Latest Finish--Sawtooth Stars

 About a year ago I participated in a swap of 6" Sawtooth Stars organized by Barb Vedder of  the blog Fun With Barb. She has done several and this link shows some great tutorials on the swap blocks used in this and prior swaps. She has said this will be the last, there is lots of work to manage these free swaps, and I understand why she will do no more.

I had fun with the quilting. It is now finished except for the label, almost queen size: 

It is hard  to show the quilting. All of it was done with rulers on my Bernina Q20 sit down longarm. Simple half circle designs on the white sashing:

Point to point half circles on the stars--I figured that out all by myself: 

Curved crosshatching on the perimeter triangles  and the smaller triangles: 

Overall effect is pleasing to me. Might just give this one away to a friend who needs a quilt: 

I made and received 40 star blocks made from reproduction fabrics. I made 10 more to complete the design. To enlarge the blocks I added four triangles to each to make them 9" blocks: 

I posted more about how and I why I made this quilt here: Sawtooth Star project.

Now on to finish another top.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

The Latest New Quilt Project

While doing "secret sewing" I can't show you, I am making another quilt at the same time:

This is not the final design placement and there are many more blocks to go, but you get the idea.

The corner triangles are being sewn on as "leader/enders" while making the secret quilt. Easy and it gives me a sense of accomplishment as each star goes from 6" to 9" finished and finds a place on the design wall.

At the first Joyful Journey Retreat, one of the women was working on an old project she was eager to get finished. I really liked it and thought I would want to make one like it someday:

All of April's Sawtooth Star points are the same light off-white fabric and the centers and backgrounds are different fabrics. The sashing and cornerstones tie it all together. I like the wide variety of fabrics very much, especially in the outside perimeter triangles. But when would I have time to start yet another quilt from scratch?

While laying in bed, when I should have been sleeping, I remembered I had 40 6" Sawtooth Star blocks I received in a swap, from Barb Vedder's blog: Oh, My Stars Swap  Perfect!

I "did the math" and decided to cut 80 squares, 6" each, to provide the 160 triangles needed to surround each star. Rather than dig out 80 fabrics, my original plan, I quickly decided to cut 2 each from 40 fabrics, in a wide variety of colors.

Once the four triangles were sewn on the four sides of the star, I pressed them firmly and trimmed the block to 9.5" square. This allows the stars to "float" just a bit. To float them even more, I could have cut those squares larger, say 6.5", 7" or even 7.5". That would make the stars larger. 

Once all the stars are surrounded with triangles and trimmed to 9.5",  I will decide what sashing and cornerstones I want to use. This makes for a larger quilt and gives each star room to shine.

Swaps are notoriously challenging--I have participated in many over the years. Even though Barb's instructions were clear and spot-on, not all of the blocks I received followed those instructions. A few had bias on the background triangles instead of straight-of-grain, and the requirement to use "quilt shop quality muslin" wasn't always followed.

Adding your own fabrics to blocks received in swaps is a good way to control the quality and fix block sizes that are not exactly perfect.

I once participated in a swap of Dear Jane blocks done in Halloween fabrics--fun! It was a big swap with people from several countries and many US states. The person who coordinated it was up-front from the beginning. As she received your blocks, they would be sorted into 5 "quality levels"--A, B, C, D, and E. If you sent in A blocks, you got A blocks in return. If you sent D blocks, that's what you got in return. I can only imagine what any E blocks looked like! I tried hard to be sure I sent in A's.

Here is a poor photo of what I did with those Dear Jane blocks. I gave the quilt away and now cannot find any other photo of it:

My recommendation if you want to create a swap: choose the participants wisely, be sure all agree to follow whatever the rules are, and be sure everyone understands the rules. Also set a time requirement that allows adequate time but not too much time--most will do their blocks right at the deadline.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

TINY STARS BLOCK SWAP

I have hardly looked up the last few days: A new swap, a sew-a-long completed, another sew-a-long to start, a class sample to deliver, and I started quilting a top today that has been ready for almost two years. I guess I like being busy.

The New Swap: Yesterday I saw a tutorial on Instagram that I thought would make a great swap block--over-sized and points don't have to meet. Perfect. I checked on our guild Members Facebook page to see if anyone else wanted to play.

Very quickly there were at least a dozen interested so I came up with a plan. I am a natural-born organizer, I just can't help it.

First I wrote to the designer for permission to use her tutorial and to write this blog. She graciously granted permission. Here is the wonderful Tiny Star Block Tutorial by Lindsey Weight.  If you are not on Instagram here are photos:

NOTE: HQH  MEMBERS, if you want to join in and are not on Facebook, just send me an email.

Here are the "Rules" for the Heritage Quilters of Huntsville swap, feel free to create your own rules if you put together a swap:

1.Sign up to make 10, 20, or 30. (So far, everyone wants to make 30)

2. They are due at the November guild meeting--you will get the same number of blocks you turn in, 10, 20, or 30, none of your own.  (That is one month--don't drag it out, these are fast to make)

 3. First quality fabric only.

 4. Blocks are 4.5" finished, 5" unfinished. EASY blocks to make quickly. DO NOT TRIM DOWN FROM 5"--each person can trim their own IF they want to. Mine will "float" so I will not trim. .

 5. Use light fabric for the background, contrasting print for the star. You may choose to put a different fabric in the center, one that looks like it belongs with the star points. You can make several exactly the same but this is a great way to use small scraps vs. yardage.

6. Do your best work--turn in blocks you would be happy to receive.

7. See photos for two pressing options for outer seams. First pressing of block units: middle row in to the middle, top and bottom rows, out toward the outside--do this on ALL blocks.. The two ROWS can be pressed to the outer edges OR open, your choice. 

Rows pressed toward the outside 

Rows pressed open

Today I found these blocks are perfect as leader/enders, startie/stoppies--just have them cut out and sew the units as you sew other projects:

If you like to draw pencil lines as a sewing guide, it can be time-consuming to draw diagonal lines on those 8 small print squares. Here is a trick that makes it much faster.

Cut two 3" squares. Draw a line on both diagonals, from corner to corner, with a mechanical pencil:

Carefully cut the 3" squares into four 1.5" squares:

 There you have eight 1.5" squares with the pencil lines drawn:

NOTE: I tried 3 methods--drawing pencil lines  as above, pressing the 1.5" squares in half to create a crease I could see, and just winging it from corner to corner as I sewed. All three methods worked for me so try all three and decide which you prefer. I know some people use the Angler on the bed of their machine--that is yet another option.

My guild actually used this method a few years ago for swap blocks--those were 9" finished blocks. These tiny ones are just so cute! 

Since I am in the middle of several projects and my cutting table is piled high with fabrics, it will be easy to cut a bunch of these and get them made. I'll be in Houston for two weeks before our November meeting so these will be done before I leave.

If you like this, why not ask some friends to swap with you? It is fun and just like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get!

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

Doll Quilt Swap

Lori D of Humble Quilts recently put together her second doll quilt swap for interested people, using Civil War repro fabrics.  As that is right up my alley, I signed up.  It helps that it had a short window for completion and I had an appropriate small quilt almost ready.  Today I received mine:

31" x 24"

 And the quilt came with gifts--an 8 pointed pin cushion stuffed with crushed walnut shells and a sweet little "church doll"--I can just imagine a little girl being still and quiet in church as she plays with her "church" doll.  Thanks, Danice G, of Homespun Hannah.  Even more fun, Danice lives in Florence, AL, about 75 miles from here.

I sent my doll quilt to Lizzy of Gone to the Beach.  She will retrieve it from the post office today:

This was almost done, I only had to add some hand quilting in the perimeter triangles.  I hope it enjoys its' new home on the NY coast--I love the beach too so I'm glad it has a coastal home.  This was fun and easy--thanks, Lori!

My other completion is this String Swap Block quilt:

The 36 larger blocks in the center came from 6 members of the Education Team who come to work the Houston show.  The smaller blocks on the outside borders came from several members of my guild Quilt Show committee.  I practiced free motion quilting, I'm still not very good at all at that, but it's OK and at least I know what speed works best for me, moderately fast.  This will be a sample at Open Studio in Portland, OR in August then it will hang in the Education office in Houston this fall--hopefully, the other 6 people will get theirs done so we can have a good display.  It helps our big office look more inviting with a quilt display.  I've posted about the choices the others made here
and here.

My husband had some surgery last week and is surprised he's not feeling 100% yet.  He intended to go back to work today, but that's not happening.  I leave very early tomorrow morning for Spring Market in Minneapolis.  So our eldest son, Joshua Black Wilkins, came down from Nashville yesterday to stay a few days.  Today he got put to work cleaning the porch cleaning--a hot, dirty, wet job.  Thank goodness for sons who work cheap!  He is a photographer by day and a musician by night and we were just lucky we caught him at a good time, he is out of town a lot. 

Yesterday was Mother's Day and besides having my eldest here I received flowers from my grand girl to be, Stella LeAnne, and her terrific parents, my younger son Andy and his wife Lauren. 

My husband listened when I gushed about this beautiful dish garden at Lowe's last week and it appeared as my gift from him--so pretty!  I hope you all had an enjoyable Mother's Day too.

Off to pack for Market--I hope to blog some from there to show you what's new and exciting.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

String Block Swap Challenge

I've been working on a quilt using string blocks I received in two swaps, one with our guild quilt show committee and one with 6 members of the Education Team that comes to Houston for Festival.  Here is the finished top:

45" square
 

I used the larger blocks in the center and some of the smaller blocks for a border, I have lots of small blocks left for another project.  I'll quilt it simply by machine, a good chance to practice free-motion quilting.  I'll also use it to practice stitching the applied binding in place by machine.  I usually hand-stitch the binding in place but there is a time when machine stitched binding makes sense, like baby quilts and donation quilts, so I want to work on that skill.

While working on this project I came up with several points to consider when working in a swap group.  Here are the positives:

1.  You will receive a wide variety of fabrics, many of which you don't have.
2.  People work with color differently so you may see color/fabrics in a new light.
3.  Each person puts their own mark on the quilt and it's a great memory project of people and a time in your quilting journey.

Here are the challenges:

1.  You may get fabrics you don't have for a reason, you won't love them all.
2.  Each person sews differently and has their own interpretation of the guidelines.
3.  Some of the blocks may not be useable depending on your design idea.

Tips for working in a swap group:

1.  Set clear guidelines and a deadline.  (Those who miss the deadline need a gentle push.)
2.  Keep it Simple--the more specific the design, the more variation you will get.
3.  If you are persnickety about your fabrics and design, you should sew your own quilts.
4.  Do not complain publicly about what you received, you won't be invited to join again.
5.  Use the blocks you can, and those you can't can be added to your "orphan blocks" stash to use for fun pieced backs or simple donation quilts--someone without a quilt will love those blocks.
6.  Use quality fabric and try your best to provide the fabrics requested.  Do your best work.
7.  Meet the deadline.  Follow the guidelines--ask if you don't understand something.

Paper Piecing Tips:

1.  Use lightweight paper, like telephone book pages.  Do not use vellum or heavy copy paper.
2. Use a small stitch, 1.5 or 16/inch--this makes taking the paper off a breeze.  Regular size stitches make taking the paper off an ordeal--and pulls out stitches at the beginning and end of each string.
3.  Be sure you trim seam allowances down to 1/4" if you sewed with a larger seam--before you add the next string. 

A group swap can be a fun experience but it's not for everyone.  Enjoy what you receive and make something useful with the blocks. 

Other projects I've been doing this week:

Stars in a Time Warp, Ombre

Four Patch Leader/Ender project

 

The four patch blocks are my latest Leader/Ender project and were sewn together as I worked on the String Block quilt.  I'm not sure if I'll put the tan/cream backgrounds in one quilt and the white backgrounds in a different quilt or use them in the same quilt--what do you think?  I have a large stash of four patches I've been making as leader/enders so it was time to figure out a use for them. 

We had a baby shower for my daughter-in-law and baby Stella will be well-supplied.  Here is a photo of the two happy grandmothers and our mama-to-be.  The next time we see her, Stella will be here:

Check out Judy L's blog to see what others are doing.

Let's quilt!

Barbara

String Blocks

I've been saving strings of fabric for years to make string blocks.  It's a process that is really popular now and allows you to use very small pieces of leftover fabric.  Bonnie Hunter uses string piecing in a lot of her quilts and her blog is loaded with ideas for this technique, check her out here.

Last fall our guild quilt show committee formed a swap group to make string blocks.  I wrote about that here and this is a tutorial.

At Houston last fall, seven of us in the Education Department decided to do this too.  These blocks start out with paper cut 6.5" and we are only making 6 blocks for each person.  Everyone got to decide what colors and design they wanted.  The deadline is March 31 to have them in the mail to each person so when the calendar turned to March yesterday I decided I'd better get BUSY!  I am also going to demo this process and show the many quilt designs you can get with these blocks at International Quilt Festival in Chicago, March 26-28, 2015.  Don't miss the Chicago Show!

Here are the sets I have done: 

Bert wanted random black and white

Carol wanted scrappy
 

Vickie wanted scrappy with a 1" finished black strip in the middle

Tanya wanted various greens with a bright light 1" finished green in the middle
 

Melissa wanted scrappy

 

Judy wanted red and white from the diagonal out--still have to finish hers

This was a great way to run my Featherweight sewing machine after cleaning, oiling and lubricating it.  The motor needs to be run to help get all the oil/grease through the machine and this was the perfect way to do it. 

Here are a few tips:

1.  I use telephone book pages, lightweight and no cost, and, no, they don't put ink on me or the fabric.

2.  Use a small stitch, 1.5 mm or about 15 stitches/inch--this makes paper removal easy.  Leave the paper on so the recipient can decide if she wants to make them smaller and she can trim them.

3.  If doing a design that puts a specific color in the center, it helps to start with paper larger than needed to allow for trimming the block to get that center in the center--I cut those papers 7"

4.  If doing a design with a specific color in the center, I pinned that fabric in place first.  Then I added strips to both sides.  Otherwise, I use no pins in the process.

5.  I usually piece with gray thread.  For the half white/half red set, I'll use white thread on the white half and sew all 6 of those first.  Then I'll change thread to a gray and do the red side of all 6 blocks. For all the other blocks, I alternated sides, and pressed the blocks after adding to both sides.  You don't have to press until the blocks are done but I like to press and getting up from the machine is my aerobics.

This process can be messy because I have a big bag of saved strings:

 

So when I start this project, I keep going until I'm done or can't stand it any more.  The larger strips I save are kept much more organized than this, but for strings, they just get tossed into a big tote bag until I'm ready to piece string blocks--then it's a sorting frenzy.

So I'm almost done and that's what's on my design wall today.  Check out Judy L's blog to see what others are doing.

Let's quilt!

Barbara





Small Projects Finished

In two weeks the first Simple WhatNots Club will be wrapping up at my local shop, Patches & Stitches.  I plan to devote this session to finishing techniques.  So I've gotten a few of these little quilts quilted and bound, or partially bound, so I can demo a few methods. 

 

"MEANDERING":  This one I bound with one of the fat quarters of striped fabric in the collection .  I usually bind with straight grain cut the width of fabric but stripes lend themselves to being sewn on the bias.  I also machine stitched this one in place after turning it to the back--I'll have some tips on how to do that.  Approximately 18" x 24".  The buttons are sewn on the teal blocks to cover some funky stitching--I free motion quilted the petals--still have a long way to go with that but the buttons cover the majority of the "issues" with the quilting.  Finished is better than perfect.

"WIDDLYTINKS":   This one called for tiny yo-yos--I opted for buttons instead.  This binding shows what NOT to do--cut and sew straight or your corners will be "pokey" like these.  Approximately 12" x 15"

"LILY":  My favorite in the first collection.   I quilted this with the walking foot and will use it to demo how to trim the outside edges and how I join binding strips--with a bias seam.  I add a hanging to sleeve to 99% of the quilts I make and will demo that on this project too.  28" square.

The second collection of The Simple WhatNots Club has been announced and the shop is doing this club one more time, from January to June, 2015.  See the projects here.  We only have room for 30 people to sit for the two-hour monthly demo.  Many in this first club are signing up again--they love Kim Diehl fabrics and have learned a few things. 

Another fun project I completed was a Quiltalong small mystery quilt from Lori D of Humble Quilts.

 

This she calls Cascadia.  I've done several of Lori's little quiltalong quilts--they are fast and easy and I enjoy making something fairly quickly. I had a bunch of 2" finished four-patches already completed  so that made it easy to get this one done.  18.5" x 17".
Folks in the string block swap I put together have decided what colors/design they want for their blocks.  I wrote about that here.  That tutorial showed how to split the block exactly in half with two different colors.  Three of the seven of us want a 1" finished strip down the center of the block, like this:

 

This takes a little care, lining up a 1.5" cut strip exactly down the center of the paper foundation.  I pin that to hold it, then add strips on either side.  These are blocks that were made for my in a previous swap--I want light colors on one side, dark colors on the other.  There are many design possibilities with these blocks, just like Log Cabin blocks. 

Finally, I started Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt, even though I said I would not until I got a few more things done.  There are over 23,000 people on her Facebook group, Quiltville's Open Studio, and I think most of them got started this Friday November 28, when the first clue was released.  Click the Grand Illusion link below to go to Bonnie's Blog--then  click on Grand Illusion Mystery in the heading--the introduction and Part 1 are posted--or click here.  Each Friday until the end of 2014 she'll have another part of instructions.  Here are my first little 4" finished units:

I am not in a hurry to complete this so I'll use it for my leader/ender project.  The fun part for me is picking all the fabrics and I wrote about that here.

That will do it for now.  I'm almost finished Little Letters and will have that to show next time.  Linking up to Bonnie's Monday Mystery and Patchwork Times.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara

String Block Swap Tutorial

I'm in another block swap, this one with a few members of the Education Team who come to Houston each year for Festival.  There are 7 of us doing this one, and we only have to make 6 blocks for each person so this project will go fast.  I've written about an earlier string swap here.  Those blocks just cover the paper with no need to worry about where the center line is.

One of the team says she wants Red and White blocks--can you imagine?  So here is a quick tutorial on making blocks that are exactly half one color, half another.

Our blocks are to be trimmed to 6.5" inches when sewn so start with a 7" square of lightweight paper.  I use telephone books--the paper is thin and the ink does not run.  I'm hoarding old phone books because one day there won't be any more such things.

I dug through my bag of strings I've been saving for these projects.  First, I gathered various red and white fabrics.  Then I folded the 7" page on the diagonal to find the exact middle.  I took one long red and one long white, placed them right sides together, and placed the edge along the fold on the paper.

Here is the first seam sewn and pressed open:

Next, I worked on the red side, adding red strings one at a time, until the paper was covered.  Here is the second red string in place before sewing, face down on the previous red string:

When I get to the corner, I like to use a half square triangle as that puts straight of grain fabric on two opposite corners.  All the other edges will be bias so this helps minimize stretching when you piece with the blocks:

 

Now that the red side is done, it's on to the white side:

 

Notice all the strings are longer than the paper underneath.  You will be sewing with a small stitch and do not want to have to remove a string that is too small so bigger is better.

Now that the paper is covered it's time to trim the block to 6.5", being very careful to get the midpoint exactly right.  See the 6.5" ruler?  I have placed the center diagonal line exactly on the center red/white seam.  Even though the seam wasn't sewn exactly straight down the middle, the outer corners are spot-on so that the corners will match exactly when the block is sewn to others:

Yeah, it works!

 

And here you have it, the finished red and white 6.5" string block.  We do not remove the paper on these--the new owner gets to remove her own paper. 

TIPS:

1.  Use a small stitch, less than 2.0.  If it's so small the paper is perforating and falling off while you are sewing, it's too small.  My stitch is about 1.7.  Longer stitches make it difficult to remove the paper--no one likes that job.

2.  Use a light neutral thread--darker thread will show in the white seams and you don't want to have to change threads between the white and red sides, do you?

3.  Be sure each string is long enough to fit before you sew it.  When you flip it open it has to cover the paper completely--believe me, you really don't want to have to rip one out because it is too short.

4.  Use fabric of first quality and fabrics you really like.  Some of these reds and whites are leftovers from my Red and White--By the Numbers quilt--I'm enjoying working with these fabrics again.

So, that's all there is too it.  Each person is deciding what colors she wants--some may want completely scrappy, one wants black and white, some may say brights, some say pastels.  We're just getting going and the deadline is April 1, 2015 so there is no rush to get these done.  But I will anyway--I like to check DONE on my list of things to do.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. 

Let's quilt!

Barbara