31 Day Blogging Challenge Complete!

I did it!  31 Days of continuous blogging.  There were some great posts in there...did you catch them?  Thanks to Cheryl Sleboda of muppin.com for sponsoring this challenge!

An adventure to get an Accuquilt die here.  This picture is part of that story...

My final I Wish You a Merry Quilt Along quilt here.

Two fun table toppers for Island Batik here and here.

And Helen Godden's Christmas Advent Quilt Along here.

Now back to the regular schedule...

Inspiration Mondays, Projects Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Free Motion Fridays.

Today I got the main blocks of my quilt in progress assembled.  Here's one of them. I love how they turned out!  Some of those intersections have a lot of seams, but it turned out well in the end.

I also got out all my flying geese for the On Ringo Lake mystery quilt to start clue 7.  I have then pinned and some sewn....guess what you'll see soon!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

On Ringo Lake Clue #6 Complete

What to do when the weather outside is below zero?  Invite a friend over and sew!  We were all working on our Ringo Lake clues.  Here's my Clue #6 all done.  I can't wait to see what this turns out to be.  The colors are so yummy.

And here's all the little triangles I had to trim off.  Thanks to Ann for the tip about using scissors.  That was so much faster than a rotary cutter.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

A Day of Ripping and Play

I spent this morning piecing and then realized my well planned method for pressing my pieces wasn't going to work the way I thought.  I ended up ripping some things and will adjust as I go.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  I might need it........

Here's where I'm at.  I love these colors and hope it comes out flat.....we shall see.

I also had fun going to see Star Wars - The Last Jedi with my family and hanging out with these two goons among others.  It's such fun.

I promise to be back to Free Motion Fridays next week...

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

My New Project Continued

It's Christmas Break, it's cold.  Time to sew!  I made a lot of progress on my new quilt today.

I like to know exactly where to sew, so I poke a pin through both layers and then mark the exact spot.

I made lots of these units today.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

What I'm Working on Right Now

This week I wanted to work on something just for me.  Just for fun.  Just because I'm in the mood to piece (thank you Bonnie Hunter for kick starting that!).  So I designed a quilt while at my mom's house sitting around with my sister and family.  Then mom says, "Why don't you cut that on the Accuquilt?  You can use my fabric."  Well, twist my arm!  So picked out gorgeous royals, oranges, and limes, and cream for the background.  All scrappy.  And I cut the whole quilt out in an afternoon.  Thanks for the help with ironing the fabric mom!

This is my first quilt sewn on my new Bernina 570QE that arrived just before Christmas.  I used the 97D foot (a patchwork foot that has a slot for the built in even feed foot and a guide for sewing the pieces at a 1/4 inch).  It's a dream.  The pieces are coming out the right size and sew like a dream.  I did pin everything.  I am an obsessive over-pinner.  Anyone else pin like crazy?  

As I was sewing my half square triangles my machine decided to pull the tip down into the innards.  This was SO NOT going to work for me.  What to do? I went and bought a single hole throat plate for it.  It's one of my favorite tools.  The needle can only go down in the center position and so nothing can be pulled down into the machine.  I use this always when doing free motion work and piecing, but I didn't have one for the new machine.  Problem solved!  When switching needle position or doing blanket stitch or other decorative stitching be sure to switch back to the regular throat plate or you'll break your needle....been there, done that too many times to count.  Oops.

These are the last of the pieces I cut and haven't starting sewing on yet.  Much more fun to come! 

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Inspired by Pattern Blocks

These are pattern blocks.  I use them when I teach math.  They work well for geometry and also for fractions.  They're also great to think about English Paper Piecing patterns!  Hmmm.... 

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Merry Christmas!

It's day 25 of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge and I'm done with my wreath for Helen Godden's Christmas Advent Quilt Along.  Just it time to block it and hang it on the wall.  Merry Christmas to all!

I hope today brings you time with family and friends.

I hope you get to quilt today too!
Suzy

All I Want for Christmas is....more Glide Thread!

This is all I wanted for Christmas....I am a happy quilter!  My mom is the BEST!

What a gorgeous pile.

And I even used some of it on Helen Godden's Christmas Advent Quilt along....almost done!  Tomorrow...

Now to add green and quilt the background!

I hope you get to quilt today!
And Merry Christmas Eve!
Suzy

On Ringo Lake Clue #5

More flying geese.  Sigh.  I like flying geese, but now I really remember why I don't like to make them.  Mom and I decided to use a different technique than last time (cut perfect on Accuquilt) and use the four at a time method.  We found the exact dimensions to cut, but don't have Accuquilt strip cutters for that exact size.  So I cut some pieces of the sizes we did have and tried it out.  It worked well and we had to trim about an 1/8 of an inch from the sides.  So we went for it.

We talked and marked our squares.  I then came home and pinned.

Mom has an amazing 1.5 x 3 Blocloc trimmer for geese.  It worked great!

Two done....many to go.

Mom had some sticky stuff on the back of the ruler.  It's like the stuff that holds gift cards on to the cardboard they come attached to.  It got unsticky after awhile and I was trying to figure out a solution as it made the trimming much easier.

I bought these dots at Office Max.  I wanted temporary, but they only had permanent.  They were too sticky so I put some of the oil from my hands (okay, okay, and my hair) on the dots to get them less sticky.  Then they worked great and lasted for 80 pieces or so before they had to be replaced.  

All done!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Organizing Thread

In Houston this year Pineapple Fabrics had a fantastic deal on 28 weight Aurifil Thread.  Buy one get one free.  I went a little nuts as I'd just started using that weight and wanted to get some more.  My plan was to keep it in this bag.....needless to say, that wasn't going to work.

Then I remembered I had these bins in my classroom that I haven't used in a few years.  So I brought them home.

I then dumped the bag....

And organized by color group (only 4 doubles in the bunch....not bad)

I then put 8 in each drawer as that's all that would fit.

One for warms.

One for cools

One for neutrals.

My organized soul is now very happy and I can find what I need.  Now what to sew?

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Christmas Gifts for Teachers

I love doing Secret Santa at work.  It's such a joy to find a little something on my desk in the morning.  But what to do for the big gift at the end?  I decided on name signs for my teacher friends.  It's a good thing I knew my Secret Santa loved blue.  

The second one was for my student teacher.  It's been three days without her and I miss her tons.  I had a kid figure out her favorite color (sea foam green).  Each of the letter was cut out of fabric backed with fusible.  Then quilted and finally bound with fused fabric.  They hang on the wall and this way requires no hand sewing.

I had fun quilting circles between the letters on this one.  I also had fun cutting the binding with my pinking rotary blade in the cutter.  It adds something fun to this binding I think.

Here's another example of the pinking in black.

You weren't going to see anything on this green, so I just did a big stipple.

The best part....both of the recipients loved their quilts!  It always makes me happy when this happens.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy