4-Patch Posey

At the yearly quilting retreat I attend we had a class making a 4-Patch Posey quilt.  I started on my version and then it sat for two years.  I just wasn't happy with the sashing I had sewn around the blocks.  Fast forward to today.  We had a class at Foothills Quilters on how to make a 4-Patch Posey.  Yes!  I figured this is the perfect opportunity to pull out my unfinished project and get back to it.  I tore off the offending sashing and started fresh with different fabric for the sashing.  I got the top together and thought I was done.  But no - when I looked at it across the room, it just glared at me.  I could hardly stand to look at it.  So back to square one.  I tore it all apart again and tried one last time.  Now this new sashing feels just right to me.  Here's a picture of the finished quilt and a close-up of the sashing.  Note:  The border fabric is the fabric that is mirror cut to make the 4-patch blocks. 

Christmas Block of the Month-Old Fashioned Christmas

The top is now together with the Old Fashioned Christmas redwork blocks.  Now all that's left before the July meeting is to type the step-by-step instructions and I'm finished.  Hope the ladies like it.

Christmas Block of the Month - Traditional Christmas

The second half of the year, our Foothills group is doing a Christmas Block of the Month (BOM).  They'll have a choice of two different designs.   One is traditional Christmas and the other one is an old time Christmas.  I've had the red work blocks finished for a while but needed to put together the tops so I'd have them to show for the introduction to these BOMs.  I finished one this week, just in time for the July meeting when we plan to get it started.

Here's the traditional Christmas quilt:

Here's the old time Christmas quilt in process:

I need to finish it this week too because I have another project that is also due at the July meeting.  The inner ear/positional vertigo problem I've been dealing with for nearly 3 months has put me way behind.  I hate it when I have so much to do at the last minute!  But they're going together smoothly, so that makes me happy.  While I've been making them, I've been writing the step-by-step instructions and snapping photos of each step.  It should be a breeze to get them typed and made into a hand-out - if I can just read my scribbled notes, that is (grin).

Stone Soup Challenge

Our guild chapter (Foothills Quilters) is doing a quilting challenge this year called the Stone Soup Challenge.  Each participant is to  put together a quilt using the ingredients provided in a block packet I put together, adding their own fabric ingredients, and making a "delicious" quilt for all to see and enjoy.  The theme is based on the traditional story of how starving villagers put their meager stores together to make a big pot of delicious soup for everyone to share:  A carrot here, an old potato there, etc.  Likewise, a pinch of this fabric and a dash of that fabric could turn into a creative and wonderful quilt.  The theme I selected was antique toys using bright fabric that could be used as a donation for our charity, Arrowhead Hospital and it's Neonatal Unit.  We make them both preemie quilts and isolette covers.  In exchange they let us use their meeting room for our sewing meeting each month.

Below is a picture of the packets the ladies had to choose from.  Each packet contains one applique block, one 9-patch, a fat eighth, a nickel square, and a piece of rick rack.

The whole chapter will vote on their favorite in several categories and some nice prizes will be awarded.

It's Finished - Joy's Rabbit Quilt

Woohoo, I finished Joy's quilt late Friday night.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  It took me a little over 39 hours to quilt it on my longarm.  I tried some things I hadn't before, such as echo quilting around applique and free- hand stitch-in-the-ditch on the borders.  And they both worked.  Yeah!  I enjoyed quilting this one and once I got going, I didn't even hold my breath while I was working (grin).  The "jittery nerves" thing usually gets to me but this time it was okay.  Wonder if I'm finally acclimating to longarm quilting. 

Here's a picture of the finished quilt:

Joy's Rabbit Quilt

I'm in the process of quilting Joy's darling Rabbit quilt.  It's been waiting patiently while I've been down with an inner ear infection and positional vertigo.  It's been an awful several months without being able to quilt.  I've been so dizzy and my eyes have also been bouncy so couldn't even read.  I finally got back into my sewing room last week.  Yeah!  Here's a picture of Joy's cute quilt in process.

Today I'm outlining the applique and echo quilting around it.  I'm also doing a small stippling around the baskets.  I'm having fun with this one and, thankfully, it's going well.

Basket Block of the Month

Another post that should have been posted in January:

I'm assisting Ruth with Programs at Foothills Quilters this year and she asked me to lead a Block of the Month.  We decided on a redwork basket quilt.   Here are the blocks I made to show as samples for the first month:

After collecting embroidery basket blocks over the years, it felt like a good time to use them, and put them together into a quilt for this block of the month project. 

And so the planning began..............I searched the internet and found a picture of a quilt with a setting I thought would look good.  Then searched through my stash of magazines to find pieced blocks to go with the embroidery blocks I'd collected.  Oh, and in the process I was able to get my magazine stash all organized, by name of magazine and date, because I kept getting confused by the jumble.  Turns out I had duplicates of quite a few magazines that led to the confusion.  Now all those duplicates have new homes (yeah)!

As it turned out, I couldn't find enough pieced blocks in the search through my magazines, but then thought of The Quick and Easy Block Tool (kind of a book) and, happily, there were enough block patterns in there to make this idea work. 

I decided to design a border for the quilt using embroidered flowers.  Again I went back to the embroidery patterns I'd been saving over the years and found an idea I thought would work.  I turned it into borders and viola.........here is the result.

Here's a better view of the quilt top:

We've now completed with and have shown the first two sets of blocks (January's and February's)  and here are the blocks the Foothills ladies have made so far:

SunBonnet Sue Quilt

More catching up - this should also have been posted in January.

I finally completed the top with the blocks the Foothills gals gave me for serving as President several years ago.  These blocks were so darling and fun to work with.  I decided to place the SunBonnet Sue blocks so they looked like they were following each other.  I posted that here earlier as I was working on it.  Now the borders are on (did you see the mitered corners?) and all it needs is to be quilted.  My goal is to do that for this year's UFO Challenge at Foothills.  I'll keep you posted.

Princess Feathers Quilt

Still catching up - this also should have been posted in January.

This is the applique quilt that I was working on as my 4th UFO for the Foothills 2011 UFO Challenge.  I got the top completed in time but not the quilting.  When I picked it back up to work on, after it had been languishing for quite a number of years, I found I still had a couple of blocks to work on, and the border to complete.  That took a little bit longer than I thought so I didn't quite make the deadline for the challenge.  I'm pleased I finished the top by the deadline though (yeah - that's a milestone in itself).  My revised plan is to do the quilting and get it all completed to show for the 2012 UFO Challenge.


This was one of my first applique projects.  The blocks were done by making a freezer paper template, turning the fabric under using spray starch, then appliqueing them down.  I've done a number of applique projects since then, and have learned needle turn applique, so did the border using needle turn applique. 

I just love this quilt - it looks like one my grandmother might have made.

Another UFO Completed - Through the Window Wall Hanging

Catching up - this should have been posted in January too. 

This is the 4th UFO I completed for 2011 during the Foothills' UFO Challenge.  My personal goal was to complete 4 applique quilts and I nearly got there - 3 out of 4.  Though this one isn't an applique quilt, it's finished.  That makes me happy.  Well, any quilt that gets finished makes me happy.  This one uses a fun technique called Through the Window.  It's good to put it into the completed pile.

Mystery Quilt for 2012 - Gather Blessings (Baskets)

Getting caught up - January 18th should have posted: 

I had a mystery quilt sewing day at my house today for the Foothills Quilters (Quilt Guild group).  The quilt we made is called Gather Blessings which is a hint to what the subject of the quilt was going to be.  Can you guess?   Give up?  It was baskets.  Here's a picture of the quilt I made as the sample for the mystery:



We had 15 ladies come, had a delicious potluck, and did lots of sewing.  We took pictures of the quilts when the ladies brought them to our next Foothills meeting.   Here are Darlene's and then Louise M's.  Isn't it a sweet quilt!

Elmo

Haven't posted in such a long time.  I hope to get caught up a little bit today.  This should have been posted January8th when we got a new little dog.  Meet Elmo..............

Elmo is the little dog we recued – a furry Birthday present.  He’s a 3 year old shih tzu.  He’s a sweet little dog and really needed a home because he’s blind.  It just about broke my heart when I realized that he couldn’t see.  I didn’t really think I’d feel like getting another dog after Gizmo passed away.  It took about a year to finally decide I wanted to have another little fur baby to snuggle.  We're so glad we made the decision and have fallen completely in love with Elmo.

Home Sweet Home Wallhanging & Throw Pillow Gifts

In our applique group we drew names for Christmas this year.  I made this Home Sweet Home Wallhanging for my friend Joy in the colors of her house.  I found the free pattern for the blocks at   http://pacificpatchwork.typepad.com/ .  The patterns are only available until the end of the year, so hurry if you want to get them.

I got the nicest thank you note from Joy so it sounds like she liked her gift.

Our holiday party was so enjoyable.  Louise made a yummy homemade chicken pot pie for lunch and spoiled us with cream puffs topped with carmel sauce and pecans for dessert.  She'd homemade this too.  It was delicious. 

After lunch we had the exchange of our gifts.  I got the most wonderful throw pillow from my friend Patty.  The message on it is so precious to me.

Isn't it great!  I just love it!!!

Letter to Santa

Oh boy do I agree with this letter to Santa from Sweet Home Quilt Company Blog :

Tutorial for Mitered Borders

I presented a tutorial on making Mitered Borders at our Foothills Guild Meeting this month.  Here is the hand-out I prepared.  Try these steps - they will make your mitered borders easy and come out looking so nice.  The "Formula Chart" for mitered borders at the end is a helpful way to remember the calculations you need.   This is a free tutorial that may be copied, used, and shared.  I'd appreciate you acknowledging that you found it on my blog if you share it.

Mitered Borders

By Linda Puttmann ( http://sewmanyjoyousthings.blogspot.com/ )

Here's the block we'll miter

Step 1:  Borders.  Determine the overall width your borders will be to achieve the look you want for your quilt.  Determine how many borders you’d like on your quilt and determine the width of the strips needed to achieve the look you want.

Step 2:  Determining the length of border strips.  Measure the length of the quilt (notate that measurement and half that size on a piece of paper).  Calculate the length of the strips for each of the 2 lengthwise border sets by adding the measurement of the length of the quilt above, plus the width of the border twice, plus about 3” (notate those totals on your paper, see Formula Chart, below).  Do the same for the width of the quilt.  Why use this formula?  When sewing the border strips on for a mitered border, you must take into account that there is a border on both sides, and you must also add extra length for the miter. 

Step 3:  Cutting and sewing border strips together.  Once you’ve determined how long your border strips need to be, you can cut your strips (2 sets for the length of the quilt and 2 sets for the width of the quilt).  If using more than one border, strip piece the borders together. They are then treated like one piece of fabric when joining them to the quilt.

Step 4:  Determining placement of the borders.  Fold the border sets in half and mark the centers of all 4 borders.  Fold the quilt in half and mark the centers of all 4 sides.

 

Shows center mark(Step 4) and marks at one side (Step 5)

Step 5:  Marking border sets.  Using the half calculation from step 1, measure and mark the size of the quilt on the 2 lengthwise border sets by measuring out from the center, and placing a mark to designate where the edge of the quilt should be.  Also mark ¼” in from each edge.  With right sides facing, and raw edges aligned, match the centers and pin.  Then match the ¼” marks and pin.  Please Note:  The strip sets will extend beyond quilt edges - do not trim the border strip sets.  Do the same for the border sets for the width of the quilt.  (I combine Steps 5 & 6, pinning & sewing, when doing each side and then proceed to the next side and pin & sew.)

 

 

Shows placement with edge of block at the 1/4" mark (Step 5)

Step 6:  Sewing border sets.  Sew lengthwise border strip sets to quilt edge, starting and stopping ¼” from the corner of the quilt, and backstitching at each end.  Do the same with the border sets for the width of the quilt (holding back the lengthwise pieces so they don’t catch in your new seams).  You now have all 4 sides sewn to the quilt, that stop ¼” from each edge, and with strip sets extending beyond the edges on all 4 sides.  Do not trim the border sets.

  Strip sets extend beyond block - don't trim (Step 6)

Step 7:  Pressing.  Press strips making up the lengthwise border sets toward the quilt, press strips making up the border sets along the width away from the quilt.  The border sets will now nestle nicely when you miter them.  I recommend that you don’t press the border seam where it attaches to the quilt at this time.

Step 8:  The mitering process.  Method A:  Lay the corner to be mitered on your ironing board.  With the right side up, fold the border strip back at a 45-degree angle and align raw edges of the adjacent sides.  Work with the fold until the seams meet properly.  When you think you’ve got it, you can use a square ruler to check that the corner is square and flat. 

Miter is folded and pressed (Step 8)

Press a crisp line where the fabric is folded back (you can then mark on the line with a pencil if it will help you to see it better). 

Pin it well to hold it together, then carry it to your sewing machine, and sew on the crisp line beginning at the outer, raw edge, and sewing into the inner corner until you are within about 2 stitches out from the juncture, and secure seam with a backstitch.  Optionally, it’s also okay to sew from the inner juncture toward the outer edge if you prefer and if your sewing machine has good clearance and visibility to start at that juncture.

Unfold and make sure the border lies flat.  Correct stitching, if necessary.  Trim seam allowance to ¼” and press seam open.  Miter remaining corners.

Two borders mitered

------------------------------------------------------------------

Method B:  This method works for small wall-hangings or for individual blocks.  Follow the preliminary steps above.  To miter (instead of using Step 8) with right sides together, fold the quilt or block diagonally at a 45 degree angle.  Use the 45° angle line, marked on your ruler, to pencil a 45° stitching line from the corner of the quilt to the raw edge of the border, and sew on that line.  Check for accuracy, trim, and press.

Method B - this option seems to work okay for small wallhangings or individual blocks

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Formula Chart for Mitered Borders
by Linda Puttmann  ( http://sewmanyjoyousthings.blogspot.com/ )

Length of quilt _____, ½ length _____

Width of quilt _____, ½ width _____

Length of quilt _____, + border set width _____, + border set width again _____, +3” = _______

(Cut the 2 lengthwise border sets this size.)

Width of quilt _____, + border set width _____, + border set width again _____, + 3” = _______

(Cut the 2 widthwise border sets this size.)

SunBonnet Sue Blocks

The ladies in my Foothills Quilters group made some darling SunBonnet Sue blocks for me when I was President.  The  blocks have been aging since 2008 and today was the day I finally decided to make them into a quilt.

Here are the blocks set in place with sashing.  Borders are next...........

I based the setting on an antique quilt I fell in love with.  The antique quilt had 44 blocks and mine has 30 so I had to make some changes to make it work.  It still has the feel of the antique quilt even though mine is a bit different.  Tomorrow I hope to work on the borders.  It would make me happy to get the top finished (and maybe even quilted) before our next Foothills meeting so I can show the ladies how the blocks they gave me turned out.

Nesting Robin

What a fun year I've had working on my Nesting Robin.  Do you wonder what a nesting robin is?  It's like a round robin or a row robin but it nests at our own home.  In other words, it's not passed around to other friends to work on; we work on it ourselves.  We're doing the nesting robin as a group in our guild chapter -18 of us are participating.  As usual we each pick out our own color palate, a theme, decide if we want to do a row or a round robin, and what size the blocks will be.  What makes it unique is that each month we randomly draw out of a hat to see which block we’ll all use for the month.  There are 8 categories in the hat and we decided we'd do 5 rows or rounds - what blocks we make is the luck of the draw. 

The first month the drawing was for "Classic or Traditional" blocks.  I decided on a theme of "Quilt My Own Story".  Along with my blocks I'm writing the story of the various places I've lived and some memories associated with those places.  This first row represents where I was born and raised  - in cold country - Wisconsin & Minnesota.  The main block is an 8 1/2" needleturn applique block called "Winter Still Life" - a pattern by Blackbird Designs that I found in one of my quilting magazines.  The blocks on either side of it are 4 1/2" paper-pieced blocks and are called SeeSaw - which was my favorite past-time when I was small.  Here is the first row I made:

The second month we drew "Stars".  I decided to do a swag with a couple of stars and a double star on it that I could use along the top of my quilt.  The stars represent the many friends I made along the way.  Since we moved every couple of years while I was growing up, it was always a case of making new friends and leaving old friends.  The story I'm writing to go along with this row is about some of the friends who enriched my life along the way - the "stars" in my life.  Here is my second row:

The third month we drew "buildings".  My row is a paper-pieced cabin block with some log cabin blocks around it.  Since my theme is about the places I've lived I may want to emphasize this block a little more and this row may undergo some changes when I work on putting the rows together.  Here it is so far:

The fourth month we drew "things".  I decided to make quilting related tools and quilting things since I spend so much of my time quilting.  There's a rotary cutter, a thimble, a button jar, a spool of thread, and a tape measure/ruler - just in case you can't tell from the picture.  My story for this row is about the time I've lived in Arizona and fell in love with quilting.

It's the fifth month and we drew our last category - it was "flora or fauna/plants or animals".  I decided to applique flowers that are either the state flower or flowers that represent/remind me of the various states where I've lived.  Since I've lived in more than 5 states, some states needed to be grouped together.  Somehow it all worked out and I was able to finish it last night.  Yea!  Here is my last row:

Now we'll take about 2 months to put our quilts together, maybe add filler rows, sashing, or whatever.  Then we'll quilt them and have a reveal tea to show them to each other.  We've shown our rows at our guild meetings as we went along, but combining them and putting them into a quilt will be a secret until the reveal tea.  After the reveal we'll take them to our guild meeting and show them to the whole group.

I can't wait to see everyone's quilts.  Here are a few pictures of some of the rows that others have done:

My Mom

We'll miss you Mom!  Sadly, my Mom passed away yesterday after her battle with cancer.  She lived to a ripe old age of 90.  She was so happy that she was able to stay in her home until nearly the end.  She really disliked nursing homes and fought like crazy to remain in her own home.  It was only the last 2 weeks of her life, when she rapidly declined and couldn't be managed without medical care, that she was moved to a Hospice Hospital.  I was able to go and visit her in Colorado a month before she passed.  At that time she was still doing pretty well and we enjoyed our time together. 

Here's a picture of one of the quilts I made her that she's been using to cover herself when she's taking a nap in her chair.

Here's a picture of my Mom.  My sisters brought a friend of Mom's into Mom's home to give her a haircut and style.  This was only 3 weeks before she passed and I think she still looked pretty good considering what she was going through. 

Here's a picture of Mom with my two sisters on July 1, 2011.  Sister Sherry, on the left is my older sister and Ruth, on the right is my younger sister.  I also have 2 brothers so my Mom must have been pretty busy as a young wife chasing all of us around.

Simple Stitcheries from the Heart Quilt Top Finished

I'm happy to say I finished making a quilt top this week.  It's a redwork embroidery quilt using brown embroidery floss and brown fabric with an accent of red.  I've been taking this embroidery project with me to many of my quilt gatherings for over a year now.  Talk about a "forever project"!  I'm so pleased to finally have the top finished.  I have the backing cut and pieced together and some wool batting cut and ready - I actually pieced 2 chunks of leftover batting together using large hand stitches that look like big "Xs".  Hope it works out - want to use up that pricey wool batting.

Jamworks.......Simple Stitcheries from the Heart

Fragrant Memories Quilt Finished

While we were driving to Colorado, I was able to sew down the binding on my Fragrant Memories Quilt.  I started on this quilt 4 or 5 years ago.  I had the center all finished but still needed to applique the borders and quilt it.  I also stalled a little bit on picking fabric for the final border.  Thankfully, I got input from the ladies in my guild chapter and off I went to the quilt shop with some ideas in mind.  They were so good about helping me there too.  And now, it makes me happy to say, that it's finally finished, and is hanging on the wall by the bay window in our eating nook.   Here is a picture of the quilt and a close-up of the quilting: