Friday 30 September 2016

Facets Plus QAL – the top is FINISHED!



My Facets Plus quilt top is finished! For those of you who haven’t been following its progress, this is the quilt I’m making to participate in the Facets Plus Quilt Along hosted by Amanda over at This Mom Quilts. I’ve adapted the pattern slightly while keeping the same block design.


Did I tell you I was going to make it big enough to fit my king single bed in the spare room? This is the biggest quilt I’ve made so far finishing up at 70” by 80”. Whew! I was originally going to add borders but in the end I went with extra blocks to increase the size and I’m happy that I did.


Today’s photos are taken at my place; since it’s so large I had to stand on a teetering crate to stick it to the wall and that means convenience reigns when choosing a photo location.


Here in Australia it is the beginning of spring and the quilt makes a superb backdrop to the peach and plum blossom. I kind of wish it was there all the time.


I’m not looking forward to quilting it – keeping it simple will work best I think. I might just take a breather and whip up a couple of smaller more manageable pieces before I start in on that long and arduous journey... or is that the wrong attitude?


Tuesday 20 September 2016

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Long Tall Jack

This is my second entry into Bloggers Quilt Festival. Made with the beautiful Jane Sassaman fabric ‘Prairie Chic Meadow Mix’ in indigo, this is my upscaled version of Lyn at Lily’s Quilts Double Fat Jack quilt tutorial.


It measures up at 54" x 70". This is one of my all-time favourite quilts.


And here’s the back. The post explaining how that was put together is here.

For more details along with a second one I made see the original post here.

Linking up with Bloggers Quilt Festival at.Amy’s Creative Side

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Somewhat Positive

This is my first ever time for participating in the Bloggers Quilt Festival and I couldn’t be more excited! My top entry pick is this Somewhat Positive mini. It was designed by me and finishes up at 24 inches square.


The original post is here.


 Many thanks to Amy for hosting this event. 
Linking in with Amy’s Creative Side for Bloggers Quilt Festival.

Tuesday 13 September 2016

Cloud 9 New Block Blog Hop


Hello, I’m Sue and welcome to my stop on the Cloud 9 New Block Blog Hop. If this is your first visit please feel free to look around.



This is the block. It's 12" square finished.

I adapted it from a snowflake design on the pyjamas I was wearing on the night the chance of joining this hop was offered to the 2016 New Quilt Bloggers Facebook group. Just as well inspiration struck so early otherwise I may have had a sleepless night or 30…


This is my first ever tutorial, hope it’s clear. If not, let me know, I’ll treat it as constructive criticism, I promise.

SNOWFLAKE SWIRL BLOCK

This block construction is a hybrid between regular piecing and paper foundation piecing. Really, it is mostly a guide to keep everything lined up and if you’ve never done paper piecing before it is a super easy way to start. To make this block you’ll need 4 copies of the piecing template here (please excuse the fact that it is hand-drawn, I couldn't get the circular effect without drawing it). Print it off with page scaling on your printer settings at NONE.

I’ve been generous with the cutting. I like plenty of room to manoeuvre with this technique.
I’ll be pressing all seams as I go, you have my permission to do what you usually do in regards to pressing.

When paper piecing use a smaller stitch length than usual to make it easier to remove the paper at the end. I set mine at 1.6.

If you have never tried foundation piecing there are many tutorials available on the web in the format of your choice.  

CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS

Cut 4 x 7 ½” squares from the background fabric (Shadow), then cut on the diagonal to yield 8 HSTs.

BLOCK A

Cut a 8 ½” x  5 ½" piece light blue fabric (Sky)
Cut a 8 ½” x  1” piece dark blue fabric (Amazon)
Cut a 8 ½” x  ¾ ” and  a 8 ½” x 4” piece background fabric (Shadow)

BLOCK B

Cut a 4 ½” x  5 ½” piece lilac fabric (Lilac)
Cut a 4 ½” x  1” piece purple fabric (Iris)
Cut a 4 ½” x  ¾ ” and  a 4 ½” x 2” piece background fabric (Shadow)

BLOCK C
Cut a 2 ½” x  10” piece lilac fabric (Lilac)
Cut 2 x 2 ½” x  1” pieces purple fabric (Iris)
Cut 2 x 2 ½” x  ¾ ” and  2 x 2 ½” x 2” piece grey fabric (Shadow)

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

We’re going to start by making the snowflake arms. Block A makes up the diagonal arms and Blocks B and C make up the cross bar arms.

NOTE:  you will need to use a scant ¼” seam allowance when piecing the arms

BLOCK A

Sew the 8 ½” x 4"piece background fabric to the 8 ½” x  1” piece dark blue fabric and the 8 ½” x  5 ½" piece light blue fabric to the 8 ½” x  ¾” piece background fabric. Sew the two sections together (see diagram below). Trim the side edges if required to tidy it up then cut into 4 x approximately 2” strips.

BLOCK B

Sew the 4 ½” x 2” piece background fabric to the 4 ½” x  10” piece purple fabric and the 4 ½” x  5 ½” piece lilac fabric to the 4 ½” x  ¾” piece background fabric. Sew the two sections together (see photo below). Trim the side edges if required to tidy it up then cut into 2 x approximately 2” strips

BLOCK C

Sew the 2 ½” x ¾” pieces background fabric to either end of the 2 ½” x  10” piece lilac fabric and the 2 ½” x  1” pieces purple fabric to the 2 ½” x  2” pieces background fabric. Sew the three sections together (see photo below). Trim the side edges if required to tidy it up.




TEMPLATE SECTIONS

Lay a hst on the template, lining the diagonal edge from corner to corner.



Lay a Block A strip along the diagonal edge lining up the marks on the template with the seams along the strips. It doesn’t have to be accurate, they are a guide to create a circular effect. Stitch along the seam line and press. Fold the template back along the second seam line and trim a ¼” from the edge of the paper.


Line the second hst piece with the edge of the strip and stitch along the seam line. Press and trim the block to the edge of the template.

PUTTING THE BLOCK TOGETHER

Lay the 4 sections out so the arms are swirling in a circular kind of way



Stitch a Block B strip to two of the templates (one from the top, one from the bottom) using the marks as a guide to line the seams on the strip up. Again they’re more of a suggestion than an order. Press and trim the top and bottom edges then READ THE NEXT SECTION CAREFULLY. Trim the strip ½” from the edge of the template, yes that is half an inch from the template edge not the seam line.



Line the other template sections up aligning the square edges and stitch along the seam line

Stitch the Block C strip to the edge of one of your pieced sections, using the marks as a guide. Press and trim the edges, then once again trim the strip ½” from the edge of the template. Line the two sections up and stitch along the seam line. Press and trim.
Remove the paper and admire

At this point I would like to say thankyou to Cloud 9 for giving us the opportunity to work with their fabrics and to hosts Yvonne, Cheryl and Stephanie for organising the hop.

Today’s section of the hop is being hosted by Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs. There is a big list of bloggers to visit today with no shortage of talent. Check them out. And wait there's more! See the links for yesterday's stage of the hop here and tomorrow's here.


Tuesday 6 September 2016

Behind The Scenes

I’ve been slowly making some progress with my Facets Plus Quilt that I’m making as part of the quilt along being hosted by Amanda over at This Mom Quilts. Amanda designed this quilt as well, and even though I’m not exactly keeping to the pattern I am staying within the general design. And I’m loving it!


These are my first round of blocks done in one of the colourways I’m using. Note that it matches in with the sheet on my spare bed which is standing in for a design wall. This is the bed it’s going on once it’s finished so I couldn’t be happier!


I decided to make each colourway separately so that I wouldn’t get confused. That happened anyway and so I’m just making all the rest at once in a big marathon effort. This quilt-along finishes up next Monday so I’m sure you’re wondering if I’m going to have it finished on time. The answer is a resounding no, not even close *sigh*.

Frankly, I blame my tardiness on nerves and anxiety over the designing and writing of my Cloud 9 block tutorial for next week’s hop. I have a rabbit in the headlights response to anxiety which means I operate on super-slow speed and while my practice blocks were made relatively quickly ( the first one being binned, the second one being okay) the final one was made painstakingly slowly, all measurements being triple checked.


If you haven’t heard anything about this upcoming hop all the details are over on Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl’s blog here. Yvonne, Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs and Stephanie at Late Night Quilter are co-hosts. It will be run over 3 days and there are some very talented quilt bloggers taking part. It’s my turn on Tuesday and I hope you’ll all come back to see what I made then.

See you then!