Life in the Scrapatch

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Annie's Choice

October Swap Block

I have joined a 6 month Block Exchange Swap with my quilty friends at the Quilt & Needle. I am a Stitchin' Sister. The block my friend Sherry chose for October is Annie's Choice in white and bright medium blue tone-on-tones. These blocks are beautiful. My hubby is wishing I would make more and they would stay here, I think. After I get my scrappy swap blocks I may be making him a quilt. ;)

my method

I used a different method of making the HST blocks using what I have learned here about making 4 HST at a time from That Girl ... That Quilt As usual, I did find I personally had to cut my beginning squares a tad on the large size to get accurate 1/4" seams and the correct finished block size. The math of this site would call for cutting 5.5" squares to make unfinished 3.5" HSTs. I found if I cut my beginning squares are 5 and 5/8ths (5.625) and set my Janome on the 3.8 needle setting and used my standard 50/2 ply cotton thread for piecing that I would get what I call accurate 1/4 inch seam and is more commonly referred to as a Scant 1/4 inch seam. Click on this link for a good explanation of Scant 1/4" Seams by A Quilting Life . This way I would get the correct 3.5" size HSTs with only trimming off the dog-ears with my snips.

Here are my how-to photos below ...

sew 1/4" seam on all 4 sides

cut on diagonal

cut on second diagonal

yields 4 HSTs

press to dark fabric

check sqaure for correct size and trim

if HSTs are correct size, just snip the dog ears

chain piece squares together

press in opposite directions

check alignment of sub units

nest center seams / pin if needed

sew quarter square sub units together removing pins as you go

check for accurate 1/4" seams

press

check and square quarter units for size

make 4

nest diagonal seams when sewing square units together

correctly pressed back showing all seams in opposite directions

check finished block for size and squareness

6 swap blocks plus 1 charity block

We are exchanging blocks in groups of six and we are making one extra block to make a group charity quilt for a children in crisis center.

Although I found these blocks challenged my HST skills, I really loved the fabric and block choice for this month and I am looking forward to receiving my squishy in the mail with my Stichin' Sisters' beautiful blue and white blocks.

Time to do some painting in my new sewing room and to get ready to make next month's block!

Have a happy quilty day!

:-)

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

WIP ... My New Sewing Room!

One wall and one closet done!

At the moment, my biggest WIP is getting *My New Sewing Room* up and organized. While we are painting and such, I am still sewing in my little corner of the dining room and I am working on some blocks for a swap and some group quilts. I am really looking forward to having my own sewing space where I will not have to pack everything away for company coming and the long holiday season.

This is the design seed palette I chose for my sewing room ...

I found this on I Heart Linen's Blog through Pinterest

I love this blog!

I really like these colors and they work well with the wood tones and browns that exist in the room.

Here are the paint colors I picked ...

"Shimmering Blue Pool" on the walls ..."French Buttercup Petal" for accents ... "Classic Rice Paper" for the trim. The slight off-white is our standard inside trim color throughout our house. These are inexpensive Walmart "Color Place" paints, which we have always found easy to work with, cover well and are durable. We are scraping the trim, lightly sanding the wood and panelling and priming all the walls first.

Here are a few more pictures ...

Before

Priming the big built-in closet

first paint coat, closet and walls

I am really liking the aqua blue on the walls!

The bright sunflower quilt is one of my favorites. I put it up only for this photo op. It is now safely tucked away in another room and may or may not find a permanent home in my sew sewing room.

This is our short term plan to get me into my own sewing room before the holiday season is upon us. Since we are doing this on a budget, we are painting just over the "fake knotty pine" paneling that is almost 40 years old. Long range plans are to eventually replace the old drywalling and the dropped ceiling in this room, but that is the long-term plan.

I will not be buying any furniture for this room yet, either. Instead I will be making use of the existing closets and shelving, some plastic storage drawer units, tables that we already have and one storage type piece of furniture which my daughter left behind for now as there was no room in her apartment. It will soon be home to lots of fabric and sewing stuff.

I have a few "must haves" on my short term list. A design wall of some sort is up near the top of the list. I have a few ideas of how I want to make this.

Time to get some work done.

Have a happy quilty day!

:-)

Monday, October 8, 2012

A Fall of Quilts

My Pumpkin Patch Quilt

The leaves are turning colors and falling. The weather is turning cooler. The earth is turning quickly and the days are growing shorter and the nights are longer. The seasons are turning and it is fall.

I love everything about fall. The leaves change and fly quickly ... and remind me that letting go is all a part of life.

Time for my fall quilts. This is one of my earliest quilts and one of my favorites. It was originally blogged here.

More fall quiltiness coming soon.

Time of go enjoy the day.

Happy Fall!

Sunday, October 7, 2012

A Happy Quilty Day

Cathedral of The Pines

The mountain in the distance is Mount Monadnock

Yesterday, my hubby and I took a drive to Cheshire County, NH, to enjoy the country roads, the beautiful fall foliage, a cozy quilt shop, a delicious lunch with his cousin and her hubby, and a lovely little quilt guild show.

Cathedral of The Pines

The Cathedral of the Pines is a very peaceful place.

The quilt shop was one of my favorite quilt shop destinations.

Pickering Farm Quilt Shop

The quilts show was the

Monadnock Quilters Guild Show

They had many, many beautiful quilts.

This one really caught my eye ...

Pyramid Scheme by Kathryn Amadon,

Monadnock Quilters Guild Show 2012

pattern by

Linda Warren Designs

close up of fabrics and quilting

quilt show information card

I love the fabrics and colors in this quilt. The pattern designer, Linda Warren, was vendor at the show and this pattern was one of my few purchases. The pattern is very well written, with lots of tips and tricks and the blocks look very easy to make. The finished quilt is very striking.

There was also a scrappy sample quilt so this would be a good stash busting pattern, too. Since I have a lot of stash to bust, I hope to be sewing this one soon. :)

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Mysterious HSTs

8 x 17 = 136 HST

The new mystery quilt is still a mystery to me.

I can tell you it has 136 half square triangles in it.

I like half square triangles. They are sew versatile.

I learned a new method of making 8 HST at once. Nice!

I like this method and will use it again, so I researched and found this nifty tutorial ... Half-Square Triangles Shortcut by Katie's Quilts and Crafts ... to help me with the math to figure out how to make these HST in all sizes. Thanks, Katie. :)

Here are some more pictures of my process ...

Note: My 10" squares were all from a layer cake swap

and were all slightly different sizes to start and this

may have necessitated a little extra trimming.

Draw lines - point to point

mark seam allowance

sew just to the cutting side of the drawn line for accurate 1/4" seams

Note: What I call an accurate 1/4" seam, others refer to as a scant 1/4" seam. To learn more about this scant 1/4" seam, click on this tutorial by A Quilting Life. I personally feel that anything less than this is less than 1/4" seam and may compromise the life of the seams of my quilt. I have found that on my Janome 6600p the needle setting is 3.8 to achieve this accurate 1/4" seam.