Wednesday, January 18, 2012

WIP Wednesday

Have you seen the movie, "The King's Speech?"  Remember how the King learned he could speak without stammering if he was swearing?  Well -- that's what happened in my sewing room today, and without a stammer.

I am making Nancy Mahoney's American Valor quilt for one of the sailor's on my son's ship, the carrier USS George Washington.  I  wanted to use the same fabrics as in the pattern, so I spent hours on etsy and ebay finding the exact same Red Rooster American Valor fabrics.  But for some reason I didn't order enough of one of the fabrics!  Rats!  Big hairy rats!  So when I started cutting the secondary blocks, I ran out of the cream fabric. Luckily I found another yard available online.

This is what I got done today: 


Well, I did get one block completed:


This wasn't supposed to be a "slow quilting" project, but it is turning out that way.  I've linked to Lee's Work in Progress Wednesday (click on that button over there on the right), so you can see what other quilters accomplished today.

Modern Triangles QAL

A Girl in Paradise is sponsoring a Modern Triangles Quilt-A-Long.  Fabric selection and instructions begin January 20.  Down there on the right is a button to go to the QAL.  A girl is using fabrics from Happy Mochi Yum Yum, which I just happen to have in my stash, so I think I'll use similar fabrics.  Oh my!  January 20 is day after tomorrow -- I can't wait!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Tuesday Tool

But first:

Thank you, Noelle!

I joined a new class today at High Country Quilts,  "Crazy for Wool."  Each season, we will make a "table topper" quilt.  Here is the first one, for Spring:


More details to follow as the project progresses.  But first (really!) -- our clever teacher, Joyce, demonstrated a nifty new tool for squaring up half-square triangles.  The HSTs in the pinwheels for this quilt are 1 1/2".  The designer calls for making them a little larger and trimming them to size.  Enter, the Bloc Loc:


See that blurry line across the middle of the template?  It's a channel that rests on top of your seam and holds the ruler perfectly in place while you trim two sides.  Then, rotate the block and the ruler, and:

Trim the other two sides.  I thought maybe it would show up better on the pink mat.  The Bloc Loc comes in several sizes, and they even make one for the dreaded Flying Geese.  Click here to go to the Bloc Loc website and watch their video of how to use this great new tool.

In no time, I had a pile of perfectly trimmed HSTs.  Thanks, Joyce!


Tune in tomorrow to see what happens next.

Monday, January 16, 2012

(New!) Mystery Monday

Hooray, the Wednesday Block-of-the-Month club at Ruth's Stitchery is doing a mystery quilt this year!  And it's by my favorite mystery quilt designer, Debbie Caffrey.

This quilt requires only four fabrics.  I'm using batiks from my stash:

Ginny advised us to put a tiny snippet of each fabric in order on our instruction sheet, as it is easy to get confused as the project progresses.  What a smart idea!  (Umm, yeah, name of quilt covered up by request of designer.  Don't want to spoil the mystery for other quilters.)


Debbie advises, "make a sample to ensure your 1/4" seam is really really 1/4".  Here's mine, perfect!

And here is step one, completed.
Kind of a strange step -- sew two different-sized triangles together?  Oh, well, that's why it's called a mystery. Only six steps to this mystery, I can't wait to see what happens next!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sundays are for Scraps

Remember this photo?

When I started cutting scraps this morning, it was full.  Along with:

and:

I spent the entire day cutting and cutting and wound up with this:

It's hard to tell in the photo, but the stacks of squares are 4-5" high.  That's a lot of squares!  I cut 5 1/2", 5", 4 1/2", 3 1/2", 2 1/2", 2" and 1 1/2" squares; as well as 2 1/2", 2" and 1 1/2" strips.  Whew!

The squares across the bottom will become:


This block is "Crossroads to Jericho," from Anna Lena's tutorial.Go look, I'll wait.

Pretty, isn't it?  Next weekend, my reward for all that cutting will be to put together my own Crossroads to Jericho quilt. After this day, I am determined not to let the scrap bin get that full again!