Month: September 2012

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Quilt Previews

I just got two of the prettiest quilts ever to be quilted and just have to show them off. The Bargello is Sherry’s. The embroidered quilt is for me (actually for my grandsons), but Kay made it. They are both absolutely gorgeous and I thought you’d like to see some pictures. The treat is that I get to quilt both of them.

Sherry is a master of Bargello and the photo does not do it justice, but when it’s quilted, I’ll post a picture of the full quilt. In this picture, you can only see a portion of it.

And Kay did all the embroidery for my grandsons’ quilt. Those little boys have outfits for everything – they can dress up as policemen, construction workers, firemen, doctors, and chefs. So that is what this quilt celebrates — all the wonderful things that little boys want to grow up to be.

 

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Progress on HST Quilt Top — And Winners!

The HST quilt top is moving along. There is only one vertical row to add to the horizontal rows. Then I will turn it and stitch all the horizontal rows. So far I really love it. Still not sure about the variegation of colors, but it may work. After doing the first couple of rows, I realized that because the triangles are not set in an ordered fashion, there will be some really bulky seam intersections. So, contrary to all my beliefs, I went back and pressed those triangle seams open. The seams from square to square will be pressed to the side. I think this is what will work best. However, I really believe I am going to have some points that just don’t meet perfectly–and that really bothers me when it’s my work. Doesn’t bother me a bit when it’s someone else’s quilt. Weird, huh?

And the quilt kit winners–ta da!

Janet Currier and Judy (email user name rcpjmp).  Quilt kits will be on the way to you shortly. You will be getting an email from me this morning.

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Variegating a Quilt

I am back to the Half Square Triangle quilt. All of the triangles have been stitched. This morning I sorted all the triangles and put them in order with color transitions that seem to work from one print to the next. They could be ordered differently, but this is the order I have them.

The next step is to decide how many pieces are in each variegation. Because the fabrics were chosen randomly, there are not equal numbers of squares in each stack. Thus, I expect to use 4-8 squares of a color in each variegation.

Hopefully this afternoon, I can start putting the squares up on the design wall and will take a pix and show you how it looks. This is a real shot in the dark – we may not like it when it is actually up on the wall.

Here’s the original quilt design – if you need a refresher. The colors in this EQ7 version are random scrappy.

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Connector Block Tutorial for Halloween / Turtle Quilt

It’s raining cats and dogs here today – and more rain is on the way. It’s the sort of day that would be nice to curl up  and just knit or read a book all day. But I promised a tutorial for this quilt so here are the instructions for the connector block. This is an image of the connector block with fabric.

 This is the block showing the piecing:

These are the cutting instructions using the EDeN™ System.

Fabric Unit # # Needed per Block EDeN™ Number # Needed for Quilt
Light A 2 REC-1½ x 8 26
Light B 2 REC-1½x5 26
Light D 1 SQ-2 13
Dark B 2 REC-1½x5 26
Dark C 2 REC-1½x2 26

EDeN Numbers give the shape and size for cutting. All numbers given are finished sizes. Cut sizes should be 1/2” larger than the number given, i.e., 1½x8 should be cut as 2 x 8½. The abbreviations used here are: REC = rectangle; SQ = square

You can find more information about the EDeN system on the website.

This is the way that I would cut this block. I am going to tell you as a narrative without illlustrations, so I hope it is understandable. If not, please ask questions.

Light Fabric:

For the A unit, I would cut an 8 ½ ” strip across the width of fabric. This is an 8 ½ x 40” strip. Then I would fanfold that strip across the 2” strip die. This would yield 18-20 A units. I would repeat this step to make the remaining A units. Note that you do not need to fanfold the entire strip this time as you only need 6-8 more units.

But this leaves a strip that is now 8½ x approximately 24 inches. I would cut this to 5 ½  x 24” and fanfold it across the 2” strip die to cut 11 B units. Then I would cut a 5 ½” strip across the width of fabric and fanfold that across the 2” strip die. This will make 18-20 B units and with the ones that you cut previously, you will now have all the B units.

The D unit is the last unit of the light fabric and it can be cut entirely on the 2 ½” strip die. Cut 2 strips that are width of fabric on the 2 ½” strip cutter and then fanfold those 2 ½” strips across the strip die to make squares.

Dark Fabric:

Cut the B units as described above leaving the 5 ½ x 24” leftover from the second strip to be cut down and used for the C units.

The C units are cut 1 ½ x width of fabric (1 ½ x 40”) and then fanfold across the 2” strip die.

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Halloween Quilt / Wall Hanging

I seem to be collecting a lot of machine embroidery blocks. The more designs I digitize, the more I stitch, and then there’s no time to put them all into a quilt. But I can dream – and dream I do. That’s the beautiful thing about EQ7. It allows me to quilt with a computer.

The two most recent sets I digitized are the Halloween set and the Turtle Treks set. This is what I came up with for a quilt layout. I think both of these would be nice as a lap quilt, but even cuter as a wall hanging. Here are the two quilt layouts from EQ7–very simple – and the quilting will be the ‘piece de resistance’ for these quilts. The third image shows the block outline. Tomorrow, I’ll give directions for constructing the black and white connector blocks. And then maybe some lucky person would like to be the recipient of a kit giveaway to make one of these – blocks already embroidered!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Songbird Mug Rug Embroidery Design Giveaway

This is the cute little songbird mug rug that I made on Saturday. I see these cute little paisley birds on all sorts of graphic designs including fabric and just had to create my own take on the little paisley songbird. I used an Accuquilt GO feather for the body and the rest is machine embroidery. The single design will fit a 5 x 7″ embroidery hoop and the mug rug will fit a  6 x 8″ embroidery hoop.

My next project is to create more of these mug rug designs that you can give as Christmas gifts.

If you’d like to have the mug rug design and the individual bird design, just send me an email at busbyquilts at gmail dot com or click on the link below and save the file to your computer. Once you have downloaded the file, you will have to unzip it. I will keep the link active through Sunday, September 16.

 Download Songbird Mug Rug

If you’d like to win one of these mug rugs already made, please head on over to Gene Black’s blog – as he is giving away a completed mug rug to a lucky reader this week.

I’d love to hear from you and see your photos if you make one of these.

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ITH Mug Rug Tutorial

Mug rugs have become a fun and expressive outlet for quilters’ creativity. For me, they’re also a great way to practice free motion quilting, and they make wonderful gifts. So when I saw some mug rugs for embroidery machines that were done “in-the-hoop”, it piqued my interest. However, after seeing that the finished edge was a satin stitch, I was less interested because it would mean using a water soluble stabilizer or having a trace of tear-away stabilizer showing on the edge of my satin stitch. Either way, it would look fine after washing a couple of times, but my preference is a finished seam edge on mug rugs and on placemats. And then I had a flash of inspiration and realized that it could be done. And now I want to share it with you.

After working for awhile on a square mug rug, I decided that I needed more space for the designs. Taking into consideration the balancing act in design between the most popular hoop sizes of 5″ x 7″ or 6″ x 8″ and spacing for the embroidery design, I ended up using a hoop size of 6″ x 8″ or 150 x 200 mm.

And for those without embroidery machines or without a larger hoop for their machines, one can simply embroider or piece or hand stitch a design and then use the instructions in this tutorial to stitch the mug rug seam on their sewing machine. Either way, it makes a great mug rug and is the perfect way to show off your free motion quilting designs.

Click HERE for the tutorial. I made it into an adobe pdf file rather than putting all the text and photos into this post.

See what cute mug rugs these are. And they’re made with the Accuquilt circle die and some cutouts:

Come back tomorrow  for an embroidery design giveaway–one design as a mug rug and the same design without the mug rug!

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Quilting Books on my Kindle

Last night I discovered that I can get Quilting Books from Amazon IN COLOR on my Kindle Fire. Many of the books I have purchased have been B&W, so I never thought to look for quilting books. Probably all of you already know all this and have quilting books on your tablet or iPad. I was looking at the Baby Roller Rink quilt on Oh, Fransson! by Elizabeth Hartman and decided I would browse Amazon to see if she had that book. It came up as a Kindle book – and the preview was in color. I now have several quilting books on my Kindle including From Daisy to Paisley by Leah Day and Modern Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman. And, if you go to SewCalGal’s blog and scroll all the way down the right column and shop through her Amazon.com link – you’ll help support some of the giveaways she so generously provides to the quilting community.

Here’s what I have done on the triangles thus far. I finished piecing one of the t-shirt quilt tops and was able to get this many triangles done. I need 296 triangles for the whole quilt. Now of course I stitch more than one triangle at the end of a seam –what’s more fun–stitching triangles in beautiful colors or piecing a t-shirt quilt? These colors are so luscious.

And while I was driving back from the gym this morning, it occurred to me that I wanted to try something new with these. I’ve been stacking them in color groups. What if they are put into the quilt like variegated yarn, i.e., sorted by color groups, then a color order determined, and a certain number of squares of each color and then add them into the rows in that order – and the colors will create their own pattern within the main design. I have never done this before, but it will be fun to see what happens.