Monday, November 21, 2011

A Tutorial For Large Drawstring Bags

This tutorial is the first of a series of tutorials that will show how to make drawstring bags, pajama pants and simple blankets for Foster Care Kits.  Let's get going!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Big Half Way Mark Giveaway for the We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler

I can't believe there have been 6 months of the We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler!

We started out by making sure we had the basics covered with cutting, 1/4 inch seams and pressing while making these blocks.  (oh, how I miss the days when my backyard was green...)

 We moved on to half square triangle and corner to corner sewing.  Finishing up with some quilt math.

 With all the different skills I tried to show many different methods for getting the same result.  We learned the traditional, corner to corner and magic method of making flying geese.

Then we learned how to make 1/4 square triangles and played around with improvisation.  
(I just realized I never wrote up the 1/4 square triangle math post...oops...coming soon...)

We tried out paper and fabric foundation piecing and started paper piecing.

And more paper piecing...oh how I love these paper pieced blocks!  Why did I wait so long to learn how to do this?  This is what the Skill Builder Sampler is all about! - just biting the bullet and doing things that we are scared of.

It was hard to get a picture of them all!

If you haven't been quilting along with the Skill Builder Sampler, now is a perfect time to join in.  We are going to start hitting skills that even long time quilters might not have tried their hand at.  Here is the schedule for the rest of the Sampler:

December - Applique (many different methods will be shown)
January - Curved Blocks
February - Wonky Blocks
March - Odd Shapes (tumblers, apple cores, hexagons)
April - Inset Seams
May - There is No Way I Can Make That Block! Blocks  :)


For all of you who have been following along - THANK YOU! - it would have been totally lame and depressing to write all these tutorials for only one or two people.  As a thank you and reward for participating in the Skill Builder Sampler we are having a Big Half Way Mark Giveaway.  And because I want to motivate anyone who has fallen behind to catch up I have three different prize options.   Everyone likes different fabrics  and I wanted the prize to appeal to everyone.

 For those who love reproduction fabric:  
A jelly roll of 1862 Battle Hymn and one yard of Kona Snow.

 For those who are drawn to brights:  
10 fat quarters of Treasures and Tidbits and 1.5 yards of Kona White.

For sweet dot lovers:  
8 fat quarters of assorted dots, a half yard of the pink floral from Snippets, 
and 1.5 yards of Kona Unbleached (my favorite "white"). 

Any of these prize packages would be enough fabric to make a large lap sized quilt.

To be entered in the giveaway:

  • You must have completed blocks 1-18 in the We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler.  A list of all blocks and links to the tutorials can be found at the link at the top of the page.  
  • You must post a picture of all of your blocks on the Skill Builder Sampler flickr site or email me a picture of the completed blocks.
  • Then leave a comment in this post.  Let me know what fabric package you would like if you are the randomly selected winner.
The giveaway closes on Friday, December 2nd at 7:00 am Central Time, at which time a randomly selected person will win the fabric package of their choice.  That gives you two weeks to catch up.   Totally do-able.  :)

You Can Do It!

18 - Circle of Geese

Today we are going to make what I consider one of the prettiest paper pieced blocks of all times - Circle of Geese.  I Love It!  I want to make a whole quilt of them.  Sigh...melt...  I am so proud of my rainbow Circle of Geese.  Wouldn't one of these look great framed?  Anyway...

Oh, how I love you...

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Edited (5/15):  The Skill Builder Sampler will is available for purchase in book form!  It has been renamed "You Can Quilt!  Building Skills for Beginners" but covers the same skills with the easy, medium and challenging blocks and is a million times better than the original quilt along.  It is perfect for the beginning quilter or the experienced quilter who wants to branch out and learn new skills.  Find more information and order a signed copy in my Etsy shop or order on Amazon.  
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The Circle of Geese block was designed by Beth Maddocks at Piece by Number.  We will be using her pattern, but referring to the step by step Circle of Geese tutorial written by Cara from Me? A Mom?  and found on Bec's Chasing Cottons blog.  It is a great tutorial.  I am only going to add a few tips.
  1. Download the template before you try printing it.  I couldn't get the size right when I tried to print it from online - why is that?  Also there are two different templates - clockwise and counter clockwise - choose one direction and print out 5 of them. (one to use as a pattern for cutting out fabric)
  2. If you want your geese to be in some sort of order, lay out the paper templates so the geese are going in a circle and write the name/color of the fabric on the goose so you won't get turned around half way through piecing.  Then double and triple check.  :)
  3. I pieced the first section to make sure I knew what I was doing.   Then I pieced the next three at the same time.  That is I sewed piece 3 to piece 4 on all of the papers, trimmed and ironed them all and then moved on to sew piece 5 onto them all.  I think sewing them in a batch like this is much quicker.  Less getting up and down to iron and trim, plus you get faster at lining up and sewing the pieces when you do the same piece 3 times in a row.  
  4. I like to trim with scissors.  I think it is faster, if not as neat and tidy, but that is just my personal preference.


Can you believe we are at the half way mark in the sampler?  I can't.  Stay tuned for the Big Half Way Mark Giveaway later today.   

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

First Long Arm Quilt

Last week I took a long arm class at The Heart of Quilting in Des Moines.  It was a four hour class and I learned how to thread, load, free motion quilt, use a panogram, start and stop, unload and clean the machine.  It was soooo fun.  I was awful at the panogram (where you trace a pattern with a laser light and it sews it on the quilt) but pretty good at the free motion quilting.  The lady who was teaching me said that the more you have practiced FMQ on your home machine the easier it comes on a long arm. 

Yesterday I took my friend Rachel's quilt into the shop to quilt.  It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to set up!  Augh.  There weren't any real problems, it just took awhile.  And then I got to quilting.

Rachel had taken a look at my practice "quilt" from the class and said she wanted loopies all over the dark area but not on the white areas.  The great thing about quilting in a like color thread is that it is hard to see any mistakes, but it is also hard to see your thread so I ended up having some areas where I ran back into my own quilting and one small area that got forgotten.

Here is the whole quilt.  Isn't it pretty?  She used the 10 minute block from this You Tube video.  

Have you ever been so proud of something, yet so uggh! about the mistakes?  It is a weird feeling.  I am totally proud of quilting this King sized beauty, but disappointed in the number of mistakes I made.  Crazy perfectionist.  :)  I have a whole list of large quilts that I want to long arm quilt next year.  I can't wait!

Monday, November 14, 2011

First Purse

 Last week I finished up this purse.  I first saw it a few months ago on OCD: obsessive crafting disorder and knew I would have to make it.  The tutorial is found here.

 It went together well and I even put in my fist magnetic clasp.  Fun.  The lining is a green sateen fabric.

I am bringing it to the Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild for a swap on Thursday, but I  am planning on making one for myself later.  I am linking up this fun fall colored purse to Celebrate Color.


Celebrate Color

Friday, November 11, 2011

17 - Starry Night


Today we move onto an intermediate paper pieced block.  We will be making Starry Night, a pattern that Faith recently posted on her blog Fresh Lemon Quilts.  Her instructions are clear and straight forward and I had no problems making this block.  That is a first!  Yea!  I am getting better.  :)

I really don't have anything else to add, so head on over to the Starry Night tutorial and start sewing!

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Edited (5/15):  The Skill Builder Sampler will is available for purchase in book form!  It has been renamed "You Can Quilt!  Building Skills for Beginners" but covers the same skills with the easy, medium and challenging blocks and is a million times better than the original quilt along.  It is perfect for the beginning quilter or the experienced quilter who wants to branch out and learn new skills.  Find more information and order a signed copy in my Etsy shop or order on Amazon.  
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Friday, November 4, 2011

Block 16 - Minnesota

For the second paper piecing block I wanted to choose the easiest paper piecing block with the best instructions and the Minnesota Block by Lee at Freshly Pieced won hands down.  Lee posted the instructions in July as part of the Summer Sampler Series.

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Edited (5/15):  The Skill Builder Sampler will is available for purchase in book form!  It has been renamed "You Can Quilt!  Building Skills for Beginners" but covers the same skills with the easy, medium and challenging blocks and is a million times better than the original quilt along.  It is perfect for the beginning quilter or the experienced quilter who wants to branch out and learn new skills.  Find more information and order a signed copy in my Etsy shop or order on Amazon.  
............

Even though it is probably the easiest paper piecing block out there and Lee's instructions leave nothing to be desired, I still had some problems.

Notice how my block is perfectly square and beautiful?  Nice, eh?  Only problem is that it is a perfect 11.75 inches square instead of 12.5 inches square.  Augh!!!  What went wrong?

The templates:  Make sure your templates are printing out at exactly the right size.  My 1 inch test square was a hair small and it added up.  I did download the templates and print from Adobe as instructed, but the template was still a bit small.  I probably did not un-check the "Fit to Size" option.

The pieces of fabric Lee has you cut out for the paper piecing units are more than large enough for anyone who has the most basic of paper piecing skills.  But...I found I had more wiggle room and fewer problems if I cut the pieces a generous 1/4 inch larger.  I hate it when my pieces don't cover the whole template when flipped open!!!  I would rather cut my fabric a bit too large than unpick bad seams.

My quarter square triangles were also a bit on the small side.  (I don't know what my problem was yesterday.)  If you want to trim your quarter square triangles to size, cut the initial squares a quarter inch larger than instructed and then trim the resulting quarter square triangles to perfect 5.5 inches square.

Last tip:  I am not a big pin-er, but I would recommend pinning when you piece the quarter square triangles and paper pieced units together.  The bulk from the paper pieced seams made stitching accurately without pins challenging.

But...YOU Can Do It!  And if you have problems along the way, that is ok too.  We are learning new skills and it might not always turn out right the first time.  Right?!?  :)


No fear!  Head on over and whip that bad boy into shape!  
Let me know how it goes.

Blocks 13-15 Giveaway Winner

The winner of a bundle of Echino prints is #13 - Miranda!!!

DSC_0197
Here are her beautiful blocks.  I love seeing all of the different prints everyone is using and these make me want to whip out my own DS prints and start sewing.  

I happened to win something today too!  Barbara Brackman hosted a giveaway to celebrate her new line of Old Fashioned Calicoes and this picture of me in calico was a winner.  Go here to read more.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Simple Drawstring Bag


Check out my new tutorial over at the Moda Bakeshop.  I love how simple this bag is.  
Perfect for lunches, presents or all of the "special" things your kids might "need" to tote around.

Baby Jane's Quilt


I would never have pegged pink as a fall color, but last month I noticed the leaves on one of our trees had definitely turned pink - not red.  I didn't take a picture, but I searched on flickr and found many more pink leaf pictures - it wasn't just me who had pink leaves .  Why the pink leaf interest?

That is Plants - not Rants - for sale.  :)
Because of Baby Jane's new tumbler quilt!  A new niece is on the way and so I "had" to make her a little quilt. My SIL is decorating the nursery in pinks and orange - love the combo - and the more I worked with those colors the more I was reminded of the more subtle colors and changing leaves outside.  As an added bonus, I was able to pull all of these beautiful fabrics out of my stash! - many of them are from the Meadowsweet line (oh, how I love working with them).

The backing was pieced out of Heather Bailey Bijoux and Meadowsweet Henna fabric.

The finishing touch was the double border.  I attached a flange of fushia and then finished with orange binding.  I love how it turned out - although next time I will only cut the binding 2 inches wide.

The quilt is approx. 36 x 46 inches.
I hope you enjoy it Baby Jane!

I am linking up to:

{Sew} Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge CreationsCelebrate ColorAmy'sCreativeSide