Winter Pines • Finished!

February 6, 2018January 28, 2018 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Winter Pines
Quilt No. 193
73″ high by 64″ wide

You saw the sewing of Winter Pines and I’m back to tell you it’s finished.

The backing is an oldie from the stash; I deliberated whether or not to use it as I was “saving it for just the right quilt” but am so glad I decided to use it. I love it with the wintery theme of this quilt — just the right colors.

My quilter did a great job, using one of my favorite edge-to-edge patterns: a swirling loop-de-loop.

I’m sewing the binding on another quilt that I’ve kept under wraps for nearly six months. It will hang in a booth at QuiltCon, so the time is getting closer to showing you all, but first I have to make the label and get that sewn on. Soon, very soon.

PS: Very windy day to photograph a quilt.

Frivols Quilts

Frivols 2

February 1, 2018January 31, 2018 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

We’re back for another episode of Make Those Frivols! 2018

Today I’m working on Frivols Tin #2, with a line of fabrics from Moda’s Minick and Simpson.

Of course the cute little giveaway in this tin, a personalized label, was caught in a blurry photo, so the above photo came from Moda’s blog. The fabrics are traditional, but with a grouping of 7″ squares, they’ve crafted an interesting little quilt, which finishes at approximately 26″ square.

I pressed all the fabrics flat, as they had a nice little curve in them from being stored in the tin for a while. I checked and re-checked but there were no Errata posts on this tin, so I just started cutting them out.

But here is your caution: The strips, above, are the dark borders and the light borders. THE DARK BORDER IS SUPPOSED TO BE WIDER. Okay, there’s my oops. I liked the look of the wider border, so after piecing as instructed (see below), I sewed another coordinating strip onto the blue to bring it wider. I didn’t have any of this fabric, but did have some navy “primitive” fabric, and it worked okay.

I did not pencil in all the center lines when sewing the half-square triangles, like they asked. I put a strip of masking tape extending out from the needle stitching line, and used that to line up for sewing. My needle position is set 1/4″ to the right, so I have to pay attention to where I line up my point so I stitch on either side of that imaginary center line.

The cream-coloredborder strips are stitched end to end, but the blue is stitched with a diagonal seam. After I sewed, I trimmed.

I pressed all the half-square triangles to the dark, but didn’t have time to start trueing them up. Getting this far gives me a good start on my February goal.

You can see the extra strip I stitched on the blue border here (the darker fabric on the left). I didn’t worry about the width of the border, figuring I would trim it when I got back to the sewing. I tell you all this as a cautionary note: pay attention to, circle, highlight, make notes to make sure you follow the cutting directions. However, since this is just a fun little quilt in a fun little tin, you can adopt a happy attitude, even in the face of cutting mistakes. Just sew another strip on and go, because I’ve paid off all the Quilt Police so no one will ever find out if yours is different than the directions.

I have a tailor-made little tin to store it in while I’m away from this task — another benefit of those Frivols tins. See you at the end of the month, when I report in again on my little quilt.

Free Quilt Pattern · Gridsters · Tutorial

Basket Block Tutorial • February 2018 • (Gridster Bee Month for Me!)

January 29, 2018January 29, 2018 Elizabeth E.5 Comments

gridsters-250-buttonx

I belong to an online bee called the Gridsters, and February is my month to choose a block that my beemates make for me. You can find all our work on Instagram, using the hashtag #gridsterbee.

Basket_8

I chose a basket block.

Basket_food fabrics

I also have been saving food-themed fabrics forever for a basket block quilt with the baskets full of food beginning at least a couple of decades ago, and continuing as I picked up a food fabric here and there.

I was also inspired to make basket blocks by Barb, of Fun With Barb and Kelly of Pinkadot who decided to do it together; their tutorials are on each of the links, above. I upsized the basket block to 10 inches in size, so the making would go faster. (You’d think with all the quilts in this house, I would have enough twin-sized, but I don’t, so I’ve already decided that’s the size it will be.)

If you want to join in with me, or Barb and Kelly, in making baskets, I’d suggest we follow their request to tag our Instagram photos with #basketswu [Baskets Sew With Us]. (Gridsters please tag them also with #gridsterbee.)

For the Gridster Bee

I’ve sent you some food fabrics; please use those for the A section of your blocks. I don’t care what you use for the basket–it can match, it can contrast, it can coordinate, it can clash–choose what you think creates the look you want. You can use small scale prints, large prints, florals, novelties, checks, whatever.

For the low-volume background, use these types of fabrics:

Basket_low volumes YES
They are a range of creamy-toned fabrics, without strong secondary designs.

Avoid these types:

Basket_low volumes NO

Solid in creams is okay, but avoid white, grey, tan, beige, white-on-white (I really don’t like beige for this quilt, but understand the limitations of our stashes–just do your best). Many of the above fabrics have strong motifs and patterns, so reject those too. Basically, I want the background to recede without being dull or same-same.

Basket Tutorial

Basket Block_ESE — *Not to size, for reference only*–please use the PDF link below.

Here’s my cutting sheet for this tutorial, in PDF form, but the usual requests apply here–don’t print off a million copies for your mother and your friends, but please send them here to get their own: Basket Block 10 inch_OPQuilt

Basket_1 — All my basket pieces laid out.

First, make the Half Square Triangles.

[Background: One method is from Alyce, and she has a nice chart if you want to figure out your own eight-way Half-square Triangles. However, I also have a different chart on this post which came from Jeni Baker, who encourages the use of a bigger initial square. That means for us (and especially if you like to trim your HSTs) you would begin with a 6″ block, which is what I’ve specified on the cutting chart. BTW, her book on triangles is a good one to have in your library. ] Basket_2
Place one 6″ background square and one 6″ basket square right sides together. Mark two diagonal lines, and sew 1/4″ on either side of the marked lines. On the left is the pieces with the sewn diagonals. Press it flat to settle down the wrinkles, which you see on the right.

Basket_4b — I moved mine apart to demo this; leave yours close together.

Cut on marked lines. Now without moving your squares, cut on mid-lines, crossing the centers, as shown below. Press, with seam allowance to the dark side, trimming out dark fabric, if necessary, so it doesn’t show through. Trim to 2-1/2″ inches square.

Basket_3
Make center half-square triangle (piece A-1): Place a food fabric (measuring 6-7/8″ square) onto a basket square (same size), drawing a diagonal line, then stitching on either side of that line. Press, then cut on marked line, then press towards the basket. You’ll have an extra center to toss into your Random Patches Box. (You do have one of those, don’t you?)

Press seam allowance ALWAYS towards basket, to give that dimensional look that something is IN the basket. Now trim that center to 6-1/2″.

Basket_5
Here are all the pieces, laid out. I chose a stripe to demo, so you can see the direction the stripes go. If you use the eight-at-a-time half-square triangle method, you’ll have no problem getting the stripes in the small half-square triangles go the direction you want. Yes, I did cut the 6-7/8″ square (basket) on the bias, so I could have the stripes go across the unit.

Basket_5a — I made two blocks at once; one had a light center, and one had a dark center.

Stitch together the three small half-square triangle pieces; press in the direction they want to go, which is usually toward the flat triangle piece.

Basket_5b
Stitch one 2-1/2″ block onto one unit (shown in upper left corner). It helps to arrange your square as you go, so you get everything all sorted out right.

Basket_5c
Sew the first three-unit “basket handle” to the center HST, as shown on the left. Press seams away from basket, even though they don’t want to go there, again to preserve the illusion that something is in your basket.

Basket_6
Sew the second three-unit “handle” with the C square to the center unit, as shown. I pressed the square C-block toward the three-triangle unit so that the seams would nest neatly when I arrived at this step.

Basket_7
Create basket stand by sewing one of your small HST to the D-rectangle. Pay attention to which direction the triangles are going. Stitch this first unit onto the basket.

Repeat with second HST and D-rectangle. Sew ONE of the C (2-1/2″ squares) to ONE of the basket stand units. Stitch this onto the existing basket.

Basket_9
And you are done!

There are lots of fun ways I can finish this basket quilt:

I like this setting, with all those energetic chevrons in between the baskets.

Looks like red is a pretty popular color for setting these blocks. I have more basket ideas on my Pinterest site, if you want to see more block settings. (I’ve been collecting these ideas for ages.)

Thanks to the Gridsters for making me baskets this month, and I hope you all have fun making a few for yourselves.

Quilt Shows

Road to California 2018

January 26, 2018January 24, 2018 Elizabeth E.10 Comments

Ready, set, go into a busy week:

Tuesday: Cynthia England’s class with Lisa, my pal, who has moved away to Utah. That’s Cynthia’s class sample, above. I loved taking a class with Cynthia as I was there in Houston the year her quilt won the Best of Show and launched her career. Upshot? Here’s another UFO for my collection, but I’m glad I took the class and learned the technique.

Wednesday was a day off: I picked up my new glasses, blocked a quilt I’m working on for Paintbrush Studios’ booth for QuiltCon in a month, cleaned the house, and did the laundry.

Thursday: I went in early with Leisa, another pal, and killed time until the show opened, and when it did, made a beeline to find my two quilts.

Here’s Shine hanging in its cubby with a dazzler gem quilt, which quite overshadowed it. (See below for the link to Instagram, where I did post a lot of the quilts and their names/makers.) But the fun was being juried into Road!

Then to find the second quilt: Oh! Christmas Tree, hanging with its buddies. Again, a real thrill to see it there.

Now to tackle the shopping. The layout, above.

First stop, Pineapple Fabrics, where they stock my favorite solid fabric: Painter’s Palette Solids, by Paintbrush Studio. Even though I learned about these solids by designing a quilt for Paintbrush Studio, I’m quite in love with their solid fabric and needed a few colors. Pineapple Fabrics sells them at the best price of anyone out there.

After Pineapple, I started out in the “Pavillion” which is really just a monster-sized commercial tent with awkward lighting. The first row facing the courtyard was well-lit (above, a Kaffe booth that has a great selection), but as soon as you round that corner, the booths are less well-lit. Actually I found the lighting overall to be a problem in the main ballroom, too. It was fine in the small ballroom. Turn up the lights, Road!

I zipped over to see Dora Cary of OrangeDot Quilts, as I follow her on Instagram, and love her work.

For some reason, this show seems to attract the scooter/walker/cane crowd. At the entrance they have about 40 of these scooters lined up to rent. Here are some scooters parked alongside a booth. Will I stop coming to these when I hit this stage? Who knows, but I am counting on the fact that the online presence will be so strong that I can stay home and hit the vendors that way.

Here is “saw-though-the-head” and “scissors-through-the-head.” I also saw “hairbrush-through-the head.” I suppose, as a vendor, you’ll do anything to make your booth stand out.

Fun to see a bee-mate’s quilt hanging up in the Ventura Quilt Guild’s booth. It looks great, Joan! And here’s the instructions and the place to send the blocks if you want to contribute to the Thomas Fire Relief Quilts.

I didn’t just shop or take classes (more coming up), but I also took time to look at the quilts. The one made from a Wendy Williams pattern (above) caught my eye. I have a lot of the quilts, plus the placards that tell about the quilts, up on my Instagram feed beginning here. Use the right arrow to advance through them, and I apologize again if you follow me on IG and I blew up your feed.

I had many favorites and wrote about them on Instagram, but I also kept looking at the quilting, trying always to improve my FMQ.

Leisa finished her class with Gyleen Fitzgerald on Pineapple Quilts, and on the way home we stopped by Blaze Pizza for an early dinner (and to catch up with our non-quilt-show lives), because we had…

…Caitlin’s baby shower to attend that evening. I was the gift scribe, and being the oldest of the bunch I needed a translation program that spanned several decades. For example, I would write “squeaky toy” and Caitlin would say “Thanks for the teether.” I would then line out “squeaky toy” and write down what she called the plastic giraffe. This happened over and over, and left me certain that I was waaaaaay past the child-bearing years. The language was so different, it was like a different world. The favors were tiny succulents, the food was divine (I need to get the recipes) and we took a marker and wrote a message on the diapers in the wire basket, above — messages that Caitlin would read at those midnight diaper changes.

Okay, back to the show.

Friday: Lisa, Leisa and I took the Mystery Triangles Class from Jenny Doan. Another class where I chose it for the person teaching it, as Jenny Doan is fabulous. This was the most relaxed class, and I really enjoyed it. The quilt above is all the techniques/options rolled into one quilt.

Lisa finished a baby quilt top, using Christa Watson’s new line of fabrics, that have a lot of wow-factor. Cute!

We ate lunch every day upstairs overlooking the dramatic hallway with the hanging quilts, and I loved this quilter’s bag, made for her by her daughter, who asked her what were the four most important things in her life. I agree, except I’d have to make room for my husband’s name on there. (Maybe leave off gardening?)

We did some shopping, then headed over to El Torito. where our little quilt group gathered for our annual dinner. Some years we’ve been fewer in number, and some years we’ve been higher in number; this time Lisa’s friend Margaret from Idaho joined us (in the red). Then we all hightailed it back to the show, where we took in Jenny Doan’s Trunk Show that night. It was fun and funny and good to be there with everyone.

Saturday: I walked all the vendors one more time, then about noon, Leisa and I left.

Sunday: I had to pick up my quilts at 4:30 so I went early. My experience has taught me that the show is pretty emptied out near the end, and I could walk the quilts and look at them one more time, taking photographs without any people in them.

I re-visited the Cherrywood Fabrics booth with all the Van Gogh-inspired fabrics and snapped these two panorama shots (which distorts the photo–it’s really quite rectangular). Next year the theme is Prince, with purple fabrics, if you want to jump in. They’ve had three collections so far: Lion King, Wicked, and Van Gogh. I have loved them all. Click to enlarge the above two photos.