I wanted to ‘build a snowman’ and I did it!

I started in March with a paper piecing pattern that I had won as a door prize several years ago and had not stitched up. It included three snowmen and a pair of mittens. They were arranged in the pattern to be a horizontal banner.

So I stitched up these 5 blocks and laid them out as instructed –

Then I yawned because, not only is this boring but I don’t have a place to display a horizontal banner.

I tried some other arrangements:

Then I brainstormed with the hubby and finally decided to make MORE motifs and create a row-by-row Christmas tree wall hanging.

The angel was from an outline of a pattern found on Pinterest. I added a halo of sequins.

Then came the pair of mittens from the original design. I added fluffy yarn to the cuffs.

I drew my own paper piecing pattern for the wreaths. They have a fabric bow and red seed beads as decoration.

I also drew my own paper piecing pattern for the candle. It is decorated with a single gold tube bead in the flame.

I used the outline of a paper pieced pattern found on Pinterest for the poinsettias. They have yellow seed beads stitched into a cluster for the center.

The snowflake is the one motif I am most disappointed with. The pattern I found online was very small. I had to enlarge it a LOT to get the size I wanted. Unfortunately, any inconsistencies in the seam matching on those small pattern pieces were magnified in my version so there are some snaggly edges toward the center. I used scrappy whites throughout this block and I chose not to use any embellishments.

The snowmen were part of the original pattern. I left off pom-poms on their hats but added fabric scarves and small tube beads for eyes and buttons.

I drew my own paper piecing pattern for the trees. They got star buttons (that I had on hand!) sewn on for decorations.

I set in green half-rectangles for the overall tree shape. I obviously had some problems with the math on these!

After stitching in the ditch around all the blue background blocks I did free-motion ‘snow’ and ‘icicles’ around the tree branches.

I also did a stitch in the ditch across the rows where they connect and used a 1 ½ inch vertical line to quilt the background.

Finally, I added a hanging sleeve the same fabric as the binding.

So – 9 months to birth this baby! I can’t wait for it to be time to put up the Christmas decorations. This will be front and center at my house.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:37 PM PDT

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When my daughter saw the tree skirt I made for myself last Christmas she requested one 'just like it'. I had to move some of the colors around because of the amount of fabric I had on hand, but it is essentially the same.

I used a pattern from the November/December 2015 issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine that uses the LeMoyne Star. I don't have their special tool so I made the directions fit my own method. That makes the outer diamonds into trapezoids but I like them anyway.

This is the new one:

Compared to the one last year:

On last year's skirt I used a pieced back but for this new one I found a neat metallic 'brush painting' fabric for the backing.

Now it's off to arrive as a birthday gift and dress up the upcoming Christmas festivities.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 8:21 PM PDT

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Progress! I got back to work on a quilt that I started at retreat in June and just finished it.

This started with a panel of prints. There are six views of country life with repeats in reverse that total 18 units.

I made patch units with six fall-colored prints bordered in black.

Those patch units appear in twos fours and sixes to intersperse with the picture panels.

The result is a small lap quilt bordered in plaid and a leaf print for binding.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 11:14 AM PDT

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I am amazed by the tutorials that come out of Missouri Star Quilt Company week after week. Every one is easy, innovative and attractive.

But there are some that I just can't wait to dive right in on.

I rarely print out the accompanying materials with materials, measurements and instructions. Instead, I have my little tablet of graph paper and I make sketches of the blocks, the step-by-step and layouts. I pencil in measurements as I go.

Usually, they work out just fine even though I don't often make them in the size they are designed. This is because they are mostly using pre-cuts in full packets (or multiples of them) and I just work out what size I want the finish to be and cut the number of pieces needed to do up the pattern.

The tutorial for this quilt is called Totally Tulips and starts with 10" precuts and makes a quilt measuring 89" x 90". That's huge.

I am generally making lap quilts so I only needed 12 tulips. That used 24 10" squares from my stash - half colors and half greens. I used muslin I had on hand for the background.

I did overall large stippling over all the white. Then I did three wavy vees on all the flowers and stitch in the ditch up both sides of each stem.

The backing is a modern print with little blocks of color on point. It has all the colors used on the front. It looked so nice I used it for the binding as well.

This will go to the hospital Passages program.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 7:59 PM PDT

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A bang-up warehouse sale at the HUGE fabric store some months back netted me some multiples of charm packs and some mini-charms which I set aside in my stash. They were of different lines but coordinated well. I also had a yardage for background left over from a previous project.

When Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilt Company released her tutorial for 'Garden Stars' I knew I had all the ingredients for the perfect recipe.

The fabrics have a vintage look to them and the quilt block incorporates two sizes of 'Friendship Star' so I combined these to come up with the title.

I love how this goes right up to the edges with no border.

I used large loops to stitch an overall pattern.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 8:44 PM PDT

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Due to traveling and a lot of books coming in all at once from holds at the library, a couple of quilting project got set aside for a while. Our hospital chaplain will be coming to pick up the next batch one day soon when I won't be at quilting so I needed to get these moved to the 'done' pile.

The one shown today was inspired by a white print fabric with bright colored poppies. I selected bright fabrics matching all three of the colors in the print - coral, tangerine and lime.

These all sat in my stash until just the right pattern came along. I found this one in a magazine at the library. Unfortunately, I sketched it out on graph paper and didn't make a note of which magazine (brand OR issue) it was in.

Now, I had bought a whole rainbow of cones of thread to use for quilting. When I tried out the coral on this quilt I wanted to make huge free-motion poppies all over it. The thread just kept breaking and breaking! I tried new needles, different sizes of needles, different styles of needles, rethreaded..... everything they tell you to do. No effect on the breakage.

I gave up on the poppies after about 5 - 6 of them and then used the thread for straight-line quilting at varying intervals. It looks great and very modern.

This lap quilt will go to the hospital Passages program.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 7:59 PM PDT

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Well, since I gave a sneak peek of this quilt yesterday on the design wall, I thought I'd go ahead and update it with the top finished. It still needs to be sandwiched, quilted and bound.

I'm throwing in a step by step for some of the process, as well.

I started out with a panel of bird pictures, all camped out in the branches of one tree. There are 12 bird pictures on the panel and duplicates on the other half of the fabric.

In deciding how to arrange these I remembered I had a paper-piecing pattern for three birdhouses. I checked and they were about the right size for interspersing with the birds.

This is the pattern cover (bad photo):

I made up four of each style with a consistent sky and a mix of siding and roofs. I had to make one extra for the final layout.

I didn't want to use buttons for the entrance holes like the pattern indicated, so I used a process that I had done on a birdhouse quilt several years ago. Here's the method I used.

I set my machine stitch short (2.0) and set needle down to 'on'. I used black thread throughout.

I started with a plain house:

Then I used black pen to draw a circle on the back of a square of black fabric.

This was centered on the front of the house, right sides together and pinned in place

I very carefully stitched on the lines around the circle

With tiny, sharp-point scissors I cut a whole through both layers leaving about 3/16 from the stitching line

From whichever side the stitching showed best I snipped right up to the stitching leaving very narrow fringes

You can see how finely cut the fringes are

Pushed all of the black fabric through the hole to the wrong side of the house

Used a wooden tool to smooth and press the opening round and flat

Took to the pressing surface and steam ironed completely flat

Cut a length of wooly or eyelash yarn in light tan (amout 3 inches)

Drape it on a second square of black mimicing the curve of the bottom of the hole

Lay the birdhouse on top of the yarn, allowing just a fringe to peek out

Carefully top-stitch around the hole very close to the edge to secure the yarn and the backing in place

Trim the two layers of black about 1/2 inch from the stitching

One house done

Return houses to the layout

Trim all the birds to a standard size (mine were cut at 5 x 6 inches) and cut the birdhouse blocks the same

Assemble the top

Borders of complementary fabric were added

After quilting I will finish this with a black binding.

The top measures 27 wide by 32 tall and will be a wall hanging for the fireplace.

UPDATED 4/11/17

I finished this off by quilting around one main bird in each panel and around each birdhouse:

I attached a hanging sleeve to the top border and bound it with black.

Here is the finish:

I like this very much!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Three baby quilts in a row? What's up with that?

Our church donates to a local pregnancy clinic (Hope 360) and our quilt group that meets at the church makes donation quilts for them to give the new babies.

We have made Passages quilts for the local hospital for several years but Hope 360 is only a couple years old. Other ladies in our group have already donated several baby quilts but I had never done so. I decided to make some and, since I didn't have other projects waiting, I quickly finished off three of them.

The quilt today is from a tutorial by the Missouri Star Quilt Company. They called it 'Dizzy Daisies'. 

In the tutorial, they used a line of fabric that was quite subdued in coloring. I wanted to go bold and bright. I chose, from my stash, 5 bright pinks, 4 bright oranges, bright yellow, bright green, bright turquoise and crisp white.

The petals of the flowers start out as 5-inch squares and are snowballed on three sides - two white and a yellow - using 2 1/2 inch squares. Then these are joined together with the yellows together to make the flower.

The blocks were joined with 2 1/2 inch white sashing with green cornerstones. Then the turquoise border was added - also 2 1/2 inches wide.

I quilted the orange flowers like daisies (all of the flowers got spiral centers):

The pink flowers got rose-type petals:

The vertical sashing was quilted first with vines and leaves. Then the horizontal sashing got rows of tiny flowers:

The turquoise border has dragonflies printed on it so I just quilted with loop-the-loops down the length.

The binding matches the border and the backing is green flannel.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 5:40 PM PST

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A quilting supplies catalog arrived in my mail box just as I was looking for a pattern to make another baby quilt. One pattern looked very complicated but the notes at the bottom said it was only three blocks and showed them. All were made from squares and half-square triangles and only five fabrics required: black, a dark and a light of color one, a dark and a light of color two.

Well, I did some calculations to see what size of blocks and building units it would take to make a baby quilt between 36 to 40 inches. I cut all the units to finish at 2.5 inches. Therefore the blocks would be 7.5 inches.

Then I went off to find fabrics and was delighted to run across a set of fabrics I bought to use together and they met the criteria precicely. I had a black with tiny roses, a tone-on-tone dark green with leafy shapes, a light green with sweet peas, a dark pink with open flowers and a light pink with small white flowers.

I calculated the number of each unit I needed and cut/sewed them. Then the blocks were assembled. I needed 13 of one block and 6 of each of the other two blocks and they lay out in a 5 x 5 grid.

The assembly that makes all the cane weaving look requires that there be no sashing between the blocks.

Ready?

Don't you love it?

I used a light green flannel on the back and did large meander quilting.

A border around the outside would have broken up the pattern so I just finished it with a binding in the black floral.

Finished size is 38 inches.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 3:17 PM PST

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Final Finish!

I am officially caught up with all of my UFO quilting and sewing projects. 

The fabrics for this quilt were pre-cuts from a fabric line featuring a garden theme. There weren't enough strips for the pattern so I added in a few from my stash and also provided the creamy background and border from the stash.

The pattern is from a book on quilting with precuts and I cut it down considerably to end up with a lap quilt size.

I quilted with an over-all pattern of vines and leaves. I love using this when I am working with garden or flower fabrics.

I won't stay without projects for long though. I already have fabrics and patterns set aside and can't wait to get cutting again. And then there's that big fabric sale going on this weekend....

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 11:54 PM PST

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ANOTHER FINISH! I'm on a roll now.

I did a repeat of the Twizzle pattern used for Pixie Sticks - this time using Teal, Green and Purple. This gave it a tropical look to me leading to the name 'Tropical Twist'.

I gave this one a wide border matching the background and used that for the binding as well. This makes the pattern float above the background.

Here is the background fabric. It reminds me of coconut husk so fits the tropical theme.

Because of the pattern on the background it did not lend itself to the converging lines quilting that I used on the other quilt. So I just did stitch in the ditch quilting and called it good.

This quilt will go to the hospital Passages program.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 8:14 PM PST

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Today was an all day (9 am to 4 pm) quilting session at the church. We do this two Saturdays a month September through June.

My project for the day was to work on quilting one of my donations quilts that will go to the hospital's Passages program.

The pattern I started with was a free download from Craftsy.

Although it was designed with four sections of color running top to bottom I didn't want mine to be that big so I cut only three colors. When I laid them out in these vertical bars I didn't like it so I mixed the colors all together.

This has such a modern, graphic look that I decided to quilt it with converging lines running top to bottom. It really reinforces the modern look.

The name came about because these colored bars remind me of those sugar-filled straws that children so love.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 5:57 PM PST

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I've been working hard on getting caught up with quilt projects that just need the quilting and binding done.

The one I finished today was made from a pattern I tore out of a magazine soon after I started making quilts. When I bought the main fabric with those swirls of teal and brown I went right for this pattern even though it was featured in purple and black. 

This is actually a very simple pattern - one big block in the center with 4 snowballed corners - 8 squares around the sides with one snowballed corner each then joined into pairs - 4 squares in the corners. I alternated between the teal and the cream in placement.

The sashing in stripe has all the other colors in it and I used the same brown in the cornerstones as the snowball corners.

When I was ready to quilt I designed some art deco corners and a scalloped center motif. I made 36 copies of the line art. I would pin one into a corner and free-motion stitch through the paper and then tear it away. It took a lot of practice to figure out how to stitch the corner without too many back-tracks.

I did the same with the centers.

I am now down to 3 'Works In Progress'.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 6:20 PM PST

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Some quilts I absolutely fall in love with before I even start stitching on them. That was the case with this one - just because the fabric was so yummy!

I bought a wide stripe black floral from the bargain bin and realized that at home I already had a black with little rosebuds that would look great combined with it. Once I found a pattern I liked, I chose the yellow, green and coral in the florals and in my stash. I added in a white with tiny dots in yellow and coral for the background.

Before I even started sewing this, I realized I had enough of the floral, yellow and green as well as the rosebuds and big florals to make another quilt and cut this one to sew up (showed back on August 14, 2016):

So, I got sidetracked and made several other quilts along the way but I finally got around to finishing up this originally cut one!

You'd hardly know they were the same fabrics, would you?

The coral and white really changes the feel of it.

In the original wide stripe fabric there was a funky separating stripe running lengthwise. I cut that 2 1/4 inches wide and used it for the binding.

For the first time, I bound from back to front so I could topstitch the binding. This left the back binding with a narrow black stripe that helps separate it from the large orange polkadot backing.

I call this one Grand Floral Parade because the large blossoms remind me of the Rose Festival.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 7:32 PM PST

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I signed up for a mystery quilt for New Year's Day.

Prior to the day of, we were provided with guidelines on selecting 6 fabrics that would contrast and blend well in the pattern and how much of each to have on hand.

Then, over several days we were given cutting instructions for various colors and instructed on labeling them.

On New Year's Day the designer released instructions every few hours - 'stitch A1 squares to B2 triangles to create X number of usits that look like this' (for example).

Of course, nobody could actually sew as fast as the instructions were published as many steps were time-consuming or complicated.

It took me about a week to finish, including layout and assembly of the quilt top. I then had to wait for the next quilting get-together at the church to use the big tables to sandwich the quilt. That caused another delay as bad winter weather cancelled the first scheduled session.

Finally, I got it all together and then this week I got to quilt it. I did this with loopy vines and leaves all over the top.

The name fo this quilt has a two-fold origin. One is the arrows pointing this way and that over the pattern. The other is the fabric selection.

You can see in this close-up that there is a leafy forest floor, a wood grain and a sweet little country plaid. I also used a green and a blue as well as a dark brown with gold circles.

I used the dark brown for the backing and the little plaid for the binding.

On to the next.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 1:21 PM PST

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With the best of intentions I selected an assortment of Christmas fabrics and cut 5-inch squares to follow a tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Comapny.

I went off the rails on the very first step! We were supposed to construct a 9-patch like this (the colored patches are all different though):

Instead, I made ALL my 9-patches like this:

You gotta understand that the blocks are a variety of colors. On mine, though, the centers are all the same (I'll show you later why).

Then the instructions showed to slice the 9-patch blocks like this and swap the cut-off sides to antoher block:

I realized that with my four white corners, the swapping out of the cut-off sides would bring back more white corners. Shoot!

So I sliced mine all ther way to the sides in both directions like this:

When the tutorial swaps out the cut-off sides with another block they get this:

Mine was NOT going to work that way so I swapped out those white corners for 2 1/2 inch colored squares (using all the same ones) and then added 1/2 inch sashing between all the elements. Mine looks like this:

AWESOME!

Put 12 of their blocks together and you get this:

Here's a picture from the tutorial:

I decided mine needed 2 inch sashings and cornerstones so the layout became like this:

And here is the final result:

So, here's why I used the same center block in all the 9-patches. I had this adorable chickadee fabric:

Here's the block:

Beautiful gold metallic sashing with block corners and red cornerstones:

As I was working on the blocks I had every intention of finishing this off with cheery prairie points around the edges. But I put in that shiny gold sashing and it threw a little tantrum and declared itself much too sophisticated for those country-style trimmings.

So I added a gold over-printed red backing (it is of the same line as the featured chickadees).

Then I used the green holly from the block corners for the binding.

I call this quilt Christmas Surprise because it surprised me from the very first step where I went wrong.

I'll be keeping this one for myself.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 8:19 PM PST

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For a couple of years I have been wanting to make a quilted tree skirt but had to wait until I found just the right pattern. In the November/December 2015 issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine I found just what I wanted. Then this summer I chose a perfect range of fabrics in the outdoor sale at Fabric Depot.

Not a one of the fabrics are Christmas fabrics. One of them has a little red flower on a white field but it is more of a daisy-like shape. No trees, no hokly, no snowflakes, no snowmen or santas or reindeer. They are just red, green and toast in small geometric patterns.

The pattern uses a LeMoyne Star and lots of diamonds.

It also uses THIRTY-SIX 'Y' SEAMS! Holy moly, that's a lot! Special templates are used to trim the corners of the squares so they fit together at the edges and the LeMoyne Star was supposed to be trimmed with a special tool but I wasn't going to buy it just for this project so I developed my own trimming method. this caused my triangles in the stars to become paralellograms instead. (No mistakes - just creative choices).

AND if one is not an expert at binding corners they will be by the end of this - 9 outer corners and 8 inner corners. A circle at the center used bias binding which was a new process for me.

Here is the over-all view:

I added ties to the open edges to close the back:

I pieced the back so I wouldn't have to buy more yardage to make one large piece. This is where eight of the Y seams are (in those outer edges).

I like this project very much! time to trim the tree.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 7:24 PM PST

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