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Showing posts from August, 2010

First Hexies

These are my first hexies. I made them while my son was having his music lesson last Friday. The background is supposed to be white but it wouldn't come out right: (ETA: I've replaced the picture with a better one) They are to make this hexie holder from Connecting Threads and are 3/4 inch on one side. I tried to start putting the inside of the tote together and found I didn't like it very much. I had previously bought a cool box from the school supply area to hold them while my tote was being worked on. The box is working out great so these will probably end up in another mini quilt instead. I find it so relaxing that I put together a few more the other night before bed when I couldn't get my mind to shut up, then I slept extremely hard. At least all the basting is making good use of all the thread I bought from them.

Busy

I'm so busy with sewing and back to school. I also feel like I can't get enough sleep. The other day I felt like I barely made it back from the grocery store and everyday at work I get worn out earlier than usual. I just keep saying "School starts Tuesday" then I'll be able to collapse without anyone home during the day, or stay up and sew ^_^ My week started out with my mini quilt. I got all the blocks pieced and played around with the setting. I thought I took pictures of different setting but I guess i didn't. The blocks: They are about 3.75 inches square. The last seams went together so fast I was surprised to see it finished. I now see why a lot of mini quilt makers sew a 1/4 inch seam and then trim it to 1/8 inch. My 1/8 inch seams were a bit inconsistent and I had to back a few with interfacing because the fabric was unraveling weird and I didn't want to get a hole. But I'm happy with these.

The Quilt Show

I just finished watching The Quilt Show's latest free episode featuring the gorgeous quilts of Philippa Naylor . She has some amazing bright and colorful quilts! Her quilting and trapunto are exquisite and she shares her techniques and tips in this episode. The best tip I saw was what she uses for gripping the fabric for machine quilting. Here's a screen cap: It's that drawer liner stuff that looks like a puffy web and grips. I'm so excited about this tip! No more hot gloves in the Texas heat for me! She just cuts a piece 4in by 6in and places her left hand on top of it and grasps the fabric with her right hand to move it. I'm going out to get some today! She also shared her experiences of living in Saudi Arabia for 15 years, it was enlightening, to say the least, and took a tour of some of the vendors at the Houston International Quilt Festival after the show. It was a really great episode and has inspired me to try trapunto, someday ^_^ My

Making a mini quilt....

Here's the 2-patches that have already been paired into 4-patches: The strips were originally cut 1 1/4 inches to make a small coin block, that never got made, long before the BOM, which is what I'm using these fabrics for now. I cut some strips out of the Kona white and tried to sew them with an 1/8 inch seam. It turns out the 1/8 inch mark on my presser foot wasn't accurate and they ended up smaller than they should.  I have carried on though and turned these into 4-patches, which I'll now have to trim to 2 inches square, and make sure my next seams are a true 1/8 inch. The 4-patches will then be turned into 12 16-patches that I'm going to play with to figure out a setting for my quilt. I've been having loads of fun with this! I think a mini quilt is a perfect idea for all the hot weather we've been experiencing here in Texas.

Quilt setting

I used Inkscape to make a layout for my BOM quilt: I really liked this one! Maybe I need to make a mini mock up to test out how it looks. (crossposted to my LJ)

Finished a top!

I've finished piecing the top for my Halloween wall hanging. Right now it's about 22 inches wide and over 50 inches long. I'm going to trim it down to a rectangle but not soon. It's too hot too handle all that fabric right now and I'm short on sleep and will be for a few days. As it is, I'm not sure I've done it well but I'll figure it out when I'm more alert. It's so hot here in Texas that biggish projects aren't very appealing right now.  It was uncomfortable under all the fabric when I was piecing the long sashings on. I'm thinking of working on something smaller or turning my blockofthemonth  round 4 project into a quilt-as-you-go project. I'd like to get a book on the subject first to decide how to go about it and whether to machine or hand quilt it. (crossposted to my Live Journal)

On a roll...

I've so gotten into sewing this week that I've often forgotten to eat! It totally satisfies my cravings. Here's what I've done: My Halloween quilt is coming along. I'm trying to get the bat fabric to go in one direction and the angles I have to cut are weird but it's coming along. This is my layout so far: Some of the pieces have been sewn together on the diagonal. I'm hopefully going to work more on this today. I'm joining the blockofthemonth  group (on Live Journal) this round and I'm so excited! This is my first BOM, here's my fabrics: I used the B&W filter on my camera phone to take the second picture. The B&W photo shows the color values of my choices. That is one of my favorite tips that I saw/read somewhere along the way. These fabrics were given to me by my MIL. She made sets of decorative napkins out of them and I got a ton of leftovers. This BOM inspired me to use them, as soon as I saw it I knew I had the pe

Quilts: a finish, a modification & a WIP

Finished: The Maneki Neko quilt from Fat Cat Patterns is done! He's hanging on the wall and hopefully welcoming the money into our home ^_^ This was a fun quick project. I learned a lot and he's cute. I didn't do much quilting within his body because I didn't know what type of filler would work and if I could do it well. I followed the lines in the background print for the quilting outside the cat like a 5 year old but I'm still happy with the practice. I quilted scales on the fish and heavily lined the mouth and collar to make the rest of the cat pop out. I would never give this away because of the inexpensive fabrics involved. The fish was made with a higher quality scrap and it fused better and didn't fall apart when I quilted around the edges, unlike the white. Quality is worth the price. Next time I'll try not to skimp. It's 12.5 inches square which I think is a perfect size for me to try new techniques. Modification?: My labyrint

Pineapples and Lucky Cats

I think I need to practice updating more often and in smaller bits. I've been thinking it over the past couple of days and realized I was going to make one giant post after the project I'm making is done. I need to either make posts more often during the progress or cut to the basics so it doesn't take over an hour for me to write up a post. I'm normally much more succinct verbally but tend to type up a storm. Sunday we picked up a small pineapple on sale at the grocery store. It tasted so good it was gone in a day. Last year, I had found some information online about growing the pineapple top. I searched around and found this page: http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/Pineapple/pineapple.htm My pineapple top is drying out now and will hopefully get planted. I have a bit of a brown thumb but this looks doable. If it doesn't work out, I'll try again with the next pineapple. On the quilting front, I'm in the middle of an applique' project. It'