Merry Christmas!

I'm wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope it's full of wonderful things, family and good food.

It's Christmas Eve, and we have a snow storm outside :) It's supposed to last all day and give us 2-4 inches of snow :) It's going to be cold over night, with maybe a few flurries.. which means we are going to have a White Christmas :) and you just don't know how happy that makes me!!! LOL And my kids. They can't wait to play in it.

That makes it a very Merry Christmas for me. Hope yours is just as great.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.

I hope your day is filled with good food, family, friends... and some sewing thrown in for good measure :)

What I've been up to

Hello All,

California is getting some much needed rain. On and off, with a few snow flurries thrown in :) My youngest realllllly wants the snow to stick and be a foot deep, so he can play and go sledding. lol. I hope we'll have a snowy winter this year. Last winter, we barely got any.

So, I wanted to show you the quilt I made for my Aunt. This was one of my tops that were in the 'need to be quilted' pile. So I got a quilt off the pile and sent a warm hug to my Aunt :)

Here's a close up.. sorry these pictures aren't the greatest.. I kept the quilting easy. Ran two straight lines on the diagonals and did some large, loopy flowers in the flower blocks.

I love Irish chains :) and this one is one of my very favorites. I'm glad my Aunt has it.

I only have three more blocks on my cornerstone quilt to put together :)

But, with the weather turning cold, I decided it was time to get my dd's quilt top quilted up. My new table is awesome when it comes to basting :) No more trying to find a large piece of floor space and then crawling around on the floor... haven't been able to do that for ages due to my hips. So I tried other things. I even taped the pieces to a wall and sandwhiched a few quilts on the wall a time or two.. that was better than crawling on the floor. But... this table is so much better than both those methods.

Another chain type quilt, I just love them.

Here's a close up of those clips that hold the quilt to the table. I got them at byAnnie.com.

They work pretty good.

So after this, I really should get a move on on a few Christmas gifts huh?! Can you believe how close it is!!

Linking up with Lorna.

Have a great day.

 

November.... already

Hello, hello everyone,

Can you believe it's November already?! This year just flew by, once again. My youngest enjoyed his first Halloween of trick or treating. He had a blast! Wasn't scared in the least, which is a good thing.

Fall is here in earnest, the leaves are all changing, the air is cooler, and we are finally getting rain on and off, a few times a week. It sure does feel good after the hot Summer.

But I'm still not sewing very much. Maybe it's just one of those 'I have a young son so don't have time to sew' things.

Although I HAVE started testing the newest mystery by Jess. It's her Dec mystery, so all I can show you is the fabrics I've picked out. (If you want a previous mystery by Jess, just click on her name.)

Aren't they beautiful?! LOL, in going thru my fabrics, looking for those that went together, I noticed how feminine my fabric stash is. I guess having a house full of boys, this is where my 'girly' side comes out.... But that means I need to buy more boyish fabrics when I want to make one of my boys something.... Darn ;)

I'm still plodding along on my cornerstone blocks too. My machine was down for a week, while I waited for a new cord. But now that it's up and running again, I'm hoping to carve out a little more time in the sewing room this week.

Hope you all have a lovely day!

 

Doing some quilting for a change

Hello All,

I made this Irish chain quilt a few years (at least!) ago. I just love the flower pattern, and Irish chain patterns are one of my favorites.

It's just been sitting in my UFO pile. I needed a nice lap quilt though, to send to my Aunt. She's losing her battle with cancer :( And I wanted to send her something to wrap her in love and comfort.

It's 60x60 and I'm doing a bit of straight line quilting with my walking foot (on both diagonal's in the tannish squares) and I'll do some FMQing in the big flower squares. So it shouldn't take me too very long. (My new table is AWESOME!!)

Before I pulled this out, I was getting some more Cornerstone blocks made.

I so enjoy working with these colors, there are many more to do, this is just a small part of it. Lots more colors to work with :)

Linking up with Lorna and her Lets Bee Social linky. And Lee with her WIP linky.Thanks Ladies.

 

Mitered corners

Hello Everyone,

I've been meaning to bring my old tutorials over from the Quilt and Needle blog. Jess has moved her blog and I want to have some of my old posts here on my own blog. Lea Anne, from Podunk Pretties, has given me a great reason to start moving them over. She has been doing a weekly tips and tutorials linky party, complete with prizes :) Thanks Lea Anne!

So today's tutorial is on mitered corners. I know there are various ways to do this, here is my way, the way I learned how, and it's pretty easy too.

Many patterns tell you to cut your borders at least 10" longer than what your quilt top is, when you want mitered corners. Even if you don't need that much, it gives you room so that you have enough. I often don't have extra, or I don't want to cut extra, for this. So I measure real close.

In my example here, my border is 2.25" wide. So when I cut the border fabric, I make sure I added 4.5" (that's 2.25" extra at each end) to how long a side is. This is a table runner, so I had 2 long lenghts, and 2 shorter lengths.

Fold your border piece in half, and mark the middle. Fold your project in half, and mark the middle. Lay your border rights sides together with your project, matching your middle marks, and pin. You can see that I  overlap the project by 2.25" on each side.




Pin all along the border and sew at 1/4". Making sure you START and STOP 1/4" away from each side. Taking a few back stitches.

 

Find the middle of the next side border and that side of the project. Pin together. When you sew this next side on, be sure to START sewing right where your previous border seam is. That will be 1/4" from the project edge, NOT the first border edge

  

Pin all along and sew. Making sure to STOP at 1/4" from the next edge.

Continue around your project till all four of your borders are on.

Now, take one corner and fold it over till the top border meets the side border. You want to make a triangle and line the top and side border up.

Here's a close up, sorry it's blurry (it doesn't look blurry on the camera, and I don't realize it is till I put it on the computer).

You want to draw a 45 degree line, from the very corner of your project, to the corner of the border. If you gave yourself more room when cutting the border lengths, then your line wont reach the corner of the border. So make sure you use your 45 degree line on the ruler.

Now you want to pin this, so it doesn't move when you sew. Sew ON the line you just drew. Making sure you start right where your previous seams end at the corner.

Cut off the excess, making sure to leave 1/4"  seam.

Fold open, press, repeat for all 4 corners.

And now you have beautiful mitered corners.

 If you want to do a pieced border this way. When you are measuring and making your border, you need to remember to add in the width of each border, on each side. So in this case, my pieced border would have to be 4.5" longer, and then a corner of it would be cut off when I mitered the corners.

Hope this is helpful to some of you out there. It really is very easy. The important part is making sure you start and stop a 1/4" away from the edges of the project. In order to have the seams match perfectly in the corners. Very much like set in seams :)

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.

WIP Wednesday, making progress

Hello Everyone,

California is getting some rain, I hope the fires are getting rained on. They really need to be put out.

I'm finally making some progress on my quilt. I even found a name for it :) Cornerstones.

I'm chain piecing 2 geese blocks together.

I need 4 of these units per block.

And here is the finished block. You can see why I am calling it Cornerstones.

It feels good to have all that trimming done, so now I can get to the fun part of putting them all together.

Linking up with Lee and Lorna today. Thanks Ladies!

A beautiful morning...

Good morning all,

It's day's like this that I'm so thankful for being a stay at home, homeschooling mommy.



The air is crisp and smells like freshly fallen rain on new grass (although we have neither rain nor new grass, lol). I love Fall and I love Spring... as much as I love the cold, wintery snows of Winter, and the blazing hot days of Summer, in my middle aged years the cool, crisp mornings and soft, warm afternoons of Fall and Spring are now my favorite. The older I get, the more the cold and heat bother me.

My dear husband said thank you (as he often does) to me this morning... "thank you for making me breakfast and getting my lunch ready for me every day." And my reply... "thank you for going off to work! Better you than me." :)

I get to stay home and watch the sun come up and bring us such glorious mornings..

I get to stay home and watch my 3yr old find fun in digging in the dirt and running around discovering new and exciting things...

I get to stay home and watch the joy on my 11 yr old's face when he learns something new, and tell's me something exciting he has read...

I get to stay home and watch my beautiful 17yr old daughter find delight in canning our garden produce, and see her dedicated face as she teaches the 3yr old something...

I get to stay home... and watch my 21yo go off to work for another week, and feel the joy when he comes home safely to us on Friday evenings....

 The joy of watching the 3yr old light up as his big brother comes home.. hear the laughter when siblings are getting along and enjoying each others company...

(we wont talk about the rough stuff of being a stay at home, homeschooling mom today, this is just about the joys and wonders of mommyhood :) )

What a beautiful place we have here to raise our children in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For those of you wondering how my 9patch project is coming along... it's coming... slowly but surely. I had to make 200 geese blocks, and that is a LOT of trimming. I have to go slowly doing it, as my hands aren't what they once were. I am about 2/3 rds done with the trimming, so soon I'll be able to start sewing the blocks together.

. Have a great day.

 

Another oldie but goodie... tutorial that is

 Hello All,

Aww, Fall is in the air! I am loving it too. Cool nights and warm days, with a few hot ones thrown in here and there. Perfect!

It's time for another...

                                               
                                              

Last week I put up my most popular tutorial, the Lone star. So this week I'll follow that up with my second most looked at tutorial, set in seams, which goes hand in hand with the Lone star.


                                 

Just a few tips to help out those pesky seams. I hope it's helpful to you.

Thanks for the great link up party Lea Anne!

Tips and Tutorial linky party

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all had a great Summer. I'm hoping that with some cooler weather and fires being put out (hopefully they will be soon!), that I'll get back more into quilting and blogging.

Lea Anne, from Podunk Pretties , has a fun new linky party, with prizes! Tips and tutorials, big or small, old or new.

So I thought I'd start off with my most popular post of all,  The Lone Star Tutorial. Click on the link and it will take you right to my post.



The Lone star is one of my favorite blocks. These stars are just so neat and can be made in a variety of different color variations. Having only a few colors and making the block small, or having lots of colors and making it really big.

Pressing your seams and keeping your strips nice and straight is really important, as you are dealing with the bias edges, which often like to stretch.

I hope my tutorial is helpful to you. Thank you Lea Anne, for a fun linky party.

 

WIP Wednesday, on Thursday..

Hello Everyone,

I've made a bit of progress on my disappearing 9patch project this week.

Here's most of my 9 patches, all trimmed and cut in half both horizontal and vertical (as that's what makes them 'disappear' if you didn't know). I love the swirly yellow (Sunkissed by Sweetwater) paired with the almost-solids.

And here are half of my flying geese... sigh~ only half, as I calculated wrong when first cutting them out. I love the gray check (Sunkissed by Sweetwater) mixed with the almost-solids, too.

When I was first cutting this project out, I calculated 4 geese per block. But I am supposed to use 8 geese per block!! And then, I decided I needed this quilt a bit bigger, so have to make 5 more blocks, which means another 20 geese on top of the 80 more I have to do. BLAH!

Buuuuttt, as much as I hate the trimming, don't these blocks all look fantastic! Trimmed and squared up just right :) and that makes the piecing together go much easier too, of course. So it's well worth it.... maybe by next week I can actually start putting the blocks together ;)

Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Lorna, thanks Lorna!

It's August... already

Time is just zipping by, don't you agree?

Hello Everyone, I just can't believe how quickly time is going. It's been a mix of HOT weather, and warm weather with cool nights. The thermometer keeps going up and down. Which is better than sticking at HOT, which is usual for us in Summer time.

And because of the heat (and smoke from fires, not close by thankfully), I just haven't been working much on my 9patch project. I have been working thru the trimming of my geese. And am happy to say, they are all trimmed now :)

Then I still have to cut trim and cut the 9patches so they are 'disappearing'.

But mostly, I've been getting my fabrics organized into bins :) And organizing my sewing room.

I have bins that hold fabric from about 1/2 yrd to 2 yrds.

I have some that  hold from maybe 1/8 yrd pieces to 1/2 yrd.

Some that  have WIP's and scraps in them.

And some have fat quarter bundles, charm packs, panels, things of that nature. Then I have one big one that has some backing pieces, or pieces over 2 yrds, and some batting.

I'm finally getting things organized, cause my sewing table is done :) :)

My 20yr old son (I can't believe he will be 21 in a week!!!!)  made this for me. Isn't it beautiful??

It still needs a shelf where those two bins are sitting, but other than that, it's just perfect.

It has a  nice drawer and LOTS of space for quilting and cutting!

And, the sewing machine comes out easily, so that I can use my table to sandwhich/baste my quilt tops :) I've tried basting on the floor (arthritic hips don't like that), I've tried using my cutting table (but it didn't move out from the wall so that was hard), I've tried using my bed (that sort of worked), I've even tried using a wall! But all of those spaces had issues, so I am hoping that now that I have this table (that easily moves out from the wall), I can finally start getting some of my lovely tops quilted.

I still need to make a design wall, I have the space for it, just haven't done it. And I still need to move the boy's books (this room used to be their bedroom) out of it and put my sewing books in it. And then my space will be all done and maybe I can just enjoy the quilting. When the weather cooperates that is ;) LOL

Have a great day all.

 

WIP Wednesday

Good morning everyone!

Hope your day is off to a good start. It's going to be a beautiful day here.

I've been working on my disappearing 9patch quilt. I haven't figured out a name for it yet.

Here's the 9 patches, all ready for a good press and then cutting them apart.

And here are the flying geese, in progress.

I use the method where you get 4 geese out of 1 larger square and 4 smaller squares. I'm almost done with these, then I'll press and trim.

Linking up with Lee and Lorna again today. Thanks Ladies.