Oops!

Don't think I ever posted a final picture of the Wishing Tree:

Double batting, lots of quilting -- I'm very happy with how it turned out!

Good Couple of Days!

I've been going back and forth this weekend, quilting on the Q-20 and piecing on my Dream Machine, working two projects at once. 

Grabbed this out of the Partially Quilted stack. The pattern was published in the April 2011 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting from Better Homes & Gardens; it's called Posey Patch. I did the piecing, my friend Tiffany Hayes of Needle in a Hayes Stack (great pattern line and she is a fellow Craftsy instructor) did the applique.

Yesterday I finished the curvy lines in the background; still deciding on what fills I want in them. Today I quilted feathers in the floral area around the inner star and did a freehand design in the pink squares that I found in one of Angela Walters' Shape by Shape books. Those books are a gold mine of ideas!

This is another design from one of the books; I did this with a ruler foot and a straight edge quilting ruler from Westalee Designs.

I started by marking two lines. The top one is 3/4" from the tip of the triangle, the second is 1-1/4", so they are spaced 1/2" apart.

I was able to do two adjacent triangles before cutting the thread and moving to the next pair.

Started in the corner where the two triangles joined, then used the spacing gauge tool to make sure I would hit that first mark. I'm using the 1/4" leg; since the outside of the ruler foot is exactly 1/4" from the needle, one side of the spacing gauge tool (let's call it a SGT, OK?) touches the ruler and the free edge shows the path the needle will take as you stitch along the ruler with the ruler foot.

Stitched to that top mark, then moved the SGT to the corner to align the ruler properly for that section.

Moved the SGT to the lower of the two marks and aligned the ruler to stitch to it.

Then stitched to that mark and back to the beginning to finish that boomerang shape. Repeated it on the other triangle, then cut the thread and did the rest of them. There are only 5 pieced blocks, so it didn't take that long.

Dan decided that this would be a good day to hang all of my stencils up on the wall next to the new machine, so I moved over to the other machine and stitched a few triangles.

Now they're easy to get to!

Back to the Q to stitch that same boomerang shape in the border triangles. Then I cut, sewed and pressed the binding. I'm having foot surgery in a couple of days and thought that maybe I could do the hand sewing on the binding while I can't use the machines.

Yep, it's my right foot, so no driving for two weeks! Maybe I can teach myself to sew with my left foot?

Quilty Surprises!

I love subscription boxes! I've done Stitch Fix for clothes and a couple of sample beauty boxes -- those were great for snagging travel size cosmetics to take with me on my teaching trips. So of course I can't resist the allure of fabric from the latest collections, inspiring patterns and notions! I'll share with you the ones that came in recently:

Someone asked me the other day what my favorite subscription box was and my answer was the Sew Sampler from Fat Quarter Shop. It's a good mix of fabric/pattern/notions at a good price and I usually like almost everything. I think I gave away a ruler from one box and a needle keeper from another, but mostly I keep and use everything in the box.

As usual there is a card explaining what's in the box and the pattern for the basket block of the month. But a 15% coupon on Moda? Oh, yeah!!!

Here's the pattern and fabric this time. First time I've received a box where I wouldn't have purchased the fabric if I had seen it in a store. Guess I'm just not a muted blue person. This is a junior jelly roll and I'd be happy to trade for an equivalent value in fabric that is brighter in color? I know this Snowberry line is really popular so maybe one of you would love to have it and are willing to trade? I'll throw in the table runner pattern as a bonus.

Like all of the notions -- no one can ever have too many Wonder Clips or seam rippers. The little scissors are cute, too -- polka dots!!

The next box I opened was from Culcita, which means "quilt" in a language I don't speak. The Weekend Candy quilt top that I just finished was also from Culcita and used a Cotton & Steel line called "Sleep Tight".

This one features "Chroma" by Alison Glass -- "hand stamped, hand dyed, one piece at a time, so each bit of fabric is unique and different from the next, adding to the beauty of it. No two bolts are alike and cuts from one bolt will likely look different from cuts from another. Like natural leather or stone, these variations make each piece perfectly imperfect." Quote from the card accompanying the fabrics. Each Culcita shipment has 12 fat quarters of the featured fabric line.

Love the range of colors! I am definitely a "brights" person!

Found this pattern in one of the magazines that also came in recently and think that it would look great in the Chroma fabrics. It's in the October 2017 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting from Better Homes & Gardens. I like the pattern that came in the Culcita box, too; I'm a big Quilt Theory fan.

With every Culcita box there is a fortune cookie with a sewing/quilting related fortune. Dan ate the cookie, but left the fortune on the kitchen table for me.

The last box I opened was from Cotton Cuts. This used to be called Stash Builder and I think I originally found them through an article in Generation Q Magazine that was reviewing subscription fabric boxes. This is the first one I have received since the company changeover.

Three one yard cuts from the Meriweather line by Amy Gibson for Windham Fabrics were in the box plus the Super Nova Stars pattern by Krystal Jakelwicz. The card included with the shipment showed some of the other fabrics in the collection. There are a couple of text fabrics that I'd like to buy and maybe a background....

Have you purchased subscription boxes? Which ones and what are your thoughts? I love them, even knowing it's kind of a shot in the dark thing in that you don't know what you're getting! 

Appletree Quilting Center -- What I Bought

A box of fabric and goodies usually follows me home when I teach here, but this time I left room/weight in the luggage so I could bring my finds home with me:

First, I got to add to my collection of low volume neutrals that I started buying with the Pacifica quilt. And, since I am such a sucker for polka dots and love grey, I had to have that.

Wendy had this quilt made up using Marvel comics fabric; I have a Wonder Woman border print that I will have a big piece left over after I cut the borders, so this would be a great way to use it.

This quilt has been hanging in one of the restrooms at Appletree for a while; I saw it when I was there last October and wanted to make it. So this time Millie pulled the kit together for me, along with cutting instructions from the panels, and Wendy took the picture so I'd have a reference point when laying it out. Is this an awesome Halloween quilt? Some of the fabrics even glow in the dark! And there are lots of bats!

We were sewing in the evenings -- Wendy was working on her Tula Pink Sugar Skulls quilt from the book that Tula wrote with Angela Walters:

Wendy picks out the best fabrics!

I was working on a quilt that I found in Issue 12 of Make Modern, an Australian digital quilting magazine. I'm using the scraps of Blueberry Park left over from my Pacifica quilt. I had enough to make lots of HSTs and then bought a charm pack so I would have enough for 60 blocks. Here's the stack of 60 blocks and two that are joined with the grey cross fabric that was left over from the backing provided by Culcita in the Weekend Candy quilt kit.

 

As for the box following me home, I bought a Rowenta tank iron that I fell in love with -- lots of steam, hot in 2 minutes, lots of good reasons to add it to the sewing room!

What about you? What is your favorite iron and why?

Appletree Quilting Center, Columbia MO

Millie and Wendy, owners of Appletree Quilting Center, are two of my favorite people in the whole world! Whenever I get to spend time with them, it's a great thing! I flew in to Kansas City last Thursday, picked up the rental car and drove to the shop. Three days of teaching by day and sewing by night -- what could be better?

I don't show as many teaching pictures as I should, the problem being that I get totally caught up in the teaching and don't remember to reach for the camera. But my Ruler Play 3 class, which is a reverse applique class using the Westalee rulers, was such a cool class! Everybody just unleashed their creativity to make the project their own after we did the basics:

There's the class photo; now for some individual closeups:

Linda did some close Baptist Fan type stitching in the corners and then cut out a little more of her top fabric to expose the red in the corners. Gave another little pop of color to her piece!

Suzanne added feathers in the corner and was considering what sort of a background fill she would do in the rest -- maybe crosshatching in the turquoise thread? On Sunday I taught Beyond the Basics, which takes crosshatching to a whole new level and really makes gridwork sing. Can't wait to see what Suzanne does with this!

When I first looked at Sandy's fabrics, I went "Yikes!" Just couldn't imagine how that strong diagonal print was going to work as her background.

Once she got her satin stitching in, though, it seemed to anchor the whole thing. On Sunday, she was working on gridwork in her background, so again -- send me pictures, please?

Shirley was in my Feathers class on Friday, skipped Saturday and then came back Sunday to learn detail quilting. She had asked my opinion on Friday about the border quilting and then came back Sunday with it all done! No grass grows around her feet, I'll tell ya! She did a great job in a beautiful thread that coordinates with the pieced work in the center of the quilt. I think maybe she didn't eat or sleep between Friday and Sunday....

Sharon also took the Feathers class and then Beyond the Basics, so she did the feather work on Friday and then continued on the same piece to do her background fills on Sunday. Wish I had taken a picture of the fabric she was planning to use for binding -- picked up all the colors of the variegated thread and looked awesome!

Robin is making this for her daughter; started the work in Ruler Play 3 and then did the background fills in metallic thread in Beyond the Basics. Way fun and her daughter will love it!

So I taught by day and sewed by night -- next post I'll show you what we were working on!

Just About Done!

Finished the border with the serpentine and circles:

Used a whole lot of Mettler thread in this project!

The last thing I do is to "sign" my work with a bat somewhere in the lower right hand corner....can you see it?

Looking at the whole thing, though, I may have to do a little stitching in the tree trunk...then I can wash and block today to go to Appletree Quilting with me tomorrow!

Have a super quilty day!