Another floret for my hexagon quilt is done

Another floret for my hexagon quilt is done.  I have been working little by little on these hexagons, with some interruption when I needed to get my Tiny Town appliqué block done.  Today I put the last purple hexagons on and can now move on to the next colour.

When I got home late this evening I decided I should get started on the next appliqué block for mid April.  So that I don't leave it to the last minute, I have to try and get one building done per week.  Tonight I managed to get about eighty percent of my barn done.  I will take a picture when it is complete.

While I was sewing I had QuiltCam on and enjoyed listening to Bonnie Hunter while sewing.  It just happened that I started the QuiltCam at the some time that she ran the show and it ended just in time to head to bed.

I enjoyed my relaxing night.  Time to distress.  Enjoy everyone.

I have finally been bitten

I have finally been bitten, by the GO! That is the Aqququilt Cutter.  From previous posts you can tell that I do spend a lot of time cutting up fabric. Cutting down my scraps trying to keep a handle on the scrap basket.  Well now I have a cutting system to help.  It's called GO!

I can see the advantages of the GO!  I've read about it many times on various Blogs.  Many people use it and have many different dies.  For me, for now, I purchased the two that I would use the most.  They are the 2" strip cutter and the 1 1/2" strip cutter.  These are the two sizes of strips that I use most often when making a quilt.  But, the more I read about it the more I can see owning other dies in the future.

Gone are the days that I spend almost a full day cutting up the pieces of fabric to make a quilt.  This will get it done in a fraction of the time.  The box says 90% faster.  We'll have to see.

Here is a picture of the 2" strip die loaded with scraps to be cut and covered with the protector.

This is what I got out of it.  What I did was layer my scraps all along the die with no more the six overlaps.  It doesn't look like much but I piled the fabrics on top of each other.  Just to check it out, I took the brown floral fabric and placed it back on the die in the opposite direction and ran it through the GO! again.  Out the other end I had fourth-eight 2" squares cut in a matter of seconds, not more than a minute, for sure.  The only waste I had was the small little pile beside the squares.  No more than I would of had, had I cut them all individually.  

This is great.  It could get me into some serious trouble if I don't keep an eye on the amount of fabric I am cutting.  As my daughter said, you can cut all the fabric you want, but you still have to sew it in the end.  

Do you see the black lines on the die cutter?  Those are the lines that you can use to line up your fabric, if you want to make different shapes.  There is a 60 degree line if you want to make diamonds for an eight point star, a 30 degree line, a 90 degree line and a cross line.  The possibilities with just those lines are huge.  Makes the 2" die cutter that much more useful.  I didn't know that when I bought it, but I am very happy they thought to add these lines to the new dies.

Working on the 3D Pinwheel quilt

On the Saturday after meeting for Tiny Town, I figured I needed some time to play a little.  I needed to relax a bit, with all the craziness going around here and work.  My daughter reminded me that I only had about 2 1/2 months to go before my second niece has her baby.

I posted a while back about getting all the fabric together, cut and ironed into prairie points.  I decided to pull the basket out and do some mindless sewing.  I managed to get all the blocks sewn up that same day.  Doesn't it look cute.  The picture was taken in the evening and my lighting is not the greatest, but I think you get the picture.

I took a picture to include the small border and the large border.  My daughter is not sold on the idea of this particular large border.  She feels it is too dark for the centre of the quilt.  I am thinking she may be right, but for now I leave it there and evaluate it each time I walk by.

This next shot is of a close up.  Here you can see more of the colours and the fabric pattern.

When I have a chance I will put the blocks together.  It won't take much time once I sit down and work on it.

As for the rest of my quilty stuff.  Not getting much done.  Working lots of overtime and managing things around the house.  It's tax season too, so have to get that stuff done.  This year I have five to do and with all this my computer decides that it is too old and won't allow for anymore upgrades.  So, now I have to learn about my new computer and when I get some time, slowly pull all my files and data from the old computer to transport it to the new one.  What a job.  Right now though I don't have the time.

You know, there is a theme going on here.  It's call time.  I need more time in a day to get everything done.  My husband and I keep telling the kids (when they complain that the didn't get to do this or that), that time does not stand still, you need to be aware of the time (ie. You sleep until noon you don't get to do as much as you want during the day, before it is time to go to sleep again).  But right now, they don't get it.

But me, I really want more time!!!  Ok, ok I will stop whining.  Talk you you when I can.

Tiny Town meeting today

Today was the meeting for Tiny Town block of the month.  I was working on my block, running out of time.  Working overtime at work didn't help.  I even came home yesterday and worked on my block from 8:00-10:30 pm.  By this time my eyes felt like grit.  This morning I woke up at 6:30 am and worked until 10:00 am, when I had to leave to go to the meeting.

As you can see, I almost finished the block before class.  The only part that is still left to do is the red car, at the bottom and the car windows.  Really, really close.

While I was at class this time I thought to take a picture for comparison.  There is not a single block that looks similar to another.  It is very nice to see all the different variations.  Some people did their blocks by machine appliqué with fusing.  Some did fussy cutting for curtain parts of the block.  The colour combinations are all unique as well.

This next group of pictures were the late comers.  Two of the late comers also brought their block number one, as they hadn't finished them for the last meeting.  Even these look so different from the previous batch.  I think it is great.

You may not be able to see it but the person who made the bottom right hand block decided to and in a clothes line with embroidered clothes hanging from the line.  In her block number two the middle block on the top row, she added a bird house and baby bird in the tree. Cute and imaginative.

Our next assignment is block number two.  Yay!!!  That is the block that I already have completely cut out.  It's a busy block, so I will need to keep on top of it.  There are four different buildings, a topiary, and a bird house.  I want to try and get ahead this time, instead of going crazy trying to finish it last minute. We shall see.

Enjoy the beautiful weather everyone!

My daughter's Easy Street quilt

I finally finished quilting and binding my daughter's quilt.  This pattern is called Easy Street, a mystery quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter.  My daughter just jumped right in and went along with the mystery.  Myself, I tend to be more cautious.  I think I have a control issue and not knowing what I am making would be hard for me, because I have no control in regards to the pattern or selections of what colours and where they would look best.  But, I am very proud of my daughter for going for it.

The next picture is the quilt on her bed.  I tried to take the quilt off her bed, so that I could get a better picture, but at first she refused.  She jumping on her bed sprawled out saying no, no, don't take my quilt.  It was quite funny watching her.  She can get very theatrical at times.  She goes on to say no, no, you can't take my Romeo away.  I had to laugh, while I struggled to push her off the bed.  

My daughter is very sentimental about this quilt because it is her first queen size adult style quilt.  I think it looks great.  She did an excellent job on this quilt.  The only difference between this quilt and the actual mystery quilt is that my daughter set her blocks straight instead of on a diagonal.  She decided to do it this way so that the chains would be on a diagonal.  I think it was a good move. 

Here is a picture of the quilting, from the back.  It is of the large main motif.  It was difficult to get a full picture and get the lighting just right, as the design is large at 12 1/2", but there is enough for you to get the gist of it.

This is a close up.  With all the colour it is more difficult to see the quilting.  That is why I took the picture above.  In this picture though you get to see the chain that goes through the green blocks that make up a sashing, but in fact that sashing is part of the second block.  Two blocks make up this quilt, set side by side to make the secondary design of a chain that make a grid across the quilt.

One more quilt that I can cross off my list.  Yah!!!

Pin cushion

While I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, after going to a quilt store with my quilting bee girls, I took some time to play and make a pin cushion.

This was my attempt.  I looked up a free pattern on the Internet.  This is a Dresden plate block that is sewn into a box shape with a bottom box in a different colour.  It's pretty large finishing at 6" square and 2" high.  It was fairly easy to make, until I did the centre circle.  The first circle I cut was too small, because I didn't include the seam allowance.  The second circle I thought was fine, but I misjudged the placement.  When I sewed around the circle I ended up too short to catch all the Dresden plates.

So....I took that circle off and tried again.  I had it sewn again and it looked good, until I started filling the cushion up with the ground walnut shells.  The movement and stretching caused the Dresden plates to work themselves out from underneath the centre circle.  This was frustrating, so I put it aside for a bit.

Part of my frustration was that I didn't like the colours I chose.  They were not my first choice.  I wanted something softer looking, but settled for these colours, the problem with the centre piece didn't help and lastly the pin cushion was much bigger than I thought, so I didn't have enough ground walnut shells to file the cushion.  I took this as a sign.  A sign that I should give this up.

I don't give up easy.  Instead I decided to take it as a sign that I should do this properly with the softer colours like I wanted to.  When I went to The Hobby Horse this past weekend I picked out a few coordinating fabrics for the fabric that I wanted to use in the first place, as well as some more walnut shells.

Here is what I ended up with.

I like the pastel colours for this better.  The dark green circle is the same fabric I used for the bottom and bottom half of the pin cushion.  What do you think?

Did up a bunch of pineapple blocks

I don't have much to share today or from the past couple of days.  I have been busy with various things, but nothing quite at the finish stage, that I can show you.  On Sunday I did finish quilting and binding my daughter's Easy Street quilt, but I am waiting for daylight to take pictures.  So, that may not be until the weekend, as I am working overtime this week, again.

I will share with you the pineapple blocks that I have been working on during little bits of stolen time here and there.  I finished two blocks on Sunday while I was waiting to take my daughter to work.  I am just getting some time now today to trim them and remove the paper.

I've also been working this evening on my pincushion.  It is almost done.  I will share that with you soon.

Hang in there, soon I hope to share more with you.  Like I tell the kids, everything takes time.