Simply Stellar Quilt - More to go!

I sewed all of the thirty saw-tooth star blocks together.  These blocks are 8"x8".   At first, I had a difficult time making the points meet.  I finally decided that I had to pin the pieces together very carefully.  I did have to undo seams every once in a while but not as much as I did on the first two rows.

I am very satisfied with the result; although, I could've been more of a perfectionist but I would not have finished this quilt until next year.  I sewed one red and one blue together and added the row below.  Did that again, sewed the eight blocks together and added the end two to make ten.  I did that two more times for a total of six rows.

The pattern calls for an inner border, 2 1/2 inches wide and then another border of smaller 4"x4" sawtooth stars, 52 of them.

Vintage Quilt Revival 

My fat quarters, Little Azalea from the Fat Quarter Shop arrived this morning!  I am excited about sewing the next two blocks of the Vintage Quilt Revival:  Mosaic No. 19 and Diamond Panes. 

Hampton Ridge - Month 4

I finished all four blocks of month 4 of the Hampton Ridge BOM.  It did not take me very long considering the blocks are small, 8" finished.  If there is a lot of piecing there is quite a bit of bulk. Block 13 is an example of lots of bulk but Block 14 was so easy because there was very little bulk to deal with.

Block 13

Block 14

Block 15

Block 16

These pictures are not as good as the recent photographs that I have been taking.  I had to go back to my old camera.  Bummer!

I have accomplished two of my three goals for sewing this weekend.  I will start sewing my saw-tooth star blocks together in the next hour.

Vintage Revival Block Along - Week #1

I have made my blocks for the Vintage Revival Block Along.  I am planning on using Little Azalea by Free Spirit and some select Kona Solids.  I have a jelly roll and a charm pack of Little Azalea but they are too small to use on 12" blocks.  I ordered fat quarters but they have not arrived yet so I had to use the Kona Solids to make my first two blocks.  They look too close to the blocks in the book and look very similar to the other quilters block's on Flickr.

New Purchases from Fabric Garden

I am so delighted to share my new purchases with all of you.  First, I purchased new fabric (not that I need anymore), Shop Local by Another Point of View from Windham Fabrics.  They are too cute and I am sure that you will agree with me once you see them for yourself.

The owners of the Fabric Garden know that I am a BIG fan of Deb Tucker of Studio 180 Designs.  Deb is an extremely dynamic speaker and has rulers that allow you to make blocks with incredible accuracy.  I purchased her laminated cards that explain how to use her rulers!

The Tucker Trimmer is my favorite of her rulers.  I love to make stars and this ruler allows you to make the most accurate stars.  I watched her demonstrate her rulers at PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival) in Santa Clara.  She is a must to watch.

I only went to Fabric Garden to pick up my fourth month installment of Hampton Ridge.  I left with much, much more!  It is so much fun to go and socialize with people (Carol and Jill) who love quilting like I do!

 I will post my blocks when I finish them. 

I purchased a new book also.  I didn't realize that I had the first edition in my library.  The second edition is more comprehensive and it seems that the information that you need is easier to find because of a better index.

The purchase that I am the most excited about is the Frixion Pen.  I can't wait to try it.  I am intrigued by the disappearing ink when the heat of my iron touches it.



My Priorities for the remainder of the week is to finish my blocks for the Vintage Revival Block Along, sew my blocks for Hampton Ridge and finish sewing my blocks together for the saw-tooth star quilt.

Star Blocks are not finished....

I did not finish the Simply Stellar blocks.  They took quite a bit longer for me to sew together.  Of course, I want the points to match so I had to pick at the seams because I either had too much space between the points or cut one off.  I decided to take some time away from the blocks because I became very frustrated.  This is what I have completed so far:

I 

 I have finished an additional two stars but as I said, I put it away yesterday.  I will try again later today.

Vintage Revival Block Along

The first week of  the Vintage Revival Block Along started yesterday.  Those of us who decided to join received the first set of instructions and which blocks to do this first week.  Sukie showed the colors that she will be using and they are very pretty.  I picked up a jelly roll of Little Azalea by Free Spirit while in the San Diego area from the Fat Quarter Quilt Shop in Vista.  It is a lovely group of fabrics with pink, yellow, aqua, red and many more beautiful colors.  I have quite a bit of Kona Solids and I decided to try to use them together.

 

After looking at all of my fabric choices, I decided to take out the Peridot fabric (third from the top).   The picture on the right shows my fabric choices without the darker green, Peridot.

 

I need to piece the two blocks together tonight so I can get back to the saw-tooth star blocks.  

 I have decided to use these fabrics along with the "Little Azalea" fabrics.

 

 

 

Simply Stellar blocks are done!

I finished the fifteen blue, 8" x 8" sawtooth star blocks quickly.  I was watching the 49er vs Seahawks football game while I was sewing them together.  Unfortunately, the Seahawks won but it was a very exciting game. I finished the fifteen red blocks yesterday and I like them.  

Wild Turkeys 

Yesterday was a wonderful and sunny day.  It was over 65 degrees and mild.  Unfortunately, we are experiencing one of the worst droughts in the history of California.  We will not be able to wash our cars, water our lawns, etc.  I hope it does not effect the wildlife here. 

There were ten male wild turkeys in this group.

One of the bigger males.

Getting back to my quilt, here is the layout of the blocks:

I will try to sew them together by tomorrow evening.

New Quilt Project - Red, White and Blue Quilt

I love red, white and blue quilts.  I picked up The Quilter Magazine last week, the February/March 2014 issue and gazed upon a lovely star quilt that I would love to make.  The quilt is called "Simply Stellar."  About the same time I noticed that the Fat Quarter Shop was advertising the same quilt.  In Kimberly Jolly's blog she mentioned that you can purchase the fabric from her but you had to purchase the magazine separately.  Kimberly publishes patterns under the name of It's Sew Emma.  If you are interested in making this quilt with the colors that Kimberly is using, you can order it from her website:  www.fatquartershop.com.

 


I love sawtooth stars blocks.  I really had to do this quilt in red, white and blue.










This is the entire quilt.  It is so beautiful!  

I am planning on leaving the design of the quilt the same except I will use red fabric in place of the aqua/turquoise fabric.




 



These are the fabrics that I have chosen to use in my quilt.  I have two navy fabrics because I don't think that I have enough of each of the fabrics to finish the quilt.  I will use the one for the stars in the middle of the quilt and use the other for the stars in the border.

I am starting tonight.  I will keep my fingers crossed that I have enough fabric for the blue stars.

I can't help myself, I had to put these photos of Joe Montana's jersey.

Go 49ers! It will be hard hitting but exciting game tomorrow in Seattle!

Finally finished the Chevron Quilt!

I finally finished the Chevron Quilt today.  I was initially waylaid by my oldest daughter.  She asked me if I had a certain charm pack that we purchased together several months ago.  I looked around and could not find it but I found other fat quarters that would fit with the fabrics that she had.  What waylaid me was my own stash.  It needed to be "tweaked."  By that I mean, that I needed to organize it a bit better so I put aside the Chevron Quilt and worked on making my stash easier to get into and find fabric.

I need to find a backing fabric.  I think I will try to do the quilting myself.  I will let you know what I decide.

"Charming Chevrons" - Finished the Blocks!

I finally finished the blocks of the "Charming Chevrons" Quilt...all 42 of them.  Now I just have to decide where to place all of the blocks and I can sew them all together!

They were fun to sew.  I really enjoyed working with the Kona Solid colors.  I never really worked with them before.

I will post more pictures when I am done. 

Great Sale at the Fat Quarter Shop on Fig Tree Fabrics and the Vintage Quilt Revival Book

There is a great sale at the Fat Quarter Shop.  The Vintage Quilt Revival Book that I blogged about a couple of days ago is on sale.  It is 20% off for remainder of the month of January.  It is regularly $27.95, but is now selling at $22.36.  This is a great bargain for a great book.

The other sale at the Fat Quarter Shop are Fig Tree Fabrics!  I just finished my "Little Lollies" quilt that was from a Fig Tree Pattern.  Joanna's fabrics are so yummy.  Here is a way to obtain some of these yummy fabrics at a 50% discount but you have to use the code:  FIGTREE in order to receive the discount at checkout!  The sale lasts until January 12.

The Lollipop pattern that I used last week.

New Quilt: Charming Chevrons - Designed by Christa Watson

I purchased a quilt kit from Christa Watson of ChristaQuilts.com.  I purchased the kit several months ago but I haven’t had the opportunity to put it together until now.  The quilt is so stunning that it was published on the front cover of "Quilty" Magazine, the November/December 2013 issue.

The kit includes two Charm Packs (42 in each) 5-inch squares of solids, two Charm Packs (42 in each) 5-inch squares of light background and 1/2 yard fabric for binding.  3 additional yards of backing and a 52" x 60" piece of batting are needed to complete the quilt that you will have to purchase yourself.




To make the quilt, the directions are as follows:

Place one dark solid and one background, RST (right sides together).  Mark from one corner to the other with any ruler and sew 1/4" on either side of the line or use a ruler that is similar to the "Quilters Magic Wand" from www.studio180design.net. 

"The Quilters Magic Wand" is 1/2" wide and has a line down the middle.  You place the line at two of the corners and use a pen or pencil to draw a line on each side of the ruler.  It is far easier for me to just sew on a line that is already marked.

The background squares were smaller than the dark squares so I just placed it as close as I could to the middle of the non-background square. 

Just make a cut between the sewing lines with your ruler on both corners. 

I opened both pieces and you will have two HST (half square triangles), iron them open, half pressed toward the light/background fabrics and the other half to the non-background fabrics. Each pair made will be ironed in the same direction.
 

I made a total of 84 HST's.  I like this method of making the HST because you have a larger square and you can trim them down to 4 1/2" squares easily and they will be close to accurate, as long you are accurate when you trim them.

This is the placement of the HST to make each chevron.









I sewed the tops together because I could butt the seams together.  I get a very accurate seam that meets almost perfectly at 1/4 inches.

The two bottom pieces go together just as easily. This is why half of the seams are ironed towards the background and the other half to the solid.

I ironed both seams open because there was quite a lot of bulk in the middles of the block where all four seams meet.

I sewed the top and bottom together and also ironed the seam open.  I know that it takes more time to do this but it is so worth the trouble when your block lays flat.



I will post more photographs of the chevrons as I sew more today.

Vintage Quilt Revival Block-Along

I have been reading a new quilt book called, "Vintage Quilt Revival" by Katie Clark Blakesley, Lee Heinrich and Faith Jones.  I read all three of their blogs:  BikeSwimQuilt.com (Blakesley), FreshlyPieced.com (Heinrich) and FreshLemonsQuilts.com (Jones). They are modern quilt makers and new authors.  I received my copy a couple of weeks ago.

This book takes twenty traditional quilt blocks and changes  them into modern looking blocks.  The use of color, size and contemporary settings of the blocks also add to the modern feel.  I enjoyed reading the book.

You can order the book from Amazon, Fat Quarter Shop and the Interweave store.





 
Lee Heinrich announced on her blog that one of her friends, Sukie will host the Vintage Quilt Revival Block-Along.  Her blog can be located at sukiedontyaknow.com.  Sukie will make two blocks each week starting January 21.  I signed up to receive her blog posts so I would not miss any part of the Block-Along.  I can't wait to start but I always have a difficult time deciding which fabrics to use.  I hope that you will join in because it really looks like it will be fun!


I just want to add that I am a traditional quilt maker.   I have quite a bit of 1800's fabric but I am trying to switch to modern quilt making because the colors intrigue me and the settings of the blocks on the quilts look so great!  This is a way for many of you who are looking for alternative quilting methods to try it and see if you like sewing modern quilts.  Thanks, Sukie for hosting the block-along!

"Little Lollies" Quilt Top is finished.

The quilt top is finally finished.  The holidays really made me fall behind so I am very happy to have finished the top.  I will bring the quilt, backing and batting to my quilter.  I am looking forward to seeing it quilted and ready to use.

Here is the quilt in progress:

 



Just the blocks assembled with the corner stones and sashing.

The inner border of the aqua and red to make it look scrappy.

A 3 1/2" white outer border added to frame the quilt.

More progress on the "Little Lollies"

I sewed most of yesterday while I was watching television.  I ended the night watching the New Year's Eve broadcast from NYC.  It looked so cold there and I just thought that I we were really lucky to be living in Sacramento; even though it was cold yesterday, it's not as cold as back east.

I used a mug that was 3 1/2" to make this circle.

Trimmed the fabric and cut into the seam allowance so it wouldn't pucker.

Pulled the fabric through the hole in the back.

Centered and pinned it.

In retrospect, I should've read some of the advice that I found on the internet regarding sewing of these circles.  I didn't look for it until now.  There are many videos that show how to accomplish this with nice, round curves.  Oh well.....

The pattern from the Holly Hill Quilt Shoppe suggests that five of the nine blocks have the aqua center and the remaining four have white centers.  I decided that I wanted a little more color and tried the red.  The picture of the red is to the left.  It just seemed too overpowering compared to the aqua so I abandoned that idea.  I finished most of the blocks with the aqua when it occurred to me that I could make the red center smaller and so I tried it.

I did like it better but I had already sewn the aqua centers on six of the nine blocks.  It did not seem worth the time to remove some of the aqua centers so I decided to make only one block with the smaller center.

This will be the block placement for my "Little Lollies" quilt.  I just have to add the sashing and corner stones, scrappy inner border, white-on-white outer border and I will be done with the top.  I purchased backing fabric when I visited my local quilt shop, the Fabric Garden.  

I love, love, love this line of fabric, "Bobbins and Bits" by Pat Sloan for Moda.  This picture does not do it justice.  I took a couple of pictures of it but I can't get the aqua color right.  You can find a picture of it online.  It is called "Aegeon Blue Berry Scrolls."  





I will try to finish this quilt today but we have been invited to a friend's home to celebrate the New Year.  I hope that I can at least do the sashing and corner stones when we return home.