#JellyRollRailway

I love a good jelly roll pattern and FQS's Jelly Roll Railway isn't too shabby!
Whether using up left over strips or breaking out the new fabric goodness, this is a quick quilt good for gifting!
There is a kit here. And the video tutorial here

I used half a a pack of 2 1/2" batik strips from I think Hoffman fabrics.
The mini jelly rolls from Wilmington would work perfectly since they have 24 strips.

This pattern goes for short cuts, and for the strip piecing it does but then makes blocks instead of just going on point with a block and sash, which is what I ended up doing. I'm in a place where I need all the short cuts to get a quilt done so as much as I love triangles, it was out with those except for the setting triangles. The others are squares as long as the strip, and the smaller ones the width of the strips.

Because of the colours I added a mitred border to add some pop of dark.

This one reminds me of taking the train through rural areas, blurs of colour.

Layer Cake 10" Square HST Tutorial

The love of half square triangles strikes again!
This one is quick as well as easy. I used 10 squares and made 40 hsts and 4 squares in 25 minutes, without rushing!

Layer (2) starched 10" squares right sides together.

Stitch 1/4" down two parallel sides.

Cut on the diagonal, from corner to corner.


Press open.

Lay two triangles, these are one half of a quarter square triangle, right sides
together and stitch along the long edge.

Press open.

Trim. 13" = 3.25" patches, 12" = 3" patches.

Cut a 4 x 4 grid. (For 12", cut at 3", 6", & 9" both across and up/down)

Voila! 8 a/b half square triangles and 4 fabric a & 4 fabric b 3" squares.


Cool...now what can I make?

A/ One layer cake, 42 10" squares = 168 3" hsts, and 168 3" squares, which is 336 patches or a quilt laid out 17*19 rows is 43"*48".

B/ One layer cake & background/solid layer cake = 336 hsts, 168 print & 168 solid squares, which is 672 patches, laid out 25*26 rows is 63"x65.5"

If using from 13", instead of 3", it is 3.25" patches, making A/48*53 & B/ 69"*72.

Fat Eighth HST How To

Fat Eigths or f8s, are a newer cut and one I haven't played with all that much.

But in answer to the age old question what happens if...., I have discovered a new favorite for making a lot of hsts, and getting some squares too, from f8s.

First press the crazy number of deep creases out, and use either spray starch or Best Press etc. to add some stiffness. We're throwing out the rules regarding bias on this one. I know it's scary and shocking but I promise it works out in the end.

Sew two f8s right sides together, along the long edge. Match up the cut edge, not the selvedge to get the most out of the fabric.

Press the seams to help sink the stitches.

Lay your f8 flat on your cutting surface. Clean up the edge, and lay a 12.5" ruler on the edge with the 45 degree line on the edge, so you have a triangle. Cut. Use the images below, and you'll get 4 half a quarter square triangles. (1/2 a qst)

  

 Press the triangles open. stitch two together to make a quarter square triangle.

Each f8 pair will yield 2 QST.

Trim down the qst so it is 12" square.

Making 6 cuts, subcut into 3" segments.

Each 12" qst will yield 4 & 4 3'' solid squares, and 3" 8 hsts, With the fq8 pair yielding 8 & 8, and 16 hst.

Thoughts on fabric for remakes

I'm trying to decide which of my designs to write up or re-do for patterns. These are some of what what I've made in the last few years that for a lot of reasons didn't get that book and didn't get published otherwise.

Any thoughts? I'm think maybe Northcott textures? They're semi-Canadian. Or is Kona solids the way to go for more shelf-life?

Project Quilting Season 8 Challenge #2

 #PQSeason8 Challenge- Carolina Lily

Titled " pee by me", I made this to protest my hubby's home state of North Carolinas HB2 law, which forces trans people to use the bathroom of their birth gender, not the gender they identify with, this includes students at public schools.
It bans cities from passing anti-discrimination bylaws and rejects protections for LGBT people. You can be fired in NC for being gay. And evicted.
HB2 also bans a higher minimum wage set by cities. 

The quilt is 40" square and uses @vchristenson's ombres for @modafabrics, with @blankquiltingcorp's newsprint. Quilted with @aurifilthread 50 wt and bound in 28wt. Made in London, ON Canada.

I'm resharing this from my Instagram to remind everyone that peeing in a public bathroom is a question of existing in public space. Being allowed to exist. Transgender people, fellow human beings, are more likely to be the victim of a crime and they are killed at a higher rate then any other group.
Only ~1% of the population is transgender.
41% of transgender human beings have attempted suicide compared to 4.6% in the general population.
And you care where they pee?
How about we protect some of the most vulnerable among us instead of making things harder.

The final challenge for Project Quilting Season 8 is live Sun March 12 @ 1pmET on Kim Lapacek's blog Persimon Dreams! We need just a few more entries to get this seasons total to 800!

#ProjectQuilting Week 3 - Thread

  I'm loving doing #ProjectQuilting. Having a theme is really helping push me to do some designing and just let my mind play with an idea, and even after I've done my design I keep thinking about different ways it could be represented. I really just am feeling energized with it. So a big thank you Kim for doing this!

 This week's challenge is thread.
 I was inspired by this picture of spools of Aurifil from Alyce of Blossom Heart Quilts, where she was doing a mini whole clothe quilt.

With that as my starting point I just dove in making little Aurifil spools. I made them all orange spools because I really do love my 50wt.

28 blocks later...

The quilt is 24"x24". Everything about this quilt is a scrap or leftovers. 

I used up left over Grunge charms from this quilt, and the very last of my white fabric from one I did in December and even the backing is pieced from left overs of another backing. It's quilted with Aurifil 2311 50wt thread, which is my go to for piecing and quilting. I love how how much my machine loves it. I get less breakage, less lint, and fit more on a bobbin.

Do you have a favorite thread colour?  

Be sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter!

All in A Row

Just  resist the adorable row quilts I picked up Martingale's Moda All-Stars All in a Row and had to make up a few of the rows right away!
I'm following along with #allinarowquiltalong in hopes of keeping motivation to make a full quilt not just runners etc.

The cute factor has me breaking into my Honey Honey stash by Kate Spain. I really love the warmth and bright of her fabrics and Honey Honey just checked off all the awesome. It's a line I love more and more.And Kate is a really warm and lovely person and I just get that feeling from the fabrics as well.

 I made Pincushion and Thread and I can't believe how cute that little bit of applique adds! I'll add the button on top of the applique after it is quilted.

I also did the Drunkard's Path row. I adore the design but had never made any until I made a test block of this row,

and I love it! I glue basted the curves which I found made it much easier to keep everything neat and it means I didn't get stuck by pins.

Then I had to make Joanna from Fig Tree Quilts' row We are Family. I messed this one up. I didn't want to make the star points the way the book instructed so I used a different method that left me with stars spinning in opposite directions. I kinda like it. It suites the title for me.

And then Pat Sloan's adorable wash line begged to be made up.

Four rows done so far!

 Have you ever made a row quilt?

A new plan for all the Fig Tree Quilts fabrics and blocks

 I have a teeny tiny, overflowing but totally necessary stash of Fig Tree Quilts fabrics. You can read about it here.
 I had decided to do a Farmer's Wife quilt, and restarted it in September, but the thing is I hate templates and I'm not the biggest paper piecing fan. So about half the blocks I just plain ol' don't want to do.

 But I'm still in love with the idea of an all Fig Tree sampler quilt. It still represents my quilting journey to me. And I have a LOT of Fig Tree fabrics.
 This is just the yardage.

As this seems to be the year of the sampler online I've decided to join a few, make the blocks I like or look to teach me something new or I just love enough to make with pp or templates.

 First up is the Moda Sampler Shuffle. I've been getting the blocks from Fat Quarter Shop's blog but they're around on several shops sites and I assume the Moda blog.

I've got 17 done between a small sewing frenzy and a few that are the same as the Farmer's Wife Quilt.

Next is the Splendid Sampler from Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. It starts Feb 14th and has over 100 blocks so I know there will be plenty to make from that!


I decided to throw in a few 12" blocks, all the others are 6" finished, Just so I don't need the like 200+ blocks I would have had to make for a king size sampler. I want it about 100" and haven't decided if I want to add borders or not. I figure that's a decision for another day.

I've added Aurifil's block of the month quilt along and I really liked Fat Quarter Shop's Single Ring blocks so made one of them up for a few of the 12". I figure I can hide 10-12 of the large blocks without them taking over.

Total 6" block total so far = 49

What are you up? Do you have a certain style you have a lot of? Or that represents something to you?

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram or Twitter to see what I'm up to. I post there much more frequently then I do here.

Fun with Grunge!

I ended up with a charm pack of Moda's 2015 Grunge Basics and really wanted to play with it but I couldn't find a one charm pack pattern that I liked. So I made one up as I went!

I was really grateful to those who follow me on Instagram for helping encourage me on this one. In one of the rare times Shane didn't like one of my quilts but I liked it you were there to tell me to keep going! I really appreciate it. I need the cheering section when I'm unsure sometimes!

The quilt ended up being about 35 * 38 I think. I've misplaced my tape measure...again....

I used bleached white for the background and 6.5" x width for the borders in grunges I had in my stash. I <3 the grunges.

Now to decide if I should quilt this one up or let it rest a bit. Anyone need a baby quilt? ;)

#ProjectQuilting Week 2 "Seasons"

 After last challenge of "Confetti", which turned into this and you can see what everyone else did here, I was really looking forward to the reveal of this week's theme. And I was not disappointed! I did a little Season's embroidery awhile back, using Aurifil 12 wt.

 I love the seasons, which is a good thing since I live in a place that has them in abundance. I
m in London, Ontario and we get a full winter (normally, this year has been super weird), spring, summer and my favorite, fall.
I love the change, the colour, the cycle of life aspects and just how each is unique, with its own smells, feel, colour palettes, and memories.

My first instinct was to do a quilt involving falling leaves, I watch how the tree outside my kitchen window changes daily, but last week several used leaves etc to represent confetti so I'm leaving that idea for another time.

 Instead I decided to focus on a less literal depiction and try and use feel and colour to incorporate the cycle of the seasons.

 Since I only have a week and what is in my stash, the ombres were coming out!

Pink for spring blossoms, orange for fall's brillant leaves, green for summer's growth and abundance and aqua for winter's chilly beauty. I made my tree "trunks" blue to represent the vital nature of water to every season and every living thing. .


 I did a commissioned quilt in December and had some of the white leftovers cut up into 2.5" and 2" squares so I decided to go with that to guide my size and other choices and settled on a 12" 8 patch Tree of Life block.

Each block takes 30 half square triangles. Which I could conveniently get out of one 2.5" strip of fabric, cutting it into 15 2.5" squares.
 I did each block individually rather then chain piece the entire lot. There was no way I was going to keep everything in order any other way.

 And just to be fun I switched up winter so that the background and colour were reversed to represent the snow and blinding blue sky winter likes to serve up.

 I couldn't wait to get this quilted so on the frame it went and I quilted it with Aurifil 50 wt 2311 for the background and 1148 for the aqua and 2780 for the blue. I did peels around the hsts and some very large pebbling (stones?) around the trunks with the trunks themselves getting a wave.

The name?....uh.... Cycle of Colours? Any ideas? Anyone?

Another big thank you to Kim at Persimon Dreams for doing Project Quilting!!
What is your favorite season?

#ProjectQuilting week 1

 I've decided to try and play along with Kim Lapacek of Persimon dreams Project Quilting. You can find out all about it here.

 The first week's challenge is "confetti".

At first I was going to nope right out of this one when I first saw what the challenge was. How could I come up with something spectacular, which having seen past challenges I know others will come up with, in a week? With no extra materials?
Then I remembered this wasn't about winning or even making something jawdropping. It was about seeing the process through from start to finish and to help me reclaim more of my creativity and ability to just make things.
Yes, I want to push myself, but not to a point I can't find joy in what I'm doing.

So yesterday I had a brainstorm and I just let myself go with it.
I overthought everything, but that's OK.

Confetti calls to mind celebrations which to me means weddings, babies, birthdays and get togethers. So my quilt was going to have elements of all of those things.

There are Cathedral Windows, prairie point windmills, and lots of colour all in a baby mat that begs to be touched with lots of texture and flippy bits. I love seeing confetti in the wind so I love how much movement is in the top, especially around the center.

I've named it "You Belong"

The quilt is 30" square and used a charm pack of Simply Color,and some left over black Bella solids charms.

What do you think?

Nostalgia Dreams

 I think about fabric. A lot. Sometimes I even think maybe I think a wee bit too much about things. Ok. I absolutely think too much about things. But sometimes, sometimes it leads me to fun quilts!

 I had left over Nostalgia from the first quilt, which I'm 90% sure I'm going to quilt with a wood grain motif, ala wood paneling, anyways, and I was thinking how much the colours reminded me of bit and pieces of things involving my grandmother and how special those memories are. So it kept rattling in my head, until the idea of memories being gems just wouldn't go away.

 And this quilt was born!

I adore this design for some reason. It is fun and easy but still interesting. And I think I like is sideways more then I do "right" side up!

 I'm thinking of taking it and offsetting the strips but then I'd lose a lot of the prints and they really are so very pretty. They're softer then Jennifer's other lines but there is still something very bold about them. It's fun!

 I have enough I think for one more baby quilt from the bundle so watch out!

More Meghan Peasant Dress love!

 I made a second dress!! I shortened the skirt and sleeves a bit and went with a size smaller skirt and I think I love it even more!

 I had Little Bit take another picture!

 The fabric is Amy Butler Lark and Daisy Chain for the sleeves. And the hair colour is new! What do you think?

I made a dress!

  I'm so excited! I made a DRESS! All by myself! Yay!!!

I need someone else to help get some better pictures but I'm thrilled with how it turned out!

The fabrics are Lark by Amy Butler and my hoarded Honey Child by Jennifer Paganelli.

 I used the Meghan Peasant dress pattern from Sisboom, aka Jennifer Paganelli and Carla Crim of Scientific Seamstress. It was easy to follow and I couldn't believe how quick this baby came together!
 I now want to try all of the Sisboom patterns. I've always thought I can't sew clothes without my mom's help but I think I'm coming around to it.

 The pattern. It was a PDF version, which means I will be able to just print off and tape together the necessary pattern pieces as I invariably lose, tear, or miscut one.

 There are sizes from XS to 3X, and instructions on how to make it any length you want, with several sleeve options. So very customizable.

 Biggest plus? I didn't get lost while reading it. It was simple instructions with clear diagrams. This dress didn't have anything I couldn't handle with my quilting skills.
 It even had charts to tell me which pages to print for my size in the templates, how to measure to get the lengths I wanted etc.

I would definitly recommend giving it a try. And it's easy enough I think a teen or even tween could handle it with appropriate supervision. And all it takes is the fabric, elastic and a bit of bias tape.

Here is Little Bit's helping with a picture of the dress on me.

I think there is a second one of these in my future! 

Another new quilt!

 While I wait on backing fabric for my Nostalgia quilt, which I will post about again soon, I had a request for a quilt from my sister-in-law.

 We talked a bit but it was free reign for me so I thought way too much about it and started sewing before I had a full plan, which is is not my normal way of creating a design.
 I didn't even have all the fabrics figured out! For me this is some serious improv.

 I started with one idea when I stitched the center Carpenter's Star but it evolved several times to become this lovely.

It is 70" and has a mix of fabrics, including a charm pack of BasicGrey's Eva, Art Gallery Fabric Pure Element in Mystic Grey, more Eva fabric, and the greens I think are Robert Kaufman Kona solids. This was pieced entirely from my stash! Yay stash!

 I need a name for this one but am coming up empty. Any ideas?

Nostalgia Pretty

 I was lucky enough to get my hands on some of Jennifer Paganelli's (aka Sisboom) Nostalgia for Free Spirit and I wanted to show off the huge prints, but also how they can be chopped up small to be used in quilting.
To get a really great look at the fabrics head over to the debut post here.
 I'm really excited to get this one on the frame but I can't decide on how to quilt it. Any ideas?

The wind keeps blowing

We've had the warmest fall I can remember but it sure has been windy!