Rolling, rolling, rolling down a pattern

      Jordan Fabrics always has great ideas and they change up the fabric in patterns. Always gets me thinking. The videos are pretty succinct and well done also. They have lots of free patterns.
     I got sucked in on a Kaffe layer cake deal by MSQC recently and the Jordan pattern, Rolling Stone, caught my attention. This definitely one to cut out and sew. In time, not now.

Antique Lace quilt pattern

     I have no idea how Jenny Doan of MSQC keeps coming up with new ideas. One of her newest is Antique Lace using 2.5" strips. I had just bought 18 Kaffe strips at a downsizing sale. Instead of the white, I opted for Kona Ash because I did not want the white to be so bright, but the Kaffe strips to be more visible. 
    All the strips are sewn on both long sides of the WOF strips (a tube), a solid paired right sides together with the print. I had my mom, the zippy straight seam sewer, do that. The longer part is to cut all the triangles from the strips with the special ruler. The triangles cut at 3" from the seam line and are all trimmed before they are opened and pressed. Taking me a long time. 
    After I trimmed 2 pairs, I cut the necessary solids and made the first big block. I had to use graph paper to make sure I did not mess up the placements. I did one corner a couple of times anyways. I do like the look of it, and now eight more to do. Got to get those triangles trimmed!

The strip tubes sewn, 18 sets

Trimming the triangles with the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmer at 3" on the seam line

My graph paper cheat sheet

Block number one, eight to go

All quilted and bagged

     Months ago, I finished a top made from charm packs called Katie's Quilt, the pattern free from Missouri Star Quilt Company. I had my mother initially sew the charm squares, which were paired together, and two opposite sides were sewn, right sides together, which she could handle. Then I cut them in half and chained them lengthwise. It is kind of a fun pattern and now with my new Doug Leko Simple Folded Corners ruler, the next one I make, I am using it on the rectangle corners. I already have the pairs of squares ready for my mom to start.
    I had to rush on this one, because my mom promised a cousin I would make her one when she found out the woman has bone cancer. Then she tells me. Anyways, the photos are taken before washing, because I immediately after washing and drying, comfort quilts go in a tote bag and large ziploc bag to stay absolutely clean.

Taken under the garage overhang, so some shadows 

Taken in the sun, but not enough fence to display flat

Back detail

Fun fabric someone donated to me (Gwen) for the back 

Quilt detail

More detail, I changed up the design in each white area, ruler work in the 16 patches.

Strip tubes, Summer in the Park

     I am always looking for comfort quilt patterns that my mom can help with and keep her from being bored. She can sew straight seams, strips and squares, but does not piece, cut or trim. I had this jelly roll of black strips and got a batik one on special, so I remembered this quilt from Missouri Star Quilt Company. I pinned a set of black, color, black and a set of color, black, colors together and told my mom to sew them in that order. She pressed all the sets and then sewed the opposite sets to each other, making a tube. I got the tubes back and am cutting them with my Strip Tube Ruler (Cozy Quilts). I have to trim them to an even 8 1/2" block due to my mom's not quite true 1/4". I use the diagonal of the block lined up on my 9" square ruler and trim all sides to 8 1/2". When I get a bunch trimmed up, I will arrange some on the wall and photo them for you to see. 

The pile of strip tubes

The sequence of color sets

Tubes flipped to the opposite side to show how opposites are paired to make the tube

Bursting with starts

     After finishing the three tops at the retreat, I started new ones. One of them will be a vet quilt- Red White Blue scraps- a string quilt I discovered in an older quilt book I got at a library discard sale. I am using the papers from Missouri Star- they are thin, strong, and don't wrinkle. I have 24 of the 36 string blocks I need. Kind of a cool quilt.

Here is the book I got the idea from and some sewn blocks.

One of the four zig zags needed

      Another quilt, Katie's quilt from MSQC, was started. I have all 16 patches and 4 patches done. I need the white rectangles and triangles cut and sewn yet.

The last start is one I need my head examined for. I fell in love with the quilt, Harvest Dawn, at a store and foolishly bought the pattern. It is a Judy Niemeyer one and I already have Sea Urchin that is stalled. It seemed like it was a shorter and easier one and in the heat of the fabric moment, I bit. I have all the pieces in the right bags and now have to paper piece them. I can't even tell you how long I took to piece these 4. I will just have to take one bag at a time forgetting what has to be done and chip away at it, regardless how long it takes.

Layer Cake into Herringbones

     One of the women that I cleaned a Featherweight for gave me a layer cake in muted Americana colors as a thank you among some yardage. I cut Kona white into 10" squares and gave them to my mother to sew all the way around the pair of layer cake square and white. I asked to her sew off the corners and restart sewing on the next side. That helped slow her down so I got square corners that I cut easily cut all the way across, corner to corner twice to make 4 triangles that opened into HSTs. I trimmed the HSTs with a Bloc Loc ruler- just the best tool!!
     Missouri Star Quilt Company has a tutorial on the Herringbone quilt. It has no waste except the trimmings of the HSTs. I did a couple of layouts on the design wall and so far 4 rows to the right are all sewn. I had to web the side instead of the across the top since the blocks do not line up so my tape numbers go down the side, not the top. What I did is to take every other row (which have the same configuration) and do a leader/ender with those. After two sets of pairs sewn, I attached them together. I will do this for the rest of the quilt.

Layout 1

Layout 2

 Four rows on right sewn

Finally quilted

      This quilt is from a Missouri Star quilt pattern that uses layer cakes. Over a year ago, I bought this bookish fabric from Connecting Threads on a pre-Thanksgiving sale. I made the quilt and started quilting it on my 301. It was kind of tough due to the size, so after finishing the center row, I put it away. I loaded it on the Nolting which was a little tough because it was partly quilted. I persevered through some wrinkling and shredded Glide thread (why now?) and finished this but for the binding. It will be a comfort quilt for someone who loves books, not sure who. Love the Military gold thread color by Glide. Now onto a couple of more quilts hanging in the closet for over a year. Have to take the safety pins out first before they load on.

Back

Back detail

Front

Just the blocks

      Things have been a little under the weather here. I have had continuous migraines and early Monday morning my husband passed out twice and fell in the middle of night as he was getting up which meant an ambulance trip, lots of expensive tests and no cause discerned. He has no prior problems, but needs to make some changes. 
      I have been testing out some new blocks to me to see whether I like them or not. First, my  first two paper pieced blocks for Sea Urchin by Judy Niemeyer are done.

      Second, after my class at Quilting by the Lake this past July, I was inspired to try a Dresden Plate. I got a template on the Missouri Star Quilt company daily deal. I wish it was even longer. I sewed 5, 2.5" x 4.5" strips together for each spoke and then trimmed them. I have not sewn the blades together yet. I wonder if this could be a center medallion with something else just simple around it.

      Third, Janet on the Quilting Board explained a better way to do the Missouri Star quilt company Disappearing Hour glass block so you aren't sewing bias edges. This using 5" squares. I like it. I have to find fabric to make enough same charm squares for each block- four of each, light and dark.

       Last, I am using my leader and ender 2.5" squares to make some 5 across blocks so I can make the Film in the Fridge pattern for another comfort quilt now that I sewed together Good Night Irene.

Quilts pieced and waiting

     The crumb attic window quilt got its bag, book and card and were delivered to a woman from church with a new diagnosis of cancer, with more testing to go. A couple of the outside and inside cards I make to go with the quilts.

Outsides

Inside, have not written the message yet

      I finished another Exploding Square quilt and found a great border.

     When I sew, I use Leader and Enders, ala Bonnie Hunter. I have all these 2 1/2" squares in boxes by light and dark, next to the piecing machine of choice (lately a 201- lovely smooth machine after months of motor woes- new armature works great!). When starting to sew or ending, a light and dark pair are sewn. After enough pairs, they are sewn into 4 patches. I also snowballed the squares on 4 1/2" white on white scrap squares. When there were enough of each block, I made Good Night, Irene. I will not border this as it is big enough for a comfort quilt.

  

The last comfort quilt is another You've Got Mail from Missouri Star Quilt Company. From one layer cake prints, I was able to make two comfort quilts. The first one was done a while ago and I finally sewed these blocks into a quilt.

Now, what I need is uninterrupted time to get all these quilted, as the demand for comfort quilts is not ceasing.

Trying to stay warm!

    This isn't news to most anyone, but it is frigid! The sun is shining today, but the temperature is dropping. South of Buffalo got hammered last night with snow and wind and schools closed. I am north of Buffalo, and just got some snow. Makes me all the glad to sew more and those vintage machine foot controllers keep me warm. I am working on a bunch of stuff, as I have 5 machines set up, all with something different going. Hey, woodworkers have many machines set up as they all do different functions. I have a 301 set up for piecing, a 301 that has small comfort quilts being FMQ, a 301 with a large quilt being quilted, a 401 that does zig zag on fabric collages for cards, and my treadle for scrap crumb quilts. These all cost less than my ill bought $2200 P machine that could never quilt well (sold it). Yesterday, I worked on all of them doing a lot of different things.
    I hope some of you visited your local quilt store on Saturday for the national LQS Saturday. I did my part at Pine Grove. I got fabric for my daughter's tote bag and some great grey for putting together crumbs.
    On Friday, I helped my friend, Jan, continue on learning to quilt. We have been working on a dog themed quilt based on the free pattern Patience Corners from http://jellyrollfabric.net/  The plastic guide I bought from Nova Montgomery is a huge help for Jan to keep the seams even; it works much better than the foot with the blade. Here are the blocks on the wall ready to sew.

Blue tape show order of blocks for sewing

    Another quilt I started, You've Got Mail, free pattern and video from the Missouri Star Quilt company, is from a layer cake and 10" white squares cut from yardage. I layed out all the blocks and have 22 out of 42 sewn.The rest are pinned and waiting to be sewn. When they are all sewn, I will put them back on the design wall and break the blocks into two quilts, 4 by 5, for two comfort quilts.

Not in any order, just for pinning

All pinned for sewing

    Since the only kids comfort quilt I had was given away, I started another, because, unfortunately, I will get another request. I decided to do Disappearing Nine Patch, rotating all the kid prints to the center. I bought a pack of I Spy 5" squares on ebay, and am using my own 5" for the other squares. These are how many I have done now.

Needs three more rows

    I don't usually put my paintings on this blog but on my flickr site. However, it is so cold and I thought at least one newer one might brighten the day.

A bouquet from last year's Buffalo Garden Walk

Surprises and Finishes

    By mentioning surprises, I don't mean the weather- it's winter, it's Buffalo, I accept that. The first couple days of the new year brought some unexpected big delights. First, Quilting by the Lake, a program from the Schweinfurth Museum in Auburn, NY with extraordinary teachers, called me and offered me a 5 day scholarship for classes in July!! By July, I thought I could have scrapped up enough to take a 2 day class with Victoria Findlay Wolfe, but never 5 days there. What it would have cost for an entire 2 days, I can stay all 5! Just the lodging to come up with, and if I had a room mate, it could be even cheaper. So, there is still room for her classes or others, so maybe think about coming. I love scraps and colors and Victoria is a master with both. I never win anything and wow, here it is.
  Second, I have a good friend who is a fantastically talented jeweler. She is an art teacher and a Roycroft artisan jeweler. In the mail, I got a pair of silver angel earring with glass beads that are just terrific. I can't take a picture of myself with my camera and I have a stupid phone, so have to get someone else to photo them for me.
  In the cleaning department, I finished the Kenmore and it is ready to go home. I was going to deliver it at the quilt guild meeting tonight, but it got weather cancelled. It is pretty spiffy and sews up a storm.

In its zipper case, ready to be used. Power cords and pedal in made bag.

    On the vintage machine forums, it has been mentioned about using TR3 resin glaze to polish paint and Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish for metal. Wow, great stuff. I picked up some last week at Pep Boys and used it on an old 66 treadle both the paint and metal. I also shined up my new 15. I used cotton balls just like the forum people said. The old 66 was a real wreck. All the metal was rusted. I read about using cider vinegar to soak the metal. In a bucket, I piled all the metal pieces in with the cider vinegar, and in 24 hours, I could not believe it was all gone. Now with the Mother's, I can restore the shine.

Left side, 1/4 of it polished, rest with rust removed

Right edge with polish after rust removal

Top with TR3 and cotton balls

What the black surface looks like without polish

Great Products

     Comfort Quilt finish- orange jelly roll strips from http://www.jellyrollfabric.net/ and Liz has a great sale right now. I just bought some animal skin prints, plain white, and some gray/blacks. The pattern is the 3 Dudes quilt from Missouri Star Quilt company except I used 6 strips cut into blocks instead of 4. I auditioned colors to make the orange pop and be happy. I never decide my borders or binding fabric until the quilt is pieced because I can make better choices to highlight the center.

Auditioning for the border

Ready for basting and backing

     Another Comfort Quilt, the 4 patch B&W leader and ender, is all quilted and bound. The backing donated by Esta is a lot of fun.

Detail

Back

Detail

Finished Quilt

   Wow, that was a lot to get through, but I hate taking pictures off the camera, naming them, putting them in folders, so I tend to do it all at the same time. I did not photo my machine disasters lately, so I won't be sharing those!