Quilting Potpourri...

I'm home again and I think it's going to be a busy week in the sewing room. These blocks on my design wall are calling for more!I'm also folding fabric. Joan from wishes, true and kind mentioned she was using a fabric folding tip from In Color Order. I hopped over and read all of Jeni's posts on "Order: The Art of Choosing". Mine really needed a makeover, so I joined in and started folding. I love that she suggests organizing by color (tone-on-tones and color + white), but also by color + accent color. These are my blues...

And these are my blue + green (yes, I really do like that color combination!) So this week I'm working on a color or two per day. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be organized and ready to put together some coordinated scrappy quilts.
When I visited Maisonette, I picked up some knits to make these adorable hats for the girls.
I also bought some AMH voiles. I've got an idea to turn these into a simple, soft lightweight quilt. Stay tuned...
I got an email from Debbie and she shared the quilt she made from my MBS Building Blocks quilt. Six times the quilt size made a beautiful bed quilt.

My friend, Jean is planning on using the pattern to make a large quilt with Central Park. I redrafted the block to an 8" size. This can also be cut from a 10" layer cake.

Here's the alternate cutting:

1 strip 3 1/2"; trim to 3 1/2" x 8 1/2"

1 strip 4 1/2"; trim to one 3 1/2" x 4 1/2", one 4 1/2" x 4 1/2", and one 1 1/2" x 4 1/2"

1 strip 1 1/2"; trim to 1 1/2" x 8 1/2"

So for me a week of a mixture of sewing activities... potpourri. How about you?

Maisonette

I've been in beautiful, southern California soaking up the sunny weather and playing with my grand-daughters this week. An added bonus is this find. Maisonnette is an adorable fabric shop nestled in a little white house in Oceanside, CA. It's filled with exclusively modern fabric, including quilting cottons, voiles, velveteens, home dec weight and trims, patterns and ideas.
Laminated cottons and the newest Japanese designer fabrics.
Artful displays...






We found this beautiful echino fabric and made floor pillows.Of course, I left with a few half yards in my bag. I'll show you those when I get home next week!

Baby Quilt...

My friend, Rene made this adorable quilt using my Moda Bake shop recipe. Love the pinks with black and white.Looks like it will be perfect for her niece's little one!

Flower Pot Parade

"the original"

Calico Needlers is a local guild filled with talented quilters. Each year they work on a Block-of-the-Month together and for 2010 chose my Flower Pots quilt. This week I got to see the results and were they beautiful! Unfortunately I had to photograph them in a room with florescent lights (bad for pictures). I did my best, but believe me they are all prettier in "person".

The book is still available and really a fun one to make!

Hand work...

Have you noticed I've been absent this week? Saturday night I took my husband to the Emergency Room and he landed in the hospital for 4 days. Nothing too serious (although it could have been, had we not acted), just an infection that required intravenous antibiotics.

Thank goodness I had hand work ready to go! Back in the days of car pools and soccer games, I always had some hand work in the car to pass time. Luckily this week I grabbed this cute pincushion from the STL MQG swap and my Dresden blocks and took advantage of the natural sunlight in the hospital room.
I've changed things up a bit. I found this collection of Kona cottons, coordinated to Soul Blossoms at Sew Fresh Fabrics, and decided to go with solid centers on my Dresdens.
I like how the solids let the prints shine.



This quilt came back from the quilter a few weeks ago and now has the binding hand sewn down.
We're home and all is well. But I better get some hand work prepped just in case!

Penny Lane...

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes..." Be thankful my blog doesn't have sound - you really don't want to hear me sing. Did you know I'm a huge Beatles fan? I probably know every one of their songs by heart. As a preteen in the sixties, I sang and danced to all their music, over and over and over again. It's what we did for entertainment with no video games or internet.

I love everything that Riley Blake puts out and since this line was called "Penny Lane", it was calling my name.

I love this print with the retro numbers and letters.
So pretty! I'm going on retreat next month (yeah!) and I'll bring this along to make Pocket Full of Pinwheels. It will be an easy, mindless project - so I don't have to concentrate too much and can enjoy the banter!
Girls, don't be surprised if you hear me singing as I sew "and the fireman rushes in, from the pouring rain, very strange"...

Just the facts...

I do love blue and green quilts.

The pattern ~ "Small Plates" from The Practical Guide to Patchwork.

The fabric ~ Modern Meadow by Joel Dewberry.
The temperature 16 degrees.
The quilting ~ by me with a ferny leaf design.
Now you know!

Dresdens

I've always loved Dresdens. It's one of the first blocks I tried many years ago in very traditional fabrics. There's been a revival and I had to try some with a modern twist. I'm starting with my Amy Butler Soul Blossoms and adding on from there. I've read lots of tutorials online and mashed them together in my own way. So in case you want to know, here's how I'm doing mine.

To cut the wedges, I'm using a Fat Cat ruler by EZ. It's a 30 degree wedge, so you need 12 wedges per block. They're somewhat fatter than the traditional Dresden, but I think they show off the bigger prints better and I like "fat".

I cut a 5" strip from a fat quarter. (5" x 21"). I'm cutting 4 wedges from each fabric, flipping the ruler up and down. I can also get 6 - 2" squares from the leftover of the strip. My plan is to make a sashing of 2" squares.
Fold a wedge in half long ways and stitch across the fatter edge.
Trim the corner off on the folded side.
Keep the wedge folded in half and finger press a crease along the length.
Finger press the seam open.
Use a point turner to turn the wedge right side out. Match the seam to your finger-pressed lengthwise crease; press.
Sew your wedges together. Try to be very accurate with your seam allowance if you want it to lay flat. Be sure the outside edges meet exactly - don't worry too much about the inside edge. Press the seams open. Give your plate a nice firm press with steam and make it very flat.
For the center circle, I use a 3 1/2" heat resistant circle template, trace it to my fabric and cut it out leaving 1/4" seam allowance.
Run a gathering stitch (I do it by hand) around the circle. Place the template in the middle and pull up the gathering. Pull it nice and tight, so you have a nice smooth edge. Spray some starch into a cup and use a paint brush or Q-tip to starch the seam allowance. Iron well - with the template still in place. Flip it over and iron again. Once the starch is completely dry remove the template. You can pull up the basting stitches a little to reform a perfect circle.
Pin everything to your background and applique. I'm doing it by hand - I can do one in 90 minutes (sorry, yes, I time myself). You could also machine stitch with a straight stitch, a zig zag stitch or a buttonhole stitch.
I always make my background oversized and trim down once the applique is done. Trim to 14 1/2" by lining the 7 1/4" mark along the center seam line between the wedges.My plan is to applique 6 blocks on very soft, pastel Kona solids and 6 blocks on Kona Snow. Two down - 10 to go!