Log cabin blocks; baby quilt

Three things to be happy about:
(1) waterproof boots
(2) freebies
(3) turkey quesadillas

When I was in Whole Foods one day last week they had a sort of turkey quesadilla casserole on their hot bar; I tried a piece and it was great!

As you all probably know by now I like playing with scraps, and I love playing with other peoples' scraps!  Somehow they seem so much more interesting than my own, I dunno why. 

Charlene gave me a bag of scraps last week, there were a lot of African pieces in there.  I wanted to play with making a log-cabin style block, so I pulled a couple pieces and skewed one edge so that they weren't square, then added borders on the four sides.  I like how these are turning out, I'll add at least two more rounds, then I'll square them back up.  Hmmmm, what will I use them in?

I wanted to get playing with my GO cutter, and the 4" square seemed as good a place to start as any!  I wanted to make a baby quilt (he's just a month old!) and I was inspired by a cute quilt made by Nicole at Bold Goods that looked a lot easier than the one I originally planned. 

I cut a 16x16 piece for my center, then dug in my stash and came up with a few prints but I don't like all of them with that particular center.  There will be another border around the outer blocks, I haven't decided yet what the colors will be. 

Anyway I don't really like how it's turning out; I'll either change out some of the border squares or use a different print for the center.  It would have been really easy to run out to JoAnn's or Hancock's and buy a coordinated fabric package (is it called a honey bun?), but I wanted to use from stash.  I think I can, I think I can!

So that's one "yes" and one "do-over" ... wish me luck, have a great Tuesday, sew forth and sew on

Ready... set... GO!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) mechanical pencils
(2) date bread with cream cheese
(3) mandarin orange jello

Don't you just love opening packages?? Me too!

I had been thinking and thinking about getting an Accuquilt GO! cutter... last week I decided I might as well go ahead and get it, especially after Linda (Sew-n-crazy quilter) in my bee told me about Quilting Warehouse.  I'd never shopped at Quilting Warehouse before and I'm glad she told me about it; they had a great price on the GO! cutter that included a really nice the starter set. 

I got five squares with the starter set  - 2-1/2",  4-1/2", 3-1/2", 4-3/4", and 6-1/2".  I was trying to figure out what was with the 4-3/4" size but I saw on one of the packages that it's really an on-point die.   

There are two half-squares that finish at 2" and 3", those should come in handy enough!  6-1/2" and 4-7/8" triangles; a 3-1/2 x 6-1/2" rectangle; a 3-3/4 x 3-1/2" parallelogram, hmmm.  The three cutting mats that I need for those sizes were also included - 5x10, 6x12, and 10x10.  The dies in the starter set are meant to be mixed and matched - clever!  Each one is designated as A, B, C, etc.   No strips were included, so I ordered the 2" and 2-1/2" dies.  Evidently the 1-1/2" strip is very popular, they were all out of that size; I'll have to get that and the circle die later.  

After unpacking I wanted to cut something!  I used a piece of fabric I got from our last bee meeting to practice cutting 2" strips.  Those of you with GO! cutters, do you press your fabric first?  I think I've seen pictures of cut strips that looked a bit wrinkled and I wondered if it made a difference...  Wanda and Gene, do you always press yours??  

The instructions said to cut an 18" piece but I didn't measure exactly, I just folded a piece twice to get four layers and placed it on the die. The handle wasn't as hard to turn as I thought it would be, it just scooted on through and I cut perfect 2" strips!  I actually had to nip the bottom ends with my scissors but that's not important, it was in the selvedge area anyway.  Note to self:  make sure the fabric is completely on the cutter... but that's what practice is for!


But the strips came out beautifully -  it's so nice to cut fabric and know you won't have that annoying v-shape at the fold area! I only had a little waste, plus an extra piece for my string bin.  Now I'll get a chance to go through my stash and the large scrap bins to see what I can cut into usable pieces. 


Moving right along...

I'm enjoying my new printer, it has a double-sided print capability that will come in handy, that'll save some paper!  Also I like the large window on the control panel, and it even has animated instructions. 

We'll see if I'm still grinning when I go to buy more ink, ouch!

That's all for today, have a great Friday and  be careful on the snow if you're having any.  Sew forth and sew on til later!

Quilt doodles February BOM

Three things to be happy about:
(1) winter squash
(2) quilted hangers
(3) Burt's Bees honey lip balm

I'm a bit late doing the Quilt Doodles BOM this month because I wanted to print out the pdf to take to my sewing room, and I hadn't installed my printer - my bad!  It was so unbelievably easy to install I wonder why I procrastinated in the first place.  Of course before the new install I went in and deleted each and every HP program on my PC.  I knew some of it was useless, and I didn't want to be confused later on about what I really needed or what could be deleted to free up space - so I wiped it all out!  I figured the new install would give me everything I needed.

So ... Cindy has named this month's block the Garden Pinwheel, another pretty one!  The central motif is a flower (hence the "garden" in the name, I think).  I'm sticking with my black-and-white theme, but I chose to use a heart in a third color for the central motif.

When I finished putting it together, I didn't like the results - that middle square needs some serious work! 



I'm going to run upstairs and make another center... 'scuse me a sec while I doodle around with it!

Okay, I'm back with a new center! 

I considered using blue or red, and I even went with a gold color because I thought it would look good.  But as you can see I used the same black-and-white that I used for the spokes in the pinwheel, and I also used her flower - I think it looks great!  It's sorta iffy to choose a third color, not knowing what the other blocks will look like, but that's the nature of a BOM... sometimes it's also a mystery!

I've added this one to the 2013 BOM flickr group.
Have a great Wednesday, sew forth and sew on...