Stella & Charlie

How I found them when I got home from work today.
I think they like each other.
Or… neither one of them was willing to give up the top bunk of the kitty condo.
Yes, we decided to name the baby kitty Stella.
It’s my favorite quilt too.

Welcome to Wits End

We saw this cottage while cycling around Camano Island last weekend.  Seems sort of appropriate at the moment.  If it was our house. We had the rest of the flooring installed in our bedrooms yesterday.  Three guys finished it up in 6 hours. Amazing.

This is our bedroom at the moment.  Seems like I should try to repaint before we put up all of the trim and move all of the furniture back in.  Simple but cozy.

This is what the garage looks like.   All of our bedroom stuff & all of my sewing stuff.  I think we need to sort, organize, and get rid of the things we don’t use.  Wits End sort of sums it up.  I feel like I should give you another cute cat photo to make up for the lack of sewing going on.

A new baby

Charlie needed a playmate.  So this little girl came home with us yesterday.  We can’t decide on a name… Olive? or Stella?  We’ve been taking a poll and I think Stella is winning.

Random Sampler QAL – Spools

I’ve been thinking about spool blocks for awhile.  So when I went to my BlockBase program and searched for spools, I was surprised to see this one by Nancy Cabot from 1936. Actually, it was named Spool & Bobbin.  I’ve also seen it called Flying Shuttles on the Internet.

Nancy Cabot was a quilt designer who published a quilting column in the Chicago Tribune newspaper in the 1930’s. She was quite pivotal in reviving the art of quilt making in the early 20th Century.

And BTW, BlockBase is the computer version of Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.  It’s a stand alone product from Electric Quilt. EQ7 is NOT needed to use BlockBase, but it can be linked to EQ7 so that all the blocks can be used in designing quilts. It’s quite a handy little piece of software!

When you hear “spool block” you may think of this one… the traditional 4-patch version.

Or you may think of this one…  a single spool.  Here’s an easy tutorial for a spool block over at Bee In My Bonnet.

But did you know that this one that has been recently called the “x and+” block is also called a spool block from the 1970’s that has been attributed to Nancy Cabot from 1938.  Here’s a tutorial for the “x and +” block over at Badskirt Amy that many people have been using.

So… let’s get started.  The original block measures 12 1/2″ including seam allowances.

1.  Choose 3 fabrics, a light a medium and a dark value.

2. From the light value fabric cut:

• 4 – 3 7/8″ squares, cut in half diagonally once to yield 8 half-square triangles.

From the medium value fabric cut:

• 8 – 2 3/8″ squares, cut in half diagonally once to yield 16 half-square triangles.
• 4 – 3 7/8″ squares, cut in half diagonally once to yield 8 half-square triangles.

From the dark value fabric cut:

• 8 – 2″ squares.
• 4 – 3 7/8″ squares, cut in half diagonally once to yield 8 half-square triangles.

3. Sew a 2 3/8″ medium value triangle to one side of a 2″ square.  Press towards the triangle.  Sew a second 2 3/8″ medium value triangle to the adjacent side of a 2″ square and press towards the triangle. Repeat and make 8 for the entire spool block.

4. Sew a 3 7/8″ dark value triangle to the half-square triangle units in Step 3 above. Repeat to make 8 half-square triangles for the entire spool block.

5. Sew a 3 7/8″ light value triangle to a 3 7/8″ medium value triangle and press the seams towards the light fabric. Repeat and make 8 half-square triangles for the entire block.

6.  Lay out 2 light/medium half-square triangles and 2 medium/dark half-square triangles as shown above, alternating their placement in each row.  Sew the 2 half-square triangles together in each row and then sew the rows together to complete 1 section of the entire block.  Repeat to make 4 sections to complete the entire block.

If you are consistently pressing the seams in opposite directions, your seams should be nesting nicely and not be too bulky.

This is the back side of one section.

And… this is the front side of one section.  At this point it should measure 6 1/2″ including seam allowances.

7.  From here you can decide if you want to leave the 4 sections as separate blocks and NOT sew them together.  Or… you can sew all 4 sections together and make a 12 1/2″ block. It’s up to you.  I’m leaning towards leaving them as 4 separate blocks. But then I’m wondering if it really is a spool block or not?  Maybe it is… and it is like that first image of a traditional spools block in that there are 4 of them in 1 block.  Either way…  I hope you enjoy this one.

And…  I’m thinking of making some of those other spool blocks I’ve mentioned above as well.  If you missed my last post… here’s a pic of my blocks so far.

Thoughts on my random blocks

~ While I was sorting through my scraps I found some leftover flying geese blocks.  I hope to add them to my Random Sampler blocks.

~ I think I might take out the liberated star block and work it into my liberated baskets UFO.

~ My leftover snowflake block might make a good center, no?

~ Which means I guess I’ve decided to arrange my blocks in a medallion sort of layout.

~ I’m sort of behind on this month’s block.

~ Which means I’d better get it made & posted by the end of this week!

~ How are you doing?