Editing

When the weather gets warm outside I like to "edit" what is in our house.   My sewing space is no exception…I tend to pin everything up on that wall.   ( I even found a half eaten Hershey’s bar..lucky!)

Now it’s all ready for me to fill up again.   I also pulled my favorite quilt out to add some much needed color to our room…even though its way too hot for a duvet + quilt, it still looks pretty during the day! 

Speaking of favorite quilts….check out this cute Kaleidoscope quilt kit Kim put together for her etsy shop.  So cute for a boy (or a girl?). 

Tutorial: July star blocks

This is probably the most basic star block.   But it is a classic favorite that looks good in any fabric, and is easy to re-size to make smaller or larger. 

My blocks finish at 11"  (10.5" after squaring…if you square them).  

Start with 8 – 4" background squares, 1 – 4" center square, and 8 – 3" squares for the star points.

On 4 of the background squares place a 3" square in a corner right sides together and sew from corner to corner.  The tape trick comes in handy again on these blocks.  Cut the corner off leaving 1/4" and press open.

Place another 3" square in an adjacent corner and repeat the steps.

Layout your squares again and sew the squares into three rows. 

Press the seams of each row in opposite directions, and sew the rows together.

The finished block should be 11".  I squared my blocks up to 10.5".

48 blocks (6 in each row, 8 rows) makes a perfect twin size at 60" x 80". 

Patriotic

Nothing rings in July like a (really bright) red, white and blue quilt.  This quilt is a twin size, 60" x 80" with 48 star blocks.  I think this might even be the 1st star quilt I’ve posted on this blog…or 2nd…beats me.

Either way I love it and all its blindingly bright goodness.  It’s chocked full of different fabrics so I’m not going to attempt naming them all…not that I know all of them (I do).  Now to finish this in time for the 4th of July!

*if you want to know what a particular fabric is…email me…cause if you are a no-reply blogger I can’t reply!  :)

Skipping Squares….again

This one turned out so so great.  The quilting was done by a local quilter and she did such a good job doing all of that free hand!  It gives this simple pattern so much personality. 

This quilt was a mixture of prints (I blogged about the quilt top here) and the back was pieced from a few large pieces I had leftover of the Good Life collection from Robert Kaufman.  That fabric is the perfect shade of green.

I stuck this on my son’s bed to see how it looks…and it fit!  Well good enough anyways…it could probably use one more row at the bottom. Unfortunately it only got to sit there a minute before it was packed and shipped away…which is OK since little boys + white quilts don’t mix and match so well.  

Anyways…I love this quilt.  But I love this quilt more: 

Leave it up to the Fat Quarter Shop to make me want to start all over and make another one….dag nabbit.

Shortcake

(Sorry for the ugly scenery, I took these pictures when it was still really brown and bleh outside!)

I started this one back in April…and I was so excited and gung ho about it for about a week..and then I felt kind of eh about it…and now I like it again. It’s my cycle of quilt love. This one is from the Strawberry Fields line by Fig Tree Quilts…made with a jelly roll. Now that its done I wish I would have made it a Queen size…but that would have meant buying 2 jelly rolls and I just couldn’t will myself to spend $80 bucks for it at the time.

It’s a really soft & pretty color combo..these photos don’t do it justice seeing as how the background was still brown and ugly when I took these photos….and there is bird poop in almost every picture. See?

Dang bird poop.

You can find Strawberry Fields here, here, and here. You can find the pattern here, or here.

The Good Life Quilt

I hardly ever forget to blog about a quilt….but in all of the craziness last month I completely forgot about the Off Track quilt I made for the Robert Kaufman booth at market.  I have NO pictures of it finished (or the quilt itself)…so luckily this one popped up on the Swatch and Stitch blog:

(thank you whoever took that picture!)

The fabric is The Good Life collection and it was so much fun to work with…definitely a much needed jump out of my normal color scheme. 

Between this and the last quilt, I hereby promise to take better pictures of my quilts.  Unless I completely forget…which is likely.

I love the 4th of July

It’s a good thing too….because this quilt I cut out last night is unmistakably patriotic.

I used every last bit of my red/blue/grey fabrics and lots of scraps.  It’s always a little satisfying to completely use up my fabrics…it means they aren’t collecting dust.  Except then I have to buy more…which is never satisfying for my wallet.  Too bad its so much fun!

Bizzy Kid

This quilt has been a favorite on our couch for a month now (unbound!) and I just keep forgetting to take a picture of it….so this will have to do.  I made this quilt for my boys because my chain reaction quilt was looking pretty worn….and Ben requested a "soft" quilt.  So soft it is, with a bright blue minkee on the back (bought locally).

I sent this quilt to Christina for quilting.   I’m sure she was cursing my name during the process as it took some trial and error to get the set up right….but I sure love the quilting.

I used some random fabrics and bright solids for this one.  I wanted it to have a playful, summery, boy look without being baby-ish.   This was my own pattern….which hopefully will be published in the coming months when I get in the writing mood. :)

And just for fun…

We finally joined the hex bug craze….and they are SO.MUCH.FUN.  I think I like them more than my kids.  I’ve spent hours on the floor playing with those silly bugs and ignoring my household duties.  :)

Summer runner

I finally dusted off my sewing machine and made this summery table runner for a gift using a charm pack and a half yard of white fabric.  The fabric is Treasures and Tidbits.

To make this quick runner cut 160 squares 1.75" x 1.75", and pick out 40 – 5" squares or use a charm pack.

Make a snowball block by sewing a white square in each corner of the 5" square.  I find it easiest to chain piece when I make these blocks, and as you can see down below I used my masking tape trick instead of marking all of those tiny squares with pencil lines.

Then sew them together 4 blocks in a row & 10 rows. Or 10 blocks in a row &  4 rows….whatever suites your fancy.

I got A LOT of questions about keeping my lines straight when I do straight line quilting.  Usually I use the edge of my foot as a guide….or if I’m doing thicker lines I have a nifty bar/guide  that hooks into my walking foot.  I think more than anything straight lines just take practice…lots and lots of practice. But even after lots of practice you’ll still get some crooked lines…guaranteed (see those quilting lines up there??? crooked!)  So don’t be so hard on yourselves if you get a crooked line here or there.  :)

Here’s what I’ve been up too….

…NOTHING.

I’m a master at doing semi-nothing.  I did finish a couple small sewing projects…but other than that we had a mighty slow week.  We did manage to make and paint a birdhouse…

(I said smile!!!!)

and picked huge bunches of lilacs on our walks.

I even got these bound….the perfect project for  semi- nothing-dooer like myself.  

Luckily after a good long week of semi-nothing I’m feeling like I need to do something.  Which is good because this blog was about to get real boring if not!