I Work Well Under Pressure

One day to go to get the Q1 FAL list done.  This is another of my goals completed.  I had so much fun with these!

I stitched them up last April

April 2015

when I designed a set of six placemats (that post is here) to take to Angela Walters' Dot to Dot class in Sarasota.  You can read about that highlight of my quilting life here.  I made three pairs: two in blues and two in greens.  The pinks are not really in my décor, so I concentrated on getting the blues and greens done.

May 1, 2015

Here was the first one quilted but without binding:

No clue what the names of the Kona solids are, sorry

I did that Dot to Dot design in the fuchsia triangles on both mats.  In this second one after I quilted the centre one, I thought, "Hey, these are equilateral triangles; what if I rotated each one so they radiate around that central pale pink triangle?"  Yep, quilt talked to me again.  I made up the dot to dot design in the fuchsia HRTs.  I don't think I've done the fern design before, which is basically a feather-design, and I love how easy it was and its effect.  I rotated them too!

Unlike the first four, these had to have binding. Not sure why I didn't cut the backing bigger all the way around as I did for the blues and greens mats.  I've suddenly, as I viewed this post in "Preview" realized why...doh!  I believe I'd had the thought to make these up into a bag...ah well, that's what I get for being menopausally scatterbrained, and for nearly 1-year-old UFOs.  (Ya, 'cuz I never have any UFOs older than that, nope...)  Yay for me because I found some Kona black strips (I think) in my black scraps bag.  Have I said yet how very glad I am I brought all my smaller scraps with me?!

All bound. I added in the white straight line quilting after I bound them and confirmed what I had suspected, that I'd done this in the first four.

Here is the other one:

Fabulous texture, n'est-ce pas?  The Spirograph-esque design is Angela Walters' from her book, Shape by Shape, but I did it in a triangle as opposed to a square. You can see it drawn and then stitched out by The Quilt Journal here. Thanks to Judy at Quilt Paradigm for showing me that take on this easy and effective FMQ design.  I did it with my walking foot, since I don't have a ruler foot for my Bernina. I drew two lines ahead of my stitching with a Hera marker, since you can't draw the entire design ahead of time.

I had to incorporate feathers, you know me...imagine my surprise when I checked the photos of the first four and found I'd done that on one of those too!

The backs.

Throwing finished quilts around on the ground again...

No clue why but one turned out about 1/3" narrower.  Looks more in the photo for some weird reason.
It was super hot and humid the day I finished these, so, unlike her usual close scrutiny of my projects, Bella chose not to be as involved.

Hot Himalayan puddy-tat

You know I often snap photos of gorgeous flowers.  Here are two more delicate spring flowers, one is a black-eyed Susan I believe and the other, no clue.  The flowers are orchid or iris-like in appearance but not size, they are very small.  On one corner they were so prolific it made me smile.

This post might end up as part of Soma's Wandering Camera linky next month.  I told her that I'll be sure to snap photos as we go what always feels like "back in time," heading back home to Kingsville, Ontario, and share those on the first Thursday in April.

Great spot for early morning coffee or afternoon tea; I will miss it.

Linking up with
Let's Bee Social
and later with Leanne at She Can Quilt for the Q1 FAL

You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

The bougainvillea around us is spectacular this year, maybe because we had a fair bit of rain this winter.

That incredible pinky red and neutral sand are the main colours for this post's finish.
As you know, Naala turned 9 years old on March 4, and has had some shoulder issues this past month again, so earlier this week we took them for a shorter walk in a really pretty park our friend John showed us this year.  She still looks pretty amazing for a 9-year-old Rottie. She couldn't jump up on that wall that day, but Rocco, who is 6.5 years old this month, can, and did.  He learned this trick from Brandy, his red-nose pibble friend.  Rocco and Naala, in turn, have been teaching Brandy to enjoy the water:

a fun frolic at the beach a couple of days ago

Old and older dogs can learn new tricks. Pibble love is not a new trick for either Brandy or Rocco...or for their doubles. Check this out!  Just over a week ago, because Naala was on the DL, John and Brandy, Rocco and I went for a walk in our 'hood...

Four "vicious" pibbles -TWINS- meet on the street outside the one pair's house for the first time!

The only difference is that Lulu is a female blue-nose pit, and Danny Boy, their male red-nose pit.  Sweet sweet dogs, all four.  Oh, one other difference:  Rocco had to have his tail amputated from a condition known as "happy tail syndrome", where from wagging so hard and hitting hard objects like corners of walls, or coffee tables, it would bleed, and eventually cause an ulcer that wouldn't heal.

Anyhow I took a short video of them kissing each other and being the happy, lovin'-life type dogs that these sweeties are.  I have a feeling it will get hundreds of views when I put it on Instagram.


So this old dog (moi), learned some stuff this past few weeks too.  In actuality no, I am NOT old, I hate to even say but I guess I'm maybe middle-age, since I plan to live until around 100.  Anyhow, in February, I tried to do the Scrap-a-Palooza quilt, which was improv piecing with a red corner triangle.

The bottom row shows the playing around with layout ideas I had, with nothing grabbing me.  Until the third layout reminded me of the bottom of a heart.  Hmm, maybe a red square in the corner with two improv HSTs to round the edges might work?   You see what I got in the top picture.

So I decided to go with it.  After all, I did want to make a Valentine quilt this year.  See my Q1 FAL list.

Some of the hearts looked a tad gooby, so I pulled apart a few seams and inserted a small triangle to make them flow a little better.

Yep, that's better

Sewed two blocks together with sashing.

Kinda cute!

Bella, as always, supervised.

And once I took the photo, had to test it out.

Liking it, yep, yep, do the other two now.

Finished flimsy:

I'd mistakenly cut 3 extra 1.5" strips of Modern Background Essentials by Zen Chic for my Swoon Mini, because I couldn't find the safe place I'd put the first ones in.  I got to use some for the outside frame here. I like that!

That Kona Cotton patterned strip across the centre?  Um yeah, had it since 2001:

Beautiful fabric but it's got a kind of scotchguard feel to it; not much left now.

The flimsy sat on my design wall until earlier this week, when I posted about the Shadowed Star cushion.  Hello?!  This "Valentine quilt of some kind" is on my Q1 FAL list!!  I can quilt this up next, since I seem to be on a mini quilts roll this year.

Trying out a new design for me, one of Angela's fillers for negative space

I decided to do a different background fill behind each heart.  I have FMQ-ed for 20 years, but I am always game to learn a new motif, or try something new.  This fill turned out really well, and I just drew it once on a paper and then went for it.  Improv is a also a new technique I've been mucking around a bit with this past little while.

Two hearts quilted down; see how the other two poof up?  No worries; they did smoosh down just as nicely as the first two did.

Very pleased with the new-to-me 'Signature design' of Angela's.  I was also very pleased with how square this mini stayed.

Added Susie's Magic Binding.  This is another new trick for this girl, second quilt I've done it on, and I just love it.  I learned of it thanks to my friend Tish.  I used the rest of the inadvertently extra cut 1.5" Zen Chic strips and cut one more, and then used up almost all of my Dear Stella Chevrons pink and white fabric for the flange.

I call it Crazy Hearts

There was a bit of a ripple across the bottom, so I dampened the quilt and blocked it on my sewing room carpet overnight.  Do you see the pink dragonfly patch? I FMQ-ed over it in the same magenta thread I used for the hearts.  The dragonfly comes from labels fabric.  These flitted around between the labels, which have all been used up now.

The back - I like how the pink hearts show up

The label, which had its written information all but obliterated with the pebbling I did.  I went over it though.

I forgot to put two triangles in each of the top corners for a dowel to go through, so it is getting hung using Right Sides Together's Lazy Ass method.

Very close to the Swoon Mini in size

These two quilts both feature the Zen Chic Modern Background Essentials fabric, and that fabulous binding.  Both are heavily quilted.

Trying to get a bit of an angle to show the fabulous texture you get from all this quilting

I'm happy that I have another finish on my list.  I have not done very well this quarter in that regard.  I am most happy that I am wholeheartedly committed to lifelong learning, and that you definitely can teach this 'old dog' new tricks.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  original design, inspired by Scrap-a-Palooza
Size: 19" square
Fabric: stash scraps
Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% cotton
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann; quilted with Essentials 50 wt 20869 white and 21241 Magenta

If you would like to learn some of these and many more fabulous FMQ techniques, then you might want to check out Craftsy's classes.   I learned so much in Angela Walters' Machine Quilting Negative Space, and her Small Changes, Big Variety classes.  Her Free-Motion Quilting with Feathers class is well worth snagging at this price too.  I reviewed the latter two of those in this post.

Why you might want to consider taking a class if you never have:  I have both of Angela Walters' Quilting books, and the designs you see in both these minis can be found in her books.  However!  I find that SEEING her execute the designs on either a longarm or a domestic really helps me to see how the design is executed.  I also love the fact that I can watch her do this over and over either using the 30-second repeat feature, or I can go back to a design maybe 6 months after I bought and watched the class to review it.  There are many more reasons why I love Craftsy classes, and I go into them in the review post if you are interested, or just email me if you have specific questions.

The newest class I am super-excited about that I just got is Christina Cameli's latest one, Wild Quilting.  It reminds me of Karlee Porter's Grafitti Quilting and the Graffiti quilt I did last summer.  I cannot WAIT to play around with Christina's designs and learn more new tricks which I will share on the blog.

Happy Easter everyone!

Dapper boy

Linking up with:
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Quilting is More Fun Than Housework
Fort Worth Fabric Studio
A Quilted Passion
Cooking Up Quilts 
and
She Can Quilt for the FAL party!

Om. The Sound of the Universe

It is interesting how the Universe lines things up in one's life.  I have experienced this more and more over the past five years, perhaps because I have slowed down, and have become more attuned to it.  The first couple of weeks of March have shown me the beauty of the colour orange, a colour I previously was rather 'meh' about.

Sunset at Venice Beach FL March 11

 That very morning on my walk with Rocco...

I can't even...

No clue what those wildflowers are, but... Yellow.  Orange.  Fuchsia.  Red-orange. On a bed of green.  Sumptuous. (update: they're lantana)

Shadowed Star Cushion Cover, RSC Quilt #2 and Sunday Stash!

This is on my Q1 FAL list which you can see here.  Rather dismal how far from it I have strayed.  However, on a positive note, I have this finish to show you!  It fits in beautifully with Angela's So Scrappy colour theme for March of purple with a hit/hint/splash of yellow.

I saw this on a linky party somewhere, commented to the person whose blog it was on, didn't hear back for several weeks, and in the meantime, I'd drafted the block myself and made this test one.  I knew immediately it would grow up to be the graduation quilt for Dayna, who graduated from Wayne State last May.  When I did hear back from the girl whose miniature block this was, (it was a leftover from a little quilt, and she was turning it into her guild nametag), she told me what pattern her little quilt was.  I researched that and that pattern (which looks nothing like my quilt) credited the block as one of Judy Martin's.  I've since contacted her to okay using her block, but have not heard back for a couple of months. I assume it will be okay since this other girl made a quilt pattern and is selling it using this block as the basis.

Here is the cover on a too-small pillow form.

Dayna will take the cover home with her when she comes for Easter, (flat is easier to pack) and I'll get her the 15" pillow form this cover requires once we are back home too.

The back - $5/yard sale fabric from my LQS

I tried to show the quilting a little better but there was very little sun on Saturday, but lots of thunderstorms!

Another Judi, this time Madsen, influence: the FMQ design in the deep purple star

The quilt designs here match those in her big quilt.  The dot to dot one is my own design, and the matrix one in the "wings" of the shadow are Leah Day's Matrix.  There is a very slight hint of yellow in the polka-dot-esque black and purple batik; can you spot (haha) it?

I thought to take a photo of the back of the front (you with me on that?!) before I put the backing on.

"Kewl!" as my sister Linda would text

I don't usually put a muslin backing on the front of a cushion cover; I do like Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts does and just leave the batting (this is a Warm 'n White scrap) uncovered, since there will be a pillow inside.  No clue what I was thinking when I layered this baby, uh, ahem, last summer.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  original design
Size: 15.5" square
Fabric: stash scraps and Kona Snow; backing is Benartex "Yours Truly" by Eleanor Burns
Batting: Warm 'n White
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann, quilted with YLI 244-30-20Vvariegated plum in 40 wt, Essential cotton in white 50 wt from Connecting Threads, Coats and Clark Dual Duty XP polyester in 3250 mauve (this was a nice surprise-quilted beautifully), and a little bit of Zwicky cotton in black 60 wt

Another Scrap Quilt started
The next item is still in the March colour of purple with a little hit of yellow.  I seem to have A.  started another scrap quilt for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, which makes two now on the go, and B. I seem to have bought another quilt book.

You can see a bit of the book in the top left.  I almost moved Bella's spider-baby out of the picture area, and then I realized it's purple!

The quilt in the book is all blacks with a pop of red for that 'ring'.  I plan to do a row of the colours of each month, in as graduated from darks to lights arrangement as I can within my scraps.  This was especially hard this month, as purple is not so prolific within my scraps, and I only brought smaller scraps with me, so within this row are several pieced pieces(!) to make the required-size rectangle.  I'm loving this!  Regarding the quilt book, Cozy Modern Quilts by Kim Schaefer, it's out of the library, but so many quilts have caught my eye in it that I bought it off Amazon used for a few bucks.  No affiliation there, but remember you can save $$ by buying used books at a fraction of the suggested retail price.

Sunday Stash on Monday
I do hope you were able to score some sweet non-chocolate Easter treats for yourself from Craftsy over the past weekend.  I am sharing with you two items I got from the last sale.  AND!!! Newsflash!  They are both still on sale at the weekend's prices!  Like how?  Shh! Don't tell Craftsy...

Anna Maria Horner bundle of 15 fat quarters

I don't know how, maybe they extended it a day, but this Anna Maria Horner bundle is still what I paid, $27CA, so that is less than $2 per fat quarter, which is AHHH-some!  Lick-able prints here, just sayin'...The bundles are $20US for my American friends.

I spent some of my Christmas money from my mum this winter on two quilt kits.  This is one of them.

EEEEP!!  Major crazy happy dance and petting sessions a-happenin'

Tula Pink's Simply Eden quilt kit.  btw the US price of this makes me cry; however the Canadian price is still pretty darn amazing for 10.5 yards of fabric here to make this:  (or not; remember you don't have to make the kit with the fabric, right?)

I haven't checked what other stuff may still be on sale, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I bet there are several other items.   I wouldn't wait; who know when they'll take these off.  Clicking the pictures will take you to the item, and if you make a purchase, I receive some moola, as you know, since I am an affiliate. Merci beaucoup.  :-)  As you can see, the $$ seems to go back to Craftsy!!

I will be linking up for the Q1 FAL at the end of this month at She Can Quilt.  As well, I'm linking up with:
Beth for Main Crush Monday
DWM at Patchwork Times
SoScrappy Scraphappy Saturday
and yay! It's not too late to link up with Sunday Stash held this week at Charm About You with Lucy, who lives in Manchester, Lancashire, England(!!)  That's for my family who knows why this is so cool for me this week! btw there is a pretty sweet giveaway going on there this week....

Oxymoron: A Mini Mini

This was one of my goals for 2016, to do a mini swap.  Anja of Anja Quilts offered to do a mini swap with me anytime, and we decided to do a mini mini.  The criteria was to be around 4-5" a side.  I wanted to do something modern for Anja, and it had to have orange in it, her favourite colour. I had a brainwave to do a mini mini plus quilt!  Hence the name "Oxymoron"!  Get it?!

English teacher hat on: an oxymoron is a figure of speech where two opposing ideas or words are side by side in a phrase, like "friendly fire" or "soft rock".  When I thought of a Plus quilt, obviously the plus sign is what it is.  However, think plus size, not just clothing but anything else.  The opposite: mini, and you have "Oxymoron."  :-)

Cat Mats Tutorial #1

Top o' the mornin' to ya!
I have two tutorials, but I suspect it will make for a much too lengthy post, so this is the tutorial for the rail fence cat mat, and I will post the second mat, a double 4-patch, tomorrow.  Click here for the original post on both designs.  Here is what we are making:

It finishes at 12X18, so you could omit the extra stuffing (in my case trimmings from blocks and bits of batting) and just make it with the one layer of batting.  The photos will not be the extra-large size to try to conserve some space.

You need:
--two width of fabric (WOF) strips cut at 1.5" of each of your 3 colours
--a roughly 13X19 rectangle of fabric for the backing
--a roughly 13X19 rectangle of batting, or scraps pieced together to make that size

Construction

1.  Sew the strips together using a scant 1/4" seam.  Press to one side or open, your choice.

2.  Straighten the one end.

I put the entire strip under the ruler, so you see I'm using the 1/4" guide along the top grey strip. This stablizes the entire strip, a tip I learned from Pat Sloan.

3.  If you are working with scraps, you will need strips of multiples of 3.5".  Here I have a 10.5" strip, so I lay my ruler on the entire piece and cut backward, a tip I learned from one of Alex Anderson's guests on her "Simply Quilts" show years ago.  It is pretty slick, and holds more of the strip down than if you were to cut from the regular side.  Slide your ruler back to the 7" mark and cut.  Then to the 3.5" mark and cut again.  Voilà! three 3.5" squares, or however many are in the strip you are cutting.  Cut 24 squares at 3.5".  Lay them out in the rail fence pattern.  Bella approved of the layout, but decided to play with a couple of the blocks...my design wall already was full, hence the carpet design wall was used.

4.  Lay out the pieces (again, maybe where a cat cannot disturb them) in a 6X4 grid as shown below.

5.  I use my Book It! method tutorial which you will find in more detail in the Tutorials tab at the top of this blog.  In short, you sew the quilt into columns, not rows.  Flip column 2 blocks onto column 1, RST, and stack them on top of each other with the top pair on top.  Chain sew, leaving a tail of thread at the first piece, which will then tell you that is the top of the column.  Take them to your ironing board and flip each "book" or pair from one side to the other as you see in the lower 2 of the 4 pairs below. Press closed to set the seams.  Then flip each pair open, thus pressing the seams to alternating sides.

6.  Take the column (you still have not cut those threads between each pair) back to your machine and piece each pair together. The opposing seams will butt up against each other nicely.  You will have 3 columns of joined pairs.

7.  In a bigger quilt, or in a colourwash quilt, which is the class where I learned this method, you can label each column with a number to keep them in order, either with a small piece of masking tape on the back, or with a marker in the seam allowance of the top 2 blocks.  This quilt has each column identical, so no numbering is needed.  Sew the columns together.

Ta da! Quilt top complete.

8.  Layer.  Backing and quilt top RST together, batting on the top, as I have it here, or on the bottom. This arrangement gave me some grief being a "poofier" poly batting, so I'd recommend putting the batting on the bottom under the backing, which is what I did for the second set of cat mats with great success.  Pin around the edges, leaving about a 6" opening along the one long edge.  I like to put 2 different coloured pins there to remind me to leave that section open.

9.  Sew a 1/4" seam.  I also trim the corners at a 45-degree angle to get a sharper corner.

10.  Turn RST. Press the open edges under 1/4", and then edgestitch around all four edges at about 1/8" to close the opening and finish it off.  Quilt however you want.  I meandered the previous cat mats but these I wanted to leave with a little more poof since I tried this batting on sale at JoAnn's a few weeks ago, so I just did a grid with my walking foot between each column and then one across the middle.  With all my fabric scraps from my Mini Swoon also stuffed in Bella's mat, I went very slowly.  You could always bind these, but I found the flip as in a pillow case method, faster and just as nicely finished.  See top photo.

I'm sure you've heard of the fabulous sale going on at Craftsy today (and you know I am an affiliate so get a small compensation for any purchases made through clicking the link) and all weekend.  Um, at up to 60% off some of their best-selling kits and supplies, this is going to be a tough one for me not to take advantage of...and yes, I'm enabling again...because as I said with the Connecting Threads sales this week (no affiliation) I love/need some company in my craziness, gluttony, er glee.  I saw a hilarious cartoon on my LQS website, Expert Sewing Centre, oh yes, I've been stalking them too, as there is a local quilt show this weekend, and they always have a special to coincide, like 30% off everything...oh I do need an intervention.  Anyhow the cartoon basically is a husband getting a call from the LQS asking for his wife to go to the quilt shop as they're running low on fabric and need her to bring some of hers back!  Bahaha.  Anyhow take a look at this tempting array and see if you can resist some of these deals at Craftsy.

Such perky Spring colours, no?  Don't forget there are also other kits and supplies on sale:  knitting supplies, cake-making and paper and crocheting supplies, and all sort of kits deals like bag-making, tablerunners, quilts, etc.

See you there!  Linking up with NTT at My Quilt Infatuation.