Some 2013 Finishes

Here are a few finishes this year; proof that I'm still quilting. LOL

The "T Quilt" is a guild challenge quilt.  The main rules were to make a quilt with blocks that begin with the initial of your first or last name.  Now, anyone that knows me knows that if I make any sort of quilt about "me", it will reek of me!  I had been working on the Trailing Geese units and had them in my works in progress storage for years.  I pulled some of the units out and made a letter T with them.  In addition, I made Tumbling Blocks; I had cut 45 degree diamonds left over from a previous project so I had a great start there too.  I then pulled 3.5" Tumbler units I'd already cut on my GO! cutter.  I made all of these things go into one quilt.  I won 2nd place for most creative use of blocks.

I had help finishing the Pineapple Nine Patch quilt.  It will hang in the quilt show so I went to one of my favorite long arm quilters, Sarah Cohen.  She used orange thread and the quilting is fabulous! This pattern is designed by Cathy Wierzbicki from book Geometric Gems. This link is not necessarily the cheapest price, but you can see all the designs in the book. I saw cheaper prices at online stores:  Barns & Nobel, Target, and WalMart.

I also had Sarah Cohen quilt the Shakespeare in the Park quilt too.  This one took so many years to complete to end up with mediocre quilting.  I used three colorways instead of two and that almost burst my brain to keep all my pieces straight.  I did have to use the seam ripper a couple of times on this one.  I'm glad it's finally done and love everything about this quilt. This design is by Judy Martin and on Sunday the book with this pattern was $9.95.  You can purchase by clicking this line.

I know I haven't listed all the finishes but I must not have taken photos.  More to come later...
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Bigger is Better

In my last post I told of how I needed to have my Go! cutter from Accuquilt repaired.  I did send it back last Thursday.  However, the Studio cutter is on sale and I decided to upgrade as well.  That way, I will have a back up cutter in the future.

My cutter arrived today and I set it up. I didn't have time to "play" for an extended amount of time, but I did cut 10 2.5" strips with the studio die cutter.  Well, I had to sit down. I liked my Go! but their is no comparison to the Studio. If you have trouble turning the handle on the Go! try the Studio because it rolled through so smoothly that I thought it din't cut the fabric!  Those white boards are to be used with the Go! dies on the Studio cutter and I haven't tried that yet.  If you want to see specs on the cutter, visit Accuquilt. As you can see, I purchased a few dies as well. I'm having such a hard time staying OFF Accuquilt's site. LOL Right now the only down side is that that cutter needs a lot of space. That is a kitchen counter top that I used to store some of my fabric stash. It needs all that space so the tray and enter and exit without bumping into anything.

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My Weekend, Finished Projects, Design Wall Monday

I attended the Round Bobbin Expo on Saturday. Actually, my guild had a booth that I staffed for an hour or so.  I saw the funniest quilt, Haunted by UFOs that I had to share.  While I'm definitely not stressed about having well over 125 works in progress it did make me stop for a moment to think about them.  I even counted how many UFOs are completed quilt tops.  I found 20 quilts that need backs made and another 17 with backs made ready for quilting.

I finished the binding on four quilts today!  Yeah!!! Mon Sheri Waves, available at the following link, www.robertkaufman.com/assets/pdf/mon_sheri_waves_tutorial_final.pdf,is a project assigned to the Scrap Quilting Club in May.  I brought my GO! Cutter to the meeting and anyone that wanted to participate could cut their drunkards path blocks with the die. I did make a modification and added setting triangles all the way around instead of chopping off the sides as instructed in the pattern.

Tumbling Frolics is finally finished. I have a tutorial on cutting fabrics with the GO! Cutter on my blog I uploaded in October 2010. I really like this quilt and don't know why I didn't quilt it sooner.  The binding was relatively easy to sew, just cut a stripe fabric on the bias and then sewed in a slight curve fashion along the edges; worked for me!

In 2001 I made a Butterfly Kaleidoscope (scroll down and look on right) stack and whack quilt. I've always been a saver and user of scraps.  When I cut the first angle to get 45 degree angle, I cut the scraps into squares. After making the quilt, I pieced this quilt top, putting stars around the kaleidoscope squares.  It's been sitting the the quilting pile all these years.  Boy am I glad this one is completed.

I made this rail fence quilt top for my brother in February of 2010 but never got it quilted.  I thinks he's finally ready for his quilt. LOL  

I sewed some more on my line dance t-shirt quilt. I'm working on adding a photo border all the way around. I have two sides made, taking up 6 hours of my sewing time.  I sure didn't think it would take so long to make this border.  I decided to put it aside to work on bindings instead. As I look at this picture during the upload, there is definitely no space to rest the eyes on this quilt!

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Design Wall Monday

I've been very busy this week, completing a few quilt centers and even starting another project.  First up is my Zigzag 9 which is part of scrap quilting club.  This top is due at the April meeting and I actually got it ready 3 weeks early.  Last week I sewed the blocks into rows.  This week I pressed the rows, make a few corrections (ripping) and now have a quilt top.  I do plan to add a couple of borders although not required by the pattern.

Then I pin basted the quilt I would like to have completed by the end of the month.

The majority of my time this week was spent machine embroidering the blocks needed to finish Bloomin' Flowers.  I even have the entire center sewn and the 2nd pieced border is ready.  I selected fabrics as I made blocks and am so happy with my UNplanned quilt.

I was blessed this week and received 3 Accuquilt GO! dies in the mail! They are Dresden Plate, Double Wedding Ring, and Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.

Of course I couldn't let them all sit in the packages.  I decided to make the sample project included with the die, four rings, to test the die cutting accuracy (see if I need to use paper or not) and ease of piecing.  I got a few units cut and laid out on the design wall.  Hopefully I can get this top sewn this week.

To see more great projects, visit Patchwork Times for a complete list.

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Charmed I'm Sure

My quilt guild had a charm quilt challenge this month and last Thursday was the big reveal.  There is nothing super fancy about my quilt but I didn't want to see another one on the line so I kept it a secret.  Here is my charm tumbler quilt I titled Charmed, I'm Sure.  It has 202 different fabrics including the backing and label. 

My first plan was to scatter the charms and piece how they landed.  For some reason that did not appeal to me so I went to plan B.  I decided to make frames with the tumblers (by the way cut 3.5" with my GO! cutter) by separating the light and medium/dark values.  I also had fun throwing in novelty fabrics.  I just love looking at this quilt.  It tied for 2nd place in the challenge.  NOTE: Quilt was hung upside down on the line.

Here are some other charm quilts that members made.  I forgot to write down the names of the makers.  If you are members of the guild and have correct information, please let me know.

Drew Benage
3rd place

 Doris McCall

 Debbie - tied 1st ?

Norma Silk
Tied 2nd
over 400 1.5" .5" rectangles

Judy Kooi

Connie Barnett
Tied 1st place

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Drunkard's Path Block 9

I'm really having fun with these blocks.  I cut a few more pieces this week with my GO! cutter so my next one will have a few new fabrics added.  If you have the curve master foot for your sewing machine, now is a great time to pull it out and put it to use.

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Drunkard's Path Block 8

I finally found and use my curve master foot.  Wow!  I should have been using this gadget all along.  I made this block super quick.  Anyone else out there making the blocks?  I am so enjoying the different blocks and all of them would make great quilts by themselves.  I still haven't decided which format I want for my one block quilt; I still have a few blocks to make before deciding.

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Drunkard's Path Block 7

In just under the wire is drunkard's path block #7.  Now I'm off to work on the sampler quilt and maybe select blocks for the 100 Blocks challenge for the month. Just remembered I have to get ready to go to mom's home for early dinner.  Will work on list later today.

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Drunkard's Path Blocks 4-6

Would you believe that I completely forgot about making drunkard's path blocks?  Even when I realized it I thought I needed to make only 2 blocks; wrong, I need to make 3 to get caught up.

Block 4

 Block 5

 Block 6

Here is a collage of six blocks I have made so far.  I may have to remake blocks 1 and 2 to match the others but I'll worry about that later.

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Design Wall Monday

I been busy making blocks this week.  Here is a quick view of them.

I was so excited about the bear block that I made my first quilt top with the Quiltmaker blocks (okay, just one block but that's a start.)  I'll quilt it when I need the next baby quilt so I can add baby-to-be's name and date of birth before quilting it.

Friday was my craft guild meeting that meets at work after hours.  I usually cut fabrics there so I cut out units for patience corner blocks.  Since a lot of the fabrics were directional, I decided to use Anita Grossman Solomon's method she calls No Patience to cut the fabrics.  I plan to make 20 blocks and here are 12 of them.  I'll rearrange these when all the blocks are sewn.  If you want to see the technique, refer to the book "Rotary Cutting Revolution - New One-Step Cutting".  The arrowhead block technique that's being high lighted on many blogs is included in this book as well as in Quiltmaker's November/December magazine issue.  The book has an additional 6 quilts with the cutting for the pineapple and miter log cabin quilts being my favorites.  Before you ask, "No, I don't plan to make another pineapple quilt" at least not any time soon.  :o)  I don't think my daughter reads my blog as I'm too boring so I'll let you know that this is her Christmas gift.  It will be made to fit a full bed so I made the "super-sized" blocks.  It will still need borders to get it up to size.  What was so funny today is that my daughter came by today and took about six quilts to add to her decorating theme.  She already had about five or so from previous years that were never returned.  She tried taking my snowman collector bed quilt that we use on our bed.  I had to stop her at that point.  She'll appreciate having her own holiday quilt.

I started decorating for Christmas on Sunday.  I have a few more wall hangings to put up and then the tree.  I love decorating for Christmas but it sure takes a lot of time.  When a movie I wanted to watch came on television, I grabbed my 2.5" strings that were left over from making bindings (three shoe boxes).  I separated the long pieces from the small pieces and randomly cut them for a future project.  I keep working and sewed about 90 16" strips into pairs.  That was a good task while watching television.

To view more design walls, visit Patchwork Times.
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Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks: Blocks 7 and 8

I'm on a mission this week.  I really wanted to get a particular block completed (you will understand as you read) so I worked on them over the weekend.  So my blocks for this week are already made.  Remember, if you don't want to sew the blocks I made, just make substitutions with any block not already completed.

7 - How About a Hug?

Block 144 on page 43

Heidi Pridemore

The Whimisal Workshop

http://www.thewhimsicalworkshop.com/

18 pieces

Heidi participated in the blog tour posted on Quiltmaker's blog in November.  She had prizes for a random drawing and I won one of them which was a FQ bundle of Furry Friends she designed for Blank Quilting.  I appreciated Heidi's gift so much that I wanted to make something with it instead of just adding it to my stash.  So I made her block with the fabrics, adding Kona Cotton solids for the bear applique.  Since I had the fabrics already pressed, I decided to keep going and I now have a nice quilt top to quilt when the next baby comes along.  I even cut enough strips from the FQs to make a scrappy binding.  I really like this line of flannels.  They were so easy to sew with and I experienced no stretching.  I donated the remaining scraps (very little as I tried to use them all) because I just don't need to start organizing flannel scraps when I'm trying to get control of the regular cottons.  LOL

8 - Summer Picnic

Block 196 on page 69

Pam Vieira-McGinnis

PamKittyMorning

http://www.pamkittymorning.blogspot.com/

49 pieces

I just picked this block as I wanted to see how a print for the background would look when it was completed.  The only thing I would change about my block would be to fussy cut the center square.   I used my go cuter to cut these pieces as the die had the shapes needed for all the units.  For the 8 rectangles I cut 2.5" strips (from FQ...if you use yardage, 1 strip will do) and then fan folded 4 of them.  I then laid perpendicular with the 4.5" square, folds slightly overlapping the 4.5" square to cut into 2.5" x 4.5" strips.  For all cuts, I added a sheet of paper (old telephone book page) before adding the mat to ensure accuracy of cuts.

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