Yesterday, I did get another Month done on my Women of Courage Block of Month. Month 8 was "Mary Wilson". She was an Operating Room Supervisor for a field hospital on Anzio beach during World War II. She was the first woman to be awarded the Silver Star for leadership under fire.
The block is fairly easy to make, you start with the pieces, which are just triangles and squares. You are going to make 8 of these blocks.
You start with making 16 hour glass units, by sewing the triangles together.
Then you make 8 half-square triangle units.
Wants all the units are made your just need to assemble the blocks, by sewing the brown squares to half of the hour glass units, with the blue pointing to the top. Then sewing the other half of the hour glass units to the half square triangles. Making sure the blue of the hour glass is pointing to outside.
Once you have those done all you have to do is sew them together to complete the block.
The finished block will measure 9 1/2" x 9 1/2" unfinished. I'm getting closer to be able to start assembling the blocks and getting this one done.
Well off to the sewing room, so make more blocks done. Have a great sewing day!
Tina
Yesterday was a day full of successful errands, for us. We spent the day getting Passports renewed, looking at vehicles, and booking a Alaskan Cruise. In Mid June, my husband and I will celebrate 25 years of marriage. Were has the time gone. So he said to celebrate he was taking me on a Alaskan Cruise. So yesterday afternoon, we booked our cruise, we are so excited, since the cruise leaves on our anniversary. We will have a nice Ocean View room, just need to decide what excursions we want to go on now.
So today, I will be spending part of day working on the website, since the bugs are fixed and the changes are about finished, we are in the home stretch. But I plan to the rest of the day, is to sew more of the Women of Courage blocks I need to finish.
Hope everyone has a great sewing day!
Tina
Yesterday, I got back my Janome 7700 from the doctors, her thread cutter was not working probably, plus she needed a good cleaning. I'm a happy camper. I like my backup Janome, but it is not my 7700. I really recommend getting your machines cleaned every year to 18 months. They collect a lot of line at the bottom and need lubed.
So, I decided to test out my machine by working on the Women of Courage Block of Month that has become a UFO. I think the last block came last summer sometime, really can't remember when it wrapped up. But I have decided to get this one finished. Everything I have been finishing the last couple weeks will be heading to the longarm for quilting. These will all be great quilting practice for me.
The Women of Courage quilt, was designed around great women in our history. I left off with Block 7- "Sacagawea". We are making 16th blocks.
The blocks are made from different size Triangles, and squares.
Starting with sewing red floral on the sides of the brown squares that measure 3 11/16". This is the first time, I made something with 1/16th". It was kind of interesting to figure out, but luckily the pattern had instructions how to locate the 11/16". It is basically in between 5/8" and 3/4".
Once all those are done, you can start sewing the green floral triangles on the side making 32 of these halves.
Take 16 of the halves then flip them so they are on the other side and combine them and press open and the block is finished. Very easy block to make.
I have 5 more block to make to finish this quilt.
Today, I don't know if I will get any sewing done. This is Wednesday and Husband is off and we have errands to get done. Sometimes, it is easier to them on weekdays. So, I hope everyone has a great day!
Tina
Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and make the next block in the Kansas City Star Block of Month, this month we are on block 3.
Block 3 - "Four Crowns", was first printed on November 22, 1933 in the Kansas City Star Newspaper. The block was a little more complex than the first two, I have done.
The block is easy to cut out. You are using 4 basic fabrics and cutting them into squares and rectangles.
Then you will be making 8 flying geese in two different colors of fabrics. And 8 half-square triangles. Then you have everything prepared to start assembling the rows together.
The first and last rows looks like this. You combine the half-square triangle and the 2 1/2" squares to make the outsides and then sew the flying geese unit in the middle.
The next row in use the a little different color scheme, but are done the same way.
The center unit combines the red and blue flying geese units together on the outside of a 4 1/2" square.
Then you just sew all 5 rows together and you get the finished unit, measuring at 12 1/2" x 12 1/2" unfinished.
So far the units are looking pretty together. Looking forward to next months release.
Today, I will be back in sewing, I'm finishing up some old block of months that have become UFO's.
Have a great day, and say warm under a quilt!
Tina
Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine went to fast it seems like. Saturday, my husband had to work so I spent the day adding products and content to the new site. We are very close to finishing now, I found a few bugs to be fixed but we are in the home stretch. Sunday, was a productive day in the house, cleaning wise, about every room got a cleaning except for my oldest son, Patrick's room. He is response able to clean his room. Felt great to get all that done. I even did a little clean and organization in the sewing room. Time to get back in there and make it unclean again.
The end of last week, I finished a new little wall hanging kit that I pick up about a year ago at the Virginia Quilt Show, in Hampton. This one will be for my sewing room, once i get it quilted and binded. The kit comes from Block Party Studios, it came a panel and fabric. I just need to get the backing, I will look for that in my stash.
It is started with this panel, which I love. Then they have you make star block, stack of fabric, spool blocks and flying geese.
The stack of fabric under the star block, is foundation piecing on a piece of muslin. It was very interesting to make doing it that way. But it definitely came out cute. I will add some color and life to my white walls in the sewing room.
Today, I'm planning to get some sewing done. I got a new block for the Kansas City Star BOM, i will be doing. I'm still working on how I want to quilt the Star Burst table topper. I'm leaning toward feathers. So, I may be quilting on that this afternoon.
Have a Great Monday, hope you all can do some sewing and quilting today!
Tina
Yesterday morning, I spent half of the day working on adding content to our new website that is still in beta mode, until we are done adding the content and make sure it is working correctly for our potential customers. By mid afternoon, I was decided I had enough of the desk work and move to the sewing room.
Once in the sewing room, I noticed that I had another Kansas City Star Block to do. So, I worked on this one. Block 2- "Dutchman's Puzzle and Windmill". If you remember from the first block, which you can read Here. The blocks come are that where published in the Kansas City Star Newspaper. Block 2- was printed on April 2, 1930.
This block was a nice easy! You are making 8 flying geese, in two different colors. Then sewing two together, and then the bigger block and sewing them in the direction like below. The unfinished size is 12 1/2" x 12 1/2".
Now I have caught up on this Block of Month. I'm on a roll on my blocks of month quilts that I'm currently working on. Can I keep it up?
Have a fun sewing and a great weekend!
Tina
The other day after I finished, my 2013 Designer of Mystery Block, I was looking for something easy and quick to do for the rest of the day. I found my a kit that I picked up from one of the shops on the Quilt Quest Shop Hop. So, I decided to make a quick new Table Topper for my kitchen table.
The pattern comes from Perkins Dry Goods, and is called "Star Burst Topper" it measures at 33" x 33". The pattern came with the kit that I got from the store and it even had the backing and binding fabric. I love that when store add the backing to the kits, but the only thing is was just almost to short for the use on my longarm, but I will make it work.
The middle of the topper looks like this above, I love the colors that are in this little quilt.
Isn't this beautiful table top quilt! I love the colors, I can't wait to get this quilted. I just need to decide how, I'm going to quilt it, I'm leaning toward feathers, what do you think?
Enjoy your Friday, and your weekend,
Tina
The week has been busy! Between a lot of desk work with preparing patterns for proofing and working on transferring content to the new website. Then this last weekend Robert and Myself attended a Floriani Embroidery classes at The Quilters Studio in Fairfax, Va. They were great classes! Hope to get a blog our here on it in the next days. Anyway I had been doing any sewing, and I was getting the sewing itch! So yesterday, since it was snowing here I decided to is the day to sew.
I just got my new 2013 Designer Mystery Block #8, "Heartfelt Home". I decide this is what I would work on first. As the title says it was another house.
I started out with cutting, all the pieces out, and laying them out where they would be in the block. This gives you any idea where the stitches are going to be.
Next I started, with the roof! The main part of the roof has 2- 2 1/2" squares sewn diagonally on both ends to make the roof look like it was slopes. The top of the was the chimney piece, which was 3 pieces.
Now, was to work on the body of the house. I started with working with the window and sides of the house, two to make. They add a new fabric for the windows that was a striped. Which was a great touch to the house.
The door was next, basically it was 4 blocks sewn together. The red block was the door, and again there is the 2-1/2" blue polka dot fabric in the middle of the quilt again.
After you have the door way and sides section together. I sewed them into all 3 into one big piece to make the main body of the house.
Then, I sewed the roof and the body together to make the finished block.
I'm officially caught up with this Block of the Month, now I have to wait until February for the next one to come in the mail.
Today, we are working on website and hoping to do more sewing, since the high here will be only 23 degrees outside.
Stay Warm,
Tina
Yesterday, was another day of desk work with paying bills and checking on orders. I'm almost done with the first draft of the two pattern we are designing. Just need the cover photos and we will be printing them off and sending them to be proofed. I'm so excited about these patterns. Hope to share more in the next couple months about these special patterns.
We also were in a conference call with our web development company, Website for Quilters. Going over the beta version of the new website. The site is beautiful, there are a few more tweaks on the design that need to be made but that is not unusual for new websites. We also started some training on the dashboard, looks like a nice dashboard and easy to use. We will be finishing our training on the dashboard next Wednesday. But in the mean time I can start to set up the website Oh Yeah :). I'm sure going to be busy lots of new stuff to enter and coping old information in also. This is so exciting!
Not Sure when the new website will be going live but make sure you watch for my blog, Facebook or Twitter for the big announcement, here in the next week or so.
Have a great Day!
Tina
Wow! Can't believe I'm on block 7 of the 2013 Designer Mystery Quilt. This one seems to be going really fast this year.
Block 7 - "Lemon Lodge" is just as it sounds. This one is a house block, with yellows as the main part of the house.
This one went together fast and easy. After I cut the pieces, I laid them out where they would be placed in the block.
Then I began with making the roof line, door and window areas.Then made the base and other part of the house.
After everything was made I then sewed them all together to make the full house. Like said this one was fun, easy and fast to do.
Now I'm caught up and ready for the next block to come this month. I have noticed that the middle of each block is the blue dot 2 1/2" square. Interesting!!
Have a great one!
Tina
This weekend was a busy weekend here at the house, but we still found time with to finish Part 5 of the Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt. Yes, when I say we, that means that my husband helped me again. He is really enjoying sewing, and wants to learn more. And I really enjoy the company while sewing.
Saturday, we started with the first half of the squares. I cut the white/cream triangles to be sewn on the sides of the half square triangles made in Part 3. Once I had a lot of the triangles cut, I showed my husband how to sew the first triangles on the triangles and he was off. When he finished a bunch, I cut it off his chain and began to sew on the other side triangle. It went that way. When he finished he started cutting apart all the ones I finished and ironed them open. We then had all 244 half way finished.
Then on Sunday afternoon, I cut triangles from 3-1/2" blue strips. Once we got them all cut, I showed him how to sew on the triangles to the other half we made the day before. Making sure that you sew right over the middle point so the points match up. I gave him some of the stacks of blue and other side and he started in. This was a little more of a challenge for him, but he took his time and got them done. I did the rest of them and press them all open to the blue side. All 244 are now finished.
Now the next step will be to make the blocks, hoping to get started next Sunday, due to Friday and Saturday we will be attending a Floriani Embroidery Class in Fairfax, Va.
Hope you all have a great week! Mine will be full of desk work and pattern designing.Tina
This weekend was a busy weekend here at the house, but we still found time with to finish Part 5 of the Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt. Yes, when I say we, that means that my husband helped me again. He is really enjoying sewing, and wants to learn more. And I really enjoy the company while sewing.
Saturday, we started with the first half of the squares. I cut the white/cream triangles to be sewn on the sides of the half square triangles made in Part 3. Once I had a lot of the triangles cut, I showed my husband how to sew the first triangles on the triangles and he was off. When he finished a bunch, I cut it off his chain and began to sew on the other side triangle. It went that way. When he finished he started cutting apart all the ones I finished and ironed them open. We then had all 244 half way finished.
Then on Sunday afternoon, I cut triangles from 3-1/2" blue strips. Once we got them all cut, I showed him how to sew on the triangles to the other half we made the day before. Making sure that you sew right over the middle point so the points match up. I gave him some of the stacks of blue and other side and he started in. This was a little more of a challenge for him, but he took his time and got them done. I did the rest of them and press them all open to the blue side. All 244 are now finished.
Now the next step will be to make the blocks, hoping to get started next Sunday, due to Friday and Saturday we will be attending a Floriani Embroidery Class in Fairfax, Va.
Hope you all have a great week! Mine will be full of desk work and pattern designing.
Tina
Today I started out the day with making the binding and labels for my mom's quilt that I just finished quilting for her. Then I started to look through some of my projects that are a little behind. I notice that I had 2 months of Heirloom Kansas City Star Block of Month to do. So I decide to I would start working on them.
A little back ground on this quilt. These block are inspired by the 12 blocks that were published in the Kansas City Star newspaper. My Great, Great Grandmother had some of these patterns. A couple of years ago, my mom gave me all the patterns that my great great grandmother had. The patterns and the pattern pieces that she made out of old cereal boxes where there. She would make the patterns with old shirts and clothing that were not used anymore. So when Fat Quarter Shop announced that they were making these block from the Star into a Block of Month, I decided I want to make it up for myself. Block One - "Christmas Tree" was Printed on June 6, 1934, in the Kansas City Star Newspaper. The fabrics they are using are Moda's Sweet Pea, from Kansas Trouble Quilters. The block is much easier to make than it looks. You start by cutting and preparing all the blocks for sewing.
You make 2 different sets of 6 half square triangles. Then you make the tree trunk by using a 6-1/2" block and sewing a 5-1/2" block on one of edges diagonally and then trimming 1/4"away from the seam and pressing open. You do the same on the opposite side to finish the block.
Next you assemble the other 3 blocks that make the over all block. These blocks make up the leaves of the tree. You use the half square triangles and the extra pieces you make at the preparing stage at the beginning.
The four block look these above before you sew them together.
The block measures 12-1/2" x 12-1/2" unfinished. I think these are going to be fun and can't wait to start the next block.Tina
