Dear Jane Quilt - G6 - 4 of 225

Block G6 is a star within a star, first here's the tiny centre star.

And here it is with the surrounding five-pointed star.

And here are my four blocks so far:  F7, G6, G8 & H7.

Still having fun!

Dear Jane Quilt - 3 of 225 Blocks Done

Two more fairly easy blocks to piece from the centre 9 squares.  Here is a close up of F7:

And here is H7's close up:

And the three blocks I have done so far. 

I am enjoying this so far!  The next 6 blocks I have to make are a lot more complicated, some with very small pieces and some with curved pieces so hand sewing will be unavoidable....  I have one more orange block to make plus 4 yellow and 1 red.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday

Dear Jane

Well, I have officially leaped into the deep end of the pool.  Today I met with a few other quilters and we are going to provide support to each other as we each make the Dear Jane Quilt.  I am going to use black as my background fabric with rainbow colours; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo & violet.

Today I pieced block G8 and before we meet again, the plan is to piece the 9 central blocks of the 225 different blocks in the quilt; blocks 5, 6 & 7 in rows F, G & H.

And because this is a simple block, and my centres matched up pretty good, here's a close up.

The complicated ones will have their picture taken from across the room!

Two Pillow Cases to coordinate with the Irish Plaid Quilt

I was cleaning out the project box from the Irish Plaid Quilt I finished for a Christmas present and decided there were enough bits and pieces of the green fabrics to make the bands for two pillow cases.  There was plenty of the off white fabric for the cases themselves.  There were one and a half WoF strip pieced sections left over, so I only had to piece a half strip more.  I had little bits and pieces cut off the ends of other strips and luckily enough were long enough I could use them to "rail fence" the rest of the second band. The inside of the bands were made with dark green fabric.  The other side of the rail fenced pillow case looks the same as the striped band so if you want matching sides to show you can.

 

And here is the quilt

they coordinate with.

Here is a link to the Enclosed Seam Pillow Case Tutorial I use.

So, now that I have any empty project bin......

Tea Mug Rug

I saw this scrap of fabric on the give-away table at our guild meeting and immediately envisioned it as a cute mug rug.  I told myself I could have it if I brought it home and made it right away so that it wasn't added to my scraps.

I was able to cut it up so that I could add the selvage to my selvage collection, which I am actively collecting with a project in mind so this does not count as adding to my scraps.  I used the two long flowery strips to go around the main tea design to become the front of the mug rug.  I cut one strip to add to my Bonnie Hunter's Leader Ender Quilt and the rest I pieced together to start making the backing fabric.  The remaining bits were too small to save.

I auditioned some scraps from my stash and decided on the darker print to finish out the backing and pieced a scrap of batting.

I did a quick bit of quilting using painter's tape as a guide with my walking foot.

And here it is bound with the same fabric as I added to enlarge the backing.

Sometimes, rather than working on something big, it's nice to make something small for a quick finish and sense of accomplishment.  Since I also had to use some fabric and batting scraps from my own stash I think it was a good deal.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday

How I make No Mark Snowball Corners and No Mark Bonus Half Square Triangles

I don't want to have to go to the bother of marking a diagonal sew line on every background square of every snowball corner by either drawing or pressing the line because I just want to start sewing!  Also, if I'm going to end up with bonus half square triangles, I don't want to have to go to a lot of additional work for them either!

I started with 5 1/2 inch squares of the main fabric and twice as many 3 inch squares of background fabric.  (I had 35 5.5" squares and 70 3" squares.)

Tape a piece of painters tape, which will not leave any sticky stuff behind when you peel it off, to your sewing machine bed so the left edge of it leads directly to the needle of your sewing machine.  Next, leave a 1/2 inch gap and place another piece of tape to the left of your first piece of tape.  The second piece of tape will need to extend approximately an inch beyond the needle.

Lay the smaller background square of fabric RST in a corner of the main fabric square and then line up one point of the background square in front of the needle of the sewing machine with the diagonal point on the left-hand edge of the tape.

Sew keeping the diagonal point of the background square of fabric travelling along the left edge of the tape.

When you get to the other corner of your first square, line up your next square and keep chain piecing.

Once you have sewn on all the corner squares it is very easy to sew another parallel row of stitching.  Simply line up the beginning and ending points of your previous stitching line with the right side edge of the left hand tape.  This will give you a new stitching line 1/2 inch away.  I marked the fabric just to demonstrate where the new stitching line will go.

Continue to chain piece your blocks by lining up your previous stitching line with the block you just stitched and the right side edge of the left hand tape.

Once both diagonal corners of your blocks have two rows of stitching, it is a simple matter to cut between the two rows of stitching, press back the flippy corners to complete your blocks and press open the cut off triangles to reveal your bonus half square triangles.  Every block will give you two bonus half square triangles.  They can be used as is or trimmed to two inches square.






So, here is what I made with the 35 snowballed blocks:

And I used 64 of the 70 bonus half square triangles as star points:

I also decided to fool around with another arrangement of the blocks and ended up with three flowers using sashing and corner stones and two leaves using the blocks on point.  I can't decide if I like my fabric choices on this one or if they are downright hideous.  I like how it turned out so would be worth it to make it again using better fabric, although what I used is growing on me.  I also used my bonus half square triangles and made a bonus block:

Here are some blocks I previously made for table runners but which would also look really good as a baby quilt:

I put this together as I am giving a demo of the block at my quilt guild tonight.  I hope if people come look at this it is understandable!  I am also interested to see what my program partner does with her off cut triangles.

My First Blog-Aversarie!

First of all, I can't believe it is my first anniversary of blogging which also means I have been retired for more than a year!!!

Overall I'm happy with the frequency that I blogged, which was not on a regular basis but instead was when I finished something or got to the next step on something.  However, I do appreciate and look forward to other people's blogs on a regular basis, so maybe I could try to blog on specific days.  Maybe I should start a "Touch Base Tuesday" post to show what I'm working on.  I also started a "Throw Back Thursday" post to show previous quilts I have made and I will continue with this now and again until I am up to date.  I do other crafts as well, mostly knitting, and I will post these items too.  How about in a "Switch It Up Sunday" post?  We shall see.

Here is a visual of the items I finished this year:

Two Pillow Cases

Two Comfort Quilts, both gifted

Heart Table Runner

Two Reversible X & O Table Runners, both gifted
(A third, mine, just needs quilting)

Cathedral Window Cushion Cover

Table Topper, there is a Shamrock on the flip side

Bird Beach Bag, gifted

Four Easter Pot Holders, gifted

Toile Baby Quilt, gifted

Mayflower Mystery Quilt

Cardinal Red Star Quilt

Anchors Aweigh Quilt, gifted

Storm at Sea Cushion Cover, made in collaboration with my daughter, gifted

Storm at Sea Wedding Quilt, made in collaboration with my daughter, gifted

Sew Together Bag # 1, gifted

Zen Wedding Quilt with Two matching Cushion Covers, gifted

Small Bag

Large Bag

Apron, gifted

Maple Leaf Cushion Cover

Two Baskets

Canada 150 wall hanging (I quilted, bound & labelled  it.)
Made for the Veterans Hospital by the Mayflower Quilters' Guild
Five Canadian Flag Cushion Covers, Four gifted

Sew Together Bag # 2, gifted

Wreath Wall Hanging

Candy Mug Rug

Three Santa Ornaments, gifted

Sew Together Bag # 3, gifted

Sew Together Bag # 4, gifted

Sixteen felt Llama Christmas Gift Tags / Ornaments, gifted

Irish Plaid Quilt, gifted

Lupine Wall Hanging, gifted

Tree Table Runner, gifted

Leaf Table Runner

Some plans for this coming year:

Last year I participated in the Fat quarter Shop 2017 Patchwork Quilt Along to benefit Make-A-Wish and kept up to date with all the blocks which just ended in December. Now I just need to put that quilt together:

I will keep working away on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Mystery Quilt "on Ringo Lake" as well as the her 2017 Leader & Ender Challenge (You can see a few of the blocks in the picture of my Sew Together Bag # 1 above.):

I made this quilt top at a workshop in September and need to decide if I want to add some of the extra blocks to make it rectangular or just quilt it as is:

This year I plan to quilt along with a group on a Dear Jane quilt. We are meeting next week for the first time so details to follow.

Last year my daughter and I worked on the Storm at Sea quilt shown above for one of her school mates weddings and we will be working on another one this year for another friend.

I will also be working on a Wedding Quilt for my daughter and Son-in-Law to be.  I will have to ask them if they want to see progress reports of it or if they want it to be a surprise.....  If its a surprise you will have to wait until September to see it!

I would like to get a few more comfort quilts made this year.  I do have some in progress, just need to quilt them.

This summer I will get back to work on the Irish Chain Quilt I have been working on at the cottage:

I will also be working on the treadle machine Fish Quilt:

My hand stitching project, La Passacaglia is on the back burner as it was taking me a lot of time to prep the pieces for hand sewing so I never had any ready when I needed them.  I will revisit this project and see if I can change my process.

I also have a few UFO's that will all get finished when they are needed and of course every day I see tons of new things I want to make which is what keeps it so interesting!

Looking forward to another year in the sewing room!