I found a great tutorial to share with you! At “The Sometimes Crafter” Tutorial :: Fabric Scrap Basket
You may have seen it already, or something like it (the tutorial is dated 2009), but if you haven’t tried it yet…you should! (more…)
I’ve been working on the Farmer’s Wife Sampler, do you want to see my blocks? (more…)
Last weekend when my husband and oldest son went on a trip, Brennan and I got a little extra “project time”…here are few of the fun projects we did. (more…)
“Zig Zag Wave Cushion” Project Quilting 3:6
March 26th, 2012 | Posted by in Quilting | Uncategorized - (0 Comments)
The last challenge of season three was to play with zig zags. I had seen zig zags made with half square triangles and thought it looked pretty fun. I also just got a hand-me-down charm pack (Thank you, Veronica!) so I decided to use it for this challenge. Lastly, I had seen this video from Missouri Star Quilt Company about how to make half-square triangles from charms….that’s how it all started. (more…)
“Garden, Crop” Project Quilting 3:5
March 20th, 2012 | Posted by in Quilting | Uncategorized - (1 Comments)
The theme of “Where you Live” is expressed in this piece through the lavender, my favorite plant in my garden, and my favorite crop of Iowa, the corn. I live on corn all summer.
I live on Eighty first court in Urbandale, Iowa. The challenge for this quilt to choose colors for each of the letters in your address sounded like it would be a tough one for E, U, I!! But when I found a list of colors on Wikipedia, it was actually really fun. I decided to choose three colors that I hadn’t heard of before. Eton Blue (the greenish blue school color of Eton, a prep school in the UK), Ube (a lavender that gets its name from a purple yam in the Phillipines) and Icterine (a bright yellow – I had heard of an Icterine Warbler before, I just didn’t know it referred to the yellow!) (more…)
The theme for Project Quilting Challenge 4 of Season 3 is Barn Quilts. I did some research and found some beautiful barn quilt images from Iowa.
Luchsinger/Butler Barn, Dike Iowa
Bernie & Elaine Schnell, Parkersburg Iowa
So my concept started with a red barn sewing machine cover. I recently read that you should cover your machine to keep out dust. I’ve only ever thought of the dust that accumulates while I’m sewing, but I suppose there is just dust that will get in by sitting out too, so now I will keep it covered more while I’m not using it. I only had one good red fabric, so instead of piecing it together, I just quilted the lines for the slats of the barn wood, horizontal for most of it, vertical for the door. I added white windows and trim, like the Luchsinger barn and so many others. And I just happened to have a nice gray shingle-looking fabric for the roof. I constructed it in three pieces, the middle and two sides. The roof has a peltex stiff interfacing inside it that is pretty stiff. That way, the top is straight like a roof and the sides drape down nicely. Otherwise, I think it would have been lumpy and look more like my sewing machine than a barn.
Here are some photos.
Most barn quilts are painted onto plywood and hung as signs on the barns, so that’s how I did my barn quilts too, sort of! I painted white fabric, then sandwiched it into a little quilt and hung that on the side of the barn with some whipstitching. I like how they stand out a little from the barn. The painting was a little tricky and impossible to get totally smooth lines and pointy points. I taped it down, but it was still painting on fabric. But not as tricky as if I had tried to piece a three inch block that complicated!
Overall, I’m very happy with my new sewing machine cover! And I’m proud to have it done before the Sunday morning deadline!
Wonky, Improvisational, Liberated, Lovin’ It!
February 20th, 2012 | Posted by in Quilting | Uncategorized - (4 Comments)
I’ve been playing in the modern quilter’s world…the piecing that isn’t perfect, just stick it on, sew across and maybe trim…and it’s really, really fun!
From this fabric by Carolyn Gavin called “Spring Street” that had colorful borders…I decided to frame the blocks with a wonky Courthouse Steps.
Which is just a fancy way of saying that I sewed a strip to the top and bottom to each block, then a strip to each side, then to the top and bottom, over and over. I tried to make the strips all different sizes and colors in each block, so they are really fun and interesting to look at.
I only had half as many panels as I need to finish the quilt, so I am making plain courthouse steps for every other block…
So it will look like this:
Another fun block is the Wonky Roman Stripe, from “Block Party: The Modern Quilting Bee” (Love this book by the way!!)
Sew strips onto one side of a triangle and then trim into a square.
So, I’ve stayed away from this kind of project for a little longer than necessary, just because I really didn’t like the word “W0nky” to describe it, but improvisational, liberated or modern, whatever you want to call it, it really is fun to just get piecing and not need it to be perfectly straight or matched up.
Have you tried it? What blocks have you made “Wonky?”
It’s a day late, but I want to wish you, my quilting friends…
a Happy Valentine’s Day!
I love you all!
- Emma
mmmm PIE
For the Project Quilting Challenge theme of “Tools”, I chose pie-making tools as my subject. Pies are a big deal in my family; my mom is an expert pie-maker. We all love to eat pies on holidays. I have been making them for years and I’m fine at it, but it’s never quite as good as my mom’s pie. This year for Christmas she gave me a few tools of the trade, so maybe someday my pies will come close to the quality of hers!
I also enjoy making pies because it seems like such an old-fashioned homemaker-thing to do, so I made this quilt a little old-fashioned too with hand-quilting and a little primitive style. Because of all the hand-stitching I planned to do (and to give it a more kitcheny heritage) the quilt sandwich is made with kitchen-towel woven cotton for the batting. That made it a breeze to stitch through, but gave it a nice quilt weight too.
This mini quilt is 16″ x 19″
I gave it some three-dimensional details, such as the braid for the pie crust….I wish I could make pretty fluted crust edges like my mom can do!! The pastry blender has real wires. They are plastic-coated wires so they won’t rust on my quilt! The rolling pin is stuffed to be slightly rounded. The rolling cloth is the same kitchen towel fabric that is inside the quilt. I hemmed it before sewing on the appliqué to make it look more like a kitchen cloth.
One of my favorite features is the bottom border fabric. It is a leftover from the first curtain I made from my very first kitchen!
I hung it in my dining room recently because I had to wash my other cafe curtain. Look at that cute patchwork! It’s so fun to see old fabric like that be put to another good use. I love my new PIE quilt!
See the other Project Quilting entries at www.KimsCraftyApple.blogspot.com or The Project Quilting Flikr Group.
Oh, and I think you should see my mom, Ginny, the master pie-maker that inspired me to make this quilt. Here she is with her grandson. I’m pretty sure there was a pie in the oven when this photo was taken!
You may remember some of those Quilt-a-longs I told you about…are you doing any? Here’s a few of the projects I made…
I’m not very far on Kim’s House & Tree Quilt-a-long, because the blocks are each so much piecing for just one block. This is the only one I have done so far, besides the tree I designed. I’ve started on several others, but they are very involved!
Those are the four Farmer’s Wife blocks I’ve finished so far. They were pretty addicting, I made three in one evening because I just wanted to keep going. These are each pretty involved too!
This was my first, I just had to use that paisley. Then I decided to use more of the cream background on the next one. I’ll have to mix it up, some with the cream, some without or this first one will stick out like a sore thumb!
And remember the “Sew Scraps Along” at Pleasant Home? I loved her blog posts…so many great ideas for scraps!! There was one that I couldn’t resist last week, even though I really didn’t need to start another project!
http://www.pleasant-home.com/2012/01/scrappy-mug-mat-tutorial.html
I love the new tricks I learned from that one cute little project….using interfacing to sew straight and easy small squares together and using ric rac as trim for an envelope turned quilt. I think I will try making a quiltie that way!!
Here’s a few photos of the scrappy mugs mats I made:
I tried another way of quilting the second pink one. I like them both, but the straight lines were definitely easier than trying to hit those diagonals (without marking.)
I actually made four, but Brennan carried away the first blue one I made. It is currently the rug in a miniature box house he’s playing with!
After making blocks that aren’t really a finished project when you’re done, these little mug mats are very satisfying!
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