Saturday, July 27, 2013

All About Chickens

Yeh!!  We have eggs -- not the LARGE brown eggs we were told we'd have  -- but we did get two eggs.

And these two roosters were suppose to be hens!!  Their names are Curly (because he has a curly tail) and Roo (who use to be sweet but is now mean and may be headed for the "pot"!).
 
 

Curly is on the right and Roo is walking away. 

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Split Four Patch

I love this technique.  I believe this technique is shown in one of Missouri Quilt Company's videos, but it may have come from the Moda Bake Shop.  You make four patches using two background and two of the same fabric to make the four patch.  Then you cut the four patches 1-1/4" in all directions from the seam lines.  Then re-sew.  It was fun to do!!  But I did end up with two quilts because I made 100 blocks but I cut some at 1-1/4" and some at 1-1/2".  Here is the baby quilt using the 1-1/4" cuts:
I did a panto (Bubbles by Lorien Quilting) on this baby quilt.  I NEVER do pantos and it is so obvious from this little quilt why I don't.  I am absolutely no good at following a panto!!!  My hat is off to everyone who does pantos.  I will custom quilt the large quilt and will post pictures when it is quilted.
I am on a mission to use up scraps this year.  I think I have used 45 yards thus far (even though I have added some yardage).  YES!!!!  But, unfortunately, I don't miss any of the 45 yards!

Tube Quilt

I used strip tubes to make this quilt using the book Strip Tubing by Cozy Quilt Designs.  I would not use this method again.  Even with lots of starch, I still had stretching.  Next time I would cut triangles from my sewn 2-1/2" strips.  I would have a bias on two sides with this method.  I would then cut squares from my background and cut them twice diagonally to get four triangles.  This way, I would have bias against bias and the outside edges would be on straight of grain.  Here it is:



I used up lots of fabric from my scrap pile!!  You can see the waves in my binding, too.  I tried two new methods combined.  I used Edyta Sitar's method of sewing a single layer of binding to the quilt, then folding the remainder in half to the sewn line, thus alleviating some of the bulk.  Then I used Sharon Schambler's method of gluing it down before stitching to the back.  Lots of extra work.  I won't do the gluing anymore but I might give Edyta Sitar's method another try.
Let's just say, this is not my favorite quilt!!  But it is kinda masculine -- maybe a Quilts of Valor quilt.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

St. Jude's Opportunity Quilt

I used two layers of batting - Hobbs 80/20 on bottom and a Hobbs poly on top to get a trapunto effect.  I really like how it turned out.  Hope St. Jude's Catholic Church in Martin, TN makes lots of $$$ on this one.



HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Rose of Sharon Finished!

Are you as tired of this quilt as I am????  Really, I don't know what else could have gone wrong.  Remember the triangles I put in the sashing that I didn't like and had to remove?  When I put in the first sashing, this little voice kept saying, "This doesn't look good."  But did I listen?  No!!  I quilted all the sashings except the last row.  Then I decided to try a feather.  Voila!  Liked it.  But now I had all those sashings to remove.   Took me a few days to get all of them unsewn.  Then I couldn't find the fabric for the binding, but found a piece of the red used in the little churn dashes.  But I wanted the faux piping.  I had  lot of the sashing fabric left but have searched everywhere and could not find it.  But found a similar fabric and used it for the faux piping.  Anyway, here are pictures of the finishd quilt.