Does Anyone Know?

I have a question for any quilters out there.

If you click to enlarge, you will see that starting at the top left of the photo I have added the names of the Free Motion Foot and the Walking Foot.  Does anyone know what the all metal piece is?  I know it has to do with quilting, but that is all.

Lone Star Class update!

I know that there are several of the ladies that were able to finish the class quilt project during the class.  Well, at least to the flimsy stage.  I went home early from the class because I had to cut more another set of strips to get the eighth diamond section.

Drum roll please.

The top, or flimsy, is finished.  I think it turned out great good.  I have to go buy some batting and then hopefully will be able to at least baste it today, am going to try to do the quilting as well.  Will see.

Off to cook lunch.

Lone Star Class

This past Saturday I took a quilt class at the local quilt store.  First one in many years. 

The class is for a Lone star quilt made of 3.5" strips, sewn together then cut into diamond sets.  So, thought I would post about it.

These are the fabrics I finally decided on.  It took me quite a while to get to these.  I only changed my mind about 4 times, buying a little fabric each time.  The large print floral is fabric left over from making window treatments for my living/dining room and kitchen window.  Funny how "window treatment" sounds so much more refined than curtains.

So then, the strips were sewn together into 3 combinations and then those strip combos are cut in to sections at a 45 degree angle.  The burgundy is the outside point.  We will NOT talk about how I had to play frog with the first set of strips I put together because they were totally out of order.  You can't even flip these and salvage the sewing because of the off set of each strip. And, will NOT talk about the lesson I had to learn about matching up seams that are on an angle. I know it sounds complicated, which it is not, just have to pay close attention to your pattern directions, which in my opinion could be a bit more explanatory in some areas.  Just saying.  According to the pattern, I should have gotten 8 sections from each strip set...I only got 7 (most of the class only got 7) so have to make one more strip set for each fabric combination.  I have however figured out a way to do a little more sewing, but use less fabric.  I know I am all about using up my stash, but there isn't much of these fabrics so don't want to waste three strips of fabric when I can use that fabric for something else, if it is left in larger pieces.

Those are then sewn in to diamond sections.  A total of 8 of these diamond sections are needed to make the quilt.

I haven't sewn them together yet, but this is how they will look with the triangle insets of large floral print.  If you can't already tell, this will not be a square quilt.  It will be hexagon shaped or what ever it is called when you have 8 sides.  For this pattern, if you want to make it square, then you replace four triangles with squares. 

Cool thing is, since I haven't sewn them together yet, I can reverse them and put the burgundy as the center points and the cream on the out side.  At the moment, I think I like the burgundy as the outside points.

I had made a deal with my daughter-in-law a while back to trade living room furniture.  I FINALLY have a comfortable chair for myself now.  When I can get my youngest daughter out of it.   At any rate, I had planned on making this quilt to lay across the back of the couch, that is why I used the fabric from the curtains.  I had a high backed sectional, took up the whole room.  We traded out the furniture today, so now I have a nice couch and oversized chair with an ottoman.  HOWEVER, I did not realize that the sofa set has a much lower back and that a series of pillows makes the back of the sofa.  It is not going to work for me to lay a quilt across it.  I will figure out something though.  The quilt is 44 x 44 inches.

The main thing is that I learned some new things, finally have made a Lone Star quilt and I had a lot of fun.  We also were given a pattern for a much larger Lone Star quilt using 2.5" strips.  About twice the size.  I am thinking about making it, but have found a kit very similar and I really love the fabrics in that kit.  I normally don't spend the kind of money a kit goes for, but this may just be the exception.  I will however think about it a while longer.  Who knows, maybe it will go on sale.

Speaking of sales, of course the shop was having a heck of a sale.  They had a lot of clearance they were trying to get rid of.  I helped them out with that, brought a lot home.  For the first time, I did purchase a couple of kits.  Both were reduced to the point that I could not buy the fabric for the price, not to mention it comes with the pattern.  Both are smaller throw size or child size and I will use them for gifts or raffle donations.  Some of the fabric was marked down to $2.20 a yard...how could I pass that up?

Almost forgot, I promised to post a photo of the quilt top I made recently for the orphanage quilt project our church quilt ministry has taken on.

As I said, very simple.  Will post a photo of the finished quilt when it is done.  The plan is to sew a back and batting on, kind of pillow case style, so there will be no binding.  Then, there will be a work day set for every one to come tie the quilts, so will be quilted with knots of thread.  I found out that I was given the wrong info and need to removed a row of squares.  Which is okay because that really isn't much work.  Just glad I found out before I made a bunch more.

That's all for now, have been moving furniture all day and now am ready to sew a while and work on finishing up this Lone Star project.

WELCOME!

This is my new blog, which will be a part of my original blog..."Blair Blog Project".  I just couldn't figure out how to add do this any other way.  I wanted to have tabs to click on to link to quilt related postings.  I see so many other blogs that do this, just don't have enough brains to figure out just how they do it.  I asked one person, she wrote back and told me to make a separate blog then link it to the home page, so guess that is what I will be doing.

For the most part, I do scrap quilts.  If you are looking for artsy fartsy type quilts, it won't be on here.  If you are looking for traditional, simple good for cuddling up in quilts, this is the place.  I am also a bit on the cheap side when it comes to supplies.  I have no problem using fabric from Walmart, JoAnn's or such.  They do have some quality fabrics at lower prices, but it does have to pass the quality test.  It has to feel good, color has to be solid (in other words not smudged or faded looking) and has to be something that I would want to have for my personal use.  In quality, not looks, because I make a lot of quilts that I wouldn't really want hanging around, but the person they are made for loves them.

I will post my progress on the UFO pile I found when setting up my sewing room.  A variety of stages of finish.  Some just need to be quilted and bound, a rag quilt that just needs to have the edges cut to fringe, several sets of blocks from swaps and such.  I have some BOM (block of the month) projects that are planned for the 2013 year as well.  One is through our LQS (local quilt store) and is called "First Saturday".  It is a bit pricey at $10 a month to participate, but compared to some of the other BOM sets I have seen online for sale, it is nothing.  For that $10 I receive a block pattern along with all the fabrics I need to make that block.  The others are free and offered online.  I will post the names and details of them as they come up. 

Oh, and I will be two other projects, BOM style from patterns I purchased.  One is for a pattern called Sugar Kisses.

The colors of this quilt are much brighter in person.  The LQS did this as a BOM last year, so I missed out on getting the same fabrics.  I will find fabrics from my stash, for the most part, and will be doing this on my own, a block each month, hopefully anyway.  I am not the best at applique but hope to learn more with this quilt.  A friend of mine did do the BOM for this with the shop, but she has not worked on so it may be that I can buy her blocks or at least look at the fabric a bit to try and match with the pattern photo.

Note:  Found out that she started the BOM but shortly after starting it she started divorce proceedings and found out she had been laid off, so didn't have the money to keep up with the BOM program.

The other applique I project I am going to do is the Piecemakers's 2013 calendar quilt. I hope to do a block a month or every other month.

I live in California and we go to the beach often so I just couldn't resist.  Of course we won't mention the other calendar years I bought because they had them on sale for $5.00.  All of their calendar quilts are mainly applique.

Currently though, I just finished a quilt top.  Flimsy I guess is a common term used for it.  Very simple and relatively fast, easy for the beginner.  Will post a photo of the flimsy in the next posting.

Guess that is enough of a beginning, come back and visit any time.