Sister's Choice Quilts

Time to Get Organized for 2024

Happy New Year everyone! I hope yours was safe and healthy. We spent the weekend putting away our Christmas decorations. Every year I swear I will put up half of what I normally do, but somehow I bend to pressure and put it all out again. Well, our house has been "hushed" as they say. Surfaces have been severely decluttered and everything is neat and tidy and C.A.L.M.

Now it's time for me to get organized for 2024. After the last ornament was put away I went up to my abandoned sewing room and took stock. The list above shows the active projects I want to focus on in the new year. I'd like to finish Hourglass and Applesauce, get caught up on a couple of other sew-alongs, and get back to my Snowman Village (Designer Mystery 2015). 

Remember this great project? I think it is the ideal thing to work on in January. I have completed seven blocks and the alternate blocks. Five more blocks to go, assembly and borders, and this could be on my bed in January 2025!

Block eight, let's go! 

I made a start with some starching, so I should get something accomplished today.

We said goodbye to Ahren on Friday, which is always sad. He had a marathon journey home, which took over 24 hours door to door. His British Airways flight was delayed, so he missed his connection to Dublin at Heathrow. They got him on the next flight, and his packages and baggage made it home with him, so all's well that ends well.

Best wishes for an outstanding 2024 to all of you. I am looking forward to sewing, cooking, and reading with you all year long! Speaking of reading, look for my Best Books of 2023 post sometime this week.

Opening Day Is Coming Together!

I am making major strides toward finishing my Opening Day UFO. Yesterday I got three rows of stars sewn together for the center of the quilt. I was thrilled that the points of the stars are all coming together great. There was some concern in my mind that they might not.

And I am thrilled to report that I finished all 128 flying geese for the border that will surround the center section of the quilt! Once I started sewing a scant 1/4' seam, I had a teensy smidgen of fabric I could trim off the flying geese units, which made a big difference in them coming out the same size. I am truly thrilled with my progress on finishing this quilt top up.

 I have a funny story for you. I've been chuckling over it for the past two days. Last night Eva texted me that she was getting a special award at school Friday morning, and could I be there? I was excited to find out more, and told her that of course I'd be there. What was the award for? "I am getting the 'On A Roll Award'", she proudly texted. The 'On a Roll Award'? What does that mean? "I got all A's on my report card, so I am one of the kids who will get the 'On A Roll' Award". 

"Do you mean you are on the Honor Roll?"   

You can't tell me you aren't at least smiling.

Opening Day Flying Geese and Stars

Here we have 36 star blocks for Opening Day! Making them wasn't too bad, except for trying to starch the already pieced units. I did switch over to Mary Ellen's Best Press, and it is working pretty well. The fabric doesn't get as stiff as I like, but you know what that product is brilliant at? Getting fold lines and stubborn wrinkles out of fabric. You know those lines that don't seem to ever press out? Well, something in Best Press tackles them and makes them disappear. 

The 128 flying geese are going to be a process, however. I have made about a dozen. I just hate this method of making them. Well, I should amend that statement.  The method isn't so bad, but there was absolutely NO room for error when cutting out the pieces. For a 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 unfinished block, the instructions have you cut one 5 1/4" square and four 2 7/8" squares. If only it had given me an extra 1/8", I could trim these geese down and they would all be perfect. The instructions just say "your flying geese unit should finish at
2 1/2 x 4 1/2".  Right. In some ideal parallel universe. 

Now, in the pattern, Carrie says she herself used Monique Dillard's Fit to Be Geese method, which of course makes the units oversized and you trim them down. But she doesn't tell you Monique's measurements, for copyright reasons no doubt. I sure wish I'd paid better attention to Carrie's comment and used Monique's method back when I cut out this fabric!

My geese are coming out relatively well. Very close to 2 1/2 x 4 1/2", but just a hair smaller or a hair wonky in one way or another.  Fudgeable. Is that a word? I am making it work. These new ones are a heck of a lot better than the ones I made in 2010 at least.

If you are wondering what that plastic gizmo is on my throat plate it is a stitching guide by Lori Holt called Seams Sew Easy. You position it just so on your machine bed and supposedly you don't need to draw lines for stitching diagonally. It works great, but with these precarious units I didn't want to take any chances, so I drew lines anyway. You can see on the unit under the needle that the device works great. See how the bottom tip is lined up perfectly with the right hand line/guide?

Hope your week is off to a good start. Yesterday was baking day, so Eva and I made mini bundt cakes from a Taste of Home recipe. I filled the cups too full, so I need to watch that next time.

 

 

36 Stars Done!

I have been completely obsessed with my discovery of an old UFO "Opening Day", a pattern by Carrie Nelson. This UFO was all cut out and all the flying geese for the star blocks were made. Back in the day, I wasn't that concerned about making flying geese with a super accurate method, and I certainly never considered starching my fabric before cutting it out. 

These two issues are huge. I have come so far from 2010 in terms of my quilting perfectionism. I now always make my flying geese and half-square triangles slightly larger and trim them down to the desired size. Or use paper piecing. Additionally, I have embraced pressing my seams open for the most part, which makes my blocks so much flatter. I also only work with starched fabric these days. My accuracy and the look of my blocks is greatly improved. 

Working with these kinda-sorta close to 2 1/2 x 4/1/2-inch flying geese units was awful. I tried starching the units with spray starch, but that shrank the fabric a bit, which I could not afford. Then I switched to Mary Ellen's Best Press, which gave the units a bit more body, but not the level of crispness I like.

(I'd love to hear from those of you who love Mary Ellen's Best Press. Tell me what it is that you like about the product. I definitely prefer to use spray starch prior to cutting out my fabric, but the Best Press seems like a good product to use while sewing or after the block is complete.)

So here's a funny aside. I am the first to admit that my math skills are definitely basic. However, I was pretty sure I knew my multiplication tables. For some reason I was figuring that if I made 8 blocks of each of my four colors I would end up with 36 star blocks, right? Um, make that 32. So of course I was short and had to come up with some additional fabric to make four more stars, plus re-do some flying geese that were wonky and to replace the center 4 1/2 inch squares that I shrank with the spray starch. Luckily my stash is vast and I actually found some great fabric matches.

Well, I've got my 36 stars done, and I am full of appreciation for my usual method of making accurate flying geese and working with nicely starched fabric. My next step is to make 126 more flying geese for a border. I can't starch the fabric, but I am going to see if I can come up with a way to use my cut-out pieces in a way that allows me to trim the units down slightly. 

Overall, I am pleased with the way the blocks are coming together, but it's harder work than I'm used to!

Down a New Rabbit Hole

I got an email this weekend from someone who was looking for a pattern in this Farmhouse Favorites book by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. Since Carrie is my favorite designer I have her book. The book is out of print now, sadly, but you can still get copies on Amazon and used copies as well. Twelve of Carrie's patterns are in the book, and those individual patterns will not be found for love or money anymore. I sent my reader the link to purchase the book, but I don't know if she did or not. It's a great book, actually.

The email from my reader put me in mind of an ancient UFO that I had started back in 2010, maybe earlier.  I think I abandoned it because we were moving and I never picked it up again after we were settled in our new house. The project was called Opening Day and I was using the exact fabrics shown on the pattern cover, "Rites of Spring" by Brannock and Patek. I went out to the garage and had a rummage, and low and behold, I found the box with the project. Unfortunately, the pattern instructions were nowhere to be seen, so I was lucky to have the book, which has the pattern in it. 

It seems that I had cut everything out and had made 140 flying geese for the quilt blocks. This was back in the day when I felt that close was good enough and starching fabric wasn't anything I considered doing. Well. These days I go to a lot of trouble to have my flying geese be perfectly accurate in their measurement, and I can't sew on floppy unstarched fabric to save my life. What could be done to salvage this project? I started out by trimming the flying geese down to as close to the exact size as I could get. I wasn't getting much to trim which encouraged me.

I decided to lightly starch the block units as I went along, which was a big mess. It did work pretty well though once it dried. I didn't notice any shrinking and the fabric crisped up enough to make it at least "sewable". Gosh, am I ever spoiled working with nicely starched fabric now that I have adopted that practice. 

I made eight red stars on Friday. They are a skosh shy of 8 1/2", but I think I can make it work.

Then on Saturday, I made eight green stars. 

I still like this fabric, and green and red are a favorite combination for me. The other stars are kind of a bronze color, and a chocolate brown. I think I'll work on this a bit each week and see where I get. Wish me luck! Do you ever rediscover an old project and decide to finish it? This seems to be my year for tackling UFOs!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Eva is back from science camp. I picked her up on Friday at 6:00 PM. She was starving and dirty, so I brought her home and put her right in the shower. We fed her fresh baked banana bread and a hot meal, and she was in bed by 8:30. All in all, I think she had a great time.

 

 

Star Studded Event Quilt: Finished!

I am happy to tell you that I finished my second UFO of 2023! This is the Star-Studded Event quilt, started in the summer of 2018. This was a block-of-the-week kit/program sponsored by Primitive Gatherings. The pattern is now available on their website. 

It's a great scrap quilt project, and once you get those center 2-inch stars completed, the rest of the piecing is easy. I really like this quilt, especially its generous size! It ended up being 84 inches square, which as you can see, fits great on a queen size bed. 

I did remove the dark pink blocks but left in the light blocks that had some pink in them. In the grand scheme of things, the pink isn't particularly noticeable in the lighter-toned blocks. I made some additional lighter "dark" blocks in pale blue, sage green, and light brown. Before I did that the quilt had a somber tone to it, as one reader mentioned. I much prefer it now that it has been lightened up. I have lots of leftover blocks. About 10 pink ones, and some navy, black and dark brown. I will probably end up making a table runner out of the pink ones. For next year's Valentine's Day.

I am totally happy with the finished quilt top, as well as being thoroughly sick of working on it. I'll send it to the quilter as soon as my backing fabric arrives. Once I get it back from her it will go right on my bed. 

Hope your week is going well. Eva has been staying with us this week because her daddy has come down with the flu. She's been lots of fun, and as always, keeps us on our toes. I forgot to tell you that we finally got our new oven. It works great. Baking is now fun rather than a frustrating exercise in adjusting the temperature up or down depending on how it is working.  We have made chocolate chip cookies, a quiche, and various snacks for Super Bowl with great success.

Tackle Those UFOs

Have you made a list of your UFOs and started tackling them? My January UFO is Take It Easy, a jelly roll quilt pattern by Primitive Gatherings. I started it a couple of years ago and it has been sitting in a project box half finished for a while. 

I do love a red and white quilt, and think this one may be a gift for one of my brothers-in-law. A quilt I made for my sister that he always loved has been damaged by his dogs and he asked me if I could replace it. I think he would like this one. Actually, she would have liked it too. She was always so appreciative of the quilts I gave her.

At any rate, I digress. I finished all the blocks for this project and plan to see if I can sew them together this weekend. I have a major tip for any of you who plan to make this quilt:

TRIM YOUR BLOCK UNITS AS YOU SEW.

Because of the nature of jelly rolls, I was dealing with more variation in the width of the strips than I would have had I cut 2 1/2 inch strips out of yardage. Consequently, I don't think two of those block units came out quite the same size. They were real close, but not precise. 

I did trim the final 12 1/2 inch blocks to size, but I sure would be happier with these blocks had I trimmed each of the block units as I made them. Construction is super simple, although you can get mixed up as to the placement of the 2 1/2 inch square in each unit if you aren't careful. 

This is what the finished quilt top will look like. 

Say, I have a question for you all. I have a friend who is taking a trip to Tuscon, Arizona next week. She would love to visit any quilt shops in the general Tuscon area. Can any of you make a recommendation? She would sure appreciate it!

Resurrecting a UFO from 2018

I was digging around in my sewing room, looking for something to do this week. Which is of course what one does on Thanksgiving week, when one has work deadlines, cranberry relish and pies to make, and a house to clean. And did I ever find a project. Back in the summer of 2018, I signed up for a weekly block kit from Primitive Gatherings. They called it "Star Studded Event". Of course it features teeny tiny pieces, which Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings is known for. 

At the end of the project, you were to end up with 240 six-inch quilt blocks. Super scrappy of course. And each block has a 2 1/2 inch center star.

Here is one 2 1/2" center star. It is tiny all right. The flying geese units are 1" x 1 1/2". Good grief, my yellow rotating mat is a mess. My friend Thelma sent it to me eleven or twelve years ago and it has gotten good use, obviously. I can't bear to replace it though for some reason.

I had already finished 120 blocks, so yay, half way through. As I started going through the weekly fabric kits, I felt (as I often do with scrappy kits) that many of the fabrics were (to put it kindly) not to my taste. So that led to much rummaging around in scrap bins and me cutting more strips to make blocks more to my liking. You should see my sewing room. To say it's a mess doesn't quite sum up the complete chaos. 

This is how you assemble the blocks. You get four blocks out of a fabric strip assortment for one color story. Five color stories per weekly kit, so 20 blocks a week. Evidently I forgot the instructions not to combine duplicate fabrics within a block. No problem I have about a hundred more blocks to make.

The blocks really are awesome. I need to finish this project. I think it will be an heirloom. I will keep you all posted.

In other news, if Jan gives me the ok, I will share her Thanksgiving Jello Salad story tomorrow. I think you all will get a kick out of it and be able to totally relate to it! 

Hope you all are getting more done this week than I am. I still have all the cooking and house cleaning to do today. How smart of me to have procrastinated and left everything for the last minute.

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!

What Next?

I tell you, give me a week to spend sewing, and I can get things done. Lately that hasn't been happening though, but due to a Covid outbreak in the family, I have been able to get up in my sewing room for extended periods this week. And look what I found.

This is an ancient fabric collection by Fig Tree & Co. It was called Strawbery Something. Strawberry Fields, Strawberry Rhubarb, Strawberry Shortcake, I can't recall. It was a Block of the Month Designer Mystery sew along sponsored by Fat Quarter Shop from 2011.  Eleven years ago.  Can you believe I dug up a UFO older than my grandchild?

And I never made a single block. Month after month for a year I paid for my monthly block subscription and never sewed a blessed one. 

I had neatly stored all the fabrics in a plastic tub and still had all the patterns. 

I started assembling the fabrics needed for each block and starching them. Yesterday I made three blocks,
and I don't mind saying, they are adorable!

Block number one.

Block number two. This one took a while. And I got two of the corner blocks turned wrong. Fixed it!

Block number three. I think this one is my favorite.

I am having fun working with these larger blocks (12.5 inches unfinished). I have no idea how I will put them together. Probably a simple setting with the white tone on tone polka dot I am using for my background. I will never find a matching border fabric after all these years, but Fig Tree will have a red print that will still match, so I think I will be good.

Did any of you make this quilt back in the day?