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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Summery Things and NTT

Happy Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all.  My visit last weekend with my grandparents was wonderful.  I've always treasured my time with them, but this pandemic has made me appreciate it even more.  Since they left, I've been busy sewing blocks for my newest quilt.


This is the Moroccan Star block that I showed last year as part of my stint as a guest designer for the International Association of Quilters, and I figured it was time to turn the block design into a full quilt.  I threw the blocks up on the design wall without pressing to see how they look, and I have to say that I love how they're coming together.  They just look so summery to me!

I also spent a good chunk of yesterday peeling and slicing peaches to freeze in simple syrup.  Peaches are one of my very favorite fruits, and when the daughter of one of our friends was selling 13 lb. boxes of peaches for a fundraiser, I just couldn't resist ordering one.  These were picked on a farm not far from here and delivered within just a couple of days, and are hands-down the best peaches I've ever eaten.

But... thirteen pounds of peaches is a bunch!  Once I got them, it suddenly occurred to me that there is absolutely NO way we could eat all of them fresh.  Thankfully, they were delivered before my grandparents went home, so they took some back to share with my parents.  That still left me to figure out what to do with fifteen peaches (still more that we could eat before they start to rot).

A few of them went into a cobbler right away because it just would have been a crime not to;  and the rest were all packaged up with a light simple syrup and frozen.  Now, I can have a taste of summer even when the weather starts to cool off!


It occurred to me yesterday that I have had houseguests three out of the last five weekends.  All fantastic visits, but I am looking forward to getting back into a more normal routine, and that includes getting back to more regular sewing time.

Last week's party had plenty of eye-catching quilts.  Check out this scrappy flying geese quilt by heARTs Creations-


This quilt by Linda at Flourishing Palms is so cheerful and fun!


This scrappy improv goodness is by Sew Preeti Quilts-


This quilt, called Containment, is by Vasudha at Storied Quilts and has a really powerful message.


And I love the soft color palette in this quilt by Better'n Dog Biscuits-


Wow, friends!  I love that you link up so much awesomeness every week.  Let's do it again!

1You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!
2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.
3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 
    post.  
4. Spread the comment love far and wide!
5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)





Wednesday, July 22, 2020

The Party is On!

This week, there has been zero sewing happening over here.  Instead, last weekend my father-in-law came for a visit.  He is actually moving here in a few weeks, but came to make a few decisions about the house he bought before he closes on it and moves.  We are thrilled that we will have him close to us very soon, because right now he is eleven hours away, and that is just too far.

And tomorrow, my grandparents are arriving for the weekend.  Usually, we go to visit them, but they decided to come here instead and I'm super excited to see them!  So instead of sewing, my time lately has been spent visiting, cooking, and cleaning between guests.  I have been able to plan my next quilt though, even if I haven't gotten any further along in the process.  I pulled this summery palette from my stash, and I'll get busy cutting into these next week!


Before we party, check out some of last week's eye-candy.  Julie's Quilts and Costumes shared two soft and sweet baby quilt finishes.


Nancy at Grace and Peace Quilting linked up a whole slew of pretty charity quilts!  Awesome!


And I just love this quilt by JanineMarie at Quilts From the Little House.


Y'all are amazing.  So, without further ado, let's get this party on!

1You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!
2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.
3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 
    post.  
4. Spread the comment love far and wide!
5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)





Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Cloth Napkins and NTT

As the weeks of quarantine wear on, it's amazing what I've started to notice in my house.  For the past couple of weeks, I've taken note of the staggering number of paper towels and napkins that we go through on a daily basis.  With the three of us eating every meal at home now, I feel like we're constantly running out of some paper product, so I decided to remedy part of the situation with some quick and easy cloth napkins.


Since my kitchen is decorated with white, beige/tan, and several shades of green, I decided to raid my green stash and get down to work.  Apple, lime, grass, chartreuse, olive, leaf... I am an equal opportunity lover of all shades of green, so I didn't discriminate when pulling the fabrics for these napkins.  There are a few duplicates in there, but just a few!

Each napkin is backed with unbleached muslin to keep things simple since these are for everyday use.


I didn't take photos of the process, but these are SO easy to make.  To make some for yourself, follow these easy steps-

1.  Cut one 18" print fabric square for the front and one 18" muslin square for the back of the napkin.

2.  Place the squares right sides together and sew a 1/4" seam around the edge, leaving an opening (about 4") for turning the napkin right side out.  Don't forget to backstitch at the beginning and end!

3.  Clip each corner diagonally (without cutting the seam) to reduce bulk in the corners when turning it right side out.

4.  Turn the napkin right side out, using a chopstick or another blunt-edged tool to push the corners out fully.

5.  Fold the raw edges of fabric at the opening inward, and press the entire napkin flat.

6.  Topstitch around the entire napkin, about 1/8" from the edge, and make sure to sew the opening closed.  Remember to backstitch at the beginning and end to secure your stitches.  And you're done!

If you're unsure about one of the steps, you can check out my One Hour Baby Gift tutorial HERE.  The process is practically the same, and there are plenty of photos in that post.


I'm hopeful that two dozen napkins will be plenty to last between laundry loads, but we'll see.  I'm so pleased with the way these turned out, and I'm really happy to reduce our household waste too!  I don't know why I didn't think to make some sooner, and I'm already thinking ahead to making a holiday set too.

Before we party, let's check out a few highlights from last week's NTT.  Look at this simple, fun quilt by Jan at The Colorful Fabriholic-



Sally at Crafts, Cavies, and Cooking shared progress on this amazing project.  It's mesmerizing!


Take a look at this soothing beauty by Myra at Busy Hands Quilts-


DonnaleeQ linked up this fantastic quilt-


And Jayne at Twiggy and Opal showed off this stunner-


It was so hard to narrow down my highlights this week!  Y'all are so inspiring.  Let's get to this week's party, y'all!

1You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!
2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.
3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 
    post.  
4. Spread the comment love far and wide!
5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)





Thursday, July 9, 2020

Strata Squared

Hey there, friends!  As promised, I'm delighted to share my latest scrap quilt finish with you.  Since this quilt took awhile to put together and the process spanned several blog posts, I am including everything in here for those who want to give it a try.  But first, the big reveal!  Here she is, in all her 84" glory.


I'm calling this one Strata Squared.  The stacked random layers of scraps create such a neat effect, and I feel like that name captures the pattern perfectly.  If you're a scrap quilt lover and want to make your own Strata Squared quilt, this post is for you!   The steps are very straightforward, but I'll address some of the specific difficulties that come along with sewing this number of narrow strips together.  So, let's jump right in!

First, you'll want to cut your scraps to 1.5"wide, leaving them at random lengths.  I didn't cut any length off of my scraps at all.  They were left at whatever length they happened to be, ranging from 2" all the way to a full selvage-to-selvage strip!  These strips finish at just one inch wide, and it's the narrow width that gives this quilt such a neat look.


A word about sorting-  I always store my scraps by color (never by size), using one glass jar for each color of the rainbow, plus gray/black, and a multi-color jar.  The two baskets are for my white scraps and Christmas scraps.



You'll notice that my jars are not huge.  They only measure about 6" in diameter by about 12" tall, but they hold more than you might think.  I purposely don't have large scrap jars.  I know that if my jars get full, I can get two or three lap size quilts out of them, or about one queen size quilt.  That's about the amount of scraps I can process at one time without getting overwhelmed, so I choose to keep them manageable and NOT get bigger containers.  And you'll notice that after this quilt, they're ALL empty (with the exception of one scrap of backing fabric from this quilt)!

If you have more scraps than I do (and I know many of you do), don't despair!  Just grab a couple of handfuls of scraps from each color for this quilt and leave the rest for another project.

Next, grab and sew!  Randomly grab scrap strips and sew them end to end, creating one loooooonnnnggg strip.  Random is the name of the game here.  Mix in your white strips randomly as well.  You'll see that when you start to actually sew the quilt top together, you won't have any control over what fabrics touch each other, so just let that go right now.


Since you won't have any idea how long your strip is, you also won't know exactly how large your quilt will be.  I guessed that mine would be somewhere between a twin and queen size, but only because I know how much my scrap jars hold from past experience.

Okay, so because I didn't originally plan to write a tutorial for this quilt, this is the part that I didn't take photos of, so you'll just have to bear with me.  Choose a scrap piece to be your center. I chose a white scrap measuring about 1.5" x 2".  If you want a more rectangular quilt, you can choose a longer strip for the center.

Start sewing around the center scrap like a log cabin block.  When you get to the end of one side, cut your long scrap strip in line with the side (I just use my scissors), turn the piece and continue sewing down the next side.  Keep sewing around and around the center piece and watch your quilt top grow!  I took a few photos while sewing mine together.  Here it is at 48 inches-


and 54 inches-


and 60 inches-


and 72 inches-


Keep sewing your long strip to each side around the center until you get to the end.  Once you get toward the end of your scrap strip, you may find that you don't have enough length to make it all the way down the next side, and that's the point where you'll want to stop.  I had about six feet of my strip left over, and after all of this repetitive sewing, I felt just fine tossing that last little bit in the trash (but you can keep it if you want to).

As your quilt top gets bigger, it can become more tedious to sew.  Keep the weight of the quilt top on your sewing table so it doesn't pull, which will help keep your sewing straight, and try not to stretch your strip while you sew.  Both of these things will make your life much easier later on.

And finally, my quilt top finished at 84 inches-


Notice in the photos that I did NOT press my quilt top during the process.  When adding narrow strips like this, pressing over and over can easily distort the strips, making them wavy (think about adding borders to a quilt), and little bits of distortion can really add up to make bigger problems later.  I know this seems counterintuitive because as quilters we usually press often, but trust me on this.  Leave the pressing to the end.

Once your top is finished, then (and only then) should you press it.  When pressing, use a very hot, dry iron with plenty of starch.  Try not to pull your quilt top with the iron, and always iron with the direction of the strips.  This means that instead of pressing the quilt from top to bottom as I usually do, I pressed around and around the quilt to keep the strips as straight as possible.

Basting was probably the biggest challenge of this quilt.  Despite my very best sewing and pressing, and despite the fact that the strips all looked nice and straight after pressing, there was still some fullness in the quilt top.  These narrow strips naturally want to snap back toward the center of the quilt (especially at the corners).

Ordinarily when basting, I smooth out the entire quilt top and make it lay perfectly flat before placing the first basting pin.  No matter how much I tried though, each time I tried to smooth out one side, the  strips on the adjoining side would start pulling toward the center (those corners again!).

After about an hour of smoothing the quilt and not really getting anywhere, I was on the verge of tears and realized I had to come up with a new plan.  Instead of smoothing the entire quilt at once and then pinning the whole thing, I just started pinning from the center outward, working just one side at a time and smoothing the quilt as I went along.

The thing about narrow strips is they're a bit stretchy.  That could be seen as a bad thing, but the stretchiness can also be used to your advantage. Once you place a few pins, you can smooth and tug (very gently) to make sure the strips are as straight and taut as possible, and the pins will keep the quilt from snapping back toward the center.

Just work in small sections, don't get discouraged, and pin your way around the entire quilt until you have it basted.  Then it's time to quilt!


My original plan for this quilt was a very dense, giant spiral to echo the design, but after basting and realizing how much the strips want to pull back toward the center, I realized that there were too many little places where fullness in the quilt top might lead to a fold while quilting.  Because you can't change direction on a whim if your quilt needs it, straight line designs (and straight-ish designs like a spiral) are less forgiving of fullness in your quilt top.  With stippling, if you encounter a place in your top that has a tiny bit of fullness and see that your quilt might want to fold over, you can just change direction to avoid those puckers.


I quilted Strata Squared with a very dense stipple.  This 84" quilt used 17 bobbins of my favorite 50 wt. Aurifil thread!  I chose to quilt with Dove gray, because amazingly, it blends into every color just beautifully.  All you see is the lovely crinkly texture.


For the backing, I used Moda Grunge Basics in Silver, along with this fun print from the Endless Summer collection for Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory.  This print picks up plenty of the colors from the front and really pops against the gray.


I love how the sunshine filters through, showing a hint of the colors from the back!  I went with a crisp Kona black binding to finish it off.


This quilt was a labor of love from start to finish.  Though the steps are simple, there were a few hiccups that I had to work through to get it done.  And in closing, let me just say that perfection in quilting is wildly overrated.  Is every strip in my quilt perfectly straight?  No, and that's okay.  Am I worried about the fact that there are little places where I had to "quilt around" some fullness?  No, and that's okay.  This quilt is full of cherished scraps, and I'm okay with letting it be what it is.  What's more, I really LOVE it for what it is.  It's going to live on my couch and get lots of snuggles for many, many years.

Hopefully, sharing my process will help you avoid these pitfalls and let go of your own worries in your own Strata Squared quilt! So, dive right into your own scrap bins, and give it a try!



Wednesday, July 8, 2020

A Teaser, Winners, and NTT

Happy Needle and Thread Thursday, y'all!  I have finished up my scrap spiral quilt, and I cannot wait to share it with you.  I have had SO many emails and questions about my process that I figured I should put all of the information into a single post to make things easier to access.  Plus, this quilt just deserves its own dedicated post.  So for today's NTT, you'll have to make do with this teaser of the quilting-


Be on the lookout for a photo-filled post tomorrow, where I'll discuss the process I used to create this quilt, how I overcame some of the challenges that occurred with sewing tons and tons of narrow strips, and why I chose to densely stipple this quilt instead of using a spiral or other design (there is an important reason!).  Until then, I hope this peek has your curiosity piqued (see what I did there?).

Before we get to last week's party highlights, I owe you two giveaway winners.  Comment number 23, momto1, is the winner of the mug rug kit from Shabby Fabrics, and comment number 7, Tammy is the winner of the gift certificate to LouLou's Fabric Shop.  Congrats, ladies!  Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take screenshots of the Random.org generator when I chose the winners, so you'll just have to take my word for it  ;) .  Sorry about that!

Now to the highlights!  This pretty Tula string quilt by heARTs Creations-


Look at this beautifully vibrant pillow by Louisa at Sewmotion-


This quilt by Anja Quilts is so much fun!



And this sweet little bee by Jayne at Twiggy and Opal makes me happy!


Alrighty then, friends!  Let's do this thing!

1You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!
2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.
3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 
    post.  
4. Spread the comment love far and wide!
5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)





Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Scrap Spiral and NTT

Welcome to Needle and Thread Thursday, friends!  I have been madly sewing my loooooonnnggg scrappy strip for the past several days and I am fully in love with the way this thing is looking so far.  Please forgive my completely unpressed, inside photo.


Truth be told, I'm kind of over the sewing of all of these strips.  As the quilt top gets bigger and bigger, it becomes more difficult to sew the new strip layer on without the weight of the top pulling against it.  Right now, this top is 77" square, and if you think I've finished sewing, you'd be incorrect.


The pile has diminished, but it definitely isn't gone yet.  The good thing is, as the top gets bigger, it takes more length to make it all the way around the square, and each full layer only adds 2" of finished quilt width.  I'm really hoping that I only have about 3 more layers to sew on, which will result in a quilt about 83" square.  That's just a guesstimate based on the size of the pile though.  If it gets too much bigger than that, I might end up adding to the top and bottom only to make it a rectangle, rather than a bigger square.  The bigger it gets, the more I love it, so I'll just have to see how it goes!

Last week's party was full of awesomeness!  Vasudha at Storied Quilts linked up this gorgeous bit of sunshine-


Look at this cheerful Village quilt by Linda at Flourishing Palms!


Shannon at The Flemings Nine showed off this lovely, fresh quilt-


And Sew Yummy shared this vibrant finish (you know I love a rainbow!)-



I am just a little bit later than usual with this post (I was trying to get my quilt top completely finished but realized that wasn't going to happen before my post), otherwise I would choose extra highlights for you.  Last week's party was jam-packed with great stuff, so if you missed it, go take a look!

Let's make the first party of July a great one, y'all.  It's time to party!

1You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!
2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.
3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link within your 
    post.  
4. Spread the comment love far and wide!
5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

*If you're new to the party, here's a helpful tip for linking up- select "Auto Crop"  when selecting your thumbnail photo.  For some reason, trying to crop your own image results in the dreaded "white question mark box," and we definitely want to see your awesome work!  :)





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