I had a good visit with my daughter yesterday and even though we wandered through a few stores the only thing I bought was a new peeler to peel oranges!   I needed it as the old one had broke!  $3.99   after we both realized we really didn’t want to shop we ended up at a walking trail and had a nice walk and talked the whole way.  Of course the problem with that was I was in sandal’s – I now have a blister on the bottom of both of my big toes oh well, I will stick a band aide on them and lay off of the fitness center for a day or two and will be good as new.

Last night on my feedjit reader – side bar above the map I could see that a lot of people – a lot more than normal — were dropping by my site and they were all going to the Clover Bias Stem Maker Tutorial that I did last year – just out of curiosity as no one left me a comment – how did you know to stop by my blog and look at it?  Would love to know – please feel free to leave a comment when you drop by I love knowing what brings you here!!

Now on to Star Crazy – I got to work this evening – I was going to work on Joseph’s Coat but changed my mind.  When working on the quilting frame I do not have access to Net Flex except through my computer as the blue ray player is in the living room – this is how I set things up –

The lap top sets up well on the top end of the quilting frame.  What was playing – the second part of  the old western mini series Lonesome Dove – I loved that mini series.  I had watched the first part of it a couple months ago and they had the second one available in 4 parts so I have been watching it lately as I quilt.  I just move the computer down the frame as I need to move

I got this much done tonight – tomorrow seeing as I will skip the fitness center until my toes heal I will probably work on Joseph’s Coat – I’m trying to get in time on all of them – slowly they will get done!

Wow is this really the middle of March?  It has been so nice lately – since our last rain on Sunday that is.  Really this whole week is to be near 80 degrees daytimes.  I think out here among the shade trees it got up to 77, I’m not sure what it was in town.

Between yesterday and today I actually got the pink row sewed onto the Joseph’s Coat quilt – now to get busy making some circles.  I want to get caught up on the circles before I move on to the next colors (purple family).  Here is a link to how I make circles from my tutorial a couple years ago.  I didn’t count how many I need for the two rows that I need to get caught up on – at least 30 or so- I have 12 made, I guess I will be busy the next several days.

Besides getting that row sewed on I have been trying to quilt every day but didn’t get any done today.  I am now working on this section of Star Crazy – maybe tomorrow?  Just a little more on this section and then I will be moving on down a little bit.

The Red Bud is in bloom – how pretty!  It is still kind of skinny but it is growing – this one grew from seed and is probably about 6 years old or so.  I have to look tomorrow if I can get through the soggy yard over in that area to look at one I found two years ago – I can’t see it from the house and do not know if it has blooms on it this year – that one too grew from seed.

I was out at the trails on Saturday with our daughter who was visiting from Little Rock as you can see from this photo – plenty of turtles were out in the swampy areas.

And although the sign warns of alligators – we didn’t see any this time – the two of us spotted (click on that link and it will lead you to the photos & story from 2008) one though several years ago– they didn’t have the sign up then but we knew there was at least one back in the swampy area – we just happened to be lucky enough that time to see it.

My little ironing board cover was looking kind of nasty and also it was very thin.  So thin that the other day when I was pressing the pineapple square wall hanging I had a bit of brown color come up on to the fabric. After investigating it – well first I washed the spot out – I found that my new iron must create a lot more steam because some of the metal started to rust!!  I had notice since I got the new iron that occasionally I had a little bit of water collect up on the table under the ironing board when I was using it.  I hadn’t realized it was to the point of rust though on the metal.  I also hadn’t quite realized how thin the pad was under the cover – so thin I could see through it – I wish I had taken a photo of it before I threw it out – I forgot.

I took the cover apart – it had a drawstring so I saved that.  I then pinned the old cover to the new fabric – tie dye from the stash.

I cut around it.  I should have done this a little bigger than I did but it did work, just a squeeze though.  I machine sewed a “hem” all the way around it leaving an opening on one side to insert the drawstring though.

This is without the pad and cover just laying on the table.  The rust area is by the first junction in the center of it.

I layered 5 layers of left over batting on the table – a good way to get rid of some of those smaller than you need scraps.  This is making a nice dense layer on the metal is which I wanted.  I put the batting layer on the ironing board and then fit the cover over that.  I then laid it on the table to tighten up the cord and draw it all tight.  That is when I realized I should have made it just a little bit wider than I did  but it does work.

Ta-Da my new very flashy ironing board cover – I was actually going to buy a new board but I couldn’t find one small like this that fits on top of my cutting mat on the table in this small sewing room.  This size works great when working with small pieces but I do drag out my big board in the living room when a quilt grows too big in size – this small size though works great for blocks and working with applique.

Pretty neat huh – I don’t know what I would have used this fabric for – but I still have a half yard left over for something.

I did get a little quilting done on Star Crazy the last two days, a little on Joseph’s Coat, a little on the pineapple square for the applique – I’ll up date on those another time.  Friday morning quilt group this morning – I’ll bring the triangles with me and maybe get a little done on that!!

I have had more questions once again on how am I hand piecing Joseph’s Coat.  If you are new to hand piecing or just thinking of it – I know it can be daunting to begin.  But really you basically hand piece the same as you would machine piece – but maybe slower   You lay your pieces out and pin in place – then get busy and sew.  Here are some step by steps.

1- this is the piece that I already had done last night.  It is just finger pressed – I haven’t gotten the iron out yet.

2 – starting a new segment – place them on the felt in the way they will look when done.  If you think you will get confused and get things out of order take a photo with your digital camera and you can always go back and look – isn’t technology great

3- Pin one melon at a time to the background pieces.  I use quarter inch masking tape to be my seam guide (yes I originally used Inklingo and printed my fabric out on freezer paper but I found it took more time – for squares and such I would use Inklingo though if I felt like it – these curves though work well like this)  Some swear by Inklingo for hand piecing and although it does work well I find taking the time to prep takes more time than the way I have always done hand piecing.

4 – stitch along the tape using a running stitch – occasionally take a back stitch to make the seam stronger.  For hand piecing I use this stick on thimble to help protect my finger – you can go without or with any kind of thimble that you like.

5- when I get done with a seam I can use this stick on thimble to help finger press my seam – for the melons it is advised on the Inklingo site to press towards the melon so that is what I am doing.

6- I keep finger pressing as I finish each seam – when I get done with all the segments I get the iron out and press with seam and then again when I finish a whole row.

7- this segment is now complete – it took me 30 minutes to hand piece this while I was watching the news and snapping photos as I went.

8- The two segments that I now have done for this row.  I just placed them like this so you can see how they fit together.  I will just stack them one on top of another in the box and when I get the whole row of segments done I will piece the row together and then join it to the big part of the quilt already done.

I hope this helps you all who are thinking of hand piecing.  If you have never hand pieced can I suggest that you try something easier than curves to begin.  Try a simple 4 patch block to get the hang of how to hold the pieces while stitching and go from there in your adventure to hand piece a quilt

I have been asked how does English Paper Piecing work with glue sticks?

1 – Cut out your shape – I am using  my rotary cutting that is on the turntable so I can leave in place and keep the fabric in one spot.  I put my template on a small stack of fabric

2 – put your ruler over the fabric and the templates, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance on all sides.

3 – place your template in the center, leaving the seam allowance.

4 – I use Fons & Porter wash out glue stick – (refills available in 2 packs)

5- Run your glue stick lightly on the edge of the template or on the edge of the fabric – it works the same no matter which area. Then finger press your seam over the template.

6 – all 3 sides are pressed over – leave the tails on is what it says in the book.  I imagine it is ok to trim slightly but you don’t want too much cut off – they can be taken care of later -

7 – Get enough back in my box to have enough to work on next time I run out of town   I also have in my plastic work bag, my rotary cutter, the glue and refills, pins if needed.   I also have my sewing needles, threader, the paper templates, scissors and the ruler.  Right now I have about 30 or 40 neutral triangles cut out and about the same in the colors with more colors stacked up to be cut.  I need to go through scraps and find some more neutrals to put in there as well.

Seeing as I really don’t have that much idle time at moms I’m sure this well be enough once again on the weekend.  Now when we travel again I will make sure to have a lot of pieces cut in advance I think so it would be enough to keep me busy for weeks on end and also have a second project for variety.

I hope this little demo helps those that asked.  Now if you want to thread baste instead – find someone else   if you use the glue though – use it lightly and shouldn’t be a problem!

I have had several beginning quilters ask me how I’m I making these colorful black/red/white squares.  I am sure there are pattern instructions out there somewhere in blog land but as I’m not even sure if there is a name for this I’m not sure where to direct you.  These have been in recent years referred to as “Modern Blocks” why? I don’t know – surely quilters have been making these for years.  Maybe it is because of the newer designs used in fabric?  I sometimes think it is just that the new designers of quilting blocks want it all to sound fresh and “modern”!!

So here is a tutorial for those of you who want to know how to make these blocks – if you know how to use your sewing machine, or hand piece you will learn it quickly.

1- For each square you need 3 colors – cut a 2 1/2 inch block for your center from one color, from the second color cut 2 – 2 1/2 inch blocks and 2- 6 1/2 inch strips.  From the 3rd color cut 2-6 1/2 inch strips and 2- 10 1/2 inch strips.  I use the assemble line process so I stack them up in order they will be used.

2 – grab your center block and one of the 2 1/2 inch blocks from the next color and sew your 1/4 inch seam, for assembly line you leave it in the machine – sew as many blocks as you have assembled – I have 5 of them here I think. (this is also referred to as chain piecing)

3 – when you are done with this group cut apart and stack them in order so your pieces will flow for the next section. Now you sew the next 2 1/2 inch square to the other side. When you are done, cut them apart and stack.

4 – now I take them to the ironing board and I press the seams open – you can press to the side if you want to.  For hand quilting (I don’t know if this will be hand quilted or machine quilted) it is easier to quilt through seams that are pressed open.  Please forgive the scorched up board I really need to get a new one or make one.

5- now take your 6 1/2 inch strips of the same color and again do the same way – sew one side, cut apart and then do the other side.  Take to the board to press your seams.  When doing it this way I sew without using pins – it goes faster and it all lays flat.

This is what you now have.  A Square with in a Square

6 – now take your 6 1/2 inch strips from your last color selection and repeat the steps you have already done finishing with your 10 1/2 inch strips last.  My completed block with the seams pressed open.

the front, when you are done with your blocks trim them straight.  Make as many as you want to make – it just depends on how large or small you want your quilt.  Now you have a Square within a Square within a Square!

What I have so far – yikes! I am running out of room – I think in a day or two I will need to get the big portable design wall out.  I am making more than I thought I would have and I still have about half of my strips left to make more blocks out of.  I think I will need to just stack them up from now on until I get the design wall out. This is not the final order of the blocks – I will play with it and move things around until I am satisfied with color placement.

I hope this has helped you beginners out there in blog land – I am not the best at step by step, if you have questions – ask!

Now I know a lot of quilters – me included – make mistakes.  We don’t always point them out and sometimes we hope no one else will notice them.  We don’t always take close up photos of our mistakes – but  – I wanted to share this with you all because I know what has been happening with my Joseph’s Coat quilt might be something that would make some quilters toss it in their UFO pile and be so put out about it that they would never finish it.  I love my Joseph’s Coat quilt but I have been having a lot of trouble with the centers of the designs. So I’m sharing.  So as one quilter to others I am sharing my mistakes and showing what can be done to fix it – call it a learning experience

Here are photos of some of the centers so you can see what I mean – some are pretty good, some aren’t – this one is one of the better ones!

Kind of off but I can live with it.

This one has a little hole in it – now I could do a applique stitch and pull it in and it might work, but I have more of these scattered around.  This happens when you have so many oval shapes coming together in the middle.

This one –oops what happened here!  doesn’t look good at all, needs to be taken apart and fixed or maybe just covered up!

One could fix all these centers up by covering them up!! Circles to the rescue

The black circles look good on all the colors.  It kind of makes it look like Daisy Chains.

The red diagonal row is pressed in sections and ready to be sewed together to form the next diagonal row.

The moral to this story is don’t let your piecing mistakes turn a quilt into a UFO – take a look at your quilt top and see if there is a fix for it that you can live with and make it into a quilt that you love enough to finish it.  This quilt is perfect for the circle fix – some quilt tops you can fix by placing an applique flower over a mistake or 5 or 6 flowers scattered though out – over the mistakes and in other places so it looks intentional – whatever it needs to fix it and still look good.  If you do not want to take time to go back over things taking pieces apart and re-sewing make a fix!

Looks like I will be making a lot of circles – but they are fun to make – here is a tutorial I did several years ago on my method.

I was asked by several to do a blog post on how I get a large quilt on my quilting frame.  As I was ready to put one on I thought I would blog about it.  This is a long post!

First off my hand quilting frame is not a Grace Frame or whatever brands are out there in quilt land so mine might work differently than those you might have seen.  My frame was hand crafted out of oak by an old gentleman near the Branson Missouri area about 12 to 15 years ago.  He had his own shop and some of us where lucky enough to purchase one before he passed away some years back.  The frame was his design so it is different from the Grace, Hinterburg – others?

This is how I load mine – as I say others might do it differently – I follow the instructions that he gave me.

Press your quilt and fold it in half lengthwise – press on the half way mark and mark it with a wash out pen if you want to.

On my bars there are half way marks so I know where the centers of the leaders are.  The black mark is on all three rollers for the center.  On my quilt top I have it iron pressed and a blue mark for my center.

First I put my quilt top on the back bar pinning it to the cloth.  Then I roll it up, straightening it out as I go to make sure it is even and straight.

I continue to roll it and walk back and forth along the back of the quilt (by the wall) smoothing it out as I go and continue until it is all on the back roller.

It helps to drape the quilt over the rods and have it hanging as straight as you can to the floor – it helps with the flow of rolling.

The rollers are a “cog” type of roller system, with the latches down in the slots it locks in place.  With the “lock” up you can move the rollers.

When I get the top all rolled up on the back I pull some of it back out and pin it to the very front roller.  Then I roll it back and forth several times to make sure it is all straight and even.  Sometimes you only need to do this once, sometimes it takes several times to get it all straight.

This time I only had to roll back and forth once to get it all straight.  Now I roll it all back to the back roller and unpin from the front.

As you can see in this photo the quilt top is now on the back rod and out of my way so I can work on the batting and the back.  This morning was quilt group – we have a large room to work in so I brought my backing and batting with me. I placed my batting on the floor getting all of the wrinkles out and then placed my backing fabric on top of it.  This way I was able to make sure it was all straight and even.  I then folded it and brought it home.  You can load both pieces at once if you know what you are doing – otherwise you might need to load one at a time.  I pin both layers to the middle roller and now repeat the quilt top instructions.  Roll both layers on to the middle roller – walking back and forth in back of the frame I ease the wrinkles out and make sure it is loading smoothly as I roll.  I leave it draped over the front roller and have it as straight as I can so when I roll it = it will flow smoothly.

Once the backing and batting are all rolled to the middle roller you are ready to pull that section to the front roller and pin in place.  The “leaders” as I believe they are called have stripe fabric and were glued onto the rollers straight so it is best to use a stripe as your marker to pin the fabric to.

Here my batting and backing are rolled and pinned in place.  Now I do exactly as I do with the top – I roll it back and forth a couple times – loading all that is on the middle roll to the front and then back again just to make sure the wrinkles are out and that it is flowing right.  End with it all on the middle roller and lock in place.

Unlock the back roller that the quilt top is on and gently pull it to the front over the middle roller holding the backing and the batting (that is why you lock the middle roller to hold all in place).  I have this end of the quilt top marked also for the center and I start pinning it to the front roller.

Now on the sides of the quilt frame are pieces of fabric that you pin to the side of the quilt and tighten – this pulls the quilt tight on the frame with no wrinkles on the back or top.

The whole quilt on the frame – I haven’t decided what pattern I will be quilting on this large border as of yet.  I thought I had a stencil that fit it but then found out I never bought the corner section that goes with it!  I bought it when traveling once and doubt I can find it now so I will come up with something new.

This is the thread I will be using – I have 3 spools of it that I got on sale someplace – two will most likely be enough.  It is King Tut #917.  I won’t be starting on this quilt for a little bit – I need to figure out the border first.  I keep it tight while I draw the lines or design on and then I loosen it a little bit for the quilting –the needle glides though easier if it isn’t too tight.

I hope this helps those that are thinking of getting a 3 roller frame or those that aren’t sure how to use the one you have.  I do this by myself but it works easier and faster to have help.  I have been doing it for so many years now that one this size takes me about 75 minutes to load the quilt by myself.

EDITED: I should have mentioned that when I first got this frame it took me about 3 hours to get a queen size quilt on the frame – it gets much, much easier as you do it over and over again

I showed earlier today how to get started on the Joseph’s Coat quilt.  I am continuing on from there – keep in mind that with as many colors that I am using it is harder to put together because you have to constantly be checking for color placement – if you are doing a two color quilt it will go much faster. The section on the top is the one that I showed you how to do this morning.  I then put these two pieces together after I went back to the design wall to check and make sure it was the pieces I wanted.

Now after I sewed these two segment together which just entailed the one seam – the melon nesting next to the back ground piece I had to join it to the first circle.

I lay both of the pieces on my design board so I make sure I don’t get confused on where I want them – yes it is easy to get mixed up!

Match up your center of the two pieces.

Pin in the center and then pin as I did earlier doing a whole melon on each side of the center.

I use little pencil dashes on these until I get some of the pieces printed out using the Inklingo method – which I will show tomorrow or another day.

When I get to the center point I kind of ease it open a bit holding back seams so I can see how far in to sew – then I slip the needle through all those seams to start stitching on the next melon.

Pressed and stuck back up on the wall.  I wasn’t pleased with how the center came together, the points didn’t match quite right – but I wasn’t displeased enough to take it apart – this will be a big quilt – lots of points – if anyone wants to find all the places they don’t match let them As I get pieces stitched the pieces on the wall look like they don’t match – that is just because of the seams being in there now – as I go I will move things over in place a bit so that I don’t get confused on what goes where!

I might get back to this one later today – but maybe not.  I hope this has helped some of you who have not worked with melon shapes – this quilt could also be appliqued if you would want to I have seen it done both ways.

I have had several write me that they think this quilt will be very difficult and would be hard to make.  I thought I would show you how to do it in sections – it probably looks like it is more difficult than it actually is.  I do believe all quilts when broken down into sections is much easier to do than one might think.  We all do this in our own way of course as we all have learned or taught ourselves our own method.

First of all, I said I was doing Joseph’s Coat with Inklingo a method of printing your templates directly onto fabric.  I will be printing out most of my melons with Inklingo but I found that I could get more pieces out of my yardage for the odd shape background pieces by just pressing my freezer paper templates onto the fabric and squeezing as many as I can on it and then cutting out with the rotary cutter and/or scissors. (this is due to the odd shape, when using most other shapes you do not waste a lot of fabric)  I have on these first melon pieces used pencil to draw out seam lines – but will be using the Inklingo to print on the melon pieces from now and spent part of yesterday preparing some.  This piece I am showing you has the pencil marks – I will show the Inklingo another day.

step 1 -

I have these pieces cut and ready to go.  I take them off of my wall and put on this small felt board to keep them in order and not forget placement – the empty spot on the lower area shows where I took them from. As you can see I have put my first colors of yellow/orange on the wall – I will need to work this whole section before I add more color as I have no plans to get my portable design wall out right now.

Don’t take too many pieces off of your design area at one time or you might get mixed up also I have a 12 inch square here so can’t fit many on it which is a good thing I think.

step 2:  finger press the center of your pieces – I do this as I work so only the two pieces I am ready to sew are finger pressed in the center.

Step 3:  pin, these melon shapes are gently curved there is no need to clip anything to help it along – start in the center and pin the center, then work out – use as many pins as you are comfortable with – it doesn’t matter if you need more or less than I do – it is for you to be comfortable with what you are working on.

Step 4:  hand stitch or machine stitch – up to you – I am hand piecing – this one little section just took a couple minutes – I use a running stitch and back stitch every 10 stitches or so for added strength.  The melons are six inches so big enough to handle easily.

Step 5: when I am working on each section in the living room or where ever I am stitching I just gently finger press the seam down a little – press towards the melon, it lays flat easily.

it is now ready to move to the next melon.

When I get this whole section sewn I will take another photo and show you later today or tomorrow how this is attached to what is now on the wall.  A section this size doesn’t take long to make at all – depending on how often you get up to do something else that is!!

By working on one section at a time = I get plenty of exercise because I normally work in the living room for hand piecing and then get up and go to the sewing room to press with the iron and place on the wall and get more pieces.  This is important to me because I stiffen up easily in the hips and knees because of osteoarthritis.

I hope this little tutorial shows you how easy it is to do this and that it is easier to make than one might think.