Category Archives: Monday’s Design Wall

Monday's Design Wall, Photo Posts, Texas

Design-Wall Monday

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This was a busy week, but I guess they all are!

We had a “crafting” get-together in TX this past week with at least 26 ladies attending.  My plan was to make glasses cases (or iPod cases or phone cases) out of ready-made potholders.  They are so simple — one L-shaped seam and sew on a button and you’re done.

NOT SO FAST!!!  My machine down here isn’t as heavy duty as my machine at home, and goodness knows what size needles I had on hand, but they weren’t doing the job.  I figured it wouldn’t be fun for the ladies to sew with needles breaking every fourth potholder, so I stitched the L-shaped seam ahead of time and we sewed buttons on by hand as a group!  I wish I would have taken a picture of the 26 I stitched up for the get-together, but I didn’t, so here’s a picture of two I made for myself after the meeting:

I was able to get my rotary cutter in one and my Razr phone in the other (just barely).  Just search for potholders on line, and there are a lot of projects out there you can make from a ready-made potholder.

On a photography note, I joined the 365 Project, which is a web site where you take at least one photo a day and post it on their site.  It will make kind of a photo journal of my year.  Right now it’s all about the birds, but there are times of the year that I don’t see many birds, so I will be forced to branch out *shudder*.  I put a link on my left-hand side bar and would LOVE it if you visited.

Back to work!  I need to finish my blocks for my Color Palette Challenge with Judy Laquidara.  The end of the month is near!

–Sue

 

 

 

Monday's Design Wall, Quilting

Design-Wall Monday

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This has been a fun week, quilting-wise.  I’m participating in JudyL’s & VickiW’s Fabric Palette Challenge for January.

How NOT to Build a Quilt:  I bought fabrics without a pattern or project in mind.  What was I thinking?  Really…who does that?  I found a batik I fell in love with, and chose some coordinating fabrics, thinking that I would figure it out later.  So I have 3 yards of a border print, 2 1’2 yards of background, a couple of 1-yard cuts and a couple more 1/2-yard cuts.  Try finding a pattern to work with predetermined, semi-random fabric amounts!

I decided this was a good time to dust off EQ7 and design my own quilt.  Okay, that isn’t so easy either.  It took several sessions, but I finally came up with a plan I liked.  It’s easiest to work on EQ (I think) if you play around with alternating two blocks.  I like Irish Chain quilts, so I thought I could use the greens in the Irish Chain blocks, and decided on a star for the open spaces.  Not terribly original, but I like it:


Then I started figuring out the rotary cutting instructions.  The star block worked out great.  The Irish Chain block came out to 2 7/8 strips.  Ooops!  Guess I won’t be using my handy-dandy strip cutter!

Lesson Learned:   I was making 12″ finished blocks.  The star built on a 6×6 grid.  Worked out perfectly.  The Irish Chain block was a 5×5 block, and 12″ divided by 5 isn’t so neat and tidy.  I should have paid attention to the configuration of the blocks I was choosing to make sure they would all play nicely together.

Solution:  I decided I liked the look of the two blocks together.  I like that seams don’t all meet at the same place, reducing thick spots.  I like how the star nestles in and fills the space.  I even like that corners of the star block that become part of the chain are a little smaller.  If I do this one again, I might make them a different color.  So anyway, I cut 2 7/8″ strips.  I figured since that block only required strip sets, that it wasn’t a big deal.

Now that I have some preliminary blocks together, I know it will work.  *whew*

Don’t forget to stop over to JudyL’s blog and see other quilters’ design walls!

–Sue

Monday's Design Wall

Making My Own Tree

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Sandi Irish has a very cool tree pattern out, using templates for easy cutting.  I am making the 7-foot version for our Christmas tree.  My progress thus far is shown above.   I have about 1/4 of the strips on at this point.

For Sandi’s pattern info, click HERE.  “Tall Pines” is about 2/3 of the way down, on the right-hand side.  For the pattern cover picture, click HERE.

–Sue

PS:  I am going to Judy Laquidara’s retreat in February!!!  (Happy Birthday to ME)

Anybody else is going?  It’s sure to be three days of laughter, sewing, and fun!