Marjorie's Quilting Bee

Hugs and Kisses Quilt

We have increased our family by two grandsons in less than 24 hours, so it’s pretty hard for me to concentrate enough to write a new blog post. Thus, I am going to share an old quilt with you. This quilt was made in September 2006 for the retirement of a staff member. She was loved by all, as you can tell by the quilt that we made for her.

The quilt was designed, pieced, and quilted by me, but lots of love came from all of her co-workers. The background is 2 x 4″ patches. We pressed the fabric onto freezer paper and provided fabric markers for everyone who wanted to sign.

Enjoy!

Hugs and Kisses Quilt for Sadie

More Hearts

This is a busy morning – I’m going to have a fifth grandchild today – so won’t write much. Here are some new hearts I digitized over the weekend. They’re a little fancier than my usual, but pretty all the same. They fit the Accuquilt heart 2″, 3″, and 4″ die.

Adding Hearts to the Bow Basket Block

Here’s another step. Hope you’ve finished your basket blocks. I have done quite a few, but my goal was 18 blocks for three projects and there are still several left to go. I am also going to have to cut and make one extra because my first test block didn’t size correctly because of my uneven stitching. That’s a lesson – always make a test block before cutting them all. How could I have been so sure of myself that I forgot that step?

Finished bow basket block

Here’s the first step:
Hoop the stabilizer and stitch the placement lines onto the stabilizer.

Take a finished basket block and apply a fusible stabilizer on the back of the block. I use Totally Stable by Sulky, but I am sure there are other stabilizers that will work. You can see it on the back of the block below. Then find the center of the block on the red/white triangle by folding and matching the red/white line and corners.

Finding the center of the basket block

Put a pin through the center crease at the seamline and match it to the center mark on the stabilizer.

Pin at center crease

Match center to stitched center on stabilizer

Then use pins to match the top center and the lines on the stabilizer.

Center pin matching stabilizer guidelines

all points matching stabilizer guidelines

Use straight pins to attach block to stabilizer being sure points are matched to stabilizer guidelines as you insert the pins.

Attach block to stabilizer with straight pins

Stitch the die lines onto the block. If, for any reason, the die lines do not stitch in the correct position, take the stitching out at this point rather than proceeding and stitching the hearts in the wrong position (ask me how I know!).

stitched die lines on basket block

Fuse the hearts into place on the die lines and complete stitching on the machine.

completed block

The first couple of blocks I made were just a little off, but I quickly got into a rhythm and am making beautiful blocks. You might want to try the embroidery on a plain block first, just to get a feel for it. The design is in the web store and is included with the center motif design.

Mini Iron Holder / Stand

Someone asked me to show a photo of the mini iron holder that I made. It is very simple. I used scrap wood (see how some of the corners are missing and there are extra holes where someone drilled) and coat hangers that I got at Lowe’s. To hold the hot tip of the iron, the Clover metal stand is attached with screws to the wood. The only reason I made it this way was because all of these supplies were in my tool closet and the stand for the hot iron was needed at that moment. Had I been able to shop, perhaps it would have been designed better, but this works. The iron doesn’t roll away and the hot tip is safe. I have seen people use large glass jars for their mini irons. I also found some versions at Barnes and Noble and at amazon.com (search for mini iron holder).

Valentine Projects and Blog Hop

This is the countdown to Valentine’s Day. It is 13 days away and the GO! Ahead and Share Some Love Blog Hop is 12 days away. And up until that time I’m going to be making Valentine projects. These include not only the blog hop projects, but also some little projects made with candy hearts like the Sweethearts Quilt and some mug rugs that you can give for gifts.

Here’s a review of the blog hop projects leading up to February 13 and what you will need to make them. This is a mystery/quilt along combined.

Project 1: Red and white medallion quilt – the design will be revealed on February 13 – Blog Hop Day.

For this quilt you will need:

4 each red and white basket blocks (finished 10″, unfinished 10.5″)

1 each hearts embroidery block (finished 10″, unfinished 10.5″)

4 each cut 10.5″ x 10.5″ white blocks

Border 1 (red): 2 each rectangles cut 2.5 x 30.5″,

and 2 each rectangles cut 2.5 x 34.5″

Border 2 (white): 4 each rectangles cut 1.5″ x 34.5″ and

4 squares (red) cut 1.5″ x 1.5″

Border 3 (red): 4 each rectangles cut 2.5 x 36.5″

4 each cut 2.5″ x 2.5″ squares

Border 4: 36 each 6″ finished half square triangles (red and white)

4 each (white) cut 4.5″ x 4.5″ squares

Border 5 (red): 2 each rectangles cut 2.5 x 48.5″ and

2 each rectangles cut 2.5 x 52.5″

Binding: 220″ continuous 2.5″ strip for binding

Project 2: Red and white table runner here’s the design:

Valentine Table Runner

For this project you will need:

2 red and white basket blocks (finished 10″, unfinished 10.5″)

1 hearts embroidery block (finished 10″, unfinished 10.5″)

4 setting triangles: cut 1 each 15.5″ square, then cut diagonally corner to corner two times to make 4 triangles

Border: 2 each rectangles 2.5 x 36″ and

2 each rectangles 2.5 x 16.5″

Binding: 90″ continuous 2.5″ strip for binding

backing

Project 3: Red and white basket quilt – design will be revealed on Wednesday, February 8.

For this quilt you will need:

12 each red and white basket blocks (finished 10″, unfinished 10.5″)

6 each hearts embroidery block (optional cut 10.5″ white background squares with no embroidery) (finished 10″, unfinished 10.5″)

10 setting triangles: cut 3 each 15.5″ squares, then cut diagonally two times corner to corner to make 4 triangles

4 corner triangles: cut 2 each 8″ squares, then cut diagonally one time into half square triangles

Borders cut on lengthwise grain:

Border 1 (red): Cut 2 each rectangles 2.5″ x 56.5″ and

2 each rectangles 2.5″ x 46.5″

Border 2 (white): Cut 2 each rectangles 2.5″ x 60.5″ and

2 each rectangles 2.5″ x 50.5″

Border 3 (red): Cut 2 each rectangles 2.5″ x 64.5″ and

2 each rectangles 2.5″ x 54.5″

Binding: 248″ continuous 2.5″ strip for binding

Long weekend

Decided to spend a few days with Mom. It is very nice to have her nursing assistant always there so we can enjoy our time together without worrying about day to day tasks. We watched a church service on TV this morning and then a service from her church that had been recorded on DVD. Later we started working on a 500 piece puzzle and were so completely engrossed in it that we didn’t even want to stop to eat or to rest.

I’ll get back to our Valentine projects first thing Wed morning with a complete summary of exactly what you will need for each project: the medallion red and white quilt, the red and white basket quilt, and the red and white table runner.

Sweethearts Quilt

Here’s a quick peek at the quilt top that I assembled yesterday–I love those soft colors on the background. It still needs a border – which will be a simple three inch border of the background fabric. The look I want is to have the candy hearts floating on the background fabric. Altogether from 15 fat quarters, I made 60 quilt blocks, so there will definitely be more projects from these candy hearts.

The blocks are 8″ unfinished and 7.5″ finished.

Here’s a link to the Sweethearts Quilt tutorial.

And do you see a little preview of red and white in the background?

Sweethearts Quilt

Heart Motif for Red and White Quilts for Feb Blog Hop

Here’s a peek at the heart motif I’m using in the red and white quilt. This design is very simple using the small and medium hearts from the Accuquilt GO heart die and a single decorative stitch around the outside of each heart. I have split this design in half and in quarters for those who have smaller hoops. The half design fits a hoop that is 150 x 200 mm and the quarter design fits a hoop that is 100 x 150 mm.

Heart Motif for Red and White Blog Hop Designs

Sarah Vedeler (who creates gorgeous machine embroidery designs) has wonderful instructions for stitching a split design on a smaller hoop. So, if you don’t have a hoop that is at least 200 x 200 mm, you can still stitch this design using her method. Or, if you prefer, you can stitch this design on your domestic sewing machine using the applique or satin stitch.

The motif design files for the red and white heart motif are available along with stitching diagrams and placement charts from my embroidery shop.

Elephants

Accuquilt has a new elephant die on their website on the “Die to Try” section. I just ordered it because last week I bought this fabric which matches. Can’t wait for the die to get here so I can have some fun.

Elephants on parade from Timeless Treasures

Edit: 1-27-2012 – got a note from Mame at Wish Upon a Quilt. They have this fabric in their shop.

Information Overload — OR NOT–Tools that Help

It seems the quilting world has boomed with information and keeping it all sorted out is quite a challenge. Things that are hardest for me are wading through email and my blog reader. Thus far, I have used many different tools for doing this including sorting by search and sorting by mailbox and blog readers, but am still overwhelmed by all the information. However, there are three tools that have become very helpful to me and I’d like to share them with you: Google documents, Evernote, and Pinterest.

Gmail and Google documents work together quite well now. What I have found is that at the top of the gmail window in the icon bar, there’s a “More” button. In the dropdown box there’s a command “Create a document” and that allows me to create a Google document from the email. I have been using this to save important information including travel itineraries, software receipts, and serial numbers. I can create my own set of directories and labels and can rename the email/document so that the name tells me immediately the content of the document. Once it’s in Google documents, the original email can be deleted. And the information is accessible from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Evernote is the nicest tool for storing ideas, but even greater is it’s ability to keep track of tips and tutorials and all sorts of reference information. I have been using it for a couple of years now and recently upgraded to the Premium membership. It works on the concept of tags and allows the creation of new tags as part of the clipping process. It is not social media per se, but a personal notebook system. There are multiple screen views , but the one I use has tags as an index on the left column, a list of clips in the next column, and a preview of the selected clip on the right. Thus, one can visually search by tag or just by going through clips and looking for a photo. The clipper tool allows one to clip a URL, a selection, a complete page, or the article on the page. One of the nice things about this is the ability clip only the relevant information without extraneous and unnecessary information such as ads. The information one stores in Evernote can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or smart phone. The only hard part was that I use multiple browsers and have multiple computers, so had to setup the clipper on each.

And now we have Pinterest. I have only had it for a week or two, but am finding that it’s a great place to store ideas. Back in the days when most information was in magazines, I used to clip photos and ideas from magazines and newspapers and taped them into an idea journal. This is a wonderful way to create an idea journal via browser–and the bonus is that your friends share their journals with you.

Hugs and Kisses Quilt

More Hearts

Adding Hearts to the Bow Basket Block

Mini Iron Holder / Stand

Valentine Projects and Blog Hop

Long weekend

Sweethearts Quilt

Heart Motif for Red and White Quilts for Feb Blog Hop

Elephants

Information Overload — OR NOT–Tools that Help

Calendar

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