Glitter Blocks Machine Sewn

Glitter Blocks Machine Sewn

For months I've looked for a good project that would hold my interest, and I think I've found one. It's Glitter by Jen Kingwell, with the pattern found in Quilt Lovely. Years ago I loaned out my copy, and it disappeared unfortunately. I had already made several projects from the book and convinced myself I didn't need it, but this quilt was still nagging me to make it. I had the templates purchased, and though it's a straightforward pattern, I repurchased the book. I really enjoy looking at Kingwell's fabric pairings in the photos, and it feeds me ideas.

Mrs. Bannister's Star Finish and a Y-Seam Link Party

More Design On the Fly

Winter light makes it tough to get the shot just right.

Hand Quilting Mrs. Bannister's Stars

Mrs. Bannister's Stars secondary pattern

Lessons in Quilting with Perle Cotton & Advice from Jen Kingwell About It

All quilters make mistakes.

I make mistakes.

Therefore, I am a quilter.

Don't you love syllogisms? Or not. It's funny the things you think about when your hands are busy, and your mind is free to wander. 

I started out hand quilting in the 1980's, and looked forward to the evenings sitting with a quilt in my lap while we watched a tv together. My lap was soon overtaken by one baby after the next, and I didn't get back to hand quilting until a few years ago. But the draw of FMQ with a domestic led me to try that, and as most of you know, ultimately longarming, which I love. Knowing I can finish a quilt that afternoon is delightful, but there is a seductive pull toward having something available to slow stitch if you crave it.

Bordering On a Finish

I snapped this picture yesterday while the sun was setting. A few of the borders are partially sewn together, but I still haven't decided how to join them together at the corners. Maybe cross them like shown, but a set in corner piece would look wonderful, Y-seams and all! There is no more fear of inset piecing, thanks to Mary Huey's dvd, but I can't tell if it will work yet. Each border will need to be together before I can make a decision. Not everyone feels good working this way, but I do.

The catch in this process is when you design-as-you-go. The center blocks came from the book, Quilt Lovely, by Jen Kingwell, but she completed the project as a pillow. I wanted something else. Let's look at it.

I rearranged the blocks from the way they were initially on the design wall like this--

...to the picture below. Can you see the difference? 

It looked fine to me in person until I took a picture, and uploaded it to my phone and computer. I saw the 2 blocks on the right were deeper in color, and would look more balanced if they were opposite each other. Then I turned the fan points so they looked less matchy-matchy. 

The idea of a border stuck with me, and I found this Mona Luna in my stash. Very modern. The gold is a very traditional print with roses. Using a border at all was a more traditional layout.

The gold border was on, and I realized I had slightly less brown print than was needed. No worries. I slashed off an inch on each side of the gold, and came in just under the wire. There wasn't enough fabric left unless I wanted to piece the borders, and I thought it might ruin it with the big print. The problem I was encountering with it becoming a big square quilt was solved, too.

The dark border separates and frames the stars, and the border color unifies the yellows. It falls right in the middle of the yellows color-wise, and helps the bright yellow tone down while lifting the palest yellow. You might not see it yet, but the brown borders will be different widths. Yet another method to stretch the limited brown fabric.

The overall size was still too small, and begged for another border. I made a new template that somewhat followed the size and dimension of the fan blades, and started through this new stash another quilter had given me. New as in 'new to me'! These pieces are from the 70's back to some feedsack scraps. I pulled out parts of clothing with seams attached, and creatively cut some pieces from them. That gave me a real sense of how past quilters gathered their fabrics. Rarely did a quilt come from new fabric off a bolt. It was made from fabric that had lived another life before it was made into a quilt.

This isn't everyone's thing, I know, to go through old stacks of fabric. Some of them are bitty pieces, but I can see the potential here for beautiful things, and it lifts my heart. Can I let you in on a secret? Some of these belonged to my husband's grandmother, were passed through households, and found their way back to us. Isn't it romantic that my children and future generations will enjoy them?

Today I will simply sew, and live in the moment. The project is taking on a life all its own. Maybe the quilt will beg for another border when this one is on. Maybe it will be a fabric that begs to be given new life. Who knows, but this is why I am a quilter. It feeds my soul.The Pet Project Show opens tonight at midnight, and will feature some of the Doxie girls' and my favorite link ups from the past month. Look for it in the next post. 

Until then...

Come on, Doxie girls.

Let's go sew.

Linking up with~
Monday Makers
Show Off Saturday
Sew Stitching Cute
Crazy Mom Quilts
Quilt Shop Gal
A Quilting Reader's Garden
Quoka Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict


3 Day Weekend Sale!

Pressing On with Mrs. Bannister's Stars

Four blocks done. The first one took a whole afternoon, but the following day I had 3 more done in about 4 hours. The more I hurried, the less focused I was, and the more mistakes I made. On the other hand, I figured out some tricks.

One time saver was using chain-piecing whenever I could. I will tell you that Mary Huey's method for chain-piecing Y-seams works wonders in zipping through repetivite pieces. She has a dvd showing how to consistantly piece Y-seams accurately. Love it!

There was a point on every block when I looked at it, and asked myself if the fabrics were 'working'. It was usually at this point, before I had the lighter backgrounds attached.

See how much more unified the block appears with a background fabric?

The direction the seams are pressed is important. I either moved clockwise or out from the center. Just to remind us all,

PRESS. Lift up. Press down. Don't iron. This block is a good example of what will stretch with all the bias seams. And remember that spray starch is your friend. Use it.

This is the first time I've ever gotten the little star in the center of my pressed back, and I was just tickled about it. Ta-dah!

This yellow dot did not look like a deep yellow when I chose it, but the other colors helped to deepen it. 

Here's a little trick that sometimes helps me get a truer color

with my photos. Include other colors nearby, and crop your photo with an editing program after you take it. It's surprising how much better the actual color is vs. using an all white background.

Now I have to make a decision whether to arrange these

blocks into a pillow, or if they might be better in a quilt. I'm thinking more toward a small quilt after all that effort. I feel like the blocks would benefit from a border or some additional piecing. Back to the stash stack I go!

I do hope you're finding time to stitch today, but if you haven't seen your stash in a while then block off some time for YOU this weekend. We're better at dealing with the crap stuff that comes at us when we've met some of our own needs. Creating makes me feel like I've filled my cup, and some of that love does run over. I'm just a nicer person to be around, and thankful to have it in my life.

Come on, Doxie girls.

Let's go sew.

If you're on Instagram and want some afternoon company while you stitch, post your pictures and tag me @pinkdoxies. I love to have people out there to trade ideas with!

Linking up with~
Quilty Thankful Thursday
My Quilt Infatuation

Never Say Never

'Mrs. Bannister's Stars'
Block from Jen Kingwell's  Quilt Lovely

Some time ago I heard from other quilters that any piecing involving Y-seams was not worth doing. End of story. They had tried everything, and there wasn't one technique that made it easy enough to be successful. I believed them, and from then on knew well enough to avoid patterns with troublesome Y-seams. 

Then I met an experienced quilter who said Y-seams weren't that hard, and you can also chain piece them to make lots of blocks quickly. (What?!) She had my full attention. Meet Mary Huey from the blog, Quilting through Rose-colored Trifocals, and she's made a dvd called Set-in Piecing Simplified available from her blog. I had the chance to see it a few weeks ago. Immediately, I thought of all the projects in Quilt Lovely I had crossed off my To-Do List because of those Y-seams-I-was-Never-doing. I was excited, and ready to give her techniques a try. 

Adding Complexity to the Y-seam Project

Last week I had a stash trade with a friend, and got these amazing fabrics I'd been hunting. All the fabrics either looked vintage or really were. My own stash was organized into modern and current prints, and then older 80's fabrics with a few vintage pieces. Two bins. Either this or that. I never would have thought to use them both in the same project before, but something about the Kingwell patterns hit me as a perfect design for intentionally mixing vintage with modern.

*Note: Jen Kingwell doesn't specifically promote using vintage and modern together in her book, but does use a wide variety of what she likes. She promotes using a huge number of different prints, colors, textures, and styles. Most definitely a reason I'm attracted to her quilts. Most prints in the book tend toward the vintage or reproduction side, which I didn't own. I have a tendency to imagine how every project I come across would look with bright, modern fabrics, but am also highly attracted to the vintage, and especially 1930's prints. I wondered why I was limiting my choices, and how I could tweak her look to make my own.

Could I blend true vintage fabrics with modern prints, 

and make it work successfully?

I would make this goal part of my Y-seam project. I immediately evaluated which project to start out of Quilt Lovely, and fell in love with Mrs. Bannister's Stars. 

Mrs. Bannister's Stars was my pick, but little did I realize the process of making my own templates, etc. at the start. I did a small pile of pieces at night in front of the t.v. before I realized I had cut mirror images when my fabrics weren't all the same side up. Then I used the wrong fabric with the wrong template. Frustrated and tired, I went to bed. I was learning.

The next day I started fresh. I hauled my mess back to the studio where I could stand up to cut things out, and had better focus with no t.v. Afraid I might not be able to do this block, I only cut out the center pieces. Using Mary Huey's technique, I sewed the center together. 

I felt like a Rock 'Star'! 

I will give away no secrets, but only 2 of my seams were

a little off, and I knew right away how to correct them from what I learned on the dvd. It was that good!

Can you pick out the Riley Blakes, DS Collection, and Kate Spain fabrics? Can you tell the vintage here is all real vintage? 

I used a more current, traditonal print for the outer part of the block. There's plenty of mixing in the fabric styles, and I'm all about this project now! 

A Hairy Tangent

When our older kids were very little, I brought home a pony named Buck for them. My husband questioned why I would seriously buy a pony named Buck. Two horses and another pony later, allergies and asthma, I vowed no more horses. Never again.

Meet Hot Tamale, a.k.a. Marco. He's a 5 year old Welsh pony, and the newest barn mate. He stands just 12.1 or around 125 cm.

Love his socks and stripey hooves!

The Llama boys and Evie are just the 
tiniest bit curious.

They track his every move. Introductions are going well, but there is a lot of drama between a fiesty gelding and curious llamas.

I'll keep you up to date on his progress. I, uh, we, hesitated strongly with this pony, and it took some bravery on my part to know my teenager was going to be putting herself at risk with another animal. Fear is a big deterent whether it's a pony or Y-seams, but it can stop us from growing and having the most wonderful of life's experiences. Once again, I remind you of this:

Push yourself to do something today you didn't think you could do. Remind yourself that most mistakes can be corrected, and allow yourself the chance to grow.

Come on, Doxie girls.

Let's go sew some Y-seams.

Linking up with~
Freshly Pieced
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Story
Late Night Quilter
Freemotion by the River
Show and Tell Tuesday
Blossom Heart Quilts
Lily's Quilts