Lucky Stars BOM- February block

Here is my February block for the Lucky Stars BOM going on thru Don't Call me Betsy.

No excuses on the piecing, you have already heard my sewing machine woes. I like it anyway.
Love the colors.

happy quilting,
kate

p.s. on a side note, I am so amused by the name of her blog- Don't call me Betsy. Reminds me of my family where there are a lot of people we don't call by their real name. My mom's name was Mary and she was called Bitsy (at 5'7" that was pretty funny) and her sister is called Sue but her name is Martha. Go figure!

Dyeing with Marcia

Fabric dyeing!

Orange gradient: light to dark adding black

Over the last few weeks, we have dyed a bunch
of fabric!

We have been busy!

Moss green

Cobalt blue- pretty!

This one was dyed in a large yogurt cup.



And of course, who comes to visit if there is fabric on the floor?

This next one was ice dyed... lovely.










Can't wait to play with all this great fabric we made!

happy quilting,
Kate

p.s. new website coming soon... with goodies... keep checking back!

Project Quilting Challenge 4

Project Quilting- another challenge and another quilt done!


This time I did not procrastinate quite as much, but almost! Hubby and I were scheduled to take a screen printing class on Sat (more on that another time) so I had to get the quilt done before that.


One of the things I am trying to do during these challenges is only use what I have. No shopping for extra fabric, no shopping for embellishments etc... I should have enough stuff!






This week's challenge was "Wish upon a Star".

I love stars. Pieced stars, appliquéd stars, quilted stars, star buttons.... so this should be fun! I pondered the quilt design all week- pieced stars? Appliqué? what to do?

I even printed out the words to the Disney song, Wish upon a Star for inspiration. Finally on Friday, I just started to go for it with a partial plan in place. Good thing I was not totally set on one idea as things did not go as planned.

First- no blue! My first three Project quilting quilts all had blue in them, so no blue!

Second- no sawtooth stars. They are my go to star so I needed to do something else.

Third, I decided to put words on my quilt and luckily I found some great fabric pens to use in my stash.

Fourth- the theme: Hedge Your Bets, Wish upon a Galaxy!

I did a cross between the Big Bang and a galaxy of stars. I made wonky log cabin blocks and then cut them on an angle.

The center of the log cabin is traditionally red to signify the hearth of the home- for me, it is the center of the big bang where all the stars were "born".

Then a ring of appliquéd stars. Then the words.





A little stitching around the stars, circular quilting, binding, more words and the quilt was born!



Side note- the challenges this week were not only the one issued by Project Quilting. My machine truly is not working well and so I could not embellish the stars with machine stitched blanket stitch. I was down to a straight stitch only machine.

 

Second, fabric pens do not last forever. I probably got the pens 6 years ago and they only lasted through a few words. I was going to put the words of the entire song along the border of the quilt, but the pen barely made the first two lines!










That's OK- I am learning to be flexible. The quilt is still adorable!

happy quilting,

kate

Confession

I was just going to post my February block for the Aurifil BOM and be done with it.

But I must confess. This block is a mess.

I may have mentioned that I have been having trouble with my sewing machine. She is fighting with me over the 1/4" seam allowance- I really think something is wrong as I have not had this problem before. The feed dogs look crooked!

So, this week I was making the block, fighting with Vicky to get a nice 1/4" seam allowance, spending way too much time with my seam ripper and finally, ta done! Finished! I had a block.

I felt beat up.

I took a picture of my block at the end of the battle. Victory was mine. Then, as I was looking at the picture, I noticed that something seemed off. OMG. Are you kidding me?

I had sewed it together wrong.

Darn! So I got out my seam ripper (again!) and got to work.

Soon my block looked like this:

I managed to resew the sections, finish dismantling the block and sew it back together. But it does not quite fit in all areas. Too many mishaps with the seam allowance, too many interactions with the seam ripper!

So,while some points don't match, I like the color scheme and I am trying to be OK with, "It is what it is."

In the meantime, Vicky needs to go to the sewing machine hospital. Not sure if what she has is fatal or not. I feel a little like I did when my beloved VW bug started to go- after a while you are just pouring good money after bad. But I loved my bug- and I love Vicky.  

I will keep you posted.

happy quilting,

Kate

p.s. I am thinking I should name my seam ripper- the sewing machines have names and I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time with the seam ripper...

any suggestions? 

Snow Day

Day.

Project.

happy quilting,
Kate

Gifts

Don't you love to get gifts in the mail?

Recently I received this-

I won $$ at Superior Threads from Project Quilting. 

Thanks to Superior Threads and Kim! I needed some piecing thread.

and this!

The bag is from Casa Crafty- I won it in a giveaway in January on  imagine gnats blog! 

Isn't it great? It is laminate. 

Thanks Kelley. And thanks to Rachael at imagine gnats!

Now that I have this cute shopping bag, it must be time to go shopping!

happy quilting,
kate

Aurifil BOM

I decided to start today on my Aurifil BOM for February. It is called the Heavy Cross Block and was designed by Marie-Claude Picon-Iperti. You can read more about her here.












I was having trouble deciding where to place different colors in the block, so I made a few copies of the block and got our my colored pencils. Fun!

After a few tries, I think I have a color scheme. Yea!

How do you like to plan it out? Do you just lay the fabrics next to each other, do you use a computer program or do you make little color sketches?

For me, it depends on the number of patches in the block and the project- I use all three methods, sometimes for the same project!

Pieces are cut...

(1 9/16"??? that took a minute to process!)

laid out in sections...

and one section is done! Woo Hoo!

Off to do other things- can't wait to get back to this later to finish!

Hope you are having a relaxing holiday!

Happy President's Day!

oh- and happy quilting!

Kate