Sister's Choice Quilts

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!

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.

Luck o' the Irish

I am ready for the next holiday!  Over the weekend, I was able to finish up this little table topper for St. Patrick's Day.  It still needs to be quilted, but that shouldn't be a big deal.

The pattern is called Luck o' the Irish by Fons and Porter, and is on their website.  You can download the pdf file for around $7.  I added a second row of squares for the border, as I wanted the quilt to be a bit larger than their pattern.  The stems are appliquéd, but weren't a bother at all.  I used invisible thread and the invisible stitch on the Bernina.  My version of the quilt measures around 16" by 34".  Fons and Porter rates the difficulty level of the pattern as "easy", and I would agree with that.

The fabric collection, which is so seasonal right now, is a jelly roll of Greenery, by Maywood Studios.  The fabric doesn't seem to be in stores yet, which is a shame, with St. Patrick's Day right around the corner.  They claim to be releasing it sometime in February.  I bought the jelly roll from someone on Etsy, who said they picked it up at Quilt Market.  Any greens would work of course, but these fabrics had just that perfect shamrock green.  I have about 3/4 of the jelly roll left over!

Hope you all had a nice weekend, and an extra day off, if Monday was a holiday for you.  Eva was off school so I took her to the movies to see Peter Rabbit.  The movie was sort of cute, but was brought down a notch by some really juvenile scatological humor.  In this grandmother's opinion.

UPDATE:  Fatquartershop just announced the arrival of Greenery today!

Tiny Town

I've been working on this cute little table topper for Valentine's Day.  The fabric is Love You! by Sandy Gervais for Moda (I used two charm packs), and believe it or not, the pattern is actually three patterns.  All patterns are by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company:  Full House (a Schnibbles pattern), Tiny Town and In the Pink Hood (two free patterns).  All I have to say about the pattern is that it is super confusing, flip flopping between all three directions.  Somehow I have made this twice and it has come out properly much to my surprise.  With much muttering and head scratching.  It measures about 23 inches square.  Click on the links for the free patterns.  Full House may be harder to find, but I believe it is still available.

Maybe I will get this quilted today so I can put it to use.  After all Valentine's Day is three weeks away!

If you have a kid in your life, you may be interested in my little purchase from Bath and Body Works.  Eva needs to use hand sanitizer, (she calls it "Hanitizer"), so I picked up these little bottles on sale, 5 for $6.  And you have to carry it in something, right?  So I picked up this little zippered Lip pouch that she can clip onto her backpack.  How cute would that be for a little Valentine's treat for a special someone?  The whole collection was under $12.

Plain Folk

This little quilt is a Kim Diehl design called Simple Folk.  It finishes at 18 1/2 inches and was made entirely on the Singer Featherweight.  The blocks start out with 2 1/2" pinwheel blocks, which form the center of log cabin blocks.  
The blocks finish at 6 1/2".

It has kind of a homey/folksy feel.  I love how these tiny quilts look when tucked into a basket or with a candle sitting on it.   It was fun to make, and I am all primed to make a few more small projects while I wait for a working grown up sewing machine.  Which could be weeks from now.  But that's ok.  My little Featherweight is being a champ.

I had a little stack of green and red fabrics I thought would be adorable for a Christmassy table topper.  I had just the collection of inspirational patterns to choose from, except....Except my books have gone missing.  I had Jo's Little Favorites, Jo's Little Favorites II and Simple Friendships by Kim Diehl and Jo Morton and now I can't find them anywhere.  Last time I saw them was when the housecleaners were here on November 2.  I vaguely recall putting them away so my table surfaces would be clear for dusting, and they have completely disappeared.  I swear I looked for them for an hour yesterday.  I feel like I am losing my marbles.   Arghhh.

Bye Bye Bounce

It took me awhile, but I did get the final border on my Halloween Bounce quilt top and am sending it off to my amazing quilter this week.  

Last year was the year of me sending quilts off to be quilted that I intended to gift to family members, but this year I am taking care of my own unquilted tops.  Time for some new quilts around here.

I love the colors used in my version of "Bounce", a Miss Rosie pattern.  They are mostly Civil War Reproduction fabrics, but I deliberately chose prints that had a brighter hue.  I have orange, gold, green, black and purple.  I absolutely love an excuse to use both black and purple in a quilt.   If you look closely, you can see there are actually two different sizes of stars in the quilt.  And that border....isn't it the best?  It really "makes" the quilt.

This quilt looks like an end of summer/early fall quilt, and I know I will enjoy using it from the moment I get it back from the quilter.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

 

 

Puttering Around Over the Weekend

Hi there.  Hope you all had a brilliant weekend.  Mine was pretty much perfect, in that I stayed home the entire time except for a trip to the grocery store.  I am becoming such a homebody in my old age.  I spent the time, not particularly productively, but puttering around in my sewing room trying out a couple of new things.

The first is a new pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company, called Olio.  Olio is a one block pattern made with a template that is included with the pattern.  The quilt is made from lots of charm packs, a dozen if I recall correctly.  It has a wonderfully scrappy look that you could certainly achieve with scraps, rather than charm packs.  

The template is very nice acrylic plastic, and is used to cut the fabric pieces.  You cut your charm squares or scraps to 2 1/4 inches by 4 1/2 inches and the little template fits perfectly on the units.  All you have to do is trim the angles.  There is an A unit, and the template is flipped to cut the mirror image B unit.  I cut two fabrics at a time, that is why you see two different prints.  I wanted to demonstrate how you sew them together to make a "unit".

Sew your A unit pairs together and then sew your B unit pairs together.  These units are assembled in long strips to make the quilt top.

I have a combination of various charm packs and fabric scraps I plan to use for this quilt.  Can you imagine how amazing this would be in all Christmas fabrics, or a red white and blue theme?  Or all your Halloween scraps?  Or all Jo Morton fabrics?  Or how about all Bonnie and Camille or French General?  I am thinking of how dreamy it would look out of all Kate Spain or Tula Pink fabrics.  The sky is the limit.  If you have a favorite designer and have loads of left over scraps, consider this quilt as a wonderful way to combine all those leftover fabrics into an "homage" quilt representing your favorite designer's collections.

I won't be starting this quilt for a while, as I am determined to finish up my Penny Pincher quilt first before moving on to anything else.  But I am very excited to get started on it none the less!

 

Halloween Bounce

The pattern I am going to use for my beautiful palette of fall colored fabrics is Bounce, a pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.  The version on the pattern cover was pieced by Thelma Childers, of "Cupcakes 'n' Daisies" and quilted by Linda Hrcka of "A Quilted Pineapple".  What I love about this pattern (besides the scrappy stars) is the amazing border.

I had over 40 fabrics in my cache of hoarded fabrics, pulled with this particular project in mind.  I have been saving up a black, orange, green, purple and gold color palette for going on two years now.  I thought I would share my thoughts on color selection with you all.

Recently two designers came out with fall color inspired lines (Julie Hendrickson's Sampler II and Renee Nanneman's Pumpkin Spice).  I bought both bundles and added them to the fabrics I had already collected.  What happened when I added Sampler II and Pumpkin Spice into the mix was that my choice of greens changed dramatically.

These are the greens I had originally planned to use:

Sort of muted, light greens.  

Once I had the oranges, purples, golds, and blacks assembled, these greens seemed too wimpy in comparison.

I pulled some other, much stronger greens to see how they worked.

My color choices have always been more instinctual than calculated, but I think you will agree that the darker, bolder greens work better with the stronger pure tones of the other fabrics pulled for the project.

For me, assembling the colors and fabrics for a project is just about the most fun part of making a quilt.  Let me tell you, I was pretty jazzed to start sewing now that I had my fabrics decided upon!  So that is what I did over Labor Day Weekend.

Get Over It

I mentioned that I have been in a bit of a slump, sewing-wise.  I have just not felt inspired by much of anything lately.  I have definitely been bored by a couple of the projects I have worked on recently.  Log Cabins are cool, but not terribly interesting to work on, I have decided.  Maybe I should try one of the log cabin variations (curved, combination blocks etc) to spice things up next time.  If there is a next time.  And oh.my.gosh, if you join any clubs sponsored by one designer, just beware.  That's all I'm saying.  I love Kim Diehl, but 18 of her kits sitting on my shelf is not just making me feel guilty, but b.o.r.e.d.   I am going on such a regime of Not Buying It for awhile.  Shop at home Nicole.  You can do it.

That being said, my son Ahren needs a quilt right now.  He actually purchased a jelly roll for me when he was vacationing in Norway.  He spent 459 Norwegian Krone for a jelly roll of Laundry Basket's Hope Chest a while back.  That is probably equivalent to about $60 US.  Anyway, he thought it was a collection I might like, and I had so much fun explaining to him how Edita Sitar is so unique in blending traditional fabrics with coordinating batiks.  I loved the jelly roll he got me, and at the price he paid, certainly wanted to make good use of it.  I ordered two coordinating mini batik rolls and have enough (with some background fabric) to make a good sized quilt for him.  

Don't you think this Kim Brackett pattern called Bali Stars is a good choice for this collection?

If I can get my mojo back anytime soon, this is a quilt I would like to  make.  All I need is some cream batik background fabric and I will be good to go.

Fabric Baskets for Toy Storage

Have you all tried making fabric baskets?  They are so convenient for sewing accessories, children's small toys and all sorts of other odds and ends.  

For Valentine's Day, I gave Eva a Dog Washing Barbie, that came with all sorts of little puppies and dog washing paraphernalia.  Tons of little pieces that were bound to be spread all through the house and lost.  I had a piece of Frozen themed fabric her uncle and auntie had sent her from Denmark, and thought with some fussy cutting, it would be just the thing to use for making a little basket to contain her toys.  

There are a slew of fabric basket patterns on the internet that are free downloads.  If you just Google "fabric baskets" you will get loads of results. I did download a pattern called 123 Basket, which I kind of sort of followed.  My fabric pieces were cut 9 inches by 14 inches.  I lined both the outer pieces and the lining with fusible batting to give it shape and make it firm enough to stand up.  It was what I had on hand, and it worked fine.  

I think I got the handles positioned wrong, but Eva doesn't seem to care.  They kind of flop down like sad bunny ears and they should be more horizontal and stick out from the sides of the basket more.  Oh well.  The basket works great for containing all the little pieces that go with this toy set, and is in a fabric that pleases her.

You can whip these up in an hour and I know you could find all sorts of uses for them.  How about the next time you need a little gift for someone?  You could whip up a basket and fill it with a cute tea mug and some assorted teas.  Or soaps and a little bath mitt.    Or a gourmet muffin mix and a cute spatula?  Or an Easter basket for the special kid in your life?