Baby Quilt...

My friend, Rene made this adorable quilt using my Moda Bake shop recipe. Love the pinks with black and white.Looks like it will be perfect for her niece's little one!

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Flower Pot Parade

"the original"

Calico Needlers is a local guild filled with talented quilters. Each year they work on a Block-of-the-Month together and for 2010 chose my Flower Pots quilt. This week I got to see the results and were they beautiful! Unfortunately I had to photograph them in a room with florescent lights (bad for pictures). I did my best, but believe me they are all prettier in "person".

The book is still available and really a fun one to make!

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Hand work...

Have you noticed I've been absent this week? Saturday night I took my husband to the Emergency Room and he landed in the hospital for 4 days. Nothing too serious (although it could have been, had we not acted), just an infection that required intravenous antibiotics.

Thank goodness I had hand work ready to go! Back in the days of car pools and soccer games, I always had some hand work in the car to pass time. Luckily this week I grabbed this cute pincushion from the STL MQG swap and my Dresden blocks and took advantage of the natural sunlight in the hospital room.
I've changed things up a bit. I found this collection of Kona cottons, coordinated to Soul Blossoms at Sew Fresh Fabrics, and decided to go with solid centers on my Dresdens.
I like how the solids let the prints shine.



This quilt came back from the quilter a few weeks ago and now has the binding hand sewn down.
We're home and all is well. But I better get some hand work prepped just in case!

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Penny Lane...

"Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes..." Be thankful my blog doesn't have sound - you really don't want to hear me sing. Did you know I'm a huge Beatles fan? I probably know every one of their songs by heart. As a preteen in the sixties, I sang and danced to all their music, over and over and over again. It's what we did for entertainment with no video games or internet.

I love everything that Riley Blake puts out and since this line was called "Penny Lane", it was calling my name.

I love this print with the retro numbers and letters.
So pretty! I'm going on retreat next month (yeah!) and I'll bring this along to make Pocket Full of Pinwheels. It will be an easy, mindless project - so I don't have to concentrate too much and can enjoy the banter!
Girls, don't be surprised if you hear me singing as I sew "and the fireman rushes in, from the pouring rain, very strange"...

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Just the facts...

I do love blue and green quilts.

The pattern ~ "Small Plates" from The Practical Guide to Patchwork.

The fabric ~ Modern Meadow by Joel Dewberry.
The temperature 16 degrees.
The quilting ~ by me with a ferny leaf design.
Now you know!

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Dresdens

I've always loved Dresdens. It's one of the first blocks I tried many years ago in very traditional fabrics. There's been a revival and I had to try some with a modern twist. I'm starting with my Amy Butler Soul Blossoms and adding on from there. I've read lots of tutorials online and mashed them together in my own way. So in case you want to know, here's how I'm doing mine.

To cut the wedges, I'm using a Fat Cat ruler by EZ. It's a 30 degree wedge, so you need 12 wedges per block. They're somewhat fatter than the traditional Dresden, but I think they show off the bigger prints better and I like "fat".

I cut a 5" strip from a fat quarter. (5" x 21"). I'm cutting 4 wedges from each fabric, flipping the ruler up and down. I can also get 6 - 2" squares from the leftover of the strip. My plan is to make a sashing of 2" squares.
Fold a wedge in half long ways and stitch across the fatter edge.
Trim the corner off on the folded side.
Keep the wedge folded in half and finger press a crease along the length.
Finger press the seam open.
Use a point turner to turn the wedge right side out. Match the seam to your finger-pressed lengthwise crease; press.
Sew your wedges together. Try to be very accurate with your seam allowance if you want it to lay flat. Be sure the outside edges meet exactly - don't worry too much about the inside edge. Press the seams open. Give your plate a nice firm press with steam and make it very flat.
For the center circle, I use a 3 1/2" heat resistant circle template, trace it to my fabric and cut it out leaving 1/4" seam allowance.
Run a gathering stitch (I do it by hand) around the circle. Place the template in the middle and pull up the gathering. Pull it nice and tight, so you have a nice smooth edge. Spray some starch into a cup and use a paint brush or Q-tip to starch the seam allowance. Iron well - with the template still in place. Flip it over and iron again. Once the starch is completely dry remove the template. You can pull up the basting stitches a little to reform a perfect circle.
Pin everything to your background and applique. I'm doing it by hand - I can do one in 90 minutes (sorry, yes, I time myself). You could also machine stitch with a straight stitch, a zig zag stitch or a buttonhole stitch.
I always make my background oversized and trim down once the applique is done. Trim to 14 1/2" by lining the 7 1/4" mark along the center seam line between the wedges.My plan is to applique 6 blocks on very soft, pastel Kona solids and 6 blocks on Kona Snow. Two down - 10 to go!

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Binding weather...

Lots of snow and it's the perfect weather to sit under a quilt, watch some TV, drink a glass of wine and sew on a binding. This quilt came back from the quilter last week and, my goodness, am I happy with it! The pattern is from the first issue of Fat Quarterly and the fabric is Hope Valley and Kona Snow (appropriate!).

My newest quilt always goes on the back of the couch ready to pull up for an afternoon nap.

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