Tuesday, May 27, 2014

A mistake can still be used

Last week I was piecing some runners using a new to me block, which is always fun. However, I had some other things on my mind while doing the second table runner and this correct way soon...





became this. The part that is wrong is the red part, see how I didn't lay my flip back triangle right when I sewed it. I had all 3 block parts sewn, pressed and trimmed before I noticed. And I didn't have enough red to remake those parts, so I layed it out to see what it would look like and well it is just a little different so I went ahead and made up the runner and it looks fine-so a happy mistake it ended up being!







And I leave you with this pic of one of my bleeding hearts, I just love these dainty little guys!  Our wild plum trees just finished blossoming-their aroma is sooooo sweet smelling. Our lilac's are blooming as well as our apple tree and crabapple tree, finally spring in MN!!

We enjoyed our Memorial weekend by biking 21 miles on Friday, kayaking 3.5 hrs on Sunday and doing some yard work and painting of shutters in between the fun stuff. The weather was perfect all weekend!






Be sure to check the linky parties on my left side bar for this weeks awesome lineup!!

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Ruler work

Linking to Amy's Free Motion-ruler work, I love doing ruler work for the accuracy.  These runners I love to quilt up different designs on so I don't get bored with doing the same thing. Since May is ruler work month over at Amy's blog I thought I would share these with you.

The ruler work on this one is in the center block, I used a swag ruler in 2 sizes to get the flower petals. the skinny black border has a squiggle ruler.


 The ruler work on here is the squiggle ruler again in the black border, and large circle ruler in the main block to form the double football shapes. Then I freehanded the design within the football shape.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

WIP Wednesday and Festival...

Deb Tucker has some really fun rulers-these 2 runners are made using her Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star ruler. I ran across her YouTube on this banded Lemoyne star on Sunday and thought I would give it a shot. I love the results. Yes there is some waste and lots of trimming, but the accuracy is wonderful!! My blocks are 12" finished and then I added some borders.  Notice in the finished runner that cute teeny little red border that seperates the green borders-love it!!  My friend, Sandy, showed me how to do it, a little extra effort is soooo worth it IMHO!!  Got yet a third one in the works today-a fall version.














This week this post is linked to Lorna's and Lee's

Don't forget to check out all the inspiraton at Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival-I entered these 2 quilts in small and mini categories, my first entry ever into the Festival!! I posted about them here and here.






















AmysCreativeSide.com

Monday, May 19, 2014

Blogger's Quilt Festival-take two!

I have decided to enter another quilt into the Bloggers Quilt Festival taking place over at Amy's!  This quilt will be in the small quilt category as it measures 43x58.  I made it and blogged about it back in February.



This is a pattern called Urban Escape by Jenny at SewKindOfWonderful using her QuickCurve Ruler. I love using this ruler and she has some really awesome patterns.  I just love how this came out, love the colors, love the fabrics I chose and I had so much fun quilting it on my Nolting longarm.  The snow and tobaggon made awesome props for photography even though it was very cold out that day!!

Funny thing is that I never bought all the fabrics at the same time, in fact the print with the ovals I bought like 2 years ago and then added the others in this past year. Amazing I found things that went together!  I used Hobbs 80/20 batting and Glide thread. 



Be sure to go check out all the inspiration that is entered into the festival! And good luck to all participants.  Voting is May 24-29



AmysCreativeSide.com

I have several no reply bloggers leaving me wonderful comments-so if you are one of them please know I appreciate all the kind words. I try to respond to everyone that leaves me a way to contact them. I truly love hearing from everyone and appreciate the sweetness :-)

Friday, May 16, 2014

Blogger's Quilt Festival-Mini quilt

I made a set of placemats earlier this year and we loved them so much that I decided I needed a matching wall hanging. I took one of the placemats and reproduced it as a mini quilt to hang in our 'eat in' kitchen. Of course I can't get a good picture of it hanging in the house-the lighting is just all wrong. So out on the deck it went for pic's!  The pattern for the placemat piecing is here.  It is a lot of quilting and it was sooo fun!!!




With the Blogger's quilt festival starting I thought I would enter it into the mini quilt category as it measures in at 18"x13".  I have never entered anything before so it is rather exciting!
If you would like to see all the placemats the post is here.





Be sure to check out the festival and see all the entries and lots of inspiration!!
AmysCreativeSide.com


Also joining in several linky parties this week-see my side bar for those links and check out tons of great projects that are posted each week!!

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Ruler work

Joining in the linky party at Amy'sConnie's and Lorna's this week.
This little quilt was part of a guild challenge back in 2011 and I wasn't making blog posts during that time. So I thought I would show it today as part of Amy's ruler linky party. The challenge part was that we were drawing a brown paper bag with fabric in it that we couldn't see and then we were to make something to display at our local quilt show. The fabrics were by season-I was lucky and got fall as I love fall colors.

Almost all the quilting on this little wall hanging is ruler work, yes ruler work takes a lot of time but the results are wonderful and I love doing it!  I wanted to share a little trick with you that is most helpful-if you are not sure what your design would look like on your quilt. Place a page protector sheet or a piece of vinyl on top of your quilt and use a wet erase marker to draw your design. Just be CAREFUL you don't over draw and it gets onto your quilt. I should have taped the edges of the page protector with blue painters tape which would help with this but I was in a hurry!

Hope everyone is have a great quilty week!!  I am piecing some runners from Anka's Treasure's new book On The Run Again-here they are.  

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Piecing and cycling!

What a combination-piecing and cycling!  I have no finishes to share this week but I have been doing some piecing here and there. Just finished piecing this one today...from the book Simply Triangles by Barbara Cline.  This is the first time I have used this book and really like how this topper came together!  Lots of strip piecing before cutting the red into diamond shapes and the beige's into 60 deg. triangles. Then lopping off a corner of the red and sewing on a green triangle and trimming. After that comes the totally assembly. I am so impressed that I got things all lined up and matching so well, it really was a pretty easy pattern to do.



And here is my new toy errrr, I mean exercising machine, LOL  We went to Eagan MN on Saturday so I could try out different Terra Trikes, this is the Rambler.  I have ridden it each day and like it pretty good!! My neck and back sure appreciate sitting up and not hunched over like on a normal 2 wheel bike. I even managed to ride it up a few hills in our neighborhood. It feels good to finally have gotten a little better weather so we can be outside a little.
Linking up with Connie and Lorna this week.