4500 Block

Today, after a productive day of working at home during yet another snow storm, I managed to put together the 4500 celebration block in the Carol Doak Yahoo group.  I've been in a paper piecing kick lately and thought this would be another quick, easy evening project.  Here it is.

I originally had a dark purple instead of the blue.  The purple ended up being too dark, so I pulled them all out and threw the blue in instead.  I like the blue better then the purple.  It looks better in person.  For some reason the color is a little off and makes this blue look more baby blue like then the brighter blue that it really is.  

Here's a close-up of the block.  You can see how the blue matches with the border fabric in this picture, although the color is still off somewhat.  

I'm thinking of putting some sort of fun applique in the center of the block to add another dimension.  Any suggestions?  Another star would be the obvious choice.  Any other suggestions?  Nothing too big though.

February BOM

The February BOM was posted early as Carol is traveling right now.  It was designed to be red, white, and blue on the bottom to symbolize President's day.  I, like many others, decided to do it in a Valentines theme.  I didn't want to do another red, white, and blue block because the November one was that way for the election and I'm sure the July one will be as well.  Here it is...

I'm sorta hoping that the next few blocks aren't houses.  I'd rather they be more scenic, since this is a "scenic block of the month."  So far 3 out of 5 of the blocks have been houses.  I'll just have to see...

Happy Hour & Paper Plate Quilting

I finished piecing together all of the Happy Hour quilt today.  Talk about an easy quilt.  I think it will be a perfect quilt to start my mom off with.  Here are a few pictures of it up on my design wall.  I'm still moving some of the blocks around until I get an arrangement that I'm satisfied with.  I think I'm getting there.  It's probably going to be one of those quilts where I am going to need to tell myself to just stop and stop moving things around.  

   

Also, I promised I'd show how I use paper plates to help me organize my quilting.  It's a technique that I learned during my first quilting class several years ago.  

The general idea is to use the plates to organize your fabric.  Depending on the quilt, I'll either use one plate for one block, as in this example for the Happy Hour quilt or for one particular piece that's reoccurring in many blocks.  

You'll see that I have one block on each paper plate stacked in this first picture. It helps me to keep the order of the blocks in the same order the whole time while I'm chain piecing.  The stack of plates up front are the blocks yet to be sewn and the blocks in the back have already been sewn.  

The second picture shows how I stack the plates with the different blocks.  It doesn't wrinkle the fabric, which is a major plus. In stacking the plates it really does a good job of keeping everything together.

 

In this third picture you'll see a number on the plate left over from a previous project that I also used these plates for.  I was creating a quilt in which I needed to sort out the different shapes.  This is extremely helpful when you have, for example, 2 inch and 2 1/4 inch squares cut out of the same fabric.  By putting all of the 2 inch squares on one plate and labeling them and putting the 2 1/4 squares on another, you're able to easily tell them apart without having to measure all the time.  Again, you can stack them to save space, which is helpful during classes, retreats, or just in a small quilting space.  

I hope this tip helps some of you out there. Happy Quilting!

  

Box of Roses & Happy Hour Quilts

So I've had a couple of outings after work this week on top of not feeling that well leaving me little time to quilt this week.  I did manage to get almost all of the "Box of Roses" quilt.  I think I've finally decided to name the quilt I've been referring to as the mystery quilt "Box of Roses."  I quilted all of the inside and the inner border.  I just have to finish the outer border, trim, and bind.  

I'm going to be glad to be done with this quilt.  The machine quilting has been a pain in the you know what.  I've had so many issues with my tension.  I even got the screwdriver and cleaned out the machine to see if it was dirty or something inside was a little off.  I tried adjusting just about everything.  I think I've finally got it on the right settings.  

After a while of quilting this quilt tonight I really needed a brake from it.  Ever have one of those quilts where you're just ready to move on?  Of course you have, that's why we all have those famous UFOs.  

I decided to work on a tester quilt.  I'm going to be teaching my mom to quilt this year, so I thought I'd test out an easy pattern to see if it would be a good first quilt.  Ok, so I knew it would be, I just wanted to make the quilt.  There, I said it.  I've seen quite a few people making these quilts on a bunch of different blogs and I got the book for Christmas from my aunt, so why not.  

What is this quilt you're asking?  Why it's the Happy Hour Snapshots quilt from Atknson Designs.  I don't have a picture of all the fabric, but here's one pic I took of my strip piecing.  The quilt is being made with browns, reds, greens, and tans made out of the "Shaken Not Stirred" Sweet Treat from the pincushon boutique with a few fat quarters added in.

I'll have a tutorial for you soon on how I use paper plates to help me organize and keep track of different cuts of fabric while quilting.  It's a technique that I learned during my first quilting class several years ago.  People always think it's cleaver when they see how it's used to keep organized, so I thought I'd share.  

Caught up on BOM

I'm finally caught up on the Scenic BOM that I started a week or two ago.  It started on October, and tonight I finally finished the last block I needed to catch up on, November.  It took a while for me to figure out what fabric I wanted for this block.  It also took a while for me to get motivated on this one because it was my least favorite of all the blocks so far, so I put it off to the end.  I think it ended up coming up cute.

I tried to make it more fall-like with the colors.  I was afraid that it would look too 4th of July with the flag that was supposed to be for the election instead. 

Here's a picture of all of them together to date: 

I've also been working on the machine quilting to the mystery quilt.  Here's a close up of one of the blocks.  It looks a little distorted in the picture for some reason and this was the best picture I got.  I think the settings were messed up on my camera.  I have to mess around with the settings.