Saturday, January 11, 2014

Do It and Do It AGAIN - Kitschy Kitchen BoM #1 - 2nd Try

In my last post I was not really happy with the background print of the Quiet Play Kitschy Kitchen Oven Mitt block so I decided to do it over. One thing I discovered was that my printer was set wrong and the block was also about an inch too small. So in acutality I had to do the block over anyway.


You can see the new block on the left and the first one on the right and the size difference.








The new block has a dark grey background that helps show the details around the oven mitt better. I am much more satisfied with this results. :)

Friday, January 10, 2014

Sew Kitschy 1st BOM Finish

The first block of the
                                         Sew Kitschy BoM                                                     

This afternoon I got around to the first of the nine blocks of the Sew Kitschy sew along BoM by Quiet Play - Kristy is from Australia and is a very talented paper piece pattern maker. I have been following her for a long time. She has some incredible patterns for sale on Craftsy.


The 2014 BoM is a retro quilt with "Ms. Betty" and her kitchen. I love the design and the first block was fairly easy. I do not know about some of the others - look pretty advanced but.. I will try! In Kristy's notes she said she was going to start with easier pieces and build up to the harder ones. So this will be a real skill builder for me.

This months block is "a potholder and an oven mitt" - For the square potholder, I fussy cut a Robert Kaufman, Marie Perkins print called "Happy Homes". The oven mitt is also a Robert Kaufman print by Elisabeth Caldwell called "Metro Cafe",
All in all I do not think the block pops in any way. Maybe my choice for the background is the problem.   I think it is easier to paper piece with solid colors but these print just called out to me - retro, retro, retro.... so I went with it. 



Here is the quilt - 
I love the red and turquoise color pallet Kristy chose. The large flower background on the bowl  and kettle is something I should consider - those square and plads would really be hard for me to paper piece- I have a big problem with angles and trying to get them to line up properly. 
I can not wait to see all the other blocks that will be posted on the Quite Play Flicker Group.











Morning Glory Design 1st BOM

Yea it is Friday and it is my day

I do not work on Fridays and I can do as I please sew today I sew. I have joined a few BOM's as you see by my sidebar and I am sure that throughout the year this may become a problem trying to keep up but hay... it also keeps me motivated to finish blocks.

Morning Glory Designs BOM 


Reeze Hanson of Morning Glory Designs is the designer. She has not come up with the name of this quilt yet and there is a contest on her blog to name the quilt. I suggested "Terrific Tiles". 

I followed her color direction as that is one area that I do fall short on. 


These blocks are 8" square. So I think I want all the bonus blocks available to make a larger quilt. 




This is the bonus block you get if you subscribe to Morning Glory Designs newsletter. It is called Double Daisy.


The blocks were relatively easy as I used Wonder Under and raw edge appliqued using a small blanket stitch. The batiks are mostly from Connecting Threads.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Doodle Design 1st BOM

I just got started on the first block of Quilt Doodle Designs 2014 BOM. It is a cute row of snowmen. I started out with a beautiful fat quarter of snowflake batik - I made 4 snowmen and THEN I figured out that I would not have enough fabric to make the whole row, so I started it over. Now I love the design that Cindy made I did take some shortcuts by not piecing the snowman and using Lori Holt's snowball method of cutting and attaching (in this example) four 2.5" blue squares on the corners of a 6.6" white square - by sewing across the a line drawn from corner to corner of the blue pieces and then folding it over - you get the same shape with a lot less sewing - things went very quickly. 

I hope all the other blocks in this quilt are this cute. I have never done a "row along" and I am hoping that the rest of this quilt keeps going that direction.

Well here are my little guys. I just layed the button on the strip as if I were to actually sew them on it would make the actual quilting much more difficult later. Been there - done that.

Oh can't wait to see the next block!

Thank you Cindy you are the best!

Now I am going to get started on Blogger Girl BOM.
Maybe I am crazy??

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Hearts



I'd like to consider myself a piecemaker and I know I am blessed. Blessed with the finest family, wonderful friends and good health, what else matters?













Tonight I made a couple of heart blocks. They will be used as a gambling tool for my guild. Every month a new block is introduced - fabric pallets are explained and instructions given, you can make up to 5 blocks and enter them into a raffle - winner takes home all the blocks! I generally enter this contest but alas, I have never won. Maybe this time. Here are my blocks. Fingers crossed - just in time for Valentines Day.







I have only worked one day since Christmas eve. We close the business down as things are slow and by taking 4 days we can turn it into an almost two week run. It had been great having this time off. I guess I did not read that the Celtic Solstice mystery was to be solved on New Years Day so when I awoke to that news well.... I had to sew. I still have not finished but I do have  4 rows done. It is wrapped on the banister so only 1/2 is showing.
Look at all the great quilts that came out of this mystery at:  l Celtic Solstice Links









I also started another baby quilt using the Lorax panel I got on sale at L & M for $2.30. I think a wonky theme works well with this panel. I do not like all the different frames, so I am using only the parts I like. Here are are the first few blocks.   Well tomorrow back to work. Bummer.