How to Make 168 HSTs Seem Like Only 84

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!

Sunday Stash

It's been a while since I made my last confession.  LOL  Here goes, "Bless me QBL (Quilting Blogland) friends, for I have supported my LQS and online stores..."

At the guild meetings, there is always a local vendor.  No tax and decent prices abound.  My stash is sadly lacking in greys.  This summer I picked up these four fat quarters (and I dug, as I am wont to do, for those with the manufacturer on the labels, have always been a label nerd that way) for $3 each.  That is very good for Canadian prices, which run around $15-18/metre.

I honestly have no clue where I got these two 1/3 yard, or perhaps metre, cuts. Interesting difference in the greys, no? The bottom one is quite lavender-ish in hue. 

At another guild meeting this summer,  I won 3 of the prizes (no fabric, drat) one night when there were a lot of prizes. Up until that meeting I had never won a thing.  On my way out of the meeting, I spied this lovely batik fat quarter as the vendor, the lovely Sue, was packing up and well, it would be rude not to purchase something from her since I won a couple of her donated prizes, right?  Sadly there is no indication as to whose batik it was and I didn't think to ask.

The same Sue donated this fabric as a prize at the quilting retreat I attended in mid-November.  Everyone got two picks at the prize table, which changed content, over the course of the weekend.  My first pick I chose a Mason jar of soup mix, the kind that looks pretty with the various layers of lentils, dried peas, pasta, etc.  I made it two weeks ago and it was delicious.  On my second pick I chose this 1/2 metre of fabric.  I could see a tea cosy!  Or maybe a charity quilt.  I purchased the cute reindeer ornament pattern for $7 from Pastime Pieces, a shop that I learned about at the retreat.  It's in Blenheim, Ontario, not far away at all.

Do you see the 5 exquisite wooden buttons on the fabric?  I bought these from a sweet Columbian girl whose sister was also at the retreat, visiting from Columbia.  The sister did not speak any English. She was an exquisite seamstress! Their family makes these buttons in Columbia, as well as beautiful crafts, (lots of snowman-themed items!).  She had brought a few buttons to sell for 75c each, $1 for the sewing machine as it was larger.  Look at the size of the 2 little wooden buttons included in that reindeer pattern! For about half the price of that pattern ($4) I got these 5 buttons!

Another colour I am working hard to improve stock on hand of is the aqua family.  At one of the wheelchair charity quilt sewing days, Sue had brought a selection of 1/2 yard cuts and fat quarters as some of the ladies had asked her to.  I had requested a piece of this beautiful aqua from Kaufman if she had any left.  She did. $5.  The vibrant fat quarters below it are also hers and are from the quilting retreat.  These have a specific destination, but that's all I'm saying for now.  They were $3 each.

You may remember I have been through some angst with my local guild, but I am happy to say that I have met some very sweet, dear friends through the wheelchair charity quilts, and more who aren't members through attending that quilting retreat last month.  Sewing alone is fine; you have your setup and your stuff at hand, but sewing with friends, like-minded friends, is at another level.  There is an energy that is tangible, a bond, a sharing, a learning and friendly atmosphere that inspires my creativity and soaks into the fibre (pun intended) of my being.  I learned about yet another LQS through one of the gals at the retreat, Sewcraft in Essex.  This is where I purchased some of these pieces:

The "Cherie" heads are what's left from makeup bags I sewed for my daughters.  I got the "It Girls", on sale for $12/metre, at Sewcraft, and possibly one of those 1/3 yard of greys in the second photo in this post.  The solid grey is from A Stitch in Time in Leamington.  I think it is Maywood, but I can't recall, $8.99/metre, though, a good price I thought.  The two pinks are 1/4 yard cuts from my Florida LQS, Expert Sewing Studio in Port Charlotte.  I picked them up last month. The bottom is "Paradiso" by Kate Spain, and the top is "Best Day Ever" by April Rosenthal.  These were US$11.03/yard.  This is going to be a quilt from a pattern I won.  More later.

Speaking of pink...

The colours are more intense in person: bright pinks except for the bottom one, and rich royal blues.

These randomly got stacked together to put away in my plastic drawers after the retreat. I'd taken them for cows' lips and eyes.  That odd brown fabric on top just did something when I saw the stack from a side view!  I would not have put these together, but I'm thinking they have to get used up and become a pretty quilt all together.  As a result,  I haven't put them back in their correct colour family drawers.

Now I'm off to make 168 HSTs for one of the borders on Dayna's grad quilt.  I must also mention the book I am reading this week that I am just LOVING:

I'm nearly finished it, and it is such a great story.  It has made me add several more titles to my "to read" list, which is longer if you can believe it, than my quilts "to be made" list!  The protagonist is the owner of a bookstore.  I love the way each chapter starts with a note about a good book he has read, A. J.'s brief summary and his thoughts on the book, and why his daughter, who wants to be a writer, should read it.
Linking up with the effervescing Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash.

Three Friday Finishes!

Amazing what a little pressure from Christmas and family can do...I was told by both daughters, that I had better go whole hog to decorate for Christmas, or, and I quote, they'd "be going out and buying the shit and doing it themselves." To also quote Dayna's turn of phrase, "It (should) look like Santa barfed up Christmas all over the house."  Okay then.  With those kind of demands in no uncertain terms or language, I put the pedal to the metal this week.  A ton of photos you will find, and I make no apologies for this either. :-)

Three finishes since Monday!

Christmas Blast From the Past

It rained overnight so I couldn't haul the Christmas quilt on our bed out onto the patio for a photo shoot; therefore the throwback is this wallhanging I started in 2001 and finished in 2006:

It measures 36 3/8 by 37", not quite square.

It is from Quilter's Newletter "Quilt It For Christmas" 2000.  I started the embroidery in 2001, according to my label, and finished the quilt in 2006.  The original in the magazine was done in redwork; I prefer blue, and besides I had quite a few scraps from my Snowmen and Mittens quilt I made, with each of my daughters doing the mitten strings embroidery on it, in 1996.  This one:

Love everything about this quilt. That pillow, you ask? Started stitching in 2004, finished in 2005. Yep, sneaking in a couple other Christmas throwbacks here, bahaha.

Back to the main subject:
I clearly remember where I was stitching the embroidery:  a bunch of it on a July camping trip to Touchwood Lake in northeastern Alberta with our daughters, my husband's brother and his wife, and their son, daughter and two little kids.  Although it poured rain nearly the entire weekend, we had a terrific time, lots of hilarity.  One of my all-time favourite photos is of my girls, fully clad in t-shirt and jeans (it was pretty cool in the bush where our campsite was), once I gave the "oh what the hell, go for it" answer they wanted, running Mach 6 into the lake!  By the time we'd walked down to the beach and we were in full-on sunshine, it was HOT!
Update!  Well, I had to find that photo, and here it is!  How I love it.

Ha: a photo of a photo.  Good memory: it was July!  Brianne was 15, Dayna 13. Good times.

Here is the back:

A Debbie Mumm print I have always loved.  Pieced back even back then! This is a scrap from my tree skirt (too bad I can't slip in a pic of that, but it's in Florida), and the label, pieced right into the backing.

I quilted it as the pattern did, putting the cross-hatching behind the embroidery (well worth the extra effort) and echoing a quarter inch from the edge along two sides of the triangles.  The pattern has 5 borders after the stitching; I had to make 6, adding in a 1/2" extra one so that the outer two triangle borders would fit.  I used a ton of different whites and ivories, now known as low volume prints, for the white triangles.  I have loved scrappy quilts from the get-go, and it shows.  The more fabric in a quilt, the better, IMHO.

The label:

In the bottom snowy layer of two of the trees on the label, I wrote "Embroidered 2001" and "Quilted 2006".  So happy I am a label-nut!

I brought this baby home in my carry-on from Florida, as that is where the bulk of my decorations are, since we haven't been in Canada for a Christmas since 2004, except for once in 2006!  The pillow was carried in my arms on the plane.  Yes, I was one of those annoying people I love to hate, who had 3 carry-on items, not TWO as they kept saying was federal law...my purse, my carry-on suitcase and that pillow.  Oopsie.

Of course, as soon as I laid the quilt down on the floor in front of the patio door for natural light photos, someone parked her furry butt on it within seconds, no lie.

Linking up with Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge for TBT.  It's all Christmas over there so check it out!

I'll be back tomorrow with a new finish (or two if all goes to plan, well, not really plan, squirrels)...eeep!

Brady's Stocking Is Done!

Cross another one off my Q4 list!  I am feeling so pumped that I am going to start the final borders on Dayna's grad quilt next....  I nearly took that sentence off... because that means I can't shy away from it again; her quilt, okay, a little raw honesty here, kind of terrifies me. nvm here is Brady's stocking!

Doesn't it look purty against our Nootka Cypress? How I love this "old man" tree.  Gotta say I love the stocking too!

Had I known all the angst this stocking would cause me over the three days it took to construct, I would have had a lot more trepidation in advance of starting it.  So that is good advice for Dayna's quilt: just do it.

I sort of based this on a pattern in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine's "Quilt It For Christmas" 2004.

Early stages:

... paper-pieced trees, (oh how I love that mint fabric from Kate and Birdie!), prepped star appliqué from gold lamé, 2.5" strips cut for patchwork. You can see Joanne's Snowalong blocks waiting to grow up (I got the white with silver arcs fabric from the snowalong project ziploc), and Bella, who is not amused that I stopped playing "chase the fuzzy ball on the end of the yarn" with her.  My sister Linda pointed out how hilarious she looks with just her little butt resting on her cat cushion!

Finished flimsy:

 FMQ on the stocking front in progress:

The Bernina is FMQ-ing without a hitch with Sulky metallic thread

Brady's name on the stocking cuff--how I wish I'd closely read their pattern for how they did their "cuff" which wasn't a cuff at all... :-(

Pulled out my Totally Stable from the stabilizers class I took eons ago when I first bought the Bernina, a 180 Artista

She (the Bernina) and I made beautiful appliqué together!

I used another Sulky metallic, a gold, green and red variegated. LOVE the sparkle!

I used Word's Marker Felt font to make the templates for the letters for his name.

All the parts ready to assemble:

Exciting!

A little closer reading of the rather skeletal pattern, a little more ripping, a little lightbulb moment to cut the binding on the bias, a little hand sewing the binding to the back of the stocking, a little more ripping, a little tearing of hair out, but finally got the cuff, a proper cuff, applied and voilà.

Some tree decorations photo-bombed the stocking photo, lol. These are all handmade. The folded patchwork star is from 2000, the little felt reindeer is from 1991, the plastic canvas fireplace, snowman (not visible) and dove (spun around) from circa 1988-9. It took me two Christmases to get all 10 done.

So the pattern had you make the entire patchwork front of the stocking, and then apply the 11" square to the top, stitching it down across the foldline, and then apply the letters (no indication of how, and if a person wanted to satin stitch them down as I did, that would be a tad difficult with the stocking attached) and then (dumbest of all) trim the cuff even with the stocking edges!  So what's the point of having patchwork under the faux cuff? Why not sew a 5.5X11" rectangle there, and appliqué the letters to the batting since it's not a real cuff?  You quilt the patchwork to the batting anyhow.

Here's that dove!

Still can't see that cute snowman I hung...somewhere...

Actually the pattern had you quilt the stocking through the lining too, like a regular quilt sandwich, but I wanted a "floating" lining, so I just quilted through the flimsy and batting layers.  Here's how the inside looks:

had to leave my flip flop toes in the shot! No, I did not wear them to walk Rocco today, but it did get up to 44F/7C!

So I ended up topstitching the cuff to the bound edge of the stocking.  In retrospect, I could've left a 6" tail of bias binding from the heel side edge of the stocking, as the pattern suggested, to make the hanger.  I couldn't quite wrap my head around the whole cuff procedure at that point.  In future, I think I would sew the underside of the cuff to the unbound edge of the stocking, and then turn the top edge of the front side of the cuff, which I would have about an inch longer than the underside, over the seam and hand whipstitch it to the lining.  Clear as mud, right?  Wait, the bound edges still interfere with that thought process...

Here is the back:

Can you see Brady's name quilted in?  I repeated the funky stars and snow crystals, and echoed some of the trees

So sparkly! He will love it.

Stocking Stats:
Pattern: Patchwork Stocking from "Quilt It For Christmas" 2004
Size: 20 3/4" long by 12 1/4" from toe to side edge
Fabric: 100% cotton, some I purchased and some from my stash
Batting: Warm 'n Natural
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: Sulky metallic, gold and variegated

Sunday Stretch for Sewists #5

I know, I know I had stash additions to show you today, but those will wait until next Sunday.  I try to do one of these stretches on the last Sunday of the month, and here we are. This is the last of the three poses of which Dayna shot photos back at the end of September.  Oh heat! Oh warmth! I miss you!

If you have trouble sleeping this is one pose that can help you, especially if you do it right before bed.  (update: I just found a link with a video; according to Rodney Yee, this is "the most therapeutic yoga pose."  :-)

1.  Sit on the floor, sideways to the wall, with one hip against the baseboard and your shoulder touching the wall.

Shift - Finished!

Woot! Woot! And in time for a Friday finish to boot!  This is one goal #2 on my Q4 List, so I will be linking this up come the end of December/early January with Adrianne at On the Windy Side.  Numbers 3, 4 and 5 are all done, and yesterday I started #7, Brady's stocking.