Nothing New In Podunk

These past few days have been spent quilting and cooking, but I have nothing new to share.  So, I thought this would be a good time to give a shout out to a couple new to me YouTube Channels I think are worth watching.

The first one is Blue Rooster Farm.  Karen's channel is more than quilting she also cooks and does small sewing and craft projects.

Her recent projects caught my eye, it took all I had not to run to the fabric cabinets and start a new project.  Click on the images below to go to the videos on YouTube and to find the free printable pattern for them.

The next channel is From Small Things.  Sue is a very talented scrap quilter from the Pennsylvania Dutch area.  I love her simple style. She shares tips for saving and using scraps. My favorite thing about Sue is her orphan block quilts and the explanation of her process for making them, an area where I have issues.  

Her YouTube Channel is fairly new but it's growing fast. The video I'm sharing today is one of her first videos from 4 months ago.  It's about thrifty fabric purchasing. She also shares one of her orphan block quilts up close and explains some the hows and whys of the designing. Click on the image to go to the video on YouTube. 

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Wordless Wednesday ~ Bow-Tie Quilting

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Fabric Discipline

Slow progress is being made on my version of the Old Town Mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter.

When I say my version, it means I've made some changes.  First change was the colors.

It needed to be changed to a more usable color pallet. I liked her colors, but would I really use the quilt?

The second change is the sashing.  When I participate in Bonnies yearly mystery, I always draw up her quilt in EQ after the big reveal.  Doing this lets me see how the color changes will look.  This one is cute, but I feel like my green sashing is too loud. It's screaming at me like a spoiled 3 yr. old child in the checkout lane of the grocery store.  So, as any good parent would do, I'm going to correct it now because if I don't the screams will only get worse as the years go by. 

Everyone has their techniques for dealing with screamers.  Mine has always been to give them attention.  I'm going to give this little one just what it needs to stay in the quilt and behave.  She was removed for a little disciplinary action.  Discipline takes a little extra time but it's worth it in the long run.  It didn't take very long to whip up a few star points.  Now she no longer screams at me.  What do you think, better? 

Now that she is calm let's see how she behaves under pressure.  The green sashing was flipped so the white touched the navy cornerstone. It made another unique secondary design.  It's hard to decide which one I like best.  Awe...my little cutie is so well behaved!

There may be one more change, the final borders. To me it's chaos and in need of some disciplinary actions as well. HAHA!

  

 Bonnie had us make the border units early in the mystery. If I change the border there will be a ton of scrap units to use in the quilt backing or save them for another quilt.  Sigh...at this point I'm just not sure what to do.  So, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

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Block One ~ 2 Bucks A Block ~ Back Door Quilts

 On Saturday I packed up the sewing machine and headed down the road about a mile to my neighbor Judy's house for a little sewing time.  We both signed up for the 2 bucks a block at our local quilt shop, Back Door Quilts.  Since Judy is fairly new to quilting, we will be doing these blocks together.  

This fidgety little block is not beginner friendly.  Normally I would suggest a new quilters first few blocks be a little larger, at least 12 inches.  It gives you a little more wiggle room for mistakes.  But we both loved the quilt, and she chose to jump in with both feet.  Way to go Judy!

The pattern uses Thangles to make the half square triangles.  I personally don't like Thangles, but as we all know cutting and sewing triangles can be tricky for new quilters. For now, she can focus on accurate cutting, pressing and maintaining a 1/4 inch seam.  Even with 30+ yrs of quilting under my belt these things can give me trouble from time to time.

In the image below I've blurred out the size of the Thangles and the fabric measurements just in case there's a copyright.  I'm sharing this image because I was disappointed in the pattern.  It took a little head scratching to figure out which fabric to use for color one and two.

Thankfully I had a picture of the sample quilt on my phone.  

Another disappointment...no pressing directions.  This could cause a new quilter some stress and unnecessary problems.  But, it gave me an opportunity to teach Judy a couple simple rules about pressing directions.

 Rule 1, press to the dark fabric.  

Rule 2, press to the piece with no seams or fewer seams.  

And of course, I also gave her the option to press all seams open.  We both opted to use rules one and two. 

 For my blocks I chose to pop open and spin the seams at the intersections, she chose to leave them and press them all in one direction.

The blocks turned out super cute and we had a good amount of scrap fabric.   I'm always grateful when a quilt kit is made with room for errors.  We didn't need it with this block, but we'll keep it handy just in case we need it for future blocks.

If you've never used or heard of Thangles, here's a video from the Thangles YouTube Channel.  Just click on the image below to watch.

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Fun Fabric Friday

 Yesterday was supposed to be a quick trip into town for groceries and to pick up the 2 bucks a block kit at the local quilt shop, Back Door Quilts.  As you can see below, my plans changed.

The 2 bucks a block quilt is designed for using Thangles.  In all honesty I don't typically like sewing on paper or sampler quilts with pieced blocks.  Sometimes it's a good thing to get out of the comfort zone.  

When I saw the sample quilt on display, I fell in love with the Lori Holt prints and the quilts vintage vibe.  There are 12 small blocks in the quilt.  My quilt will have 24 blocks because I'm a big quilt kind of gal.

While in the shop I decided to pick up a few half yards of navy blues for the stash since the recent Old Town mystery quilt put a huge dent in my already small stash of navy blue fabrics.  Now I'm all set for a patriotic quilt should the mood strike.

The next stop, the butcher shop but Joann's was on the way so might as well stop in and look for more navy blues...and anything else that needs a new home.  All the fabrics I purchased were on sale and a few were reduced even more when I opted to take the bolt remnant.  I even bought one fat quarter because it was in a clearance bin for $.50. 

A few more prints caught my eye and hopped in the cart.  My stash is not lacking in low volume prints but one can never have too many.

Confession...I cannot pass up a pretty floral fabric.  The one below stole my heart. It has a little shimmer that doesn't show very well on camera. Typically, a shimmer will stiffen the fabric but not on this print.  I had to have some, just enough for a border.   After getting it home and petting her pretty petals...the two yards I bought is not enough.  What was I thinking?  This is perfect for quilt backings.  Yep, a whole bolt (or 2) should do the trick.

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Happy Mail

 Hello Quilty Friends! The weather outside says it's winter but inside spring is in the air.  This half yard bundle of Sorbet checks by P&B Textiles has my quilty brain all a flutter with ideas for spring quilts.  

The bundle was a gift from my friend Claranna of Coffee Cup Quilting in Greenville, AL.  Her shop used to be one of our local quilt shops but due to her hubby's job relocating she had to pack it up and move to another state.  Claranna's quilt shop was not your typical shop.  She was all about making quilting affordable for everyone.  Her shop is stocked with quilt shop quality fabric at great prices.  So how does she do this?  Well, I suppose the same as Marshall's Drygoods and Thousands of Bolts.   

She told me the bundle made her think of me and my love for ginghams and plaids. 

 I think this is my first P&B Textile fabric and I must say the quality is much nicer than some of the other well-known designer fabrics.  After petting the fabric, it was time to go down a rabbit hole browsing P&B website and the WWW. for Lea Anne approved P&B Textile prints.

Claranna doesn't have an online shop, but she does have a Facebook Page....click here.  If you are loving this bundle and need one of your own give Claranna a call and ask for the Lea Anne half yard bundle. It's $63 for 12 half yards.  

Coffee Cup Quilting Phone # (334) 665-4098

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Next Project ~ Valentine UFO Plans

 Picking a UFO to work on can be overwhelming when there's so many needing to be finished.  After much thought I decided to pick one that would go with the next holiday.  This gives me a deadline of Valentines Day.  

The Heart Pops pattern can be found here.

 The quilt pattern above finishes at 44.5 x 47.5, a large wall hanging or baby quilt.  It's an adorable and clever quilt but at this time in my quilting journey I'm loving large bed sized quilts.  So, I pulled a few fabrics and trims so I can play around with pillow ideas.

As of today, the pillow below is my inspiration for this project.  The pattern is for a pillow wrap.  I don't like the idea of making a wrap. What I really like about the pillow is the large ricrac.

 Over the next few days my plan is to go down a pillow rabbit hole looking for more sweet pillow inspirations with large ricrac or girly trims.

 

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Old Town Mystery Quilt Assembly

 It's been a couple of weeks since the reveal of the Old Town Mystery by Bonnie Hunter.  All of my clues for this quilt have been ready and waiting patiently for me to pay them a little attention. I'm loving this quilt block design and my color combination. 

As you can see, I didn't get much accomplished, just the one quilt block.  But I did manage to get all the blocks laid out on the design boards.  I can now project jump from quilting the Bow-Tie quilt on the frame and piecing the Old Town Mystery.  

The arrows below are pointing to the chain units that I placed in the wrong direction.  I didn't catch the mistake on the top row until after I sewed the row together.  It was fixed and I continued on with the rest of the block.

It's going to be a fun week!  

Let's hope the rest of the blocks go together faster than the first one.  Below was the second time I had to rip out stitches.  😂It always gives me a good chuckle to make such silly mistakes.  How in the world does this happen? 

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Bow-Tie Quilt Top

 After months of working on the Bow-Tie quilt blocks it is finally a quilt top.  The original plan for this quilt was to have no repeating fabrics except for background fabric.  I can't say with 100% confidence that it was achieved.  There maybe one or two repeats but I haven't found them...YET.

For the backing I used a small calico print.  There was not enough of the calico, so I decided to use my Vortex UFO quilt to make the quilt back a little larger.  

The backing still was not large enough. A quick dig through backing scraps produced a couple long and narrow white on white prints.  They worked out perfectly with very little trimming.

She's loaded to the frame and ready to be quilted with a quick and easy free motion design.

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