Shirley Anne’s Heart

Posted By drsao on March 14, 2008

Bow tie quilt blocks are simple…….they are cute……..they are a pattern from our historical past……they look simple to make……I have never made one before…….and an online block swap just posted for April while I was online…….and there MUST HAVE BEEN MORE REASONS ………..so……..you guessed it, I talked myself into MAKING BOW TIE BLOCKS FOR ANOTHER ONLINE SWAP (it wasn’t very hard to talk myself into it!)

Oh yes, ANOTHER REASON……I figured I could whip up 10 blocks for a set and then I would have something to practice my machine quilting on! 

Here is my first set of BOW TIE BLOCKS!    And then, of course, I had to make one more set! 

And then NATURALLY, I had to play with them a bit!  TOO MUCH FUN!  What, oh what, will I do next? 

(NONE of this would have happened if it weren’t for Sheddy mentioning that quiltville.com site….:))

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Posted By drsao on March 14, 2008

I was a substitute teacher for 2nd graders Thursday and Friday of this week – and in my spare time I relaxed with another Thimbleberry project. 

Every quarter, in the Thimbleberries Club, there are free directions for an extra project and this quarter the project was a 60″ x 60″ lap quilt. 

Since my large Thimbleberries project is a quilt being made with the Thimbleberries LAKESIDE line of fabric, I decided that the lap quilt would make a great wall hanging for our family room – and it was made out of the LODGE line of Thimbleberries fabric.

Here it is, all put  together and ready for quilting – I think this will be a project for Valerie – my longarm quilter at A NEEDLE RUNS THROUGH IT in Goochland, VA.  To be truthful, I actually did THINK about quilting it myself, but I am not SURE that I am brave enough!  I took the machine quilting class in February – and so I SHOULD know how to do it….but the question becomes ON WHAT DO I PRACTICE?  So far I have liked everything that I have made and I don’t want to commit it to the practice run…..I would be sad to ruin it!  🙂

So, I said, “SELF, maybe you could practice machine quilting a top for a matching sofa pillow.”  AND SO I DID THAT!  I felt encouraged – but I STILL don’t think I am brave enough to try to quilt the lap quilt…..maybe I will practice on a quilt made with some of my online exchange block swaps!  🙂

Here is the top – quilted by sao herself!  I used a ton of quilter’s safety pins and fusible batting.

TA DA…..here is the finished pillow – it measures 18 1/2″ square….and it looks kind of cute on the little sofa loveseat!

I am happy – it is my FIRST quilted pillow!

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Posted By drsao on March 11, 2008

I belong to the Thimbleberries Club, hosted by Susan at the Quilter’s Corner in Midlothian, VA.  We meet once a month and each month we have one more assignment that leads us toward making a full size quilt.  It will be finished at the end of the year. 

It really is a lot of fun and we get THIMBLEBERRY DOLLARS for doing our homework, participating in SHOW AND TELL, bringing refreshments and buying Thimbleberry goodies.  This is my first year but I hear that it is a GOOD THING to collect Thimbleberry bucks. 

 I am looking forward to our AUCTION party at the end of the year where we will bid on good things (using our accumulation of Thimbleberry Bucks over this entire year!)  It is absolutely just TOO MUCH FUN.  Maybe I had better do some research on bidding signs.  If I remember correctly, the last time I attended an auction, I ACCIDENTALLY PURCHASED an original oil painting – and all I did was scratch my nose – obviously at an inopportune time!  🙂  (The money went for charity, so all was not lost!  But, it was actually quite embarrassing!)

The first THIMBLEBERRY assignment that we had – in January, 2008, was to make four tree blocks………it was very CHALLENGING to get all of those little pieces to fit together – but it felt good to see the finished blocks!  I was so proud of myself for not giving up!   

They are pretty cute trees!  

Then in February, 2008, we made four star blocks…..and thankfully, they were pretty easy!  And this month (March, 2008) we made a cute little setting to put the star blocks together!!!Here is what I accomplished tonight for my Thimbleberries March, 2008….assignment. 

It is a lot of fun to put the quilt together a little step at a time and to be able to share the steps with “quilty friends”…..my daughter calls them my THUMBLELINA FRIENDS!

Actually, quilting is a nice way to unwind after an eventful day.  It is creative and, oddly enough, it is stimulating and relaxing at the same time!

Today I was a substitute teacher for some precious first and second graders with learning challenges.  I enjoyed being with them  – and I also enjoyed coming home to relax with these VERY QUIET pieces of material!  🙂

Tomorrow I will be a substitute music teacher….I wonder what kind of blocks I will make after singing (and dancing) all day?

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Posted By drsao on March 10, 2008

I finished my Birth of a Sampler assignment for March! 

This is the quilt that I am making in a nine-month class that I am taking from Sherry Whitford at the Quilter’s Corner.  Very clever – NINE MONTHS to give BIRTH to this sampler. 

To tell you the truth, I feel like I have been in labor for the past three days. LOL  🙂

 It wasn’t that it was so hard (actually it was a lot of fun!) but it involved several new and tedious steps …. and I think that I have held my breath for three days straight – know what I mean?

We used ROB PETE fusible material to cut out the half arcs – that was the first NEW THING that I learned about this month. 

THIS STUFF IS AMAZING…..you stitch right on it – then cut out the shapes and pin it to the border – and then FUSE the shapes to the border material by pressing it with a hot iron…..and then we top – stitched those little arcs onto the border in such a way so that they fit just PEFECTLY on the 6 1/2 inch border that was then sewn onto our previously stitched masterpiece.   I don’t think I have ever used so many pins in my life…..but it had to fit perfectly, and the edges had to match on all four sides!

BUT I DID IT.  AMAZINGLY ENOUGH.

It looks pretty cute when added to the border made from “millions” of 1 1/2 inch squares!  I can’t believe that I even did this!

The WHITE KNUCKLE PART was getting the corners to come out “at least semi-perfectly.”

And to top it all off – the four corners are mitered….another NEW thing that I learned.

I learned a lot this month – and I like the way that it looks. 

In a future round I will be making 38 more of these arcs……..did I say 38?  Yes I did.

I will survive…….maybe I will forget the white knuckle part……maybe I will even remember to breathe next time!

After all, we do forget the pain of child-BIRTH – I wonder if the same principle works for quilt-BIRTH!

 This is what it looked like in February…

..and TA DA here it is after the March class!

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Posted By drsao on March 8, 2008

It appears that I have another quilt in progress!

I decided to join another quilt block online exchange from my BLOCK SWAPPERS GROUP………here is the deal. 

I  make as many sets (one set = 12 blocks) of a SPLIT NINE-PATCH BLOCK as I want.

Then I mail them to the hostess of the SPLIT NINE-PATCH BLOCK SWAP (Beth in Maryland)…..and I think I get back 12 SPLIT NINE-PATCH blocks

The end effect will be strikingly scrappy blocks.  This SWAP repeats itself again in July and November……so I guess one decides how large they want their finished quilt to be, and that is how many sets of these 9 inch blocks that they make.

The rules are to use 5 different light neutral fabrics and 5 different medium-dark fabrics in each block.  Since I have never made a Split Nine-Patch Block before I decided that it would be an adventure and the swap sounded like it would be LOTS of fun (it is fun to get presents in the mail)…….so I did it! 

I had another reason to do this…….March 10 marks my ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of being a quilt-maker…..so I really needed to do something special to commemorate this event.  🙂  I probably didn’t NEED an excuse to do this – but it makes a good story.

My TWELVE BLOCKS turned out to be pretty interesting…….and I think that four of these blocks make a CHICLET BLOCK.   I am not sure how to place the blocks to make a CHICLET BLOCK (I will make a point to GOOGLE CHICLET BLOCK later)  – but the way that I put them out below looks pretty good to me. Pretty cool stuff!  Quilting is intriguing because you can take odds and ends of relatively uninteresting bits of fabric, put them together, and the WHOLE looks a lot better than the individual parts!  HM…..Gestalt coming back to haunt me!

Here are my twelve blocks that will go into the mail on Monday.  I can’t wait to see what blocks I get back!

And speaking of getting blocks…..I got a squishy in the mail today…..from my ONLINE DECENTRALIZED LOG CABIN BLOCK EXCHANGE.

I got a Courthouse Step Block (our March assignment) from Jackey in Missouri….my home state.

I love the block – the greens are perfect to commemorate this ST PATRICK’S DAY Month.

I sometimes wish my grandmas were here so that we could talk QUILT TALK……..they would be amazed that we used rotary cutters instead of scissors and that  we used fancy rulers to measure out our block pieces instead of tracing around cardboard patterns.  I think these  “ONLINE QUILTING BEES” that I am participating in would be the most AMAZING THING for my grandmothers to hear about!  Although my sewing machine that threads itself and cuts its own thread is pretty amazing too.  🙂

 I wonder what new things in the quilt world that I will be amazed about when I am 100 years old!!!!  I plan to still be participating in online quilt block exchanges – but maybe I should ride my bicycle to the post office to mail my blocks instead of driving my car!

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