The Making of Twirling Aqua

I was so excited to share Twirling Aqua, I didn't post anything about the making of the top. . . and there is SO much to share! This is not a tutorial, this is a rundown of the tips and tricks I learned while making this top.

HSTs. . . I am officially obsessed! SO many options, so little time! Haven't given that much thought? Me either. . . until now. Check out this site 'Easy Triangle Quilting Patterns' to get a major dose of inspiration and OMG I have to try thats! (I know thats isn't a word but that is what I said in my head) I may or may not have spent hours on this site and have a plan brewing for the next quilt! 

There are SO many ways to make HSTs and I think I've read and tried just about every one. It's not the making of them that I find challenging - it's putting them together and keeping those pesky points!! With this quilt, I was able to keep every.single.point! In the interest of full disclosure, those points don't always match up perfectly - but they are there! How did I make it work this time? First, the method that worked for me was to sew two squares together with my marked lines being the sewing lines  - if I'm following a line, my sewing tends to be WAY more straight! I measured a scant 1/4 inch from the opposite corners instead of drawing a line down the middle and then a scant quarter from that line. I found this gave me a more accurate measurement.

You can see on the darker fabric, I have two lines drawn, not one down the middle.

I also have struggled in the past with distorting the blocks while ironing once they are cut apart. I have always been a lover of using steam. . . I used no steam with these blocks. Not because I wanted to see if it made a difference, but because my new iron doesn't like to give consistent steam. . . (OK, a little side note here - I have had a very strong dislike for this iron from the day I bought it - the automatic shut off turns it off at any time - even while I am ironing. . . and I have to bang it on the ironing board to get it to turn on again!! FRUSTRATING to say the least!! It is a Shark - I had read mixed reviews. . . my feet are planted firmly in the 'would not ever buy again' camp.) Anyway, back to steam, no steam. . . I found that I had NO distortion using no steam! I might need to thank Shark for that one major aha moment as I don't know it would have happened had the iron performed as it was advertised. . . still not enough for me to buy another!

So now I have my lovely HST blocks all ironed (after much banging of the iron to get it to turn back on . . . GRRRR) and my straight lines are all still straight! YAY Oh, I also ironed my seams open - there's a good amount of bulk created when sewing HSTs together and I wanted to reduce that - and we all know I am an open seam kind of girl ;)

BAD iron, beautiful HSTs :D

On to trimming - yes, trimming. The more accurate the blocks are, the better those points are going to be! I found the best way to trim was to line up the 45 degree angle on my square ruler, having a little to trim on all sides of my  block size worked wonders! I know you might be thinking, duh no kidding, but this is one of those things that I don't typically see in tutorials and it has taken a good amount of trial and error to figure this out. So if you are one of those people who are a little slow on the uptake like me. . . hopefully I can save you some frustration! :)

When you are done trimming, you should have sharp concise corners of each of the fabric pieces on both sides of the seam. . . hopefully that makes sense. . . no extra bits of one fabric or the other at the corner. . . Oh heck, if that doesn't make sense, please leave me a comment or email me, I'll try to 'splain that better! :)

Now we have our perfect HST blocks! Spending the extra time to get the blocks as close to perfection as possible, is going to save LOTS of headaches when sewing these bad boys together! Let's talk about sewing them together. . . It has been awhile since I did any piecing on Rosanne - I had forgotten how wonderful she is in the piecing department! I used the Accufeed 1/4 inch walking foot for all of my piecing. Walking foot for piecing? YES! I have found that using the walking foot makes the fabric easily feed through evenly without having to futz around in order to not have that extra bit of the top or bottom piece be longer at the end of the seam. Having very precisely squared up blocks helps this along and I didn't have to worry about whether my diagonal seams were matching up right. Gotta love that! :)

On to sewing rows together, this is where I struggle the most and is the step where points are lost. . . BOO for lost points! ;) I found the best way for ME was to put a pin directly through where the seam should be to keep those points. The pin is perpendicular to the fabric, not laying flat. I would put the pin in place when I was about 4 to 5 inches from the needle. I then hold that pin in place until I got just to the needle. Now, this requires a little bit of practice and fenagleing (not sure that is officially a word, but it is officially a word in my world! LOL) - it is easy to be applying too much pressure and have that pin slip down to the feed dogs. . . believe me, you DON'T want that to happen! I was also a little sad because this does tend to leave scratch marks on the bobbin cover - I'm going to deal with that because the results made it worth it to me! Disclaimer here, by doing this, there is a potential to totally mess up the timing on your machine if the pin slips down into the feed dogs. I'm not responsible for any damage this might cause ;) I'm just sharing my daring (probably not so smart in terms of what could happen to the machine) ways with you that worked for me. Try at your own risk!

I tried pinning, not pinning and doing what I described above - doing what I described above resulted in the BEST outcome each and every time. 

If you have hung in there this long, congratulations! I said I had a lot to say! LOL Three more things. . . Chain piecing.  I have to admit, I have not been a fan. . . I've been slow to jump on the band wagon. . . that all changed with this quilt! From sewing the squares together to sewing the quilt top together, I chained pieced this one. I.am.a.convert! Everything went together SO much faster! I admit, sometimes I am a slow learner! LOL

Second, sometimes the very first layout put on the design wall - is the best! I'm still in shock that I actually left the first go as it was an just sewed it together!

And third, Peppered Cottons (the dark grey is Peppered Cotton) - I had heard stories about issues with fraying. I had none. I am going to attribute this to the fact that I SOAK my fabric with starch prior to cutting. . . I mean SOAK. :) I did not pre-wash - I don't pre-wash anything.ever. Also, make sure that you order enough fabric to finish your project. . . Because I had intended these fabrics for a different quilt, I was a fat quarter short of being able to add an additional row to the length of the quilt. . . I had a fat quarter from a bundle of Peppered Cottons that is waiting for it's turn to be cut up into a quilt. The colors were not.even.close. I was going to add the row using the fat quarter anyway, and my husband (who doesn't typically have strong reactions one way or the other) said "Don't do it!" OK, message received and I actually complied!! ;)

There you have it, all of the things I learned about sewing with HSTs :) An update to the status of the top - The backing is pieced and I was able to use almost every usable scrap of fabric! This is definitely going to be another reversible quilt - LOVE that! :) I spent the day yesterday doodling. I'll spend today and probably most of tomorrow quilting. . . I am definitely on track to finish the quilt by Friday. . . and then I can start pulling fabric for my next HST adventure!! :D 

One of the many pictures of Twirling Aqua posted here.

Linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday. Check it out to see what others are working on and for a healthy dose of inspiration :)

Until next time, keep on quilting!

Twirling Aqua

Bet you are surprised to see me back so soon! Yeah, me too!!! Guess what?? I have finished a flimsy!! Started on Monday. Finished on Saturday. I am starting to feel like my old self again!! LOL I'm going to do most of this post in pictures :) Before we start, let me just say I am in love with this flimsy!! I'm thinking I'm going to call it Twirling Aqua :) I'd love to hear what you think of the name. Here we go!

Remember these?

This was a half yard bundle bought at Fortworth Fabric. It was one of their Friday Bundle Batches. Helen, over at Til We Quilt Again, enticed me into buying this bundle. . . Thanks, Helen (ok, she may have just shown the bundle she bought on her blog. . . and I had to have it LOL)!! :D

If you have been following along for awhile, you may remember that I was going to turn them into a bunch of these. . . (tutorial).

That was awhile ago. . . ;) and since I really needed this project to be FUN, not fiddly, not slow, no ripping, no fuss no muss, I decided to cut them into 8" squares and make a bunch of these:

Half Sqaure Triangles! Oh my, I might have a new obsession!!! No, really. . . it could be bad in a really good way! LOL

 Cut them to make a pile of these.

Ironed them to have 8 stacks of 10 HSTs

I may or may not have miscalculated the amount I would end up with. . . Duh. . . I thought I was going to end up with 40. . . I know. . . I was VERY happy when I had 80 LOL

 Trimmed them to 7.5" squares.

LOVE pictures of trimmings! LOL Umm, yes, that is my crochet blanket in the background. I was going to cut it out but I left it in - I'm at a stand still until I get the yarn I ordered to finish it :(

And I turned those 80 squares (plus one LOL I did a 9x9 layout) into this.

LOVE it!! SO much fun to put together and FAST!

Close up. . . it's very cloudy out today but I could not wait to share this one!! LOL

Was not sure whether putting all of the lights in the center and then going darker as the spiral grew would work. . . this was the first and ONLY layout I did with these blocks! I thought I would play for a couple of days. . . I was so happy with this layout I went with it :) Now that is a first for me!!

Because I was pretty meticulous in squaring the blocks up, the top came together pretty quick and the points are all pretty darn good! Some points may or may not be as crisp as I would like - but remember what I said at the beginning? NO RIPPING on this one!

I kinda like these angled long shots :)

Because the quilt is square - it could be oriented like this :) Personally, I like the dark on top better. What do you think?

And one more. . . just cuz :)

I have SO much to say about this top. . . but I'm going to save it :) I've started another post - I'll link it here when I get it done. I am now off to piece the backing. My goal is to get every inch of that fabric into this quilt because you know how I feel about scraps. . . don't judge, I just don't like them - they clutter my head! LOL 

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I plan to have Twirling Aqua quilted and bound next week. . . I'm going to have SO much fun quilting this one!! :) 

Slid in just under the wire to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday!! Go check out all of the amazing inspiration! Hope you are all having an amazingly wonderful weekend!

Until next time, keep on quilting! I know I will be ;)

Pastel Nightmare OVER! :)

I won't bore you with going into a rant about how much I dislike pastels. If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you already know that and have read previous rants. I also won't indulge in discussing how much this quilt killed my sewing mojo. If you want to read about that, go here. It is done. Completely 100% finished. And I don't have to deal with it any more! 

As usual, pictures first (ummm... a lot of pictures. . . I haven't shown much of this quilt in process. I'll make up for it with a lot of final pictures!).

Quilt Stats: 59" x 71"

Fabric: All Michael Miller fabrics. Solids on the front and prints on the back. Since the quilt was originally designed to be submitted to Quiltcon for the Michael Miller Challenge and was pieced prior to my decision to forgo entering it, I followed the rules. . . how unusual for me! LOL If you want names of any of the specific fabrics, email me or comment, I'll look them up. :)

Thread: Completely pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50 wt thread. I matched the colors in the quilt. The quilting in the negative space was done with all of the colors used in the stars. 

Batting: Quilter's Dream Wool. My go to batting. This quilt is pretty densely quilted - it is not stiff. At.all. Love working with this stuff :)

Piecing: I used Jaybird Quilts Sidekick ruler for the diamonds. I only had to do two Y-seams. This was my first attempt at doing Y-seams it it really was not that bad! It lined up with no puckers on the first try both times!! Not sure why I have been skeered of Y-seams for all of this time! 

Quilting: I had a quilting plan all laid out. . . and even finished it - and then learned that those out there in blog land that had written about too much thread coming together at a point will make a quilt bow, weren't kidding. . . I had to rip it all out! I didn't even take a picture of it. Believe me, it was a mess. So much so that I spent an entire four days of ripping. . . full days. 8 hr days. . . I ended up doing straight line quilting echoing the stars (OK, not exactly straight but pretty close). For the straight line quilting in the negative space and to echo the inside of each of the stars I used my walking foot. The fabric stars were FMQed with different designs in each one. By the time I hit the last one I was struggling with something that would work in what turns out to be some rather odd spaces. As you can see in the green star, I started with one design, decided I did not like it and instead of ripping it out (seriously, after ripping for four days on this thing I was not about to spend one more minute!!), I just started doing something different. . . I see it clearly. Did you notice? :) I'd love to hear what you think! 

What did I learn in making this quilt? Well, first a major positive - I will never pass on a design or decide I can't do a particular quilt because it has Y-seams! It was actually kind of exciting turning it over and holding my breath in anticipation of seeing whether or not it actually worked! LOL It's the little things people! I watched many tutorials on Y-seams. In the end, an oldie but a definitely a goodie was the one I followed. She had me at "we're going to break the rules a little from what you may have seen". . . Kaye Wood break rules?? Sign me up! :D

Another positive - the Sidekick ruler - LOVE it! I also have the Hex 'n More ruler but have not used it yet. . . I think with the two of them, one could make some pretty amazing quilts! Well, we know that, I'm sure you've seen the quilts on Jaybird Quilts blog!

And one more positive - Michael Miller's Cotton Couture fabric is really wonderful! Not as heavy as Kona but I wish you could feel how soft it is! I will be using Cotton Couture fabric again - just not these pastel colors :)

I said it a few posts ago and if you followed the link at the beginning of this post you already have read that I also learned that working with colors that do not inspire me - is a creativity killer for me. I can already feel my mojo coming back in force! I have my next quilt mostly designed and will start cutting today! YAY I'll post more about that in a day or two. 

With the completion of this quilt, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can move on! It is amazing that once I decided I was not going to submit this quilt to Quiltcon, I sat down and just started quilting - whatever came to mind. And I think it works rather well. 

So there you have it. I didn't name the quilt. The recipient's name is Kimber. . . this is Kimber's quilt LOL I know she will love this quilt. Maybe she will take it with her to Kindergarten for nap time and sleep under the stars :)

Linking up with Design Wall Monday, Amy over at 13 Spools for Mistakes and All, Let's Bee Social and Finish it up Friday. Woohoo, two consecutive Fridays with completed quilts! Gotta love that!!  

Off Course Done and Dusted

We took Off Course outside for her photo shoot yesterday. The binding is sewed on and she has been through the wash. I submitted her to QuitCon. Now, with all of you out there that have entered quilts, I wait. I don't like this part! haha I would be thrilled to have her hang at QuiltCon but I know the competition is stiff and if the quilt number Off Course was assigned is any indication of how many entries had been received up until yesterday afternoon - holy wow!! 714!!! I'm kinda not holding my breath on this one. . .

Speaking of waiting. The wait is over for Spin as to whether or not she got accepted into Road to CA. She did not. Disappointed? For about 10 seconds, yes. I was a little  surprised at how little the 'rejection' effected me! I guess my perspective helps. . . it's a crap shoot (literally!! LOL) and the process is subjective to those who are doing the jury process. What floats my boat may not float theirs. Wouldn't the land of quilts be a totally boring place if we all loved the same things?? I for one hope that never happens!

Here are some pictures of Off Course Done and dusted. . . OK a LOT of pictures LOL

Close up of quilting.

Another closeup of quilting....

And another. . . Yup that's my arm and hand LOL

And another for good measure :)

And another close up just because.

And a shot of the back :)

Quilt Stats: 58.5" x 68"

Fabric:The New Colourshott fabrics for the background, Vintage Silver (COTX28), Charcoal (COTX29), Black (COTX30); the blues are Banda (COTX16), Timor (COTX17) and Celebes (COTX18); and the pinks/purples are Lilac (COTX19), Sweet Pea (COTX20) and Dusk (COTX21). I have said it before and I will say it again - these new Colourshott fabrics are nothing short of amazingly awesome! Michael's customer service can.not.be.beat! Check out the Shotthrough blog for free patterns and lots of inspiration! You might see Off Course there. . . OK, you will if you go here!! How cool is that?? :D I used Widescreen by Carolyn Friedlander in black for the back. Seriously LOVE this fabric for backings!!

Batting: I used a double bat of Quilter's Dream Wool and Quilter's Dream Select 100% Cotton. I have used this combo on several quilts - LOVE! Even though this quilt is pretty densely quilted, it is not stiff or hard. Gotta love that!!

Thread: Isocord for everything. . . colors? Not sure. . . Black for the back. I matched the colors for the front.  If you are interested in the color numbers, let me know, I'll stop being lazy and look them up! HA

Piecing technique: I did not paper piece this however I did draw up two different templates. One for the blue geese, one for the purple/pink. I cut the triangles for the geese and the 'wings' from the templates and then pieced them together. It actually worked well. The blocks finish at 9". For the negative space, I cut 9.5" wide strips and pieced them to the geese by rows and cut them to size as I went. Probably not the most efficient way of doing it. . . but then again we all know there are times I'm not known for my efficiency :D 

My biggest lesson learned in the process of making this quilt? Sometimes what seems like a complete total disaster in quilting turns out to be exactly as it should have been from the start! You can go here to read about my little melt down moment when I was quilting this quilt :)

So there you have it folks. Finally, a completely finished quilt! It seems like FOREVER since I had a finish! Oh yeah, it has (at least for me)!  I have an hour of quilting left on the MM Challenge quilt that is no longer going to be entered into the challenge. I'll do the big reveal of that quilt when it is finished (Monday at the latest because I am planning on going to start a new quilt tomorrow. . . WOOHOO! Since I made the decision not to enter the quilt - I'm liking it a little more! AND the quilting plan came together right after I wrote my last blog post about how this quilt killed my mojo!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday and Sew She Can for Show Off Saturday.

Miss me? :)

Crickets. . . there loud over in this little corner of the internets lately aren't they?? I decided I was going to put the pedal to the metal and get the MM Challenge quilt finished and hand sew that binding onto Off Course. In the process, I have been skimming blog posts of all of you wonderful quilters out there on my phone. Which means I'm not commenting much. . . And it also meant that I was insanely green with jealousy every.day. of all of the beautiful eye candy being finished out there and me sitting here. . . with this (I don't even know that I can come up with the right adjective right at the moment and most of them I am coming up with are probably not appropriate) quilt that I really intensely do.not.like. I'm going to give you my conclusion in case you get tired of reading this post half way through ;) I have decided this quilt is not going to be submitted for the challenge. It has stymied me for a month in terms of how to quilt it (and of course I thought I had that all figured out prior to finishing the top but NONE of what I had thought was 'perfect' came even close) and then when I had quilted the negative space, all of it had to be ripped out (4 days of ripping). It would.not.lay.flat. I might have it finished by the deadline, but I don't think it is going to rise to the level of being a quilt that should be submitted to a challenge. Honestly, I feel like a great burden has been lifted and I am now going to contemplate what I am going to make next. What I have learned so far in making this supposed 'challenge' quilt (Unlike AZ, it is cold and cloudy today - pictures are just not possible but I'll share updated pictures soon. . . it can't stay cloudy for long right??):

1. I need to think longer than 2 minutes before jumping into a challenge. . . It seems that I am not one that can take fabrics (more specifically colors - MM Cotton Couture fabrics are really fabulous to work with . . . just not these colors. . . for.me.) I really do.not.like and turn them into something 'spectacular.' I have made a couple of other quilts in which I used fabrics with which I was not happy. I hated the entire process of making those quilts. It seems to turn the entire process into a job. I don't have a job. There's a reason for that! haha 

2. I had not realized before (and maybe because my process is changing) that I start the process of making a quilt long before the fabric is purchased and the first cuts are made. I need to have a picture in my head. A plan of action. Even if it is going to be an improv quilt, I need some order to the chaos. Perfect examples are Spin and Off Course. The designs for both of those quilts came to me pretty much at the same time. I played around with blocks, techniques and colors (for almost a month) before I committed to making either of them. I think my days of seeing a new Jenny Doan video and running to the LQS for fabric to make it are likely going to be few and far between. And that is how I quilted for the first 9 months of my quilting journey. The tides seem to be turning. . . 

3. Putting pressure on myself to finish a quilt that has to be 'quilt show quality' does absolutely nothing for me but completely squash, stomp out, bury, completely destroy my sewing mojo. Pretty sure I'm not going to put myself through that again (any time soon... I admit, I'm impulsive it might happen again but if it does - could you please send me an email with a link to this post in it? lol)

4. When I don't sew. . . I find other ways to get my need to make things met :) I'll show you some of my crocheting makes at the end of this post. Oh, and lest you think that crochet might save you some money over quilting. . . I have officially found that this is NOT the case LOL 

Those are the biggest lessons so far with this nightmare challenge quilt. I am currently contemplating where this quilt will call home. . . in the mean time, I'm going to straight line quilt those stars, put a scrappy binding made up of the left over solids and call it good.enough.

OK, just so you have some pretty pictures to look at :) Here is what I have finished and started with my hook(s) :) 

This is a Minni Mouse beanie I made for a little girl's first birthday :) The ears and bows need to be repositioned. . . that will happen on Monday when I see her and mark the correct placement. I used this WONDERFUL basic beanie pattern for the beanie and this pattern for the ears and bow (with my own little changes thrown in ;)

Remember this mitten (go to bottom of post) I didn't like... so I ripped it out and made these - LOVE!!! :D Easy peasy made with this pattern. My only change was that I did not do back loop only, I used both loops - I wanted these babies to be dense :)

And last but certainly not least. . . LOVE this!! These are all of the colors, I'll do two rows of each color (as seen with the start of the second blue strip), then do three rows of each color, back to two rows and then one row. . . I might even add a border. . . I have never done a border in crochet before... we'll see :) The plan is for it to end up a very large throw. . . yes, I need to go back to the yarn store for more of the yarn. . . I am using this absolutely FABULOUS (and mindless - good for I'm too tired to sew times!) pattern. There is a link in the pattern to the tutorial - it is also awesome, highly recommend!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday.

Until next time, keep on quilting!!

Sweet Progress

Few words, many pictures. . . really! Don't have time to write a long post (adult responsibilities are calling loudly and I have to get out of the studio!) but just quick, Off Course is squared, binding is sewn on the front and glued to the back. Let the hand sewing commence! I have had no issues so far - I'm going to say it again, if you are having 'binding issues' (of the quilty kind of course) watch Sharon Schamber's binding video. More steps and more work? Might seem like it but I can tell you this, it was WAY faster for me than having to take the binding off and put it back on ;) I even took a couple of snaps of the back! And finally a couple of pictures of some crocheting I have done out of necessity - cooler temps are here in the early morning hours. We take the pups out mountain biking every morning and I have been F R E E Z I N G. So I whipped up a cap, fingerless mittens and I'm working on a scarf :)

Enjoy the show!

Linking up with Connie for Linky Tuesday, Lee for WIP Wednesday, Lorna for Let's Bee Social, Kelly for NTT. Check out all of the inspiration found at these wonderful linky parties! Oh, and don't forget to vote for your favorite quilts over at the Bloggers Quilt Festival!! 

P.S. I think my sewing mojo is back! YAY :)

Until next time, keep on quilting!!