Feb at a glance

One of the things that I love about Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts, is that it gives me a chance to reflect on the month of February and realize that I actually did get things accomplished.

My FMQ is getting better with feathers that look kind-of like they are supposed to.  I realized after making this that I don't actually LIKE feathers in quilting, which is probably why mine never look amazing.

My FMQ confidence is growing, and I'm really glad I decided on these practice panels that are designed to be a whole quilt later.  This piece, for example, I think I could have picked a better background fill, but I still love the leaf.  This leaf deserves better than becoming a pot holder!

One of my 2012 goals was to do trapunto, and this practice panel was my first attempt.  I learned a lot about background fill from the leaf panel and I was quite pleased with the outcome.

I finished piecing the silk tie quilt, which removes 2 things from my quilting bucket list  - upcycling and working with silk.  I learned a lot from this project, most importantly that I'm "totally over" the need to quilt with silk and I can move on.

But I am keeping the bonus silk woobie because it feels so soft.

Although I don't really enjoy piecing, working with someone else's yellow scraps for this charity quilt was a lot of fun.  I need to sew with yellow more often.

My only finish for the month was the Quilts of Valor quilt that was a collaborative effort from my quilt group and a chance for me to use another new-to-me technique.

And I am finally nearing the end of the hand quilting for the Double Wedding Ring.  This has taken 96 episodes of Cake Boss, and I've moved on to watching LA Ink.  Unfortunately the tatoos give me ideas for quilting designs so I tend to get distracted.

For March, I plan to continue to practice FMQ, finish the hand quilting, finish the Executive Woobie and $2.25 Plus Tax, finish piecing the Citrus HST top.  I also want to work on something to use up the blue scraps for another QOV quilt, and I need to get back to some applique on my Hearts Desire.

String QAYG

I've been using a quilt-as-you-go method to do a yellow string quilt and was so pleased with the results that I decided this could be a fun Quilts of Valor group project.  Several of The Quilt Block Ladies (a local quilt group that has let me join the fold)  have decided to join with me.

This tutorial is for them.  Cheers!
(I've added more info with each step if you're making this project with your own fabrics)

Start by placing the red strip face down, diagonally on a flat surface.  Line up the corners of the batting square so they are centered on the strip.

(The red becomes a diamond shape sashing throughout the finished quilt.  If you use this approach later, pick out something that contrasts from the strips.  I cut mine 2"wide, and the batting 10.5" for a 10" finished block. )

Place the backing fabric (also 10.5") over the batting, right side up.  Pin the 3 layers together and flip the sandwich over.

Pick any of the long blue strips and place it face down, lined up on the right edge of the red strip.  Pin strips in place so that red strip stays centered.   Remove the pins from the back that were holding everything together.

Prepare all 4 squares this way.  You'll do the same steps on each square at the same time - like chain piecing.   I find it most time effective to work on 4-8 blocks at the same time which is why I included 4 squares in each kit.

Stitch 1/4" seam, using your walking foot and any shade of blue thread.

 If you don't have a walking foot, you should be fine, but just be sure not to pull or stretch the block as you feed it through the machine since you are sewing on the bias of the backing fabric.

Finger-press this seam open by running your finger or finger-nail along that seam line while it sits on a flat surface.

Continue to add strips toward one corner.  It's helpful to trim those tails off so they don't get in the way.  I sort those tails into Long, Medium, Short piles so I don't end up at the end of the project with a zillion short pieces when I need some long ones.

I pre-cut the strips in variable widths between 1"-2".   If you add your own fabrics to the ones provided, please keep them in the same widths.

In my experimental piece, I had some 2.5" strips, but they seemed too big for a 10" square.  Other string quilters use wonky shapes instead of strips.  You can play with size and shapes when you try this approach with your own scraps. 

   Continue these steps to the opposite corner.
That's it.  The Quilt Block Ladies will turn their blocks in to me at the February meeting looking just like this.  


Please don't trim them to size.... or I'll have to have Becky kick your butt.

When I get them, I'll trim them to size this way.  Notice that I've lined up the 1" to the bottom right, and the diagonal line runs evenly up the center red diagonal.  Before I trim, I make sure that I'm lined up so that I'm trimming a tiny bit (1/4" or less) of the backing and batting (remember I made them 1/2" larger than my goal size.) and I'm sure that there's still 10" worth of block left.

Then spin the block around and line up the edges on the 10" lines and trim the other 2 raggedy edges.  


This is the link to the Welsh Quilter blog that shows the technique for joining the finished blocks.

Shower Epiphany

I always get the most amazing ideas in the shower.  It must be the timing of when the subliminal stuff from my dreams hits the morning caffeine.  Friday morning I solved 3 quilting dilemmas at once.

I had designed a fall themed quilt for my friend Carol.

The idea was to make the gold, orange and red as long strips of crazy patch with solid greens between.

I had finished about 30 inches worth of crazy patch before I decided that I wasn't loving the idea.

Last night I drew out the design that popped into my head in the shower,  and today started cutting out fabrics.  The idea is to make the stripes in smaller sections (typically 8-12 x 12-16 inches) and use those blocks for my FMQ Challenge blocks (project solution 1). I need more than 12 since I also want to try Trapunto this year and I want to try some designs to use on my Ojibwe Beadwork Inspired quilt which is waiting for me to become good at FMQ before I attempt to quilt it (project solution 2).

 By lunch time I had managed to cut out all the gold and yellow sections that will go into the quilt.  After I got those sections cut to size, I had enough yellow fabric to use on those stripes on the back of the quilt too.   I had another idea for the extra fabric....

...but first, I needed to finish 2 sections of yellow crazy 8x24, which I accomplished by early afternoon.

Meanwhile, I've been admiring string quilts on line.  And I absolutely loved the yellow zig-zag quilt that I made for my sister-in-law.  So all that gold fabric I had left over seemed a perfect candidate for a yellow & white string quilt.  Plus I could do a quilt-as-you-go method AND use up the bin of poly batting that I just found in the garage (project 3...maybe 4 & 5 too if using up terrible batting counts as a project as does learning an new QAYG technique).   I found a great QAYG technique tutorial at Welsh Quilter that I will use for both the string and the FMQ project.

Technically, these projects also solve quilting dillema 4 (or is that 6?), which was that I bought the green, red and gold fabric originally to do a Baltimore Album Quilt.  I've been collecting fabric for that quilt for so long though, that I'm now disappointed in the quality of many of the fabrics I collected.  This can be my excuse for only making pillows rather than a full Baltimore Album quilt.

I need to get all that done, because I've been taunting my brother Rick that since he was retired, he could send me a bunch of his old and/or ugly silk ties.  They arrived this week.  These are the ones that I think I can manage to play nicely together.

I'm still deciding on a pattern.  I'm planning to stabilize with a lightweight fuseable.  I'm psyching up to pre-wash so it won't have to eternally be dry cleaned.


OK...back to the sewing machine.  No, wait, football and hand quilting.