New Project

I've started my next project.  Pinwheels, again!  Here's the picture of the quilt she wants, with some of my figuring:

with the paint chips for the colors she wants:



It took a while, but I found the right fabrics:

including the backing (the print fabric) and the inner border and binding:

Here's the fabrics with the background fabric:



Each finished pinwheel block is 8 inches.  I cut my squares 5 inches so I have a little wiggle room for squaring up.  First I draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of the background fabric using a piece of sandpaper to keep the fabric from moving:

After sewing on either side of the drawn line with right sides together, I cut on the drawn line.  I square it up with a Quilt in a Day ruler (which is a great ruler!)



After sewing all the half squares together, I open up the intersecting seams to show the little pinwheel and press flat.  This really helps with the bulk at those joining seams.

The finished block:



My design wall, in no particular order yet:

And, it's another queen size!  Only 100 pinwheel blocks! I have 40 on the wall right now, got the fabrics cut for the others, lines drawn on the background, ready to sew!  I guess you know what I'll be doing!

LaDonna



Me, Too!

LaDonna isn't the only one who has been busy....I finally finished a baby quilt...before the child got to First Grade!  I saw this pattern in one of the magazines that I used to get and immediately thought of one of my friends that had just found out that she was going to be a surrogate grandmother...of course that was last spring.  The baby is now four months old.  I really did get started on it in the summer but with first one thing and then the other I didn't get it finished in time for Isabella's birth.  Of course by the time I did get time to work on it Self Doubt raised its head and I almost changed my mind.  There are some people that quilts just aren't their thing. ( gasp)  Well, the quilt was delivered this morning and Sonja loved it!! (Big sigh of relief!!) 

~Diana

 I did this quilting in all of the sections of the quilt.

I also did a burp pad out of some of the leftover scraps of fabrics.

Now on to the next project on my list...I hope!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I've been so busy here lately that I haven't had time to post or to read your blogs!  I've missed you!  You have become such a part of my daily routine that I feel "off" when I can't get my daily dose!  I have let so many things slide around here, I had to get things in order before I start the next project.  Yesterday, I cleaned the house, cleaned my sewing room (I had fabrics from the last 4 projects still out!), groomed the Scotties (poor puppies, we were calling them Shaggy Maggie and Fuzzy Fergus!), did laundry, ran errands,...you know the drill!  All those boring, not fun things that unfortunately have to be done!

For our local shop hop, there is a challenge contest.  This year's fabric was an unusual one; it really was a challenge!  I also challenged myself in that I did a block I have never done before.  I saw a picture of an antique block that was a non-typical Dresden plate design.  I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to try it.  Here's the antique block:



I drew it out to get the size I needed.  Actually had to do some math.  Or rather my husband did!  At first I thought I could just fold the paper over and over to get the lines, but that was not the case.  When I mentioned it to Tony, he said I needed 18 degree angles.  A circle is 360 degrees; I needed 20 petals; 360 divided by 20 is 18 degrees.  Gosh, like I told my son in school, you do need math in everyday life!  I needed a protractor to get the right angle.  We use to have several protractors around the house when we homeschooled, but I got rid of them when our son graduated.  Who knew I would need them again!  But, did you know, you can print a protractor off the internet?!!  Once I had the right angles, drawing it out was easy.  I used a small drinking glass to get the curve of the petals.

I made a sample block out of Christmas fabrics to make sure I could put it together right. 

I realized I didn't like the way the center turned out so I redid the drawing of the center.

This is how my challenge block turned out.  The black and white fabric is the challenge fabric.

My Christmas block's lines matched up better than the challenge block.  Whenever I do this block again, I need to be more careful with how my lines match up.  I'll need to block it out to make sure my lines go straight across.  I wonder if I stretched it while pressing?  I didn't have time to redo the block for the challenge, so I turned it in "as is".  The important thing is this year all the challenge blocks are put into quilts for two children's charities. 

Today, I'm cutting out the next quilt!  Or at least, getting started on it!  It's another queen size!

LaDonna

It's Finally Done!

Just this afternoon I finished putting the final borders on "Wine & Cheese", fabric and pattern designed by Monique Dillard with Maywood Studio.  I'll be taking it to the shop tomorrow.  I don't have time to quilt it before Shop Hop, but at least I got the top done!   (That's the corner of my sewing table showing in the picture; I only have so much room!)

Next, I have to get my challenge block done before the 22nd!  I need to make a sample to make sure it works before I mess up the challenge fabric! 

LaDonna



Just One Star (or Two!)

Done!

Before and After

Finally finished sewing the bad blocks.  You know, you can actually get some sewing done when you stay home!



Before: 

After:



Before:

After:

Much happier now!

LaDonna





Just One Star Can Comfort a Soldier

Thanks to Betty Lou over at Sugarland Quilts for letting us know about this challenge from Moda!

As the saying goes, "many hands make light work"!  Diana and I are joining our hands with quilters all around the country to help Moda meet the challenge of 100 quilts in 100 days!  The blocks will be combined into quilts for soldiers who have been injured in the line of duty.  Moda needs 1800 star blocks to make these quilts.   All they are asking is for you to make just one star.  The deadline is May 1 so that the quilts can be completed by Flag Day, June 14.  Go to:  http://www.unitednotions.com/LA_just_one_star.pdf for the pattern and all the details.

Here are the fabrics we have selected for our star blocks:  (Diana's is blue and mine is red.)

Our father served in the Army, my husband is in the Army, and Diana's son is in the Air Force. Her daughter-in-law also served in the Air Force. We hold the military near and dear to our hearts. As soon as we heard about the challenge, Diana and I immediately knew we would participate. Will you join us in helping Moda comfort our brave men and women of the military?

Imperfection Is More Appealing, well sort of

Ok, I give up.  I can't completely live by my new motto of "imperfection is more appealing"!  I thought I could, I really tried, but this just seriously bugs me.  I told my sister, my husband, and Jan-Maree, that this would be fine, I could live with it, I don't have time, it would be ok, but....I admit it, I can't. 

Here's the situation:

See these fabrics?  They're busy, but there is contrast.



Unfortunately, when they are cut up into small pieces, the contrast gets lost.  It's not a bad block, but compared to the other high contrast blocks, it just looks bad. 



See where I've pinned the fabrics in the center of the block?  I think it will look much better for the blocks to be made out of these pairings instead.

So, this means a trip to the shop tomorrow and much more sewing.  Two steps forward and how many steps back?!  But I think this will be better, especially for a shop sample. 

LaDonna

More on the Design Wall

Today I completed 9 more blocks.  Essential to the block is the squaring up of the flying geese.  Those flying geese can be quite stubborn!  The pattern called for a specific ruler by the designer which I didn't have.  I used what I did have in my vast collection of rulers, the Quilt in a Day from Eleanor Burns flying geese ruler.

Notice the dots?  It was slipping a bit so I put these dots on the ruler to help grip the fabric.

Squaring up the flying geese units makes the whole block sew much easier!

 

The flying geese go from the unit on the left to, after squaring, the unit on the right.



Here's what's new on my design wall now:  9 more blocks!  Blocks 10 through 12 are in partial assembly, but I'm stopping for this evening to spend some time with my husband.  Poor baby, he told me today he has to time his goodbye to me at lunchtime between the whirrs of my sewing machine! 

LaDonna

Getting Started

I cut out just the first fabrics for the new shop sample quilt. I know the designers do their best to avoid mistakes, but sometimes they slip through. So I made the first ones to make sure the block instructions were ok and they were. I always get a little nervous cutting out a shop sample. If it's a quilt for me, it's no big deal if I miscut, I'll just go get more fabric. If I mess up the shop sample fabric and have to go get more, how embarrassing...all the ladies there will know I messed up! So far so good on this one though!

(I love cropping; it makes my block look so square! Ha, ha, only in the quilting world is it good to look square!)

LaDonna

The Next Shop Sample

While at the shop yesterday, I cut out the fabric needed for my next shop sample (as well as a few hundred fat quarters...thank goodness for electric scissors!).  The fabric is a new line from Maywood Studio, Olde World Style by Monique Dillard.  The pattern has been designed around this line of fabric and is called Wine and Cheese.  Quite different from all the pink that I just finished! 

I washed and dried the fabric last night.   I need to put away all old scraps, vacuum up all the threads, rearrange my sewing room from quilting mode to piecing mode so I can get to my design wall, and start cutting out my new fabric!  But first, I need coffee! 

LaDonna

All Done!

The shop sample pink quilt is done!  Like I said before, it was so nice working on a simple pattern, non-queen size quilt!  The pattern is Modern V from the book Modern Basics by Amy Ellis.  I like the way the pink plaid fabric gives a sense of movement through the quilt.  I quilted it in a "round robin" style, where each round was a different quilting pattern.  It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but the center 4 patch is quilted in a circle feather, around that is a heart and swirls pattern, then a chain, and finally, flowers and leaves all around.  Thanks to Tony for holding up the quilt!



Next in line is another shop sample, a shop hop challenge block, and another commissioned quilt! 

LaDonna

Imp...Scamp continued

Thank you ladies for your comments!  I do so enjoy reading them! If it's keeping me so young, how come I"m so tired by 7:30 at night?!!!   My daughter's door is right next to the pantry door...guess what I did?? I tied the two doorknobs together ( another use for those fabric strips!!!!)  Talk about getting a LOOK from him!!!  And then he got mad.  For such a little boy, he sure can make a lot of noise!!! Now you know why I'm not able to get to the blog as often as I want!

And yes, if you are wondering...so far so good.  He hasn't been able to get in the room...yet!

Diana

Imp!!! Scamp!!!!

My grandson!!!!  Here I have been trying to get the morning chores out of the way so I might possibly get into my sewing room and what do I find?????   I have tried to finish up the laundry...I folded, put in the basket and taken the basket to my daughter's room. My grandson was once again faster than I !!!  I go back to the bedroom ( it got quiet...can you imagine) and found the basket knocked off the desk, some of the clothes dumped on the floor, and hangers taken off some of the tops!!  And what does he do????  He grins at me as I chase him out....again!!!  I told you it was a circus at my house!!!!