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Dawn's Quilting Room
a quilt happy blog
Wednesday - November 29, 2023 Step 3: Log Cabin Block Continuing with the Petit Four Quilt Along ... I finished sewing the twelve log cabin blocks. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. Paper piecing the blocks gives such accuracy and sharp edges. (Amazon link to the Log Cabin foundation papers for a 12-inch size block. I don't see another size listed.)
One of my first quilts was a log cabin design. I attended one of Eleanor Burns' demonstrations many years ago when she first introduced her quick-quilting techniques. I even have an autographed copy of her book, "Quilt-in-a-Day Log Cabin". I convinced my mother, who had sewed but never quilted, to go with me. What a fun day together, and we both made a log cabin quilt top the next day.
Friday - November 17, 2023 A Different Look - Baby Quilt I finished the quilt top for the second baby quilt. During the summer, I made the first baby quilt. Both are "I Spy" quilts. Both use similar but not identical fussy-cut picture blocks and the same purple corner stone fabric. The only big difference is the color sashing and border.
The first quilt is pictured in my August 20 blog post (scroll down). Amazing how just one fabric change can alter the appearance of a quilt. I like both versions. And each quilt's colors are an ideal match for the loving grandmother and mom.
Thursday - November 9, 2023 Step 2: Economy Block I'm caught up now that I have the Economy Blocks sewn for the Petit Four Quilt Along. (Amazon link to the Economy foundation paper 6-inch size block.)
I'm enjoying sewing these blocks. Easy to do.
Saturday - November 4, 2023 Step 1: Courthouse Steps Block I finished sewing the Log Cabin Courthouse Steps blocks. If you are following along with this Petit Four pattern, the Fat Quarter Shop has posted the paper piecing of these blocks on YouTube. I love the paper piecing technique and found it simple to sew the blocks. (Amazon link to the Courthouse Steps foundation paper 6-inch size block.)
Friday - October 27, 2023 Another Sew Along Those ghosts were so much fun that I went hunting for another online sew along. I joined the Petit Four Quilt Along sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop. The pdf is a free download from the Fat Quarter Shop. Lucky me discovered it not long after it started.
Tuesday - October 24, 2023 Four Ghosts Floating I'm so happy seeing this quilt come together. Such fun ghosts.
Sunday - October 22, 2023 Casper the Friendly Cat My surprise ghost in the Ghost Party quilt is a cat. I showed a friend the block, and she immediately named kitty Casper the Friendly Cat.
Thursday - October 12, 2023 More Knitted Hats Donated It's been a busy year. Between finishing multiple quilts for our guild's quilt show, obtaining items for the raffle baskets, creating the show program guide, plus working on my writing and other must-do projects ... I didn't have as much time for knitting this year.
Wednesday - October 4, 2023 Ghost Party Quilt Progress I wanted control over how the four ghost blocks I'm sewing play together colorwise. So I haven't been following the due date steps in the quilt-along challenge.
Saturday - September 30, 2023 I Did It - Jenny's Christmas Box Do I, or don't I? I wrestled with the decision. Would it be worth the $179.00 (plus tax)?
Sunday - September 10, 2023 Ghost Party Quilt Sew A Long I first saw this quilt almost a year ago. I even know the exact date because I saved a photo, September 26, 2022. I definitely wanted to make it, but had so many other projects to finish first.
I'm using a Kona white fabric for the ghosts, and I've chosen a variety of dark fabrics from my stash for the background, including two gold metallic prints on black to mimic evening sky. Woollypetals gave permission to have fun with the pattern and to personalize it. I decided to shrink the blocks to a size that will fit the back of my door as a "wall hanging". And my quilt will feature four ghosts. I'm also changing the embroidered mouths to paper-pieced mouths for a cutesy spooky vibe.
Sunday - August 20, 2023 I Beat the Deadline The baby quilt is finished! I'm visiting in a few days and will gift the quilt to the proud grandmother. The baby is due in a few weeks.
While I was selecting and cutting fabric for this quilt, I cut another set of blocks for a second quilt ... different prints. Simultaneously cutting fabric for the two quilts was a time-saver! The next "I Spy" quilt is for my cousin's daughter who recently had a baby.
Monday - August 7, 2023 Button...Button I love this mini project. Since the challenge is to use only red, white or blue colors, I sifted through the button boxes culling only those colors. Then I had to narrow my selection and arrange the buttons.
This turned out to be a great memory quilt. I remember my grandmother cutting and sewing clothing, and I have her old Singer sewing machine, sewing box and button collection. My mom and I loved shopping together at craft and fabric stores. There were usually button bins with assorted buttons that we had fun poking through. Wishing you a beautiful day!
Saturday - July 29, 2023 Another Challenge My quilt guild announced a summer challenge so there would be more quilts in the show. I love participating in quilt challenges, but wow...can I squeeze in making another quilt?
First I constructed the wall hanging. I selected a simple star block and added strips of red and blue fabric above it, and a strip of red fabric below the block. Then I added vertical blue sashing along the sides before quilting. I bound the quilt in blue fabric. Next I need to raid the button boxes. I'm going to place rows of red, white and blue buttons along the fabric strips. This is a fun project!
Sunday - July 23, 2023 Surprise Quilt In the midst of finishing quilts for the quilt show...a very dear friend announced she was going to be a first-time grandma. She is soooo excited! Every bed in my friend's home is decorated with much loved quilts she has found and bought during her travels. When she told me she had turned a spare room into the baby's room (fully anticipating cherished grandbaby visits and babysitting), I knew I had to make her a baby quilt.
Selecting and fussy cutting fabrics I knew would have meaning for her, I constructed an "I Spy" quilt. Each center block features a different star fabric. The squares finish at three inches. After much indecision, I finally chose a green sashing and a purple fabric with gold stars as cornerstones. I need to finish the quilt by August 23. My newest motto is sew faster! Have a great day!
Sunday - July 9, 2023 Finishing the Inchie Quilt Selecting the binding fabric was a tough choice. I auditioned a lot of fabrics. I knew I wanted a brown binding. This print is working out really well. I machine sewed the binding, and then turned the binding to the back of the quilt to hand sew it in place. Looking good!
If you haven't tried Wonder Clips, I highly recommend them for holding binding in place instead of using pins. No more pin-jabbed fingers for me. Hope the day brings good things your way!
Thursday - July 6, 2023 Gardening Intermission I had to share this photo of my lettuce basket. It is hanging from a sheperd's hook in the garden. The two lettuce baskets I planted turned out beautiful. I planted Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (bought from Park Seed). When I plant lettuce baskets, the lettuce grows cleaner than if planted directly in the garden. For some reason, there are fewer bug issues too. I also love the way it looks.
The lettuce is also easy to harvest. If you are unfamiliar with how to plant a lettuce basket, I wrote a how-to article (just click on the link to read/print it). Happy gardening!
Monday - July 3, 2023 Back to Inchies Enough procrastinating! The quilt show is in September, and I need to finish projects to display. I've committed, and now need to deliver.
Working with all these different fabric prints has been fun. It's also a great memory quilt -- it reminds me of time spent with friends in my quilt guild (we all traded the 1 1/2" squares in a fabric swap). I still have a lot of spare squares for a future project. I'm inching along! (Horrible pun intended.)
Tuesday - June 27, 2023 Something Different The company I work for had a team building event. So much fun! We went to the Muse Paintbar. Our team leader selected a seascape for us to paint. I haven't painted since elementary school, so was a bit nervous. The painting instructor at Muse was terrific. She walked us through the painting process step by step: mixing colors, brush size and techniques. All of us enjoyed the experience. Lots of joking and laughter.
To sweeten the fun, our team leader announced a prize to the artist of the winning painting. I was astounded when the judge selected my seascape as the winner. The judge told me that he really loved the way I interpreted the sky. (I broke from what the instructor told the class to do. I thought the instructor's clouds too heavy for the composition.) Guess I can add artistic renegade to my list of accomplishments. Enjoy a wonderful day!
Tuesday - May 30, 2023 Knitting Hats I love the knitting group I belong to. We meet at a local public library once a week. It's fun to chat and see what everyone is working on. One of the women is knitting an insanely gorgeous red laced dress. She is almost done and ran out of yarn (one yarn skein shy). Thankfully, she found the yarn still available and is able to purchase it.
One of the group brought in a bunch of yarn she was purging from her yarn stash. No one wanted this variegated yarn, so I adopted the skein. I enjoy using variegated yarn, and will often pair a variegated yarn with a solid, knitting with two different color yarn strands at the same time. This hat was knitted with the variegated yarn and a solid blue in a slightly different shade than the blue in the variegated skein. Have fun creating!
Friday - April 21, 2023 Bird Joy I had so much fun creating this bird wall hanging.
Since the quilt challenge required words on the quilt, I added small square silver beads along the ground that spell "joy". This is my own quilt design. Enjoy the day and some time in the sunshine!
Tuesday - April 4, 2023 A Very Red Hat Having fun knitting. Just finished this bright red hat. I donate the hats I knit to those who need them. Hope someone doesn't mind glowing in the dark. Maybe someone who enjoys night walking or running? They will be seen!
I've also begun knitting an infinity scarf on my oval loom. It's easier than I thought it would be. The stitch is called a mock crochet stitch. Here is a YouTube video of the process if you are interested in trying to loom knit an infinity scarf. The video shows the scarf being knitted on a round loom, but I have an oval loom with the correct amount of pegs along one side ... so no going in circles for me. https://youtu.be/2B29MDn-qes Hope the day is good to you!
Saturday - March 11, 2023 Bird Beginnings Our quilt guild has a challenge that combines a memory with adding words to a quilt. I remember my father and I working in the vegetable garden when a bird landed atop his head .. and his surprised "Ouch!" when the bird yanked out some of his hair for its nest. He wore a hat outside after that encounter!
I'm thinking of layering two buttons for the eye. I also plan to add a curling flower stem and some butterflies. I spent a lot of joyful time in the garden watching nature as I worked. So the word "joy" is probably going to appear somewhere on the wall hanging. Enjoy your creative time!
Thursday - February 16, 2023 Flower Basting After wrestling with fabric choices ... blue won for the fourth flower. I now have flowers in red, purple, orange and blue. I didn't want to buy fabric, and these choices worked best from my stash.
I selected a green "leafy" fabric as the backing. The wall hanging is pin basted and ready for quilting. I'll keep the quilting simple, following the outline of the flowers, leaves and walkway. Time to thread the sewing machine! Enjoy the day. More Flowers I don't have enough scrap fabric in the color I need, so I must create some crumbs. Today I am ready to construct the fourth and final flower for my crumb quilt wall hanging. I pulled a bunch of yellow fabrics, but the brighter yellows did not show well against the pale background fabric. And the darker gold-yellows look too orange. So I raided the blue fabric stash to see what I can come up with. If I go with blue, I need to make sure they don't have a purple hue.
In the meantime, here is a photo of the latest block. Love this purple flower.
Eager to return to the sewing machine. Enjoy a creative day!
Time for Class! What a fun day ... tiring but wonderful. The Zoom workshop worked out well. My quilting friends and I set up our computers to view the class, and the instructor had several cameras so that we could easily see what she was demonstrating. By the end of the four-hour class, I had one block completed and had begun piecing crumbs for a second flower.
When sewing the greens to make the leaves, I didn't realize one of the green fabrics would appear much lighter than the others. I learned to be careful if a fabric crumb has white in the design (like the green fabric above). I'll construct the rest of the blocks and then lay them out. If the lighter fabric in these leaves is too distracting, I'll darken the white areas with a green fabric marker so that the fabric blends better. (I'll experiment on a scrap first.) Onward! I have a garden to create. Wednesday - January 4, 2023 A New Year & Workshop Prep Can't wait for the workshop on crumb quilting. Part of the workshop prep is sorting scrap fabrics into color groups and then ironing the scraps. In the class, we are creating flower blocks using bits of fabric to piece the flower and leaf sections. The class goal is to complete one or two blocks. I want to make four different color flower blocks for a wall hanging. Other project options included potholders or a table runner.
I need one more flower color. I selected red, orange and purple fabrics. Debating between a blue or yellow flower for the fourth one.
I also prepped my sewing area so that I had plenty of room for the sewing machine, cutting mat, ironing board, acrylic rulers and scraps ... plus room for the computer so that I could view the Zoom workshop instructor. Here is a link to the workshop supply list if you are curious. Friday - December 30, 2022 It's Almost 2023! Looking back on 2022...So many accomplishments and more things added to the to-do list. I participated in my first online Mood Board writing pitch, which required learning a few more tech skills. I visited Cape Cod during the summer. There were more Zoom meetings and workshops (quilting and writing). I joined a local knitting group. Added new quilt block clip art to my website for free download. Helped several friends gain a foothold in social media. Enjoyed celebrating a friend's first published picture book.
So what's on the agenda for 2023? I've been eyeing my unfinished project pile while also adding new projects to my "want to make" list. Once again I am joining the All People Quilt UFO challenge. However, my list includes both unfinished projects as well as new things I really want to create.
My first project in 2023 is to take a Zoom class on crumb quilting in early January. What especially interests me is creating new "fabric" from scraps and incorporating it into a quilt design. As part of the prep work, I've been sorting my scraps into color piles and ironing them. I also need to select a background fabric. I hope you are filled with creative inspiration. Have fun in 2023! |
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