Geometry is just so cool, but it can make your brain hurt sometimes too! Quilting is so good for our brains isn't it? We do geometry, measurements, and all sorts of calculations. For the Lyra quilt, four kite blocks are in the corners, creating another starburst. I used these same shapes in my very first QAL, Freefall, which was ten years ago. As I said, I love that connection from the first to this current one. Here is the ‘bad boy’ in question:
I’ve made a paper-piecing template for it, which is how we did this block in Freefall. You can get the link to download it here. It’s in Dropbox as well, and again, you do not need a dropbox account to access the file. You'll find a paper-piecing template for the square-in-a-square block in the same PDF.
Things have been pretty quiet, for me anyhow, in my corner of QBL. If you follow me on Instagram @mmmquilts you'll know that I've been madly sewing and quilting away on a project I can't show until summer. Yes it's for a magazine, and I'm super excited about it, though super-exhausted by how much work it took around a multitude of interruptions ranging from daughter and grandson visit, to the two weeks in Mexico, to a 7-month-old-tomorrow puppy...
who's rambunctious as hell in the mornings, who isn't much interested in any kind of food (but fish he quite likes, oh, and cottage cheese) so that is alarming as he is underweight to start with, and who has claimed MacGyver's IKEA poäng chair from time to time in the evenings, so hilarious, and he snores so loud in it because already he doesn't exactly fit...
I, along with Helen of Midget Gem Quilts, recently hosted a QAL for making the absolutely gorgeous Postcard from Sweden quilt, a pattern I downloaded from Craftsy (free!!) shortly after I became a member. It is designed by the talented Kelly of Jeli Quilts. Here is my finished quilt back in April on the little stone bridge over Mill Creek which runs into Lake Erie:
Travel usually means a probable lack of sewing. It can add stress to an already stressful packing time when one can't forecast exactly what one feels like sewing, or forecast all the tools to take to complete the job. Enter kits. I'm a cautious proponent of them; I have to really really like a quilt to buy the kit. On this recent jet down to Florida for a few days, a kit gave me some much-needed fabric therapy. Florida gave me some colour-therapy too. What a combo.
So. I have three nephews and one niece. Two of the nephews have their quilts, Shift for Callum, and Radiance for Aidan. Next in line is my niece, Fawn. I picked up a couple of pieces of fabric two years ago on sale with her in mind; I had no pattern as yet. Then, last year I saw one of Connecting Threads' kits (affiliate link) using Amanda Jean Nyberg's line, Good Neighbors, and it was so bright and cheery I immediately knew it would be perfect for this bright and bubbly niece of mine. The price was excellent too, as are all of their prices.
Oh Florida with your bright light and wonderful colours; there's just something about pink and orange...
I've already made two quilts using this fabric line. Cutting it, sewing with it, and then quilting the top makes my heart sing; the fabrics are colourful and whimsical. So, when I knew I wouldn't be sewing, because I wasn't taking a machine with me, I thought aha! I can take the kit and get all the pieces cut! I was only going with a small carry-on bag, so I took a quick look at the pieces I needed to cut and whacked off an appropriately sized piece from each fat quarter in the kit. This kit was very generous; I will have enough to make a second top from the other half of the fat quarters, just need to add in 1.5 yards of a background fabric.
Here and there over the course of the 5 days, I fondled and cut the fabric--did you see the latest 'Midnight Quilt Show'? Angela's warning about some material not being suitable for non-quilters?! She cracks me up. Well it wasn't too long before I had those lovely neat stacks of happy fabric you see in the photos above. Here's a close-up of one of the beautiful hibiscus flowers behind the fabric:
MacGyver's variegated ginger plants he put in last year are thriving!
I spent all that time stacking them so neatly, and then I thought, hmm, maybe should spread them out a little, let you see them!
I found it rather à propos cutting these in sunny colourful Florida. My tree frogs were nestled on our front door once more, such a sweet welcoming committee they make. They're so adorable, smiling sleepily.
Both were snuggled on the window arch for the first few days, but today one was perched at the bottom just behind the wreath, aww.
So consider a kit next time you want to have something on hand that, ha, kind of like fast food (healthy stuff, like Subway of course), provides a mindless, ready-to-go project that will still itch that makers-gotta-make itch we all have, even when on vacation. Now, when we come back after Christmas, to stay for a little longer than a few days, and I have my sewing machine in tow, I'll be able to park my butt in my sewing chair, plug in the machine and let 'er rip sewing the squares and rectangles back together to make this sweet quilt! I'm sure you know, but Connecting Threads has lots of kits on sale right now, lots of great sales, period.
It feels like it. I didn't realize until I typed the title, and these first few lines, that I'd be posting this on St. George's Day. Heh? you say... Do you know St. Patrick? Of course! Patron saint of Ireland. His colour? Green, duh! Well, St. George is the patron saint of England, the very same guy who slew the dragon (not slayed; I looked it up and that would indicate St. George was amused by it. Which he could have been I supposed. Before he slew it. Or maybe the dragon slayed himself with St. George, as a cat does with a mouse, and then St. George retaliated. In any event, St. George survived. The dragon, sadly, did not.) St. George's colour? Red, of course!
Here are the next three sets of blocks for 150 Canadian Women QAL at Next Step Quilt Designs, with a couple of tips in case you haven't made these yet, or for future reference.
58 - Leonora Howard King: first Canadian doctor in China, where she opened the first Chinese hospital for women and children, awarded the Imperial Chinese Order of the Imperial Dragon, the first woman to achieve such an honour; 59 - Jean Lumb: Chinese name Wong Toy Jin, at age 17, she opened her own (prosperous) fruit store in Toronto, spokesperson to PM Diefenbaker wrt Chinese concerns regarding immigration, led a successful campaign to preserve Toronto's Chinatown, 60 - Laura Goodman Salverson: Icelandic immigrant, a writer, first editor of "Icelandic Canadian" magazine, a pioneer author of immigrant literature
Here are my blocks for January's step for the Meadow Mystery at Meadow Mist Designs. Cheryl has me mystified, as I played around a bit with all 25 blocks, but can't seem to get a design that says, yup! She's a great mystery quilt writer!!
This is SUCH a pretty block!
We had to make 4 of those and 8 of the others. I am loving the fabrics and colours I chose.
A few of the 25 blocks arranged...so many possibilities!
Twirling Seams
I like to press my seams to one side. I like to stitch in the ditch to stabilize a quilt before doing FMQ or ruler work on it, whether I am on my Bernina or my Avanté. With seams pressed open, there is no ditch, and the stabilizing stitches sink between the seams. I guess one could say you are stitching the batting to the backing then, but the point of ditching is to stabilize all three layers of the quilt.
Problems arise when there are multiple intersecting seams. A needle can get broken when hitting a lump like this. You can get a nice a flat intersection, just as you would had you pressed seams open, by doing this cool little trick. I first saw it on Alex Anderson's "Simply Quilts" show on HGTV, and then later in Carrie Nelson's Another Bite of Schnibbles book.
Here is what it looks like on the back, and on the front, nice and flat. All you do is gently push the seams in opposite directions right at the intersection. Sometimes I push them in both opposite directions, one way and then the other. This will make a stitch or two loosen and open and you can then lie the opposing seams flat. You will get a little 4-patch if you have just sewn straight seams, little pinwheels if you have sewn any HSTs together at the intersection. Too cute!
Here's a great YouTube video by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts that shows you how to do this. I didn't spin the 4-patches in this block, but easily could have. Something Edyta says in this video was a lightbulb moment for me: "Whatever direction your first two seams are pressed in, twirl the just-sewn seams that same direction." Like a pinwheel! Snap!
Cutting Backwards
I've talked about this on the blog before, but it's worth mentioning again, another cool trick I saw years ago on "Simply Quilts". Actually, this is two tips in one.
First of all you can cut two segments at a time for 4-patches by simply laying two strips sets atop each other with the centre seams opposing.
Here I've cut two 10" segments off my strip, destined to become 2.5" segments for 4-patches.
Lay the two on top of each other with seams snugged up against each other. You can feel the ridges. I've offset the ends slightly just so you see they are on top of each other, but seams are going in opposite directions.
Place your ruler on the double layer strip set. We have 10" here and I am cutting 2.5" segments, so the first cut you will slide your ruler backwards, i.e. towards the left, 10 - 2.5 = 7.5, so to the 7.5" mark:
Cut
Move the ruler backwards (to the left) again, this time to the 5" mark.
Cut once more.
Make the final cut on the 2.5" mark.
Voilà! Four pairs ready to sew into 4-patches. If you do not separate them as I have here for photo purposes, you can take them directly to your machine and piece since the seams are nicely abutted.
I am finished the January Honey Pot Bee blocks. This is a bee hosted by Molli Sparkles, where certain quilters give instructions for a block, and you as the little maker bee, decide to make the block or not. Remember my modern tree blocks that yielded an entire quilt top? That was a wild card he threw at us.
One of my goals for 2017 is to make a quilt of entirely solids. I made all solids placemats for practising FMQ in a class with Angela Walters a while back, but never an entire quilt top. So this bee is a great place to challenge myself to do that. Unfortunately, I did not bring very many solids with me, just a few for working on The City Sampler 6" blocks, not a stitch done there yet, so my first fabric pull of a mere 5 solids did not lend themselves very well to the January blocks, drat! After yoga one day I had to make a pit stop at a big JoAnn's in Sarasota, where I found two more greens (might've got a third because I wanted to be sure they would work with my pale green), and a pale pink. I am pretty sure I have Baby Pink at home, but alas, I didn't bring it with me. So I picked up a half yard of these four and well, four others kind of jumped onto the pile. So I now have some Kona black, Primrose, Buttercup Yellow and Turquoise joined Baby Pink, Chartreuse, Grass Green and Basil Green.
Did I mention these were 40% off?
And then...
In the remnants, which I always check (thank you Preeti, for this terrific tip!) I found this:
Remember remnants are half price so this was $9.44
I nearly left it when I saw the price and what? 108" wide? I don't need a wideback in this colour. But then I thought, wait, I do need grey. Outside of Kona Silver, I have no grey Kona. But it seemed expensive. However, with the help of the calculator on my iPhone, because my menopausal melon is not so reliable these days for math in a hurry, I determined that the price per yard, when converted to 43" wide fabric, worked out to be $3.71!! Score! Sold! Three quick reminders:
1. If you are thinking about taking a Craftsy class, or like me, put them on your Wishlist, now might be a good time to buy it as they are BOGO. Buy one, get one free! With all that's going on, I still haven't finished watching Natalia Bonner's "Free Motion Motifs for Classic Blocks" but as soon as I do I will write a review. So far it's very good. (affiliate links)
2. If you are part of our 30 Quilt Designs Challenge 2017 or #30quiltdesignschallenge2017 on Instagram, be sure to get a design in today for another chance at three prizes. I will be drawing this evening for the first bi-weekly winner in our Challenge! There is a $15 gift certificate to The Red Hen Shop, and two prizes, one each from me and from Lisa. If you aren't on Instagram, consider joining us! It's a great and quick way (unless you get sucked into the vortex) of seeing what people are up to throughout the day. Also you do not have to be on Instagram to look at stuff there; that's a clickable link with some very cool designs. 😉
3. You might want to hop on over to Sew Fresh Quilts to check out her newest free QAL! Lorna is getting a jumpstart on helping everyone have a lovely Christmas quilt for this year's Christmas! 🎄
Do you ever sit at your computer with the blank post screen, and spend a good five minutes or more, mulling over a good post title? That's me, and that's what happened yet again for the title of this post. Subject material has been gathering itself on the back burner of my mind all week. A few people I follow, and even my own self, have done or are doing basically a being thankful, or simply being aware, post on a Thursday. At this time of giving, I've been reflecting once again on all I have been given.
I've been doing a little pattern-testing for a couple of friends and here is another of Stitchin At Home Cindy's appliqué blocks for her Canada Quilt for her guild's BOM.
Isn't it a fabulous design? And how about the Moda Grunge as a fabulous ice fabric?? Who knew...
I used Lara's (Buzzin Bumble) Crafted Appliqué method and it works like a damn! (Sorry, but it really does, especially on fine details like those trees, gulp.) Sidenote: check out that link to Lara's blog where she is having a giveaway of her book, and also is offering a beautiful free pattern she designed for a Christmassy tabletopper.
This hasn't been stitched down yet, but there's no lifting going on. I thought the embossed flowers white fabric that has the palest of mauves mottled here and there on it would effectively replicate the blue-whites and mauve/pinky-whites of real snow as well as provide a contrast to the white of the ice. I'd like to say I planned that white 'blob' area to land there to evoke the glare of the sun on ice, but nope, a happy accident! This is an example of what Lara calls the need to back-coat some fabrics; see how the snow fabric became sort of opaque or see-through where it overlapped the mountain fabric? I was really pleased with how well the brown fabric did work for the mountain. I had chosen another grey/black denim-look fabric but then thought, hmm, I wonder if the white blotches here and there might evoke thoughts of snow... Yep! Goes to show to try fabrics you would think would not work when doing appliqué. This fabric has sketched-in-black flower shapes with bleached-out-looking areas and even has glitter on it!
I've also started a quilt along called 150 Canadian Women...150 blocks to be made which finish at 6". Hope I can do better than I have been doing with Tula Pink's City Sampler blocks (gulp). I need to do blocks 1-3 yet, but here are blocks 4-6:
From left to right: Major Margaret C. MacDonald, (first woman to attain the rank of Major in the Britsh Empire), Nellie McClung, (one of the Famous Five, one of Canada's greatest women's rights activists) and Alice Wilson (Geologist who was not granted a car to do her field work, but a bicycle, because women 'shouldn't drive' -- she went out and bought her own Model T!)
I get overwhelmed with emotion when I read about the accomplishments of these women in the face of incredible chauvinism, racism, and a multitude of other obstacles. This is a BOM from The Next Step, a quilt shop in Calgary, Alberta. I first saw it on a blog belonging to another Sandra, Quilting at the Cro's Nest and was intrigued by the symbolism and educational component (shocker, I know). Tip Time!
I've mentioned this method before, but when I showed Beth and David at our retreat at Julie's in October, they hadn't seen it, and thought it a cool method for cutting your HST squaring up time in half. So here it is again. Two at a time! Note that this method means you're going 'to the dark side' as Angela Walters does... one more day until her show, squeal! In other words it requires pressing your seams to one side, the darker of the two.
1. Lie two HSTs atop each other, nudging the seams together so they nest. Peel back the top HST if you want to check, but you will soon develop a feel for the nesting with your fingetips. You don't have to, but in order to not touch the nested pair, set them on a small rotary cutting mat which is on top of your larger one, or on a revolving rotary mat too if you have one.
2. Lay the 45-degree line along the seam, leaving a little wiggle room to eventually cut all the way around the HSTs. I'm going for 2.5" squares, but you can see I have my left and bottom marks at about 2 3/8". Cut the first two sides, as I have done if you are right-handed. It will be the opposite two if you are left-handed. Rotate the mat.
3. Now line the 2.5" marks on the ruler with the just-cut two sides, and the 45-degree line again along the seam. Trim both sides as before.
4. Lift off the top HST and voilà! (not viola, that'a a flower, or a musical instrument) you have two 2.5" HSTs.
The other day I had a hankering for quiche and decided to use a tried and true recipe that I've had and used for decades. It was a hit, and I am very glad I doubled the recipe and made two!
Below is the recipe in case you'd like to make one! Now I cheat and just buy a pie crust (sorry Mum!) as I can't be bothered to make that part from scratch. I omitted the bacon, making mine with cauliflower and broccoli. We had a Caesar salad on the side.
Quiche Lorraine May be
frozen.Line 36 muffin cups with pie
pastry or a 9x9“ pie plate.
6 slices cooked
(crisp) bacon
2 oz natural Swiss
or cheddar cheese
2 eggs
1 c whipping cream
or Half & Half
½ tsp salt
pinch of pepper
pinch of nutmeg
1 tsp sugar
Heat oven to 400°.Shred cheese.Combine eggs,
cream, salt, sugar, nutmeg and pepper.Beat to blend well.Sprinkle
bottom of pie plate with chunks of bacon and then cheese.Pour filling over.Sprinkle with nutmeg.Bake 30-40 min at 400° or until egg mixture has solidified.
When I finally decided upon the borders for my daughter's grad quilt this past week, I found the number of HSTs required to surround the quilt centre for the design was, gulp, 168.
That number can be rather daunting, because it requires a fair amount of work per HST: cutting the squares, drawing a diagonal line from point to opposite point, sewing a scant 1/4" on either side of that line, and THEN... You need to cut on the drawn line, press the two triangle units open, and finally square each one to the required size. This method yields two HSTs, and it is the one I had to use since I needed the HSTs in a certain colour order, so I couldn't use the no-waste method to make flying geese.
However, I have simplified some of the process, and thought I would share it with you today. Any tip that saves time means I can get more done, right?!
Sew your two squares (mine are 3 7/8" so they end up 3.5" unfinished) together on either side of the drawn line. Oh, how I love my Hera marker for drawing said line! After sewing, layer two HST units, so 4 squares, on top of each other, so the stitching lines lie directly on top of each other.
I pulled back the top HST unit so you can see how I line up the stitching lines.
Cut apart on the drawn line, and presto! You will have four HSTs ready to press. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but if you only have to cut apart 84 times as opposed to 168, those seconds do add up. Wait, there's another timesaver yet too:
After you press these babies, they do need to be squared up, and have the little dog ears removed. Think about it: cut on the diagonal to separate the two HSTs, then trim on all four sides of each HST to have same-size HSTs; that's a lot of cutting! What if you could trim two at once?
What I do, is align one HST pressed unit atop another, right sides together, butting up the diagonal pressed seams. If you press them to one side, this is a snap, as you can wiggle them and feel them nest together with your fingers.
Note how the diagonal seams abut. Also note (at the bottom left) how the dog ears oppose each other.
Now lay your ruler with the 45 degree angle along that diagonal seam and trim to the required size as you would with just one HST. Mine are 3.5". Voilà! You have two trimmed HSTs!
As of last night all 168 are done, and one of the four borders is all sewn together, and if I may say so myself, I got a rather big bubble of excitement and ooh! ahh! when I stepped back to look.
If you haven't already done so, here are two things you might want to check out:
1. Craftsy. There are some amazing scores (I have another post on mine ready to go) and, as Cynthia of Quilting is More Fun Than Housework pointed out, if you buy a kit, you don't have to make that pattern; you can use the fabric, which is usually a real bargain, for whatever other project(s) you want! If you click through to Craftsy's website on the button on my sidebar, and purchase something, I do get a small commission for your purchase, as I am an affiliate. If you would like to become an affiliate, shoot me an email, and I can tell you how to do that! It's very easy, and then you can spread the word!
2. The huge giveaway going on at Sew Mama Sew until Sunday. I did not jump in this time; just too much going on this month. There are a plethora of sites to explore and freebies to be had!
Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict because I am doing a happy dance that those HSTs are DONE, and that I can share with you a time-saving method.
This post is also featured here on Totally Tutorials!
Wow, we are into the second quarter of 2015! Time to make a list for this quarter's finish-along over at On the Windy Side.
How did I do with my Q1FAL list? I had 8 projects on it, and I completed 6 of them!! I am very happy about that. I will move two of them over to this quarter.
Here is the new list:
1. Stack 'n Whack quilt from Q1FAL
You always have enough fabric to make two quilts using Bethany Reynolds' method. I made my brother-in-law and sister-in-law one with these fabrics, but with a dusky coral-pink rather than the deep coral I have. I think that was 10 years ago?! Worked on it again last year, or the year before, but still have a ways to go.
2. Brrrrr Park from Q1FAL
I would say I am about 1/3 of the way done of the quilting. I did quite a lot last quarter, but it got put to the side in favour of a couple of more pressing projects.
3. Charity String Quilt
These are a bunch of blocks I have made so far using Cyndy's Scrap-a-Palooza Quilt #8 from August 2014. I intend to give them to a seniors' residence in our town, along with a second as-yet unplanned or started quilt. They will both be lap quilts for residents in wheelchairs.
4. Bento Box quilt for one of my nephews
This has been in the works for a year now; my friend, Nancy, and I shared the pattern. I have since learned the original colour scheme I thought would work, won't. So most of the blacks and whites are staying, I've added a couple meaningful ones, and totally changed the colour run.
5. This is a small project that I've seen floating around quilt blogland, but I saw a good tutorial on Molli Sparkles blog.
6. Secret Quilt Project #1
This is going to be a star quilt out of Pam and Nicky Lintott's Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts book, but I might modify the pattern as I will not be making it out of a jelly roll.
There will be some more fabric in this quilt; I just do not have it, um, available for the photo.
7. Secret Quilt Project #2
You've seen some glimpses of this baby. 'nuff said for now.
8. Hand-quilted runner
I'm doing the walk of shame right now...I had this last year as my goal for a month in ALYOF. I did make a fair amount of progress on it, but it got set aside, I believe for the "Fleurs" flurry (ha) of work. I have not touched it this winter, although it has sat, alternately forlorn and glaring at me, in a basket in my sewing room. I hope to quilt while we travel for the day and a half north back to Kingsville. Then it will just need binding.
9. NINE??!! Fabric bucket
Last year I bought the pattern, Nesting Fabric Bowls, from Nova at a cuppa and a catch up and I did buy some Amy Butler fabric at that time with the bowls in mind. Then at fabric.com I saw this, and thought, 'Ooh, that would make some cool fabric buckets. Because I had quite the success last quarter with creating pouches, I think why not make some more buckets/bowls in the second quarter?
I also have a charity quilt to be completed for this quarter for Hands2Help and my placemats for my April goal at ALYOF (see sidebar buttons). This a lot to do, I know, and for 12 days in early May, my mum is coming down to visit us in Kingsville! I'm excited for many many reasons, but one is to show her how I quilt on my longarm.
One last note about the cutting backwards technique that I mentioned in my last post. Here is the method I used yet again this morning. You can do this in any increments that result in your desired measurement. Here I needed 3.5"X6.5" rectangles, so I cut a 13" long strip out of my WOF fabric, but I could have cut a 19.5" strip.
13" line and then cut in half to yield 2 6.5" rectangles by 3.5" wide
Because you have more length of your ruler along the side edges of your strip, you have a better chance of getting precise pieces. When I was cutting 3.5" squares, I used the 10.5" line, cut, backed up my ruler to the 7" line, cut, then backed it up to the 3.5" line and cut one more time to yield 12 3.5" squares (oh yes, I had a double WOF strip under my ruler!)
Linking up with WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social, buttons on sidebar!
I've designed another quilt, inspired by a guild nametag that a blogger somewhere out there made. I've drawn out an entire quilt and I've been doing the calculations for fabric, as it might just become another pattern in my as-yet-unborn pattern collection. Now I'm cutting the components that make up the blocks and strips for this quilt. It is going to be an interesting method of construction...but I'm getting way ahead of myself!
When I was cutting the fabric this morning, it struck me that I automatically do this little trick I learned while watching one of Alex Anderson's "Simply Quilts" shows that used to be on HGTV. The guest, whose name I cannot recall, showed how she, in my own coined phrase, "cuts backwards". I have found that this results in a "more square" square or rectangle. Here is the tip!
For example, this morning I was cutting 3 7/8" squares from a WOF strip. Instead of cutting each 3 7/8" square individually, I cut a rectangle from the strip that was 3 7/8" X2, so 7 3/4". Note that the strip is a double layer of fabric.
From here I backed my ruler up (cutting backwards, get it?), put the 3 7/8" mark where you see the 7 3/4" measurement in the above photo, and cut across. Yield: (4) perfect 3 7/8" squares.
For some reason, this keeps my edges more square, probably because I am using a longer length as one of the guidelines.
You can do more than just double the measurement of your squares. For example, if I have a bunch of 3.5" squares, which I do have in this particular quilt, I will cut perhaps a 14" section out of my WOF strip, and then back the ruler up to the 10.5" mark; cut. Without moving the strip, back the ruler up again to the 7" mark; cut. Back the ruler up one last time, again with moving the strip, this time to the 3.5" mark; cut. Yield: 8 very square 3.5" squares! Tip inside a tip: place that line of each measurement as you are backing up your ruler, exactly on the cut edge. Otherwise you will find that you do not have 3.5" (or whatever your squares are) left to cut your last square.
Here are the components so far of this newest quilt:
A few Moda fabrics here...yep, I think I've often waxed poetic about my love for Moda fabrics over the last what, decade(?), and it continues...I've always loved the Moda Marbles and own/owned several pieces, and I now love the new-to-me Marble Swirls. The purchase of the Moda Marble Ombre Dots was a bit of an accident; the darkest part of the fabric was showing on the bolt and when she unwound it to cut some for me, surprise! Even in this 6.5" square you can see the colour shading change. Coolio!
I know...there's looking to be a lot of white (Kona Snow, love it) in this quilt; however, there are 3 more coloured "sections" of fabrics I have not yet cut. Exciting! Still, there will be a nice, make that fabulous amount of negative space for quilting!
I also made two more placemats which may grow up to become a bag of sorts, since pink does not really have a place in my dining ambiance, but I want to be able to experiment with triangles in Angela's Dot to Dot Quilting class. There was a LOT of math figuring in this: one placemat required 4 different sizes of 60 degree triangles! In case you're wondering: 2 sizes of full triangles, and 2 sizes of the half-triangles needed at the ends of each row.
Reversed the colour placements in each. Kind of cool, the effect, no?
Here are the two styles side by side.
When I showed my grandson the other night, he said, "I like the green one; it looks like a Minecraft face." Who knew. He loves quilts, so I always like to show him what I'm working on. Again, the difference in colour between the first, outside on the lanai, photo, and the second, inside my sewing room, amazes me. The bottom looks like blues here, but it's really blueish-greens. The lanai pic is the true colour of the pinks.
Woo hoo, I'm doing a happy dance because of TWO more, three if you count the 2 placemat designs, of my own, original designs! I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Pink Doxies, buttons on sidebar.
