Friday, September 27, 2013

Rotherfield Greys Center

I have been working on the center of the Rotherfield Greys quilt from Di Ford's book, Primarily Quilts.  I love all of the quilts from her book, but this quilt has everything:  English paper piecing, applique',  traditional piecing and lots of different fabrics.



I've been making 1/2" hexagons for this quilt and another project for awhile.  I talked about them in this post.



Here are a couple of photos of the quilt from Di's book.







I hope you are finding some time to stitch today!  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sue Daley Was Here!!

I've been having the best time the last few days.  Back Door Quilts in Greenwood invited Sue Daley of Patchwork with Busy Fingers from Australia to lecture and teach this weekend.   Her quilts are loaded with interesting English Paper Piecing shapes and beautiful applique', two things that I love.

Of course, along with the lecture there were quilts.  This is the quilt that I chose to make in class on Saturday.  It's called It Takes Two.



Some of the girls made Under the Southern Stars.


This is Duke Road.  A couple of the girls were working on this one in class.  It was really hard to choose just one.


Here is Sue at the lecture on Thursday evening.  


Antique Sampler.  I love this quilt and remembered during the lecture that I have the pattern for it.  It was nice to see it "in person".


Pies and Tarts.  I have the pattern and paper pieces for it, too.  


This one is called One Day at a Time.  I really like the colors, hexagons and red work in this one.


Sue showed several small projects using English Paper Piecing including this hexagon purse.


These two small bags have apple cores and clam shells. 


I love this little thread catcher and will probably make one of these because it is just so cute.  Those are 1/2" hexagons on the sides with pockets to hold your glue stick, rulers, pens and other gadgets.



Here are Teri and Linda, owners of the Back Door, looking at Sue's revolving cutting mat and a bolt of fabric with great possibilities for fussy cutting.



And, I know you are wondering what I did in class.  Well, I imagine most of you that are reading this post have taken a class or attended a retreat before......so you know how it goes.  I took a tote bag of fabric that would have lasted me for a month to a one day class, so I had a wide variety of fabrics plus a few that I bought at Back Door yesterday.  I made one ring from two different Fig Tree jelly rolls and part of a ring from some Moda red and teal fabrics along with some golds and tans.  I think one will probably be a quilt and the other a table runner.  Anyway, you all know the point was to spend time with Sue after she came all the way from Australia and to learn from her, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.


I hope you are finding some time to stitch or to glue some fabric for English Paper Piecing.  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!  

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Making Bean Bags

The other afternoon before I went to babysit with my grandson, I made  some bean bags for him to play with.  I made 8 bean bags in no time.  Here is how I did it.



I cut two 5 inch squares from each of the fabrics you see below.  I also cut two 5 inch squares of muslin for each bean bag.  This would be a good charm pack project.



I had to go out and buy the muslin, and while I was there I saw the Sesame Street fabric and couldn't resist buying just a bit of that, too.


I chain sewed the muslin with a 1/2" seam allowance.  


If you start on one side of the square and sew a few stitches on that fourth side, it makes it easier to turn the edges under and machine sew them when they are full of the beans.



Put 3/4 cup of lentils or other dried beans in each bag.
 
Then I just rolled the edge under and sew.  Sometimes those beans took on a life of their own when they were put under that presser foot.






Daniel is almost 18 months so I thought we could play..."throw the (fill in the color) bean bag"


I had a bit of leftover wrapping paper and covered a box so we could make a game out of it.  Daniel had fun playing bean bag and also enjoyed pushing the cat around in the box.

I know that Cornhole is really popular, and if you have someone that is good at woodworking you can make a game board pretty easily.  If you just Google Cornhole game, I'm sure there are some measurements and/or directions on line to make a board.  


I know you don't really need a tutorial to make a bean bag, but I've been busy and have been doing some hand work in the evenings so there isn't really a lot to show yet.
 

I hope you are finding some time to stitch!

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Road 66 Hexagons


In between other projects, I've been glue basting and sewing together more hexagons for my Road 66 quilt.  Fussy cutting and gluing these hexagons is very addictive.  Whenever we go out in the car, I take along a container of hexagons, paper pieces and a glue stick, and I'm amazed at how many I can get done in even a few minutes.



I have begun to look at fabric in a different way since I bought Di Ford's book, Primarily Quilts.  Before studying her fabric choices, I would never have chosen a fabric like the stripe in the hexagon below.  Now I look for stripes in my stash.




I know from working on my Dear Jane quilt that everyone says not to save the 52 triangles on the outer edge until last.  I learned that one the hard way, so I decided I would cut the off white hexagons that frame all 18 of the large flowers in the quilt and start sewing them on as I go along instead of waiting until the end.   
 
  I'm working on a couple of other things that I will show you soon.

 I hope you are all enjoying some nice weather like we are having here in the Midwest and finding some time to stitch.

Thanks for visiting!

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