Monthly Archives: July 2022

Finish! A Really Old UFO

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A number of years ago we had a guild program in which we made 3-dimensional fabric. I know I got this fabric wet and pushed it through a cake rack, but I don’t recall the details and can’t find instructions online. If you know how to do this, please tell me!

So this fabric (just the purple piece, with no beads yet), sat around for quite a while.

Then I layered it on batting and added all the rest of the stuff–beads, ribbon, side triangles, and quilting.

Then it sat around. OK, there was a lot going on in those years, but really, it just didn’t rise to the top of the “to-do” list.

Finally this week I got it out and applied binding.

Quilt Stats

Name: Shiny

Designed and made by: me

Quilted by: me

Finished size: 11″ x 11″

Whew! I’m guessing it took 5 years to make this quilt. Well, at least to get it finished 😀  What’s your oldest UFO?

Another Zen Chic Quilt

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Yes, I liked this pattern so much I made it twice.The quilt shown above is the first version, more or less following the pattern.

I’ve blogged previously about the second version, made when I had the “brilliant” idea that this would be a great Quilt-As-You-Go (QAYG) project. Here it is again:Anyway, I still like both of them and plan to use them when I next teach QAYG.

Here are the stats on the latest one (with the border):

Quilt name: Bauhaus

Pattern by Zen Chic available here

Finished size (with border): 58″ x 58″

Designed by: Brigitte Heitlend of Zen Chic

Made by: me

Quilted by: Linda

Have a good week!

Some Favorite Tools

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In the past year I’ve tried a number of new-to-me tools for my quilting, so I thought I’d share a few of my favorites. As always, these are not affiliate links; they are just for your convenience.

A New Table for My Sewing Machine

I’ve had in mind for years (literally) to get a table I can “drop” my machine into, but goodness! Have you looked at the prices of sewing furniture?!? Not in the budget!

However, I’ve seen a couple of people use the SewEzi portable table and both recommended it. It still isn’t cheap by any means, but it’s a lot less than “sewing furniture” and I’m very pleased with it. I got the portable version rather than the Grande because I have every intention of taking it to retreats with me. I positioned it perpendicular to my usual sewing table so I now have all the large table to the left to support the quilt when I’m attaching binding. The only drawback is that I had to wait several weeks for delivery, but of course we’ve come to expect that these days.

A New Seam Guide

I’ve had the Angler 2 seam guide so long it has turned yellow! I learned that it’s no longer made, so I’m trying Clearly Perfect Angles from New Leaf Stitches. It’s getting a good workout because my current project has about a zillion flying geese.This tool has, as advertised, eliminated the need to draw a diagonal line on the back of my squares. There’s even an auxiliary line that is used to sew the second seam needed to make those scrap HSTs that are a byproduct of the “waste triangle method”. So now I have 2 zillion HSTs….

New Non-Slip Stuff

I’ve tried multiple products, at multiple price points, to keep my rulers and templates from slipping while cutting. Most recently I found Grippy, and after trying it on one template I just lined up all the templates and rulers and sprayed the backs of all of them! On a per-use basis I think it’s the least expensive of the products, and it doesn’t leave a gummy mess on the back of the template like some of the stick-ons did. It’s my fave.

So tell me, what are your favorite tools? I’m always looking for something new to try 🙂

Return of the Fruit Ladies!

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I’ll be teaching a new class in August, all because I am so excited to see the return of this fabric! (The fabric is shown on a bag I made many years ago using the original issue of this design.)

This is one I made several years ago

I had the fruit lady fabric when it came out about 15 years ago and made our daughter a quilt because she loves the beach. I made the bag shown above to go with it.

So when I ran across the re-issue of it, I was “forced” to buy some and make another quilt.

Because this quilt involves special techniques, I’ll be teaching it at Studio Stitch on August 11. Class list is here.

Quilt Stats

Name: Fruit Ladies

Pattern: Modification of “Level Up”, a pattern currently offered free here

Finished size: 49″ x 60″

Quilted by: Elisabeth Pugh

A Class and An Orphan Save

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First, the class. I taught Happy Scrappy Diamonds at Studio Stitch recently. Here’s the class sample.

It’s made with the EZ Quilting Tri-Recs templates, which everyone agreed are well worth the price.

Here are some in-progress samples of what was made in class:

The templates made the triangles easy, and we all enjoyed putting scraps together to make the triangles, then some of us made the triangles into diamonds.

On the orphan block front…I have hundreds of them. Yikes! So I’ve been making them into 36″ quilts to be used over preemie incubators at the hospital.

Then I came to this, a 24″ swap block that was “wonky”. I’m sorry to say I was the one who recommended this swap block pattern, and it was anything but easy.

I decided that, rather than try to square up the block, I would add wonky borders and see what happened.

It turned out well! Umm, except maybe for that “bubble” in the left border that I hope will “quilt out”. Ha.

How has your week been?