Laying out my Charm Squares and Veteran's Day Weekend Fun

Here is the result of my use of one of my charm packs:

I made 82 hour glass blocks.  Two of them succumb to my reckless cutting and I had to throw them out.   I decided to place them 8 blocks by 10 blocks.  I had two left over but they were very dark and I was glad not to include them.

I will sew them together probably tonight.  Unfortunately, I won't have much time later this week.  The River City Quilter's Guild is having their annual quilt show.  I am the vendor chair and I will be busy taping off vendor booths tomorrow early in the morning, taking care of vendors while they are setting up Thursday and the show runs, Friday through Sunday.

My husband and I went to Yosemite this past weekend.  We decided to go to Merced Grove.  It is a stand of about ten redwoods.  It is a 3-mile round trip hike from the road.  It was a very fun trip going to see the trees:  1/2 mile on a flat road and 1 mile downhill to the trees.  It was nice and quiet.  Of course, if you go down, you must eventually go back up.  The 1-mile climb uphill was strenuous and hitting the flat 1/2 mile walk to the car was glorious!  We had a great time.  Obviously, I am sore.  I usually don't take those kinds of walks often.

Yesterday was Veteran's Day.  Both of our father's served in WWII and my father also served in Vietnam.  We stayed home because I was still sore and enjoyed the day sewing.

Using those Charm Square Packs - I have a lot of them!

I have so many charm square packs.  Why?  Because I loved the fabrics but I did not want to purchase large pieces off the bolt.  I felt good just purchasing the 5" squares but what have I done with them?  Nothing! 

This weekend, I devised a plan to use them!  I am making hour glass blocks with a black background.  I am not happy with the black background but I am using the charm pack.  I am delighted to get rid of just one of them.

I cut black fabric into 5" squares (42 total squares).  I marked the lines to sew:  1/4 inches on either side of a line from corner to corner.  I pinned the two pieces together (right sides together) and sewed on the lines that I made.

I cut between the lines that I sewed, from corner to corner.

The result of the cut made two-half squares blocks.

I then put the right sides together, the seams on top of each other.  The black triangles on both sides of the seam.

Again, I marked across the seam, 1/4 inches on either side of the line from corner to corner.  I pinned the two pieces together (right sides together) and I cut between the lines that I sewed, from corner to corner.

The result were two hour glass blocks.

I trimmed the blocks to 4 inches.






Each charm pack contains 42-5" squares so with the charm pack you will make 84 - 4" squares.  That is one way to use those charm packs up.

Quilty Fun by Lori Holt

Lori Holt, a fabric designer for Riley Blake has published a new book, "Quilty Fun."  She is quite a prolific fabric designer and has many years of experience as a quilter.  She was teaching her fellow parishioners how to sew and quilt online.  I read an article that Kimberly Jolly saw the online lessons and asked Lori to publish them.  I mentioned the book several weeks ago when I received my copy.  I love the whimsical quality that the quilt possesses.  

The Fat Quarter Shop is sponsoring a quilt along.  They will be piecing all of the different blocks from the quilt.  It is a smaller quilt where we will piece just three or four pieces instead of a row of each block.

Every Monday, there will be directions to make the blocks.  It is located on the FQS blog, the Jolly Jabber.  This week's blocks are apples.  It took me only an hour to put together the four apples.  The most diffifult element was selecting the fabric.  I decided not to purchase new fabric but try to use my stash.  It wasn't difficult finding the colors because I have them organized by color now.

Here are my blocks for this week:

This was so fun and very quick.  I love the immediate satisfaction because there are so few blocks to piece.  You have to have the book in order to make the quilt.  I can't wait for Monday to come around.

Hampton Ridge - Month 1 - New BOM

Hampton Ridge, the new BOM by Red Crinoline Quilts started last week.  I signed up to do this quilt through Fabric Garden, my local quilt store.  The blocks are smaller than the last BOM, Freedom Rings also by Red Crinoline.

The blocks are 8" square, finished.  My only criticism of these first four blocks is that they have quite a bit of bulk because there are many fabrics to piece.  I opted not to take the lecture/class when I pick up the fabrics because the instructions are well written and the accompanying illustrations and diagrams are easy to understand.

Block 1

Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Civil War Melodies - Month 10 - Celebrating Freedom

This month's BOM is called Celebrating Freedom.  This is the completed block.  It was easy overall but the "sawtooth" piecing was a bit more difficult because of the small size.  I was very careful with the measuring and cutting so it was not difficult and everything fit together well. 

8 1/2" x 8 1/2"

The history lesson that accompanies this BOM is about music of the slaves and how they celebrated their freedom.  I recall that in elementary school we sang, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."  The slaves sang waiting for the chariots from God and the heavens to take them away from their lives on the plantation. 

"Some slaves chose to remain at the homes of their masters during the war, many more chose freedom.  When a few slaves surrendered to Union forces and learned that the Union soldiers would not return them to their owners, word quickly spread and thousands of slaves headed north.  In just four short months during the summer of 1861, 15,000 slaves found their way to freedom."

"Chorus:  Slavery chain done broke down at last, broke at last, broke at last,
Slavery chain done broke at last, Going to praise God til I die."

The Union needed more troops and started black regiments.  "Oh Freedom," was another song used to encourage men to keep marching in tough condition.

"Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me
And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in a my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free."

Charm Exchange Group and finishing the Lattice Bone Quilt

I finished the Lattice Bones Quilt last night.  I like the finished product and it was easy and very fun.                                                              

I am a bit embarrassed by the wrinkles in the quilt but I didn't want to iron it this morning.  I was feeling a bit lazy.

About a month ago, I read a FB entry by Kate Spain.  She announced a Charm Exchange through a blogger, Michele Kuhns of Quilts From My Crayon Box.   I joined the group.  It sounded easy enough.  I have quite a bit of Kate's fabrics in my stash and I am assuming that all of those that joined the group are also fans.   We were to select two 1-yard pieces of fabric and make 56 charm squares of each piece for a total of 112 - 5" squares.  We mail them in to Michele by November 5 with a Self-addressed, stamped envelope and she will mail us 112 squares of each of the charms sent to her.  I forgot to mention that we were to join her FLICKR group, "Kate Spain Charm Swap" and post pictures of the fabrics that we chose to exchange so there would not be any repeats.  I finished cutting my fabric tonight and now all I need to do is mail her my squares.  

  

These are my two fabrics from Kate's "Honey Honey" line.   

Lattice Bones by Julie Hirt-627handworks.com --Moda Bake Shop

I subscribe to Moda Bake Shop's blog -->  www.modabakeshop.com.  A couple of weeks ago, I received a blog that had a pattern that I thought was so interesting, Lattice Bones.  I loved the fact that I could use two jelly rolls, one a solid and the other any print that I had in my stash.  I loved the openness of the quilt and the angles of the almost round circles.

I went to the website to download the free pattern:  http://www.modabakeshop.com/2013/10/lattice-bones-quilt.html



 

I used a Bella Solid - Snow jelly roll and the Spring House jelly roll, both by Moda.

Here is the progression of the block:

The jelly roll is already cut at 2 1/2"

Cut from the print jelly roll:  2 - 6 1/2" rectangles
and 2 - 2 1/2" squares

Cut from the background jelly roll:  4 - 4 1/2" rectangles and 2 - 2 1/2" squares

The outside columns are easy to sew:
the background and printed squares are sewn together and the 4 1/2" rectangle is sewn to the printed square.  The length and width of the block is 8 1/2."  

The only part that you need to watch for is sewing 

the outside column to the center. 

Pin carefully to be sure that the point

meets the seam of the printed square.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           This quilt has sixteen of the larger blocks to make a 64" x 64" quilt.  You will need 4 yards of fabric for the back.  It goes together fairly quickly.