I made a little progress on my Shakespeare in the Park quilt top this weekend.  I didn't realize how much more cutting I needed to do.  There were all of the setting triangles and squares still to cut.  So that was how I spent a couple of hours Saturday morning.

According to the pattern directions I was supposed to cut parallelograms and then sub-cut them into triangles. Not going to happen.  In the first place they were to be cut 4 7/8" wide.  I don't like 7/8" of anything.  And since I am doing this scrappy I needed twenty fabrics to get two of each.  Anyway, I cut the first one per the directions so I would have a sample and then I cut the rest my way.

Yes, Judy Martins's parallelogram made great triangles.  But it was a whole lot more work than cutting a 4 3/4" strip and using the Companion Angle ruler.

The 4 3/4" still isn't a great size to cut and have leftovers.  But it's easier to see that mark on a ruler than the 7/8" mark.
After cutting all of the setting pieces that left me laying it all out.  What became very apparent was that this wasn't going to lay out on my bed.  So it ended up on the living room floor. Thank goodness, or I would have been sleeping on the floor. :) The last thing I want to do is lay this out again.

That is a Cabbage Patch doll in a high chair on the left.

I know two pictures aren't necessary but looking at it from both directions helps me to confirm that the blocks are set right and that it made the pattern it was supposed to make.

Sadly, these two rows were all I was able to get put together.  And yes, the rest of it is still spread out on the living room floor.  Guess what I'll be working on when I get home.

Happy sewing,

Julie

An Easter Finish

Here is my Easter quilt project all finished.  Too bad it was a few days after Easter.  That's okay there will be other Easter's.

I decided to just add a narrow border of the green polka dot and then bind it in the same.  I really like how it turned out.  The only thing about not knowing how I was going to finish it was that I would have put the green "egg" in a different place and not have it so close to the corner of the border.  I know I put it where it is so it wouldn't be lined up with the green egg in the basket.

There was just enough of this candy looking fabric to back it with.  The rest will make it's way into a scrap quilt no doubt.

Here is a close up of the cross hatch stitching on one of the baskets.  I may go back in and do it on the bases.  And, then again, maybe not.  It does show up better in the pictures on the purple than on the blue basket.  The rest of the quilting is just stitch in the ditch.  If the plan was to use this for anything but a table topper or doll blanket I think it would need to have some meandering in the white areas too.

My intent was to get two of these rabbits made for the girls.  Sadly,  only got the one got finished.  So maybe that will be something for next year.  There is no pattern for this wonky rabbit.  I just drew it on a paper bag.  Trust me, those are some skinny legs to try to put stuffing into.  And yes, those legs are off center.  It's supposed to be wonky after all.

I'll give credit again to Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet .  She has come up with some incredible patterns.  Even if I do feel the need to change them all.  :)

Happy sewing,

Julie

I have had a very busy but non-productive day.  I really dislike days like this.  One of those days where I am just spinning my wheels trying to get something done.  Every time I think I'm finally getting somewhere it magically gets another step further away.  So ENOUGH!  I'm going to take a few minutes to write this post and then see if the clock says 5:00 yet.

All of the blocks for my Shakespeare in the Park are complete.  Yahoo, that to me means I can take a side step and work on something else.

Saturday I just couldn't wait and I started on the basket block that Lori Holt designed.  She will be doing a sew-a-long starting pretty soon but why wait for that.  Her basket was designed to look like a sewing basket with yarn in it.  But with Easter coming up I saw it as a basket of eggs.

This is the first basket I made.

And here is basket number two.

And here is where I sashed and sewed them together.

And now I am stumped.  I wish someone would tell me what to do with them.  Apart they measure around 11 x 15?  Together with the 1" sashing that makes them about 15 x 23?  I can't remember exactly.  My thought was that I would put a narrow round of white around them and a narrow green border then another white border??????????  They are too small on their own for anything.  I don't want them exactly like everyone else's that does the sew-a-long so I'm not planning to put the (x) blocks around them.  I'm just at a stand still until I make a decision.  I'm actually leaning toward MAYBE doing some applique on the basket.  It seems a bit large to me.  But that may be too busy???  I do think they turned out great with all the polka dot eggs.  But now what?  Guess I should have waited for the sew-a-long.  To find out about that you can visit Lori Holt's blog Bee in My Bonnet .
She has great patterns, books and fabric.

Enough procrastinating.  I still have 15 minutes to get some work done.

Julie

Not again!

Early morning sewing is really bad for me some days.  This morning I was working on finishing up the last eight snails trail blocks and saw that I had made yet another error. I was putting on the last round of neutral and saw that they were sewn in the wrong position.

This is the way the block is supposed to look.  But I found that I had sewn the light sections on the wrong sides so it was going to not make the swirl pattern.  Thank goodness I discovered that before I put on the last of the blue.  So with the front of the block facing away from me I started ripping out the seams.  Again, I'd like to thank my lucky stars that I didn't rip them all out at once, normally I would. It was almost time to start getting ready for work so I thought just do this one and you'll have one done.  When I went to sew the neutral on in the right place it was going on in the SAME place.  I had ripped out what was already okay.  Out of the eight blocks I'm doing right now only one of them was done wrong.  Whew, I about blew that.  I think if I had ripped all eight of them out and then figured that out this would have ended up in a tote as another unfinished project.  As of right now, I have the final blue pieces to put on these eight blocks.  I also need to cut the setting triangles.  Then I'll be ready to put it together.

I'll be glad when this top is in the done pile.  

Julie

A Winner

No, I don't always win things.  But yes, I do sign up to win.  And you can't win if you don't play. So they say.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Pam Buda at Heartspun Quilts was having a give away that I signed up for.  The first few winners were getting some of her scraps and the others were able to choose two of the patterns she designed.  I was lucky enough to win two of her patterns. (Yes, what I really wanted was the scraps. But I'm thrilled with the patterns.)

These are the two I selected.  I have always wanted to make this type of house quilt and she says this pattern is a simple one.  Making the roof has scared me away thus far.  The Suffragette pattern on the right intrigued me.  I haven't figured out from looking at the picture how it is put together so I picked that one so I could find out.  That and the fact that it is red/white/blue helped in my decision I'm sure.

I stumbled on Pam Buda's blog when I was looking for a hexie tutorial.  She has a good one.  You can find the first of her steps for hexies here.  She is also getting ready to start a mystery quilt.  The fabric requirements are here.  This is one I might try doing myself.

Anyway, it is a good blog to follow.  So check it out when you've got the time.

Julie

Spam Comments

Great, I've been hit by a spam messenger. Guess playing around with my settings the other day wasn't a good idea.  Looks like I'll be playing around with them some more.
Just remember if you read something strange in my comments that it sometimes takes a while for me to find the weird ones to get them off of here. 
I do like comments.  I just prefer they have something to do with my quilts or posts.

Julie

It was a busy weekend. And lucky for me I was able to extend it by one day.  On Saturday Jennifer and I had one of our sewing days in Perry.  This time I just wanted to take my current project and the orange quilt so I would have it in case I wanted to work on a back for it.

That still ended up being these four totes, the bag, my sewing machine and various other items.  And no, I did not work on the back for the orange quilt. But I did get some more of the six" stars done in the alternate color pattern.

I spent Monday (my vacation day) finishing up the remainder of the 6" stars and the 12" stars shown on the right side.  So all that is left to make are 18 of the snails trail blocks.  And then I can start putting it together.

Jennifer wanted me to make cinnamon rolls to take along.  So Friday night I made the batch without pecans and Saturday morning I made the second batch with pecans.  They were good.  But I don't know that they were good enough to stress over getting them made before 9:00 in the morning. 

I had two great days of non-stop sewing.  And a long day of work in between.  So, all-in-all it was a great weekend.

Julie