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Thursday, March 7, 2024

Helena Quilt


 Purchased the PDF pattern for this quilt from The Fat Quarter Shop .  I wanted to use fabric from my stash to create this quilt and ordered a few other fabrics from Water Girl Quilt Co.  


 

The pattern is made with one of GE Gudrun's quilt rulers but, it does give brief instructions if using a regular ruler.  Here are the rulers I ended up using but I'm sure most quilters can improvise with what they have on hand.




I picked a variety of fabrics - mostly small print, some light, some dark.  Background fabric is Kona Snow

Cut squares out of prints and background, then cut into  specified pieces.  Easily done with the rulers I had.





Next, sections are pieced together.  Diagrams in the pattern are clear.

When it came to cutting these pieces, she only gave directions for her ruler.  So I placed my 1 1/4" line from tip to tip on the square, and cut.  Then I placed my 2 1/2" line along that cut piece and cut again.  Giving a 2 1/2" section with 2 'wings'. 



Sewing the sections together to form a nice point was done by making a mark at the 1/4" line at the seam of each piece.  I placed a pin through the marks on both pieces, and then secured with clips to keep in place.  No instructions were given for this in the pattern.

Once 2 wings were attached, block is squared.  Again no directions, but I put the  2 1/2" lines on the seams and kept the diagonal line on the center of the diagonal piece.




 Arranging blocks on my design board.


 
 
I added a 4" grey print border to the quilt to bring it to a 56" by 74" quilt top size.  The print was Thatched Gray by Robin Pickens.
 
I pieced together a backing, having flying geese as an insert between the grey backing fabric for contrast.
 
Quilted on diagonals with my Bernina and a walking foot. 


Quilt size 56 x 74






Saturday, March 2, 2024

Experimental Farm Toe Up Socks - Recipe


These socks, made for my hubby,  were knit with Roots & Rain yarn Trillium Field Sock.  Naturally dyed with onions skins and walnuts.  The yarn is 70%  Rideau Arcott and 30% nylon - Limited Edition.   

The Rideau Arcott is a purebred sheep.  It was developed entirely in Canada. Agriculture Canada spent 10 to 15 years developing this breed at their research station in Ottawa. I always refer to the place as the Experimental Farm, thus the name for these socks.  The yarn weight is different from what I knit most of my socks with - slightly thicker and more rustic.  The sock will be cozy and warm for the feet.

Here's my recipe for the socks:

Use  Turkish Cast On (Happee Knits) to cast on 12 stitches.  Follow her directions for increasing.  Once you have the number of stitches for the sock size ( used 56 stitches total for men's large), start the foot of the sock.  Pattern on top (3 x 1 rib) and plain knitting on sole.


 

For Experimental Farm Socks for man's size large, I knit until sock measured 8". Then started heel.

Easiest heel is the Shadow Wrap Heel (Purl Together)  There's no counting to worry about, simply decide how many stitches you want for the center of heel.

After the heel, knit all stitches in pattern until sock measures 5" from where you finished Shadow Wrap Heel.  Then start ribbing for cuff.  I usually knit about 2" for the cuff, then bind off.

Although not the prettiest bind off,  Elizabeth Zimmerman bind off   (Knit by Heart) is the stretchiest bind off I've used.  Simple and does the trick.


And voila - a pair of men's socks (size 11 shoe).

Monday, June 20, 2022

Iris Quilt

Baby quilt for newest grandnephew.  The pattern in Iris and the fabric is Confetti from Me and My Sister designs.  Although the pattern is made with jellyroll in mind, I used my Stripology ruler on 1/2 yard and fat quarter fabric pieces.






Size was a bit small so I made a double border with  white and extra fabric pieces to enlarge..  I had to refresh my memory for adding a mitered double border to the quilt.  Picket Fence Quilt Company gives a useful video.

 
Prepping for quilting.   
Used the crosshatch design for quilting.  Done on my domestic machine with a walking foot.
 


And voila - another quilt.





Monday, March 21, 2022

Windy City

Made a quilt for my sister-in-law who is undergoing cancer treatment.   Bought the pattern, Windy City, and fabrics to make it and away I went. Fabric is mostly Cotton & Steel, Strawberry Fields line.


This pattern involves lots of piecing which I enjoyed.  Something very useful for all the diagonal piecing was the Diagonal Seam tape from Cluck Cluck Sew.  It's been sitting in my cabinet for awhile and I decided to give it a try.  A real time saver and accurate too.

My design wall always comes in handy when deciding on layout.  


When it comes to prepping the layers for quilting, I use two folding tables side by side and elastic straps hooked to the legs.  I pin the elastic to the edges of the backing so it's nice and snug.  Lay the batting on top and thoroughly smooth it out.  Then on goes the quilt top and more smoothing. 😀 Finally the pinning begins.

This is probably the biggest quilt I've done on my domestic.  At times, it was like wrestling an octopus, but I got into the swing of it.  Walking foot is a wonderful tool for this type of quilting. 


The backing fabric is one of my favorites.  Lots of interesting messages on it.  The label is bordered with bits of fabric from quilts that I've made for her grandchildren.
The finished quilt.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Christmas in July Virtual Workshop

I had the pleasure this year of taking a Christmas in July virtual retreat held by Watergirl Quilt Co.  and Dragon's Heart Quilt Shop It took place over a day and half on Zoom.  Lots of fun and interesting things were learned including how to make a gift bag, a quilted post card and the highlight - a Christmas lap quilt.  There was even a yoga instructor to guide us through some gentle stretches to relieve some kinks from our tired sewing bodies.   


Prior to the workshop, I asked Katie (@lethargiclass) at Watergirl Quilt Co. to choose some fabric that would work for this quilt.  As usual, Katie's keen color sense and fabric design coordination came through for me.  As I couldn't shop personally, I was happy to have Katie make the selection.



At the retreat, the quilt instruction was led by Susan Madu of Modern Blended Quilts.  We had a special preview of her pattern, Simply Modern Christmas, which was to be released shortly after our workshop.  The pattern uses the Corner Pop III ruler and it makes a delightful Christmas tree in each block.  I'll be using this method in another special project I have in mind.

Once the quilt was pieced, I quilted it using random criss crossing lines.  The walking foot on my domestic machine handled that job. I bound it using solid red and it is backed in a lumberjack plaid cotton.  A cozy piece for the cold winter to come.



Quilted Postcard


Gift Bag




 

 

 




Friday, January 8, 2021

Conquered Curves


This Polarity quilt pattern caught my eye the minute I walked into Mad About Patchwork in the summer of 2019.  I have always shied away from curves, but with my DH's encouragement to give them a try, I purchased the pattern and material - mostly dark blues and neutrals in Kona solids.  I added only one  dark blue print to the mix.

 
I procrastinated in starting this project and then we moved, delaying the start even more.

Once my new sewing area was set up I decided it was time to give the pattern a go.   No longer allowing those darn curves  - which I had tried a few times over the years - to keep me at bay.

The pattern comes with a template which I copied and put on a firm piece of cardboard for the concave and convex pieces.  I did a few sample runs with some fabric from my stash.  I discovered after this first try,  I'd have to be careful to match the seams and followed some helpful suggestions that the designer, Stacey Lee O'Malley, from SloStudio, had written in the pattern.




Feeling more confident,  I started the cutting process -  first strips, then squares, then cutting the pieces with the template.

I always am a bit hesitant when I start cutting the required strips and find that I don't get the same number pieces that the pattern says I should get from that strip. I make it a habit to wash and dry my fabric before using and this causes a small bit of shrinkage in the fabric.  Most cottons are a 44/45" width with the selvage being part of this width.  It would be great if pattern designers took this into account, as I have run into this problem before.

The wonderful thing was,  I was able to contact Stacey, the designer, and she had some suggestions to overcome this issue.  I appreciate it when a designer is available to offer help.

 
While I was cutting the first of my pieces with the template, I saw that there was a lot of waste from each piece.  So I did some rejigging and found a way to get more pieces from the material.

I watched several You Tube videos for best way to sew concave and convex pieces together.  Many opinions are out there on which is the best method - pins, no pins, some pins.  I went with the many pins method and things went well.  I used a scant 1/4" seam allowance.


Once sewn, each square was pressed and trimmed to 10 1/2".




















Once trimmed, the pieces were then placed on the design board (and design floor) 😊


Although the quilt top was finished, I had to wait for a bit before I got it quilted (pandemic and all you know).  The design I chose was Easy Orange Peel and Jen at Happy Wife Quilting did a spectacular job. 



  

I added a label and chose a binding which was one of the quilt top fabrics (navy blue with small white crosses which show intermittently around the quilt).  And voila, my curved quilt was complete.  


 

I'm really happy with the final result and so glad I rose to the challenge and conquered curved piecing.