Sunday, May 5, 2019

The Charming Sampler

Here is a new little project I've been working on titled "The Charming Sampler":

 It's about 34" square, the blocks are 3" finished. It's a project for a future class. The majority of the fabric in the blocks came from one Charm Pack of 5" squares. The sashing and border fabric are from yardage.

To give you some perspective, here it is on the "design wall"--that is still covered in my 100" x 100" Lifetime Quilt. That HAS to come down very soon as I need the wall for another large quilt under construction:


On the personal front, our beloved grandchildren (and their parents) are moving home to Alabama! They were here earlier this week on a househunting trip and Lauren will start her new job by the end of May. We are thrilled and had such a great time babysitting almost 4 year old Stella and 7 month old Sam while Mom and Dad looked at houses. They will be about 35 minutes from us, so much better than 9 hours!


Let's quilt!

Barbara

15 comments:

  1. Oh how I envy you... having grandkids ( little ones at that) just half an hour away.

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  2. Happy for you about family moving home! Quick question on the charming sampler, are you hand piecing or machine piecing? Thx!!

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    2. I've got a new pattern recently that has Stars ...tiny little pieces and it says to do by hand-sewing...I don't know if I could do it on machine or not. It's worth a try. Bernina babies can do most anything, right? What stitch length and thread weight did you use for Charming Sampler?

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    3. A quarter inch is the same whether the blocks are 3" or 12"--there is just less wiggle room with smaller blocks, you HAVE to be accurate. I use Masterpiece or Aurifil thread, stitch length 2.0--I use stitch 1326, the piecing stitch on the 770. It shortens the length to 2.0 and lowers the tension, automatically. Some like to piece with Bottom Line or Quilters Select 60 wt--fine, strong polyester threads. Experiment to see what gives you the accuracy you desire.

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  3. What an exciting time for your family and moving 35 minutes away from you...lot's of enjoyable time and togetherness is ahead for you two!!

    Lovely projects love your color combinations!!!

    Happy Mother's Day...next Sunday...what a special celebration you all will have♥️

    Carolyn

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  4. Awesome tiny piecing, and it is a great blessing to be close to your kids.

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  5. Congratulations! It will be so much fun to have them so close.
    Love your sampler.

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  6. Yes, congratulations on the kids and grands moving back to Alabama. The Sampler is looking great too.

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  7. That is a beautiful little sampler! And I can never get enough of that "Lifetime" project!
    How exciting to have your grands move so close to home. We love having 4 of ours within 15 minutes, and wish the one 12 hours away wasn't, well, 12 hours away!

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  8. Barbara, a woman at Sew Creative gave me a wonderful idea for finishing My Favorite Things with a second flying geese border that is kind of like a mirrored image of the first. I haven’t decided whether to paper piece those flying geese, or use the four at a time method. I love the quilt above.

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  9. Phyllis, great idea! Glad you can comment. Now I have to figure out how I can get my “Reply” feature back...

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  10. If it helps, I did get a reply by email.

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  11. Barbara, I hope I don’t wear you out with blog suggestions! I’d love to read about more about how you insure contrast. Your comment about contrast providing the drama has stuck with me. I just finished a quilt top where I focused more on contrast, rather than color. Mostly I’m happy with the results, but, if you’ve got examples of where contrast did or did not work as you thought I’d love to read about that. Are there any general rules you follow? Do you mix in muted fabrics with brights, etc?

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