Challenge piecing….

On Thursday I told you about the start of my “two for the price of one” challenge!!

When I left you, I had cut and pieced the first set of duet strips for the background squares…..

But, I wasn’t happy with them.

I wanted the blocks to have lots of strips in them to add interest….

…and these were simply TOO wide!!

So, I started cutting the strips down and re-sewing them together again.

I knew that this would use even more fabric so at this point…..

Please tell me that you do this too!!

I kept adding strips one at a time…..

….until I had a strip set that was the width that I needed.

Now it was time to cut the squares and this took a bit more planning…..

The unfinished squares need to be 5.5 inches and I am going to piece a curve in the corner. Since I know that I may lose a bit of size with piecing the curve, I wanted the squares to be a bit bigger than needed.

BUT, since I am working with fat-quarters and still want to make the best use of the fabric, I needed to know the maximum number of squares that I could get from my strip set.

That number was 3 squares out of the “almost 18-inch” strip.

Since the strip wasn’t quite 18-inches, I settled on 5-7/8’s inch squares.

Yes, that is getting a bit picky, but the sizes need to be exact to produce the needed 20-inch quilt!!

And it got even crazier after that as I started adding the curves…..

Come back next week for more!!

If you have an interest in ruler quilting, check out this online course…..

Click HERE for more information

Those pesky shadows!!

A couple of weeks ago I received my judge’s comments from the quilt that I showed at Quiltcon…..

Normally, I am pretty sure of what the judges are going to say and this time it was no different.

I received “exceptional” marks in the Visual impact with comments of “Good depth, great design, and strong piecing”!!

Well, THAT was encouraging!!!

Then they hit the problem area…..

“Shadowing of dark fabrics and threads under light noted and is very distracting”.

OKAY…..I agree!!

If there was one thing that I was frustrated with it was the shadows!!

I talked about them in this post about basting the quilt…..

Preparing to quilt!!

….and even showed what I trimmed out while basting…..

Even though I clipped a bunch of these there were several that I missed…..

I then talked about the thread that was trapped under the top and was driving me crazy!!!…..

Out….Out Damn Thread!!

But even more distressing were the seams where the dark blue fabric could be seen behind the seam allowance…..

A SOLUTION!!!

SO….this past week I was watching YouTube videos in the gym and came across this one from Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts…..

And she has the BEST solution…..

At 6:33 minutes into the video, she suggests that, if you have to press to the light fabric, trim a minuscule slice off the seam allowance before you press…..

Yes, it would add time to the piecing but in some cases, it would be worth it!!!

Karen has lots of other great ideas for working with white fabric so you might check out the entire video!!

So, NOW I KNOW!!! Hopefully I can remember and use this idea going forward…..

AND…..if you are wanting to get started with Ruler Quilting but don’t know where to start, check out this short course…..

If you have an interest in ruler quilting, check out this online course…..

Click HERE for more information

A little more piecing

Yesterday I showed the small amount of curved piecing I found time for. Now, let’s look at a little more piecing!!

Lately, I have been thinking about doing some strip-piecing, but I am thinking about TINY strips…..like some that I saw at QuiltCon.

It didn’t take long to cut a few scrap strips of fabric and make a 4-inch set…..

Since it is 4-inches, that gives you an idea of how small some of the strips are!!!

I trimmed it into a square…..

….and stood back to look at my work!!

But then the “what-ifs” took over and I took it one step further…..

Okay….that’s interesting!!

So now I have these squares to play with….

(Too bad didn’t make them the same sizes!!!!)

But WHAT am I going to do with them!!!

Come back on Thursday and I will show some of the ideas that I came up with!!

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A tiny bit of studio time!!

As most of you know, I am a CPA and this time of year is CRAZY BUSY!!!

So, finding time to create is very hard to do!!

The other day I gave myself 30 minutes in my studio. In truth, it turned into a bit over an hour!!

My biggest problem was that I didn’t have a specific thing to be working on…..

So I started something new.

The night before I had been playing with curves and trying different ideas on Procreate (on my Ipad).

I came up with this idea……

Doesn’t that look fun!!

So when I got into the studio, I pulled a few scrap fabrics out and started sewing.

First I had to remember how to use the circle ruler!! I looked back at this post from last May…

Playing with pieced arcs

….and finally figured it out again.

My first cut and seam were not the best…..

…but this is a sample block….right??

I added a few more arcs and ended up with this design…..

Now, how about if I add another arc on one corner…..

The arcs certainly got smoother as I went along!!!

Okay…..that looks okay, but what am I going to do with it???

Come back tomorrow for more play time!!!

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Thank you…….

It’s Time for Hearts!!

We all recognize that February is a time to display our hearts in quilt form and life!!

I love my February decorating because I get to look at all of these sweet photos of Michael and my parents…..

Between them, they were married for over 110 years!!!

Each month I make a display featuring one of my small quilts. In this case, it also includes a crocheted doily that my Grandmother made and a photo from our wedding….