A Finish!

It's Done!

Somethings I found out while piecing this:

1. Leaders and Enders are a must. I needed to get a good start at the beginning of each stitching, since I was removing the few stitches in the seam allowance in order to spiral the seams when pressing. Otherwise, I might get a jumble of threads that were a pain to remove.
2. A more contrasting thread would have worked out better. My eyes are too old to see the stitches I needed to remove.
3. Carefully store the Half-Square triangles until needed. Ragged threads are a pain when there are this many seams.
4. The pressing of the first seam between the two Half-Square triangles is the most important. Because I always pressed the first two in the same direction, all my seams fitted together perfectly when I spiral pressed.

And I only used 168 Stitching Lines, less than 2 packages.

Now, on to my quilter!

Diamond Quilt-Almost Done

I am still working on my Diamond Quilt.
I am almost finished.
Only 2 more long seams to sew.

This is the brown corner.

This is the black corner.

This is the green corner.

And this is the pink corner.

And this is my only oops! Out of 672 HST's.
Two triangles of the same fabric touching each other.
I have one seam ripped out in this picture.
Three to go and then I will put a different HST in it's place.

Call me way too particular!!

Giveaway Day

It's Giveaway Day! WooHoo

Using Random.org, I have come up with a winner, and that winner is
Candace from Squash House Quilts.
Congratulations Candace.
A big thanks to all my new followers.

Now I am off to sew together some more
Half-Square Triangles.
I am making just a few new HST's for this quilt, all with different blacks, one color that I was really lacking. Otherwise, all my HST's were already made before starting this project.

Diamond Block Quilt Day 3

I've been moving blocks around. I think I would like some order to these scrappy diamonds.
Of course, I am soooooo not even close to making enough of these four patches. I keep adding new blocks, but it seems that I am still only one quarter of the way done. How can that be?? My biggest problem is not having too few Half-Square triangles to work with. It's having a floor that is too small.

Diamond Block Quilt Day 2

I am still plugging away on my new Half-Square triangle quilt.

After I pick which four HST's will go together into the Diamond Block, I make sure the seams are going in the right direction. I repress if they don't. That's the trick to making a quilt like this.
All seams have to go the same direction from block to block.
I stack up the squares into four piles as I want to sew them. Then I take the bottom two piles, flip them around and stack on top of the two upper piles. Now all seam allowances are pressed in the same direction in each pile. This makes it so much easier.

After I sew two squares together (one from each pile), I press them all the same direction.
Then I sew the sets of two together, and get ready to press.

I either rip out the last few stitches with a seam ripper, or just tug the seams in opposite directions. The idea is to open up that seam for the final pressing.

I love this technique. I use it a lot.
Not only does it eliminate bulk at the intersection, but it means that I can twist the block any way I want when I place it in the quilt. And since I pressed all the seams the same from block to block, I know the seams will all nest together.

My quilt is growing.
I think I have enough squares for about a fourth of it.

I have had these fabrics piled up on my floor for a little while now (probably since I last cleaned up my sewing room).
Don't know yet what I will do with them. But I love all the colors. Still need some more fabrics.

Don't Go Together Half Square Triangles

What am I doing with all these unmatched, "Don't Go Together", what do I do with all these, half square triangles"?

I have a gazillion more of these little babies!

I am turning them into four patches.

And then making a very scrappy quilt.

This could turn into something very big!

GiveAway

This is my 145th post.

It seems as good a time as any to do a "GiveAway".

While I was cleaning my sewing room a couple weeks ago (you wouldn't know it by looking at it now) I came across some wool felt and patterns that I have never done anything with. And I know I never will. But, so many of you ladies like wool applique and are so talented that I would love to see someone else enjoy it.

There are 12 pieces (9" x 12") of wool felt from Color Me Patterns and 2 patterns from Shirley Stevenson. I think I bought this for the Penny Rug Pin Cushions. They were so darn cute.

Anyway, here are the rules.

1. One chance to win: You must be a follower or become a follower and
then leave me a comment that you'd like to be entered into the drawing.

2. Two chances to win: #1 plus.... Blog about the GiveAway and post a link on your blog.


If you don't have a blog, please leave me an email address where I can find you.

I will keep this GiveAway open thru July 21.

Good Luck and thanks for stopping by!

Mount Helix

Dave, Jill and I went to the top of Mount Helix today. It was beautiful up there.
And the views were wonderful.

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Baby Quilt

Today, I finished up the binding on a cute little girl's baby quilt.
It's all pinks and browns and whites.

Piecing Together Batting

Yahhhhhhhhhh! I have a new computer. Life is good.

Today, I needed to piece some batting together,
as I didn't have a big enough piece for a baby quilt.I decided to give the Heat Press a try.
So far, it seems like it worked quite well. Remember I used this to patch up a doggy chewed quilt. But this is what it is meant for.

First thing I did was lay the two pieces on the table, overlapping just a little.

Then, I cut down the middle of both layers.

I removed the top piece from one side and the bottom piece from the other side.

I kept the edges butted up to each other.

I laid down about a 12" strip of Heat Press, right on top of the cut edges. I placed a couple of teflon sheets right up alongside the Heat Press. (I am sure you could cut one long piece)

I pressed the Heat Press in place with my iron.
I kept adding more strips until I worked my way across the whole length.
Then I flipped the batting over and did the same thing to the other side.
This seemed to be faster than whip stitching the two pieces together.


Now I need to quilt the quilt.