Nebraska State Quilt Guild Challenge–Kay’s Block

The challenge rules are posted at the bottom of this blog post if you don’t remember from my other posts about this challenge.  Kay is a former art teacher and an artist in her own right as well.  She painted/drew the wonderful grasshopper block.  It is just fabulous, don’t you think?Janet added the pinwheel blocks to border two sides before getting it to me to add another border.  After looking at it on my flannel board for a while I came up with an idea…..circles again.  I love the circles on the original block and wanted to repeat that motif if I could and satisfy another requirement or two for the challenge.
I  had a piece of gradated fabric in the perfect shades of green to use as my background for the circles.  I drew double circles on paper and cut them out to try out arrangements to see what I liked best.  I first settled on just having them float upward and had the papers pinned onto the strip of fabric for several days while I evaluated it. As I was thinking and studying the block I pulled these batiks from my stash as candidates for the circles.   One day as I walked by it occurred to me to have the circles make a path similar to the ones in the original block.Here are the circles made of fabric with fusible on the back and arranged on a diagonal – so much better than just floating straight upward.In this photo they are fused down and then stitched with a machine blanket stitch with it's mirror image using several orange, yellow and green threads I pulled from my thread stash.  Not sure that is the right term for the stitch but it looks like a blanket stitch going both ways out from the straight stitch that runs next to the applique.
Ready to send off to Fay.  One block left to work on but I am wondering if I will be doing circles on that one too!

Until Later,
Lynn

Challenge rules -It is a round robin challenge with a team of 4-5 quilters of your choice.  Each quilt will start with a 9” finished center block.  You will build around the center block using borders with the following shapes—pinwheels, circles, diamonds, applique, and some embellishment.  The front of the quilt must have at least one of each shape listed but you may use more of these shapes if you wish.  Each quilt cannot exceed 120 total inches around.  It must be quilted, bound and a label sewn on the back.

Nebraska State Quilt Guild Challenge–Janet’s Block

Challenge rules for the Nebraska State Quilt Guild 2015 are at bottom of this blog if you don’t remember what they were from my previous post about the challenge. 

I didn’t get a photo of Janet’s block before I added my border but you can figure it out what it was, a pinwheel block.  I added the applique circle flowers, stems and leaves on 3 of the 4 sides of the border.  I again used the dissoluble paper like interfacing inside the leaves and flowers.  The stems are bias cut and tiny.  I had purchased a 1/8” bias maker from Clover and this is the first time I used it and it worked great to make the tiny stems.  The photo above is before appliqueing when everything was glued down using a glue stick. After the applique was done by machine using a clear polyester thread.  I love it and hope Janet does too.

Until later,
Lynn

Challenge Rules - It is a round robin challenge with a team of 4-5 quilters of your choice.  Each quilt will start with a 9” finished center block.  You will build around the center block using borders with the following shapes—pinwheels, circles, diamonds, applique, and some embellishment.  The front of the quilt must have at least one of each shape listed but you may use more of these shapes if you wish.  Each quilt cannot exceed 120 total inches around.  It must be quilted, bound and a label sewn on the back.

Miniature Quilt First Borders

Today I got started working on one of my miniature flower basket quilts again. I had originally planned to put a pieced ring around the basket using two green fabrics but did some rough figuring and decided I didn't have enough fabric to do that and piece an outer border with the same kind of points. The lack of enough fabric forced me to re-plan the setting for this basket block.

Decided to simplify the oval border and and make it from the two colors of the green fabrics. I cut the oval shapes from freezer paper, pressed them to the back of the two greens. Trimmed the seam allowances of two ovals down to 1/8" then used a glue stick to glue those seam allowances over the back of the freezer paper. Glued the two ovals together then positioned them over the basket block and glued them down.

I did the stitching on this double oval with clear polyester thread on top and DMC machine embroidery thread for the bobbin. I chose a neutral color for the bobbin thread to match the background fabric.

I selected the buttonhole stitch on the machine and my settings were .5 width and 1.0 length. I stitched around the inside first then the outside of the ring. At this point I cut a slit around the entire oval on the back to be able to access the freezer paper. Using a stiletto I loosened the glue on the tiny dark green ring and pulled that paper out.

Next I stitched the two rings together using the same stitch but this time I selected a dark gray for my bobbin thread. The reason I changed bobbin thread is that once in a while a bit shows on the right side and a dark gray will blend more with the green fabric and not be as noticeable.

When the stitching was finished I loosened the paper on the larger of the two rings and removed it. Just got this last part done so that is it for tonight. Stay tuned to see what's next.

Know this explanation makes no sense without step by step photos - maybe if I have time soon I can get a proper tutorial done on how I do this kind of machine applique, sometimes called Mock Hand Applique.

This afternoon I took a break from sewing for a few hours to take some photos for my friend that is starting Chemo Therapy on Wed. (She was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy a few weeks ago.) She has really long, thick hair and was going to cut it to shoulder length later today and wanted some photos of what she looked like before the hair cut. She donated the length she had cut off to Locks of Love.

We had a great time traipsing over the farm to find different locations to take a few photos. We got to giggling a few times during the process and agreed I was not a professional photographer and she wasn't a professional model but think we did well in combination.

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

Cajun Beauty - Doll Bed Quilt

I received this cute doll bed from my daughter S one Christmas. She and her husband had purchased it in New Orleans so that is why I named the quilt I made for it "Cajun Beauty".

This photo shows the quilt and the pillow I made to go on this doll bed. As you see it needed to be an oval shape because there was no way to make it drape over the bed.

The tiny oval Mariners Compass block was paper pieced and the swag border pieces were machine appliqued with the invisible applique method. I wasn't happy with how the points looked on the swags after getting them appliqued so decorated the intersection of the points with French Knot flowers and embroidered leaves. Thought that drew the eye away from the points.

I put a few more embroidered French Knot flowers in the center of the compass block and on the pillow to tie it all together. I hand quilted it - something this small doesn't take too long to hand quilt but I did quilt a small feathered swag above and below the compass and that took a little time and finesse.

Until later....
Lynn

Bernina 830 & Miniature Quilt

Well I watched the much hyped Bernina live feed video for their new 830 last night. First it looks like it will be a great machine for those that want and need all the features but the live feed was rather a disappointment. I thought the singing was cheesy and you couldn't really see what the gal was pointing to a lot of the times. Some of the new features do sound great though.

I do agree that it will be fun to actually see one in person but I have no need nor do I want a sewing machine that large or expensive. If I am going to spend that kind of money I would get one of the less expensive long arm machines.

Here are a few photos of the miniature I have been working on and trying to get done by tonight. Want to leave myself some time to collect the stuff I need for the class I am taking at QuiltNebraska and to get my clothes ready on Wed.

This is how I inserted the small 1" star into the quilt. I chose to machine applique it and used freezer paper with a circle drawn on it and ironed it to the back of the quilt in the position I wanted the star. I cut out a circle of fabric leaving a little more than 1/8" to be turned under. Used a glue stick and turned the edges under and glued them to the freezer paper.

This is how it looks from the front before I put the star under the hole.

This next photo is a close up of the star stitched in place. I used clear nylon thread on top and Bottom Line on the bottom and used a small stitch that looks like a button hole stitch. Of course you shorten it to almost nothing and turn the width down to catch only a couple of threads. It is such an easy way to get out of piecing the star into the quilt. With all my seams in the other part I just couldn't figure out how to get it pieced and not have a mess. When things are this small I sometimes have to figure out a better way to get something done and this technique worked for this quilt. Oh, forgot to say that you take the freezer paper out after the stitching is finished. Another thing I did was tip the star over on it's side so I wouldn't have to match the seams - thought that might be just a little too tricky with something this small. Every little imperfection looks large on miniatures.

This last photo is of the quilt before I started quilting on it. I inserted a small gold piece of folded fabric in the seam between the blue and the green. Think I will use a small piece of the same gold near the binding too. Just needed to pull that gold out and use it in the quilt more than in just the star.

Back to the sewing machine as time is getting short.

Lynn

Applique leaves and berries

I finally finished stitching the appliqued leaves and berries to this mystery quilt I started last fall when it was a project for our guild. Had one circle of leaves already done but had put it away for a while to do something else I guess. Pulled it out a few days before I went to Lincoln to get my new machine and started preparing the pieces I needed to finish it. Had all the parts glue sticked (is that a word?) down in readiness when I got the new 730 up and running.

I was rather slow getting all the pieces stitched down as I kept getting sidetracked with something new to learn or find out about the machine. Today I was determined to finish it and get the borders on it. I really don't like the way it turned out as the applique leaves are too much the same as the printed green fabric and don't show up as much as I want - just looks way to busy. When I chose those fabrics I just used what I had in my stash since I live about an hour away from the nearest fabric shop. I had already done the one set of leaves, etc and had to cover a hole I had accidentally poked into the light background so I couldn't take it off and start over. At one time I thought I might applique a vine around the outside edge but am not going to spend the time doing that now.

What I am planning now is to machine quilt the vine using the BSR. I love playing with it and can't wait to quilt an actual quilt with it. I don't have backing for this quilt yet so it will have to wait.

I started this blog the other day and got interrupted and never got back to finish it until now and it is Saturday night already. Don't know how Blogger will post this if it will post it for today or the 5th.

Let me see - what have I done since I finished the quilt....I have done some gardening, cleaning, cooking and laundry for starters. I am working on some coiled mats right now too. Will post photos later as they are gifts.

I did get my class assignments for QuiltNebraska and I was so pleased to get an applique class by Aie Rossmann. It was my most wanted class so was thrilled.

There were not enough sign up for the lecture I was going to do at convention so they had to cancel it. That is ok as I know those things happen. I did get to sign up for a class/lecture in that spot so that is a bright spot. I will be listening to Becky Goldsmith during that time slot and got another lecture by Marsha McCloskey.

I always enjoy QuiltNebraska so much each year and I would hate to miss it now. I have quilt friends that I only see once a year at QNE so look forward to wonderful catching up sessions. I have the same roommates each year and we have roomed together for years and years. I knew one of them from my high school days but met the other two through the Nebraska State Quilt Guild and we have all become good friends.

Another nice thing about QNE is that it moves around the state. Chadron is a favorite of mine - I love the Sand Hills. The college works hard to make the quilters stay comfortable and the town of Chadron is very welcoming.

Guess I had better post this as I am rambling and it is getting late.....

Lynn