Fabric in this week

Howdy Folks, hope you're having a great weekend. If you are not, and are sitting around bored, there is still time to buy Jess's new mystery pattern!!

The gals on the Q&N forum are having fun doing up the mystery and talking about it on the forum. We share pictures, tips, advice and lots of OOHHS and AAHHHS. We would love for you to join us. You can buy the pattern here.

With money I got at Christmas for fabric, I bought 5 yrds of Terrain, by Kate Spain. I LOVE her fabrics! They are so rich and vibrant. These are the ones I bought.

I used part of them to do the mystery quilt (I was a tester). And I have 2 yrs left over for whatever. I see a DIAPER BAG in my future ;) LOL, so I think that is what these fabrics will become.

I also won on Sew Momma Sew's blog hop/giveaway's that she does twice a year. I won from Crafts Buds blog. A great couple of gals, they always have something interesting to look at. Lindsay was so sweet. I was one of 4 winners, and she asked me if Heather Ross was a favorite of mine or not. When I admitted that I liked some Heather Ross fabric, I wasn't too thrilled with the FQ's she had for one of the winners. So she happily looked around my little blog and found some FQ's in her own stash, she thought I'd like, and sent them to me instead.

How cool is that?! Here is the lovely FQ's she sent me.

The two on the right have already gone on my butterfly quilt....I haven't taken a picture yet. But it is now ready for quilting.

I want to thank you all for being friendly followers. I love reading your comments and knowing that I am helping some of you out with my tutorials.

Here's hoping the New Year is better than ever!

Another home made Christmas post

Hello everyone, Bumping around blog land this week, I've been seeing a lot of 'hand made Christmas'  posts. I love seeing all the goodies people make their loved ones.

So here is my hand made post :)

My oldest son loves drafting and engineering drawing type stuff...layouts for his trains, trains, buildings, etc. So I made him an art bag to hold his drafting supplies.

It has space for paper, pencils, rulers, calculator, erasers...and zips up to keep it all together.

I made some pretty pillows for dd's tree fort.

Sigh~ I know, my pillow forms aren't as big as the cases...I'm terrible at math. lol

And for my youngest son, he wanted a cape.

It's  reversable. And can easily slip on and off over his head.

 

He loves it! 

I'm not the only one in the house to make hand made things though. My dd and youngest made us all some cute cards. And my oldest made things out of wood for us. I have a picture of just two of those things though.

This is a pinball machine he made for his sister.

He plans on putting some electronics in it, so that it keep score.

And here's a nice little box he made for me. I keep it on my sewing table.

He's doing so good with his woodworking!

I love getting hand made gifts, how about you?

Have a great day all.

 

Merry Christmas

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas.

No matter how you celebrate the birth of Christ.

I hope the rest the year is filled with peace, love and happiness.

Thank you for being friends, and visiting my blog from time to time. 

I hope you have a wonderful New Year!

The Wedding Ring tutorial

.Hello everyone, hope you had a fabulous weekend. I finished my sewing gifts for the kids, yah! Will post pictures of them soon. But for today, I thought I'd walk you thru a wedding ring block, to show it is't not so scary as you might think. There are a lot of little pieces that have to be cut out using templates, but if you go slow and steady, they come together fairly well.

 I got all my templates from the Benni Harper's book "Quilt Album". She makes a beautiful Wedding ring quilt, with lone stars on it. Here is the quilt I made from this book (this picture doesn't have the border on it).

Here are the pieces you will need for one block.

A block : 16 'A' pieces (you can use as many different colors as you like)
B block : 8 'B' pieces, 8 reversed 'B' pieces
C block: 8 'C' pieces
D block: 4 'D' pieces
E block: 1 'E' piece

First you lay out your A pieces, in the color scheme you want. Or you can do totally scrappy ones. You will need 4 A pieces sewn together for unit A. You will need 8 A units for one block.

The pieces are slightly curved on top and bottom, and are a tiny bit larger on the bottom then the top. Easy to piece together.

Next you add one B piece and one B reversed piece to either side of your A units. Making sure you put the straight side of B, to the unit A.

Easy so far, yes? :)

Now you need to add a C piece to both sides of four of the A/B units. Piece B and rB are convex curved, whereas piece C is concave curved (I think I have those right. lol).

Lay four of your pieces so that the C piece has the curved pieces in the right place. You see the pointy tip of piece C is pointing out.

Find the middle of the curve of piece C. I like to fold my piece in half, and give it a pinch. That way I have a crease that goes away easily and no marks. And the middle of piece B. After folding, open them both up and match the middle marks up. Pin it. Gently pull the edges of piece C to fit the edges of piece B. Since they are curved, they are a little stretchy. And pin! Pins are important in this block.

Sew all the C pieces to the B pieces. So you have 4 units like this.

The next step is to sew one of the A/B units (the four that doesn't have piece C sewn to it) to either side of piece D.

Again, fold piece D in half lengthwise and pinch the side so that you have your halfway mark. The halfway point of the unit is the middle seam. Pin the middle points together.

Gently pin the edges together, working your way from the middle to either end. Pins are the key to this block! Your A/B unit piece will be a little bunchy, after it's all pinned, but that's ok.

 

Sew, using a 1/4" seam. Press the seam towards block D.

Now find the middle of the other side of the D piece, and pin it to the middle of your A/B/C unit.

And again, gently pull the ends around and line up the edges. Pinning all the way. Maybe every half inch.

 

Sew 1/4" seam. and Press towards block D.

Now you have 8 units that look like this.

You will be sewing them to piece E, like this.

Find the middle of one side of E, folding and pinching. Pin your unit to it, first the middle.

Then along the edges towards the end. Your pinning will end at the seam line between pieces B and C.

It's ok that piece E is bunched, just gently pull the pieces when you are sewing, so the bunches aren't in the seam.

Start with your needle right in that seam between pieces B and C. Go forward a few stitches then take a back stitch. Sew just until the next B/C seam! Take a back stitch and stop.

Add another unit to the next side. Making sure you stop at the seam line.

So that your unit looks like this when done with the second side.

Fold the unit, matching those two C pieces. And pin it. Then sew 1/4". As this curved angle (the two C pieces) are slightly different than the rest of the unit, I find it easier to sew these pieces on in two stages.

Add remaining sides in the same way. And TA-DA, a wedding ring block.

My tips:

Use pins, lots of them. It really helps to keep your curved pieces in place. Taking the pins out as you come to them.

And sewing the units to piece E in two stages..sewing the C pieces seperately from the rest the unit really helps get that angle right.

Making a whole quilt with these blocks, you'll make a bunch of these rings, then you sew them together using more E pieces and half E pieces. Just remember to find the middle and pin, then pin out to both sides.

I hope my little tutorial is helpful to any of you who are afraid to try it due to the curves! Let me know if you don't understand something. I love to help.

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Linking up with QuiltStory and SewHappyGeek, Thanks Ladies!

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Copyright D. Lucas, 2011 This is my tutorial. You are welcome to use any of my tutorials for personal use. You are not permitted to use my pictures or my words without linking back to the original and giving me credit for them.

Little things...and a nice surprise.

Christmas is almost here! The tree is  up today, the house is decorated, secret presents are being made~ all of us good with our hands, and we like to make things.

These will be pillows for the girls tree fort....this first picture I'll put these two blocks together and make a long pillow.

And this will be a square pillow. The design is called a windflower. Dd loves blue!

For boy #1, I have an art bag in the making, for him to put his drafting tools...no photo yet.
For boy #2, a blue and red cape! LOL, no superman logo or anything like that on it, just a plain one..no photo yet.

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I am also starting another tutorial. This one will be on making a wedding ring block! All those curved pieces...yikes!!....not really though, slow and steady and it goes smoothly.

Here's the pieces I'm using.

So look to that sometime over the weekend...maybe, maybe next week.

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And now, the NICE SURPRISE!

Have you seen the blog site craftcorners? Well, I hadn't seen it before, but a few days ago the blog owner, Jennifer, emailed me and said she would like to feature me in her feature...

                                        THE BEST OF THE WEB!!

I was TICKLED PINK!! I think it's such an honour for other blogs and shops to recognize someone and feature them.

Head over to Craft Corners and check out all the goodness there. Whether your into jewelry making, painting, stitching or other crafts, Jennifer  has lots of great articles and blogs for you to see and visit.

THANKS JENNIFER!

Just a reminder....I am over here today.






Enjoy!!

A bit of this and that

Hello Folks, hope you are all having a great week. It's been beautiful here. Sunny yet on the cool side, that nice Winter nip is in the air. Most the leaves are on the ground now, and we have a great view of the snowy mountain peaks.

I'm linking up with Jenna over at SewHappyGeek this week, thanks Jenna! Jenna is also having a great solids giveaway today!

Here's what I've been doing with my Northcote Range charm packs. This is my Cross of Roses pattern. I call it my mini pattern, as the blocks aren't as big as the original pattern I made....over a year ago, and I STILL haven't made a full top from the pattern yet! LOL...this mini pattern is as close as I've come...

 

These are two of the four blocks.

Here's what they look like coming together in the middle.

I'm not done with it yet, still have to get some yardage in order to do the borders. So I'll show you the finished top when it's done, sometime next year most likely :)

Tomorrow, I will be guest blogging over at Sew We Quilt! I'll be showing you my Christmas Runner that I've been showing teaser pictures of.

One more thing, I am having a 10% off every item in my tiny store. Now thru the end of Dec.

Have a great day all!

Gift bag tutorial...and some fabric

Good morning Folks!

As promised, my gift bag tutorial will be up today. I am guest posting over at Happy Quilting!!

Thank you Melissa! It's fun to guest post at various spots :)

I got my gift order from Quilting in the Rain on Monday.  Jera is super sweet, and has a new store. You should go check it out. She has prompt, courteous service. And sometimes throws in special treats :) Thank you Jera!

This is what I got, 2 charm packs of Northcote Range.

My picture doesn't do them justice! This is a beautiful range of fabric, the red is a  nice, deep almost maroon color. And the pink and blue are a soft, lovely color. The green is a mix between a green and a gray, very interesting.

Anyways, I know what I am doing with them, so spent much of yesterday sewing, pressing, and trimming :)

Have a great day!

Tutorials...and scraps

Hello everybody, hope you had a great weekend!

I've been playing with scraps. Just making a pretty little wall hanging. The flowers on green was an FQ I had.

I also made these blocks. They are going to be a little wall hanging too.

There are some scraps, I just can't get rid of! LOL

I've also got some tutorials coming up. This Thursday, the 1st, I will have the tutorial for his gift bag up.

And on Dec 9th, I will have the tutorial for my Christmas table runner up. Here is that sneak peek again.

Hope you are all overstuffed from a nice Holiday weekend. I've got some turkey parts and carcass in the freezer, they'll make good soup on a cold winter day. The pies and stuffing are long gone. And now my thoughts are turning toward Christmas.

I LOVE Christmas baking :) Can't wait to make some frosted chocolate ginger bread cookies and some ginger snaps. I think I'll even give my hand a go at some divinity this year.

Have a great evening!

Thanksgiving

Wishing all you in the US a very Happy Thanksgiving.

I hope your day is full of good friends, good family, and good food!

Thank all of you for being here and reading my blog. Thank you for your friendship.