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.