Holiday Plaid

Another recent finish…  It was so fun to create a plaid with fabric!  It just happens to be out of Christmas fabric, but it would be great to make this a few more times with different colors.

This is my newest pattern.  It’s not on my web site yet because because it is in the middle of a redesigned.  But it is available at Gathering Fabric as a kit or just the pattern.  Phone or email the shop if you would like just the pattern… or…  the kit is available online in their shop.

Their are 5 sizes available in the pattern (baby to king).  I made the throw size which finishes at 60″ x 75″.  The fabric is Not Even a Mouse by Cary Phillips for Clothworks.

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P.S.  I finally got my sewing room 99% put back together, cleaned up, and ready for use. Yippee!!  Maybe I’ll take some pics over the weekend.

Happy Friday!

Everything Blue block hop

The folks at Clothworks invited me to participate in the Everything Blue block hop.  We were each asked to make one block using fabric from the Everything Blue collection by Marsha McCloskey.

The blocks will be assembled into a quilt that will be donated to a local charity.  There’s quite a few cool folks participating… and you can participate too!  Just follow the rules and submit your blocks.

I got a little carried away and made two blocks.  Both are 12 1/2″ square.

The first one is a variation of a block in this sampler quilt that I found on Pinterest.  I drew up the block in Electric Quilt and the underlying grid is a basic 9-patch.

The second one is a “throw caution to the wind” free form block using the wavy seams technique of laying fabric on top of one another and cutting a wavy line through both layers.  It was a little bit outside my normal box but oh so fun to make!  It feels like an echo to me.  Or a ripple in the water.

A different perspective

Rarely is it sunny when we fly somewhere. But today everything was in our favor. It was sunny AND we had a window seat.  We just got back from a quick trip visiting my side of the family.  And for some odd reason I’m feeling pretty optimistic about finishing projects and getting our house in order.  The construction, for the most part is DONE. We just have a little baseboard trim to finish in the living room.  Now I want to go room by room and make sure that it is clean, organized, decorated and get rid of all the things taking up space that we really don’t need. INCLUDING my sewing room.  Where have you been, dear motivation, for the last several months?  Maybe seeing the world from an airplane made a difference? Crossing my fingers that this feeling lasts for a good long while!

1.  The Space Needle
2. Downtown Seattle and the waterfront
3. The Port of Seattle and the West Seattle neighborhood
4. Mt. Baker
5. Cascade Mountain range

P.S.  I am no longer uploading photos to Flickr unless they are related to the groups that I am participating in.  Just thought you should know.  From this point in time, when you click on the photos you will be taken to a larger sized image that is hosted on my blog… for now.

Random Sampler QAL – Arrow

This was supposed to be the July block but July slipped by so fast that before I knew what was happening it was already August.  I was inspired by the many arrow quilts that I’ve run across on Pinterest. Wouldn’t it be fun to make a quilt entirely of arrows?  I particularly like this scrappy one, this red one, and this contemporary one.

The size of this block is 6 1/2″ including seam allowances.

1. Choose two fabrics, a light and a dark.

2.  From the light fabric cut:

• 2 – 2″ x 4″ rectangles
• 2 – 3 1/2″ squares

From the dark fabric cut:

• 1 – 3 1/2″ x 4″ rectangle
• 1 – 3″ x 6 1/2″ rectangle

3.  Place the 3 1/2″ square light fabric on top of the 3″ x 6 1/2″ rectangle dark fabric with right sides together.  Match up the corners on one side.  Draw a diagonal pencil mark from the corner of the dark rectangle to the opposite corner of the light square.  Stitch along the pencil line.

4.  Trim away the corner leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance.

5. Press the seam open and trim off the excess from the 3 /2″ light square making the rectangle unit measure 3″ x 6 1/2″.

6.  Repeat steps 3-5 to the other corner of the 3″ x 6 1/2″ rectangle unit.

7.  Sew a 2″ x 4″ light rectangle fabric to each side of the 3 1/2″ x 4″ dark rectangle fabric, matching the 4″ sides of each rectangle.  Sew this unit to the arrow point unit to complete the block.

Voila!  Have fun and I’ll be back later with the last block of the Random Sampler.  Won’t it be fun to finish this one?  A non-quilting friend of mine came over recently and saw all of my blocks hanging on my design wall and she asked me, “Are all of those blocks supposed to go together?” I had to laugh…   I guess my challenge now is to try and find a way to make them all feel a little more cohesive.

Random Sampler QAL – Update

First of all, I want to thank everyone that left comments, suggestions, and opinions about my photo that has been hijacked by others.  I truly appreciated ALL of them.  It gave me many things to think about.  One for sure, I need to start watermarking every image that I post anywhere on the Internet no matter how insignificant it may be.  Another thing I need to think about is how & where to store my images.  I see Flickr becoming something different than what it was when I started using it or even what it was 6 months ago. I think it is time to slowly move my images away from there. How to do that and where to move them is an whole other matter.  I’m not sure what the answer is.  And Pinterest is another beast in itself.  Boy, does technology make my life more complicated!

On another note!  I totally missed the July block for the Random Sampler Quilt-Along.  So I’m going to try to wrap everything up this month… if I can!

We have 2 more blocks to finish off the year.  And you can see by the spoiler above, I’ve decided that the last two blocks will be an arrow and the year we will finish this quilt.  So look forward to those two posts this month.

I also want to make a list of other block tutorials around the Internet that you might find helpful to fill in the blank spaces of your quilt.

And finally, I’ll show you how I am going to finish my quilt.  You all are free to finish yours any way you wish.  But for those that want some of the math figured out for you, I will provide the info for my quilt.

Have a great weekend!