Sister's Choice Quilts

S'Mores Quilt Top is Together!

I am so happy with this little quilt.  I do have the top together, but I ran out of time yesterday.  I still need to attach the corner squares and trim the quilt edges to be square.  I will share a full size picture when I get that accomplished.

I won't lie, sewing these lattices on was a major pain.  It took forever...  Lots of pinning, a bit of unsewing, but in the end it all turned out very satisfactory.  It is no joke to get those blocks to line up straight.  I remember the first time I sewed a quilt with lattices.  I measured my strips, and merrily stitched the rows and lattices together.  Imagine my dismay when nothing lined up and all the blocks were askew and wonky.  Unfortunately there is much more to lattices than that.  They cannot be slapped on.

Here's a funny anecdote.  My husband and I celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary this week.  And we bought each other the exact same card by accident.  I guess after living 49 years with someone you become practically the same person.  We all got quite a laugh over that.

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Endearments

I can't tell you how much I love this little quilt!!  It is "Endearments" by Betsy Chutchian, made with her fabric collection Rachel Remembered.  The finished quilt measures 29 3/8" square, and has a Memorial Day/Fourth of July vibe to it.  I can see keeping this out on my dining table from May through September.

I have been sticking to my plan to finish up a few things before moving on to something new.  

I got the outer border on Windmills.  (Pattern by Bonnie Blue, fabric Rachel Remembered by Betsy Chutchian). I skipped the narrow red containment border and just went with the one wider border in a solid brown.  I am super happy with this one as well.  I will be sending both of these quilts to my quilter, maybe even today!

To be honest, a new project is calling to me.  Rather loudly.

This beautiful collection by Corey Yoder (Coriander Quilts) is called Pepper and Flax.  The pattern is "9th and Vine".  How springy is that?  I'll see if I can finish up one or two more projects this weekend, then we shall see...

Have a glorious weekend everyone!

Friday Finish--Raspberry Cocoa

Here is a fun Friday Finish.  This is a little mini quilt called Raspberry Cocoa, designed by Kim Diehl for one of her more recent Simple What Nots Club offerings.  I wasn't a member of the club in the past couple of years, but managed to buy the kit from someone on Etsy.  (It is amazing what you can find if you search!)  The colors are pretty much true in the photo--a bright raspberry pink and a warm cocoa brown.  I was taken by the fun variation on the classic Bear Paw block.

The "paw" is made up of a 3 1/2" half square triangle that you then sew a 1 1/2" square diagonally on the tip of the brown triangle.  I used my Folded Corner Clipper Ruler for that little step with good results.  If you haven't tried this tool for your diagonal corners, you might consider it.  There are tutorials on how to use it on YouTube, which demonstrate better than I can explain.  An Easy Angle ruler would work for this as well.

I found it a bit of a challenge to keep things straight with this quilt, but when I measure it, it is a perfect 27 1/2" square, just like the pattern says it should be.  

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, whether you are sewing, spending time with your loved ones, or just hanging out!

Two Blue and White January Table Toppers---Done!

I am ridiculously excited that I finished these two blue and white table toppers while it is still January.   The part I am excited about is that I did the quilting myself on the machine and it turned out decent!  Can't wait to tell you about the process.

I got so many really useful tips from you wonderful readers.  One of them that I jumped on right away was to look into the machine quilting classes that are offered on Craftsy. Craftsy.com   What a great resource!  I have used Craftsy in the past, but had kind of forgotten about it.  I purchased Jacqui Gehring's class called "Creative Quilting with your Walking Foot".  I loved the sound of that.  Free Motion quilting and I have not exactly hit it off as of yet.

Jacqui is a terrific instructor, and I felt as if I was sitting right across from her in a proper class.  Her main message is:  use your walking foot, go slowly and sew straight.  She likes to sew half inch grids or half inch straight lines.  I had never sewn lines so close together before, usually choosing to sew about an inch apart.  She said if you sew wide lines the attention will go to the lines.  If you sew lines close together, the focus isn't so much on the lines as it is on the texture the quilting gives to the quilt top.

She was dead on right.  The close quilting is a wonderful look and I don't think I have ever been this satisfied with anything I have machine quilted.  I finished the first topper and was well pleased, then tackled the second one and had the same great results.

Using her method, I did not have to mark my quilt top at all.  I used a piece of painter's tape laid diagonally on my quilt top and stitched my first line on the edge of the tape.  After that, you discard the tape and use the guide bar on the walking foot to follow along the first stitch line, making parallel rows across the surface of your top.

I am so glad I purchased this class.  I have used my walking foot and guide bar in the past with decent results, but you won't believe this:  I had the guide bar positioned completely on the wrong side of the walking foot.  Duh.  Nothing like a visual to set a person straight. 

Any way, if you don't "get" free motion quilting, but have a walking foot and think you can sew in a straight line with guidance, try this Craftsy class.  I found it worth the $24.99 and learned so much.  Plus, now that I own it, I can refer to it any time I like.  Jacqui offers additional more advanced tips as well, and I am looking forward to playing around with my machine. 

Have a great weekend everyone.  And thanks again for all the encouragement and tips regarding machine quilting.  I don't get to sew with friends anymore, so I love the feeling I get when reading all your comments.  It is like being on a retreat with you all!

It's A Finish

I am pretty pleased with this one.  Raise the Roof by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company.  Jefferson County fabrics, designed by Jeanne Horton for Windham.  The finished size of the quilt is 74" x 74".  There are 32 sawtooth star blocks and 32 log cabin blocks.

I love the "sunshine and shadow" effect the stars make against the log cabin blocks.  It is a barn raising setting, fairly traditional for log cabin quilts.  What makes this one special is the sawtooth star blocks.  It is finished with a piano key border, which I tell you, even though simple, took me a long time to make for some reason.

It is rather an accomplishment that this quilt ever got made.  I had set out to make the quilt a number of years back, and got most of the sawtooth stars done.  I realized that the pinks and browns I was using did not make enough contrast to show off against the backgrounds.  Alas, those blocks were scrapped and the pattern folded up and put away, with me feeling a bit of a failure.  It was always in the back of my mind though, and I knew with the right fabrics, I could make a quilt I could be proud of.

However, there was an additional delay with making this quilt.  It took me at least two years to unwrap my Jefferson County fabrics.  They were purchased from Jeanne Horton's store, Country Sampler in Wisconsin.  This shop is known for their adorable packaging, and these fat quarters were folded up like a present with a beautiful fabric bow.  No way was I going to take that apart.

This is a picture of a collection by French General called Chateau Rouge that I bought from Country Sampler back in 2013.  I will probably never have the courage to dismantle this beautiful bundle.  Honestly, just look at that.  I am such a sucker for nice packaging.

Despite my initial failure to make Raise the Roof, and my reluctance to cut into the perfect fabric for it, this quilt got made.  I know I will enjoy it on my bed for many years to come.

Hope you have a great weekend everyone.  There will be some Drunkard's Path blocks in my plans.

Paganini Christmas Table Topper

Well, it didn't get done by Christmas 2015, but I can tell you it will be on my table during the holidays in 2016!  This is Paganini, a Miss Rosie Schnibbles pattern that has a number of variations in how to construct the block.  This little pattern is worth the price, that is for sure.  You can make the blocks umpteen different ways for completely different looks.  I love the effect of the pretty fabrics in this table topper.  I think when the blocks are arranged without a lattice, they make a kind of kaleidoscope effect, don't you?

Here is another version of Paganini I made last summer:

My little Christmas Paganini quilt finishes at about 35 by 28 1/2 inches, which will look very nice on a rectangular dining table.  I used a layer cake of a collection by Sweetwater called Holly's Tree Farm.  This coming June Sweetwater will come out with another Christmas collection called The Cookie Exchange with a similar color palette, so if you like the feel of the fabrics I used in my quilt, you will be able to purchase something similar this summer when the new group is released.  I had enough fabric in the layer cake to make two table toppers, which was my intention.  Only one got made for now.

If you enlarge the photo, you can see the adorable prints in the Holly's Tree Farm line.  Old fashioned cars with Christmas trees on top, sprigs of holly, Christmas trees, stripes and text.  You can always count on Sweetwater to be adorable, but understated.

Antique Stars--Finally

Finished on a Friday, how appropriate!  At last, this big quilt is all done.  I swear if I didn't get it done this weekend, Tracey would have shown up on my door step saying, "For Heaven's sake Nicole, I'll do it, if you can't manage it after all this time".  I sure did drag this one out.  It was the lattices, what can I say?  There were just so many of them.

The quilt pattern is Antique Stars, by Red Crinoline Quilts.  The fabrics are all pulled from my stash, no one group predominates.  Reds, browns, tans, a hint of pink.  85 blocks.  It measures 91 x 91 and took me over a year to finish, mainly because I kept putting it away.  

The blocks were fun to make (combining the fabrics is always such a joy), and arranging them was a challenge since it was supposed to be pretty random.  The lattices took for bloody ever.

There was a mistake in the pattern, which you should note if you have an older edition of the pattern, as I did.  The cutting instructions say to cut two 6 1/4" squares and cut once on the diagonal for the corner squares.  It should be cut two 7 1/4" squares.  This error has been corrected in more recent pattern editions.

This one is going to be off to Mary Flynn at Quilt Hollow for quilting and should be properly on my bed in the New Year!

What's Going On?

I finished my Birdseye quilt top, that's what's going on!  I haven't trimmed it yet, and I want to examine all the little block intersections to make sure they line up right, but all in all, FINI!

This quilt is way big.  I was going to add the perfect border fabric from the Sturbridge Harvest collection, and I still might, but this quilt is big enough as it stands.  I really like the way the pieced setting triangles make it impossible to see right off the bat just how this quilt is put together.  There is a star block, and there is a double nine patch block, and then there are 16 pieced setting triangles.  The quilt is set on the diagonal.  It looks so complex to me, and I just love it. To give credit where credit is due, the pattern was designed by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Company.  She calls it Birdseye, and that's what I am calling it too.  It was a very fun quilt to make, due to the scrappy fabric combinations.

Not once, but twice, did I manage to put two identical nine patch blocks right next to each other.  I am trying not to let it bother me.  I am DONE with this quilt and am not fussing about rotating blocks at this juncture.  It is what it is.

I am way behind on Cindy Lou Who, the Schnibbles project for October.  I pieced the nine patch blocks, and now need to lay out the blocks and piece the snowball blocks appropriately.  My border fabric has not come, and I do not know when it will turn up, so even if I do get the top together by Saturday night, it won't have its borders.  Sad face here.  Can't wait for the show and tell on this one!  You all are so imaginative and creative it blows my mind.

 

I am very ready to move on to the Red and White Snowball challenge!  I have my three different lights all cut and set to send out to my seven swap partners.  I can't wait to see what I get from my swap mates!  On my side bar, I have listed all the participants who have blog sites, where we can link to see pictures of their progress.  There are a number of folks who are playing along who don't have blogs.  If any of you non-bloggers want to send me pictures of your progress, I will be happy to post them on my blog.  If I have left anyone out, let me know and I will add you in.

Thanks to all of you who gave such great suggestions yesterday to my question of what Andrea should do with the old quilt top she was given.  You all are super, and I know she really appreciated all your comments and advice.

Have a marvelous weekend everyone!

Friday Finish #9

Here is Madeira, with all its borders finally on.  This quilt top was fun to make because of the special cutting of the triangle sections.  There are a a lot of bias edges though, and the quilt top doesn't want to lay very flat.  It is a bit rumply.  My friend who is a machine quilter is confident that the rumples will "quilt out" as she says.

The fabric is Madeira by Blackbird Designs for Moda and the pattern is Jelly Roll Junction from the Anka's Treasures book "On A Roll".  It was fun to make, and calls for only one jelly roll!  I used two of them though because I wanted more choices in my color placement.

I have been thinking about how much it is going to cost me to get all these quilt tops that I finished this summer quilted.  All I can say is that it's a good thing I got a job!

Friday Finish #8, Coventry

It's still Friday, right?  I just finished this by the skin of my teeth, as Grandma used to say.  The main body of the top has been done for a week, but I had to scramble a bit to get all the borders on in time for my deadline.

The pattern is Coventry, from the wonderful book by Brenda Riddle, "Comfort & Joy".  (Brenda has a terrific blog called Little Acorns, but for some reason I am unable to link to anything today).   In the book, the fabric Brenda used was a pretty Christmas group from last year, called Roman Holiday.  I used one layer cake of one of this year's Christmas groups--"Peace On Earth" by 3 Sisters for Moda.  Can you believe I could do this with one layer cake (a pack of 10" squares from the featured collection)?  The stars went together great, and the background I used is Kona White.  I had a bolt of it that I appropriated from my daughter Sara.  The red used in the checkerboard border was a Moda Marbles that I had in my stash.  So, all I had to buy for this entire quilt top was one layer cake at around $30!

The pattern instructions were great, but this was a project where you could not go on automatic pilot while you were sewing.  You had to keep your wits about you and pay careful attention to the width of the three white border strips (three different measurements) and attach them in the correct order.  Also, each of the checkerboard border strips had a certain number of colored squares and white squares.  I spent a lot of time counting and re-counting those squares!

In my opinion, this quilt would be ADORABLE in one of the Mary Englebreit fabric groups, and with a black and white checkerboard border.   If anyone does this, please let me know, I would love to see it!  The beauty of this pattern is how it showcases a fabric group.  In each star, you can see a big swatch of each piece in the collection.  Super cute!

On the weight loss front, I lost two pounds overnight after eating only protein yesterday.  The waistband of my jeans feels much better today.  I don't know if I can stick with this for an entire week, but I aim to try!  Only three more pounds to go. 

Have a great weekend everyone!