Sister's Choice Quilts

Christmas Pines

This may be my cutest Christmas table runner ever.  I absolutely adore how this turned out.  I used The Pattern Basket pattern "Christmas Pines".  The pattern is for a quilt, with sashings etc.   I just wanted the block pattern and used my imagination to turn it into a table runner.

I made 18 blocks and arranged them so everyone at my table has a right side up Christmas tree facing them. My two Sweetwater jelly rolls (Hometown Christmas and Cookie Exchange) are getting a real work out lately, and I haven't even used half of them.

The block was super easy and very fun to make with my jelly roll strips. The construction methods are very simple.  You sew strips of fabric together, then attach a background piece to each side of your strip set.

The pattern is very specific in its directions on how to position the background fabric.  After stitching, you trim the excess off, press, and add a bottom section with tree trunk.

Very easy, great instructions and I was able to make the 18 blocks for my table runner in a day, easily.

I sewed two rows of 9 blocks and have a terrific table runner that measures approximately 18 x 40.  I think I will have my quilter quilt it with a snowflake design.  It will be lovely on my dining table during the holidays.

I ordered the PDF version of the Christmas Pines pattern from The Pattern Basket. It was under $7.  If you want a fun, fast and easy Christmas project, this could be the one for you.

Another Christmas Table Runner

I have been so determined to crank out some new Christmas table runners this year.  I had an idea that it might be nice to use some French General red fabrics and create something.  I haven't ever done a full sized Drunkard's Path quilt, but love curved piecing.  I made a couple dozen Drunkard's Path blocks that finish at 4" and started laying them out.

Sometimes you just need to experiment. I loved this version, but it was way too long and narrow for the place I wanted to use it.  I liked the fact that I got several peaks and furrows though.  Then I rearranged things and got this effect:

Not as many peaks and furrows, but it was a better shape and size for my table.  I think if I had gone for a smaller sized Drunkard's Path block, maybe 3", I could have gotten the effect of the first layout and added some borders to get the size and shape I wanted.

I have loads of French General red fabric on hand, so I may have to experiment some more. The more I look at the first design, the more I like it.  Maybe I can give the second version to someone whose name starts with W...or M.... 

If you are afraid of curved piecing, don't be.  I have gotten a technique down and can produce these blocks like nobody's business.  I only use three pins.

There is kind of a knack for pulling and stretching the fabric as you sew the curve, but you get it after a couple of times.  Honestly, this runner only took half a day to make.  Good thing, since it looks like I will be making a few more Drunkard's Path blocks.

More Christmas Blocks

This week still finds me playing around with different Christmassy blocks.  I have a notion that I would like some new table toppers/runners this year.  The tree and house blocks in the photo are from an old Nancy Martin book called Make Room for Christmas Quilts.

The book has a lot of really nice patterns in it, that are very well suited for Christmas quilts (or quilts for any season for that matter).  Lots of decorating ideas in the book as well.  I doubt it is still in print, but I've had great luck getting used copies of out of print books on Amazon.

I have to say, that in the past, Nancy Martin's construction techniques and I have not gotten along.  Her method for half square triangles for instance, is just strange and very fussy in my mind.  I won't go into her methods, but those of you who know what I am talking about, feel free to pipe up.  The pattern I chose from this book is no exception to my previous experience, but I persevered because the blocks are so darn cute.  

I even used templates that I made myself, if you can believe it.  Perhaps that had something to do with my accuracy issues.... I had to re-do a number of units and do some clever trimming, but I am quite pleased with what I have accomplished so far.  The house block is adorable.  The tree block is rather different, in an abstract way-not really sure what those red and green half square rectangles at the bottom of the tree block are supposed to represent, but I went with it, as the pattern directed.

The tree block did call for these wretched half square rectangles, which are impossible for me to make with the technique given in the book.  I remembered I had a Peaky and Spike ruler set from ages ago, and it turned out that the Peaky ruler was just right for the half square rectangles at the base of the trees.  The results were so much better with the ruler than with the templates.

My plan is to make three blocks:  two tree blocks and one house block.  I want a narrow runner for my hall table, which is viewed from one side only.  The one way orientation of the blocks will be just fine there.

I loved what you all had to say about the orientation of my trees in yesterday's post.  And the pattern recommendations were awesome!  Thanks so much to all of you who posted links to free patterns for Christmas blocks.  What a great resource.  If you read my blog, I hope you also read the comments.  My readers have a lot to say that is entertaining and often extremely useful.

Let's Make Christmas Tree Blocks

I got an idea that I needed to make another Christmas themed table runner over the weekend and spent some time searching for free patterns on line.  Lucky me, I found a super cute one which originated from the Moda Bake Shop.   Here is a link to download the free pattern.

I had a couple of older Sweetwater Christmas themed jelly rolls that had virtually the same color palette, so I cracked them both open and chose the fabrics I liked for my three blocks.  I think the two collections were Cookie Exchange and Hometown Christmas.  Both so cute.  These tree blocks went together so quickly. I had a runner sized group of blocks in no time.  The only thing is, I think this runner would look better with some narrow cream colored borders at least, but then it will be too big for the place I want to use it.  It will fit my son in law's dining table perfectly, so I think I will quilt it and give it to him.  He always appreciates my little quilts so much, and I love to pass things on to him.

Meanwhile, I need to go back to the drawing board and scale down my trees for a runner that will suit my space.  I can't decide if I should just eliminate the bottom row of each tree, or trim down my strips and make much smaller trees.  Any suggestions?  If any of you know of a book that has a small tree pattern in it, or a pattern for one (free or not), I would love to know about it.

I also dithered for the longest time about making the middle tree upside down so that people viewing the runner from each side would see at least one right side up tree.  Then I decided that was just weird to have people on the other side of the runner have to look at one or two upside down trees.  There is something so wrong about an upside down Christmas tree.  Do you find it disturbing as well?  Feel free to weigh in on the upside down tree dilemma too!

Holiday Quilt Countdown

Here is a little sideways view of my almost completed red and white Christmas quilt.  I have been getting up into the sewing room sporadically and making the rest of the flying geese.  Only three more strips of ten geese to go, then I will assemble the sections.  The final step will be to add the outer border which I think is just going to be the Eggshell white that I have used for the flying geese and lattice squares.

I like the simplicity of that sort of border treatment, since the blocks are so different from one another.

The end is finally in sight with these darn flying geese.

I'd really like to finish this quilt up and get it to the quilter.  She is so good at getting things back to me pretty quickly, that I have a chance at having it in use by Christmas.

I need a new project to get excited about.  I may get out my Swell Christmas kit, as that would be fun to work on in November.  I'd love to get this done for Eva's bed for the holidays.  Thelma (Cupcakes 'n' Daisies) made it not too long ago and had some great tips for constructing the top.  I highly recommend you check out the link to her blog if you are thinking of making this quilt.

I've Got Halloween and Christmas Covered

I am making splendid progress on my Christmas Gatherings quilt.  I have all four row segments sewn together (row 4 is at the bottom, just out of the picture).  The horizontal flying geese lattices aren't done yet, as I am undecided what to do with the center square that is created when the lattices of geese come together.  Shall I do a star?  A solid red or cream?  A square in a square?  The white you see in the photo is just the design wall batting showing through.  Maybe I will go with cream, as I like the lightness that effect creates.

I have six more sections of flying geese lattices to make, as well as an outer border that features cream strips and some flying geese to finish off the unfinished looking squares on the sides.

I sure have been making a lot of flying geese lately.

After laying out my three Log Cabin/Flying Geese blocks, I decided that three was just the right size for my table.  I love the look of this block, and think I will be making more in other colors.  Tracey suggested cream, red and green for the holidays and I think she is on to something. 

Hope your week got off to a good start!

Having Fun With the World's Coolest Block

I am having so much fun with this quilt block!  I am calling it The World's Coolest Quilt Block.  On Saturday I made three of them in oranges and blacks for a Halloween table runner.  I think I will make two more blocks for the size I want for my table.  I could definitely stop at four blocks and make a square topper, but I have been enjoying the long traditional rectangular size on my dining table lately.

There were a couple of suggestions as to where this block originated, and it should not have surprised me, but one suggestion was that it is a Carrie Nelson design.

There it is on the cover of Moda's Mini Marvels book!  The pattern Carrie designed for the book is way smaller than I wanted however, so I did the following:

I made four 6 1/2" log cabin blocks, sixteen 1 1/2 x 3" finished flying geese, and four 2" half square triangles for the center square.  My block is 16 1/2" .

It would be super easy to enlarge or reduce the size of this block. 

My other projects are stalled out at this point, but I have a pretty free schedule this week, so if I use my time well, I should make some progress!

Hope you all had a terrific weekend.  I had a long chatty phone call with my son in Ireland, so that pretty much made my whole week.  We plan to spend most of September with him, and we are all very excited about that.  Did I tell you we will make a side trip to London and Paris?  Ooh la la.  I just can't wait to get back to those bookstores in London!  Foyles, Daunt and Waterstones.  The Triple Crown of bookstores.  Last year my suitcase was nearly to overweight status with all the books I bought to take home.  I plan to travel much lighter this year, so my back and my budget with both come out ahead. 

We are booked for a Harry Potter Walking tour in London, so my husband and I have been binge watching all the Harry Potter movies this past week.  We have made it through half of them.  I have also read the books, but want to bone up on what we are going to be seeing when on the tour.  Have any of you done it?  What did you think?  I can just see me trying to pitch myself through a brick wall at Platform 9 3/4, in an effort to board the train to Hogwarts.

Starching and Trimming

I know I sound like a broken record, but I cannot tell you how much better your stitching will be if you pre-starch your fabrics.  

I started the Primitive Gatherings Christmas sew along a couple of years ago, and did not starch my fabrics.  The piecing involved  many tiny units, and even though I knew about the benefits of starching when I started the project, I didn't bother with the extra step.  Mistake.

At the end of the sew along, I set my blocks aside as I wasn't sure how I wanted to set them into a quilt top.  This summer I found a fantastic setting idea and got my blocks out.  When I revisited them I found a large number of them are really not good enough to use.  The blocks are soft and floppy, not square, the points don't line up, and they are full of flaws and inconsistencies.

The one on the left is one I made two years ago with unstarched fabric.  It is bigger than the 6 1/2" size it is supposed to be, and when I sew it into the quilt top, some of the outer points will surely be cut off.  The one on the right is made with starched fabrics, but in addition I also trimmed up each unit to a uniform size before sewing the block together.  I made sure each of those nine units for the block measured a perfect 2 1/2".  And guess what?  My block is a perfect 6 1/2".

I used Bloc Loc flying geese rulers to trim the geese units, triangle papers for the  1 inch half square triangles and a Precision Trim ruler for squaring up the units and the completed block.

So the good news is, sewing with starched fabrics and trimming your block units to size before sewing makes for a very nice finished quilt block.  The bad news is, I am having to re-make a good number of the blocks I made for that sew along, in particular, the blocks with the smaller pieces and fussier sewing.

These are twelve blocks I have re-made.  It's a lot of work, but so worth it.  I am so much happier with the results- crisp looking blocks, sharp points, accurate size.

ADDED LATER:

I'm getting lots of questions about starching.  I am not talking about a little spritz of Best Press.  That is a great product, but is way too expensive for the kind of starching I am referring to.  I use cans of Faultless Heavy Spray Starch which I buy buy the dozen at Walmart for just over $1 a can.  You want to spray your fabric pieces so heavily that they are literally dripping wet.  Dry on a drying rack outside or in the tub.  Iron when dry and then cut.  

 

 

 

Christmas Gatherings

It's Christmas in July over here.  I have gotten out all my Christmas Gatherings blocks from the Primitive Gatherings sew along of a couple of years ago, and decided that a few of them needed to be re-made.  I don't think I was so into heavily starching my fabrics back then, and some of the blocks just didn't have that crisp sharp look (or accurate piecing) that starched fabrics gives.  I also needed to make eight more blocks for the setting I have in mind.

The top eight blocks are new blocks and the bottom three are remakes.  I went with some simpler blocks for the new ones.  I don't have all year to do this after all.  The sew along blocks were super fussy and called for some truly microscopic units.  The sew along gave patterns for 25 blocks, and I need 48 for what I have in mind, so I added in a ton of extras.

I've started in on the 320 flying geese I will need for the setting.  I have 40 done so far, but only ten are trimmed.  You can see I have my work cut out for me.

And you won't believe what I did.  Or maybe you will.  I cut out units to make 100 flying geese out of the red and cream fabric, and had it mixed up which were the "geese" and which were the "sky".  So that was a waste of about two yards of fabric.  You should have heard me up in my sewing room.  The air was blue, as my Grandma Agnes used to say.

It's only fabric, and I have plenty of that.  I won't be getting that wasted time back though...

End of the Week Progress Report

Time for a little progress update.  I have been doing things, I swear.  I got this last minute little table runner on the table on July 4.  Actually, I have had it a couple of weeks but only finished the binding on Wednesday.  I love the little stars and swirl quilting design.

You can see I am making progress on my Aurora stars quilt.  Not too much more to do.  Just a couple of short rows.  Here is a different angle where you can sort of see how I am putting it together:

Lastly, I have resurrected my Primitive Gatherings Christmas blocks from the sew along that I did a couple of years ago.  I saw an awesome setting for the Moda BlockHeads quilt, and decided it would work perfectly for the Christmas blocks.

This quilt is not mine (darn), and was made by Judy Losey.  I saw this photo on the Moda Facebook page.  It is pretty spectacular, right?  The setting idea was created by Carrie Nelson, and you all know how much I love her designs.  Isn't it an awesome setting for a lot of different sampler blocks?  It really ties them together.  Apparently I will be making a gazillion flying geese in my spare time...

Hope you all have a great weekend!