Made SOME Progress This Weekend

My goal was to get the centers pieced on the two quilts I pictured in my last post; however, life interfered -- shopping at the mall and at my local quilt store, Bolts in the Bathtub, became irresistible and all that takes time.

Our original quest at the mall was a booth staffed by Girl Scouts and selling their cookies! Had to have more Thin Mints (which I have to hide from Dan because he inhales them -- if you're reading this, honey, I really didn't buy any and you won't find them if I did). Terry was looking for the peanut butter sandwich cookies, Do-Si-Dos; there weren't any in the booth, but I spiffed her some of mine...

So since we were at the mall anyway, I had to look at and buy some of those fun earrings with feathers on them! They blend in really well with my hair so it looks like my hairdresser added more feathers -- fun!


I got all the blocks done for the first quilt top that I had planned to piece; there are A blocks and B blocks and in the upper right corner of the picture are the setting triangles since this quilt is set on point. I still have to sew a couple more seams on those 10 units.

The blocks laid out look like this....I LOVE the pale seafoam color for the background! I usually choose cream or white for backgrounds and it's nice to get away from that for a change.

Still have to make four corner units; all the pieces are stacked on my Sew Steady table, ready to go. I'm hoping to have a little time this afternoon to get the side and corner triangle piecing done so that all I have to do are the long seams later this week.

And the borders....

Didn't even touch the other one I wanted to do, but Terry and I are getting together in April, right before I teach at Fabrics, Notions & More in Ridgecrest, so there's still hope!

A Couple of Piecing Projects for This Weekend

This weekend I get to sew with my friend Terry Wojciehowski. We are aiming for a weekend a month this year and so far it's worked, so we'll see how the rest of the year goes with my travel schedule and both our busy lives. Terry is coming over tomorrow afternoon and staying through Sunday, so that's not a lot of time, but we only stop sewing to eat and sleep, so manage to get quite a lot done.

Last weekend, I taught in two quilt shops in the San Diego area: Cozy Quilts and Memory Lane Quilts for the Legacy Quilt Guild. The Legacy guild had booked me for a Thursday night lecture and a Saturday Introduction to Machine Quilting workshop (held at Memory Lane) and Daniela Stout of Cozy Quilts graciously invited me to teach Machine Trapunto at her shop on Friday to fill out my schedule.

Of course, I bought things at both shops and that is what I hope to work on this weekend:

I saw a sample on the wall made from this pattern by Christina Stiasny, owner of Memory Lane Quilt Shop. I was also eyeing a line of fabric from Benartex that was conveniently displayed on a table between the classroom and the restroom!

So this is one project that I would like to work on this weekend....from left to right are my final border fabric, the stripe for the inner border, the next three in the piecing and the far right pale aqua for the background.


Cozy Quilts is known, probably world wide, for Daniela Stout's Strip Club kits, books and patterns. Every second Saturday, over one hundred quilters come to Cozy Quilts to find out what the new Strip Club pattern will be. There is kind of a teaser ahead of time in that on a shelf near the classroom there will be the bolts of fabric reserved for the following month's Strip Club subscribers. That's sort of what hooked me -- I fell in love with the fabrics reserved for April.

The above fabrics were for the March Strip Club -- somehow I got out of the store without a photo of the quilt top! The pattern is called "Shine" and here is a link to the quilt: http://www.cozyquilt.com/Aspx/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=2554

I wasn't totally crazy about the border fabric, so I bought the strip set, grabbed a gold fabric out of my stash for the stars and then went to my local quilt shop, Bolts in the Bathtub, to fill out the rest. The white-on-white polka dot will be the background, the next fabric is the gold print that I pulled from the stash, the next two golds will be the setting triangles where Cozy has the greens, the pink polka dot for the inner border and the fun floral/butterfly print for the outer border. Bought the stripe because I had to have it; don't know if I'll use it as the binding (very optimistic in thinking I'll get it quilted at some point in my life) or just add it to the stash.

Here they are all together.....

So I have two things to work on; guess I'll do some rotary cutting tonight!

Cozy Quilts is located at 2940 Jamacha Road, Suite H in El Cajon CA (ph: 619-670-0652). Memory Lane Quilt Shop just moved to a brand new location at 1626 N. Magnolia Avenue in El Cajon, CA (ph: 619-562-2288).

Teri Asked "What's for Dinner?"

On facebook today, my friend Teri Lucas told us what she was having for dinner -- chicken -- and asked what we all were doing. Since I've done so much traveling lately, this is the first meal I've cooked this month, so I thought I'd give a little more detail:

Asparagus has to be my favorite produce item -- except for strawberries! which aren't quite in season here yet. Right now asparagus is plentiful, cheap and yummy. I put the salmon on one baking sheet, the asparagus on another, drizzled them with olive oil and liberally sprinkled Trader Joe's "Everyday Seasoning" over it all. Then into a 475 degree oven for 11 minutes.

Meanwhile, I had some leftover "Quinoa and Red Rice Stuffing" made from a Williams-Sonoma mix that I heated up in the microwave for a few minutes. Made nice texture and some additional color on the plate. The Valencia CA Williams-Sonoma had boxes of this mix on clearance after the holidays and I bought one to try. Now, of course, I wish I had bought more!


Dan uncorked a bottle of chardonnay and we were good to go!

Here's a picture of the bottle in front of the beautiful flowers that were waiting for me after I got home from my 11 day trip to Texas. I taught for two days at Creative Sewing Center in San Antonio, three days at Sew Contempo in Houston and then did a lecture and a workshop for the Rio Grande Valley Quilters in Weslaco TX. Of course, fabric and great ideas followed me home! I'll be back in San Antonio teaching three days at Creative Sewing Center in September.

The flowers are from Antelope Valley Florist in Lancaster CA -- they do such beautiful arrangements and they last a long time.....

Closeup of the bottle: It's a wine we purchased from Mayo Family Winery on a trip to Sonoma CA a few years ago. We attended a food/wine pairing at the winery tasting room. The food and wine worked wonderfully together and they were very gracious in sharing the recipes. We were wine club members for a couple of years after that.

This is probably a whole lot more than you wanted to know, Teri!

Oh, and for dessert, I had 6 Thin Mint cookies -- can't believe we only bought four boxes this year! Guess Girl Scouts don't set up their booths in front of Trader Joe's stores....

Had a Fun Sewing Weekend!

My friend Terry Wojciehowski drove out from Ridgecrest last Friday morning and we had a sewing weekend! She was making a quilt for a grandchild and I was working on a couple of things that I had started, including the Posey Patch quilt that I have shown on the blog.

Once we got going, things got a bit messy.....we set up on my kitchen table with machines, laptops, fabric, pins and thread.

Terry brought her brand new Viking Designer Diamond Deluxe, her SewEzi table and a cushion for her chair. Good thing, because she spent quite a few hours there!

She brought a lot of stuff! My husband thought she was planning to move in....

The blocks for her grandson's quilt -- definitely a boy's quilt!

By the end of the weekend, Terry had all of the blocks done and joined in rows; she'd also been shopping at Bolts in the Bathtub, my local quilt shop, for border fabrics.

I bought these coordinating fabrics at Bolts in the Bathtub two or three years ago and had cut out and started sewing some blocks at a retreat last year. The pattern is called "Savannah on my Mind" by Sandy Boobar and Sue Harvey of Pine Tree Country Quilts. It was printed in the June/July 2011 issue of Quilt magazine.


These are my completed blocks; I still had a couple of prints in the line that I hadn't used.











Decided on the large floral for the alternating blocks and saved the other for the final border.

Laying out the blocks on the fabric helped make my decision; unfortunately for the picture, there was lots of sunshine coming in one of my windows! It was a typical Southern California winter day -- almost 70 degrees!


The alternating blocks, setting triangles and corner triangles ready to be sewn.

Terry made a really good suggestion: Since the setting and corner triangles were cut from a directional print, she thought I might arrange them so that the leaves seemed to flow down the sides of the quilt.

I also got the Posey Patch blocks sewn together and 52 flying geese blocks made and pieced for the border. So that's ready to go for this week's sewing. I have a couple of days to sew this week; I'm leaving Thursday for Ridgecrest to take a couple of workshops with Cindy Needham -- very excited about that!

And, of course, I cooked some very good stuff and we finished a couple (well, maybe a few) bottles of red wine -- all in all, a most enjoyable weekend!

My Favorite Color -- in the Sky!

Just a few minutes ago, about 5:30 pm PST, I happened to glance up from the book I was reading and saw a pretty colorful sunset. Normally, I get so totally engrossed in a book that flight attendants have to touch my shoulder in order to hand me a drink, so you know it was a really spectacular sunset!

Especially since I am reading a really good book! I'm a big fan of the Agent Pendergast series written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and have started another series by them about a physicist named Gideon Crew, who also happens to step in occasionally to save the world. I'm about 3/4 finished with "Gideon's Corpse", the second book in the series.

But back to the sunset:

I ran to my purse, grabbed my camera and dashed outside; snapped these three pictures real quick and within a couple of minutes, the colors just faded away....lucky shots! It always pays to know where one's camera is!

Continuing On with "Posey Patch" (Part 2)

Had an afternoon this time, so made some components to finish the "Posey Patch" pieced blocks:

This unit combines squares and triangles to surround the centers that I've already made...

I really like the way this is going to look in the quilt!

My first finished unit -- couldn't wait to see how it was going to look!

After making 20 of the pink and burgundy units and 20 tan and cream four patches, the blocks are ready to be sewn together. I used several different tan fabrics in the four patches and wanted the various prints distributed through the quilt top, so didn't run the risk of mixing them up during the block piecing.

I laid everything out on the floor and then transported one block at a time to the sewing machine. This is a pretty big finished block, 16", so I used my 18" x 24" cutting mat to move the pieces. I use this method a lot when it is important not to get things mixed up.

Dan and I are leaving for Salt Lake City tomorrow, so I won't be doing any more sewing this week. Perhaps some sight seeing? And definitely a wedding! My last wedding pictures turned out awful, but maybe I'll have better luck this time....

Random Pictures from Travels

Clearing the camera card again -- after a lengthy "blog vacation", I found that I had lots of pictures that hadn't been posted, but I thought were worthy of sharing. I'll intersperse them in among my sewing posts:

One of my trips this fall was in November; I taught at The Fabric Center in Morris IL for two days and then spent a night with my friend Carol in the Chicago area. From there I went to Grand Rapids MI and Lansing MI to teach for Gall Sewing and then back to Chicago to spend a few more days with Carol.

One of our nights out was at a restaurant on a street that looked like an autumn wonderland with all the colored lights in the trees -- had to get a picture of that!

A couple of weeks ago, Dan and I spent a few days in Lake Arrowhead. It's about a two hour drive through some small communities in the high desert area. We were driving through Littlerock and saw this sign -- what an odd combination! Ski gloves and beef jerky?

It was the sign right next to it, though, that really confused us!

A few miles later we saw a sign that announced that the speed limit was 24-1/2 mph. I wanted to get a picture of that, too, but Dan was driving too fast for me to get it....

Continuing On with "Posey Patch"

Had a little bit of time on the second day of working on the blocks, between a dental appointment (ugh) and a mani-pedi (hooray!):

Putting my new "Izzy" through her paces by sewing the flying geese to plain squares. I helped introduce this machine to Brother dealers at their Back 2 Business convention last August; if you would like to read my review of Isodore at the convention, click here.

One of the first things I do when sitting down at a machine unfamiliar to me is to figure out how to get an accurate pressed 1/4". I think it has something to do with my vision, but if I use a 1/4" foot, the blocks always turn out smaller than desired. I just take too big a seam allowance with the 1/4" feet provided by machine manufacturers.

So I use a regular foot and adjust my needle position until I have a good pressed 1/4", not stitched 1/4". Accuracy also depends on the fabrics and threads involved, so I always do a little test to make sure that my stitching is as accurate as I can possibly get it. A consistently accurate seam allowance makes star points a whole lot easier with much less ripping involved!

This is what my block center looked like before I chose the fabrics to complete it....

I liked the way the breast cancer benefit fabric showed words in some of the little squares....

Here are the rest of the fabrics -- more of the floral print, a tone on tone pinky-rose print, a burgundy and the creamy dot background.....

....and here is where I am at the end of my short sewing time -- all the centers done and in their appropriate places. Now I'm off to get sparkly fingers and toes!

Back in the Sewing Room!

After last autumn's busy season of traveling and teaching (I was home exactly two days in October!), I am happy to get back to my sewing room. I have two large tables where I do a lot of my away-from-the-machine work -- they're now cluttered with bags of fabrics, patterns, notions and books that I have either purchased or been given while I've been gone. Scattered in with some of these bags are fabrics pulled from my stash for consideration in future projects. In other words, quite a mess.

I'm also looking over some of my works in progress and deciding on a hopeful timetable for completion. One of these UFO's is a 56-1/2" square quilt called "Posey Patch" from the April 2011 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. This quilt features nine 16" pieced blocks, four of which are appliqued. I had pieced the four blocks last year and given them to my friend Tiffany Hayes of Needle in a Hayes Stack to work her hand applique magic. Tiffany likes to have a bit of handwork to do in the evening while she is spending time with her family and she does beautiful work.

She gave the blocks back to me months ago and so I put this quilt at the top of my to-sew list. The applique is not exactly like the pattern in the magazine; we changed it up a bit for a more sophisticated look.

I also have a new sewing machine to play with, the Laura Ashley Limited Edition "Isodore" from Brother, so now it's time to shove a stack of "stuff" onto the floor and piece the other five blocks:

The little four-patch in the center combines a green print with a green-on-white polka dot. That is surrounded by a peachy-pink floral ; the corners are a brown/blue/pink butterfly print that is one of the fabrics from a quilt for a cure line by Marcus Brothers. Interspersed among the butterflies are words in script, such as "Hope", "Kisses", "Friends" and "Love".

Next, the pattern called for 20 flying geese to measure 2" x 4" finished. I used the method that takes one large square and four small squares to make 4 units. To make them the size required, one 5-1/4" square of one fabric and four 2-7/8" square of the other were needed.

On each of the smaller squares, a line is drawn from corner to corner to act as a guide for the sewing.

Then two small squares are pinned to one large square, as shown.

I stitched 1/4" on each side of the marked line...


...then used the marked line as a cutting line.












At right, the two resulting pieces after pressing.



I pinned another small square to each of the pieced units and then stitched 1/4" on either side of the marked line.


After cutting on the marked line, pressing and trimming off the notches, I have a pile of little bitty triangles and four flying geese units that measure 2-1/2" x 4-1/2".

When I stitch these to the other block components, the finished size will be 2" x 4".

I first learned this method of sewing flying geese units from Alex Anderson a few years ago and it has become my favorite method for making them. It seems to be easier and more accurate than sewing them one at a time. I even found a ruler that I can consult to determine the sizes of the large square and small squares for various finished sizes of geese. It is called Flying Geese x 4 "No Math" Ruler from Lazy Girl Designs.

After cutting 2-1/2" squares for the corners of the blocks, I stacked them up and was done for the day.