Spinning My Wheels

Tags

antique quilts, binding, Brimfield Star, Drop and Give Me 20, labels, Member Showcase, pre-cuts, quilting, Snow, V is for Victory

My car was here…

We had a mighty snow this past week.  Our town got 31″, but it was light and fluffy.  Instead of shoveling, I just cleared off my car and drove out of it.

I wish I could do that with other areas of my life, but dry snow has so much more traction than some of the other things I’m up to.

First off, Drop and Give Me 20 starts tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow is a whole new month, and you can re-dedicate yourself to spending a little time with your quilting projects… as I am going to.

Label for Brimfield Star

I have been spinning my wheels trying to get my head around this quilt talk thing when I really should be looking at it as just a show-and-tell. I guess I’ve been making additional work for myself because of it.

I don’t usually put labels on my quilts unless they are going out of my apartment so for this talk I had to make at least 12-15 labels, which was daunting. Instead of hand printing the labels, I borrowed a friend’s Bubble Jet Set and grabbed some free clip art from the web, added my information in Photoshop and ta-da… all I have left to do is sew them on.

It was so easy and fun, I may make up a tutorial (but don’t hold your breath!)

Speaking of tutorials… I was supposed to discuss using pre-cut fabrics to make V is for Victory.

How many and which pre-cuts you use depends on how scrappy you want the quilt. This chart is JUST for the color Vs, and for the size shown in my last post.

Pre-Cut	Number (per pre-cut)	How Many For Quilt	fabric leftover (each)
5″ square (charm)	1	270	2.5″ square plus 0.5” x 2.5”
2.5″ strip	6 (cut 2.5″x7″ per block)	45	2.5×2″ (assuming 44″ WOF)
10″ square (layer cake)	5	3″ square plus 0.5” x 7”	114
18″x 22″ (Fat Quarter)	21	0.5” x 22” x 18 x 1”	13
Yardage 3.125yds x 44″	270	1

If you go with some of the larger pre-cuts like fat quarters, or layer cakes, perhaps you can get a group together to make the quilt and trade fabric.

I’ll reserve discussion about the background and “on-point” triangles for another post.

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V is for Victory

Tags

A Tribute to Mary Ellen Hopkins, binding, longarm quilting, Meezer Teaser Balls, paper piecing, piecing, quilting, Spirographology, UFO. WIP, V is for Victory

I’m calling this quilt V is for Victory, but, in truth, I don’t know who made it or where it’s from.

Those of you who are connected to me on Facebook, or who have been looking at the Chelmsford Quilters’ Guild page there, know that a friend of mine posted the photo of a quilt she really liked and wanted to know how to make it.

It’s actually a very easy block, complicated only by an “on point” setting, and, if you like it scrappy, you can use 5″ charm squares or 2.5″ strips, or even the 10″ layer cake squares that Cricket and I run the raffle for at the Guild meetings.

For those of you who have been quilting a while, I suspect you see right away that this block is the start of a Log Cabin block using 2″ finished blocks/strips.

You only need three pieces for this block: two of the same fabric and one background.

For those of you who didn’t see that right away, I’ll lay it out for you:

Each block contains 3 pieces: 2 2.5″ squares and one 2.5 “x 4.5″ rectangle. There are 270 blocks in the quilt as shown. (There is also no reason to be intimidated by the task of making so many blocks. Just make as many as you want, and your quilt will be either smaller or larger.)

First you will need to choose a background fabric.  In the first photo, the background fabric is a solid black.  For my test shots, I used white on white leftovers. You only need one 2.5” square of your background fabric per block.

In fact, I used only scraps. I have quite a few scraps which I really should give away, but I can’t seem to part with since, well, it’s fabric.

For the scrap fabric you will need one 2.5″ square and one 2.5″ x 4.5″ rectangle (in a future post I’ll talk about how to cut this block from pre-cuts and how many you will get and what you will have left over.)

From there you only need to sew 2 seams:

1. Put the two 2.5″ squares together and sew a quarter-inch seam on one side.
   I usually press after this step, but it doesn’t particularly matter which side you press your seams to, or even if you press them open.  All have their merits.
2. Sew the unit you put together in the last step to the remaining rectangle.
   If you have sewn your seam “correctly” at 1/4″, the two pieces should line up exactly.  If you haven’t, don’t bother trimming until after you sew the long seam, just center the short seam to the long side of the rectangle and sew.
   Again, I press after this step.

I don’t usually trim until I have several blocks finished. That way, if I’m off in my seam allowance, I can trim all the blocks to the same size.

And that’s one block! You only have 269 more to go!

This is a great quilt to chain piece.  I would probably line up at least 10 blocks to sew step one, and then another 10 blocks to sew step 2. That way I would only need to cut out/set up 10 blocks out each day, and I’d finish 10 blocks each day.

So, there you have it, Pat.  That’s how to make the block.  I’ll talk about cutting and setting in another post.

In other news: I’ve finished Meezer Teaser Ball #25, and now that I have approval of the wording on the tags, all I have to do is print them out, put them on and ship the whole kit and caboodle to the SCRC.

I’ll let you know how much they’ll end up charging and when they go on sale when I know myself.

I have decided not to stress myself and finish 2 more quilts before my babble in February. I am now hoping just to finish Spirographology. That should take some of the stress off since I will have three bindings (two I’ve been putting off to play with Meezer Teaser Balls), and the label project.

I also started the border for A Tribute to Mary Ellen Hopkins. I kind of like it even though I’m not really a fan of paper piecing.

 

First Quarter of 2015

Tags

Borderpalooza, EQ7 printing problems, hand piecing, Meezer Teaser Balls, Member Showcase, NaNoWriMo, quilting, speaking, Tribute to Mary Ellen Hopkins, V is for Victory, writing

The Meezer Teaser Project grows!

Rather than make resolutions for 2015, I’ve decided to simply keep on with my “to do” list and look over my accomplishments for the past year.

My first really good idea for the year, actually started last year.  I’m working on the Meezer Teaser balls for the Siamese Cat Rescue Society in VA. I’ve put on my “to do” list to make 25 of them by mid-January so they can start testing the waters. I’m up to 23, so I should make it.

Next up, I’m scheduled to talk at the Member showcase at my Guild in February. I have been working on showing more finished quilts than tops, and I have finished 13 projects last year, so my “show” will have actual quilts outnumbering tops.  I am hoping to get 2 more quilted (and finishing two that are quilted that just need binding.)

If you are in northeastern MA/southern NH the area, please feel free to join us. The odds are currently 4 to 1 that I will spend some portion of the presentation babbling. (Seriously, if you want more details, email me.)

BorderPalooza continues with “A Tribute to Mary Ellen Hopkins”

My biggest promise to myself is to schedule time with my friend Valerie. We have been on different schedules for so long, I barely remember what she looks like, and I promised I’d help her make a Double Wedding Ring quilt.

I’m also going to continue BorderPalooza since I’m so close to having all my tops that have the center done, but still need borders.

I finally figured out how to save stuff in PDF and how to print from my laptop in EQ7, so I expect some of the ideas I’ve noodled with will be turned into quilts.

The biggest use I’ve made of it for the past month has been trying out borders for the BorderPalooza quilts, of which there are only two left!)

This will leave me with 5 projects which need more work, and 15 tops which only need to be quilted and bound. Yeah, I guess I can start something else…

Also, I plan to return to writing.  I guess I got a little burned out on NaNoWriMo this year and I found myself forcing myself to write. All the joy had fled.  I took a couple of weeks off (well, three) and now I’m back (I hope) both creatively and technically.

This means, of course, that I will be posting tutorials here (next up how to rotary cut pentagons… probably in a couple of weeks… and the V is for Victory quilt for Pat.)

Sorry so few pictures this time!