your holiday projects coming along?  More to do or are you all finished?

Working on a Couple Christmas Table-Runners

Every year I run a promotion in my fitness classes to keep people coming for the month of December.  Too many people stop taking care of them selves over the busy holiday season and it takes a tole on their health.  Basically for every class they go to their name gets entered into a draw.

This year I decided to use my Accuquilt Go! star die to make a couple of quick and easy table runners!  I pulled most of these fabrics from my stash but I did buy a couple 6 inch strips of some gold and a silver fabric.  4 inches would have been just enough to do this.  I fused Steam a Seam 2  Lite on to the back of the fabrics using all of the prints.

Then I ran two layers of the fused fabric at a time through my Go! cutter to get all three of the different star sizes in all of the fabrics I used.

 I cut a strip of fabric about 18" wide by the width of fabric for my back ground.  I used a white fabric with metallic silver flecks all over it.  I just love metallic fabrics for the holidays!!  If you click on the picture you can see the fabric I used.  I then set myself up at my ironing board to peel the backing off the fabric and get ready to place the stars.  I didn't fused anything down at this point.

Do I have enough stars yet??  Naw - more is more so I better add several more ;-)  I love how the different shades of gold and the silver is interacting together.  This table runner could work for the whole holiday season - hmmm - maybe I should make one for myself??  It's very simple but very elegant - I think that the quilting is really going to bring these to life.

One table-runner top has more stars added and is now fused and guess what I ran out of fusible webbing!!!  I have to wait until tomorrow to go to the quilt shop to get more fusible.  I need to make more stars and I really don't want to do that without the fusible as I don't want the edges to fray.

Don't you just hate that when you run out of something and just can't proceed until you buy more?? 

Part 2 or this will hopefully come tomorrow!

Any questions or comments feel free to leave them here - and - I hope that you will take a second to follow my blog if you like what you see.

Harry Potter!

OMG we just got home from the new Harry Potter movie and wow oh wow I thought that it was great!  I am a huge Harry Potter fan and I have been waiting forever for this to come out.  I think I may have to go and re-read (or re-listen to) the 7th book again.  I love to listen to books on CD while I sew and I have all the Harry Potter books on CD.  I swear I am going to wear the grooves off those CD's LOL!

In honour of the new Harry Potter movie I thought that I would re-post the Harry Potter quilts I made for my son's back in 2006!  The quilts are still in use today and doing fine despite the bazillion washings ;-)

So Tired!

I'm so tired tonight guys!  I taught two fitness classes and worked out on my own today ~ I'm not sure if my legs are still there or not except for a vague sore feeling there. LOL!

Sorry I did nothing at all textile related today so I don't really have a blog post!

Happy Creating all!

Bunny Quilt is Finished!

And here we are the Silver Thimbles proudly displaying the finished Baltimore Bunny Quilt after it has been bound.  What a beautiful quilt and it was fun to work on since every block was different and wonderful to look at.  Tuesday evenings are always fun sitting around the quilt frame chatting away and quilting.  I've been a part of Silver Thimbles for about 8 years now and we always have fun.  Some people say that no one hand quilts anymore; but, I can tell you that it is alive and well and going strong.

If you ever have the chance to join a quilting bee I encourage you to join.  The fun you will have and the friends you will make are truly amazing and worth every stabbed and calloused finger you will undoubtedly develop!

Happy Quilting all!

Cutting Bias Binding (or Stems)

I'm posting a little tutorial on how I cut bias binding for a friend.  Many people in this area use the tube method to do bias binding and she knew that I cut mine differently ;)

When I was first learning to quilt the only method of cutting bias binding that I could find was the tube method.  That seemed like an amazing amount of work for something as simple as cutting on the bias of fabric!  True bias is a 45 degree angle between the lengthwise grain and the crosswise grain of fabric.  So I figured why couldn't I just use the angel lines on my ruler instead??

First find the 45 degree line on your ruler and place it parallel to the selvage.  I placed mine just above so that you could see the line; but, regularly I put it right on the line.  You can enlarge this photo if you want to see it closer.  Cut on the diagonal with your 45 degree line on the selvage.  You will be cutting off a triangle of fabric.  This you can use for other projects or cut up into 2" squares for your leaders and enders.




Next line your ruler up with your new cut edge and cut your desired width of binding and as many strips as you will need.  You are now cutting true bias strips since you are cutting at a 45 degree angle to both the lengthwise and crosswise grain of fabric.  Easy huh??

Your fabric will eventually get too long to cut with your 24" ruler so simply fold the fabric with the raw, bias edge together and continue cutting your bias until you have as much as you will need.

Now bias is the stretchy edge so don't go flinging this around your head or anything ~ just handle it with a little bit of care; but, it is truly nothing to be scared of.

I prefer to cut certain fabrics on the bias for effect.  Stripes and plaids are a couple of these.  When you cut stripes on the bias for a binding you get a candy cane effect for your binding and it looks amazing! Also, any time that I bind a garment or anything with lots of points or rounded edges I use a bias binding.

Need a binding tutorial now that you've got your bias strips cut??  You can find mine here Binding Part 1 and Binding Part 2 and also Squaring up a Quilt here and Attaching a Hanging Sleeve here. 

I hope that you have found this useful!  If you need more information or if something wasn't clear please leave a comment here and I will do my best to answer it!  I always love to hear from you.

Happy Sewing!

Yippie! My Pink Rag Quilt is Finished!

 Here it is all laid out and ready to go to the sewing machine!

Notice the rags already clipped??  I can't say that enough times LOL!  The ragging is already done and that is the part that I like the least.  The Accuquilt Go! cutter did an amazing job on this after I figured out the secret ~ cut your blocks a loose 8 3/4" first then run two or three layers through the die as a block not as a strip.  The blocks went through so much easier!

Of course my layout changed by the time I got it all together as I flipped a few blocks and had to compensate for that ;)

And here is the finished very pink rag quilt all washed and fresh out of the drier.  The ragging is absolutely lovely and much nicer than I have ever managed to do by hand.  My husband noticed this right away when he saw that quilt.

This quilt does not have batting in it as the pattern recommends.  I don't actually like batting in my rag quilts since I find that the batting eventually bows in towards the center ~ even with the X in the middle ~ unless you catch it in the seams ~ and I don't like the look of batting in the seams.  So, for this quilt, I added a layer of flannelet in the middle and I love the weight of the quilt.  Perfect for snuggling this winter.

Here's a closer shot of the rag quilt, sitting on my rocking chair, so that you can see the rag closer.  It is truly a cuddly quilt and I love it!  You can just see my rug hooking things on the left of this photo.  This is where I sit to hook and watch TV.  It's a nice little spot in my sewing room.

Is that cotton candy???  No!!   That's the lint I pulled out of my dryer half way through the drying cycle while my pink rag quilt was in there!  Can you believe that??!!  This is just to show how important it is to empty your lint catcher half-way through and not wait until the end.

I think that Cotton Candy might be a pretty good name for this quilt.  It certainly flows off the tongue easier than very pink rag quilt.  Thoughts?

I made this quilt just for me, not for a gift, and this is the very first quilt that I have made just for me.  I thought that as the Mother of two boys that they would say - ewww pink when they saw it and leave it just to me.  Actually I was hoping they would :-/  But immediately they both wanted to cuddle up in the rag quilt LOL!

Crazy Shortcut Quilt Photos

 I am so sorry for the horrible photo quality in these photos!!  I will share a few of my most recent participants in my class with you.  Thanks ladies!

I thought that I would share a few photos from my most recent Crazy Shortcut Quilt class that we just finished today.

This first quilt is a 30 block all in shades of green and brown - lovely!  She used mostly the same stitch across the entire quilt and it looked amazing.  Two participants actually did this combination.

 This particiapant did the "Asian Inspirations" pattern but used Christmas fabrics and I think that the results are absolutely specatacular!  I love her fabrics and I love the pattern now that I see them in these amazing fabrics.  This participant used many different stitches in one colour of rayon thread.

You all know how much I love my Christmas fabrics so of course this one really appealed to me ;-)

This one is a "Warm Chocolate Wrap" done in Christmas fabrics and is again a spectacular piece!  I love this pattern and I love Christmas fabrics so the two together ~ to me ~ are an amazing combination.  This participant used one stitch across the whole quilt for a spectacular result.

How amazing it is to teach the same class to so many people and have them all come out with so many different quilts!

Still Working on the Rag Quilt!

Just a little blog post today ~ Today I cut a few more squares for my pink rag quilt.  I thought that I would try something to make using the rag die for my Accuquilt Go! easier.  I pre-cut my squares to a rough 8 1/2" instead of leaving them as 8 1/2" strips.  What a huge difference!  It was so much easier to cut!  It only took a few more seconds for me since I have the 8 1/2" x 24" Omnigrid ruler and i just rough cut it anyways.  It was well worth this small extra step and I wouldn't hesitate to do this again.  Next time you're cutting your rag quilt give this a try ~ it made a huge difference for me ;)

Any thoughts?

Ok I Like the Place-Mats More Now!

 I finished machine quilting the tree place-mats the other day and I like them so much more now!  I'm not sure if you can really see the quilting in the photo but it really adds some texture to them and makes them seem so much less flat and boring.  I used some pretty flat fabrics so maybe that's part of it as well.

In any case I think that my son's teacher will like them ~ she's making a big difference in his life and I wanted to show my appreciation for that.

You can really see the quilting a lot more from the back since the back is the cream colour that I used for the background.  I think that back is actually pretty fun and interesting!

Sorry I missed blogging yesterday!  I was just so tired that I went to bed early and I completely forgot to blog!  I guess that disqualifies me from NaBloPoMo technically but I am going to keep blogging everyday since I'm enjoying it and I find it really motivating.

I hope that you will take a second to leave me a comment or ask any questions that you might have.  I love to hear from you ~ and if you like my blog please click the Follow button on the right under my picture!

Silver Thimbles Night

Tonight I went to my regular Tuesday night quilting bee where we worked around the frame on the charm quilt again.  What a fun night.  I didn't actually accomplish anything on my own today.  I was too busy teaching fitness classes and then trying to get some of the yard cleaned up since tomorrow is yard waste pick-up day here in town.  Now I am so tired from that and the 6 loads of laundry and cleaning I did that all I can think about is crawling under a quilt and catching some ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ's

Night all!

Christmas Dresden Plates!

I don't know what it is but I absolutely love Dresden Plate blocks in Christmas fabrics!  There is just something sooo appealing about them.  I made these blocks today for the Block of the Month program at my local guild.  7 years ago our guild did a Christmas Dreden Plate BOM, but with the rounded edges, and I won the blocks!  You can see the quilt that I made from them here.  I absolutely love it and we have our Christmas quilts on the beds right after Remembrance Day and until about the middle of January.  Well when our BOM chair decided to do a Christmas Dreden plate I couldn't resist making a couple of blocks from scraps to add to the draw.  These are all left over fabrics from my Christmas Crazy Shortcut Quilt that I just finished so it was a perfect excuse to do the blocks LOL!  Imagine if I won again!!

I cut the center circle out using my Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter larger than I needed ~ then I used a technique that I saw on someone's blog but I can't find it again, sorry!, to turn the edges of the circle under.  I cut a piece of non-melt Mylar plastic the size of the circle that I needed for the center.  I did a basting stitch around the outside of the fabric circle and placed the Mylar on the wrong side of the fabric.  I pulled the thread ends of the basting stitch to turn the edges under on my circle then pressed it with a hot iron and starched it.  Remove the template and Voila!  a perfect circle with the edges turned under.  I love this technique ~ I just wish I could remember which blog I got this from ~ if you know that tutorial I am speaking about please post it here.

The edges are appliqued down using Sew Art invisible thread and a really small zig-zag stitch.  Very nice technique and it really is invisible ;-)  I love this thread since it has a lot less shine than other invisible threads that I have tried so it really is more invisible.

Have you all started your Christmas projects yet?

Very Pink Rag Quilt in Progress!

I started this very pink rag quilt today!  I bought these pretty pink flannels and brushed cottons a while ago thinking that they would make a very feminine rag quilt ~ just for me!  As a mother of two boys if I want anything to myself it's got to be very feminine or it gets taken over by my boys LOL!  Anyways, like I have said many times I love rag quilts but hate to snip them.  So I bought the Accuquilt Go! 8 1/2" rag die for my Go!  I spent a portion of today cutting the blocks and doing the stitching across the centers.  I'm trying to decide now if I want to cut more blocks to make a larger quilt or if I want to go with the 45" by 45" quilt they have on the instructions ~ I'm thinking I'll go a bit larger.

Instead of batting in the squares I used a layer of flannelet that I cut at the same time I cut the front and backs.  I find that unless you catch the batting into the seams when you piece your blocks that the batting eventually migrates and bows in towards the X you machine quilt.  And I don't like to catch the batting into the seams or you see it in the rag ~ what a conundrum LOL!  This is why I chose a layer of flannelet for the center.   So, through the die, I was running 2 layers of flannel or brushed cotton and one layer of flannelet.  This die was absolutely harder to put through the machine than any of the others I have tried so far BUT ~ I found if I held the Go! down with my left hand put my left hip on the machine that it stayed still and this made it easier to get the fabric through the machine.  It was harder but angling the die also made it a bit easier.

There was also a lot of lint to pick out of the die ~ but I found that if I used a lint roller after every few cuts this wasn't too bad.  You can see the effect of the cutting on the die after 50 blocks cut but it's not too bad at all really.  The blades are much more visible now ;)  The cutting mat took a lot of wear though and I can see that these will need to be replaced much more frequently than the regular mats.  But, the mats are not expensive and I'd rather replace a mat than have sore hands from snipping the rag.

I've read several reviews of the rag die on blogs and I think that I am ending up in the same place as they did.  Yes it was harder to get the die through the machine and the lint left is a bit of a pain BUT the effect is amazing and it is a real time-saver.  I would do more rag quilts with the die!   All in all I think that there are more pros to this die than cons! 

Any thoughts?  I hope that you will leave a comment here and let me know what you think or if you have any questions.  Also, please take a second to become a follower of my blog!  I'd sure love it if you did and I would love to hear from you.

Happy sewing all!