Thursday, February 27, 2014

Winter Retreat

      I am recovering from being on a wonderful quilt retreat last weekend. Quilt retreat is always one of my favorite things.

    I did a little class to teach the other ladies how to make this quilt:


     To help me write the instructions, I remade the quilt, but I wanted to try a different colorway. I thought it would be nice for people to see a low contrast version, as well as a high contrast version. Many thanks to my friend, and fabulous long arm quilter, Regina Carter for her great input on how to improve these instructions.


      It was so much fun to see the other colorways they came
up with. 
 












     Don't you just love the variety!? It was so nice to see these come together over the course of the weekend. It is pretty rare for me to come up with a design that can be done this quickly. I will have more photos from beautiful quilts I saw at retreat in the next blog post. Hope your weekend was wonderful too. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, February 17, 2014

The Laced Star Block


      I found the Laced Star block in this book, which I have had for many many years.

 
  

     There are no rotary cutting directions or measurements in these older quilt books, but there is a wealth of block inspiration! Not really sure how you would cut these pieces without templates anyway.




     You will need a piece of paper that is at least as large as the finished size of the block. Since I was making a 12" block I used freezer paper, which came in handy later.

     First, I drew a 12" square on my freezer paper, then I bisected that square with 2 diagonal lines that run from corner to corner. Next I bisected the square again with 2 straight lines that run across the center of the square. All of these lines should cross in the center of the square.


     Next, draw a line from the lower left hand corner to where the center line meets the right hand side of your square. Give your square a quarter turn, and repeat. Repeat until each corner has a line running from the corner to where the center line meets the side that is to the right of that corner.



     Next, draw a line from where the center line meets the side, to the low point, where lines intersect to the right. Do this all the way around each side of your block.






     Here is a photo with the extra lines cleaned off, Hopefully, this makes it clearer for you, what the pieces are.

     Now you can do one of 2 things. I have a 2nd rotary cutter with an older blade that I use for cutting paper. First, cut this in quarters along the corner to corner diagonal lines.
 

      You can see that I have added numbers and arrows to these pieces. Those of you who like to paper piece can use the numbers to paper piece these 4 quadrants, and sew the quadrants to each other. Remember, there are no seam allowances on that drawing so your fabric pieces will have to exceed the triangle by 1/4" all the way around. 

     A second option, and what I did, was to cut the pieces apart. I added the arrows to help me to know how to orient the triangles once they were cut apart.
 
     
       Then I ironed each piece on to Fabric, using a ruler to add in trhe seam allowance as I was cutting.



      Once I cut all of the pieces out, it was just a matter of sewing them together, first in quarters, the sew the quarters to each other.






     I took a bit of liberty with my fabric placement, just for something a bit different. I hope this helps you make a Laced Star!

Monday, February 10, 2014

A Group Project

    I am a member of a sewing friendship group that meets a couple of times a month. We decided to work on something together this year. We discussed doing  a round robin, but finally decided on an idea we got from the NYC Metro Mod Quilters Blog(see my blog roll on the lower left side of this blog-you may need to scroll down a bit). 

     There are only 6 of us; we didn't want anyone to feel rushed, so we are spending 2 months  on each person, and making each person (2) 12" blocks each. Our first recipient, or "Queen Bee", as they say, was Mary. She furnished the background fabric, some Kaffe prints, and some bright plaids. We could add prints of our own, as long as we used her background choice. Most of us didn't have any bright plaids, so it was lucky that she had plenty. We were each asked to make her a 12" block with a star, and a 12" block that reminded us of something from our friendship with her. 

     We celebrate our birthdays together, and always try to get the "birthday girl" whatever quilty things she has been dreaming of. Last year, I was thinking about making a Dresden Plate quilt, and it was Mary who gave me this Nancy Zieman Dresden Plate, Trace and Create Quilt template set from Clover. I thought it would be appropriate to use it to make a block for her that is supposed to represent a memory that I have of her. By the way, I will be starting that Dresden Plate quilt soon; but that's beside the point. So, one of my blocks for Mary was a Dresden plate fan. 

     The other is called a "Laced Star".





      I still need to hand stitch the center of the Dresden Plate. 

     Next post, I will explain how I drafted, and made that Laced Star.

      I finished this quilt, made a back for it and gave it to Regina Carter, my fabulous long arm quilter.


     I have also finished the center of this quilt. I am currently working on getting the pieced border together.

 
 
      See what other quilters are up to today at http://www.patchworktimes.com/2014/02/10/design-wall-monday-february-10-2014/

     Thanks for stopping by!