Star Block--Before and After

The pattern for this block called for some fancy machine stitching to embellish the white areas. My machine does not have fancy stitching...so I had to improvise!

Before:
And After:

I used two simple embroidery stitches to give this block it's fanciful image!

I have never embroidered before; I skipped that badge in girls club. Good thing I have the internet. I am quite sure that you can learn anything if you search the internet! I found two simple embroidery stitches....the stem stitch and the french knot. I followed the pictures and voila! I did it!

Slow progress

I'm ready to assemble some of the maple leaf blocks. On Saturday I did the half square triangles and the stem pieces. The assembly does not take much work now. This is only one-fourth of the blocks I will need.
I laid out the Christmas Sampler! The green sashing is just perfect!

I cut the sashing at 2.5" but might just trim them down a bit more. I moved the blocks around a lot and finally came up with this layout, and I really like it. Next I will have to figure out what color to make the little squares where the sashing meet. Right now the floor color is showing. I am happy to be making some progress on this one!

Discouraged

I am feeling somewhat discouraged with my Christmas Sampler Quilt. I am finished with all the blocks, and now is the time to decide on sashing and borders. When I lay the blocks out, I see a strong difference between the blocks with bright green and red and the blocks with darker greens and reds. Do I go with light sashing or dark sashing? Can't decide.
So I thought maybe I should make two quilts, one with lighter fabrics, one with the darker fabrics. So I made another block with the lighter fabrics.

It turns out that I really don't have enough fabric left to make more blocks. So I decided I could put the darker blocks in the corners and the lighter blocks on the inside. Great! How about auditioning some sashing colors.

Here is yellow...

I have a very fun red and green stripe...

I bought some green just to see how it looked....

Or how about no sashing?

I have always liked sampler quilts with sashing, for each block is unique and needs to stand on its own. I may just put this one away for a while. It won't be done for Christmas anyways.

Times like these requires some chocolate. But guess what I found in my cupboard? A jar of Kalamata Olives! Oh, boy, do they taste good and I am feeling so much better now!!!

Doing some machine applique!

I got out my old sewing machine to make a costume for daughter. It is fun to see the two machines, side by side!
The older machine has a zigzag stitch, so I decided to work on the Christmas quilt applique blocks. This is the first time I have done machine applique. I had to go very slow; it took patience to stitch around all the curves and tight angles. But I don't think I did half bad!

I thought I wouldn't like the precision work, but it was actually relaxing to do. Still, I am glad there are only six applique blocks in this quilt!

Applique Blocks for the Christmas Sampler

I picked out some applique blocks for the Christmas Sampler quilt. Since I had already cut out the pieces (with wonder under applied), it was relatively easy to iron the pieces into place. This first one is called "Love Bird", but to me it is a Christmas bird!


This star block will have some kind of fancy stitching between the points, at least that is what the directions say! I have yet to see just what I will do with that!

Here is an advent wreath. Incidentally, all these blocks are not originally set on point, but since that is how I am setting them into the quilt, I tipped them all so they will not be crooked in the quilt.

I am calling this block "Legend of the Three Trees"...a story about three trees that were cut down and used in service for Jesus. One was made into the manger, another was a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and the third was made into the cross. This block did not come from the magazine (Quiltmakers 100 Blocks) directly; there was one block that had a tree and a snowman with stars and moon. I just made three trees instead. I like how it turned out!

I love this last block. It is called Poinsettia. This is the only block that has absolutely no connection with the magazine at all. I saw a picture of a beautiful quilt using this block; I tracked the pattern down and made one square for this quilt--because I loved it!

Now the real work must begin. I need to stitch around all the applique pieces. I've not done that before and not sure how I will do it. It may take me a while!

Quilt Retreat...Final Update

So here is the block that I worked on yesterday but did not like. Now I love it! It might just be my favorite block so far!
Here is a successful paper-pieced block! I have learned that the bigger the pieces, the easier the block. This one took me under 30 minutes! I don't know that I love to paper piece at this point, but I will say that it makes extremely accurate blocks!

Here is another paper-piecer! I even appliqued that little center circle by hand.

And here are the finished blocks so far...(again, blogger, what is up with the turning of my pictures? Grrr.)

I hope to set them like this, on the diagonal, with sashing. I have five more blocks to make...all applique. I can't say it will be done for this Christmas, as I have many other projects that beg my attention. But who knows? I may surprise myself!

I have thoroughly enjoyed this quilting retreat. A great big THANK YOU to Susan at Blackberry Creek Home Arts (http://www.blackberrycreek.typepad.com/) for hosting this in-home quilt retreat. It has been just the boost I needed to get my mojo back for quilting!

Quilt Retreat, Day 3

I am late in posting today. But that does not mean I have not been busy! Despite many distractions, I pieced another Christmas block.
And I replaced the middle triangles of this block from yesterday. It looks so much better! Notice the fussy cut pattern? The pattern calls for some fancy embroidery stitiching in those triangles, but I don't know how to embroider, and this quilt has enough new challenges for me that I don't need another skill to learn!

Stay tuned! I will post a picture of all the Christmas blocks in a couple of hours!

Retreat Update

I'd like to introduce you to...Big Bertha and Minnie. Big Bertha recently joined my quilt tools to add support to Minnie, who has been with me since I got my first sewing machine in 1989. Minnie still does a great job, but Big Bertha has been brought in for really big jobs. Her egonomically correct body design helps my hand to relax and 'enjoy' the task at hand.
I used Big Bertha to remove the four corners from this block. The off-white flowered fabric was bothering me, so tomorrow I will try to replace it.

This next block has seen a lot of Big Bertha as well. Now, even though I am a recovering perfectionist, I still am serious about accurate cutting and piecing. But that middle pinwheel square was NOT square, and when I tried to attach the green strips, they did not fit according to the measurements. Oh, how I sewed and ripped, sewed and ripped. Next I worked on the flying geese. I must be really rusty, for I started out sewing right side to wrong side, and yes, more ripping.

I finally laid it all out to take a look before attaching the geese; once again, the off-white flowered fabric bothered me. The color in the photos really is not accurate...it does look awful with the white surrounding the geese. So.....tomorrow I will (once again) do some ripping; I think I will use this scrolly fabric instead.

Alas! I did finish the paper pieced block! It turned out just fine. (Bertha was used extensively on this square too.)

So I am calling it quits for tonite. I had frustrating moments today, but at least Big Bertha and I know each other v-e-e-e-r-y well now.

Quilt Retreat, Day 2

I'm off to a slow start today. I made another one-fourth of the paper-pieced block. Yesterday Susan commented that when she does paper-piecing, the fabric pieces seem to end up in the wrong place, which leads to seam ripping. Yep, that is my problem exactly! Well, I have a few more paper pieced blocks chosen and cut, so perhaps with practice I will do better and enjoy this technique more than I do right now.
I decided to alternate paper piecing with regular piecing, and here is another block!

Oops, I guess I am not much better with placement of blocks, am I! Get out the seam ripper and fix that lower block.

Back to work!

Retreat Update

Every good retreat has bowls of chocolate on each table! Here's mine.
So I am working on the Christmas Sampler. I won a copy of this magazine, and I had a set of 20 fat quarters that I bought for $10 clearance at JoAnns. I decided that I would put "won" and "20" together to make a sampler quilt. The set of fabrics are not Christmas fabrics, but the colors are Christmasy, and that is why I am calling it my Christmas Sampler.

At some point (I can't remember when) I chose the blocks I wanted to make, then cut out all the pieces and put each block into an envelope. The fun part is opening the envelope to see all the fabrics again!

Here is the next one I am making...called Wishing Star. (Grrr....blogger turned my photo again.)

Here is the block, roughly laid out... Yep, all the pieces are there. Whew!

And the finished block. It is not perfect, but in the grand scheme of the quilt, I don't think anyone will really notice!

Hey look! I'm paper piecing now! One of the challenges for me in this project is to try new techniques. I have not paper pieced before, so I am following the instructions in the front of the magazine.

Hey look! I'm ripping out the paper piecing! I'm not so sure I really enjoy this technique, as I am unsure exactly where to put the pieces of fabric.

Ta-Dah! Here is my first attempt, hot off the machine. I need to peel the paper off yet--not so easy to do. Then I must make three more as this is only one fourth of the complete block.

I'm going to go grab some supper, then head to church for worship practice. I hope to finish this block when I come home.

Quilt Retreat, Day 1

Tuesday is the busiest day of the week for me. Since I am in and out all day, I decided to work on the blocks for my Christmas sampler. These three blocks were made months ago.
Here are the two blocks I have made so far today. (I don't know why blogger posted this one sideways.)

We overslept this morning...so much for getting up early! We were five minutes late to the Early American History class (homeschool), where I am the assistant to "General Kelly" (aka the teacher). This afternoon Daughter is in Shakespeare class, so I had a short window of time to sew these blocks. Now I am off to pick her up and drop off others in the class...

But I WILL BE BA-A-ACK!

Christmas Sampler Blocks 3 and 4

I have not spent much time on the sewing machine. I have been working in the yard.

Here are the next two blocks for the Christmas sampler. I still must machine stitch the applique; they are only ironed on at this point.
I have not done machine applique before. I'll need to set up another machine, as my Juki only has a straight stitch. My old machine has zig zag on it, but no applique stitches. So I have brought home one of the church machines that does have a few applique stitches on it. This is all new for me!

Christmas Sampler Quilt, Block 2

Not a whole lot of sewing going on right now. The weather is finally dry, and the weekend was spent outside working in the yard.

I did make another block for the Christmas Sampler Quilt. This one took a long time, for I did not like the fabrics I had chosen the first time around. I changed a few things, ripped a bunch out, and now I like this final product.

The positive side of sewing and ripping? My pile of leaders and enders for the Sunshine Quilt is growing!

Christmas Sampler Quilt, Block 1

The flying geese had to disappear for a while, as the recipient dropped by. So I started a Christmas Sampler.

Last year I won a copy of this magazine.

There are 100 different blocks by 100 well-known quilters. I had a fat quarter bundle that included the right colors for a Christmas quilt; I making blocks from the magazine.

Here is block 1. I like how it turned out. But it took a while to get it done. You see, the pattern had a few measurements wrong, so the block would not go together. I had to recut three pieces.

Unfortunately, I did not have any more of the green fabric, so I had to piece the little bits of leftover together to make the third piece the right size; I had to include a bit of solid green.

You can see it in this picture, but when the quilt is finished, no one will ever know it is there!