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Thứ Hai, 12 tháng 9, 2011

Secret Garden...

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I've been waiting and waiting ~ finally Secret Garden by Sandi Henderson is out. Isn't it gorgeous? I chose the navy and berry color way ~ a bit different than anything I've done lately.

So as I've been drooling over the fabric ~ I'm wondering what quilt pattern to make with it. Do you ever worry you'll choose the wrong pattern and cut up fabric you absolutely love and then end up not liking what you did with it?? I do it all the time!

And I'm especially unsure about this one!

So last night I worked on a design inspired by Cara's (Me? A Mom?) Urban Lattice Quilt. I thought I'd use the prints that are primarily blue in the centers and the green around the center separated by a 1/2" berry strip.

Then I'd use a solid periwinkle blue for the sashing. When I checked my Kona Color Card, the closest match was Hyacinth Blue. Is that a sign?

I know it will look a lot different than the original Urban Lattice ~ maybe a Suburban Lattice. Help! I'd love to know what you think ~ positive or negative!

Habitat Challenge

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When our St Louis MQG announced a challenge using Jay McCarroll's fabric line "Habitat" from Free Spirit, I knew I had to participate. You see Jay and I are close, BFF's. Okay, this is him posing with me at Quilt Market in 2008. I'm just one of the multitudes he posed with that day.

But that trip to Quilt Market really got me interested in working with modern designer fabrics. I came home enamored with Jay, Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Patty Young and more. And as a big fan of Project Runway - I took this challenge.

We were only allowed to use "Habitat" fabric and solids. I was inspired by this quilt on Flickr and used Elizabeth Hartman's pattern Rain or Shine.

I did tons of quilting like the inspiration quilt and that took a bit of time!

I'm pretty pleased and I think Jay would be proud!

No-Wave Borders

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It's the first day of school here! Today's topic - How to add borders without any waves.

Have you ever made a quilt that wouldn't lie flat? Or maybe the borders were a little wavy? In order for your quilt to be perfectly square (or perfectly rectangular), the opposite sides of the quilt must be exactly the same size. Chances are when you finished the pieced center, the edges may be off by 1/4 - 1/2". If you just sew your borders on and trim - they will also be off by 1/4 - 1/2". You end up with a quilt that's not square (or rectangular).

Many books and patterns will tell you to measure your quilt with a tape measure and cut your borders to that size. Man, I must be a bad measurer because I tried that for a while and made tons of mistakes!

Here's what I do now - no measuring!

Cut 2 borders a few inches longer than the side of your quilt. Press them wrong sides together.

Lets pretend this block is my quilt. Lay both borders along one edge of the quilt. If your quilt is longer than the table, just put a few pins in and slide it across the table.

Use a ruler and rotary cutter to trim both borders the same size as your quilt. Use the lines on your ruler to make sure you're trimming the corner absolutely square.

The bottom strip fits perfectly and is ready to be pinned. Flip the border strip from the top and pin it to the opposite side. It may not fit exactly! Pin all along the edge, easing in either the quilt or the border. It's really easy to ease in a bit along a long border.

Sew; press and repeat the same process on the opposite 2 sides.

Ta da! A perfect square!

I like to use the same technique to cut long horizontal sashing strips to length. I pile up all the sashing strips, lay them along one row of blocks and trim them all at once. Then each row may need to be eased to fit the sashing strip - but in the end I have a nice square quilt!

Summer's End...

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With Labor Day weekend here, I think it's officially the end of Summer. I may get started on the machine quilting of this, then again I may kick back and relax for the last few days of Summer.

I've been teaching basic quilting for years and since September means back to school, I'll be sharing some of the techniques that I use this month. Every Tuesday in September will be Quilting School here:

September 6 - Borders That Don't Wave

September 13 - Rotary Rules

September 20 - The Perfect Quarter Inch

September 27 - Fearless Free Motion Quilting

Hope you'll join me!

I mentioned these Pilot Frixion pens a month or so ago. Since then I've learned a bit more about them. You'll find a discussion board here. Seems the markings come back when frozen. So I decided to do a little experiment.

Here are 2 pieces of white cotton marked with every color in the set.

One piece was ironed and the markings disappeared immediately. The second piece was hand washed. The markings faded but are still lightly visible.

Then I put both pieces in the freezer. The markings on the ironed piece returned clearly. The washed piece was fainter, but the markings were visible.

My conclusion - use these cautiously! Most people don't freeze their quilts, but obviously the chemical from the ink is still in the fabric.

If only I could invent the perfect marking pen. I'd be set for life!!!

Have a great weekend!

Saltwater Taffy

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The finish update on my Saltwater Taffy quilt using the pattern from Fig Tree and some leftover fabrics.

This quilt was a total stash project. I used some of the last bits of many of my favorite designer fabrics. Do you recognize any of them?

The quilting on the center block area is an allover swirly pattern, repeated in the outer border. For the white inner border I used one of my favorites ~ it looks like ric-rac to me.

I was determined to find a backing in the stash and had enough of this blue fabric for the width and decided to repeat the white from the front.

To make it a little more interesting I added this strip of elephant fabric I had left over from making the elephant Christmas ornament.

The binding is a leftover from "Flutterby" by Tula Pink.

Yup! Leftovers sometimes work really well together!

On a side note one of my favorite plants in the garden this time of year is my Beautyberry or Callicarpa. I love the color of the berries and the fact that they almost look fake. It is a real beauty!

A Room for the Girls...

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Much of last week was spent finishing up this little redecorating project I started several months ago. HGTV always makes redecorating look soooo easy... but I guess they have a bigger crew than one!

Anyway I was determined to finish - so with a lot of running up and down stairs - it's just about done. I had several projects so I thought you might like to see the results.

Here's the room from the doorway. The walls are light gray and the curtains are sheers with a geometric pattern from Target. The bedskirt is a dark gray fabric from Ikea and made using this tutorial.

The pillows... I just love that Sprocket pillow from Cluck Cluck Sew. It's a free tutorial and really easy!

I decided to use stick on wall art, so there's no chance of pictures falling off the wall or being knocked down by little hands. They're cheap too! A pink square painted on the wall with vinyl decals from Etsy here and here. "M" and "E" are the girls' initials, but if you're staying in the room you can say it's for "ME".

This cute side table was from Home Goods. It was one of those things I looked at several times and in a panicked moment ran over to get it just in case!

We had this rocking chair that almost everyone has and found this tutorial and spruced it up (sorry I can't say pimped about this cute room!)

My husband and I have dabbled in wood working and built an easy book rack using this tutorial. I love how it shows off the books.

And on the opposite side of the room is an old dresser that I convinced my husband to let me paint white. You see he had painted it blue for his Mom at one point and then stripped it for me when we had our first baby. Now it's white and sporting pink glass knobs from Anthropologie.

Oh and you may have noticed the lack of a quilt in the room. I'm working on that!