Sister's Choice Quilts

Stars and Baskets Christmas Quilt Setting

I am making a lot of flying geese.  A lot. You see 140 of them in the photo above, and I have at least that many more to make.  

I absolutely love this setting, which makes the quilt as far as I am concerned.  It ties all the different blocks together cohesively in a beautifully unifying way.  The blocks started out as a sew along that Primitive Gatherings sponsored a couple of years ago.  There were 25 different 6 1/2" blocks, each one a star, with lots of tiny little pieces.  It was the first time I had tackled making 2 1/2 inch stars or 1 inch half square triangles in any sort of quantity.  I definitely learned a lot about piecing with mini sized block units.  And my blocks weren't really very good when I re-examined them two years later.  It was a learning process and I am grateful for the practice.  

I needed 48 blocks for the setting shown above, so I needed to make more blocks.  And I also needed to re-make most of the blocks I had constructed two years ago.  So here is what I have learned for making successful and accurately pieced blocks:

1)  Starch your fabric before cutting
2)  Make your units a bit larger and trim up each one to an accurate size
3) Use trimming tools such as specialty flying geese rulers such as BlocLoc or Fit to be Geese
4) Use triangle papers for making half square triangles- they are a godsend for those tiny 1" ones
5) Trim your final block to the designated size

I have to give a big shout out to Carrie Nelson who designed this brilliant setting.  She used it for her Moda Blockheads 1 sew along blocks, but honestly, it works fabulously for any type of sampler blocks that you want to look tied together.  For my extra blocks, I wanted to have a basket block in each quadrant, and those patterns came from several different sources.  I used a couple of sources for block ideas.  Both have instructions for blocks in several different sizes.

I'm so pleased with how this project is coming together--maybe I will get a finish this week!

 

Aurora Coming Together

I was running out of room on my design wall, so I decided to start sewing my Aurora stars together so I could fit more on the wall.

I cannot tell you how much I am in love with this quilt.  The stars are precious, and exactly the right size.  It is completely worth the effort to make a gazillion of these little 4 inch square stars.  Also, and it doesn't show up so well in the photo, the outer setting triangles in the blowsy taupe rose print are just perfect.  The background squares have the same taupe figure in them, just a bit more subtle.

This one is going to be a real favorite I think!

In other news, Eva is back from theater camp.  She was in a youth theater production of Esther.  I am not totally up on my Bible stories, and had to Google Esther.  It's complicated, but basically, she saved her people, the Jews, from slaughter.   Eva managed to learn her lines and the dance numbers, but was in it for the fun of being with the other kids.  She came home at the end of the week totally exhausted, and honestly still hasn't quite recovered.  We have been taking it real easy around here.  We did some reading and school activities to keep things fresh in her mind over the summer, went to the pool, did a fun watercolor and salt art project.  We had the nicest lunch outside Monday afternoon.  She is at the age where she can help make her lunch and loves taking part in whatever I am doing.  We cut up fruit and made sandwiches and carried them out to the back porch and enjoyed a nice conversation while we ate.  I am really enjoying my time with her.  That is Eva, fourth on the right, next to Esther.

Sewing Blahs

I am kind of stalled out on this project, to tell you the truth.  Not long ago, I finished a Double Nine Patch quilt that called for many nine patch blocks, and it was probably not the best idea to start another project involving nine patch blocks so soon.  I have really been putting off sitting down at the sewing machine.

I have purchased the border fabrics and have about 2/3 of the blocks done, but I am feeling so blah about sewing right now.  What do you do when you are feeling like that?  Do you fold up the project for another day and move on to something else?  Or do you buckle down and get going?

Maybe I have Post Vacation Blues?  All I want to do is sit outside with a book!  The weather has been in the 80s and so lovely outside.  It is hard to stay indoors.

 

This Is Going to Take a While.

Hope this photo doesn't make anybody dizzy.  I have all the blocks made for the Jo Morton S'mores quilt--I believe there are 113 square in a square blocks and 28 pieced setting triangles, and 4 pieced corner triangles.

I think I am going to love this quilt when I get it put together, but the next step is attaching all the lattice pieces, which as I said, is going to take a while.  It is hard to see against the light background of the design wall, but I have begun the process of sewing on the 128 short lattice pieces.  I hate to say it, but lattices are so fussy.  Especially the long ones, where you have to pin like crazy to make everything line up.

That is what I will be doing today, so wish me luck.  And tomorrow I hope I can show you a photo that isn't all wavy like the one above!

Catching Up With UFOs

All the blocks for the Double Nine Patch quilt are finished.  In fact there are enough blocks leftover to make another half a quilt because I took out all the dark brown fabrics.  This involved a lot of ripping, but I decided I just didn't like the look of the dark brown nine patches.  Now I am left with just dark blue nine patches in the quilt top.

This is my discard pile of dozens and dozens of dark brown nine patches.  The reason for this OCD compulsion to remove them was due to an idea that without the dark brown, the quilt would be "lightened up" some what.  I am not at all sure I achieved that, especially when viewed from a distance.  However, I did find some border fabric that plays much better with the dark blue fabrics.

Isn't that pretty?  It is even from the same collection as many of the dark blue fabrics I used.  I found it in the tub that held the kit I originally purchased a few years ago and never got around to making.  Evidently the border fabric was included in the kit, lucky me.

I plan to sew the blocks together today and with any luck, get the borders on.

Hope you all had a great weekend.  I spent mine sewing and unsewing in nearly equal amounts.  Sigh.

Time to Fish or Cut Bait

Before I fish or cut bait, I just want to let you know everyone is doing better.  Ozzie is almost himself again, Eva's wrist is pretty good, and my dad continues to think his eye is getting back to normal.  Thanks for all your kind wishes!

So, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I have at least six, no seven, projects that have all the blocks made, but need to be sewn together.  This is not a time to stop and start a new project, right?  

You all know how much I love this latest fabric collection I have been working with, Rachel Remembered by Betsy Chutchian.  I made the Windmills blocks you see on the right and they are ready to be sewn into rows.  Then I wanted to do something with all my leftovers, and assembled the units for the table runner on the left.  Then this happened:

See the little quilt at the lower right?  I decided it would be a really good idea to make that with the rest of the leftovers.  I have seven of the nine stars made, and will put this cute little thing together soon.

My plan for the rest of the week and the weekend is to 1) sew the blocks together for Windmills, 2) sew the leftover Windmills hour glass blocks together for the table topper, 3) put together the little patriotic table topper.  Then, it is definitely time to assemble the blocks for my blue and brown Nine Patch quilt, finish up my red and brown S'Mores top, and heaven help me, sew my Moda BlockHeads blocks together.

No more new projects.  Time to finish up what I have in progress.  So that's my plan and I am sticking to it.

 

 

 

Windmills Blocks Finished

I have finished the 169 pinwheel and hourglass blocks for the Windmills quilt. 85 pinwheels and 84 hourglass blocks.  And a mess of flying geese for the border, but I didn't count them.  The original pattern that inspired me is called Windmills and is designed by Bonnie Blue/Red Crinoline Quilts.  I kept the block size at 4 1/2 inches, but added rows.  I also had a very intentional plan for the color layout, rather than the scrappy random layout suggested by the pattern.

There was considerable fretting and switching up of blocks for this project, and I am happy with my finished result.  There will be one more solid brown outer border, so the quilt should end up being somewhere around 72" square.  I will be working on sewing those blocks and rows together this week.

Since I remade so many blocks, I had a ton of hourglass blocks left over for a table runner!

I also have a little extra project to use up the red and blue leftovers for a Memorial Day/Fourth of July table topper.  I will share that with you this week once I get my pieces cut out and a block or two made.

In other news, Ozzie got sick.  He is going to be 11 years old this June, and in his entire life, he has only been sick one other time.  Oh, he has been to the vet with injuries, but this time he was laid low with some bug or other since Wednesday.  The only thing that comforts him is Eva's Elsa blanket.  Luckily it is washable.

This is a dog who is so active.  It was very disturbing to have him not eat, not drink, not bark at the mailman, not get excited when the front door opened, and just lay on the floor still as could be.  The vet did $500 worth of tests and it looks like he may have a urinary tract infection.  We won't know until today (Monday) if he can have antibiotics.  Isn't that strange?  At any rate, he is somewhat better as I write this.  He ate some white rice and boiled chicken, has been drinking water and has been out to pee etc.  Poor Ozzie.  It is so sad when your pet is unhappy and looks at you wondering why you don't fix it.

Windmills Evolving

Well, this has been a process, I tell you.  I cannot recall when I have struggled and had to dig so deep to come up with an alternate setting arrangement for a quilt!

To refresh your memory, this is what the pattern looks like:

Super scrappy.  Great for a collection of random scraps, but I had a collection of fabric I wanted to feature a bit more.  My first idea was to replace the alternate rows of pinwheels with plain unpieced blocks.

It was ok, but just a bit stark.

Then I got an idea to do the alternate rows of pinwheel blocks with scrappy pinwheels.

Ack.  No.  My eye doesn't have a clue where to rest.  I feel like I will give myself an ocular migraine if I look at that too long.

So take a look at the photo at the top of the post again.  See how I am arranging the pinwheels in diagonal rows featuring the same color?  I think I have kept the idea of the original pattern, but made it less random.  There are a few blocks in there that don't have enough contrast that I plan to replace, but you get the idea of where I am going with this.  

And the best thing is, it is using a ton of fabric because I keep re-making blocks and eliminating the ones the bug me.  It's a stash buster, just not in the way the pattern intended!

Hope you are all having a great week and are getting ready for the weekend.

My news this week has to do with family members being a bit under the weather.  Eva fell off the monkey bars at school and sprained her wrist.  We had her home with us yesterday.  And distressingly, my 92 year old father had a small stroke in his right eyeball of all places.  It isn't unheard of, but his vision is slightly impaired now (but he can still watch tv and read).  He has all sorts of appointments scheduled with eye specialists and his cardiologist to get to the bottom of it.  I talked to him tonight and he is home, chipper as usual, and hopeful that it may improve.  Getting old isn't for sissies, as Bette Davis said.

Windmills: Change of Plan?

I am back from my little Spring Break with family, and got back into the sewing room for a couple of hours over the weekend.  I had started a new project, "Windmills", before I left, but was not happy with the jumble of prints and patterns.  

This is what the quilt is supposed to look like.  It is a true scrap quilt and the joy of it is the mixture of color and the riot of different prints.

My problem with it is that I really loved the colored prints I was using from Betsy Chutchian's Rachel Remembered.  Upon reflection, I wanted to feature the prints more and eliminate some of the busy-ness that all those pinwheels next to each other creates.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts.  Should I let the quilt be "free" and have mixed color/print pinwheels all over the place, or be more controlled in the placement of color and eliminate some of the busy-ness of having pinwheels every which way?

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.