Sister's Choice Quilts

Ahhhhh

Just what was needed.  A break from 36 degree mornings and constant rain.  It is beautiful here in Palm Desert, and I wish we could stay two weeks rather than one!  Look how considerate the clouds are: they stay politely back behind the mountain range and don't interfere with the sunshine.

It can be cool here as well, especially in the morning and if one is clutching a freezing cold strawberry banana smoothie.

We have been getting plenty of pool time.  More than enough for this old nana.  I think Eva went down the waterslide 100 times the first day we were here.

She has also painted a birdhouse, made a Build a Bear, and made about 50 new friends.

What can I say?  The weather is great, there are loads of activities and we are spending time with our grand daughter!

Time for Spring Break

Sorry my posting is sporadic this week.  It will be next week as well!  Can you guess from the photo what is going on here?  

It's Spring Break and we are headed somewhere warm.  I've got my sun hat, my sunscreen, sun glasses, and a selection of good books to read by the pool.  My bikini days are over, but I do have a couple of swim suits packed.  

I swear, I have as much fun figuring out what to take on a trip as I do going on the trip!  Are you that way too?  In advance, I audition my clothes & my cosmetics, plan recipes to cook while at the condo, and generally spend at least as much time planning and packing as I do on the vacation.  

Food will be easy. We are traveling with Eva, so menus will consist of mac and cheese, tacos, hamburgers, pizza etc.  With any luck, my husband will take us out to eat a few times.  Clothes choices shouldn't be as complicated as I am making it.  Tee shirts, flip flops and elastic waist pants should do the trick.

We have a house sitter lined up to stay with Ozzie, and she likes him even more than we do, so he's in good hands.   She has all sorts of "outings" planned for him, which he will love.  For a change, he will be sorry to see us come home, rather than the other way around.

I will try to post a bit while we are off enjoying ourselves, but don't worry if I drop out of sight a bit.  I'll try not to post too many pictures of the swimming pool, the flowers, the bright sunshine etc.  I know, it's hard when most of the country is having spring snow.  Yuck.  I am so over the rain, the cold and the lack of sun, and I am sure you are too.

Windmills: Getting Organized

I worked on Windmills quite a bit this weekend, mostly prepping fabric and cutting and getting organized.

The blocks required are pretty simple-hourglass blocks, pinwheels made from half square triangle units, and flying geese.  It seemed like it took ages to get to the cutting stage.  With the wet weather we have had, starching, drying, and pressing the 70 fatquarters I had pulled took forever.  Well, two and half days actually. Once I had cut out the fabric to make my three block components, I laid them out on my table with labels to keep it all straight in my head what was for what.

Then I started in on making the hour glass units.

This little ruler by Open Gate Quilts is such a handy tool.  Fit to be Quarter, designed by Monique Dillard, it is just what you need to square up hourglass blocks.  The pattern called for cutting 5 1/4" squares for the hourglass blocks, but I knew that I needed to cut the fabric squares larger and trim them down for the best results.  So, I cut my fabrics 5 1/2" square and did just that.  There wasn't much to trim, but it made the difference between slightly wonky blocks and nice square perfect ones.  Did I mention that the blocks for this quilt are 4 1/2" square? 

So, here is the thing I have come to terms with:  This scrappy layout is way too random for me.  There is too much going on.  Too much color, too many patterns, no place for my eye to rest.  Give me a day or so to work on it, but I plan to come up with a plan to get this pattern to conform to my comfort zones.

Here is another random note- Over the weekend I did an upgrade to my MacBook Air laptop and now my photos are coming out mirror images of themselves.  Look at the print on the top of the pattern.  What the heck is that about?   Ah, technology.

Pinwheels and Hourglass Blocks

Just revel in these gorgeous fabrics for a moment.  Ahhhh.  Aren't they just the best?  The darker fabrics are mostly Rachel Remembered by Betsy Chutchian, and the lighter ones are from my stash.  I absolutely love those blues and golds. And of course the reds and browns.  But those golds....

It's an old Bonnie Blue pattern I have had around for years.  Windmills.  The blocks are alternating pinwheels and hourglass blocks, with flying geese for the borders.  The blocks are only 4" finished, so the quilt made as the pattern directs is only 56 inches square.  Sorry, that is just not a terribly useful size imho.

So I need to make more blocks.  Heaven knows I have plenty of fabric.  I have pulled at least 75 prints so far. I just love the colorful, festive look of this quilt.  There is something very joyful about it.

Hope you all have had a good week. I appreciate the comments I received regarding my favorite notions.  It's funny isn't it? We think we have seen it all, but every year there are new things that make our quilting journey easier or at least more fun.

Have a terrific weekend everyone!

Favorite Notions Part Three

Welcome back to my sewing room, for a tour of some items that I love using.  The strange looking item in the photo above is not a sculpture.  It is a standing thread holder, given to me some years back by a friend.  It isn't possible to fit the larger more economical thread spools onto a standard sewing machine, and this upright thread holder makes it possible to use those larger spools.  It has two upright spokes for holding thread or spare bobbins, and a loop at the top that feeds the thread efficiently over to the sewing machine.  The little round decoration in the middle of the flower is a magnet Eva stuck on there.  I rather like it!

I love making little fabric baskets I can use in various ways in my sewing room.  The larger one is a thread catcher, and I keep it right next to my machine for corralling all those pesky threads and snippings that get all over the place.  I have several of the smaller ones, and use them for holding binding clips, Alphabitties, extra machine feet, etc.  

Where would I be without my Ott Light?  I got this one at Joann's when they were having a coupon sale.  It has a magnifier on top, which believe it or not I use frequently, particularly when I have to pick out little stitches when "un-sewing".  The light is good, and I switch it back and forth on the table, depending on which sewing machine I am using.  And look, there is another of my little fabric baskets just behind it.

I shared this with you all recently, and have to say that my new ironing station is one of the greatest additions to my sewing room ever!  Metal shelving from Lowe's cut down to size by my husband, with a heavy plywood board on top for my pressing.  I used two layers of batting and made a fabric cover for it.  It is sturdy and hard and very flat.  Greatest pressing ever.

Irons. Lots of irons.  I go through one a year for sure, and have given up on buying really expensive ones.  Whatever I pay, it only lasts a year.  This is my latest, my second TFal, and I really like the blasts of steam this one puts out.

I hope you can see this well enough from my photo.  It is a small table rescued from the basement that has my Steady Betty pressing board on top of it, plus a pressing mat and another iron.  This is my small ironing station that sits just to the right of my big Bernina 740.  It is so handy to be able to press small units without hopping up to the larger ironing station every couple of minutes. 

If you don't have a Steady Betty pressing board, you should look into getting one.  They are very portable and make pressing small units or appliqué pieces a breeze.  I covered mine with some extra fabric I had laying around, so it will look different from the ones on their website if you look there.  You can keep it on your sewing table or pick up a small table at a thrift store to set right next to where you sew.

Lastly, behind my ironing stations, you see two design walls I have for laying out quilt blocks.  These are so essential for accurate laying out of blocks and previewing your work as you sew.  No more laying blocks out on the bed in the guest room, or breaking my back trying to use the floor.  These design walls are made of foam board from Lowes, cut to size.  The larger one is 72" square, and the smaller one was actually made from leftover scraps.  You can easily cut foam board with a box cutter, and then cover it with felt, batting or flannel.  Mine are screwed into the walls. 

Hope you enjoyed my posts on my favorite sewing notions and accoutrements this week!  Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if you would like to share some of your favorites.

Favorite Notions Part Two

I have so many favorite quilting tools and notions that I had to break my post up into chapters!  

In the photo above is my Fiskars rotating cutting mat.  I have a larger one as well, but this tiny eight inch one is just right for itty bitty block units.  On top of the little yellow cutting mat are my Alphabitties, which are so handy for labeling those teensy little block units as you sew them together.

These are my favorite triangle papers.  Star Singles by Spinning Star Designs.  I love using these when I have to make super small half square triangles.  The paper is easy to sew through and tears off with little effort.  These papers come in a wide range of sizes.

Some favorite rulers:  Starting with the largest one, the Bias Square ruler by Patchwork place.  It is eight and half inches square and I swear I use this thing all the time for squaring things up.  I don't think you can get it anymore, which is a shame.  Many other rulers do the same job, but the lines on this one are so easy for my eye to follow.

To the right is my Easy Angle ruler, which is terrific for making half square triangles.  You cut strips of fabric the final size of your hsts and layer two strips together and cut along the strip.  I have shown how to use this is many posts.

Just below the Easy Angle is one of my favorite Bloc Loc rulers, the 2 1/2" square.  I have the Bloc Loc half square triangle rulers in several sizes (1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 and 6.5), but this is the size I seem to use the most.  This is essential for squaring up oversized half square triangles to a perfect size.

Below that is a very heavily used Creative Grids ruler.  This one is 4.5 x 8.5.  I use this one a lot to trim down strips into smaller units.  Actually any size Creative Grids ruler is excellent, and I have many in different sizes that I use all the time.  The 8.5 x 24.5, the 6.5 x 12.5, and a variety of square ones, all get lots of use in my sewing room.

Last, are my Bloc Loc Flying Geese rulers.  I have these in several sizes as well, but fine these two are the ones I use most often.  1 x 2 and 1.5 x 3.

Check in tomorrow for some larger things in my sewing room that I highly recommend.

 

Favorite Notions

Instagram has been buzzing in the past week or so with quilters sharing pictures of their favorite notions.  I thought that would be a great topic for a blog post, but I have so many favorites, I think I have to divide them up into several posts!

Some of my absolute essentials are in the photo above. Starting at the top left, I have a funny wool ball pin cushion that holds my specialty pins:  

These numbered pins are so great for marking quilt rows as you sew them together.

I use these forked pins to keep my seam intersections exact and also to prevent seams from flopping over and getting sewn wrong.

I couldn't live without these binding clips.  They hold your binding in exactly the right fold while you are sewing it to your quilt.  No more wonky bindings.  Love these things.

Just below the box of binding clips is my needle threader.  Goodness, no binding would be sewn on without that little tool.  My old eyes need all the help they can get.

Just to the left of the binding clips is my Roxanne thimble.

These thimbles are extremely expensive ($65), but are custom sized for your finger and last a life time.  If you get yourself fitted for one of these thimbles you can pass it down in your will.  I have had mine for over 15 years and would be devastated if I lost it.  I have very small tapered fingers and regular thimbles literally fall off my fingers.  I have never found one to fit me until I discovered Roxanne.

Next is my handy lint roller.  I wear a lot of black, and let me tell you, it is not a great look to find yourself covered in little threads and pieces of lint.  I am in the habit of not leaving my sewing room until I give myself a once over with my lint roller.

Below the lint roller is my Zirkel magnetic pin dish.  Love the way the pins fan out in it.  In the dish are my Little House quilting pins.  Super fine and even if I accidentally sew over one, the needle seems to miss it.

Next, we have my favorite seam ripper, which is made by Bernina.  One came with my first Bernina sewing machine and I have purchased many more over the years.  They have a super sharp and tiny blade that picks out threads or rips entire seams with ease.

Then we have a pair of Tweezerman tweezers.  These are a must for picking out threads after you have done some "un-sewing".  I can't tell you how often I use these.  Ahem.

Next to the tweezers is my Clover chalk wheel marker.  I use this all the time to mark lines on my quilt tops when I am doing straight line machine quilting.

I keep a little pair of thread snipping scissors next to my sewing machine at all times.  These little pink ones are by Singer, but Olfa makes great ones, as do several other manufacturers.  These little scissors get a lot of use, and they do get dull over time and need to be sharpened or replaced.

Last up is my Olfa rotary cutter.  This pretty one was a gift from a friend years ago, and I enjoy it's orange floral design so much.  I am coveting the new pink ones that are coming out soon.  I prefer the 45 mm size.

Please share what your favorite notions are, and check back tomorrow for a few more of mine.

 

 

State Fair

I've been working on a couple of springy table runners this past week.  I shared Tootsie Pops with you, which is super cute, but I wanted another runner that showed off more of that beautiful Lilac Hill fabric I had been hoarding.

An old Schnibbles pattern called State Fair came to mind, and I decided that would be a good choice for what I had in mind.  I tweaked the pattern to make 21 blocks set in a rectangular format, 21 x 42", a good size for my oval dining table.  The blocks are super fun to make--a great method of making larger odd sized blocks that are trimmed down to a perfect 5 1/2 inch size.  And when you have a gorgeous bundle of fabrics, it is a joy to pick and choose which fabrics you want in each block.

I still have to sew on the binding, but later in the week I will take a picture of the finished results on my dining table.  Just in time for Easter, right?

And I have this much fabric left.  Little Bear says I should just go ahead and make a quilt with it.

Tootsie Pops Progress

Some progress has been made on my spring table runner.  Aren't those blocks adorable?

I thought I'd talk about the pattern and the block construction in case some of you might want to make this pretty runner for yourselves.

The pattern, Tootsie Pops by Fig Tree, was designed to use those little 2 1/2" precut packs that Moda puts out.  It is a great use of those little guys, but when you use them to make half square triangles, you end up with an unconventional size, 2 1/8".  I had fat quarters, so I cut 2 1/2" strips and used my Easy Angle ruler to make the half square triangles.

I had forgotten how much I like this little tool.  You cut your strips the size you want your half square triangles, or slightly larger if you want to trim down to a smaller size for better accuracy.  Layer your two fabrics right sides together.  The ruler is angled as you see and you position on the strips as shown and use your rotary cutter to cut out the triangles.  You end up with two layered triangles all ready to sew on the machine.  Flip the ruler and make your next cut:

I chain pieced my scads of triangles and pressed them out.  I had stacks of 2 1/2" half square triangles.  The size I needed according to the pattern was 2 1/8" half square triangles.  On to the next step.

I used my  2 1/2" Block Loc ruler to trim the half square triangles down to size.  I don't mind the extra step at all.  I think the perfectly accurate results is well worth the time.

Tootsie Pops

I have been dreaming about spring table runners.  I knew I didn't want anything too pastel, but definitely wanted fresh greens and maybe some lavender.  No pattern or fabric collection stood out for me.  That is until a couple of days ago when I was browsing through Instagram and saw the perfect spring table runner.

Linda Hrcka of The Quilted Pineapple (machine quilter extraordinaire) showed a lovely picture of a runner she had made with a fabric collection by Jan Patek, and a pattern by Fig Tree called Tootsie Pops.  Exactly what I have been wanting to make.

So, I went to the stash closet and got up on a step stool so I could really see what was on that higher shelf.  I had a fat bundle of Brannock and Patek fabric called Lilac Hill, from TEN years ago that I have been saving for something really special.  I know.  It is insane to hoard a fabric bundle that long, but it isn't like it is going to go bad, right?  A few years ago I had made a quilt with another Brannock and Patek collection called Audra's Iris Garden that has many of the same colors.  I put together a stack of prints fro both groups and loved how they look together.  The fabrics have the green and lavender I was going for, and some beautiful reds.  Have to include the reds.

I downloaded the pattern from the Fig Tree website and was good to go.  Don't you love it when things come together?

I got started and cut out my fabric-a two and half inch strip of each of the colors shown in the photo at the top of the post.  So, I still have enough of this fabric left over to make about 50 more table runners, or even a full sized quilt.  Or I can keep on hoarding it.