Glowing Hearts - Tutorial for Lower Heart Section

Are you ready to begin piecing some hearts? I bet you are. If you are like me, you rarely make it through cutting out an entire quilt before you have to pause and “just sew up one block”.😄 However, this week is just half of the heart, the bottom half. It uses a pretty unique way of making it. Remember you can pick up the pattern at SandraJaneQuilts if you want to sew ahead or make the throw. 

*Note that my Gratitude post will be out tomorrow so as not to interfere with the QAL.

Here are the pieces I cut out last Friday for my Glowing Hearts version. The maple leaf is rough cut for now about an eighth of an inch all the way around. I’m using the Crafted Appliqué™️ method for this.

Two Tuesday Tips

I am popping in to give you a quilting tip and a piecing tip on this warm sunny Tuesday afternoon. I said I'd tell you how I quilted the pantograph design I'd seen a year or two ago on Instagram. There was no indication of what it was called, but Nancy of Grace and Peace Quilting had commented that it is 'Swells'. My Avanté is quite able to do pantographs; I'm just lazy to do the setting up and the figuring that goes with it to balance them so I just have never done one in all the years (since 2013) I've had my longarm. This design caught my eye for the wonderful all-over texture, so I used it on Drift.

Great texture, n'est-ce pas?

Postcard from Sweden QAL Step 2

Welcome to Step 2 where we begin to sew all our lovely triangles together to make them into squares again. So, you have cut all those 360 gorgeous triangles, yes?

Bella loves them

This time around hosting this QAL, I've split sewing the quilt top into three steps: we will make a third of the quilt at a time. This way I can show you some super-cool tips for construction which will make your assembly life a lot easier.

Sweet Star Progress

Fabric, as we know, is darn expensive. Here in Canada we are hoping that the prices come down now that we have entered into the TPP agreement (Trans-Pacific Partnership), so hopefully we can get shipments directly to us from Japan, for example, as opposed to having those containers go to the US and from there we import it. This hikes our prices up because we pay duty twice, the duty that the US is charged, and then the duty that Canada charges for an import from the US. A quilt shop owner explained it to me, so correct me if she was wrong. Bottom line: fabric is expensive, so any time I can avoid wasting it, I'm a happy girl. Here is my progress for the Sweet Star block for Jessica Dayon's QAL.

Postcard from Sweden Tips for Success

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:

Modern Plus Sign Quilts - Cat-Eye-doscope

Welcome to my stop on Day 3 of the Modern Plus Sign Quilts Book Blog Hop. This is a terrific book, great ideas for new twists on Plus Sign quilts, lovely photography, and excellent instructions.

When I first heard that Cheryl had a book coming out with Paige, I right away emailed Cheryl, asking  if she was considering doing a book release hop, could I be a part of it. I've been a fan of Cheryl's designs for some time. She won my very first giveaway on my blog a few years ago. 😊 Of course she said, "Of course!" I wasn't the only one who wanted to be a part of the hop; there are 40 of us; that's love for you!

No-Waste Two-Colour Wings Flying Geese

Gosh that's a mouthful of a title! Look, Ma, two colour wings, no waste!

I dislike wasting fabric. I'm one of those who will sew back together the little triangles you cut off if you do the 'Connector Corner' method for making flying geese, and the triangles you trim when joining binding. Hey, don't laugh; I made a cute mug rug last winter with binding ends:

Minestrone

Seems rather odd to share a terrific soup recipe in the lovely Spring but there are days where the lovely Spring weather still has a bite in the wind and it feels like a soup day.  Such was the case here during the first few days of April, and again of late.  This is one some very dear friends in Alberta shared with us, both in edible and recipe form.😋

Italian Vegetarian Minestrone Soup

2T olive oil
2 c shredded carrots
1 large finely chopped red onion
2 c sliced zucchini
1 c sliced mushrooms (I subbed cauliflower)
3 c fresh spinach (stems removed)
2.5 c shredded cabbage (red or green)
1 - 28 oz can diced tomatoes (not drained)
1 - 19 oz can chickpeas (rinsed and drained)
1 - 19 oz can red kidney beans (or your choice of beans, rinsed and drained)
1 c uncooked noodles (such as small shell noodles)
10 c vegetable broth
2 T brown sugar
2 T balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp pepper
dash of salt

In a large soup or stockpot, sauté onion and carrots in olive oil over medium heat until onions are soft but not brown (5 min).  Add remaining ingredients except for chickpeas and beans.  Bring to boil and simmer covered over medium-low heat for 30 minutes stirring occasionally. Add chickpeas and beans and simmer 10 more minutes uncovered.  Serve with a garnish of Italian cheese.  This soup freezes well. (It makes a LOT!)
Add cooked Italian sausage or chicken if desired.


Speaking of dear friends, I had the opportunity to meet up with Cindy of Stitchin at Home this past week!  I am so very thankful for flexible people; she said yep, to the approximate time and day and location...

The Canadians who are reading this know in a heartbeat that this is Tim Horton's!  It worked for us! 😉  Too bad this location hasn't had the facelift they are all getting to a more 'sit and visit, coffee house' vibe much like Second Cup or Starbucks.  It didn't matter though: we could've been standing on the side of the road for our meeting place; we'd have still loved every minute of being together in person.  Julie, Tish and Beth were with us in iMessage and spirit too! Sadly the wifi, as it is in a lot of public places, was pretty pathetic, so we couldn't FaceTime as planned. This will be the first of several get-togethers, we know it.
I spied several of these

as we worked our way back south along highway 3 that hugs Lake Erie coastline.  We went up on the 401, a major highway, aka interstate, aka motorway, so you don't see much but other vehicles.  This, now, is much more scenic:

I was waving madly to Julie 'just' on the other side of Lake Erie, lol. Doesn't it look like the ocean? It's 92 km/57 miles in width.

I am still not feeling very successful in the finding time to sew department.  I'm a creature of habit, routine, order (not obsessive order but still) and it is quite not that way as you know in my life this past while.  I'd hoped to be entirely caught up with the 150 Canadian Women QAL, but I am not, so here are the only three little blocks I've got to show in about two weeks.  As always, these women's stories absolutely amaze me.

Clockwise from bottom left: 67-Molly Kool: she waited 3 years(!) to get permission to take the coastal master's certificate (women weren't allowed) and became captain of her father's ship. Note the ship, the lighthouse, and the anchor in the tone-on-tone I used for 3 of the 4 centre 1" squares. 68-Leone Norwood Farrell: biochemist in 1933, quite an accomplishment in itself because of her gender, but developed 'The Toronto Technique' which enabled mass production of Salk's polio vaccine.  69-Frances Oldham Kelsey: scientist, earned her PhD in pharmacology in 1938 from the University of Chicago where she taught for the next 20+ years, 1960 began her career with the FDA. Her first assignment? Testing a pill for morning sickness, which she feared could be harmful to the fetus. Despite pressure from the drug companies (some things never change) she refused to approve it, thus ensuring not one thalidomide-deformed child was born in the USA.

I loved the Moda Marbles soft pink so much in Molly's block that I used it again in Leone's, and then found the softer-yet pink floral in my scraps, which I believe is a bit from a skirt of my sister Wendy's. I was able to used several small pieces for the ivory background of that block too.  These three blocks were intense!  All are based on a 36-patch grid, so 36 @ 1" finished squares!  Here's a tip for Molly's block, which is the one on the lower left. Instead of making 32 HSTs that finish at 1", make flying geese units the no-waste way (see tutorial here) using these measurements:
For the pink 'goose' or 'peak' part of the unit, cut a square 3 1/4"
For the 'wings' aka side triangles, cut four squares 1 7/8"

Those five squares will yield you four flying geese.  Yeah yeah you have to do a partial seam to sew them around the 1.5" squares, but it's simple.  Here's how:

The top part of the photo shows the first seam, sewing not quite half of the flying geese unit to the centre square. The lower part of the photo shows the second seam, sewing the pink flying geese unit to the left side of that unit.

The top part of this photo shows the red flying geese unit sewn to the bottom of the unit from step 2, and the lower part of the photo shows you how to line up the final pink flying geese unit to sew onto the fourth side.
You will have

this!  The lower part shows you what it looks like after sewing the fourth side.  All you have to do is fold down the top red flying geese unit, matching the seam with the side of the pink flying geese unit, and finish that partial seam from the first step! It's a bit tight because these are tiny units but the top section of the photo shows you what you end up with!  Four less seams and no wasted fabric from the connector corners method.

You're welcome!

Wouldn't the centre of the last block make a beautiful block in and of itself? Might have to try it in perhaps double the size...

Those are cherubs in the four corners, a nod to the babies she saved from being deformed

Soft pink!

Spied this gorgeous girl a week ago on a very early morning walk. The photo, of course, does not do her justice. These pale pink magnolias are pretty much finished now, but the deep pink ones are still in their finery for the most part, and the yellow ones should be out soon! I can't wait to get one for our new house.

NOT done is Craftsy with their class sales.  Beginning tomorrow, May 4, all classes yes ALL of 'em, are on for less than $20! Might be a good idea to snag one you've had on your wishlist, just sayin'.  I am an affiliate, so yes, I do get a small compensation if you click through and buy using my links!  Thank YOU!  It goes right back to Craftsy usually LOL, or, in the case of my latest purchase, to Connecting Threads (do I have some deals to tell you about...and yes I finally got my approval to be an affiliate with them, but my show 'n tell is from pre-affiliation, so plain pure unadulterated passion for fabric you will be shown...stay tuned. :-)  OMG and such good and welcome news from them I will share for my Canuck readers!

Linking up
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication

And uh, yes, if you were looking for Sunday Stretch on April 30, it wasn't there.  I forgot.  😖 I hope to have one for you tomorrow(?!)  I will try my best!🙏

Red & White For Days

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

Stardust Flimsy and the Coolest HST Method

This is wheelchair quilt #10 (counting the first two I donated on my own).  At 36 3/4" square, it is the widest of the ten quilts, and I hope it will be okay as far as not getting caught in the wheels.  I love love love this quilt and plan to make one of my own to take as my 'sit-upon' quilt when I teach yoga.  It was definitely a little more finicky and involved (the small squares and star points finish at 2") than the previous quilts I've made.  Worth every stitch (okay, and a few reverse stitches ha).

This is outside on the front step in natural light.  Again, all five fabrics were in the guild's charity fabric stash.  The two blues are Moda, Brannock and Patek,  and of a superb quality. I loved working with them.  The red is Springs Industries by Ro Gregg, and of a similar quality.  The background is either a decent quality muslin or maybe just a solid, no selvages on it.  The medium blue also has no selvage on it.  Clearly these are older fabrics because of their deep colours, and no names of fabric line on the selvages.

This is a more masculine quilt, but could be for a woman quite easily (after all I could quite easily keep it!).

Here it is on the design wall before the final 2" finished border.

This shot shows the background more as it truly is, a linen colour, not the modern white as is popular now, but this colour just works beautifully with the tones of the other fabrics.

This quilt is called Stardust, and is another in Pam & Nicky Lintott's Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts, a terrific book, from our guild library.  I've made two versions of Fairy Steps for wheelchair quilts from this book; I might just have to get it for my own collection!  I already have two of their books, absolutely love their quilts.

The HSTs for the star points have the coolest technique!  I want to share it with you.  How can you get a 2 1/2" HST from a 2 1/2" strip?  Read on!

1.  Iron the two 2.5" strips of fabric together so they stick together.  Trim off one end to 45 degrees.

2.  Because I don't have the Omnigrid 96 ruler they use, I made my own template.  I first cut a triangle out of fabric that was 1/4" wider than the point of the diagonal which you see at the bottom of the blue triangle.  That would be the dog ear you trim when you cut your strips (squares) at 2 7/8" to yield two 2" finished HSTs.  I cut a pair using this template.  Then I made a paper template using one of the triangles.  I taped the paper to the underside of my ruler as you see below:

3.  In this second cut, I butted up the paper template to the blue triangle that is sitting on top of my strip set.  Cut carefully along the edge of the ruler.  You will notice there is a little gap where no ruler is! Egad.  Cut carefully.  I had no problem, but you might want to move the template up that 1/4".  You will get a diamond shape out of your strip set.

4.  I still haven't moved the dark blue triangle, as I gently lift my ruler and reposition it so that I can now cut the vertical line that separates the diamond into 2 triangles.

Voilà!  These chain piece through the machine so nicely now that the dog ear point is not even there.  You sew 1/4" from the bias edge and you only need to trim the lower dog ear.  Best of all, you get a 2 1/2" HST which will finish at 2"!  Love this.

Wheelchair Quilt #6

This one is ready to be donated.

I'm just so happy with how this mishmash of orphan blocks and additions from my own stash all came together in the end.  I absolutely love the quilting, feathers  in the chevron areas, and dot to dot in the diamonds.  On the sides I did a feather "flower" in each bottom corner and then arcs, using my trusty tool, a Bath & Bodyworks body butter container, to mark the arc.  Then I FMQ-ed the arc, echoed it, filled it in with back and forth lines, and did the feathers on the outside.  The dot to dot is ruler work and I only marked the inside point of one diamond, the turquoise one, on the first line.  Angela says just go for it, and so I decided to take that risk on this quilt, and I am really surprised and pleased with how evenly they all turned out. :-)  I had no problems with the tension with the Sulky rayon thread, but I did with the pale blue Fufus rayon, the same thread I used on wheelchair #5 quilt. I had few issues, if any on that one, so I am not sure what I am doing wrong, same bobbin thread.  I ended up changing my needle from a 20 to a 14, with a better result.

At first I worried that the back itself seemed to much of a mishmash, a dog's breakfast, but now that it is all quilted up and bound, I love it.  I machine bound this one again, as these quilts need to be durable for much wear and tear and washing.
Quilt Stats:
Pattern: original design
Size:  30X35.5"
Fabric: orphan blocks plus scraps from my stash
Batting: Pellon Legacy 100% polyester (love this batting!)
Quilted: on my Avanté -- 66 757 stitches :-)
Threads: Floriani's Fufu's rayon thread in pale blue and Sulky rayon in white

I also have my September and October steps sewn up for Cheryl's mystery quilt:

It's so intriguing to imagine and speculate what these will grow into!

Here is a tip that probably everyone knows for adding the HSTs onto the squares in the September step.

Sew with the square facing up so the bias edge is on the bottom. This will help to avoid stretching.

If you use the little triangle-like dog ears as a guide, you can get pretty good alignment.  I also finger-pressed the red square in half near the centre of the square so I could use that line as a reference for placement of the tip of the HST.

I hope it will end up okay, as I ran out of the taupe/ivory background, leftovers from my Indianapolis quilt (need to post on that one day, it's an older one), so I substituted the ivory cat fabric without knowing exactly where it would end up/how it will look.  So there is one rectangle in the courthouse steps blocks of the cat fabric.  It does jump a little, but it matches the cat fabric for the SiaS blocks, and I didn't think I should add in a third ivory-coloured fabric. Might have to ask Cheryl if she thinks this will be okay, or add in a third that is a bit closer to the taupe/ivory one.

These are humongous 19" squares! There are 9 fanned out here.

You can still get in on the mystery!  Head to Cheryl's blog, Meadow Mist Designs for the deets.

I'm linking this post up with Connie at Freemotion by the River.

Log Cabin Tip

This may seem pretty obvious, but it really helped me when making log cabin blocks in the past, and I rediscovered it this past month while making offset log cabin blocks.

It gets confusing (or it could be just me, there's a thought) as to which side to sew each subsequent strip on.  At first, I thought it's a no-brainer:  sew the coloured strips to the coloured sides and the low volume strips to the low volume side.  However, there are two coloured sides and two low volume; which one do you sew the strip to first?  Does it matter?

Yes it does.

You can see in the lower block about to be assembled that I could sew the green plaid strip to either the green swirl or to the darker green dot fabric; it fits on both sides.  So how do I know it goes here?  Each round of colour has one slightly longer strip.  For example, round 2 had a 3.5" and a 5.5" strip.  The longer strips should all be on the same side.  Seems easy, yet I still managed to sew the first strip in a round on the wrong side.  More than once.

Here's the tip:  always have your block with the last strip sewn on at the bottom.  Look at the above photo.  The top block had the green on last, so it is at the bottom.  The lower block had the light grey floral sewn on last.  I can tell simply by seeing it is the only round where the seam goes straight across.  So simple, and so effective.

One other tip:  chain piece, as we all do.  AND...see the middle block below?  I love that green leaf print but didn't have a wide enough strip.  Well, it's a scrap quilt!  So I found another small piece, pieced the two together to get a wide enough strip!  Isn't that how quilting originated?  Making do.

I have my next quilt on the longarm, practising in preparation for all the quilting that will be done on Dayna's quilt.  This is Over and Under, a quilt from the Fall 2011 Quilt Sampler.  I've named mine Parisville Weave.

You can see influence from Angela Walters, Christina Cameli, and Kathleen in the above photo.  I'm loving it so far.

Speaking of loving it, I loved the New Bloggers Hop that recently completed its fourth round and is now ended.  I've met some great new people, read some great new blogs, learned all kinds of new things, and have added to my blogging friends list.

But the learning and fun is not quite over!  Our four intrepid leaders have teamed up with Fabri-Quilt and have created a New Quilt Block Blog Hop beginning at the end of this month.

60 of us have said, "Yes!" to creating a new block that measures 12 1/2" in size.  We are using a palette of six of their new Watermelon Summer solids.

This is a wonderful way to challenge ourselves, and I'm excited to be a part of it!  The hop runs from August 31 - September 3.

Linking up with my hive mama, Stephanie, of Late Night Quilter for her Tips and Tutorials Tuesday.

Christmas Scrap Quilt Top Still In Progress

And I love, love LOVE it!

This is my third in Cynthia's Scrap-a-Palooza series, and they are all such fun.  This one was rather serendipitous.

I knew I wanted to do it in Christmas scraps, and I'd kind of thought at first of not having any colour pattern, just throwing them in rounds willy-nilly.

But upon sorting through my scraps, and seeing definite predominantly green,  or red, or blue, and a few multi-coloured, I thought, hmm, maybe I could do a round of each colour. . .  However, I didn't have very many predominantly blue scraps, so thought never mind, maybe alternate rounds of red and green, and end with one multi-coloured, like Cynthia's:

Over the hours of cutting, letting my mind wander, (it's very therapeutic, isn't it? a kind of meditation) and remember I was also cutting for the scrap quilt using 3" squares that I have in my head, as well as Cynthia's 5th scrap-a-palooza quilt, that I realized I did have enough blue to at least do the centre.  Then Cynthia posted a few pics of various quilts others have done in her series, and I saw one that had double rows of 4.5" squares... well, the quilt just made itself in my head right then and there.

Musing:  hmm, maybe that is the kind of thing that happens to authors who say the characters just "do" and "say" things in their heads, that they really have no control of their characters.

Regardless,  here is the quilt in construction, with a few tips thrown in as to keeping it all organized.  Apologies for the lighting at times.

Organized Chaos again:

In the above picture you see the blue centre.  I used my "Book It!" method, chain-piecing the first two blocks of each column, and then adding the third, still chain piecing so the entire column stays perfectly in order as it was on the design wall.  Yep, there's my snowmen!!  And yep, there's a 4-patch in there too!  And I even worked in (found them after I'd cut enough other blues) scraps from my Snowman Placemats!!  Yippee!

Piecing each row of 3

Look, ma, no pins!  With pressing each row in opposing directions, the seams butt up against each other wonderfully.  I'm still not cutting apart the rows either.  If the entire column is long enough, I will join the two bottom rows, then the top two, and alternate, so I can continuously feed them.  I LOVE chain-piecing.  Saves time and thread.

Terrific thread for piecing

I try to pick up the 3000 metre cones of Gutermann thread on sale or at JoAnn's (online only) with a 50% off coupon.  I also love and use Aurifil, but I've never had issues with Gutermann, and this is a good buy.  I picked up the dark green which I'm using for this quilt at Fat Quarter Shop half price!  They have notions and thread as well as fabulous fabric.

For the double rows at the top and bottom of each round, I took the squares off the design wall, laying them on my sewing table in order.  With many similar fabrics, as you can see above, and doing the chain-piecing method, AND with my menopausal brain, it is SO easy to confuse the row I was piecing... uh, does the next square go on the top or the bottom?

HOWEVER, with this little trick, I never screw up:  leave the tail of threads on the first two squares you piece.  Do you see it there just below the two squares at the top, waiting to be joined?  That is my first row.  Because I laid out my rows of squares as they were on the design wall, I know the top ones go with the top row (the one that has the tail of thread) and the bottom ones with the bottom row.  Ya, note the huge distance between the top and the bottom rows of squares, all to keep it obvious for me in this annoying neverending interesting stage of my life!