Shot cotton ... or what?

I'm working on a wall-hanging.  The central part of the wall-hanging is a pre-printed panel that has an entire palette of beige/gold/brown tones.

One part of the wall-hanging is a small border I'm putting around the panel.  The fabric I'm using for the border was gifted to me by a fellow quilter who was de-stashing. 

The stuff is *gorgeous*.  I think it's a shot cotton.  It's made of an incredibly VIBRANT yellow in one direction (think neon) and a clear red in the other.  I know that Kaffe Fassett has a line of shot cottons, but I have no idea if this is one of his. 

From the Quilting Board forum, I found that "Shot cotton is special because the warp and weft yarns are 2 different colors woven together to create a special depth, a "shot" of color. When the edge of this fabric ravels, you can see a bright contrast to the body of the fabric."

This particular fabric is very lightweight and drapeable.  The yellow fiber feels as though it might be silk.  It snags on EVERYTHING .... rough spots on my fingers, other fabric and even itself!  It doesn't look like a woven thread; it's more like it's been drawn out than spun. 

I did a burn test on it.  It left soft ash.  It's certainly not polyester.  It caught on fire immediately although it didn't continue to burn.

The red fiber is definitely a spun fiber.  Very tight and straight.  It had the same burn test results as the yellow stuff.

The fabric might be a silk-cotton combination or not.  Whatever it is, it sure is pretty! :-)

That Purple Tote Bag

Once upon a time, I commissioned a machine embroiderer to stitch Dear Daughter #2's initials on a piece of Ultrasuede.  That was many moons ago.

Once upon a time, I acquired a purple tote bag from the Handi Quilter people.  Timeframe: unknown.

Current day, I have rediscovered both of them and the tote bag has been repurposed for my purple-loving daughter. :-)

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details, extensive verbage and more pictures, please visit my web page for That Purple Tote

Solar Eclipse! Wowsers!

A rare solar eclipse is occurring today .. the moon is passing in front of the sun and if you are in the right physical location, you'll see a firey ring around a dark circle.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we don't get to see the ring .. BUT ... with a *very primitive* pinhole camera, Mr. Pirate & I were able to see a partial eclipse.   (If anyone was stupid enough to look directly at the sun without the proper precautions, they have now burned their retinas out.)

I had gone outside on our deck and was immediately struck by how ODD the sunlight seemed.  It wasn't nearly time for twilight .. and even if it was, the light just was NOT twilight.  It was just "darker".  Then I remembered the eclipse.

I got a manila folder; Mr. Pirate tore it in half and poked a (literally) 3 pinholes in the middle of one. 

(One pinhole would have been sufficient, but you know boys .. more is better! :-)  ).  

He then held the non-holey page underneath and at a distance from the page with the pinholes. 

The sunlight shines through the holes (as light is wont to do) and what was projected onto the page below was .... THE ECLIPSE!   woo hoo!

Granted, it was only a partial one here .. it looked like a bite had been taken out of the sun.  But, what a nifty sight!



Then, as the moon moved along, the sunlight got stronger .. and now (let's say 15 minutes later), we have our normal late afternoon sunlight back again.

But .. DANG!  That was neat!  :-)

Oh My Stars! ... top completed! woo hoo!

oh yes, indeedy!  A big woo hoo for me!  :-)

Although, it wasn't without its attendant drama.  Isn't that usually the way?  There's *always* a back-story.  :-)

In this case, I was being So. Very. Careful. to make sure that all the sub-units were sewn in the correct orientation (you might remember the blog entry where I discovered, after the fact, that one sub-unit was upside down.  It annoyed me so much that I ripped the seam and re-sewed it right side up).   When all the sub-units are sewn together, you have three panels of stars: two narrow side sections and a wider middle section.

Anticipation was high as I eagerly sewed the three panels together.  And then the slab-o-borders.  Oh my!  Didn't that look wonderful?  Didn't that look tremendous??  I was feeling very pleased with myself.   I started to pin the assembled stars on my design wall to admire them.  But wait .. how come my sections can't be oriented in the same direction as the layout?  It's impossible that they can't!  I was Very Careful.

Hmmm.  OK .. I can see where *those* stars are the same as *those* stars in the layout but why are the stars at the END of the section different?  And then I saw it.  Oh. My. Gosh.  ::thunk  head on wall::  I sewed the third panel UPSIDE DOWN.   [see me stamp about the room, Very Very Annoyed, muttering Very Colorful Words.]

As I looked at it, more than a bit peeved, it occurred to me ... WHO, on this earth, will EVER notice that a section of stars .. stars which are SYMMETRICAL ... is upside down?  No one. I'd be willing to bet that in a year's time even *I* won't be able to remember or figure out which section is "wrong".

So, I left it.  :-)

I was about to take self-congratulatory pictures of the top, when I happened to come across a quilting blog entry that showed a Block-of-the-Month quilt with a very attractive border treatment.  In fact, I realized that I could use this border treatment as inspiration for the borders of my own Oh My Stars!

 And I did.  Instead of the country flowers on a straight stem, I put holly leaves on a wavy vine with 3 berries on the very end of the vine.  The quilt store that offers the Block of the Month ("Amish with a Twist") is A Scarlet Thread of McDonough, GA.

I was taught (way back, when I came over on the Arc with Noah) that "proper" applique is ALWAYS hand-done.  And I've usually done my appliques that way.  I know there are other techniques, but they have just seemed "wrong" to me.  Kinda like cheating, if you know what I mean.  But for this quilt, since it was a spur of the moment project, done with fabric I just had hanging about, I didn't feel like putting MORE time into hand applique.  (I have a queen sized quilt on my longarm machine that I MUST get back to and finish that quilting!) 

So, I cheated.  I used fusible holly leaf appliques attached with a zig-zag stitch with clear mono-poly thread.  Wowsers ... those holly leaves sure went fast!  :-)  As for the holly berries, I used the yo-yo technique and DID hand-stitch them in place. :-)   What I'm rather pleased about is that the berries are only 1/2" in diameter.  :-)

And now ... the top is completed!  I feel very very happy about that.  I have backing fabric pulled and I have some red striped fabric that will be used for the binding.  Since I use bias binding, the stripes will come out on the diagonal, which looks so attractive to me.

This top is on the pile of Tops to Be Quilted and will patiently wait its turn at the longarm.  :-)

And now?  I *really* need to get back to the longarm!

Oh My Stars! quilt along ... last of the sectionals

In a late night brilliant burst of speed and perseverance, I have FINISHED construction of all 8 sections for the Oh My Stars! quilt along.    Wowsers .. I thought it would never end!  :-)

I present to you, section 6 (green)   

[The colors that I am referencing are the colors of the sections on the Layout Diagram (shown to y'all in a previous post).]

 

and section 7 (turquoise)   It turned out that I was one small 4" block short, so I made a basic Sawtooth star to fill the gap. 

When I finished sewing all the sub-sections together and compared what I had just completed with the layout diagram, I realized something was amiss.  Inspecting and comparing the actual with the drawn layouts, I discovered that ... ::sigh::  I had sewn one entire section upside down! 

Now, in reality, with all the different size stars and all the different fabrics that I have used, NO ONE is going to realize that one sub-section is upside down.  And it probably wouldn't even matter in the Grand Scheme of Things.  But .. dang!  .. it bothered me! 

So, I ripped out the loooong offensive seam, turned the section right side up and re-sewed the sections together.  Whew!  I can't tell you how much better that made me feel!   (I'm sure the sub-section feels better also.)

and section 8 (blue).

And with that, I'm off to bed.  I'm reading a murder mystery book and if I'm able to keep my eyeballs open, I can read a chapter in order to advance the story!  I really dislike leaving the characters in limbo.

Tomorrow: sew the sections together to create The Top.  :-)

This Place is a Zoo.

Between the cats and the chickens, our homestead has never been lacking for bad craziness.

Now, we have a NEW resident.  A bird.  A very SMALL bird.  And she's a momma bird.  I have no idea what kind of bird.  It has feathers and a very small brain .. that's what kind of bird it is.

Here's our front door.  I really like our front door.  I picked it specifically for the stained glass circular insert.  It's pretty. 

See that yellow arrow on the right hand side?  That points to a ceramic sign that I bought, not too long ago. 

Above the sign, near the roofline, is our porch light.  It looks like an old-fashioned lantern.  I like it too.

Here's the sign.  Truer words were never spoken.  It was as though they KNEW our place.

Back to the small bird.  About a week ago, I noticed that every time we opened the front door and walked out onto the porch, a small bird flew AWAY from the door, out towards the trees on the fence line.  Then I noticed that .. oh my gosh .. there was a NEST built on top of our porch light!   Yes, the nest is fully constructed; it's obviously been there for *a while*. 

Just call me Capt. Obvious.  Or not.

Anyway, the bird was deliberately trying to deflect our attention from the nest to her ... and she was flying away.   "Come this way!  Chase me!"  or   "Move along.   This is not the nest you have been looking for."  :-)

Being the nosey kind of person that I am, I had Mr. Pirate get a ladder and he looked into the nest.  Oh my.  There were 4 little blue eggs.  This picture doesn't show the pretty blue color; the flash washed it out.  But without the flash, the picture was way too dark to be able to see anything.






 
So now, we can't use our front door; it disturbs momma bird.  Geez, Louise!  Exactly who is paying the property taxes here???? 

We have a *perfectly* wonderful, honest-to-goodness bird house on the chimney.  It has a vacancy; it's waiting for a resident. 

Does momma bird use the bird house? 

Noooooooooooooooo.  *She's* gotta use an impractical spot above our front porch light!

Anyone know how long it'll take for the eggs to hatch and babies to be independent?  Cuz until then, we're forced into using the back door!

(Sorry for the dark picture of Momma bird.  Evening was fast approaching and we were losing the light.)

Oh My Stars! quilt along - more sectionals

A late night sewing binge resulted in two more Oh My Stars! sections being sewn together.  I present to you: sections 4 & 5!  :-)

And now, it's late for me .. time for bed.  :-)

Will continue to work on the remaining 3 sections tomorrow.

Oh My Stars! quilt along ... assembling the blocks.

Oh hallelujah! Now I can FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY start combining all the different star blocks into sections!

Sheila (she who created the Oh My Stars! quilt along) has provided 2 layouts for this project: the original twin size and now, an optional queen-sized quilt.  I opted to go for the queen-sized quilt, as I just don't need any more twin-sized.  (and, I'm a glutton for punishment!)

Mr. Pirate may opine that we really don't need any more QUILTS ... but what does he really know on this subject?  :-)

Here's the queen-sized layout.  It all looks very jumbled together, doesn't it?  How on earth do you know what star block to put where???  Well, in fact, you don't need to know.  All the blocks of a size are interchangeable.  There is only 1 each of the 12" blocks, so all you need to do is stick one where a 12" block is indicated.

The 8" and 4" blocks are sometimes butted up against each other.  There are multiple 8" and 4" blocks of each star.  How do do you know which ones to use??   In the end, it's your choice.  You can put all of the same blocks together or scatter them around.




I chose to scatter them (as best as I was able ... I don't do random well).  I realized that since I used different fabrics for each and every star, as long as a I used a different star in each spot, it didn't matter which *specific* blocks I used. 

I do better if I have a plan.  A plan that tells me ahead of time, which block goes where.  That way, I don't have to dither about decisions or find out, to my dismay, that I'm *short* a block or two!  To make my plan, I knew I had 19 different stars.  I made a pile of each star (i.e., 19 different piles) and labeled each pile so I knew which number it was.  On a piece of paper, I listed how many sizes I had of each star type (in some cases, I was over-exuberant and made more than was called for).   Then, using the layout, as provided by Sheila, I simply put the number of the star in the layout.  It didn't matter if #1 was always next to #2 star ... the fabrics really made them look different.

To make things REALLY easy, Sheila provided us with a broken up layout ... she has VERY thoughtfully worked out a plan that is in sections.  Each section has sub-sections ... all very, very clear as to which size block goes where.  Exactly which star you want where is your choice.  And this is where I numbered the layout.  I started at the upper left corner and continued numerically down the list,  numbered all the stars of that size.  When all the stars of that size were numbered, I did the same thing with the other 2 size stars.  As I used each star, I made a tick mark on my list, so I would know how many stars of that type I had left. 

Once the layout was all filled in, I can't tell you how SIMPLE it was to assemble the sections!  You can see my numbering in the purple section above.  For the first sub-section, I know that I will need an 8" #1 star, a 4" #18 star, a 4" #17 star and an 8" #2 star.
 

Section 1 (purple)

I did take care, when constructing the blocks, to make SURE that each block was more-or-less the right size.  If the block varied slightly from 12", 8" 4" .. I wasn't terribly concerned.  Paying attention to where the seamline was would take care of those variations.  BUT, if the block was badly cut/constructed .. say 1/4" or more out of whack, I would re-do that piece of the star.  I was pretty annoyed when I had to do *that*.  ::grumble::

Even at that, there are a few stars whose points got clipped.  Well, that's too doggone bad because I just don't have any more of that fabric to remake the block.  Furthermore, I don't FEEL like remaking it.

I don't want to.
I don't have to.
I'm not gonna.    So there.  pphhhttt.  :-)

Having the blocks the correct size made the assembly a breeze.  It is so *wonderful* not to have to fight to get the blocks to play nicely with each other!  :-)

Section 2 (red)

Section 3 (orange)

I've now completed 3 sections and am working on the next one.  Pretty doggone soon, I'll be able to assemble the sections into a complete top!  :-)

Oh My Stars! quilt along. Extra blocks 16, 17, 18.

When last I posted about the Oh My Stars! quilt along, I thought I had finished making all the blocks required.   Then I read the section about assembling the blocks into a top and I discovered that another quilter had requested a layout that would allow for a queen-sized quilt.

I really don't need more twin-sized quilts (which the original layout was for), so I decided to continue making stars to accommodate the queen-sized layout.  I searched the internet for more/different Sawtooth star variations ... there are a million of them! .. and chose 4 that I liked.

First up is called "Make Mine a Double Please".  This lovely star was created by Jovita Goldschmidt of Jovita's Patchwork Atelier in celebration and anticipation of the impending birth of twins.  (In a tragic occurrence, she and her husband lost the twins shortly after birth.) 

I was drawn to this block, not only because it's just pretty, but I also have twin girls (now 23 years old).

Then came "Shimmering Star".  Although Oh My Stars! already had a block by this name, this is a different layout. 

This Shimmering Star layout was designed by Carole Hennell of Ewes Quilting and is part of her Jewel quilt along.

Last came the "Martha Washington Star" block, also created by Carole Hennell as part of her Jewel quilt along.

The 4" size blocks for both the Shimmering Star and Martha Washington Star were real buggers!  Some of the pieces were very small.





For this entire project, 12", 8" and 4" blocks were used.  The original 15 blocks had cutting measurements for those sizes included in the directions.   But for the blocks that *I* added, I needed to figure out the measurements myself.  Thank goodness for Electric Quilt!  I simply drafted each block and then printed it out in the correct size.  Sometimes the measurements were a tad awkward ... like 1-1/4" minus a 1/16th!  but instead of figuring out what THAT measurement was, I just cut the 1-1/4", then sliced off a sliver.  Even if that procedure wasn't accurate, it worked well for me (and saved a few brain cells in the process!).

I had originally used a small stash of Christmas-themed fabric, along with coordinating solids.  The fabrics weren't always red & green ... some were predominately other colors, but they all were Christmasy in look and feel.   Well, when I started to make these last blocks, I realized that I was seriously OUT of this stash; I couldn't make the 12" blocks at all (since they required the most fabric) and only a few of the smaller blocks.

BUT, the attraction of making a scrappy project is that it really DOES NOT MATTER if you start mixing in other fabrics late in the game.  It was all going to be scrappy anyway!  Additionally, I knew that the layout for this quilt mixed all the different sizes so that not only were you varying the sizes but the fabrics used.  Eventually, I found some more compatible, but not necessarily Christmas-themed, fabric to use.

Ya know?  I'm really glad all the blocks are finally made!  Next up: assembling all the blocks into sections.

I was *THISCLOSE* ...

... to making the deadline.  But ::sigh:: events conspired against me and I missed it.

And what was it that I missed?  Well, for 2 weeks, starting this past April 2nd, Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations announced that she was starting a  "Festival of Half-Square Triangles". On April 2, 2012, there would be a series of quilting blogs to visit. Each blog would present a project using Half Square Triangles. After the second week, quilters would link up their Half Square Triangle projects (subject to the appropriate rules). Winners would be picked from the projects submitted and the Fat Quarter Shop would award some very nice prizes.

As it turned out, it was the LAST project presented on the LAST day that caught my interest.  It was a very interesting geometric design by Katy Jones of Monkey Do, which was made into a ginormous 24" throw pillow using just one humungous quilt block.

Instead of making a pillow, I decided to make a quilt .... mainly because I had a LOT of half square triangles leftover from a previous project.  I figured that a quilt just might use them up and then I wouldn't have to look at them any longer.  Voilà ... "Ninja Throwing Stars" quilt was created!

I actually was able to piece the top completely in about 25 hours, spread out over 1 week.  I had 2 days to do the quilting, but since I was using a pantograph, I figured I wouldn't have any problems.

HAH!

If you ever want to hear God laugh, just tell Him of your plans.  :-)   I *almost* got the quilting done on Saturday but didn't.  I *did* get it finished the next day, as well as finishing up the rest of the quilt .. squaring it up, binding it AND making a webpage for it.  BUT ... the deadline passed me by and when I was ready to blog about it .... the linky part of the Festival was closed.  ::sigh::

¡Qué lástima!    ¡Qué mala suerte!

That picture is just a teaser! For all the gory details, links and more pictures, please visit my web page for the Ninja Throwing Stars quilt.

Wowsers .... a Liebster Award!

Have you seen/heard of the Liebster Award?  The word "Liebster" is of German origin, meaning "Beloved, Dearest, or Favorite" and it's a blog award given to "exceptional" blogs with fewer than 200 followers.  It's a way of recognizing small blogs that other bloggers find interesting and bringing those small blogs to the attention of everyone else.

Well, by golly ... I recently received this honor!  I am simply flabbergasted that anyone would think enough of my blog to bestow the Liebster Award!  Thank you, Pamela (of Pamela Quilts ) for your good taste thinking that my blog was worthy of this award! .  :-)

For those who decide to accept the award, the Liebster Rules are:

1. Post about your win on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award.
3. Copy and paste the award to your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that have less than 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognized.
5. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

[note: apparently like everyone else, I am also unable to discover whoever originated this award.  Everyone is following the same rules, but whoever created this award is a complete mystery.  Come out, come out, where ever you are!    *YOU* should be acknowledged also!]

Now comes the hard part - deciding on 5 blogs to pass the honor to!  It turned out that the most DIFFICULT part was finding out the number of followers a blog had!   Sometimes the blog itself will show how many followers it has .. that's the easiest way.  But not all blogs do that.  But, I persevered; it turns out it's VERY simple ... at least in Google Reader!   There is a drill-down arrow to the right of the blog name.  One of the selections is "View details and subscriptions" ... BINGO!  That will show how many subscribers there are for that blog .. at least through Google Reader.    BUT ... the blog follower number may not be the same as the Google Reader subscriber number!!   One blog that I just love reading had a low Google Reader subscriber number but a follower number that was over the 200 limit.  Oh no!!  ::sigh::   I'm going to be so embarrassed when I find out there's a Really Easy Way to do this.  :-)

So, with the limited resources available to me and with the research I've done,  here are my awardees.  All of them have inspired me in one way or another ... piecing designs, quilting designs, techniques, tutorials, methodology, and/or their general philosophy.  I hope you, Dear Reader, will enjoy reading these blogs as well.

* Finishing lines
* One More Quilt
* Quilt Stitching and Sew On 
* Silly Goose Quilts 
* Timber Hill Threads 

a Petite Purse

... and boy, do I mean petite!

Like most crafters, I do projects other than strictly one hobby.  My background is garment sewing and I just plain, ol' like sewing in general.

Sew4Home's blog recently had a small purse as a project.  I didn't fully appreciate just how SMALL their "small" was until I made it.  To be sure, right up front they did say it was a 5" purse, but .. hey ... who really knows what size 5 inches is?  :-)

Dear Daughter #2 liked the picture, as presented in the Sew4Home's blog, so I put my current quilting project on temporary hold to work on the Petite Purse.

You can read about it and see more pictures on its webpage, a Petite Purse.

on the 5-yard line

Back in July 2010, I finished a French Braid top.  I think I fell in love with *every* *single* variation I saw and every single colorway.  I don't think there is such a thing as an ugly French Braid quilt. :-)

As I remember, at that time, I was really, *really*, REALLY into piecing.  I had this bug in my ear urging me to piece! piece! piece! .. and so I did.  I have a LOT of tops ready to be quilted.  :-)

So, let's fast forward to current times .... after finishing the Robot quilt (see previous post), I was now on a roll for quilting.   From experience, I know that I need a Quilting Plan before I ever load a quilt on my longarm.  I can do the sit-and-stare thing while the top is up on my design wall, but I come to a complete standstill with respect to inspiration if it's on the frame.

I Googled French Braid quilts to see what other quilters were doing.  My original thought was to put feathers in each column .. but .. oh dear, it's True Confession time ... I'm kinda feathered-out right now.  I've been doing quite a bit of feathers on various things and didn't feel that feathers was doing anything "new".  There are still many, *many*, MANY styles of feathers I want to stitch ... but not right now.

Interestingly, there weren't too many close-up pictures of quilted French Braids.  Lots of tops, though.  Finally, my patience was rewarded .. I saw a lovely example of a linear design that was done in each segment.  The line of quilting angled down each segment and met in the middle, where the center diamond was.  And that is the idea that I used.

The borders got a scallop-and-beadboard treatment.  I just love it, although I probably ought to move on to another variation.  :-) 

The narrow fabric between the French Braid columns got Carla Barrett's "curly swirly" design.  Again, I use this motif waaaaay too much in sashings, but, *by golly*, it's just the perfect thing if you want a round design!  It's another motif that I just love, love, love.

Over a weekend, the French Braid was quilted.  It's approximately 72"x94", which makes it an over-sized twin or an under-sized full/double. :-)  

It's been squared and is ready to be bound.   I considered using the burgundy color (from the narrow border around the French Braid columns).  This repetition would give a visual tie-in to the interior while providing a "hard" stop at the edge.  Ummm ... I wasn't sure.

Then I considered using the border fabric.  Being the same as the border, would give a seamless finish and not be distracting.

Ultimately, I decided on the border fabric.   I knew it was the correct choice because I just felt "right" about it. 

But .. umm .. uh oh.  Now we have a problem.  I figured I had leftover border fabric .. but where???  This top was finished in 2010 ... the leftover amount might be in my scrap bins (someplace), it might be in my stash bins (someplace) or  .. ::gasp::  I might have even already used it elsewhere!

A cursory search resulted in nothing.  Hmmm.  OK, Plan B ... look online.  Fortunately, even though the Stonehenge Cool Stone line is from 2010, it's still be stocked online!  (Local quilt stores don't keep fabric around that long.)  But, I held off ordering it.  Call it a premonition but .. as I was looking for a completely different piece of fabric for a completely different project, I *found* the leftover piece!  Woo hoo!  Go me!  :-)

I did the math and figured out I need at least 322 linear inches of binding.  I think I can eke out that much from the leftover piece.

Oh yeah .. and I still need to make the label for it.  :-)

The Robot Quilt

Well, it's *almost* a quilt ... I just need to make a label then sew on the binding (which has already been made) and THEN it's a finish. :-)

I received the 4-patch blocks and some coordinating fabric as a UFO from one of my daughter's friends, who was decluttering.   I bought some other coordinating fabric for borders and finished the 4-patches into the quilt.

I quilted a 5-line cable in the top & bottom borders, using Nancy Johnson's "Cable Tool" template. 

The single rope design in the side borders was done using DeLoa Jones' "Rope-a-Dope" template.  Both of these tools are absolutely *fantastic* and I don't hesitate to heartily endorse them.

I quilted Baptist Fans in the interior of the quilt.  I don't have a fancy groovy board to stitch this out.  I use a series of concentric circles that I bought at our local plastics fabricator (TAP Plastics).  I just keep switching the circles I want to use to get the curve I need.  In this case, I used 3 circles: 4", 6" and 8".

The actual construction of the top was blessedly uneventful.  It was the QUILTING process that had some drama and excitement. :-)


The first drama was that I ... duh .. forget to check the tension before I started quilting.  The previous quilt had used a much thinner thread and the tension that worked for it absolutely, positively did NOT work for the thread I used for this quilt. 

Sadly, I didn't discover this until I had stitched rope border and one pass of the Baptist Fan design.  Happily, it was ONLY those two rows!  The silver lining is that, since the tension was so horridly, horridly WRONG, it was easy to just pull the bobbin thread out.

The rest of the quilting went quite nicely until the VERY LAST quilting .. the last border of the 5-line cable.   aaarrrgghhhh!

What was the DRAMA???   Well, you'll just need to read about it all (with more pictures) on its webpage, The Robot Quilt.  :-)

Now, I'm off to fire up the embroidery machine to make the label.  :-)

a one-up "placemat"

Whilst working the Oh My Stars! quilt along, I had some leftover, small 4-patches.  They were very cute, in the way that small things are, and I decided *right then* to make something with them. Mainly because I was tired of making the Courthouse Step centers of the last Oh My Stars! blocks.  :-)

I had 8 blocks.  I bordered four in red and 4 in green, then using an on-point layout, I alternated the bordered 4-patches with plain black squares and  red and green setting triangles.  The bias binding was made from fabric leftover from a Victorian dress made long ago for my youngest daughter.  The backing is a plain red twill.

The entire project ended up measuring 11" x 18" ... more or less a placemat size, although I had not intended it to *be* a placemat.  At this point in time, I have no intention of making any more of them.  I don't have enough of the specific plain red or green fabrics left to do so, although using slightly different shades probably wouldn't make that much of a difference.  I'm not even sure if I have any more of the fabric used in the 4-patches, but again, I'm sure I could scare something comparable up, if I was so inclined.  Which I am not. 

I free-motion quilted it on my home machine, a Janome 6500, using a shiny red machine embroidery thread.  I chalked in the spine of the feathers then free-handed the feathers.  I'm so pleased that I finally found the secret to doing inside curves with feathers!  (mark a diagonal to bisect the inside curve then use that line as the limit line for the outer edge of the feathers).  The setting triangles got three loops and the 4-patches got a four loop design.

Personally, I think it came out rather nicely.  Not perfect, but more than acceptable.  :-)

For the ::ahem:: photo shoot, I used my mother-in-law's china, Rangil's "Normandie" pattern, as a place setting.

This is such pretty china ... the gold border around the circumference is a lovely embossed gold pattern.

Oh My Stars quilt along: # 13, 14 & 15 (and all done!)

Wowsers .. it's been a long haul to get these Sawtooth Star blocks done!

#13 is the Plaid Star.  I didn't choose correctly for the intersections on the 12" block so it looks odd.  It looked OK when I was pulling fabrics but, in reality, not so much.    I did better on the smaller blocks.

I'm still having problems with correct final sizes on the smaller blocks ... I'm concluding that miniature sewing is not my forté!  And that's OK with me ... I don't feel the need to master everything. 

Yeah, it does annoy me that some of the star points are going to be clipped during the final construction ... BUT .. I am SERIOUSLY out of the focus fabrics!  Early on, I had decided to make these star blocks with some Christmas-themed fabrics that I had been given.  I've succeeded in that with about 95% of the fabrics used; I augmented a very small amount with some other fabrics.  Because I had 'promised' myself to use only the donated fabric, I really don't want to start putting other fabrics in the mix at this late date.

Where does that leave me?  Without the ability to remake the smaller blocks in an effort to retain the star points!  And .. that's OK.

Block #14 is the Shimmering Star.  Oh. My. Goodness Gracious.  Sheila is *killing* me with these variations in the smaller sizes!  This particular layout needed a bazillion half square triangles.  I departed from Sheila's directions for the half square triangles because, as most quilters know, there are a million different ways to make them. 

For the 12" block, I used the old stand-by of drawing a diagonal & sewing 1/4" to either side to make 2 half square triangles.  I use this technique all the time and am very comfortable with it.  However, for the half square triangles needed for the 8" and 4" blocks, this method is tedious.  I certainly did not want to work with such small squares and drawing lines on them.

Fortunately, a quilting buddy of mine, Dee Bradford of Texas, had recently shown us a very nifty method of sewing a bazillion identical half square triangles at a recent retreat.  This technique has you cut bias strips, seam the long edges together, press the seam allowances THEN cut the half square triangles from the resultant flat sheet of fabric.   The main attraction of this method is that the seam are *already pressed* and the half square triangles are cut and trimmed to size at the same time!   Additionally, the outer edges of the half square triangles are *on grain*.  Other mass-production methods (specifically using the tube construction) produce half square triangles with the outer edges on the bias ....  something I didn't want to mess with.

It was *amazing*.  I used this technique for the 8" and was very, very impressed at how easy it was to make all those SMALL half square triangles painlessly.    Even BETTER ... my stars came out .. for once .. absolutely, perfectly *accurate*! 

Then it came to making those 4" blocks.   Oy.  Even Sheila said she'd be amazed if anyone made this block in the 4" size.  Well, I'm not one to back away from a challenge and I've made at least one 4" block of every other layout in this quilt along, so I made my attempts.  Yes, *attempts*.  Several times.

For the 4" block, the finished half square triangle size is 1/2".  With squares that small, the back of the block would be *all* seam allowances!   I've tried a few different ways to do the 4" size:
1. standard piecing.  Oh gosh NO.  My sewing machine doesn't sew anything that tiny
2. freezer paper piecing.  I thought, for sure, this would be the solution.  Wrong. 
3. faux applique.  yes, I even tried to be sneaky with fusible applique (the base block is color 1 and teeny-tiny triangles backed with fusible webbing from color 2), with the intent of zig-zagging afterwards with mono-poly thread.  But even my cutting skills are apparently sub-standard.  *And* there just isn't a whole lot of color 2 triangles there to zig-zag!

Then I got even sneakier.  If piecing the block wasn't going to work, then *don't sew* it!  I would DRAW it and color it in with markers!  :-)   Well, even that got two tries because the first brand of markers I used (Marvy) bled the green into the red.  ::sigh:: But, my Fabrico brand markers worked wonderfully.  And *that* is how I have one .. exactly ONE ... 4" block for the Shimmering Star.  And that's ALL I'm gonna have. :-)

Which leads to our final block, #15 the Exploding Star.  It's actually a Courthouse Steps log cabin for the center and strip sets for the points.  Sheila's versions looks sooooo lovely.  Mine, not so much.

Remember I mentioned I was getting seriously low on my Christmas fabrics?  Well, finding 3 fabrics in the same color family that were ALSO graduated in values was darn near impossible.   I was able to construct the center Courthouse Steps portion, but only the 12" block got the strip set points.  I just couldn't eke out the necessary fabric to make the same points for all the smaller stars.  So, I made those points out of a single piece of fabric.   Not quite what Sheila had envisioned, but it worked with what I had.

And now ... I am DONE!  All the blocks have been constructed and are patiently waiting in a project box for the final layout directions. 

Sheila says the final size of this quilt will be about 68" x 92" ... a generous twin.  I may or may not want to enlarge it to be a double/full size.  Which means I would need to make more stars.  Which isn't exactly a problem ... whilst reading all the various blogs, I've come across some very intriguing Sawtooth Star variations that are not the same as any we have previously made.  A couple need to be resized to 12", but that's not a big deal.  I'll make the smaller stars in the basic layout, just so I don't make myself crazy.

The blocks I've found (and there are many others around) are:
*Martha Washington Star  which is from Carole Henell, as part of her Jewel Block of the Month project
* Shimmering Star (different than Sheila's), also from Carole Henell, also from the Jewel Block of the Month project
* Ribbon Star which is from Faith of Fresh Lemons blog.  It's in Barbara Brackman's book, "The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns", page 160.  Check out Faith's "Soltice Stars Series" for other very attractive Sawtooth Star variations!
* Cathedral Star which is by April Mae Designs
* Milo's Star which is by Michele Foster.  Although there is an extra design element for this star which may not play nicely with all the other star blocks.  I'm still thinking about this one.

Oh My Stars! quilt along blocks #11 & #12

I'm quite behind on my production of Oh My Stars! quilt along blocks.  I was away this past weekend at a quilting retreat in Phoenix Arizona (a delightful group of quilters from About.com's Quilting Forum .. it was our 10th anniversary of having this retreat!).  I didn't sew any blocks for this quilt along during the retreat.

Upon my return home and after non-sewing obligations were fulfilled, I got busy ... blocks #11 (Radiant Star) and #12 (Checkerboard Star) were made.

The Radiant Star is interesting as it has an on-point square for its center.  I made myself a window template that would enable me to fussy-cut the center square.

The Checkerboard Star was a welcome relief from complicated blocks ... most of the sub-units were cut from a strip set!

I seem to be having some problems with sizing these blocks correctly.  When I'm finished sewing, the untrimmed blocks are slightly oversized.  Normally, this would be fine because I can then trim away the excess.  Unfortunately, it wasn't *just* the background pieces that were oversized ... the entire block was! 

AND ... to add insult to injury ... when the block *was* trimmed to the proper size, sometimes I didn't have a 1/4" seam allowance beyond the star points!  aaarrrggghhhh!!  This means the points are going to be clipped when the blocks are sewn together.  I *hate* that! 

But  ...  ::shrug:: ...  I don't hate it enough to re-do all those blocks.  There are just a whole lotta blocks that I still need to sew.  I'll just try, with each new block, to be better at the proper seam allowance and use proper pressing techniques.

On an entirely different topic ... I received an Anonymous/no-reply comment that my blog wasn't able to be seen properly in the Chrome browser.  Concerned, I installed Chrome and looked at my blog with it.  Honestly, I couldn't see where there was any problem whatsoever with reading the blog or in its formatting.  So ... dear Anonymous .. whoever you are ... I did try but can't see where there is any problem.  Please do let me know of something specific so I can research further.

Technology is wonderful. :-)

Through another blog, I found a fantastic widget for a blog page!  How many times have you wanted to print out a blog post but upon printing, you find the printed layout is less than optimum?

I've resorted to copy/pasting blog pages into my word processor, just so the printout would be acceptable.  This process can be very tedious.

The widget is from the Print Friendly website and allows the reader the ability to print the blog page either as a printer page OR as a PDF!   Personally, I think that's just awesome.

The only drawback is that their directions refers to the old layout of Blogger.  It took some mucking about for me to find the similar areas in the new Blogger layout.  But, I persevered ... and ..

Ta Da!

I now have a green oval "Print PDF" button at the bottom of every page.  :-)  Just one of the fine services that I offer. :-)

Oh My Stars! quilt along: #10 Quattro Stagioni Star

I was very happy to be working on a simple layout!  It continues to amaze me at the sheer variety that Sheila is able to pull out of her imagination!

This layout is called Quattro Stagioni, as it reminded Sheila of the 4 pizza choices in one that she had in Italy.

We only have 5 more variations left before the assembly process starts!

Oh My Stars! quilt along. #9: Nested Star block

This is a good looking block!  With the inner portion of the star the same as the surrounding background, it looks like it's a see-through block!

BUT ... oh my gosh ... once again the small 4" block is a killer.  I made (3) 4" blocks, being Very Careful each time, but every time, the points of the inner star were chopped off.  Very, very discouraging.  And annoying.  Not to mention the 4" block is very bulky with seams.

So, after the 3rd attempt and not getting any better, I decided that I would fill out the rest of this set with basic Sawtooth stars for the remaining (2) blocks.

[A sneak look at star #10 showed that the center of the star is a 4-patch.  Oh hooray!  Even the 4" blocks should be good!  :-)   Proceeding to Star #10!]