Quilt Gazing!

Saturday my neighbor and another friend and I went to the AQS quilt show in Grand Rapids.  It was a beautiful ride through countryside I have not been through before.  The best part was being with people who make me laugh and who themselves enjoy life with laughter, smiles and positive attitudes about everything.  I didn't know quilting could be so funny.  The show was good.  It is always amazing to see the talent that is out there and what women can do with needle and thread.  The Tentmakers of Cairo display was especially inspiring.

Sunday we helped our church pack 10,000 meals for hungry children.  Fun and rewarding!!!!

Today Steve and I celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.  It has been an incredible journey.  Still crazy in love after all these years.  Just wish the years would stop flying by so fast.

My "to do" list is getting done.  Of course after the quilt show on Saturday I added to it with some new projects.  I'll start quilting on the quilt this afternoon as soon as I finish the Christmas stockings for the kids class.  We'll see how it goes!

May your day be filled with people and things you love.

Dee

Get it Done!!

I am on a mission to get my "to do" list "to done"!  I have also gotten the itch to try and improve my machine quilting again.  With that in mind, I finished my so called "modern" sampler so that I could practice my machine quilting. (see picture)  Would that be called transferring a "to done" back to a
"to do"?

It's hard to believe that I am getting fall projects completed for upcoming classes.  I feel like summer should just be starting and not ending.  School is back in session around here and the melon festivals are coming up.  

Yesterday I turned on the Christmas music and finished the Christmas quilt and quilted garland for the Ann Arbor Sewing Center store sample.  Glad that one is off my plate.  I am so not ready to think about Christmas.  Then I got distracted thinking about my son's upcoming wedding.  (No date is set yet)  What kind of quilt should I make them?  What fabrics and colors should I use?  The answer:  I don't know.

May you find joy and satisfaction in your "projects" today.

Dee

Trip Around Tutorial

As promised here is the tutorial for the scrappy Trip Around the World.  A great way to use up scraps and diminish that stash.  I chose all fabrics that had that soft romantic feel to it in primarily greens, pinks, reds and blues.  I am calling it my romance and roses quilts.

Choose six fabrics and cut into 2 1/2 x 16 inch strips.  Lay them out in any order you wish to sew them  together
I chose to use all dark green fabrics on the outside to distinguish the pattern when you put the quilt together and I
also used a light fabric on the other side while randomly putting the others between.  Sew the strips together in the order you want them.

Here are the six strips sewn together and turned around so that you can see how  to press them.  Press every other seam going in the opposite direction so that your seams will butt up against each other when you sew them back together.

Fold your sewn strips right sides together and sew the dark and light strip lengthwise to form a tube.

Once you have sewn the tube lay it flat and square up the left side and then cut six 2 1/2 inch strips  from that.  They will still be in a tube.

Now you will unsew each 2 1/2 inch tube to get six strips again with your dark square starting at  the left side and going up to the right.  See picture below.  Start with your dark fabric to the top and unsew.  The next one you will unsew will be the one that was on top of the first row that will now go to the bottom of the second row so make sure it is to the top of your tube before you unsew.   Hope that is clear.

These are your six tubes unsewn and laid out ready to sew back together.  Once they are sewn your now have a block.  Keep making these blocks until you have the size of quilt you desire.

Here are eight of my blocks put together to form the trip around the world.  I think I will go with  6 blocks across and 8 down.  Who knows, it may grow bigger than that.  I have been having fun putting them together.  As you can see the dark green always on the left side of the strips gives a very distinct pattern for the trip around.  You can see it without doing that but I think this just adds a lot.  You could also choose one fabric to use in all of your blocks to get a great look as well.  For example, using black with all brights would be stunning.

Have fun busting your stash.  Please send pictures of your quilt when it is done.  We would all love to see them.

Dee