Fall Leaves

I joined a swap group this morning that needed one more member.  The theme was Fall/Thanksgiving.  So even though the deadline is Oct 31, I decided to get them done today.  I took pictures along the way, so you can see how this block is made.

I love this quick way of making half-square triangles!  I needed 48 – 1 inch finished half square triangles for my 12 leaf blocks.  So I added one inch to the finished size and measured out a 2 inch grid.  24 squares (6 by 4) yields 48 half square triangles.

Draw a grid on the back of the light fabric, add in the diagonal lines, and sew on 1/4 inch on either side of all the diagonals.  Cut apart on the lines with a rotary cutter.  And voila!  48 half square triangles are done in no time.

The part that takes the longest is the trimming to make them just the right size.  I like to make them a smidge too big, so that I can trim them up to just the perfect size.

It does take a while though…

I needed some chocolate to get through it…

Then I got the stems all sewn.  Just a ribbon sew down the diagonal of the square…easy.

Here are all the  parts, ready to be sewn together.

They made a pretty cool pattern when I put them all up on the design wall together!

 

They’re all ready to pop in the mail.  And now I’ll be getting fun mail all month as all the fall swap blocks start arriving!

Placemats

I swap 3.5 inch blocks on Flickr.  Here is what I did with my Trees and Houses blocks.

Summer

What a fun and busy summer. I’ve just been focusing on my kids and enjoying every minute. But now as we are winding down our summer and getting ready for school to start I’m looking forward to getting back to the sewing machine and to this space as well!

The Bitty Block Committee swapped trees in July. Here are mine. They required a special trip to the quilt shop to pick out this sky and water fabric.

And these are my July blocks for my sampler class. Bowties with inset seams. Fun!

And since school is starting and band camp is underway, that means it’s time to sew color guard flags as well!

Hope to see you again soon!

Bitty Block Committee–Houses

Here are the little houses I made for the house swap.  I let everyone pick their house and mailed it off to them.

And these are the blocks I’ve received so far.  Still waiting for 3 more.

Here are the black and white plus a little color blocks I received last month:

Mine is the red spool. 

We’ve done both these themes before, so that will be nice to have some more blocks of the same theme for a project at some point!

Bitty Blocks and Hexagons

All my red and white bitty blocks arrived in the mail!  Aren’t they so cute?

I’ve been swapping bitty blocks for a while now, and I don’t think I’ve done anything with them…until this week when I got out my first set…camping….and made a pillow out of them:

Someday I’ll find the perfect person to give this pillow to!

Here are the fabrics I purchased last week for my sampler class:

I’m loving the colors, even if my husband isn’t sold on them!

Here’s my first block in progress:

The picture in the bottom right is from our teacher so we could see what the block should look like…the yellow flower is my practice, and all those hexagons that need to be sewn together, that’s my block.  I need to have 2 done by the next class.  I’d better get busy!

Quick Update

Happy New Year!  Is it too late to say that?

I need to catch up here with you and then maybe I can get back on track with blogging…just maybe!  Right now it just seems overwhelming since I haven’t posted in a while!

I posted one time in November, once in December and once in January.  Hopefully I’ll do better in February!

Looking back at pictures, let’s see what’s been going on around here!

I got back into my flickr swap group: “Bitty Block Committee” in January with the “Red and White on point” swap.  I couldn’t resist red and white bitty blocks!  The blocks we swap are 3.5 inches.  I decided to do a cake stand on point:

And here are all 12:

I’m just waiting for 2 more blocks and I’ll show you the collection.  They are mighty cute!

I’m taking my first quilting class!  You heard me right!  Yes, it’s about time, after 17 years of quilting. 

We were working on English Paper Piecing our first class.  We are doing a sampler, but when she pulled out this Dear Jane I had to snap a picture!

Someday my Dear Jane will be done *sigh*…maybe if I’d work on it, it would get done a little bit faster .

I’m excited for my sampler class.  Should be a lot of fun throughout this whole year!  I’m going to be picking out my fabric this week for it.  I’m excited to show you what I pick out!

At our January Quilt Groupbee’s Meeting we made these thread catchers.  This year our curriculum is going to follow along with the class I’m taking. So since we covered English Paper Piecing in class, I’ll be showing the ladies how to English Piece at our February Meeting.

Here’s a pretty good tutorial for English Paper Piecing hexagons:

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2010/04/hexie-paper-piecing-tutorial.html

The way we learned in class was a little bit different, but mostly the same.  It’s fun to have a hand sewing project to work on!

That’s a pretty full post.  I’ll leave it at that and catch up with you more in a little bit!

R is for Rocket

Here’s what I’ve been up to:  More 3.5 inch blocks.

This time we are doing an alphabet swap and I was assigned the letter R.  Our assignment was to have something pictured that starts with the letter we were assigned, and the letter is supposed to appear on the block as well.  So, I combined those things and designed this rocket.  I picked up the background fabric while I was on that recent shop hop.  It turned out to be a great fabric for this project!

I had these 4 blocks up on my design wall from quilt group the other month when we I was teaching the ladies how to make these stars.  So when I needed a baby gift, I was able to grab them and whip up a quick doll quilt. 

I wish I had a picture of the cute, bright pink stuffed hippo I bought to go along with it.  She had pink and green toe nails and stars around her eyes.

I also recently finished up a group project that was a special quilt gift for a friend and got it off in the mail today.  I hope she feels all the healing love it was stitched with when she receives it!

Now it’s time to clean up my work space and get back to my doll quilt for DQS11!

Bitty Block Committee

I’ve mentioned that I participate in a 3.5 inch block swap on flickr.  Recently we were swapping wonky stars.  Here are the other monthly themes I’ve participated in:

Camping: (mine is the roasting marshmallow)

Black and White, plus one color (I had green):

Beach/Ocean: (mine is the snails trail/monkey wrench – to the right of the light house)

Trees on white:  (mine is not pictured here-I wonder where it is!)

Houses: (mine is bottom left – owl house)

Font/text: (mine is top left – embroidered)

Halloween: (mine is the cauldron)

Modern Christmas: (mine is the pink present-everyone else’s had a pieced bow on it-I gave myself the reject)

and Sewing (mine is the rotary cutter at the bottom)

It’s so fun to get these little blocks in the mail.  Each one comes individually from it’s maker – a little piece of artwork.  Bitty blocks arrive throughout the month from all over the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina.

These blocks are piling up.  Do you think I could somehow get these all into the same quilt and it would make sense?  Probably not.

Bitty Block Committee–Wonky Stars

I regularly participate in a flickr swap that swaps 3.5 inch blocks.  I just sent off these wonky stars for June. 

And I’ve received these blocks back:  

Just waiting for 3 more!

I have yet to sew any of these sets of 3.5 inch blocks together.  So far I’ve participated in the themes: trees, camping, black white and one color, text/words, ocean/beach, houses, sewing, Halloween and modern Christmas.

They are so fun to make and to receive!  But they’re piling up!  Gotta do something with them.

Happy Sewing!

Today I just hid away from everything and just sewed.  It’s been a while since I’ve done that.  I had some 3.5 inch blocks to finish before the end of the month for the flickr group I’m in, the Bitty Block Committee.  I really need to do a whole post on that, but I’ll save it for later.

Each month there is a different theme, and you can sign up to do either 12 or 24 blocks.  This month I signed up for the “sewing” theme.  I couldn’t resist.

I decided to do a rotary cutter.  I drew up my design on the computer and this is the result:

12 rotary cutters, one for me and the other 11 will be on their way soon!

Happy New Year

I’m ready to say good bye to 2010 and say hello to 2011!  I’m sure Miss K is too!  We found out today that she has shingles!  Poor girl.  Hopefully she will be able to get over it pretty quickly and move on to better times!

Things have been slow around here in the crafting/ sewing area and blogging lately.  I decided to look back at my 2010 pictures and make a mosaic of projects I’ve completed this year.  I was hoping it would motivate me, and I feel like it has!  I am happy to see that I did accomplish more than I realized this year.  I hope to get back in the swing of things in 2011.

Lots of fun memories here to look back on! 

Happy New Year to you.  Hope it’s a great one for all of us.

Happy December

I missed almost the whole month of November and it’s already the middle of December, wow!  I’ve been gone a long time.  Things have been crazy and a bit stressful around here.  And now I’m sick.  But hopefully all that is in the past and we can move on.  I’m counting on 2011 being a better year than 2010.

I’ll try to catch you up by going through some pictures (in no particular order):

Miss K was an Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka.  That same week my grandmother passed away and I left right away to spend the week with my parents to help with the plans and attend the funeral.  It was a special week to remember my grandma, to support my parents and spend time together as a family.

I sent off these house blocks to a couple special ladies who were putting together a couple house quilts for some other special ladies who were fighting cancer.  What a wonderful project to be involved in!

I made these little sewing kits for some friends. (Diane, see that pink one..it’s yours. Still need to get it to you along with that video I borrowed from you so long ago!)

I took the nine patches I had from the three by three swap on Flickr and made up this quilt for my grandma’s roommate from the nursing home.  This is the top, I never got a picture of the final quilt, darn.  It was her birthday over Thanksgiving so we hand delivered it to her and my son was able to play happy birthday on his sax for her.  I was so glad to find a great use for those nine patches and thank her for keeping a look out for my grandma!

My boys competed in the southern California band review and their band won sweepstakes for the 11th year in a row! So exciting and special because it is the only year both boys (senior and freshman) will be in it together.

I made 12 of these house blocks for the 3.5 inch bitty block swap for November.  (more about that later!)

And I made this shabby chic cottage for Dawn for the Oct/Nov Mini QT (6-12 inches) Swap.

And this is the fun quilt that arrived in my mailbox from my swap partner. Thanks Dawn!

Now hopefully I’m caught up and I’ll be able to be back here blogging and sewing !  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!