A Change of Plans & Prewashing Shot Cottons

Now that he has set out on his own, our son Sam has been developing his own ideas about decorating and he has decidedly modern tastes.  Sam's Woolly Flannel quilt, which I was "working on" (read "half done and put off too many times") is no longer in tune with what he likes most.  People and circumstances are ever changing.  

So, in order to aid Sam in choosing what he wanted for his quilt... I got him to go on Pinterest.  (Cue woman laughing maniacally in the background.)   He chose a picture that someone had mistaken for a quilt.  It is a painting by Emma Biggs and Matthew Collings.   He asked if I could make a quilt like that.  Since I had made a diamond quilt once before, for our daughter Kaitie: Definitely not DeKaffe, I said "Sure!"  How hard could it be?  (Cocky-over-confidence-jumps-up-and-bites-me-in-the-fanny-hard, that's how hard.) 

The first thing I did, was to make a mock up using EQ7 and then I "painted" it in shot cotton fabrics from both the Oakshott and Peppered Cottons lines.  

This is the EQ7 Mock Up - not a real quilt yet!

I'm hoping it will look pretty close to this when all is said and done.  Each diamond block measures 5" by 20" when finished.

This week started of with a massive fabric pre-washing day.  Are you a pre-washer?  I mostly am now.  Shot cottons shrink and wrinkle quite a lot more than regular quilting cottons, so I am very glad I did not skip this step.  

Maryse (Maryse Makes Things) and I have been having a very interesting discussion about shot cottons.  We both were curious to see how they would turn out after washing.  I found that the Oakshott wrinkles much more than the Peppered cottons, but that both can be pressed back to looking great.  It helps a lot if you do not let it dry all the way in the dryer, then iron it while still slightly damp.  Even that did not remove all the wrinkles though.  It took some Mary Ellen's Best Press to do that.  To give you an idea, here is a photo of some Oakshott, in the process of being ironed:

Shot Cottons are very wrinkly after washing!

To me, all this work is totally worth it, because I love the look of these fabrics!  It is my hope that the worst of the wrinkling will have been gotten out of the fabric's system and that it won't be as bad when the whole quilt gets washed.  Do you think it would help if the quilting is closer spaced?

(Edit: I just read on the Oakshott Cottons website that they do not recommend that you put their fabric in the dryer.  I just assumed it was like the Peppered cotton, and she does say to prewash and partially dry the fabric.  So I wanted any new readers to know this and I will also mention this in my next post.  However, I am glad that I did it anyway - most quilts will eventually get tossed into a dryer.)

All the fabric is washed and ready to use!

Penny wants me to play with her - she was running back and forth tossing that toy the whole time I was draping fabric over the railing!

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So, it turns out that sewing a half rectangle triangle (HRT) is nowhere near the same as sewing a half square triangle (HST).  I don't know what I was thinking, but at first I ended up with this.  (It was midnight, what can I say?)

Keep this up and I can make the NBC Peacock jealous!

Even when I got it right, it wasn't right.  The points will not hit the seam allowances at the right places.  I don't know why I didn't have this trouble with the Kaffe Quilt.    

I found a tremendously helpful HRT tutorial over at Jamie's busy bee quilts.  (Hello fellow bee!) She addresses the very issues that were puzzling me.  It still took some trial and error, but with her insights, I was able to change up things to the sizes I needed.  Getting the angles and measurements right was difficult.  I switched to using ugly fabric with old sheets for test trials.

  
Yet, even after finding the right measurements, I could not get consistent results.  Those HRTs are going to finish at 2.5" by 10" and that long skinny shape means errors are easy to make.  So guess what I did.  I paper pieced them!  (Yup, there's a surprise.)  Ahh... lots better!

Paper Pieced Diamond Blocks

These could still stand some improvement.  I need to be more careful with matching the center seams in the diamonds.  (I ironed seams open, perhaps if I iron them to alternating sides...)  And when I sew the diamond blocks together, a scant 1/4 inch seam would help with that problem you can see in the center of the photo, where the side points are vying for space.  

But anyway - it is nice to be on my way to getting this quilt made for Sam.  Maybe this one will be finished before he marries a woman with completely different tastes, LOL.  

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One last sweet thing!  My cousin sent me a wonderful photo of her little girl with her Goldfish Bowl Pocketbook.  She said her little girl was thrilled with her fishy big sister gifts! :)  :)  :)  So I thought I'd share the picture here, because she is just too adorable for words!

Thanks for visiting!

You can click on the pup to leave a comment.  
If you are also a blogger, she is highly likely to follow you home.

Linking up to Connie's Linky Tuesday Party at Free Motion by the River!

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My Pillow, Fabric Shopping, and Step-by-Step FMQ Giveaway Winner

Simply Striped Pillow - Scrappy & Vintage Happiness!

Didn't you all just love Susie's Simply Striped Pillow Blog Hop?!!  It was sew much fun to see how each person put a whole new twist on their pillow.  As Sandra said, it "Really reinforces the sky's the limit philosophy for creativity." (Oh. My. Goodness!  Check out Sandra's Quilted Seashells!) 

I had been looking for fun ways to use vintage linens and found that the Simply Striped Pillow was perfect for showing off a pretty, embroidered handkerchief.  The pillow also is the perfect pattern to try out your free motion quilting skills - with three little sections on each side just asking to be experimented with.   I used Christina's FMQ designs on my pillow.  You can see full details here, on day 5 of the hop.

There were a few giveaways to add to the fun and the one here on BuzzinBumble was for a pdf of Susie's pillow pattern and also a brand new copy of Christina Cameli's latest book "Step-by-Step Free-Motion Quilting".

Step-by-Step Free-Motion Quilting

Christina is a gifted teacher!  Step-by-Step is the companion book to "First Steps to Free-Motion Quilting: 24 Projects for Fearless Stitching", but it stands very well on its own too.  Between these two wonderful books and Christina's best selling Craftsy class "The Secrets of Free-Motion Quilting"  I finally feel like I really am on my way to becoming a free-motion quilter!  

This is the perfect time to jump into taking a Craftsy class, like Christina's!   Craftsy is celebrating National Craft Month by offering up to 50% off all classes!  Previosly, I had signed up for three classes and will be adding number four this weekend.  I am having a difficult time choosing which class to add, so would love to hear your suggestions!   It is a great boon that the classes are closed captioned for the hearing impaired, you can stop and restart and go back and review to your heart's content, and they are yours forever. 

I became a Craftsy affiliate because I love the classes.  This also means that if you click on one of the links and happen to make a purchase, I earn a little Mula, so thank you very much if you do!

So, without further ado, here is the winner for BuzzinBumble's  Simply Striped Blog Hop Giveaway:

That's you Raewyn!  I'll be sending you an email to let you know! 

Raewyn is a stitching farm girl who lives in New Zealand.  She has a beautiful blog: lovetostitch   In her latest post, Raewyn showed some of her beautiful invisible machine applique and some experiments she tried with water soluble applique paper, which were very helpful and interesting!   

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I've won a giveaway too - Carolyn, of sew.darn.quilt has started a new cross stitching blog By the Pricking of my Thumb!  She had a giveaway and this beautiful bundle of springtime cheer is what I won:  10 lovely skeins of DMC Floss!  

Thank You Carolyn!

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I do a lot of my fabric shopping via the internet, because I don't drive anymore and getting my husband to take me to a local quilt shop does not happen as often as a quilter would like it to.  I recently purchased fabrics where I just have to share about what a great experience it was. (I am not being paid in any way to say this.)  

The first was with Sharon, of Quilt Plus More on eBay   Sharon is currently having a sale for 30% off all her fabric!  What makes her store so unusual is that everything is sold by the quarter yard.  This option is wonderful if you just need a little bit of something!  I could not resist and just bought the cutest bee fabric and a great swirly grey mixer ... much more than 1/4 of a yard:

 Quilt Plus More

When I made my Simply Striped Pillow, I used up the last bit of a favorite fabric:  Athill Range by Cabbages and Roses - Perrymead in aqua.  I was so sad to see it go, that I googled to see if anyone still had it.  I found it at the Li'l Red Hen Quilt Shop in Kansas and promptly placed an order.  Imagine my surprise when I received my package and saw that Jenny had included an extra fat quarter of matching fabric for free.  Thank you Jenny! 

Li'l Red Hen Quilt Shop

Gosh, we are so much more blessed than the quilters who came before us, with a huge variety of fabrics and tools, right at our fingertips!  

Thanks for visiting!

You can click on the pup to leave a comment; she is highly likely to follow you home.  

Linking up to Connie's Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River!
Linking up to Lorna's Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts!

Linking up to Cyndy's Oh Scrap! Party at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework!

A FMQ Giveaway & A Fine Romance

Would you like to see a sweet, romantic pillow, made from fussy cut scraps and a vintage handkerchief? That is what I made for Susie's Simply Striped Pillow Blog Hop.  I went all out Granny Chic for mine.  Since the song, "A Fine Romance" was going through my head as I worked on it, that's what I named the pillow design.  My pillow is also a little sassy, just like the song.    

Today is day 5 and it is my debut as a guest poster on Susie's blog.  I'm so excited!  I'm only going to give you a little peek at my pillow here on BuzzinBumble today.  To really see it, Let's Go To the Hop (Oh Baby) at Susie's Sunroom! 

This is the schedule for the week of fun.  I hope you will look at all the many wonderful renditions of the Simply Striped Pillow at Susie's Sunroom.  The diversity of ideas and talent has been amazing!

March 2   Elaine ~ Summercrafter       

March 3   Susie ~ Susie's Sunroom      

March 4   Geta ~ Geta's Quilting Studio     

March 5   Sheri ~ Sunshine in the Attic         

March 6   Lara ~ BuzzinBumble          

March 7   Amanda ~ The Patchsmith   

March 8   Amy ~ Amy Made That!   

And the Giveaway?  Oh yes indeed!  Susie has given us a copy of her pdf pattern for the Simply Striped Pillow and I am sweetening the pot by adding a brand new copy of Christina Cameli's latest book "Step-by-Step Free-Motion Quilting".   This book is a treasure trove of FMQ motifs and instructions on how to accomplish them!  Both prizes will go to one lucky winner, whose name will be drawn by the random number generator on Friday, March 13th!

Christina Cameli's Step-by-Step Free Motion Quilting

I adapted two of Christina's wonderful FMQ patterns for my Simply Striped Pillow.   Between Christina's two books (she is also the best selling author of "First Steps to Free-Motion Quilting") and her Craftsy class "The Secrets of Free-Motion Quilting"- I hope to finally tackle the FMQ beastie!   Christina's class is a much loved success!  So much so, that the Craftsy people have asked her back to film a second one!  How cool is that?!    

To enter my giveaway, just leave a comment on Susie's blog hop and then come back here and leave a comment letting me know that you did. 
Please make sure that I can contact you!  Sometimes people are "no reply commenters" and I have no way to reach them.  Also - sometimes so many people enter a giveaway that I cannot keep up with replying, so I am going to apologize ahead of time if that happens.  I'll go back to being my normal, reciprocal self after the giveaway.  

Susie is also running a giveaway on her blog for the hop, so don't miss out on that!

Here is the "little peek" at my pillow: (Bet you didn't know I was so literal - heh heh)

The little scraps of rosie fabrics were included in a purchase that I made from Urban Gardens.  Many of them are exclusive recreations of antique textiles and are printed by Yuwa.  




Something else of interest to my blogging friends:
After my last giveaway, I happened to look at my blog's traffic sources and noticed a very nice number of pageviews had come from Wow I Like That!  Wow, is right!  This webpage is an up-to-date collection of sewing and quilting themed giveaways, maintained by the ever vigilant Debbie.  You can let Debbie know if you or a friend are having a giveaway too.  Thank you Debbie for all your work in putting this together!      

Last of all, thank you for the wonderful comments about my new animated blog signature!   Amy said it all when she described the pup as showing  "the universal invitation to play".  Yup, that's what it is!  
You can also click on my pup to leave a comment.
Thanks for visiting because...

A Great Blog Hop with Giveaways & other Fun Things!

Today is Day 2 in the Simply Striped Pillow Blog Hop at Susie's Sunroom!  
Susie had the positively brilliant idea of choosing a lineup of "superstar quilters" to create their own versions of her Simply Striped Pillow and guest post about it on her blog.  (I find that very flattering, because one of them is moi! LOL)  If you haven't met Susie yet, I'll tell you, she is simply wonderful and you should get right over there and introduce yourself!  

Do you like to see one pattern, interpreted in many different creative styles?  I sure do!   The Simply Striped Pillow is a fun pattern to play with and also the perfect springboard for adding your own inspired touches.  I jokingly asked Susie "What if two of us show up at the prom wearing the same dress?"  But you just KNOW that isn't going to happen - especially with seven very diverse designers!  

Below is the lineup for the week.  If you haven't visited yet, start off with day one!  You'll want to see Elaine's sophisticated pillow and Susie is also having a Giveaway for some lovely fabric and an easy angle ruler (the latest, greatest thing)!  The giveaway lasts the whole week so be sure to enter for a chance to win!

Simply Striped Pillow Blog Hop at Susie's Sunroom   
                     

March 2   Elaine ~ Summercrafter       

March 3   Susie ~ Susie's Sunroom      

March 4   Geta ~ Geta's Quilting Studio     

March 5   Sheri ~ Sunshine in the Attic         

March 6   Lara ~ BuzzinBumble          

March 7   Amanda ~ The Patchsmith   

March 8   Amy ~ Amy Made That!  

The Original Simply Striped Pillow

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Did you notice my pup up at the top?  I've been drawing him for more than 45 years... aack! I feel a little old.  I've been trying to come up with a fun blog signature and I think this just might be it!  What do you think of it?  Should I color him in, or leave him as a line drawing?  I'm trying to decide if I should use it in place of my "Push My Buttons" button.  It does a pretty good job of reflecting how I feel.

I found the neatest free website: gifmaker.me   You can upload a series of images and it will change them into an animated GIF... for FREE!  Did you ever make one of those flip books?  You know, where you draw something and then on each successive page, you slightly change the drawing so that when the pages are flipped it looks like the drawing is moving?  That's basically what this is - only the computerized version and much easier.

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Be sure to come back here on Friday!  It's my turn in the hop and I'll be guest posting at Susie's Sunroom.  I'm so excited - it's my very first guest posting!  I'll also be holding a giveaway here at BuzzinBumble and one lucky winner will get to "take home" Susie's Simply Striped Pillow pattern PLUS a brand new copy (you can't have mine!) of Christina Cameli's book "Step-by-Step Free-motion Quilting"  I'll be using another pattern from Christina's book on my pillow too!    

Until then, thank you for visiting, because I am always happy to see you!