Sister's Choice Quilts

Red Sampler Sew Along Week Nine

I feel as if I've been on vacation for two weeks. Today is the day I get back on a schedule though. I plan to make the most of any free time I have during the week and not lose momentum with my projects.

The red and white blocks above are week nine of Lori Holt's Red Sampler sew-along. Those cheerful red fabrics put a smile on my face. The little framed four patch is so cute.

I wanted to share a tool I have been enjoying a lot. It is called "Cute Cuts" and is a block square up trim tool by Lori Holt. You can buy the tools individually or in sets of various sizes.

If you love crisp, accurate blocks you might like this trim tool too. It is great for squaring up small 3 1/2 inch blocks, but I found it indispensable for trimming 3 1/2 inch block units in the 12-inch blocks I was working on recently. Looking at the photo above, you may think "Wow, Nicole was pretty spot on with her 3 1/2 inch unit".  Ahem, thanks, but check this out:

I was pretty close, and maybe it would have been just fine as is without trimming. However, if you love accuracy, you can see that there was a fair amount trimmed away to achieve the exact 3 1/2 inch measurement. My 2011 Designer Mystery blocks came out great, and I credit this trim tool and a lot of fabric starching for my good results.

Quilting Friends Are the Best

I am actually completely thrilled with this photo. I have finished all 12 blocks for the Fat Quarter Shop 2011 Designer Mystery Quilt! Can you imagine? These blocks were just scraps of fabric that languished in a tub for 11 years. Well, no more languishing. They are going to become a quilt.

But there was just one problem. Back in 2011 when I wasn't working on these blocks, the finishing kit was offered for sale by Fat Quarter Shop. And I did not buy it. The finishing kit had all the fabrics for a fabulous setting, alternate stem blocks, borders, and binding. 9 extra yards of fabric to make a quilt that finishes at
76 x 94.

I reasoned to myself that I didn't have to complete the quilt as intended. I would have 12 great blocks and quite a bit of background fabric, which would be enough for a lattice and inner border. For the outer border, I would need a print that coordinated with the blocks. The fabric is by Fig Tree & Co., and their reds are very consistent. So, no problem. I wouldn't end up with such a large quilt, but it would be pretty and it would be finished.

Then the quilting gods smiled upon me. My quilting friend Lisa D. reads my blog. She emailed me to say she had the kit also and had never made it. Sadly, she had lost the love for this quilt and doubted that she would ever make it and therefore planned to sell or donate it. And she had the finishing kit. I offered to buy it from her and she agreed. Can you hear the sound of angels singing? She has mailed the finishing kit to me and as soon as I receive it, you can bet I'll start work on it.

Oh, and here is something else that makes me happy:

Yesterday I used up a big spool of Aurifil thread! I started using it in April 2020. I was thinking it would last me a year, but I did not sew much in 2021, so it has lasted me 20 months!!! Now, that seems like a good deal for $48. $2.40 per month. I wrote 1/22 on the inside of the cone and will be interested to see how long this new spool lasts.

Hope your weekend was great. If you have today off, make the most of it!

My Garden is in Blossom

Another productive sewing day for me yesterday. This has been quite the week for getting my mojo back. I finished the fourth and fifth blocks in my 2011 Designer Mystery BOM. The setting is going to be so cute. I will be making little stem units so it appears that each block is a flower. Hope I have enough green....

That fifth block (the middle right one) was a bear to sew, I can tell you that. It was a bit fussy. But it used all the colors, woo hoo. Of course, I got one tiny unit switched around (not just once but four times) and had to do some unsewing. Ah, those thread-picking interludes are restful for the mind, right?

I am really enjoying these bright fresh colors.

I also can report that I got my Serendipity quilt top all put together, except for the borders.  Maybe I can wrap that up on Sunday afternoon.

Have a great weekend everyone!

2022 Off to a Great Start

The New Year has gotten off to a great start for me. My goal is to tackle my large number of UFOs and either finish them or let them go. It's probably not surprising that I was drawn right back into the Lori Holt Red Sampler quilt. I had completed only six weeks of the project. The "Sew-Along" ship has sailed, but lucky for me, Lori has kept her sew-along posts on her Bee In My Bonnet blog, so I can refer back to the weekly instructions. Here is a link to all sixteen weeks of this sew-along.

Yesterday I had a lovely day in my sewing room and completed six blocks for Red Sampler Weeks Seven and Eight.

I've also been working on sewing the rows for Serendipity together and trying to catch up with Among the Stars Again block of the month. I'm feeling very good about my organized approach and look forward to showing you some completed tops soon. Or, at least in the next months...

Also, I have gone through my "flimsies" (completed but unquilted tops) and made a pile of some that I want to donate. My charitable organization of choice was Firehouse Quilts in Boulder, CO, which is quilting tops and giving them to victims of the terrible fires that took place in Colorado recently. I have five tops that I plan to mail to them today.

Why do I suddenly have so much time on my hands? Um, well, certain members of my family have come down with a well-publicized contagious virus and are isolating this week.

Hope you are all staying well and getting things done!

 

Not To Worry

Another table topper back from my quilter. I used Sandy Gervais fabrics for this one. I loved it when she designed for Moda. Her colors are so rich and saturated. I know she is still designing, but I am not sure for whom. Does anyone know? I miss her collections. I don't think I used an actual pattern for this quilt. I believe I used triangle papers. Each block is made up of two large half-square triangles in a color family, and two units made up of four smaller half-square triangles in the same color family.

I saw my doctor yesterday about my black-out issue on Monday while eating a sandwich. Some food I was eating got stuck partway down my esophagus and when I stood up to go get some water I keeled over in a faint. He explained to me that the esophagus is a very sensitive area controlled in part by the autonomic nervous system. If something is going wrong there (like food being stuck), blood will leave your brain and go to the affected area. When blood suddenly leaves your brain, you black out. That is exactly what happened. He is positive my fainting was directly related to that specific incident and not anything more dire. Of course, if it ever happens again I am going to be having a boatload of tests. 

Hope you all have a terrific weekend. October has definitely left the party and we are suddenly in gloomy grey November. I am really in the mood to sew, but I am at my father's so that will not be in the cards. Maybe this coming week if I have time I will cut out a few easy things I could stitch on my Featherweight at his house.

I Did It!

I set a goal to finish the last row of the Serendipity Sew Along Quilt this week and I did it! I still have to sew the rows together and attach the borders, but that is a goal for another week. I really love the colors in this quilt and know I will enjoy putting it out next summer and early fall.

Look what Eva made this week. She wanted to make mummy cupcakes and I love what she did. She made seven mummies and decided that was enough. After mixing some yellow and red food coloring into our white frosting, she achieved a nice pale orange, and she frosted the rest of them that way.

I am so enjoying our fall weather right now. The days have been just lovely and in the early evenings, we have been sitting on the front porch and watching the deer wander through. Don't you think fall is way too short? It is still blistering hot here through mid-September, and then by November the leaves have fallen and it is getting into our rainy season. The six weeks between Sept. 15 and Oct. 31 are glorious.

Don't get me started on how the retail stores rush the seasons. I went to the Trader Joe's by my dad's house last weekend because everyone knows Trader Joe's has great food for fall. And they were out of everything fall-related. The employees were putting out the Christmas food already. NOOOOOOOOOOO. Please let me have my butternut squash ravioli for a few more weeks.

Hope you have a terrific weekend!

Last Serendipity Row Coming Along

All my block units are finished and ready to sew into blocks. Row Seven of the Serendipity Sew Along is nearly a done deal. With luck, I will finish the six blocks today.

In other news, this is my tree in the backyard that I share every year. The leaves start to change color and over a two week period it gets progressively more colorful. One day, it is mostly red and the next day all the leaves fall off in one fell swoop.

So here's the interesting thing. This is happening about two weeks early this year. My son-in-law, the winemaker, tells me the grape harvest was accelerated this year also. Started early, lasted fewer weeks,  and is over and done with sooner. I wonder what is up with that?

Could it be we will have a more severe winter? Maybe some rain? Maybe enough to get us out of the drought we are experiencing? Time will tell.  

Anyway, I will monitor the progress of my backyard tree and share it with you.

Guess who Miss Eva is going to be for Halloween? Her dad texted me that it took two hours at the hairdressers to achieve that look.  Hmmm, should I believe him?

Another Way To Make Square in Square Units

After I posted on using Fatquartershop's Square in a Square foundation papers yesterday, I got an email from my friend Barbara. She reminded me that there is a ruler/tool that she has used for years to make this unit, and that she didn't see the need to purchase the foundation papers, good as they are.

And you guessed it. I too, own this ruler and forgot I had it. It is Deb Tuckers Square 2 ruler/trim tool. It actually is quite brilliant. It turns out the center square unit for the Square in a Square block is always a very strange, impossible to measure size. Like 3.1576" or something. So, the beauty of using a foundation paper or ruler with the center square already marked for this oddball size is the key to having the units come out perfectly. 

The first step is to cut your center square according to the finished size block you need. This is clearly marked on the ruler. I was making the 3 inch finished unit. Next you cut your triangle units according to the finished size. You get an overly generous measurement because there will be a final trim down. In my case I had to cut the squares for the triangle pieces 2 3/4".

Once you sew the triangles onto the square you use the Deb Tucker tool to trim to the perfect size, which is also marked on her ruler.

Do you see the X marks that you line up at the corner points? Isn't that brilliant? You line all four Xs up then trim around your unit and you will have your exact Square in a Square unit.

I compared my Deb Tucker Square in Square units with my Fatquartershop foundation paper unit and they were 100% exactly the same perfect 3 1/2" unfinished size. 

Plus for those of you who care about these things, you use less fabric with the Deb Tucker method.

Here is the YouTube tutorial for the Deb Tucker Square 2 method. 

Thanks Barbara, for the reminder about this great tool. I love the foundation papers as well, but once you have this ruler, you are pretty much all set. Fatquartershop sells both the ruler and the papers. Links above.

Rough day yesterday, but we are taking things a step at a time.

I Love Mondays

I saw something on FaceBook yesterday, where someone was moaning about it being Monday. I have quite the opposite reaction to Mondays. I love Mondays. I am home with my husband again, I can enjoy my house, and if time allows, get caught up on a bit of sewing or reading. Mondays are a re-set day for me. A chance to start fresh and enter the week with hope and goals.

Take a look at those lilies, will you? My husband bought them for me, and they are perfect with my fall decor. How about the size of them? Yikes. He bought them for $8.99 at Walmart of all places. They are over a week old and still look spectacular. We do change the water often, but that is amazing.

I have made my last mug rug for a while.  I'll make a few for Christmas, but I am done for now. This one is for me. It isn't as technically perfect as the last one I made, but I am satisfied with it. Love that Kitty Corn fabric.

I just noticed something, and I am surprised you guys didn't point it out to me. My Christmas block on the upper left is sewn together wrong. Do you see my mistake? Oh goody, I will have to take it apart and fix it.

Here is a little glimpse of my hall table, which makes me happy every time I walk past it. My husband got us a little mini haunted house that works great on it. That photo of my son and me was taken at the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studios in London. We look too nice to be dangerous.

He must be standing on a box. I look like I am about four and a half feet tall. He is six feet tall and I am about 5' 4" if I stand up straight.

Then This Happened

Oh dear, I am not sure what came over me. This is Fig Tree & Co.'s latest Halloween collection "Pumpkins and Blossoms". It is different from, but coordinates perfectly with their previous Halloween group "All Hallows Eve".

You know I am making the "Among the Stars Again" Block of the Month in a beautiful Christmas collection by Lella Boutique called "Christmas Morning". The BOM I accidentally signed up for with Fat Quarter Shop. Well, I figured since I was already making two blocks each month in the Christmas fabric...

...I might as well make two more in Halloween fabric.

Just to be clear, in case anyone is confused, I am not combining the Christmas blocks and the Halloween blocks into the same quilt. I will be making two quilts. One Christmas, one Halloween.

I am just glad all the thinking is done for me because I don't have the energy to do anything too clever on my own these days.

As an aside, the cream background fabric in the Pumpkins and Blossoms line is a tone-on-tone print. It is cream with a little pumpkin figure on it. I can't show it off properly in a photo, but trust me, if you can get your hands on this background fabric, do it. It will be perfect for any fall or Halloween-themed quilt you do in the future. I managed to get 6 yards from an Etsy seller, and am so glad I did.

This is the design in black and orange. It is pretty darn cute too. The fabric I bought is all cream, with the design printed in white. The SKU of the tone on tone is 20427-21

Hope you all had a great weekend!