Pillow wonderfulness

I love pillows.  I love making pillowcases.  What's not to love?!!!
Have y'all checked out the bloggers pillow party?  So many pillows to drool over and inspire!

Here is one that I made to 'go' with my Dandelion Girl Hunter's star quilt.  I used left-overs from a 'sister quilt' I finished not long ago (haven't shared that one yet, maybe soon).  This quilted pillow resides on the back of my recliner love seat.  I made this one with a hidden zipper.  I love zipper pillowcases the most :)

Although, I think I'll have to make myself about a dozen of these pillowcases!

Sherbet Pips hexagon quilt top done!

Ok, I teased about this quilt top a couple weeks ago, but now I'm gonna share!   I took pics along the way, so I think I will probably put up a tutorial for it sometime this week.

this is laid out on my son's full bed (who is away at college).  It hangs several inches over on all sides, so it's a pretty good sized quilt top.  It was done with one jelly roll and yardage that equaled a little over a jelly roll (just over 3 yards I think if I remember right).  This was a really fun, quick and EASY quilt top to make!  Now to get it quilted!  I really could use a longarm of my own! LOL

Hunter's Star tutorial

There have been several people interested in how I made my Hunter's Star quilt that I shared on the blogger's quilt festival.  There are probably many ways to do a Hunter's Star pattern, but this is how I did mine.

First, I highly suggest you print out this pic that I created in EQ - the arrangement of the little HST's can be confusing! (HST's = half square triangles)

Now, you will need six 5'' charm squares for each block (the block will be 9 1/2'' after assembly with a finished size of 9'' in your quilt).  3 charms need to be the same print/color and 3 charms need to be the same solid.

I highly recommend that you spray starch these blocks before you start sewing/cutting.  Take one of each charm and set them aside for now.  Take two pairs of charms and layer one print/dark on top of the light/solid.  Stitch around on all 4 sides of the charms with a 1/4'' seam.

 

Now, cut diagonally both ways to create 4 triangles on these squares

Then, take each triangle and open them up and press carefully to create 8 HST's.

Now comes the trimming!  Square each little triangle up so they end up 2 3/4'' square.

This rule is an 8'' square bias ruler from 'That Patchwork Place'  Love this ruler!

Now arrange them so you can assemble your block!

refer to the picture you printed out.  Notice that the 3 'inner' on each corner all point in the same direction.  Dark toward the dark block, light toward the light block.  The outer corners are the only one's that are rotated.
Sew the little HST's into pairs and then into the 4 patches.  Then, sew the triangle patches to each solid charm and then the two pairs together.

and now you have your finished Hunter's Star block!  You should be able to get 36 of these from 3 charm packs to create a 54x54'' quilt top with a 6x6 block layout.  Or, add a 4th charm pack and border the 36 Hunter's Star blocks with the whole charm squares to create a 63x63'' quilt top like I did below.  You will have leftovers for piecing a backing as well if you do it this way.  If you wanted to use all 40 charms from each pack on the front, you could do a 5x8 block layout and end up with a 45''x72'' quilt top without the 4th charm pack.  You could then add the 4th charm pack and bring that up to 54''x81'' which could be a single bed size or a nice size couch/lap quilt.

this quilt is now available for sale in my Etsy shop (with new better pics)

16-patches ready for next step!

I have my 16-patches done for the next step of the quilt along!

One of my favorite quilt tops.....

I always have a 'new' favorite, but this one is just calling me to be quilted!  I know I've showed it before, but I had to show it again. My wonderful HST quilt from the 'Endless Possibilities' pattern on Moda Bake Shop.  Done in 'Wee Play' (so sad that it's OOP, love this line!)  I had some leftover HST's from this project, I think I'm going to make pillowcovers to match with the leftovers.

I just adore this quilt.  The fabrics, the HST's, the pattern the colors make.  Love love love it!  I am going to be taking my machine in for service today, so I am going to ask at the shop if they know of anybody/anywhere I can rent time on a longarm.  I'd love to get some tops quilted that are too big to do on my machine!

Tippy needs a doctor......

I went to start sewing on my 16-patch blocks for the quilt along, and Tippy was not happy.  Oh, she pretended to be happy, but you could tell in her workmanship that she needs a doctor.  I tried giving her new needles in several sizes, and none worked.  She will need her timing adjusted.  I called my local Pfaff dealer and they charge $120 for a service, YIKES.  I was able to find a $10 off coupon on their website, but STILL.  Sheesh.  I've only been using her for like 3 weeks.  The last owner said she'd just had a service.  I hope she's not one of 'those' problem machine's that goes out of timing all the time!  If she is, then I will have to figure out something else.  I need a reliable machine for my hat business...... ::sigh::  And I thought she was ''the one''............

fabric cut for the Happy Quilting quilt along!

Here's my charms cut from my layer cake ready for the next step in the quilt along!  I have another charm pack coming in the mail too - I plan to do the 68x68 size as I like a square quilt :)

Design wall Monday - Valentines day!

Well, hubby and I spent the good part of our Sunday working on our projects.  Me on my selvage quilt, and he worked on a new painting :)  Here is what hubby finished:

 

I just love the colors in this painting - that aqua/turquoise coming through in the forest background and in the puddles, yummy.  The texture on the tree's is awesome too.  Hubby is really hard on himself with the painting, pointing out what he would do different and what he'd like to be able to figure out how to do better, but all-in-all I think he is doing awesome and his talent is progressing wonderfully!



Here is what I worked on!  My spiderweb selvage quilt!

Here is all 200 triangles done and ready for assembly.

Here they are all pinned with a couple sewed together into blocks.  I don't normally pin a whole stack, usually pin as I go.  But, I wanted to be able to zip through them faster and I think I will pin ahead more often now as it definitely helped speed things along.

Here's my first block assembled.  I have to make 25 of these!  (although the edge and corner ones will not have the small spiderweb on the edges so I don't have any half webs in the quilt).  When I finished this block, hubby had come in for a break on his painting.  I beamed and said ''see what I've been working on?!''  He said ''well, I think you've lost your mind.  None of those match up.''  I said ''they aren't supposed to, it's a scrap quilt!''.  He said, ''you mean a clown quilt?''.  HUMPH.  I guess I'm the only one that has to like it!  POO.

And, here is 4 blocks laid together (and my dog Tikka on the bed where she can look out the window whenever she wants!) Hubby walked in again when I had these laid out and I said ''Can you see now where I'm going with this quilt?''.  He said ''ya'', and started humming a circus tune and acting like a clown.  LOL, oh well!!!  I think it's going to be awesome!  It's definitely going to be heavier than most quilt tops I do.  Although I don't think I'll ever make this type quilt again, if I ever did, I think I'd paper piece it instead of foundation piece it so that there wasn't so much bulk.  That way I could press seams to the side instead of open like I have to with the foundation piecing.


Well, I have real 'work' I have to get done, and I'll probably try to think of something nice to make for Valentines day.  Maybe make some cookies or something special :)

Happy Valentines day everybody!

A quilt finish!

I finally buckled down and finished the HST quilt top of Lumiere de Noel I finished this last fall.  I had hoped to finish it by Christmas, but at least it's finished before Valentine's!

I just did a cross-hatch diagonal stitch intersecting each of the HST's.  Simple, quick, effective.  Here it is all washed and wrinkly yumminess!

The backing is the same solid dark red as the border.  It's now residing on the back of my couch for easy reach to snuggle under!

And for the first time, I've had material bleed because I don't prewash...... yes, those cream triangles are a tinge pink.  Do I care?  NOPE!  I am going to get some color catchers though, and wash it in synthropol later this week.  If it doesn't come out, it's still a nice snuggly quilt either way :)

another quilt along!

the postage stamp quilt along was a lot of fun, so I thought I'd join another!

I am going to be using a layer cake of ''Dream On'' and some coordinating solid (still undecided).
Let the games begin!

dresden plate quilt progress

I've been working again in the evenings on my 100% hand stitched dresden plate quilt.  This is the stitching I decided to go with.  I have 3 of the 9 plates done, haven't decided what to stitch in the centers.  I'm a beginner at hand quilting, so it will have to be something easy!  The wool batting is pretty lofty too, so no tight corners because I can't get the stitches real small.  The blades of the plates are done with ''Mamas Cottons'' from Connecting Threads, and the squares connecting the blocks together are also some of those Mamas Cottons, but also a lot of it is from my grandmother's vintage stash - some feedsack material even.  You can see the very far left/lower corner the print with the spinning wheel is a fabric that my mom used some of it to make potholders in the 50's.  And, in the upper left corner, to the right of the red block is a feedsack print I adore.  It killed me to cut that up, but I also used it to repair the postage stamp quilt that was my grandmother's too.

backing and binding ready for postage stamp quilt

I pieced the backing and binding for the postage stamp quilt this morning, and I have batting ready too.  Now I just need to find floor space big enough to make the quilt sandwich!
And from the leftover scraps, I'm going to make a scotty dog pillow (perfect for the Pampered Pooch material I chose to use!)