Sewing with My Sistahs

I have three sewing machines.  An embarrassment of riches.  They aren't all the fancy schmancy sort, but they all can sew 1/4" seams.  In quilting, that's really what matters, right?

I have three sisters and a momma.  One sister lives far away, has fancy schmancy sewing machine and could teach sewing (Really. She has a home ec ed degree).  But the other two sisters live close by as does the momma.  So, in July, we all came together at my house.  I gave them access to (most of) my fabric stash.  And we cut. And cut. and cut lots of fabric.  We're making table runners.  Soon, it was time to go.

We made plans to come back in September and keep on sewing.  It was decided that we weren't in a hurry.  We valued the sisterhood as much as the crafting.

Sistah #1 came by one day and learned the various blocks (four blocks total: 6" block, a four square block, and two log cabin-ish blocks.  She made one of each with me and then went home and got to work.

Well, last Saturday, the sistahs and momma came and we actually sewed!!

Fixing a cutting mistake

trying out combinations

The sisterhood

who's happier the girl or the dog?

We're actually sewing!  

"that's right mom, good job!"

it's so satisfying when the back side lays properly!

more trying combinations...

putting the whole together

loving her color choices

Loving her color choices

It was such a fun day!

Adding Frames to BOM: an Update

I took my sewing machine to get serviced.  It's been a year since I bought it and it still makes me happy.  I know that Janome has a new version of the Horizon, but I like mine, thank you very much.

So, my machine is back.  And I started piecing the frame to the blocks for Amish with a Twist.  It's very exciting and I'm glad to know how to do frames.  I will try to do one frame a day for twelve days and get this thing put together.

I think this will be a gift, so you might not see it for a bit, but I enjoyed doing this particular pattern very much.  Practice, practice, practice is good for this girl; and I really like doing samplers.  I might make one for us, but I think in cream.


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Skittle Quilt and Green and Grey Pillow

Quilt fabric companies have a great marketing plan.  They have contests and have professional quilt bloggers make scrumptious quilts with pre-released fabric.  It gets a girl wanting more fabric.  Always wanting more fabric.  This scenario played out last fall when V & Co came out with the Simply Color line.  It's yummy isn't it? And speaks to my style completely.

So, I bought a fat quarter bundle and gave it to the hubba-hubba to wrap and give me for Christmas.  I didn't know what to do with it, but I knew I'd be inspired.

I was inspired by this Skittles Quilt and pinned it as soon as I read the blog post.  I ordered the fabric and let it sit on my TBQ pile until I had time to work on it.

In the meantime, I needed to learn how to applique.  Circles.  I recommend not learning how to applique with circles.  Not fun.  I took an Anything Goes class at our local quilt shop and the lovely Barb R departed her skills. And slowly I made circles using the Perfect Circles method. (Mine were less-than-perfect.)

In May, I had a week where I was allergic to the outside.  I took the opportunity to applique these circles on the grey panel.  It was scarier than it sounds. First, I had to take the ombre fabric and find the perfect spot and r-r-r-rip the fabric.  It's a scary process...and if it doesn't make any sense...read the instructions.  I will say the color match where I had to rip was pretty spot-on.  Whew!

After I finished ... and it took all week, I contacted the lovely Elvira and arranged for her to quilt it.  She did a great job.

While I was waiting for the quilt to come back, I continued to work on the bom Amish with a Twist.  After lesson 12, they had a beautiful pillow project and thought it would be a great accompaniment.  I quilted that myself and I think it looks spectacular.  The grey really makes the green fabric go POP!

I finished it in time for our trip to coastal California to give to my husband's brother and family.  Happily, they love it.  It looks great, doesn't it?

 My take away? Appliqueing isn't for me.

Stars with Stripes For Me.

I bought some fabulous navy blue fabric with white stars.  I I've been wanting to make a door hanging and thought these stars would make for something fun for Flag day and the Fourth of July.

I cut out 3.5 inch stripes from the navy fabric.  Then I made a nine patch block from two different kinds of red material.  I sewed the elements together and was quite pleased with the look.

To quilt this door hanging, I decided I would try my hand at free-motion quilting.  I've done it in a class, I've tried it on my new machine, but had never really done it before.  How can a girl learn to do something, if she doesn't try?  (You don't have to answer it, it was sort of rhetorical...)

This was my attempt. This looks pretty good.  Then I got a little cocky and kept at it.  There was no place to put the needle and I panicked.  You can't see that here...if you look at other pictures, you'll see what I mean.

I decided to sew in the ditch for the starry stripes.  I added a red border and machine stitched the binding.  What?  Yes, I did.  I consider this a learning experience...and I wanted to learn what a machine binding was like... It's just as bad as everyone says it is.  But all in all, I'm pretty pleased with the result.

I learned how to add tabs on the back for hanging.  So, the thing I learned with that exercise is the tab should go on before the binding.  That's okay, this is a learning experience.

I could count the number of things that are wrong with this finished project.  Instead I'm going to count the things I did right.  I love it.  I think it's a fun design...it's my design.  If I were to show you the back, you'd be horrified.  But that's a lesson for another project.  Enjoy.  I am.

Amish with a Twist: Sawtooth Star

I guess I thought I was showing each block as I did them... turns out i haven't been. I'll work on it.  Today we worked on half-square triangle.  I think one can never practice half=square triangles enough.  This block is a four-patch constuction with two half square triangles.  Do you see it?

My First Color Wheel

I took a class at Acorn Quilts in Rockford.  Have you ever been there?  It is a beautiful store.  The class room is a little small, but this was mostly lecture so it was fine for the eight of us who took the Color Theory class.  We learned how to read the wheel, the subtle differences in the tertiary colors (red-orange vs. yellow orange). Then we looked at paint chips and made mini wheels.  Paint chips are hard.  The color variants are so slight, it takes a good eye.

The instructor talked to us about reading our stash of fabrics and building up in the areas we are lacking.  The most fun was letting us go out into the store and grab bolts of fabric and making our ideal color wheel.  We had homework: to find the colors in our stash and make a wheel.  I'm proud to say I had at least one of every color but yellow.  No true yellow.  Entirely too much pink and blue and brown.  But, can you have too much blue fabric?  Hmmm... let me think about that.

There's more to do for homework... I'll share that later.    But... here it is, my first color wheel.  I enjoyed the process very much and will be pursuing other color wheels in my future.

Also, I can't really sew in a circle.
I'll need to work on that...

Status Report

I'm a sewing machine... wait. That doesn't sound right. I'm a sewing maniac. Yes, much more accurate. As time allows, Sharon tries to quilt, quilt, quilt. Well, piece really.

In February I went a little fabric shopping crazy. Kah-ray-zee. On my blog feed I've been seeing future projects and wanted to get the fabric before it sold out. So I bought fabric.

I've also been working on my BOM project. I'm a little behind: the project gives me three blocks to complete a month. I did January in time, but I've only done one block for February. It was practicing half square triangles. You remember half-square triangles from my Basics class, right?  When you put four half square triangles together you get a windmill.  Well, my BOM for February is focusing on half-square triangles.  I was going to finish my February projects this weekend.

Then it snowed.  It snowed nine inches and I was home and needed something to do.  So I started one of those rainy day projects.  This project was one of the first projects I wanted to complete when I decided that quilting was for me.  So I got the fabric that I purchased in my February Fabric Frenzie, and started.

Did you guess? Yes!  It involves, almost exclusively, half-square triangles.  100 of them so far.

there are 19 windmills

There are 24 large half square triangles

there are 100 half square triangle in all.  I love the color combinations.

Now what?  Well, I need a place to put everything together.  Placing my squares in the order i want them on the ground isn't conducive to my sad knees.  I need a large table top.  Also, the fabric isn't ready for purchase.  I've learned that pre-cuts are sold before the yardage (marketing geniuses at work).  

Also, I won a blog challenge:

... hey that's me!

.... and I want to buy the border, binding, and backing for this quilt with this gift!

It's so exciting, isn't it?