Category Archives: Free Patterns

More Beautiful QOV Quilts

I got a wonderful email over the weekend from Sue in Arizona. She’s been busy teaching AccuQuilt classes and working on Quilts of Valor. She used the Split Star pattern and created a beautiful quilt. I love the colors she used in this quilt. It really sparkles and will be a comfort to a very deserving service man or woman.

 This block pattern makes a 12 inch finished block.

I’ve been doing lots of things besides quilting for the last month, but this inspires me to quilt again. After our trip to Cincinnati in late July and before my trip to visit Mother the first weekend in August, my embroidery machine jammed while stitching. I had stepped out to get something from downstairs – and when I came back everything had come to a halt and the computer screen was blank. After that it didn’t work at all. While I don’t use my embroidery machine every day, something about not having it around has left me unexcited about quilting.

So, a big thank you to Sue for getting me back on track. The machine should be back where it belongs this week. Fortunately it was under warranty and Mike at McKinney Sew & Vac in Greensboro is working on it. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Star with Flag Center Quilt Block

This quilt block was sent to me by Colleen over at http://colleens-sewinspired.blogspot.com/. Colleen is a new blogger, but has been a stitcher for many years. She asked for cutting instructions for making this in an 8 inch finished size, but I have also included cutting instructions for the 12 inch finished size. I am not going to include block construction because you can use the Split Star instructions for making this block. The only difference is the center unit – one is a flag and the other is a half square triangle.

Click on the image below to access the adobe pdf file with cutting instructions.

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Split Star Tutorial

Still working on that t-shirt quilt — but found a little time to cut and stitch this block. The pictures and instructions are below. You can find the adobe pdf version of the instructions here.  

Errata: On the original post, the D block was the wrong size. It has been corrected in both the adobe document as well as on this post. I apologize for the error.

Split Star Block

Cutting Instructions

Unit

Accuquilt GO Instructions

Rotary Instructions

Light

Medium Light

Red

Blue

A

Die # 55009

GO! 3” Finished Half Square Triangle

Cut 3-7/8” square and cut each square diagonally to make 2 triangles

2

2

4

4

B

Die # 55002

GO! Triangle -4-7/8”

Cut 7-1/4” square and cut each square diagonally from left to right and from right to left to make 4 triangles

2

2

0

0

C

Die # 55006

GO! 3-1/2” Square

OR

cut 3-1/2” strips with GO 3-1/2” strip cutter (55032); then rotate 90 degrees and subcut into 3-1/2” squares

Cut 3-1/2” squares

1

1

0

0

D

Die 55001

GO! 6” Finished Half Square Triangle

Cut 6-7/8” square and cut each square diagonally to make 2 triangles

0

0

1

1

 

 

Step 1: Stitch 2 background triangle units

  

Step 2: Stitch flying geese units, 2 red and 2 blue

  
 

Step 3: Stitch center triangle

  

Step 4: Stitch top and bottom rows together

  

 

Step 5: Stitch middle row together

  

Step 6: Stitch rows together.

  

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Piecing the Quarter Square Triangle Units on the Ohio Star Block

Several people asked me how I would make the six inch finished Ohio Star block for the quilt that was shown in the post on Friday if I wanted to cut it using the Accuquilt GO!™ cutter. Using the rotary cutter to make a quarter square triangle unit to finish at 2″, one needs a square that is 3-1/4″ x 3-1/4″. That square would be rotary cut corner to corner to make quarter square triangle units. So that is where I started.

Using the Accuquilt GO!, the closest units to the 3-1/4″ square are the 3″ finished half square triangle and the 3-1/2″ square. My preference was to use the 3″ finished half square triangle even though there is more waste from trimming with it. The triangles stitch together so well with those dog ears cut off, that it makes it more fun to sew than if I used the square. (I used the  GO! Half Square-3″ Finished Triangle (55009); but you can also use the GO! Bountiful Baskets (55048).

I will show you both ways, and you can decide what works best for you. Instructions are on the photos – just click them for a step by step slide show.

Update: – if there is no image below, just a line – click on the line. IE9 seems to have a problem displaying the image. But the slide show really is there!

 

ohio_star_six_inch_diagrams

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

GO!™ for a Star Blog Hop

The GO!™ for a Star Blog Hop to kickoff the April-May Quilts of Valor Challenge is this week. Here’s the lineup. You’re invited to visit each blog and sign up for the giveaways that you will find at each one. Happy April!

QOV Challenge Dates: April 1 – May 31

Blog Hop Dates: April 2-6

Featured Blogs for Blog Hop:

Monday 4/2/2012
Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Tuesday 4/3/2012
Gene Black, an Alabama Artist and Quilter

Wednesday 4/4/2012
Marjorie’s Quilting Bee

Thursday 4/5/2012
North Hills Quilter

Friday 4/6/2012
Recap by Marjorie’s Quilting Bee

 Blogger support and promotion for blog hop and throughout the challenge:

SewCalGal

Lily Pad Quilting

Heirloom Quilting by the Pashofa Quilter

Desert Sky Quilts

Quilts of Valor Foundation Sunflower Meadowlark

SewFunQuilts

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Elephant Parade progress

Progress on the elephant baby quilt. Isn’t it adorable? You can see I still have some more blocks to do and to add a border. And the wild animals and train dies are back in stock at Accuquilt, so I ordered them this week.

Elephant Parade

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Elephant Parade

Was working on digitizing Overall Sam when these little elephants came to visit and distracted me. So, my only defense is that they were so adorable I just had to play. And it was a three and a half  day and night party. But I love the way they turned out. It was difficult to take good photos with the black background fabric – the colors look washed out and in person they’re bright and beautiful. But I used the black background to go with the elephant fabric I bought. You know that fabric also comes with a white background. . .

I made an elephant border – Momma Elephant and Baby Elephant.  And made all of those elephants turn to the right and turn to the left so I wouldn’t have to fiddle with them when I got ready to stitch. Wouldn’t that border be cute for a horizontal strip quilt or a border on a baby quilt? Wouldn’t those little elephants be adorable facing each other with a little heart between them?  You can see all the photos at my embroidery shop.

Blog Hop Day 2 – stop in and have some fun:

Connie (Quilting by the River) Connie’s got a great table runner tutorial
Linda  (Living 4 Quilting) and I’m sure Linda has a great surprise in store too!

 

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Blog Hop Day 1: GO! Ahead and Show Some Love

It is one day before Valentine’s Day. I know you won’t get this quilt done before Valentine’s Day, but I hope you’ll make it to use all year long. It’s a classic and has wonderful open areas for free motion quilting. It was so much fun designing this in EQ7. I don’t know what I’d do without that software. The image and requirements are below. (you will also find blog hop giveaway info at the end of this post)

And hop on over to see Ariane’s great Half Circle Pinwheel. She made a needle case, but I can see that block on placemats or in a quilt.

I (heart) baskets quilt

For this quilt you will need:

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

Cutting Requirements

Block Construction

Piecing Tips

Heart Motif for Basket Blocks

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

And now, if you’re participating in the blog hop, I’m sure you want to know what you’ll find here as a giveaway. This has been a great debate for me, so the winner will have two options:  The first option is 18 Candy Heart blocks and background fabric for the open blocks. The second option is machine embroidery files for the Candy Hearts. How do you qualify? Leave a comment on this blog between Monday and Friday and visit at least one of the other participating blogs each day this week. I am leaving this open for US and international entries. The winner will be selected by random drawing. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Sweethearts Quilt Tutorial

Candy Hearts make such adorable projects. Here’s the Sweethearts Quilt that I’ve been making. While I used the candy hearts embroidery set, you can also make this using a novelty fabric or you can cut the hearts on your Accuquilt GO! and fuse them and use an applique stitch on your regular machine to stitch them. You can also use a stencil or fabric markers to write the candy heart sentiments.

Here’s the quilt:

Sweethearts Quilt

And here’s the finished block:

Candy Hearts Block

You will also need to cut an equal number of plain squares that are 7.5″ which is the finished size of the heart blocks.

Here’s the block showing the size of each piece in the block. The finished block size is 7.5″

 

And here’s the Fat Quarter cutting chart. I am making my quilt using fat quarters. Each fat quarter makes 4-5 hearts and there’s a small 4-5″ scrap left on the end of the fat quarter. Those scraps can be used to add some pieced blocks to the border or cut into strips for other scrappy blocks.

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

A few photos of what’s coming next week

For more red and white into a basket quilt

And what would Valentine’s Day be without Candy Hearts?

And a little mug rug to spread the love!

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie