Becky's quilt obsession

I have been remiss the last two Fridays in  posting about my fellow scrap squad members’ quilts being up on the Quilty Pleasures Blog . Be sure and check these out! I finished my top for the second Scrap Squad project – all but the final border – but had so many left over pieces from trying different looks that, last week, I gradually put them together.I don’t know how I calculated, but I had enough components to make 4 additional stars out of triangle in a square units, which I made up with some left-over centers. I then had an additional 40 triangles left-over. I had cut them with the Accuquilt cutter, and was less than satisfied in how they turned out. I lined up the straight-grain as suggested, but must have had a lot of stretch, as I never could find a seam allowance that would give me a 3-1/2” unit with the star points long enough. I decided to cut 80 additional star points using the Recs part of my Tri-Recs rulers. They fit together fine, and I had better results. I h...

One of the sets of unfinished blocks from my grandmother’s sewing area were these 6 pointed stars set with a hexagon in the middle. I think of them as star flowers. I don’t have early pictures of these, but they all had been set at some time, and then ripped apart, with a LOT of thread tails remaining in the fabric. They smelled like my mother’s house, which had been in Missouri’s 1993 flood up to her floorboards. I remember spreading out these blocks and using a lot of Febreeze on them. By the time I finished I hated the smell of Febreeze mixed with musty! I remember taking them with me on one of my flights to see now DH in California. The flight is about 3 1/2  hours long, not counting the waiting time. I took a tape roller with me, and teased out all the threads. Grandma had a treadle machine, and sometimes it made really tiny stitches. Grandma’s quilts were unique. She worked with the fabrics at hand, and if a quilt was for a specific person, she used scraps sent to her by...

I’m creating monsters at my house. Every time I go to the quilt room, someone comes along and wants to make her own quilt. The 6-year-old DGD asked me if she was old enough to learn how to sew – Yep, it’s time. The one in the picture is 4 – almost 5 – and she found a baggie of HSTs, and decided that they needed to go in this quilt! This is the quilt I planned on making “modern style” – just surrounded squares with a small bit of sashing. BORING! Bonnie S left a comment that the star really helped this quilt, then I got carried away. I found a circle cutter that I didn’t remember, then watched a video on how to use it, and just had to try it.  I love the one with the coke bottle in a 4 patch, and stars in circles. Then the zebra, elephant, cats  - okay, then let’s fracture a few blocks. I have the book Thinking outside the block on the table beside me, and just have to try a little bit. The clarinet didn’t stand out in a regular square, so that’s the first one I tried fractu...

I’ve had multiple inquiries about the quilt in my header, but most of them have been left by visitors that are no reply. I decided I would just post about it, so everyone would know. This quilt hangs above our King-size bed, so I pulled the bottom of the quilt forward over the pillows to take a picture of the whole thing. This, of course, made it keystone, but that’s the best I can do. I was fortunate early on in my quilting hobby passion, to take a two day class at a LQS from Alex Anderson called Simply Stars . That class changed how I made blocks. She demonstrated how to make blocks “even” on the outside so you didn’t cut off points. She taught us a Split LeMoyne star, which is my favorite block.  I also learned how to make flying geese by just cutting them out and sewing them together – 3 triangles –and they turn out fine! I had begun teaching a beginning class in hand piecing, but it rapidly changed to machine piecing. Then I started teaching what I learned in her class – s...

Judy L http://www.patchworktimes.com/ is hosting looks on people's design walls, and if I can figure out the link process, I think I'll play along. I don't know how blogger is going to display these pictures, so I guess I'll just wing the descriptions. The picture that I think will be the top left one is a picture of my right design wall. It holds a vertical row of lone star blocks, that I thought I was going to use in the corners of a secret project. When I brought out the fabric that goes with it, I decided that 12" blocks weren't large enough, so yesterday I started on 17" rolling star blocks - the top right picture, I think. Talk about set-in seams! I think only the last 4 triangles were sewn on edge to edge, the rest of the seams, after making the diamond star points, were all single seams with back stitching at both ends. It is a good thing I really like making 45 degree diamond blocks. I only need 4 total of rolling stars for my secret project. The...