Archives for March 2013

03-29-2013

Strawberry Jam- Part 2

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Alrighty then! Now that your strip blocks are done and the solid blocks are well…….. solid…….let’s join them together and make our rows♥

Lay out all your blocks to see how the center of your quilt top will look. If you have a design wall, this is a great time to use it. If your like me and don’t, just lay them out on the floor. Once you have your layout the way you like it, piece your rows together. Press your seams between the strip and solid blocks toward the solid block. Now, back to the floor and layout your rows. Laying things out lets me see how the quilt is looking, hopefully spotting mistakes sooner than later.

I recommend using a few pins when joining rows together. Your sewing line will be long and there will be seams to fight along the way. Pins free up your hands for other adjusting. Now here comes the part about locking/nesting your seams. Where both rows seams come together they line up(hopefully) and produce a lot of bulk. This is hard for your machine to sew and quilt through and can even break your needle. To keep things flat and smooth we try to press the seams so that when they line up they will be going in opposite directions. Not only does it reduce bulk, the seams butt into one another(lock/nest) and make sure your piecing lines look accurate on the topside of your quilt.

Once you join your two rows together, press to either side. It won’t matter for these seams. Sew the rest of your rows together and Voila!!!!

The center of your quilt top is complete.

Happy Quilting!!!

Stay tuned for Part 3—>Borders:)

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Filed Under: Patterns, Quilt Basics Tagged With: combining blocks, easy beginner pattern, locking seams, nesting seams, Part 2, rows, strawberry jam

03-23-2013

Strawberry Jam- Part 1

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Click here for the new pattern!

Well, I have been working on creating a couple of easy quilt patterns that would be perfect for new quilters to give a try. This one is called Strawberry Jam! Follow me as I piece and quilt this quick and sassy pattern. So far I have cut all the yardage and constructed the strip blocks. I am making this top with some fun, grey-on-grey polka dot yardage combined with strips from a jelly roll called “Odds and Ends” by Julie Comstock for Moda fabrics. Jelly rolls make 2 1/2″ strips easy, but they are also easy to cut yourself. I love my Shape Cut Pro Strip Ruler by June Tailor. It has slots for my rotary cutter so I can’t go wrong cutting my strips. Here are a few tips and tricks to look out for while following this pattern:

When trimming your selvages at the end of strips, trim just enough! If trim too heavily, you will not get enough cuts out of each strip.

Use a scant 1/4″ seam when piecing strip blocks! When you press open the strips we lose a little of our fabric in the fold. By making our seam slightly less than 1/4″ (about the width of one thread)our piecing comes out more accurate. Notice the picture on the left the line of thread is just out side my 1/4″ , and the pic on the right the line of thread is included within my 1/4″.

After sewing your first two strips together, press seams to one side and then measure to make sure you are keeping the proper width of your strips. If you are off on each of the four strips it can make the block WAY off! If you are new do this for the first few blocks to make sure everything is going smoothly. It is easier to fix a strip or two than 18 blocks:)

Notice the picture on the left…the seams are all pressed to the right. It doesn’t matter which direction, just all the same within the block. The finished strip block on the right is 8 1/2″ x 10 1/2″. Check with your ruler and trim any excess to square up block. If block is too small…check the width of your seams or you may have not pressed seam all the way open. There you go…blocks done!

Let me know if you run into any road blocks and I would love to see your pics!

Happy Quilting!

Stay tuned for Part 2—>Piecing your blocks and rows together:)

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Filed Under: Patterns, Quilt Basics Tagged With: 1/4" seam, easy quilt pattern, Part 1, pattern, press, scant 1/4" seam, selvage, strawberry jam, strip block

03-17-2013

Lancaster, PA…..Quilt Week

Can we say awesome….

This weekend I got to attend AQS Quilt Week in Lancaster, PA, with my fellow Sassy Quilters! As you can see I got to meet some legendary quilters, Alex Anderson from The Quilt Show and Eleanor Burns from Quilt in a Day. I was so excited it was ridiculous:) Alex and Eleanor were both sooooo nice and welcomed all the pics we took. Eleanor even cut our fabric we bought and Sue Bouchard checked us out. Me and my Sassies had a blast! The show was HUGE, it was three floors of vendors and quilts on display. Somehow we managed to do it all in one day(no lunch for serious quilters!). Needless to say our pockets are “hurts so good” empty. We decided that if we don’t buy anymore fabric this year we are totally good????right? The specialty exhibit of Egyptian quilts(upper left pic below) were exquisite and of course the show quilts were stunning. Here are a few of my top picks:

Click here for more pics.

My favorite things at the show were: Hobbs batting samples for .50cents, great for practicing and testing out all the types of batting(silk, wool, fusible, 80/20, cotton, poly). Good deals on Quilt Life magazine subscription and AQS membership. Love testing out the longarm machines ($10-30,000.00 machines), and of course fabric, fabric, fabric. My dream accessory that I will most likely never own……Baby Lock Stitch Regulator. It attaches to your machine and detects how fast you are moving the fabric and adjusts your machines speed to match, this means perfect stitches all the time. The one down side: it costs $1500.00! It was on sale(I use this word loosely) for $1000.00. Oh well, some day.

Click here to check out my Sassy Guide to Lancaster, PA!

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Filed Under: Quilt Adventures Tagged With: alex anderson, AQS, Egyptian, eleanor burns, Quilt Week, Sassy Quilters

03-10-2013

Work in Progress(WIP)

So this weekend I am plugging away at one of my WIP’s, work-in-progress that is. Check out the Sassy Dictionary for quilt lingo definitions here . It is a quilt I call “Cardinal Stars”. It has cardinal fabric and the piecing forms several different star-like shapes, I know…you never would have guessed:) My current location on my quilt journey has me working on perfecting my machine quilting. I have taken a couple of Craftsy classes(have loved every one♥) and done my homework, but one thing I have learned is none of that makes up for practice, practice, practice!!! All the experts say it takes about 25 hrs. to finally get it and one day you will just realize your stitches are fabulous. Well, I haven’t kept a log, but no aha! moment yet. You have to be willing to sacrifice some fabric and quilt tops to the quilting gods for practice, painful I know, but you can do it:) Anyway… after making my quilt sandwich and pin basting my quilt, the first step is to do some basic quilting in the straight seams of your quilt(SITD). This stabilizes your quilt before you venture to quilt the more open areas with FMQ. I did this with a walking foot or even feed foot. This foot looks like a big, clunky, monster of a foot. Unfortunately, It usually has to be purchased separately. Here is a pic:

Your sewing machine has feed dogs down in your machine(they look like teeth)under the presser foot, they pull your fabric forward from underneath while sewing. The walking foot has another set of teeth that also pull the fabric from the top, this keeps the fabric evenly feeding into your machine from both sides of the quilt sandwich. This foot is primarily used when you’ve got a lot of layer action going on and are only wanting some straight-line quilting. It is also great for attaching binding.

Now that it is secure I can take out some of my safety pins(this will free them up for my six other quilts ready to be sandwiched!!! Yikes.) I think I will do a lot more practicing before I tackle the FMQ areas. I will keep you posted on my progress:) Maybe, we can practice together….. Oh, and by the way, you can quilt your whole quilt with the walking foot. All you have to do is make it a straight line design! Happy Quilting. xoxo.

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Filed Under: Quilt Basics Tagged With: cardinal stars, feed dogs, Sassy Dictionary, SITD, walking foot, WIP

03-08-2013

Hello world!

Here it is……my first post! What else should it be about other than my first quilt:) Drum roll……

Virginia Reel or Monkey Wrench pattern.

Let me just start by saying that this quilt was started when I was 16, and finished when I was 29. To hear more about this and see some up close pics, check out My Quilt Story . I love showing this quilt! It makes me smile and laugh every time. It holds a lot of memories of my grandma, the original “Sassy” and It lets me see my progress as a quilter. I once shared it on Missouri Star Quilt Forum(love, love this quilt forum and daily deals♥) and someone posted how humble it was of me to point out my before and afters. We all start somewhere, and this is my beginning. I hope it shows newcomers what beginning can look like. In my quilt guild (shout out to all my Sassies!), I like to show beginners so they can relax and have fun. Especially when they are too hard on themselves for crooked seams and tips cut off. Bye the way, I have yet to see a newcomers project look worse than this one. lol. I am pretty sure nothing was correct. I like a quote I read in a quilting magazine…..” A finished quilt is better than a perfect one.”

Well…..I hope to keep you posted on my quilting progress and any good info I come across. Maybe even share some tips and techniques! Keep it sassy!

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Filed Under: First Post Tagged With: first quilt, My Quilt Story, Sassy