Circus Stars - Connecting Blocks

This is the third and final process post for the circus stars and is how I connect the blocks as well as the rows.

So here we have the two blocks.  The object being to join the blocks so that the point is smooth and not jagged where the blocks meet.  Easy?  No.

First, you have to match up the points.  Once again, I place a pin in the points of each block to line up where the stars will meet.  Sometimes this hits at a 1/4" seam line, and sometimes I have to adjust - well, most times I have to adjust.

Then I place pins just to the right of the points.  It is important to sew right across the cross-hairs where the seam cross.

Then you open it up and peek....hmmm, I kind of missed the mark this time.   So out comes my Faithful Ripping Out Gadget (FROG) and I rippit, rippit, rippit.

And if at first you don't succeed - you try, try again.  I like to press the seams open.  Ahh, this is much better.   And you continue along the row joining blocks, and then the same process to join rows together.

Much against my  best resolutions to finish this quilt before starting another bed quilt project, I have started a Triple Irish Chain.  I have always wanted to make one of these, and I will be teaching my Stitchin Friends group this process next week, so of course, I had to make up my blocks to get ready for the class. After all, you can't teach something you haven't done, right?  So here is my mockup of my quilt - I am using the scraps from my Be Attitudes blocks.  I did buy the outer yellow border fabric, but most of the rest is coming from my stash.  I just love these fabrics.  And, I was good...once I finished enough blocks to teach my class, I put the project away and picked my Circus Stars back up.

I have also been working on some hand quilting of another spools wall hanging and Block 5 of the Gifts of Grace.

So, I am not finishing anything...but I sure am having fun!  What are you working on these days?

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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Gifts of Grace - Love and Patience

You know - those two words do need to always go together.  Being patient with loved ones can be a challenge at times, but because we love them as much as we do, we have to practice patience.  I think its very appropriate that I publish my two most recent finishes in the Gifts of Grace together - don't you?  (One taken with a flash, the other without - hmmm, not sure which is better.

I was also going to show you the next step in the Circus Stars, but it seems those pictures have vanished from my computer.  Guess that will have to wait for another day.  My husband and I are skipping down for a few days - headed to the Tennessee mountains.  I sure hope it is cooler there than here!

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

Happy Birthday, Momma

Just wanted to say happy birthday to my mom.  She never liked having her picture posted, so I won't do it here. Instead, I will show the first quilt she ever made, and it was a baby quilt for my brothers first and then passed down to me.

Mom would be 89 today, and I woke with the realization that this is her first birthday in my life that I can not share with her. 

I miss you Mom. 

Love you,
Teresa

K-Scope Block Construction - Lots of Pictures

I received 11 nice comments on my last post - thank you ladies, and five of you expressed an interest seeing how these blocks go together. I was not sure if I was boring you all with the details, so I will continue on with my process of putting together these blocks.  I know this post took awhile to load, but its full of pictures and no way can I explain this without lots of pictures!

First, I had to relieve my Keeper of the Project Box of her security duties so that I could get to the block pieces.  She takes her responsibility very seriously, jumping on the box as soon as I close the lid and sometimes before I close the lid if I don't fuss at her in time. 

Once into the box, I select my wedges according to the chart I showed in the prior post and lay them out on the design board. I would never attempt this quilt without a design board (a piece of foam board covered in flannel). 

 I have premarked the seam lines on each wedge.  I did not do this at first, and I ended up with some wonky looking stars, so I went back and marked each piece and it sure makes sewing them together easier.

I begin by sewing wedges together in pairs...starting at the outer edge of the wedge and sewing to the point where the seam lines intersect.

At least that is my goal - you can see I missed the mark a little on this seam.  Guess I should have done it over, but I did not notice it until I saw this picture, and my goof in living color!

The seam is pressed to one side, and I always press to the dark wedge.  It is important that you press the same for each wedge.  I have my iron right beside me when sewing and press each wedge as they are sewn together and return them to the design board to keep the colors straight.  If you are doing scrappy, and this is not important, then you could sew all the wedges together in twosies, and then iron them at one time. 

Now you sew the twosies together, lining up the seam down the middle.  I don't pin these together before sewing, but you could if you like.  I find the seams lock together nicely, and pinning is not needed.

Once again - sew the seam, stopping at the point where the seam lines intersect (should be 1/4 inch from inner point of wedge). Press the seams in the same direction as the "twosies" seams were pressed and now you have half the K-Scope together.

To sew the two halves together, you want to make sure all seams are matching up correctly.  I have pinned the edge of the top half back so you can see the seams.

I also place a pin in the point of each half, where the wedges meet, to make sure that I am lining them up right.  This is a crucial step to making sure your points all match in the center of the star - and it can be very aggravating when they don't!

Sew across the two halves, and press the seams in the same direction that the prior seams are facing, creating a nice swirl right in the middle. which is necessary for it to lay flat.

 Now the easy part...sew the corner squares to the corner wedges to make your block square.  You just have to remember which are the corners!  I know this from experience.   After all the corners are on, you are ready to square up your block.  My blocks measure 6 1/2" unfinished. So there you have the finished blocks.  Next week I will discuss sewing the blocks into rows, which is a trick in itself.

Hope you enjoyed and maybe even picked up a tip or two - its always fun to share!

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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Circus Stars

I recently took the pledge to show my "work in progress" rather than just showing finished projects.  (See Rosie's blog and the button on my right margin) This is really not a problem with me, as I have many in process and would not be able to post weekly if  I only showed the finished.  I think the real intent is to show the steps or work being performed.

So as I pulled out my Circus Stars quilt, I thought I would show you a few of the steps involved in making this quilt.  I have shown in it in the past, and I know some of you must be a little tired of looking at it, but I will try to be brief. 

I have a color layout chart to keep track of where I am on the quilt.  There are sixteen different colorations of stars.  The block between each star block has to have one point of  color of the blocks it touches, and this can be a real challenge keeping it straight as to what color comes next. 

Using the layout chart, I layout two blocks at a time - comparing it to the chart and the quilt in progress on my design wall, to double check that I have the colors in the right place. 

Here is a shot of a portion of the quilt on my design wall - for those who are seeing this for the first time.  I just love working on this quilt and playing with all the colors.  I do have to wonder though, where in the world will this quilt reside in my home???? 

Next week I will share the process of making the actual blocks.   So stay tuned. 

Finished up the second block - JOY - in the Gifts of Grace free block of the month being offered on Val Laird's blog.  These blocks are so pretty and give me JOY to just be working on them  Thank you Val for so generously sharing your talent with us.

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!

Teresa
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Vacation Over....dagnabit

Just when I was getting used to being at home all day with my husband, who is currently on short term disability, its time to go back to work.  Sigh....

So what did I accomplish while off for one week? 

Each morning was spent working on the china cabinet. Its almost done - just have to paint the inside of the glass doors, which is why you see the green and blue tape on the glass.  This has been a real labor of love as my dad made this cabinet, I want to preserve it, but geez - I just hate painting.  I must be the messiest painter in the world and ending up covered in paint from my hair to my toes.  I went with my husband to the doctor this week, and had to laugh when I looked down at my feet at the doctors office. Had on croc slides, and sure enough, the tip of each toe had paint on it, in addition to the soles of my feet.  Now I know I washed those feet!

On  Friday, I took a break from painting and life in general, and headed to Columbia to visit my friend Darlene.  We had a great time and made a trip to Michaels to get beads and floss for the Gifts of Grace project.  (See the button on  my sidebar.) This is the first block and I just love working with these.  A combination of stitchery, applique and working with beads.  The free BOM has already issued 5 blocks, so I have some catching up to do.

And last but not least, I got my klosjes sewn up for a second wall hanging.  Hopefully I can sew the binding on straight on this one!

Yesterday all the family came over and we had a great gathering for July 4th (July 3rd - in our case), and it was a ton of fun.   I hope you have all had a good week and thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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Pictures of busyness....

Its been a couple of weeks since I last posted and time has just gotten totally away from me.  I first started to title the post "Pictures of business" thinking that adding "ness" to "busy" you would drop the y and add an i.  And what do you know...that spells business.  Just something I thought you might find interesting.

Anyway, I am going to just show a few pictures of what I have been doing. Hope you enjoy...

This week started out with Vacation Bible School at my church.  My daughter was the director this year, and she asked me to keep the nursery - which turned out to be just my sweet lil angel, Taralyn.  So each night, I got to bond with my granddaughter - how special is that!

We left town on Friday for a family reunion in West Virginia.  The weather was beautiful the whole trip, as was wild and wonderful West Virginia.  Here is a view from one of the bridges we crossed over. 

  I did manage a little sewing on the trip, finishing up some klosjes. I am still working on the pattern for this project.

On getting back home, rested up a bit and dove right into a project at home - refinishing the china cabinet my dad made. Started out early by taking the cabinet apart, sanding and sanding the varnish off each inch of the cabinet and finally cleaning up the room - which meant vacuuming up all the sawdust, wiping down the china cabinet and the walls and the windows and ME for that matter. Here it is all cleaned up and ready to paint - tomorrow.

So, that is what I have been up to.  Tomorrow, who knows, I may have a WHITE china cabinet to show.  My "As the Needle Turns" applique club is coming over tomorrow for a klosje lesson  using English Paper Piecing. I know, that is not applique, but we diversify!

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa
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Pattern Writing with EQ and Word

I enjoy designing my own quilts in EQ and then once I make the quilt, I like to write the pattern to share with others that might want to make it too.  I have always been so frustrated trying to get a pattern that looks professionally done, or at least "neat" drawings.  I have tried taking pictures of the process and using those in my pattern, but I am not that great a photographer. 

So I posed the question to EQ, and got the best response from Penny McMorris of EQ - and I will say a very prompt response at that.  She explained how to create a metafile of the block in EQ and download this to WORD.  Once in WORD you can do all kinds of neat things with the block.  I still have a lot to learn, but I though I would show you a before and after of what I have learned. 

(If you would like a copy of the  question I posed to EQ and the answer I got, just let me know and I will forward the email to you.)

I am writing a pattern for my Klosje wall hanging that you can see on my post before this one.  I wanted to be able to print multiple copies of the paper foundation pieces on one page, to run off on card stock. The only solution I came up with was to print copies from EQ, cut out the patterns and tape them on a piece of paper and then make copies of that.  The problem being, first - you can't include that in an electronic pattern write-up as scanning distorts the size, second - I could not add the text I wanted to in EQ and third - it just looks kind of tacky.

So following Penny's instructions, I created the metafile, copied it to WORD, separated the parts of the block and then arranged them on the page.  I added text boxes to label the pieces.  Woohoo..this is just what I wanted.   Here you see the before (left) and after (right).  [I didn't really need to tell you which was the before and which was the after, did I?]

This is just so neat and I am excited about writing the pattern now.  If only I could sew the klosje and write the pattern at the same time - I just love making these cute little blocks.

 Monday Mystery - I finished my Owl block. One more to go and the final explanation of what we are making. I am looking forward to that.  I think I will outline my petals and center in a purple. 

Thanks for dropping by.
Teresa
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Flittering

There is so much talk now about tweeting, and writing on walls, and Lord only knows what else, I thought I would just come up with my own word...Flittering. 

Definition: Flitter - to flit from one project to another, completing nothing, but making progress on each. 

And that is just what I have been doing this week, flitting from one project to another, and enjoying every flit along the way.

So knowing how curious us quilters are, here is what I have been flittering my time away doing:

Prepped the "Be Joyful" block in my  Be Attitudes series. 

This is the last one in the series of 12 blocks and will probably be my favorite since I have this "thing" for Santa.  I have been collecting them for years, with treasures like a lego Santa my children made to an antique felt Santa that my Mom gave me, which really started the collection.

Next on my flittering path is the Monday Mystery.  I finished the fourth block, and am anxious to start the next, which is owls!  Wooooooooohoo, that should be fun.

Then I just had a hankering to do a little more stitching, so I got out my Nice People Nice Things project and finished up two more blocks with their sayings.   These little blocks are so much fun and someday I will finish them all and make a quilt - but no hurry, cause once they are done, they're done and I will miss working on them.

And of course, I flitted right along to the klosje project.  Now this is where I kind of fall off the flitting path as I completed a project - my wall hanging.

Here is is hanging in my kitchen.  I added a few more flowers since you last saw it.  These are tons of fun to make and I will be teaching this to my club on Saturday.   Hope they like them as much as I do.

As a matter of fact, I got so addicted to them, that I started cutting out more - I intend to make a queen size quilt.  Now this will take 90  of the blocks with circles and 360 of the squares ones. 

This is what I got cut out - 39 of the circle blocks and 56 of the squares.    See how neat my 30's tub looks after cutting out my blocks and neatly folding all the fabrics back up.

Now you may be thinking - there is not enough fabric in there to make an entire quilt, and you are right - but have no fear, I have an whole wall of tubs full of FQ and short cuts of fabric. I know they do not look so neat, but I will go through and cut out  blocks and fold up the remaining fabrics all nice and neat and before you know it, all my stash tubs will look just like the tub of 30's.  Yea, I can dream can't I?

OK...so I have shown you my flittering fun, and my messy stash and that is about all I have to report on this week.   Hope you have all been having as much fun as I have. 

Happy stitchin'

Teresa18968

  

Shakerwood Quilts

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Are you in a guild?

Are you a member of a local quilt guild?  Do you pay dues and attend monthly meetings? Do you make friends and share talents, joys, sorrows, concerns, friendships?

I am a member of my local guild and enjoy the monthly meetings and the speakers and friendships. But you know, I am also member of an international guild, one with no dues, unlimited membership and chock full of talents and wonderful people, meets daily all day long - this is the guild of bloggers. An amazing group of guilters that share so freely of their time, talent and lives.  I just want to say thank you to all the wonderful people that read my blog and the bloggers that share with me and have taught me new techniques and inspired me to try new things.

I have worked really hard this weekend to have my Klosje wall hanging near finished so that I could show you what I am doing. You know, I would never have discovered these fun blocks if it were not for blogging and I am having the best time making them.  This is where my wall hanging is now - pretty much ready for quilting. The yoyo flowers are just pinned on as is the binding on one side to show the color.  The Welcome is done in Faux Applique - another technique I found through blogging.  I am still debating on whether to handquilt or machine quilt.  One thing for sure, I now plan to make a full size quilt in this pattern - these little blocks are fun to make!

I also finished up the Chicks block on the Monday Mystery. I think this is the cutest one so far.

Is anyone else out there playing along on this project?  

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  My husband was out of town, and my good friend, Darlene,came up to keep me company on Friday - Saturday.  Cheryl joined us on Friday for a trip to Mary Jo's and of course we did some shopping as well as lunch at Olive Garden.  Darlene left on Saturday and I spent the remainder of Saturday and Sunday just hanging out at the house, except for a couple visits with my Dad, and enjoying some quiet time with my sewing and reading.

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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