Cotton Club Beginning

Happy Tuesday! Over the weekend, I started the Cotton Club BOM by Bonnie Blue through a LQS. I had hoped to have the first 5 blocks completed (this months installment) to show you but that didn't happen. There has been a flurry of closet cleaning instead. As I mentioned in a prior post, I'm using a Harriet Hargrave tip to get my 1/4" seam more accurate. While not perfect, it's much improved. These blocks finish at 5" and will be set on point. As you can see, it starts simple!

I've been playing around at drafting blocks - the tutorials by Lori Holt really captured my attention. I checked out the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and 5500 Quilt Block Designs from my library to see if I could draft a block in a size I wanted. I'm having some success! Both of these books will be purchased as the possibilities are endless!

Question for you all - Do you know how to convert a block sketch/layout to a paper pieced pattern? I'd love to learn to do that as well.

I've also become very enamored of all the Farmers Wife blocks I've seen in blog land. I think I'm slowly losing that battle!

I hope you all are having a great week. Thank you so much for your visits and your comments! I appreciate you and continue to be inspired by you!

Trying Something New

Before I get to the something new that I'm trying, here is my progress on my Harvest Quilt. I placed the blocks on my design wall without much thought so some rearranging is in the cards. In the meantime, I ran out of fabric. I need to check my scraps to be sure.

Now on to the something new that I'm trying. It's no secret that I've struggled with my 1/4" seam. It's not that I want to be perfect, but I do want to be close. The ladies that own my LQS shared what Harriet Hargrave told them she does when she was here last year for a class. It's all detailed in her book Quilters Academy Freshman Year. Page 23. I'd picked this book up earlier this year. I had gotten up until page 21 when I put it down. Go figure.

Anyways, it involves this notion called the Perkins Ruler. A $5 notion!

It has a hole right at the scant 1/4" place. I put my needle down through this hole.

I then put my seam guide through the hole in the back of my #13 foot placing the seam guide tightly against the ruler.

I screwed it down tight so the seam guide does not move.

Here's what it looks like:

This would work with any machine as long as the foot being used has the setup for a seam guide. A Bernina is not required. I still have some work to do but I must say that my piecing has definitely improved. I'm getting pretty close! I've not had any luck with other feet that have seam guides on it. I couldn't understand why I couldn't get it right and was frustrated. I think it's because those feet allow the fabric to slip underneath and this setup doesn't.

Lesson Learned: What works for one person, might not work for another. Keep looking for a solution! One size does not fit all.

Wishing you a week of Happy Stitches!

Unpacking and Tidying

Today I'm unpacking all my sewing stuff from retreat last weekend and doing a bit of tidying. My portable Rowenta that I love and use all the time was bit by a power surge I think. I didn't have it plugged into the surge protector while at retreat. I'm going to get another one, I love it so much. It gets HOT and it's small - perfect for ironing blocks. My only complaint is that it gets so hot it takes a while to cool down.

I decided to throw the blocks I finished at retreat on my design wall. After all, that is what it's for, right? So in no particular order, here is where I'm at on Harvest. I'm using Christmas fabrics instead of the featured autumn colors. The rest of the pieces have been chained pieced and assembly should be quick once time is found. These blocks still need sashing (white) and cornerstones (black with red dots) but you get the general idea.

You can also see a peek at two other projects I'm working on here and there. One is my 2010 $5 quilt with the border fabrics laid over it and the other is very small glimpse of a Jo Morton project. Sadly my quilt shop has discontinued Jo's Little Women. In September, I'm going to join the Pioneer Women Sewing Circle led by the same instructor Jan Vaine but hosted at another shop. I've learned so much from her and enjoy these small (but not quick) projects.

I picked up Anniversary of the Hearts yesterday. Other than the hornbook I did last weekend, I have not stitched a stitch in 6 weeks. It felt good to be back to it and I stayed up late stitching. I have about 2/3 of the house for March completed.

I hope that everyone has a great week and that your stitches are happy!

Retreat Weekend!

My retreat was last weekend. It was a BLAST! You'll just have to trust me because my camera battery was dead when I took it out to take the very first picture. I'm signed up for the next one in January. You can read about my previous one here. This time the General brought his wife with him and a 2 star General and his wife. They spent quite a bit of time with us. There were 27 Quilts of Valor that were donated to the base.

I haven't unpacked so I can't show you the blocks I made....and honestly there aren't a lot of them. There might have been a bit of socializing. I did all my chain piecing and trimming and all that stuff so I'm pretty ready to go on the quilt I'm making with Christmas fabrics.

I did have one stitching start and one stitching finish and it's the same project. Quick and easy to assemble!

Primer Hornbook

from

Priscilla's Pocket

40 Count Lakeside Linen Vintage Pearl Barley

Thread: Gloriana, Florimel, and Belle Soie

I'm still catching up on blog posts. I hope your stitches have been happy ones this week!

Busy Weekend But...

...not much to show for it! My friend Teresa and I are going to the Old Green Cupboard Retreat next weekend and I thought I'd finish cutting out an entire quilt. I took a free class for it a couple of weeks ago. Cutting is SO not my favorite thing so I generally cut a little bit and then sew a little bit. I was also inspired by Teresa (another Teresa, one I don't know in real life) and her very organized log cabin project box that she posted about on her blog Fabric Therapy. So this was a bit new for me. And boy, did it take a LONG time! I spent almost all day yesterday cutting fabric. I cut everything but some of the 1.5' sashing and the border. I had so much fun I almost don't want to sew the thing together.

I even separated my pieces by color! One of the good things that came out of this was the recognition that there is a lot more of the green in this jelly roll than I thought. I'll make an effort to use some of it in each block so I won't get stuck with using a lot of green in each block at the end. This quilt uses almost every strip of the jelly roll so there won't isn't a lot left over.

I even drew the lines for the triangles on the backs of 192 squares.

Not. Fun.

Though I'm sure I'll be very happy about it later!

Threw in my pattern, the extra background fabric, and my test blocks and I'm ready to go!

I'm curious, is this how most of you start a quilt? Cutting everything out?

Something I generally do all the time is label my fabric. I know me and my memory. I'll have no clue what I planned later on. I just don't finish quilts fast enough to remember.

I need to add "Border 2" to the red polka dot fabric.

Today was Greg's birthday so I started the day making him breakfast and then making sure he didn't do anything all day. It was hard. Then I went looking for a chart and absolutely tore up my sewing room doing so. It's still in bad shape but I found the chart and 7 out of the 8 monthly BOM packages. I hope I can find the last one. I also started pulling things for retreat and hope to have my quilting, knitting and stitching packed up by Tuesday night.

So a busy weekend with out anything to show for it. But I'm sure I'll be grateful for all the time spent prepping when next weekend comes along. So what did you do this weekend?