Lattice Quilt Idea from Home Depot

A display for privacy lattice.  Look at the cool way they arranged the color samples!  
"That should be a quilt pattern" 

It probably is, I just don't know what it's called. 

I tricked Electric Quilt into cooperating with this by making the diagonal "block" two inches square and the plain fabric "sashing" four inches wide  :-) 

It should be pretty easy to make...

Custom Quilting Templates MORE non-skid than OmniGrip

I found something really cool with ebay seller "425rnshim", who cuts custom quilting templates. 

I bought a 4" hexagon and a 10" square for trimming my finished blocks. 

The pieces come perfectly clear, I just ran a permanent marker around the edges so I could see the thing. 

I know when you make crazy quilt squares you're supposed to make them 1/2" larger than you really want them to be, then trim off.  I don't like to build in a lot of extra only to throw it away. I understand you have to do that if you're not perfectly precise, and I can't say I'm perfectly precise. But with a clear square to overlay I can check and make sure I have the whole square completely covered, then trim around. Very WYSIWYG and very cool. 

The nifty part is that the material he uses is MORE non-skid than OmniGrip. 
OmniGrip is supposed to be nonskid, but if you're not careful and keep constant pressure on, an OmniGrip ruler will scoot all over the place. 
These clear templates, laid on top of fabric, are going nowhere. Even the slightest pressure is enough to keep it completely motionless. They really stick to the fabric.   
OmniGrip's nonskid is in the markings, not the material itself.  The clear stuff Rodney uses is inherently nonskid! And a lot cheaper than OmniGrip. 
He has templates with markings etched on them, too, if you want to pay for that. 

 

Check him out, here's the link: 

http://myworld.ebay.com/425rnshim/

Crazy Quilt Squares

Today's random great idea. 
Yes, of course those masterpiece quilts you see entered in the fair are BETTER. 
And the first square of such is always great fun, and the second and third square in pattern are easier, then the fifth and sixth squares are efficiency itself. 
But after that, it starts to be a bit too much like "work" and "doing what I'm supposed to be doing" neither of which are my really strong talents. 
I do find myself craving a more "pieced", organized look, without quite getting started on a pattern...
So I did this  :-) 

Foundation square, with  one piece in the center, and others added as they may fit around it. 

This is fun!

It has enough of the "puzzle" quality to keep me interested.  Where's the next piece that will fit? 
I rock at jigsaw puzzles.  Also, this is using up my little bits and scraps, and FRUGALITY is a talent of mine, which I inherited at the genius level  :-) 
I was raised by famous Great Depression survivor pack rats, under whose tutelage I learned never to get rid of anything that might someday have some use thought up for it. 
I've had a lot of clutter issues to get over, as you can imagine  :-) 

But I do love my box of scraps. 

I just machine quilted a queen size

Go me!! 

The back is the same size squares, but solid fabric.  So after pinning both sides roughly matching up the seams, I quilted in a back and forth pattern down all the seams.  That's all I could manage with the bulk of the quilt rolled up and shoved inside the machine arm.  There's really not much room to maneuver. 

Then when it was all secured like that, I went back and filled in the blocks with random stitching, because I was able to wrestle the fabric around, not having to worry about accidentally scooting the backing. 

"Just spraying thread around," DH called it  :-) 

Favorite Fabrics Quilt is Sandwiched

The quilt top is together, the back is together, the batting is between them, and the whole thing's pinned. 
Lining those layers up is the annoyingest part of the job, IMO.  Next comes the quilting, which will be the hardest  :-) 

Favorite Fabrics Quilt Squares Are Done

I've finished all eighty string squares.  Here they are laid out for visualization purposes.  Ed had apparently been keeping his opinion to himself thus far out of politeness (or reluctance to lower himself by taking up quilt critique) but on seeing this, he said it was going to look a lot better than he had expected   :-) 

He said, "It does look like there's some intelligence behind it!" 

That red piece sure sticks out!  I'm going to remove it. 

Here's an alternative arrangement which everybody agrees doesn't look as good: 

I briefly contemplated arranging each of those blocks to best advantage, and decided against it.  We're going to go with the glory of randomness, or at least I'll sew all the blocks at random into squares of four, and then when there's only twenty big blocks to deal with, see how I'd like to arrange those.  

Here's the first block.  How are we doing as far as precision? 
1/16th of an inch off. 
Sigh. 

Started New QAYG Project

Yesterday being Sunday, I felt I couldn't sew on my Favorite Fabrics quilt. Now that my bed needs it desperately after all the other quilts have fallen apart, it falls under "work". 
So I started something new for fun :-)

I had a pile of 4" squares I've been accumulating. Some time previous I arranged some of them in groups of 4 and 5 coordinating to make blocks, and made them into a QAYG project using lighter tones for the backing and sashing... but then I ended up hating it and picked out the couple blocks I had made. Lighter color strips between blocks just didn't work. It'll have to be black or some strong tone.

I had this largish Mary Engelbreit piece that a friend gave me, with moons, sunflowers etc. It's a bit busy but dark enough to serve as the framing. I carved up the whole piece into backing pieces and got twenty of them. The last two had to be patched together, but I thought a 4 x 5 block quilt would be better than 3 x 6.

The 4" squares when sewn into nine-patch blocks come out 10-3/4", so I cut the backing 12-3/4"

Andrea is better at color harmonization, so I asked her to sort the squares into groups of 4 and 5. Now I have all the sets together in little piles.

I'm eager to get started on this!

The pics here show the blocks I had used last time and picked out. You can still see where the quilting was.

PS, I'm not having fun with Blogger right now. They wanted me to try the new interface, so I did, but it's obviously not optimized for those poor losers who still have dialup, so I switched back. But they switched me back to a version older than I'd had before, where I can't even resize the pictures.

So I updated again, hoping to just live with it...

But with the new version, I hit "Publish" and nothing happens! (And it doesn't publish)

I tried "Save" and finally "Close" and it told me I had unsaved changes...

I tried reporting the problem, filled out the feedback form and it says "Oops! Something went wrong!" So even the feedback form to report my error is malfunctioning.
Well, I'm back in the ancient version. Let's see if this at least publishes. The pics aren't the way I wanted them and I can't figure out how to make them larger in the code. Phooey.

Quilt on the Line

Told Husband that hanging the quilt out on the line was half the coolth of making it.  That quilt just has to be out there draped, looking like that!  It's so classic, so down-home! 
He pointed out that nobody can see it.
I insisted its just being there is all it takes, I still get my Country Girl points.
But later I started to wonder...
If the quilt is out on the line and nobody sees it, do I get still points?
So-- here, world! 

Scrap quilt binding done

Mike said, "Couldn't you just stop doing everything else, and get that done?"
So I did.
I've had the binding cut and pieced for a long time. It was quick to sew it on there. It was the everything else that had been the problem :-)

And he's put it on his bed!!! I didn't even intend it for a bedspread, it's not big enough.

This is why I'm in a hurry with the bed quilt

Because my old quilt is shredding!!!  Shredding evenly all over the surface! 
And I cannot buy a new one, or I'd be admitting failure.  I'm going to make a new quilt for my bed, before the old one falls into rags on the bedroom floor.
The clock's ticking  :-)

Free motion quilting done!

And my scrap quilt is done and QUILTED! Go me! 

Machine Quilting Five Minutes Later

Since this is a scrap quilt for cuddliness and doesn't matter, I thought I'd try my amazing new free motion quilting skillz on it.

This was the very first try, smack in the middle of the quilt.  It took only a couple minutes and look how pretty it came out!    
I had one goof-up that I had to restitch, and one broken thread. 
Since taking the pictures I've done a bunch more sections with no goofs and no broken threads.  At this rate the whole thing will be done in no time. 
It's easier than trying to crisscross the blocks or stitch in the ditch-- why?  Because without the machine presser foot, the layers move freely around and any scooting evens out instead of compounding as you get further.  Also, since there's just one area being worked on at a time,there's less muscling of that mass of rolled quilt around inside the machine!

This is How We Make a Quilt Out of SCRAPS

As I said, when I finished Mike's quilt, I thought I was doing something really great by opening up a real store-bought batting to trim down to size for it.  But the result was so thin and useless I was almost ashamed to give it to him. 

For the next effort I'm more sure about using "junk" for the batting. One layer of a Disney Ariel flannel sheet I got at the free swap (I despise that character) and one layer of old cotton thermal weave blanket.  Already you can tell this is going to be a NICE thick, warm quilt.

Right now it's gotten as far as lining up and pinning the layers, which is the hard part! 

Oh boy, will you (please, not) look at the sloppy lining up job on the back of those pieces!  I used some 3.5" squares I got at the free swap, with some 4" squares that were new, and didn't bother to trim.  Whenever I accidentally got a seam pushed over the wrong way, I snipped it.
Casually. 
Not going to make it into the quilting guild, I bet.

Free Motion Quilting - I got it!!!

My attempts at free motion quilting before have had bad results.  It was all tangled thread and broken needles.  I managed to make it work, once, a little, which came out very awkward looking, as if a wrestling match had taken place between me and the machine (which isn't far from the truth).

Was thinking of taking a quilting class next month.  I wouldn't usually, because there aren't many things I can't figure out on my own, but I was seriously having no luck with this and decided to actually pay for help.  Reading the supply list for the class, and it says I have to have a walking foot and darning foot.  My lovely gift from God, that Pfaff, has the IDT built in, so I don't need a walking foot.  It came with a darning foot too.  Light bulbs started going on.  I knew the Pfaff had a "free motion quilting foot" available, but I hadn't gotten to the point of purchasing it yet.  But what about the darning foot? 

I hadn't carefully read the instructions in the Pfaff manual for darning before; I read them now.  "Darning" is free motion, that's the whole idea.  There's a special setting on the Pfaff for darning, wherein the presser foot is half lowered and the thread tension is engaged.  Lower the feed dogs and away you go. I tried it and it worked perfectly! 

Can NOT believe how simple this is.  Amazing once you get it right.  Amazing what the German engineers built in there for our stitching pleasure (that's my favorite part).

It's a breeze!  Just like one of the Youtube ladies had said in a video that didn't help me at all, "It's just like doodling."

Mike's quilt is done!

Done, bound and quilted.

Mike quilt blocks layout

My friend who came over and saw some of the blocks stitched together, said, "That's not as horrible as it looked in the picture"  :-D 

And here, arranged the way they're going to be, it's not horrible at all!

Mike quilt update - okay and horrible

The design got simpler!  And I'm having a pretty good time getting these pieces together.  I think this'll work out.
I can't do any math for this because it's all going by how much fabric I have.  There'll be as many nine patch squares as it turns out I have green fabric for  :-)
I have a large amount of the red calico which WAS going to be for the backing, but I put it as sashing to increase contrast.  I've finally gotten Mike to admit that we need more contrast! 

Here's the results so far.
HORRIBLE!  N'est ce pas?  

French Braid quilt pattern

I was walking by as a lady was making this design, and she explained it to me.
Basically, a center square, then a strip the same width sewn to one side of it, then another strip with a little square, and repeat as long as you want.  It's okay that the sections have jagged edges, they'll be trimmed.
Isn't this a fun idea? 

idea for Mike's quilt

Dave made a quilt so Mike's got to have one too.  He asks me about it quite often, overlooking the important detail that Dave (more or less!!) made his own. Mike's not inclined to sewing, but is waiting for his quilt because Mom DID say he could have one too.

I think I'll do an actual pattern for his! I've got to to add some interest, because I hate the fabrics he picked!  But the pattern's got to be about as simple as it can get.

I'm gonna do the center patches 2", and see how large those squares come out, then cut the plain fabric squares the same size. Adding sashing between makes it fancier and easier. I can do this :-)

Very rough approximation of the tone of the fabrics chosen by Mikey, which, as I said, are NOT exactly inspirational to me. I don't like any of 'em very much, but I don't mind the sleigh one at top left because I like the whole snowy woods theme, or the lower right because it's got a little bit of a Germanic vibe to it. But I sure don't like 'em all together!

Most favorite fabrics quilt

I need a new quilt for my bed, and I decided I would make it out of only fabrics I LOVE, whether they really went together or not. I have a bunch of scraps of all different sizes, and some larger pieces, of these most-liked fabrics.

I worried for a while because I felt that a bed quilt should be a masterpiece! It should have a fancy pattern. I had to talk to myself for quite a while before I gave myself permission to start cutting another non-masterpiece. Had to use some reasoning: who's this quilt really for? :-)

The scraps won. I have a couple of scraps I totally heart, but not in large enough amounts to make into any sort of logical pattern. The only way to work them all in is randomly.

I've started making string squares. Gonna need quite a few for a queen size quilt.

There you have it, fabrics I ♥love♥

Using the twelve squares I have so far, here's the idea of how it will look!

For the back, I'm gonna alternate big squares of my favorite tones of pink and black floral. Don't know if I'll have enough pink, so that might have to be modified. I have plenty of different kinds of black floral, so I might have to add green or blue squares to the pink in a nice pattern.