Flying Geese... the Redbird Bee... Bloggers Quilt Festival...

I'm so excited to share my Redbird Bee quilt for 2013 in this Fall's Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Not only do I love this quilt, but it was made by one of the nicest group of quilters and ladies I've ever met. Our Bee started 2 years ago within the St Louis Modern Quilt Guild. I'd never participated in a Bee before and joined pretty much to make friends within the larger group. You see, I'm introverted by nature and always feel more comfortable in a smaller group. And did I hit the jackpot. Couldn't love hanging out with these girls more!

Our theme for this year was different techniques. My assignment was to incorporate triangles into my design. And did I ever. Eleven Flying Geese in each block.

The quilt was inspired by this one made by Lotje. It was a challenge to break the design down into a block for each Bee member. I shared my tutorial here.

The color inspiration came from Madrona Road by Violet Craft. The backing is a composition of most of the leftovers.

As I usually do ~ lots of fabrics added from the stash...

The perfect binding turned out to be this dot from Florence.

I'm entering my quilt in the Group/Bee quilts. Be sure to hop on over to all the different categories and vote for your favorites!

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Tumbler, Crumbler ...

Whatever you call it - it's done - well the top is anyway. I had so much fun making this quilt ~ playing with stash fabrics in colors of navy, aqua, gray, green and pink. You may remember I was using the "Crumbler", a ruler by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. for the cutting. There are lots of variations for setting the tumblers together, but I went with the classic. Couldn't have been easier or quicker.

And every point matched up with it's neighboring point ~ no pinning involved. By pressing the adjoining seams in opposite directions, they were super easy to lock together when sewing.

Couldn't be happier ~ in fact I'm ready to make another one. The possibilities are endless!

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WIP Wednesday...

 It's the perfect week for a WIP Wednesday! I just got back from a 10 day vacation, and I need to wrap my head around where my projects stand.

I had some fun with these crazy girls - and they both had birthdays to celebrate - so we had some partying too!

For the past several years I've made them birthday pillows - my pattern in the Martingale book Sew the Perfect Gift. This year I forgot to make new ones and they reminded me that they're not 5 and 3 any more. So the first thing I did when I got home was make new pillow covers...

Another project I'm ready to get back to is my On a Whim quilt. I'm using Florence by Denyse Schmidt. Twelve blocks are done - just 8 more to go!

I also started a new quilt this week! A Tumbler quilt has been on my to-do list especially after seeing Candace's "For the Birds" version. Yesterday I pulled some fabrics in happy colors of aqua, navy, green, pink and gray. I'm using this big print from Gracie Girl as my color inspiration and thinking it may make the perfect backing fabric.

The cutting went super quick using the "Crumbler", a nifty ruler from Carrie Nelson at Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. I think I'm ready to start sewing!

And finally, my October Lucky Stars BOM. This may be my favorite one so far :)

Linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced!

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Appliqué with freezer paper and starch

Many of you asked about the method I'm using to prepare my Orange Peel appliqué pieces, so here you go...

I have 6 blocks done and I'm happy with how it's looking so far. The days start getting shorter, and many evenings are spent in front of the TV doing some relaxing hand sewing. I like having my pieces ready to go.

Start by tracing your pattern {I used this one} onto a piece of freezer paper. Before cutting it out, iron the traced piece on to a second piece of freezer paper - shiny side to dull side. This gives you an extra thick template to fold the edges against.

To cut out my fabrics, I made a second single layer freezer paper template and ironed it on to my fabric.  I layered four fabrics together and cut around the template about 1/4". This doesn't have to be exact.

Spray some heavy duty spray starch into a cup. {Magic sizing doesn't work as well and Best Press doesn't work at all} Let the foam evaporate.

With a dry iron, press your double layer freezer paper template on to the wrong side of the fabric.

Use a small paint brush to moisten one side of the petal's seam allowance with starch. Use your iron to turn under the seam allowance and press dry.

Repeat on the second half of the petal.

A little bit of seam allowance will peek out at the point. Just tuck this under later as you appliqué.

Once everything is pressed dry, remove the freezer paper and press the appliqué piece one more time. The freezer paper can be used over and over as long as you make sure it's dry each time. I've used mine 15-20 times before making a new one.

My background fabric is cut 10" {finishing at 9 1/2"}. By creasing it diagonally in both directions, I have a line to position my petals. My petals don't touch in the center, nor will they touch when the blocks are sewn together. I thought it would be easier to purposely have them not touch.

I'm hand appliquéing them by pinning them in place with tiny appliqué pins, then stitching with an invisible stitch using fine silk thread. Any fine thread that matches the color of your appliqué piece will work.

The trick to getting an invisible stitch is to come up from the back, catching just a few threads on the folded edge of the appliqué. Then go back down into the background at exactly the point where your thread came up through the fold of the appliqué. Come back up about 1/16"-1/8" from the previous stitch through the background and the folded edge of the appliqué. When you come to the point where a bit of the seam allowance is sticking out, just push it under with your needle and finish stitching.

Here's what the back looks like...

Let me know if you have any questions!!

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Orange Peel

Now that Fall is upon us and Winter not too far behind, I decided I needed a hand sewing project. Seems I spend much more time in the evening sitting on the couch and watching TV this time of year. I considered some EPP, but decided I hadn't had an appliqué project in a while. I thought about doing another Joseph's Coat, but wanting something a bit simpler, I went with the traditional Orange Peel block.

I'm using 10" squares of a light gray shot cotton for the background and rich colors of teal, orange, gray, green, eggplant and navy for the "petals". I'm leaving a tiny bit of space between the petals, so I don't have to worry about them touching perfectly and telling my self that this makes it a little more modern.

I've got 8 blocks ready to go and then I'l re-evaluate to see if I like the proportions. I'm hoping to use a different fabric for each petal {30 blocks x 4 petals = 120 fabrics}

My method for turning under the edges is freezer paper and starch. Let me know if any of you would like to see how I'm doing that!

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Garden Lattice in Nordika

When I saw Jeni Baker's line Nordika, I was smitten with the fabric but had no idea what to do with it. The lightbulb went on and I decided that another Garden Lattice quilt would be perfect. It's really a good one to showcase bold prints since the separating white strips keep everything clean and crisp. I think I've shared the top and it's finally quilted!

To mix things up a bit, I decided to set this one on point. It definitely gives an interesting new twist to the pattern.

The back turned out super cute! I used 2 widths of the panel print and I love the effect it gave! It slowed my progress some because I had to wait for additional yardage to arrive. I'm glad I waited ~ it created an interesting design!

The quilting was simple ~ wavy lines using the number 4 stitch on my Bernina, widened to 5 and lengthened to 4. The binding is the gorgeous plaid in the line which is printed on the diagonal.

In other bits of sewing, I made these bags for the grandkids. They're the Quilted Knapsack pattern from Jodi Nelson at Pleasant Home. My husband laughed because the baby is only 5 months old and not much bigger than the knapsack. He's ready though when it's time to start carrying his stuff!

I'm filling them with goodies and I can't wait to give them to the kids!

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