Monday, February 22, 2016

Let's Hear It For The Stash

 I've never felt like I've had to justify
having a fabric stash.
It's important to have a readily available resource
for your creativity.
I do use my stash.

I don't horde it (too much) or
buy excessive amounts (too often).
I buy what I like and
enjoy the pleasure of creating 
something tangible from it.

There are times when having a stash
is super important.
 How about when you need
a particular style of fabric
and a shop, even a good shop,
doesn't have anything close to
what you were hoping for.
Or that particular color just isn't popular 
right now.

Having a good resource of reproduction fabric
came in handy last
year as I stitched along with
Barbara Brackman's 
Stars in a Time Warp Sew A long.

Barbara discussed
so many different types of
historical fabrics.
Without a good stash,
I doubt that you could have
found all the different examples.

 
 I finished machine quilting and binding
my Stars in a Time Warp.



 
It was a fantastic study.
I made 72 star blocks
and didn't buy one piece of fabric.
Thank you stash!

Until Next Time-

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Merrily, I Stitch A Long....

I had been doing pretty well
steering clear of the many
wonderful Stitch A Longs, SAL's,
that appeared on line after the first of the year,
 but...
 there were so many creative opportunities.  
What's a quilter to do?

It's obvious....
 Dive In!
and
 I have.
Take a peek at my list.

"Let it Snow"
A super cute wool
Check it out.
Anyone can do one wooly block a month, right?

***
And then there's

 Thimble Creek's free blocks
and mystery design.
You can have access to these if you sign
up for their weekly newsletter.
The theme is 6 inch bright civil war blocks.
I opted for the brights, no war involved.

***
Then, of course,
I couldn't pass up
Petra Prin's mystery quilt
which is available in the Quiltmania magazine.
I absolutely had to do this,
especially after purchasing her wonderful chintz fabrics
at the Houston Quilt Festival.


This is a project done in blind faith.
There's no clue to what it will 
look like in the end.


But starting off with a Mariner's Compass
in the center is a good sign.

I needed a few more beautiful chintz pieces 
and easily ordered them from 
They have a wonderful selection
of the Dutch Heritage Fabrics used in this project.

****
Over at the blog, Aunt Reen's Place ,
I've started Doreen's
"Big Leap Sew Along"
making a triple Irish chain that is
jelly roll friendly.


I took the leap, but
I'm improvising a little by

not using a jelly roll and
making it only two solid colors.

A triple Irish chain has been on
my bucket list, as well as,
a yellow and white quilt.
A perfect match-up, wouldn't you say,
especially
in 2016 with a whole extra
day for sewing

***
The last one
is one where I'll be
Sallying along with myself.


I'm using Karen Style's
A Star a Day pattern and templates from 
located in Victoria Australia. 

As you can see,
I haven't gotten very far
with these 3" star blocks, 
but there is still hope.
I've gotten organized now
and I'm ready to start stitching.

***
So is that all for me?
Hard to say.
There could still be some sweet temptations.

Until Next Time-

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Team Work

 Way back 
when I was in school and 
had to do a group project 
it was so important to pair up with someone
who actually knew what
working as a team meant.
 Remember when that didn't happen.

This year my dear friend, Norma and I


 teamed up to make
two baby quilts.
 
We belong to a quilt group that
meets in a local church and
makes baby quilts for a ministry there
to offset the 
use of the building.
It's a great win win situation.

  Norma had a bunch of Fig Tree charms
that she didn't think she'd be using and

those quickly got stitched into a Chinese Coins pattern and
a little square medallion. 
So easy.

In a recent post I mentioned 
how careful I am about marking on quilts.
Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind
and try the Sewline
Air Erasable Fabric Pen.
 It marks with a very fine
sharp line,
which makes it very easy 
to machine quilt on.



And then the lines
vanish in a few days 
depending on how dark you mark.
Mine were actually gone
in a few hours.
I loved that!

I'm not sure how the word "vanished"
is defined, but
with the baby quilts it didn't bother me.
I figured they'll be washed lots and
if everything hadn't vanished, it soon would.

It was great handing the quilts off 
after they were machine quilted
for my teammate to do the binding and labels.




Two easy quilts
done and ready for new babies
All done with perfect team work.

Until Next Time-

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

B's to the 5th Power

 When I worked at the local quilt shop
customers would come in and
ask for many things all
beginning with the letter "B".

It actually confused some quilters
with so many B words.

Were they looking for 
Borders?
 Backing? 
Batting?
Basting?
Binding?

Over the past couple of weeks,
 I've been working on
" B's to the 5th power!"

But let's back up just a bit.
Over the past year, like many others,
I studied fabrics
from Barbara Brackman's
Quilt Along,
"Stars in a Time Warp".

I completed 72 sawtooth star blocks
and decided to set them in a 
medallion style.

 I chose a center block from
Di Ford's Antique Wedding Sampler.

I hand pieced the block and
then added Broderie Perse applique
to the corners and
then a narrow border print to frame 
the block.
Instead of needle turning the appliques
I fused the pieces and cut them out exactly and
finished the edges with a buttonhole stitch.


I found it pretty challenging keeping the stitches an 
even depth and an even width apart.
I wasn't sure how close to make the stitches because
I didn't want it to look like a satin stitch.
So I did my own thing.
***
Then came the B-words, Borders.
 
This is a French General border print
and I only had 2 yards.  The mitered
corners came out perfectly, but I didn't
have enough to really fiddle with 
the corner design.
All four corners are the same,
but don't quite have the "

Wow" factor.


 While I was looking
in my resource piles, I discovered
a great piece for the Backing.

It's rather plain,
but it's a great piece of reproduction fabric
that's almost vintage a second time around.

Does anyone remember that line?
Add a leftover piece of the border print
and now it's the perfect size.

Next comes Batting.
I was feeling so proud of my make-do attitude.
I fused 5 narrow strips of batting together


using a light weight fusible interfacing.
that I cut 2 inches wide. 
Five pieces out of the closet and 
now a piece ready for Basting
 

 I'm planning on machine quilting this
myself, so it might take a while to get done.

But in the mean time I 
worked on the last B-word,
Binding.
 
It's ready whenever I am.

Just wanted to send a big thank you
to Barbara Brackman for
sharing her wealth of knowledge
with so many. 

Just realized I could say B's to the 7th power...
Blocks,
Broderie Perse
Sorry, I can get carried away!

Check out my recent post
"Let's Hear It For The Stash"
to see is quilt finished.

Until Next Time-