Here are pictures of each of the 24 blocks that make up the Civil War pot holder quilt that I just finished, and how each one was quilted. A few still have some chalk markings on them.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Civil War Pot Holder Quilt (8/8/12)
Finished up my Civil War repro pot holder quilt last night. I’ll make a label for it this evening and hopefully get it attached during tonight’s Olympic coverage. Each of the blocks were done as an individual unit – which resembled a pot holder, thus the name. They are each layered with batting and backing, quilted, and completely bound.
Here’s what the back looked like before they were all stitched together …
All of the materials for this quilt were purchased at Good Wives Co. (Marion, Ohio) … which has quickly become one of my favorite shops.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Love, Love, Love Aurifil!
Here are a few pictures of some of the Aurifil thread in my collection. I love the 50 wt. cotton and the wool.
Friday, August 3, 2012
How I Process (cut) Fat Quarters
Whenever I get new fat quarters, roughly half of them get cut up to be used in various scrappy projects. The sizes that I tend to need are 10” squares, 5” squares (nickels), and 2½” strips.
I typically do NOT prewash my fabrics.
I iron my fat quarters with Best Press.
I lay the fat quarter wrong side down on the cutting mat. Typically I will stack and cut 4-5 fat quarters at a time. The 18” side is at the edge of the table.
After I’ve stacked the fat quarters that I wish to cut, I fold them over … giving me an 18” long folded edge.
I place my Shape Cut Plus ruler over the stacked and folded fat quarters …
and make four cuts – at the 0”, 10”, 15” and 17½” marks.
Voila, now I have three segments to be sub-cut -- a 10” x 22” stack; a 5” x 22” stack and a 2½” x 22” stack.
My 2½” strips get put in a small bin.
The 5” x 22” stack gets sub-cut into two stacks of 5” squares (or nickels). I use the Quarter Cut ruler, making three cuts – at the 0”, 5” and 10” marks as indicated.
The resulting nickel squares get put in one of my Civil War repro nickel square bins.
All that is left is the 10” x 22” stack. I sub-cut that also. I use my Shape Cut Plus ruler to cut at the 0” and 10” marks. This gives me a nice stack of 10” squares to put in my 10” square bin.
At this point I pull out the Shape Cut ruler and cut a few things from this remaining section of my fat quarter stack. By cutting at the 0” and 5” marks, it gives me a 5” strip from which I can cut two more little stacks of nickel squares. I *could* cut yet ANOTHER 5” strip by making a cut at the 10” mark, but since I’m cutting pieces for a Tumbler quilt right now, I need a strip that is 4½” wide. So I make a cut at 9½” instead, which leaves me with enough space to cut a 2” strip at the end. (*If your fabric shop has cut generously, you may have enough to cut another 2½” strip. If you pre-wash your fabrics, you may only have enough room for a 1” or 1½” strip at this point.)
Here’s how it looks when I remove the ruler.
Here are the 5” squares being sub-cut down into two stacks of 5” squares using the Quarter Cut ruler.
And they go into one of my 5” nickel square bins.
The 2” strips go into a project bin for a Spool Block project that I’m collecting for.
And that 4½” x 22” segment that I mentioned earlier gets sub-cut into Tumbler blocks using the Creative Grids Tumbler ruler.
When the ruler is removed, you can see that I get two little stacks of tumblers. Some excess waste on the right edge goes into the trash. The excess on the left side is big enough that I’m saving those scraps for a neat project that I will be starting soon!
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Two Summer Star BOW blocks done …
Seeing as the third block will be posted on Friday, I’m glad that I got the first two done. Between the power outage, flu bug, and meetings … I’m really not keeping up with things.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
July QST’s ready to mail …
Got my July QST’s done and ready to mail out tomorrow. Normally I get them done early in the month – but the loss of electricity really threw me off my schedule.
Featured on Facebook
So I’m scrolling down through my Facebook feed this afternoon after lunch, and I see that one of the pictures that I submitted to HandiQuilter was chosen to be added to their on-line photo album.
This is the Row By Row quilt that I made. (details can be found elsewhere on my blog as to the pattern details – probably posted in late August, 2011) This was actually done as a 2½” strip swap in a on-line group where we exchanged 2½” strips of 1930’s repro prints.
I’m just so tickled that one of my quilts was chosen. This is actually the second quilt of mine that has been chosen to be featured on their Facebook wall. Woo Hoo!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Bored? Me? Never …
At the risk of everyone thinking that I’ve been sitting around bored to tears the last couple of weeks … banish the thought! I’ve actually had a couple of different projects going.
1) I’m still working on the Civil War repro potholder quilt. All 24 blocks are pieced, quilted and bound, and I’ve begun the process of stitching them together. I’m starting by attaching two blocks together at a time. (twosies?) I think I’ve got about 7 groups of two stitched together at this point. I would have been further along but this cold has had me feeling rather tired at the end of the day, and I haven’t gotten a whole lot of stitching done.
2) My new Log Cabin Trim Tool (by Creative Grids) was just calling out to me during the power outage … so I had to start on a log cabin quilt as soon I as I was able. This is the preliminary layout so far. Still not sure if I’ll stay with this particular design – since there are soooooo many Log Cabin layout options available. I don’t think I’ve done this one yet though. I’m using stuff from my Civil War repro stash.
And here’s a picture of the great ruler from Creative Grids. Well first, I’m a Creative Grids Ruler Addict (there really does need to be some support group I think), and when I saw it at the NQA show, I just had to have it. It really helped that a lady walked up to me and asked if I’d like to see a demo of this ruler in use. Once I saw it – I had to have it! (my husband just rolled his eyes and got ready to pull out the credit card!)
Friday, July 6, 2012
Wicked Weather, Wicked Week …
I haven’t blogged for a few days … and it’s been quite a time. We lost power from a severe thunderstorm on June 29th. around 5:30 in the afternoon. We were without power until around 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 3rd. The heat and humidity was so intense that it just made us all miserable. By Monday night I was really worrying about the dogs, because they were suffering. Initial estimates were indicating that we wouldn’t get our power back until July 8th., so we were thrilled when it came back on July 3rd. Needless to say we had to spend Tuesday cleaning out the refrigerator … nearly everything had to go.
Hubby stopped at the grocery on the way home from work on Tuesday to buy some milk, Gatorade and the stuff we needed to make for the Fourth of July picnic the next day. Other than that, only a few sauces remained from before the outage.
The freezer was wiped out too …
We went to a family picnic in Medina on the Fourth of July, and had a less than pleasant time. There were parts of the day that were nice, and memorable … but other parts were quite upsetting. We stopped at Friendly’s for supper on the way back home. That was fantabulous as always!! We made it home just a short while before another HUGE storm hit. And of course, we lost power AGAIN. It was out from about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday night until about 1:30 a.m. early Thursday morning. We couldn’t believe it when the power went out … we did not want to face the prospect of being out for another several days. (we’ve lived through that experience before … with two extended outages back to back)
By midnight on the Fourth, my slight cold had developed into a major case of the sniffles. I spent most of the day Thursday trying to get back on track with life. But not feeling the greatest had me moving rather slow. And while working on some lineage society applications right before supper, the power went out AGAIN. Thankfully for only about 45 minutes this time. I was about ready to scream.
On Thursday morning, hubby left early to take his paycheck to the bank. A hummingbird decided to fly into the garage while the door was open .. so periodically throughout the day I was also doing various things to try to solve that problem. And we had to take Toby for an unexpected trip to the vet’s office around noon on Thursday, after we noticed blood droplets on the floor wherever he stood. Turns out he has abscessed anal glands. They gave him a pain killer shot to help with the discomfort, and are putting him on antibiotics for a few days to clear up the infection.
I was supposed to have a quilting day with my charity pot holder group today … but we ended up cancelling because the building only has partial electricity from all of the outages in our area. I guess it was just as well. I ended up taking a really long nap today – from about 10:00 a.m. ‘til about 1:00 p.m.
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