Finally a Reason to Learn to use the 45 Degree Line on my Ruler!

I've been at this quilting thing for 4ish years now, and all this time I've stared at my 6.5"x24.5" ruler at the 45º mark on it and wonder what on earth I'm supposed to do with it. I know I'm not the only one, I've heard time and time again about people getting intimidated or confused by how or why to use that line. Well, I found a reason to use it and you know? It wasn't difficult. Like, at all. Once you get the hang of the first cut or two, it's cake!

So I decided to do the Spirals Tabletopper by Designs to Share with You. It's looks way more complicated than it is, and it doesn't require a ton of fabric to make...so, perfect!

Here in Oregon, Summer has been an elusive beast this year. And even though it's just barely starting to feel summerish, the tree in my front yard is already donning it's fall colors. Yes, in July, and no, the tree isn't sick. And at the shop, fall fabrics are starting to arrive and people are gearing up for their fall projects, so I decided to (even though all of me wanted a bright, summery tabletopper) go for a more fallish theme. These are the fabrics I chose:

 

The turkeys are a lot more vibrant than they appear here, and that dark fabric is actually a very deep black-green, with a hunter green speckle. It doesn't photograph well, but it matches up with the turkey's feathers very well (in real life). 

So until after I got my basic pieces cut, I didn't realize I'd need a little bit of 45º know how. I don't know what I was thinking I'd be doing method-wise to put it together, but I guess it just didn't occur to me that a 45º cut would be a possibility. Siiiiiilly me. 

 See? When it's broken down (the above is the first round) you see the definite need for a 45º cut. So, how on earth did that work out using that line? Because, I mean, I'll be honest, my method was to just eyeball it until I read through the instructions. Imagine that. But all you have to do to guarantee your cut is on that 45º and correct for the next round is get that 45º mark on your ruler lined up with your seam, and then line up the corner of the rule with the edge of the fabric the cut will need to equal. Then all that's left to do is hunker down and take the cut. Easy peasy. See?:

 So here's Round 2. Maybe I'm one of those "looking for faces in clouds" people, but uh, is it just me, or at this stage does it look like a swastika? The pattern stops here with a note that says if you want it bigger cut a few more strips. ....I went out into the living room after I got to this part and asked JOhn what he thought of it. He said he liked the colors, and I asked if it reminded him of anything else, perhaps...and he immediately said, "Swastika." Soooooo....there you have it:

So I went ahead and added the third round. I like it MUCH better. I wish the colors photographed better, but I assure you, it's very fallish and it really does match.

The pattern itself leaves a little to be desired in terms of instruction, it's not always clear as to how to put it together, but on the other hand, it wasn't difficult to figure out. Once I got my fabrics cut, piecing the whole thing too all of maybe an hour, hour and a half. So it's a quick and reasonably simple pattern to make, so if you need a quick bit of decor to freshen up your seasonal home or a quick gift for someone...this is a good bet!

Hand-Me-Down UFOs

Lately a very common statement I hear at the shop and with quilting friends is that either A) they need to use up their stash, or B) they want to finish UFOs before getting anything new. I've even tried to commit to those ideas too, with medium style success.

But even with a lot of determination, we look at our old projects with mixed emotions. Sometimes we see them with renewed vigor and get back on track ...but then other times... we look at those unfinished projects and just groan and shove it back to the back of the bin. And if we reeeeeeally never want to see the project again, we "donate" it to family or friends who sew and who we hope will finish them so we don't have to!

Well, in the past few months lots in my life and in the lives of my family and friends has changed - people have moved, gotten ill, had surgery...all that great life event stuff. So as folks cleaned out their sewing rooms and revisited those UFOs, I ended up taking a handful of them and I'm glad I did! They may have hated them, but I sure don't. Some of them are sets of completed blocks, and others are close to finished.

Here are a few of them. Looks like I've got my work cut out for me!

This one is an old project of Mom's that she started when I was...a toddler? It's definitely from the early 90s and it was one she utterly detested. So instead of her scrapping the blocks, she gave them to me to do whatever with...so I made it. All I added were the borders:

   
 This one is another from Mom. She just decided she was never going to get to again and again, instead of roundcanning it, she gave it to me to finish. Really all that needs done is stitching the applique down:

And this one a customer brought in for me. She just wasn't happy with where it was going, had run out of fabric and was just not inspired to ever work on it ever again. As luck would have it, another customer completely unrelated to the one that gave me the quilt to finish, gave me the very same fabric the other quilter had run out of - 6 1/2 yards to boot!

So if you really hate one of your UFOs, you might just find it a home with someone else! Not me though...looks like I've got plenty to keep me out of trouble :)

We All Got 'Em; My Very First Quilt

In the great scheme of things, I'm a pretty new quilter. Sure, I've been around quilts, quilters and quilting my entire life, but it wasn't until about 4 years ago (when I was 21) that I really got into quilting at all. Logic says that it was around that time that I made my very first quilt...but that's not the truth. I still have my first blocks that I paper pieced with my mom from when I was 6. Let's just say that while my seams were all right, my color choices were enough to gag a maggot.

But I started my very first quilt about 9 years ago when I was 16. It was a yellow brick road style pattern, super simple and Mom had picked some cute Halloween prints from her stash to entice me into actually wanting to sew. It lasted for a few days until I realized that, hey, sewing isn't as easy as it looks! I got all my blocks sewn, but good lord was I terrible at it! My seam allowance was all over the place, my pressing left something to be desired and I managed to stretch those pieces into oblivion. I quit. A few years later I laid the quilt out and sewed the blocks into rows, and attempted to put the rows together only to find I was still terrible and nothing matched! I stuffed everything into a bag and didn't look at it again until 3 years ago. it was then that I took apart the rows and some of the blocks and fixed some pretty glaring errors that just weren't "workable." I got sick of looking at it and moved on to other things. About a year and a half ago I picked and put on an inner border, and away the quilt went. Well, after 9 years, 2 months ago I selected and put on the outer border and gave it to Frances to quilt.

Nine years later...my very first quilt is done. We chose a star pattern and a variegated thread to pop in the borders. As far as I was concerned, the quilt could only look better with quilting since it was so wavy and wonky from my lack of skill and patience. But now it's done and all it needs is binding!

Guatemalan Flora Row Quilt

I know, I know, I promised a long time ago to update more, and well, after getting let go from my job (not at the shop)...let's just say that just because you're technically unemployed it doesn't mean you aren't crazy busy! I wish I could say I had more time now than ever to sew, but sadly, that's simply not the truth. I've gotten a few projects done (or mostly done) and this is one of them.

Guatemalan Flora is a line of fabric from Robert Kaufman, and yeah, it's about a year and a half old...about as old as this sample is. It got pushed, as many do, to the back, back, back, waaaaaaaaay back burner as more urgent projects took the lead and this one sat and figuratively molded on my UFO shelf. Okay, who am I kidding? I have a complete set of shelves dedicated to UFOs. I wish I were kidding....I'm not.

But back to the quilt! This fabric came with a lot of great, large scale graphic florals and stripes, but the fabric I chose was a large border stripe with lots of littler rows with the larger ones. A lot of times we see these big stripes and think, "Well, this is only good for a border really," and we get stuck in a borders rut. But these large border stripes can be fussy cut into blocks, or a length of yardage to make into a row quilt, which I chose to do. Row quilts get scoffed at quite a bit simply because of their simplicity, and I don't think that's quite right. Even though they're about as simple as you can get, they can have a real impact and they don't have to just stay in long rows either! I cut mine apart and put large strips in between to break it up. But it made a large quilt very quickly and after it sitting on that shelf for months and months, it was totally pieced and ready for the quilter in an afternoon.

 I interuppted the stripe pieces with coordinating fabrics from my stash to get it to the size I wanted, since using only the rearranged stripe pieces it fell a little short.

 Here you can see the scale. In the upper left corner is my wastepaper basket and the right, my dresser. It's pretty large!

Now it's quilted and I thought I took a picture of the quilting, but I apparently didn't, so I'll have to update with a picture of the new quilting. Frances used a fantastic floral pattern and a really gorgeous variegated thread. All it needs now is the binding!