Metal Quilt Blocks

I’m back from a great trip down to Dauphin to visit my friend Lori.  When I arrived I was greeted to the aroma of the 4 cakes just out of the oven, she is a great cook so this was a big treat for me as I hate cooking!  We took a trip down to Kickass Country Store and bought fabrics to finish 4 quilting projects.  We also went to an amazing greenhouse, one of the best I’ve ever seen, so picked up a few plants.  This two places will be on my ‘must do’ list when I go to visit next spring.  Also Lori hosted a small get together one evening with some of her local guild members so it was nice to meet her new quilting friends.   Believe it or not I didn’t take any pictures but Lori did so you can check out her blog post here.

Now to these Metal barn blocks, this is what I bought Lori for her birthday and I bought two for myself!   The company that makes them is called Classic Metal Company and they have a great selection of blocks to chose from.  When I first went to place my order on their website they didn’t take orders out of the United States. I was really disappointed but then just emailed the company and they were happy to mail them too me, they just didn’t have their website set up for out of country orders. That was a big relief so it’s good to ask if you encounter this problem.  I bought the Bear Paw and Mariners Compass in green to match my shack door.  I was going to put both on the outside of my shack but I really liked how the Compass looked in my sewing area in the house so that’s where it’s going to stay.

Stack and Whack

 

This is Sheri’s first Stack and Whack quilt.  Recently at one of our guild UFO days some of the members offered to teach the ‘Stack and Whack’ method to members that have never seen this done before. Sheri was very excited to learn and found a blue/gray/gold floral print in her stash to give it a try.  The soft yellow background fabric really sets off the blocks nicely.  The backing is a yellow Minkie and shows off the Butterfly Charm panto very well.

Tomorrow I’m driving down to Dauphin to visit my friend Lori for a few days.   It was her birthday recently and I have a really cool quilting gift for her that I haven’t blogged about yet, didn’t want to spoil the surprise!   Maybe she will post a picture of it on her blog before I get back to share it here. :)   We are planning on visiting one of our favourite quilt shops so hope to come home with some new fabric goodies.

Serenade Quilt Top

 

Hope you are all enjoying a nice Mother’s Day.  I was able to finish piecing my Serenade quilt and have a few pictures to share.

You can see the ice is slowly melting and this morning Tim put the canoe in the lake and took me for a paddle while I took pictures!  Saw our neighbourhood muskrat and he was nice to cooperate and sit still for a picture.

  Next we watched the Jack fish ( Northern Pike) swimming around, this one is about 20 “ long.  I was able to put my new polarized filter to work as this allows me to take great pictures of the fish without getting glare off the surface of the water.

Then we watched the Osprey circling overhead.  I love watching them dive down to the water to catch fish but he didn’t do that this time.  We had geese, loons, and one eagle in the bay this morning too but they disappeared before we put the canoe in the water.

Layer Cake Quilt

Here is a peek at the latest quilt top I’m working on.  Last Saturday there was a quilting retreat at a local lodge, I went to this one last year but decided not to go this year.  A quilt shop called Fabriculous  from Swan River, MB set up shop at the retreat and I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to shop for fabric!  I picked up this great Layer Cake called Serenade by Kate Spain and found a pattern on Moda Bake Shop that I thought would work for this collection.  I had some Kona Snow for background in my stash so cut right into it!  :)

If you read the pattern at Moda Bake Shop there is quite a debate on pressing your seams open in the comment section, worth reading for entertainment value as the quilt police were in full force!  I pressed my seams to the dark fabric because I like the look of my printed fabrics raised up from the background fabric and don’t like to see dark fabric seam allowances showing behind the lighter background fabric. It has nothing to do with making a stronger seam because that in my opinion is false.  I will press my seams open if I’m sewing two fabric that are the same to make it look like one piece.  In my opinion, if you want a super strong seam then quilt on the high side of the ditch and that seam will never open because your quilting thought both fabrics….just like side seams on jeans!  :)

I have 5 blocks done and hope to get the remaining 7 finished this weekend. I like the secondary pattern that this created when you put these blocks together. 

I hope everyone has a nice Mother’s Day weekend.  I received some flowers from my guys already :)

Curved Sashing Tutorial Without Center Seams

Yesterday I spent some time working on the curved sashing for the Curve It Up quilt and I realized there was another way to do it.  I didn’t want to have a seam running down the center of the designs so figured out how to do it using one piece of focus fabric for each section.    Jenny did a great tutorial on how to do the curve sashing design,  you can find it here,  but thought I would share my version as I know a few of my readers are doing this Quilt Along too.

First cut a 5 1/2” square from the focus fabric and then cut 4 squares from the background fabric that are 2 5/8”.  Draw a diagonal line on the background squares and lay them on the 5 1/2” square as shown.

Then sew along the diagonal lines.   I like to stitch just off the line to the right as shown in the next picture.  This allows the final square to be exactly 5 1/2”.

Once all four sides are stitched, trim to 1/4” and press to the focus fabric. You should have a 5 1/2” square.

Next is the curved section.   Cut a 4” x9” rectangle from your focus fabric and follow Jenny’s instructions for cutting the curve but cut on both sides of the rectangle.

Then cut the background pieces following Jenny’s instructions and attached them to the focus fabric.

Then trim the curved block down to 5 1/2” x 8 1/2”, being careful to center the design and have the two ends of the focus fabric be around 3/8” wide at the outside edge.

Here are the two pieces sewn together.  The focus fabrics should connect for a total of  about 3/4” at the seam creating a continuous border.  I did manage to dye 3 meters of grey background that matched my original fabric pretty well, yeah!  I hope I decide on a focus fabric color soon as I still have to dye that fabric and I really want to finished this project as I have really enjoyed it! 

New Zealand Prints

 

This quilt belongs to Donna and she purchased this quilt kit while in New Zealand visiting her daughter and family.  What a great souvenir and the fabrics prints depict the plants and animals of the area.   She asked a friend to piece the top for her and then brought it to me to have quilted.   We thought the panto Mimosa would work well on this quilt and since the backing was black we used Black Poly Select batting from Quilter’s Dream. 

Well our warm weather didn’t last long, woke up to –3’ this morning and the open water along the shoreline is frozen over again.   I’m sure it will melt quickly in today sunshine and then all the ducks that have returned will have somewhere to swim besides the ditches.

Little Black Dress

This is another one of Kerri’s quilts and this one is made with the fabric collection Little Black Dress.   She made the large stars using a tutorial from Missouri Quilt Company called The Big Star Quilt but Kerri did her own layout.  She asked for Heraldry for the panto design and Dream Blend batting.   I used black So Fine thread on top and Beige Bottom Line on the back.

Well it was 23’c yesterday and today is suppose to be 21’, the snow is almost gone and the ice is turning gray which is a good sign it will soon be gone!    

The Big EZ Quilt

This is Kerri’s The Big EZ quilt and the pattern is by Bloom Creek, you can find the pattern for sale on their website here.  The largest squares are 15” so this is a good pattern for showing off large scale print fabrics.  I really like how the large squares are worked into the outer border, very cool.

Kerri requested the panto Popcorn and that would have been the one I would have suggested as it is my largest scale panto and works well on the large squares.  Dream Blend batting and So Fine light turquoise thread.

Special Appearance

Remember my pictures of the mud piles on the ice that I thought were muskrat holes, well the muskrat made an appearance last night and stayed around long enough for me to get my camera and put my telephoto lens on.  This was the last picture I took of him before he took one step forward and was gone down the hole, I think he was giving me the evil eye too!

This is the original picture zoomed in as far as I could on my camera while standing at the end of the dock. The picture at the top is cropped in so you can actually see him. 

I made a second Grandma’s Star block…no plan yet just making blocks! :)

Grandma’s Star Block

Back in January my friend Desley sent me a set of acrylic templates to make a Grandma’s Star quilt.   The fabrics on the package didn’t inspire me but Desley has started using them and has sent me pictures of her blocks which look great.  That’s the inspirations I needed to give them a try! :)    I don’t have a color plan yet, I just wanted to make one to see how hard it was….doesn’t that block look hard?  Well it is if you don’t mark the 1/4” stop marks for the Y seams.  Once I started following the instructions it went together much easier!   I think this would be fun in jewel tone batiks but I might make the white Hexi’s around the center a light blue to add more color and keep the background a very light pink. 

Have a great weekend…it’s suppose to reach 17’c here but I’ll believe when I see it!