Design Wall Monday–March 27, 2017

Just one block but it’s what’s on my design wall this morning. 

I need to make a wedding quilt and thought I’d make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt.  It seemed like a good idea.  I even borrowed a friends Accucut Go and bought the Double Wedding Ring dies.  I cut a whole bunch of different pieces and started making my first block.  It’s not as easy as I thought it would be.  I don’t mean that I really think it should be easy but with the fabric cut with a die, I expected it to go together a little easier than it did.  Here’s part of the block that I assembled.

After I perfected (I thought) my 1/4” seam it was still a challenge and this is the easy part.  I want to make a bed size quilt so I quickly decided to shelve this idea.  Bye-bye double wedding ring quilt and hello great-granny quilt. 

I’m planning on using a variety of light gray’s and beiges for the background and a huge variety of Kaffe fabrics for the “rounds”.  This will not be the first time I’ve made this quilt but this time will be a little different. 

Here’s a picture of my first one.  You’ll see it’s on my bed right now.

Oops, I see that one of the shams is missing.  It was in my sewing room so I could jog my memory of how I made it the first time.  I’ve gathered up all the fat quarters for the background and 2 1/2” strips of Kaffe fabrics.  I’m hoping to start working on it while I’m at a retreat next week. 

To see what others have on their design wall, check out Judy’s Patchwork Times blog.

Enjoy,

Design Wall Monday–March 20, 2017

Another front door quilt.  I actually made this a couple of weeks ago but I’m just now getting around to sharing it on my blog.  My friend Nancy Post shared a picture of a quilt on Facebook that I used as the inspiration for this cutie.  I think the quilt she showed was 12 blocks and probably lap size.  I thought it would make a perfect front door quilt for Easter.

It went together very quickly since it’s made using simple machine applique with a little meandering for the quilting.  I finished it off with a machine sewn faux flange binding and WAA-LAA a new front door quilt is born.  If you’d like a tutorial on how I do my binding, check out my free tutorial over there ----> on the right.

To see what others are working on, visit Judy’s Patchwork Times blog.

Enjoy,

Design Wall Monday–March 13, 2017

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to speak at the Orange Grove Quilt Guild meeting.  My topic was “Borders, Setings and Bindings”.  I was able to share a wide variety of quilts including some from others in my friendship group, The Wednesday Wackos. 

Would you like to know the easy, simple way to turn a quilt/block on-point?  Well one of the things I shared and demoed was how to do easy peasy.  Here are just a few of the examples I used. 

Here is the simple block that I used for my demo.

If you’d like to see how easy it is, head on over to my website, go to tutorials, and select the one that looks like this.  Or just click here. 

To see what others are working on, check out Judy’s blog.

Enjoy,

What I Learned–While Teaching

Yesterday I taught a workshop at Orange Grove Quilt Guild.  I always tell people to take classes from as many different teachers as you can because you learn something new and different each time.  Not only to you learn from the teacher but you learn for others in the class.  Well that’s no different if you’re the one teaching you still learn new things all the time.  I’m sure I learned a bunch of new things yesterday but I thought I’d share a couple of them that I’m implementing for myself, today. 

First up…………………..What I learned from Christi Kolisnyk

I have attended a lot of retreats with Christi.  She is a very talented seamstress and she is the one that helped me make my cushion back in September (click here to see my blog post about my cute cushion).  At every retreat Christi has a very very large pincushion covered in her yellow pins.  This may not seam like a big deal after all I have lots of pincushion that are suppose to live next to my sewing machine, on my cutting mat, on my ironing surface and on and on.  The problem is I still tend to move them all around my house and half the time the pins from one all end up in another one and not where I am.  I’ve decided to give Christi way a try.  I have two giant pincushions that were collecting dust (I collect them of course ).  Starting today I’m going to consolidate into one and since I carry them around from one spot to another anyway, I’m going to give it a try. 

Of course it could take me all day to decide which one to promote to “Pincushion Number One”.

Second thing I learned………………………………from Bonnie Lippincott

I also attend some retreats with Bonnie. (I know I go to a lot of retreats)

Here’s the deal with Bonnie, she always has what you need to borrow, it could be a glue stick or some odd ball item.  Bonnie has a very nice little tool organizer that sits on the table by her machine but when you need that odd ball thing she reaches for her plastic tote that she calls her “Fibber McGee’s Closet”.  For those of you youngsters, Fibber McGee and Molly is a very, very old TV show and Fibber McGee had a closet that was like a giant junk drawer.  When you open it everything spills out.  So Bonnie has her plastic tote and she just tosses things in it that she might need some time in the future.  I love this idea and have decided to make my very own “traveling junk drawer”. 

As you can see on the left I do have a fairly organized traveling zipper bag but it’s over stuffed with things I don’t regularly use and can be moved to my new “junk drawer”. 

I’m sure there are many other things I learned yesterday but these are the two that stuck with me and I’m implementing them today.

Enjoy,

Design Wall Monday–March 6, 2017

Have you ever wanted a simple way to turn a quilt on-point?  I learned a very easy way to do it many years ago by Mary Ellen Hopkins.  Yesterday I worked on a tutorial showing how I do it.

Here is a very simple example.  I used a orphan Dresden block given to me by my friend Pam Osorio.  Once I’ve shared the written tutorial with the guild, I’ll post a link to the PDF instruction here.  So check back later this week if you’re interested in seeing the simple instructions. 

This is going to be a very busy week for me.  I’m speaking at Orange Grove Quilt Guild on Wednesday and then teaching a workshop for them on Thursday.  This lecture is all about Borders, Bindings, Row-by-Row and Round Robin quilts.  I have a lot of examples of my own but called on my friends and family to borrow some of their quilts.  Today is the day to organize them and get them packed up for Wednesday.  Here’s quick look at my guest room bed, covered with some very lovely quilts.

In the mean time, back on the home front, Vivs from Bear’s Quilt Shop called and I picked up a quilt that they quilted for me.  This is another UFO that was started many years ago as a class sample for a “Magnolia Lane” class.  I decided it was finally time to get it finished and figure out what to do with it.  I need to get the binding on and then find a home for it.  Notice Molly (The Quilt Inspector) checking it out. 

Have a great week but why not start it off by seeing what others have on their design walls over a Judy’s blog.

Enjoy,