A Good Day for Chicken Tortilla Soup!

I have the day at home today so I am busy with all types of housewife-y things.  You’d think that I’d have a regular schedule for these activities but my work schedule varies so I end up catch as catch can.  As I rev up my machine quilting business I see the need for more deliberate scheduling on my part so I can get all my quilting done as well as my customers.  Thus, being home today meant cleaning, laundry, making homemade soup and banana bread; all things I could work on while I did a little sewing.  Throw the laundry in, get the bread in the oven, sew.  Start the soup, take the pictures, finish the last block, finish the soup.  And, so here I am, ready for dinner, and ready to post the August  block.  Yippee!   I think that means I’ll get to sew the borders on my Railroad Crossing quilt tonight. 

I thought I’d share a couple of other little things before I give out the instructions for the next block but, if you’re in a hurry, just scroll down and come back up here when you have a chance.  I took a workshop last Friday with Susan Cleveland called Piping Hot Binding.  It was wonderful!  Susan is the real deal.  She is the kind of person you’d want for a best friend.  Not only that, I think almost every single person in the class came really close to completing the project IN CLASS!  I’m about 90% done and that has never happened to me before.  I have about a dozen tubs of UFO’s from workshops I’ve taken.  But, this one I will finish, and soon.  Check her out.  And, if you get a chance to take one of her classes do so.

I also finished the graduation quilt for my niece and will bring it to her soon.  She starts college at the end of the month.  I’m glad I have some time to show it around a little bit before handing it off!  And, yes, those are super-sized Hexies.  I hope she loves it. 

Now for the August block.  It’s called Indian.  And, I also made a variation of it called Indian Star.  If you have in your layer cake a square with a motif you’d like to highlight then this block will do that for you.  There is a 4” finished square in the middle so you can fussy cut something for it if you want to.  I just used a pretty print.

Let's cut the pieces for it:

From the Light print cut
 (1) 4 1/2" square, fussy cut if desired
 (4)  2 7/8" squares
 (2)  2 1/2" squares
From the Dark print cut:
(4) 2 7/8" squares
(2) 2 1/2" squares

Next, using my Quick Quarter Tool by Quilter's Rule, I draw a diagonal cutting line and sewing lines on the wrong side of the 4 light squares.



 Pair each light square with a dark square of the same size and sew on the outside lines. Remember some of your pieces will have a pinked edge.  Here is how I line them up.  You can see the dark print showing beneath the pinked edge.

Here is a super close up of sewing just towards center of the drawn line.  If you have had trouble with your units coming out to small adjusting your seam allowance like this may help.  Doing this allows for the thickness of the thread.  Sometimes a tiny adjustment like this makes all the difference!



Cut them apart on the center line to yield 8 half square triangle units.  Open and press the seam allowance towards the darker fabric.  They should measure 2 1/2" square.  Trim, if needed. 

Lay out all the pieces like this:  Pay attention to the direction of the triangle units.  Dark is always next to light and vice versa. 

Sew the triangle units together in pairs.  They should each measure 4 1/2" by 2 1/2".  It's easy to let your seam allowance change and then you end up with your pieces ruffling or skewed.  Sew straight in and straight out of the seam. 

Add the squares to the top and bottom row pressing away from the center.  Sew triangle pairs on to the sides of the center square and press towards the center.   Three rows complete.   Now sew the top row onto the center row and press towards the center.  Repeat to sew the bottom row on.  Your block is complete!

Here are my other sizes and variations:             You can use a third print for the center square or, you can put a four-patch in the center and turn the triangle units to look like a star (you'll use the same number of triangles) or, you can make it scrappy and 4 different lights and 4 different darks for the triangles.  When I did this I cut the squares in half on the diagonal before sewing them so I could mix them up even more.  Just be gentle with the bias edge.

Four a 4" finished block:

The center square is cut at 2 1/2".  The corner squares (all dark this time) are cut at 1 1/2".  The squares for the triangle units are cut at 1 7/8".  If you want a four patch in the center instead of a plain square cut 2 light squares and 2 dark squares the same size as the corner squares 1 1/2". 

For a 2" finished block:

The center square is cut at 1 1/2".  The corner squares are cut at 1".  Cut the triangle squares (4) light and (4) dark at 1 1/2" and trim them up to 1".   (They're easier to work with if you start out a little bigger and trim them.)

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you enjoy the rest of your day!

How Do You Cut That?

I was asked again today, at work, how to cut a piece that is larger than any of your rulers.  So, here are a couple of pictures to show you how I do it.  I use a combination of rulers whichever ones make it easiest to measure the size and cut across the whole piece at once.  The pictures this time are from cutting the pieces you need to make the faux leather journal covers (see post below). 

The measurement I need to cut for the width is 10 3/8".  I trimmed the left side to get a clean edge (not pictured) using the long white ruler.  Now use that cut edge to measure over the whole 8 1/2" for that ruler plus another 1 7/8" for the yellow ruler for a total of 10 3/8".  The yellow ruler is long enough to provide an accurate straight edge; it doesn't have to be as long as the piece your cutting-the white-lined ruler will do that.  Now you're ready to cut the width!  Easy Peasy!  You can do this!

Now to cut the length of 16".  This time I chose to use the yellow ruler as my main ruler.  It's a 6" width so now I need to measure 10" with the white ruler to get a total of 16".  In order to make sure my piece is square set the 1" line on the yellow ruler and the 10" line on the white ruler on the edges I've already cut.  They should line up perfectly.  If not, one of those edges needs to be corrected; in this case I'd re-trim the end. 

Does that help?  I hope so! Now you can get those pieces cut with a little more confidence!  You might want to practice on some waste fabric first. 

Here's a quick stash report for January:

Fabric IN:  2 yards

Fabric OUT:  4 3/8 yards

Net Fabric Busted:  2 3/8 yards

Project Update:

Bound Christmas quilt (queen size, took a long time to hand sew)

Made a lap-size top for shop sample

Quilted one quilt on my long-arm

Completed project for January's Christmas Challenge

Completed three knit hats

I feel really good about having spent lots of time sewing even though I haven't spent as much time on my long-arm.  All things in their time.  And, making little blocks don't use up lots of fabric.  I'm not worried about that either.  Those little blocks are just too cute!

Sneak Peak!

I've been sewing all day on a new project for the shop which will probably be on display in the next week or two! It's cute, fun and simple to make. It would be great in lots of different fabric combinations but here is mine:



Connector Corners

Did you notice that this unit is a connector corner?  And, did you also see that I've drawn two lines?  I am not throwing away the bit that gets cut away after sewing on the first line.  I will sew again through the second line and cut inbetween the two and TA DA, I get a bonus half-square triangle unit!   The bonus unit is 1 7/8" which is not a very nice size to work with but, I'll leave them as is until I decide what I'd like to do with them. But, honestly, how could I just throw all that away? 



Bonus Triangles!



So, anyway, here is where the piece in the top picture ends up!  

Sneak Peak

So, what else would one rather do on a winter's day than sew!  I love my days off!  (I like days on also but, I really like the chance to piece during the daylight hours!) 

More later...got to get some more pictures up for the journal too! 

Crazy Pieced Blocks

So many people have asked me about how I made these cute little blocks that I decided to post a lesson on my method for making them. They are addicting, so when I figured out that I would need 144 of them for a graduation quilt I really didn't think twice about it. I make them in groups of 5, and make two groups at a time, in about an hour and a half from start to finish and I am not worried about speed.

I cut my squares (144 of them) at 6 inches for a 4" finished block. And, I cut it at 10" for a 8" finished block. For other sizes add 2" to your desired finished size to get the measurement for your starting square.

Since this block has 5 pieces, select 5 squares that coordinate.

Now stack them directly on top of each other in an order that you like.

Take your acrylic ruler and rotary cutter, set your squares on your mat and make 2 cuts at random angles from top to bottom. You do not need to measure but, do not make your cuts too close to the corner.

Now cut just the middle section twice from side to side again using unmeasured random angles.

Next, you'll mix up the order of pieces in each stack. To do this, leave the first stack on the left alone, take the top stack in the middle vertical row and take the top piece and put it on the bottom. Take the middle stack and put the top 2 pieces on the bottom. Take the bottom stack in the middle and put the top 3 pieces on the bottom. And, on the right column take the top 4 pieces off and place them under the fifth piece. Now all the stacks are mixed so that each layer contains five different pieces, one from each of the squares. Can you see that in the top layer?

Now you'll start sewing the blocks together. Start with the middle column and chain piece the top piece to the middle piece for each block. Remember I said I work on two groups at a time? So, you'll see I have 10 pieces chain pieced together. I'll cut off the first 5 and go on to the next step.



Note how I have offset the edges. I've pointed to where you should hit your 1/4" seam allowance.

Add the third piece making sure you're adding it to the middle piece not the top piece. It's easy to get them turned around. You'll know you have it right if when you lay the pieces out the angles match and the three pieces together are straight. If they make a funny angle to each other you've turned something around.

Time to press. You only need to press twice during this process. Once now and once after both side pieces have been added. You can trim the sides if you want to but, these will work just fine the way they are.

Now add the two side pieces. Pay attention to the angles here. One end of the red strip is wider than the other. Place the wide end of the strip towards the narrower part of the middle strip. If you get it backwards when you go to square up your blocks you might not have the width you need.

Press your blocks again. Generally I press the side strips away from the center strip.

Square up your blocks to 4 1/2".






Here's what I did with my blocks. I'm using 16 of them in each block set 4 x 4 and changed direction on each one so the seams don't have to match or line up. They are surrounded by larger blocks done in many blacks. I like using a wide range of reds and blacks for these.

Gotta go! I have about 15 more red ones to make and about the same number of black ones to make. Hope you enjoy making some of these fun little blocks. There are several variations I'm sure but this is how I've been making them for years. If you have questions please drop me a comment and I'll try to answer.