Easy Street Part 6

Once again, I was still up when the latest clue was posted.  This looks like a pretty easy one!  We have to make 128 Double Bricks made up of  two 2” black-on-white strips sewn together then cut into 3-1/2” lengths.  This will make the Double Bricks 3-1/2” squares.  Bonnie said that if we only had one fabric left that we could just cut 3-1/2” squares, but I managed to find just enough black-on-white fabric to make the required blocks.

Bonnie also assigned some Extra Credit!   We need to cut 16 5-1/2” squares from the green fabric.  Then stack them and cut them corner to corner twice with an X to yield 64 quarter square triangles.  Well, I manged to get them all done!

There will be NO Mystery Monday Link because we on our way to a RAPID FIRE FINISH!
Clue 7 goes live on Monday morning instead!  The next Link-Up will be the following Monday.
I'm really looking forward to Monday's accelerated step 7.

Easy Street Part 5

I stayed up real late again Thursday night so I could get a look at the newest clue for Easy Street!  From turquoise scraps we need to cut 64 3-1/2” squares and from purple scraps cut 128 2” squares.  That sounds pretty easy.  Then we need to pair two purple squares  to each 3-1/2” turquoise square the same way we did with flying geese.  Not sure what this block is going to be called.  Bonnie called them tall flying geese or maybe they are sitting turkeys.  I think I remember seeing other names!  Anyway, I got my fabrics cut:

Suzi Porter called them squatting Turkeys!  Well whatever they are, I spent Saturday afternoon putting these blocks together.  I went ahead and double sewed the purples for bonus triangles.  They made 1-1/2" HSTs.  I use 1-1/2" strips quite a bit, so I thought these would be good for something.

 I'm ready for the next clue, but I still have some additional Christmas sewing to do.  I hope that everyone has a wonder Christmas!  

2013 New FO Challenge

Today while I was following along on bloggers that are doing the Bonnie Hunter "Easy Street" mystery quilt and I came across a post by Thimble Mouse of Country Crossroads saying that there was a post from Barbara at Cat Patches inviting any and all of us to join her for the 2013 New FO Challenge.

Now I am new to quilting AND blogging, so I wasn't real sure what that was.  Lynn seemed excited about it so I thought I would check it out.  It turns out that Barbara started up a NewFO Challenge to give us an opportunity to build up our supply of UFO's!  Well, I sure don't have many UFO's so I thought I'd join.

Here's what I need to do:  Each month, start up at least one new quilt project of any size and I do NOT need to complete it during the year.  All I need to do to participate is start something new during any given month.  On the last day of the month, I have to write a blog post about my new project and link up to Barbara's linky party.

1.  Sister's Choice quilt for my bed.  It's a quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter.

2.  I want to make a table runner for the table behind my couch. (The one I had previously made was given to my daughter and I want another one).

3.  I want to make a small quilt for my wall that I can see when sitting at my computer.

Easy Street Part 4

Bonnie published clue #4 early this morning!  It was about 2:00am at my house when it showed up.  I read the entire post twice before I finally called it a night. After I got up and made a pot of coffee, I got out my stack of purple and aqua fabrics and went to work on them.  I enjoyed the flying geese we had in part 2,  and was glad to be able to do some in different colors.  I really appreciated the demo that Bonnie did for showing us how to use the Easy Angle and Companion rulers to make them real easy.  The other thing I like is there is no wasted fabric!

Quilt Cam was a nice session tonight.  Bonnie introduced us to her newest baby, Freckles.  She drove 80 miles north to Virginia to bring home what she called "the fastest, most smooth sewing 301 I have ever come across!"  It was miss-listed as a 1970 vintage Singer model 756 and they only wanted $29 for it. Freckles is a very fast machine.  She's got a beautiful voice and was fun to listen to!  Anyway, back to my work on Clue #4.  I finished up the purple & aqua flying geese units and have started combining them with some of purple & black on white units.

I had finished up combining the geese and was working on cutting the 145 3-1/2” squares from my green fabric when my helper, Popeye, decided it was time for me to take a break and give him some tummy rubs.

So, I took a short break and spent some time enticing him off of my sewing area by giving him just what he wanted. He just loves walking all over whatever I happen to be working on.  I got back to cutting my greens and I've finished with the tasks for Clue #4!

Easy Street Part 3

I was still up at Oh-dark-thirty when Bonnie posted the third clue for Easy Street.  I was excited because we now have the instructions for putting some aqua fabrics into play.  I decided to get some sleep and went out shopping for some more black-on-white fabrics when I got up.  I had enough yardage but it was almost all in one print.  I found several cute fat quarters at Jo-Ann's and they just happened to be on sale for 99 cents!  I went home and got to cutting.

I was anxious to see how my block was going to turn out, so I completed one before I finished cutting everything else.  I like it!

Because I didn't have enough of a variety of  the black-on-white fabric, I waited until this step to cut the 64 2” X 3-1/2” rectangles that Bonnie said we’d be using in a future step.  I also cut the two green 3” squares and sliced those to create 4 triangles that are for a later date!

 I got back to sewing my blocks and was happy with how they turned out.  I did go through each one and cut the dog ears off, just for Bonnie!  Now, another long wait until next Friday!  Good thing for that because I've got some Christmas sewing to do.  Happy sewing!

Easy Street Part 2

Bonnie Hunter has revealed the second clue in her newest mystery, Easy Street:  make 128 flying geese using the Easy Angle ruler and the Companion Angle ruler and 2” strips of the purples and the black-on-whites.

I used the Companion Angle ruler and 2” strips of purple to cut 128 purple quarter square triangles and the Easy Angle ruler and 2” strips of black-on-white strips with right sides together to cut 128 matched pairs of triangles.  This gave me 128 right side triangles and 128 left side triangles.

I matched the edges and the top notches of the right side wing triangles to the right side of the goose triangle and stitched. Pressed the right wing open then added the left wing triangles and pressed it open.  This gave me the necessary 128 - 2” X 3-1/2” unfinished flying geese units.

If that isn’t ENOUGH to keep me busy this week – Bonnie said we could go ahead and cut 64 2” X 3-1/2” rectangles from our black-on-white prints.  She said that we’ll be using those in a future step, and we’ll have them readily on hand.

Easy Street - Part 1

On Friday Bonnie Hunter revealed the first clue in her new mystery, Easy Street:  192 four-patches in gray and black-on-white.  The units were simple to make, but that's quite a lot of them!  This is my first Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I am new to quilting and made my very first quilt for my husband's birthday just 3 months ago.  I had been collecting fabrics for several years, but didn't actually start any quilting until I had retired.

The first assignment for the Easy Street mystery is to construct 192 4-patch blocks, made from the gray and black-on-white fabrics, using 2" strips.   I started by sewing 2" strip sets together.

  I then cut them into 2" segments and sewed the 2" segment together to form the block.  In order to make the block lay flat and reduce thickness in the center, you press the seams clockwise and open up the center.  I had never used this twirling technique before but it reduces the excess bulk in the middle of each block.  It makes pressing take longer, but it's worth it.

As I finished the blocks, I pinned them together in groups of ten so I wasn't recounting over & over.

So now I am ready for the next clue that Bonnie will give us on Friday.  I am very excited about getting to the next step and can't wait to dig into some of the other colors for this quilt!

Brick & Stepping Stones

I was looking for something to do for my leaders/enders and thought I'd work on the 4-patches for Bonnie Hunter's Bricks & Stepping Stones quilt.  I accidentally started  making them from my 1.5" strips.  When I realized what I had done I decided to just do the bricks out of 2.5" strips.  This means that I need a lot more block units.

I'm trying not to use too many of any one fabric so I wanted lay them out but I don't have space to lay them in my sewing room.  I decided to use the  living room.  Thought you'd get a kick out of where I put them so the cats can't mess with them!

I have finally put the blocks together to make a little throw.  I still need to get a couple borders on it, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

For now, this cute little throw is going to go on my soon to be created UFO list.

Coffee Table Cover

After finishing the two Patchwork Travel Pillows, my husband wanted me to make a cover for our coffee table using the same pattern.  Our cats, that haven't been de-clawed, can get very rowdy in the house at times,chasing one another around and have managed to scratch it up pretty good. 

So after thinking on how to do that, and making Mendi's Fence Rail quilt, I set out to trying some different configurations.  I ended up with this:

 

I decided to repeat the pattern from the pillow and joining four of them together. Hubby picked the fabric for the border since it was his request that I make it. I used the smaller flower print for the sashings and the green fabric for the cornerstones.  I'm planning on binding it with that same green but haven't gotten around to it yet.  Here's what it looks like so far:

For now the only protection the coffee table has it the top as I am working on another project.  The cats have fun sliding across the table and pulling the cover off onto the floor, that is when they aren't sitting on the back of the chairs....  here's Roxie posing for a picture!

Mendi's Birthday Present

Well, I thought I was going to work on a table cover to match the throw pillows on the couch, but ended up working on a birthday present for my daughter, Mendi.  She loves to sit in her recliner with her laptop in her lap and keep up with the happenings as well as watching movies there.  So, I decided to make her a quilt she could throw over her legs and stay warm this winter.

This block is called fence rail and is normally made with 3 different fabrics, but for this quilt, I only used 2 different fabrics sandwiching the darker fabric between 2 of the lighter one.

I used the darker fabric for the binding and the lighter fabric for the backing.  I had to wait until her birthday to post this one.  This was my first quilt using machine quilting.  I outlined each of the darker blocks just inside the seams.  The seams on the lighter fabric seem to disappear. 

Scrap Quilting Class on Craftsy

I was checking the recent posts on Facebook and saw a post titled:  Craftsy Free Class Day!  I decided to look into it and ended up taking a class from them titled:  Scrap Quilting: Waste Not, Want Not.  Pepper Cory was the instructor and she added in all kinds of little tips that she had learned over the years as she her has made quilting her life's work.  Her class lessons included: The Patchwork Travel Pillow, Puss-in-the-Corner Quilt Top, Phone Book Quilt Top, and Log Cabin the Verb Quilt.  She also included two bonus lessons of  Stenciling & Sharpening Your Rotary Cutter.  I fully intend on getting a sharpener for my rotary cutter as well as a few extra blades.  It was nice to see just how easy it was to sharpen your rotary blade.

As of yet, I have only made the first project The Patchwork Travel Pillow.  I modified my material selection somewhat from hers because I wanted to put a flower as the center of mine,Mine wouldn't be a travel pillow as I would be using them on the two pillows I had on my sofa that didn't match my decor any longer.  One of the tips that I really liked was to put the pins inside of the place that you are going to pin, instead of on the outside pointing in!  As I had grown up learning from my mother, who was a sewing wizard and made many a dress for me, I had previous pinned on the outside.  I used this inside pinning on my pillow and didn't have to remove the pins as I sewed, because they weren't in the quarter inch seam line!

I managed to get all the seams to line up perfectly that way and am very happy with the results.  I made an identical one for the other side of the couch and I just love them!  Now my husband wants me to make a cover for our coffee table using the same pattern.  Our cats, that haven't be de-clawed, get sort of rowdy in the house chasing one another around and have managed to scratch it up pretty good.  I'll have to think about how to do that.  Oh and he wants one for the table at the end of the couch too!  it's covered with a dark blue table cloth that really doesn't match anything.

The other project in the class are also quite interesting and I think I will go back through each class again before starting each one.  I love the fact that I can watch the classes over and over a many times as I want and at any time of day!  After sharpening my rotary cutter, I think I will try the Puss-in-the-Corner Quilt Top.  I have seen several of these done while watching Bonnie Hunter's blog, which I really love.

Off to another adventure, Tami C.

My Very First Quilt

I really have no idea where to start, but I've been encouraged by reading Bonnie Hunter's blog for the past several weeks:  Quiltville's Quips & Snips!! and decided to start keeping a record of my quilting adventures and how I got there.   I  have been collecting a little material here and there for quite a while now.  My mother-in-law made this log cabin quilt and gave it to my husband and I for Christmas.

We had moved from Colorado to Nebraska by then, so it was a very welcome gift and had really stirred my interest in quilting.  At least I think that this was where it started.  We would go back to Colorado almost every year for a visit and I managed to sneak in a trip to Ruth's Stitchery in Colorado Springs, which was my mother-in-law's favorite quilt store.  I would always get a little something, usually a couple of fat quarters or a cross stitch pattern.  At the time, I was more into cross stitch and crocheting, but we loved going there.

After several years we moved to Texas as my husband had taken a job as Chief of Police at a V.A. Hospital and I took a position as a programmer at a local college.  Having moved further away meant that our trips back to Colorado didn't come as often, but we continued our little trips to Ruth's.  After living in Texas for ten years, we decided we wanted to move back to Colorado.  We decided that whichever of us got a job first, we would be leaving.  Well, I was first to get a position at Regis University in Denver, so we were on our way!  Our trips to visit Ruth's Stitchery were coming much more often, but I still didn't have the time to really take on a quilting project.  My project boxes were getting fuller and the number of them were growing!

I left Regis and went to work for the City of Westminster where I found a few people that also quilted.  They had some really beautiful things and it was then that I decided what I was going to do when I retired.  I was going to quilt!  Well, it was a little over ten years later before I finally retired and guess what I'm doing....

I have started quilting!  My very first quilt was one that I made for my husband's birthday.  I finished up hand sewing the binding on the night before his birthday.  He insisted that he wanted my name and date on it.

 So, that was the last thing I did.   At least I thought it was.  He later said that he wanted pillow covers to match, so back to the sewing machine.  Almost finished with those and my Singer stopped singing!  I spent hours and hours browsing the Internet and reading reviews until I finally found a machine I liked that had the options I wanted and cost I was willing to spend.  I ended up ordering a Brother and had to wait for it to arrive.  I was then able to finish making his pillow covers to match his birthday quilt. Popeye loves them!

So..... Here it is!  Popeye was my helper all during the work on my first quilt and kept a close eye on every step.

 He watched closely as I was putting the last bit of love into the quilt & made sure that I was getting it done.

This was the very beginning of my quilting adventure.  I had made a queen size nine patch quilt with alternate squares.  I was very happy to at last start using all of those pieces of material that I had been picking up over the years.  This entire quilt was made with material I already had on hand including the batting and backing.  Some I had purchased and some were hand-me-overs from my mother-in-law.


Off to another adventure later...  Tami