Eeek! Where has the time gone! I want to say that I’m over here killing it and knocking out all kinds of UFOs and there are a lot of pictures so get ready.
That would be a lie. I haven’t done anything on those UFO’s.
Why not? That’s a great question. The shop has been a bit on the busy side. We have had more folks express interest in our beginning longarm class (yay!) as well as quilters bringing in quilts that need quilting or repairing. Combine all of that with kids going back to school and adjusting to our new schedules and we kinda scratch the surface.
No complaints though – I love that we are getting to meet some new quilters at the shop as well as seeing the beautiful tops that we are being trusted with to bring out their beauty.
But still, why not? We have talked about the whole motivation factor before. Sometimes we just don’t have it in us to do it. Sometimes there are other things that are taking precedence where we can’t get things done. There is no real point in trying to cram in everything, sometimes there just is no time. It really is okay to take a step back and take care of those things that are demanding our attention. Thankfully for me, we are settling down into that schedule and I will be able to get back to those UFO’s very soon. I was really excited to finish off those flower wall hangings. Momentum even carried me into a UFO that I have seriously procrastinated starting (is it really a UFO if it hasn’t been started? I think intent matters here). That is the Safehaven block of the month from Thimbleberries. You can take a peek at it here. Yeah, yeah, I know it says it’s from 2000….I’ve had the kit for a while and at first is was really intimidating so I kept putting it off. Once I finished floral wallhangings, I took another look at it. Turns out that it isn’t as scary as I remembered and I have 2 blocks completed. My debate now is whether or not to go ahead and applique the circles now or wait until more blocks are completed as well as the debate of which applique method to use. I’m really leaning toward a lightweight fusible and then stitching around them as it seems that will be the quickest method for me and this project has waited long enough.
Don’t worry though, I’ve got a hand applique project (or two) still waiting in the wings. Once upon a time Char and I thought it would be great to do a P3 Designs pattern as she has done an aboslutely gorgeous Halloween Baltimore Album quilt. Seriously. If you haven’t seen it you should click here. If you like that one, you should check out the rest of her available patterns. This lady is seriously talented and her work is beautiful. Of course now that it’s getting close to spooky season, I almost want to dig this one out and see if I can nudge it along a little more.
Hmmm. It almost feels like motivation is starting to visit. Maybe I should take advantage of that while I can.
It’s time for our monthly UFO check in! How are you coming with yours? I am still plugging along and will be really happy to get this one off my list of things to do! You may remember me talking about this one in previous posts….it is a flower of the month series with fabric designed by Ro Gregg and patterns by Nancy Mahoney. I might have that backwards, but that is where I am going to stay. These came in kits with instructions and are from 2008….yes, 2008. I thought it would be easy to do one kit a month. After all they are small and while not terribly simple, they are not overly complicated. Trouble was that I was still working a full time office job, had a baby that October, and we were running the shop in the evenings and weekends. What time? What was I thinking? At the very least I did make it in to my local quilt shop and picked up each of the kits and have had them waiting. Because if you have one you should have them all! Right? You are with me on that right? Well, I thought it would be nice to hang and be able to change out each month. I’m much closer to that goal now!
Since they are a flower of the month, there are 12 kits. I had thought I was being smart and gathered those kits and read the instructions and got all the fabrics cut so I could work on them at retreats. Then Covid and no retreats. The fabric was still cut and waiting for me….but I now have to read everything again to make sure I’m doing the right thing. It slows my process down a little bit. In February I pulled them out thinking, great! This is a big project to get completed and I can wait to move this off my list or at least move it into the queue for quilting!
I’m lumping them all together rather than thinking of them individually because I really just want to get them done and it has been a long time. At the beginning of the month I had 4 of them ready to be quilted and one ready to be bound. But (of course) I added in an extra step. The fabric cuts for these kits were very generous so I kinda added a layer of difficulty. There was also a panel that went along with these fabrics and patterns. Of course I picked one up and kept it with all of the mini kits. With the cuts being so generous, I have enough fabric to complete an extra center block to put with the panel. Curious about the panel? You can find it here. I will say I did not realize that it was for stitchery and I thought it was something to be colored….either way, I have it.
In February I was able to finish 5 of the tops and have one more partially complete with the last one waiting in the wings. Even though I should be moving on to something else, I am going to stay with this one and get those last two finished. Most of the UFO’s on my list for March were new things to start (like kits I’ve had waiting or patterns I’ve matched up with fabric to create) and rather than cutting something new and creating a whole new UFO, I think I would be better off this month to finish these lovelies and look at the the UFO’s I didn’t get finished in January and February to see if I can finish up anything else like that cardinal cross stitch….. Progress is progress right? It sure is!
So, here are the ones that I did get ready this month….I didn’t worry about photographing the second center blocks because they are just going into another UFO. Originally I had thought that I would border the panel with these blocks, but now I am not so sure. It might be something that I scrap entirely or use the center blocks in some type of setting and incorporate the panel into the backing. I think that will need to percolate a little while longer before I make a final decision. Here are 3 of them….Lily of the Valley, Narcissus, and Cosmos.
The last are Cosmos (again), Aster and Rose. The last two to complete are Daffodil (which is almost complete) and Chrysanthemum. I might have miscut things on the Rose as I had to piece together some things and the green in there is not the green from the kit….I can’t seem to find that so I either lost it (most likely) or never had it (unlikely).
I wish I had more to show and I really was on track to get those last two completed but I got a little confused on some of the instructions. I should also admit that I fell down a rabbit hole with my kids as we have been playing a lot of Minecraft…I know…it’s a video game. However, they are now asking me to play with them and we can all hang out together while doing it and that is important. Since we are all playing together, it’s kind of like working on a group project and we can talk about ways to work together in a group which is another great lesson to learn. They can take the lead on most of the game because they know more than I do (for now) and can do things more quickly than I can (for now). But they are learning that we each have our own skill set and for them I am the Queen of Resources. Whenever we go adventuring I always make sure I have extra food, supplies, whatever needed for all of us which has come in handy many times. One of them is very good setting up farming and taking care of animals while the other is good at trailblazing so the rest of us have an easier path to follow. They still need to work on communication and not being bossy, but we will get there and hopefully have some fun while we are doing it. It has cut into my sewing time a bit, and I’m okay with that because I’m not sure how long this will last and I am starting to look forward to this time with them and being a part of their world.
If you are not terribly familiar with Minecraft…it’s too much to explain here, but I will say that it has the most convoluted series of tasks that you have to complete in order to battle the final foe (or Ender Dragon) that I have seen. However, battling the final foe is not a necessary goal of the game and one could spend an inordinate amount of time creating and crafting and building in their world.
Anyway, I think I am now off to google some Minecraft quilts to get some inspriation as that just might have to be a thing for Christmas…..maybe a wall hanging for their rooms with their favorite things from the game.
Happy quilting and we hope that you are also making progress on your UFO’s! I’m hoping that I will have those flowers complete and ready for quilting by the end of this month and who knows what else I will be able to accomplish!
Since it’s the first of the month, let’s talk about those UFO’s shall we? In case you were wondering, I did complete the latch hook complete with rug binding. Just don’t look too closely at the binding. That part is not really done well and I am thinking that at some point I will need to redo that binding.
Ta-Da! It has also been given to my son where it graced his floor immediately. One done only about a million to go (or so it feels). It is time to move on to February! One of the projects that came up was a project I bought from a quilt guild garage sale. In case your guild hasn’t done one of these, it’s pretty freeform. They set aside one of the meetings to do this once the business portion is complete. You can bring in items you wish to get rid of and sell them. So there are usually books, kits, fabric, notions, really just kind of anything. You get a little cash with the added bonus of getting rid of things you don’t like or didn’t work for you.
I came home with this:
Look at all the batik! And then it sat because that pattern looked hard. However, I have now done my own similar mandala without the fancy pieced block in the middle and figured why not! Since it’s number cam up, I should at least get it out and see what’s what.
Lots of precut strips so I can make more strata. Not necessarily my colors, but it still has some potential.
There are a good amount of wedges cut and just waiting to be sewn together. So, I figured my first step was to press everything and take it one step at a time.
Some leftovers that I can use in other things – bonus!
I thought it would be easiest to just do the things that were obvious and so I have sewn the wedges together and pinned it to what I think was intended for the background of the mandala. There are not any strips cut from the brown so that is my best guess. It doesn’t look too bad on there, but it does feel a little blendy to me. The more I look at it the more it grows on me and I’m not complaning. After all this was a quilter yardsale item I probably got for $10 or less and it’s all batiks!
If you are not familiar – this set of strips sewn together is referred to as strata. Althought maybe it should be stratum….I of course had to go look things up just to make sure that I really was using the correct terminology (Stratum: one of a series of layers, levels, or gradations in an ordered system). Either way, I started to work making my own strata and got my first couple of wedges cut. All should be good in the wood, right? Spoiler alert…there was Trouble with a capital T. Take a good look at the picture below.
Did you take a good look? Do you see what I see? I bet you do. It’s fairly obvious. The two wedges to the right are the ones that I added. You can see that things start out looking pretty good, and my strips are all in the the correct order but something has gone awry. I measured my seam allowance on the back and her seam allowance and we were both at 1/4″. The cutting was already done so that was all done by the same person. All I can really think is that it is the differences in our machines somehow….If you have suggestions or know what could be going on, please drop a comment.
I am not comfortable going on with this project as there will be a very obvious shift and I’m pretty sure that even if I shift up a little, things are not going to line up well although I am willing to give that a shot next. Thinking I could pin at each seam intersection, but I’m not certain that will be enough to bring our wedges into alingment.
So, then what? We punt. It’s pointless to put it back in the box as I will still have the same issues the next time I try to work on it. At this point, I am thinking that I will take the wedges apart and kinda flip flop them so they are more of a straight line. I think that brown might make a nice sash of somesort and I could turn this into more of a table runner without having to cut more wedges. The rest of the strips and strata that has already been cut will most likely be used up in smaller projects like table runners and mug rugs that will end up on our Etsy store. No guarantees, I might be able to figure out what is going on, but I’m not going to invest a ton more time in trying to make it work. My goal is to complete something with it and if that ends up not being the pattern it arrived with, then so be it. Fingers crossed something works!
This was also on my list…omg, it’s almost done. Can anyone explain to me why I didn’t finish it? No? Me neither. What it is lacking is the outlining stitching in black. Yep. That’s it. No, it’s not very big so what do I do with it?
Here you can see what the finished project looks like. There is not much outlining at all and I have the instructions and materials to finish out the framing of this. I’m thinking this will not take very long at all and my other son has a love of cardinals so I will pass it along to him, if he likes it.
I have some other things on my various UFO lists that I may get a chance to work on depending on how these two things finish out. One of those is to practice crocheting with crochet thread. It’s not something that I have worked with very much. I did attempt a snowflake ornament a while ago, but the smaller hook sizing feels different to me and there are different weights of cotton thread. So, I have been sitting and practicing my tension and soon I will try the little snowflakes again to see if I can raise my comfort level. I’m not sure I want to try anything larger than an ornament at this time, but maybe that will be something I can look forward to once I gain some proficiency.
How are things going with your UFO’s? I did get my sewing area mostly cleaned up….I really should finish clearing my ironing board (although I do need to get a new cover for that…) and my cutting space. It’s just little stuff that I need to find homes for and I have procrastinated about that a bit… That’s okay though, It will all get done eventually. *fingers crossed*
Hopefully you are also making progress on your UFO’s or whatever project you are working on.
How has your week been? Hopefully you are staying warm and healthy. Have you been working on any projects or maybe made any progress on your crafting area?
I have! Slowly but steadily I am making progress in my room. My cutting table is just about usable and I have most of my sewing table cleared. Next up is the ironing board. Why is it that flat spaces seem to have some sort of magnetic power that attracts all the things to be placed on them? Do you find that to be true in your area? (Or maybe even the rest of your home?) I did not take any pictures of my room, maybe once it is all cleaned up I’ll share what my home space looks like.
As I was going through and finding homes for everything, I realized that I did not list every single project on my lists. Which is okay (and makes for fewer lists!). The number for this month is 12 and that happens to land on a latch hook kit that I thought I had all the yarn for. Well, one of my number 12’s. I took a look at what was listed at 12 and chose one that I could work on in the evenings without needing to be in my sewing room.
Latch hook kit? What decade are you living in?!? I’m sure we all have those older projects that have been lying around or you inherited. I haven’t done one a quite a while and had one that looks vintage modern. I thought it would be fun. However, I do not have all the yarn. 😱. I know right? Don’t they all come in kits? I used to think so, but I have two canvases that are sans yarn. This is one of them. I don’t know if you can tell from the picture but the yarns are two different lengths and I have the stuff for the long yarn sections. Although now I’m debating whether or not to do it all in white…maybe I should see about finding a light grey for the shorter sections. Either way it’s going back in the UFO pile for another time…..
Yeah, that looks every bit like it is from the 1970’s doesn’t it? But it also looks kinda cool…. However, with not having all of the materials it will just have to wait until I have everything. I’m not rushing as I have plenty of other projects to work on. I ended up swapping it out for a different latch hook that wasn’t on my list. This has been a low stress project to work on in the evenings while watching tv. The bonus is that I am a lot faster at this than I used to be and this project is almost complete. Double bonus is that one of the boys has laid claim to it so I won’t have to figure out what to do with it when it is finished. I know you are totally curious about what it could possibly be so of course I need to share a picture.
I did forget to take a picture of this project when I first started to work on it, so I folded it up to show the section that was done.
And here is where we are now. I am hoping that in a couple more evenings I will have it completed!
Honestly I’m still a little surprised that I’ve gotten so much done. It is working up much quicker than I had anticipated and I’m kind of excited to complete it. The real challenge will be remembering how to apply the rug binding but I think that I have some instructions around here somewhere. Fingers crossed that I can find them!
Hopefully you are also making progress on the things you need – whatever they may be. If you are challenging yourself to get some of your UFO’s completed, or perhaps get yourself started on a challenging project, please feel free to share your progress! We love show and tell!
I know, we still need to make a decision about the sashing. What could be taking us so long? Well, holiday season. Don’t get us wrong, we love the holidays! Right now things just get a little crazy with everyone trying to get gifts completed on time. With the pandemic, people have been sewing and getting tops done and trying to get those caught up as well. This just makes things a little busier at the shop and we don’t always get back to our own projects.
That being said, New Year’s is one of my favorites. You may have have seen posts about it before, but I do like to talk about it. The New Year is a great symbol for new beginnings. It creates an opportunity for a new start, and don’t we always love a chance for a new start?
How will you use yours? Create a new UFO list to work through? Maybe get all the supplies for the new hobby you have been itching to try? Maybe fix the things that you didn’t get to this year? It’s prime time to make a list, get your thoughts in order, or even start getting the items so you can make a great start! Maybe you are on track to finish up the last things from this year list. If so, great job! If not, remember that we all do the best we can.
What will we do? Well, I’m not sure we need any new hobbies (although I did pick up a tatting shuttle…..I’ve been a little curious about how that works.), so we will probably be making a UFO list. If that is your jam, be sure to check out American Patchwork and Quilting – they have a UFO group on Facebook where you can share your work. But be forewarned….It may cause you to add projects to your list….. You can’t say we didn’t warn you. The last time I filled out multiple copies of their list. Basically, you list your projects 1-12 and each month they draw a number and you work on that project. Can you fudge it? Sure. It’s more of a fun and encouraging way to work through those UFO’s rather than a place of set rules.
Are you looking forward to the New Year and do you make special plans around it? We would love to hear about it! Finishing some UFO’s? We would love to help you if we can (especially the quilt related ones!). Leave us a comment here, or on Facebook! If learning how to use a long arm quilt machine is one of the things on your list, January is a great time to come in for a class!
It dawned on me as we published our last post that we hadn’t talked about April UFO things. My apologies! I know there are only a couple of weeks left in the month, so lets make this an easy thing.
Make 2 practice blocks. Wait what? I don’t know about you, but I am not terribly good about making a practice block when embarking on a new pattern or technique. Char and I have been designing some of our patterns and making a practice block has really been helpful and I’m not quite sure why I haven’t done it before. (Stay tuned because we are getting really close on those!)
So, what is the point? Why do I want to “waste” my time and fabric for a practice block?! I just want to dig in and work on my quilt in my fabulous fabrics!
Well, there are a couple of good reasons why a practice block is a good idea. The first is color placement. If you can make your practice block out of the same fabrics that you intend to use for the quilt, even better. Otherwise using similar colors and values will help you to see if your block (and thus your quilt) will be balanced. If your practice block doesn’t have enough contrast or the fabric you thought would be showcased isn’t, you now have an opportunity to make adjustments before you cut into the yardage for the quilt. Since many of us do all of our cutting at the beginning, this saves us from having a major problem of pieces cut the wrong size or ending up with a quilt we do not enjoy. Let’s face it, sometimes the ideas in our head work out better than they do when we try to put them into practice.
The second reason is to try out that new technique. We all know that practice makes perfect but we don’t always take that time when it comes to new techniques. Many of us expect to just do it on the fly. After all we have been quilting for a while and if it doesn’t turn out perfect it’s okay. While I do agree with the sentiment that done is better than perfect, I also think that it is better to set ourselves up for success. With trying a new technique, we may find that have to do more ripping in order to get things right. While fabric is fairly forgiving, you can only rip so many times before that piece becomes too frayed to use or ends up with a hole. If you are someone who likes to only purchase just enough fabric for the project this could be a problem (and also why buying a little extra is a good idea). You may also find that you prefer a different way of doing things, and it could affect your yardage requirements.
As you go through the process you are going to want to take some notes. Perhaps you are modifying the color layout and need to remember what changes you made. While you work through a new technique you may make modifications and it’s helpful to remember what those are. Personally, I am not terribly good at the notes part and I often remind myself to get better at it. It’s helpful to pick up a UFO and find notes reminding me of where I left off and what I had in mind. It takes a lot longer to sift through papers with seemingly random numbers trying to decipher what was in my mind that day. In fact, if you are not a good note taker (like me) this might be a good time to revisit some of your UFO’s and make the notes they need. Journals are helpful for those projects that are on repeat such as baby quilts and comfort quilts. This makes an easy reference guide for me to know what shortcuts or modifications I have made and lets me get back into a project easily.
At the end you may be thinking what will I do with these practice blocks…well, you could make a quilt, or a wall hanging with them. Think about the fabrics that you always seem to have on hand. If you can’t or don’t want to make a practice block out of the fabrics for the quilt, choose a color palette from your stash: red, white, and blue; French Provincial; jewel tones; batiks; reproductions in 30’s or civil war are all viable options. If you have such on hand all the time, use some for a practice block and at the end of a few projects there will be enough blocks for a quilt for you or to gift or to donate. Maybe make some baby quilts or throws or a sampler unique to you. Use one as a quilt to keep in the car to use in winter emergencies or at the park. Maybe you want to practice hand quilting and one of these would be a great place to start learning. If you are making practice blocks from the intended quilt fabric, perhaps a couple of pillowcases from practice blocks would be a nice touch. There are lots of options.
If you are a serial starter, I recommend that you keep your practice blocks and any notes you make with your project until the blocks are completed. Sometimes we have to put projects down and move on to other things that have deadlines. If you are someone who sticks with one project from start to finish, I would still recommend that you keep your practice block with the project for easy reference until your quilt blocks are completed.
We are going to step away from the Jacob’s Ladder blocks this week to get back to talking about UFO’s since it is the beginning of the month.
How are things coming? Do you feel like you are making some progress toward getting anything finished? Maybe when you took some time to clean your crafting area it somehow turned into a bigger project. That is an easy thing to have happen. I’ll be honest, I really only cleaned up what I needed to in order to be able to do some sewing. I am optimistically thinking that I will get back to cleaning more of my area as I go, perhaps putting away a few things each time I get ready to work on a project. We shall see how that goes!
We have gotten out our oldest UFO and one that seems to be more fun. What are we up to this month?
This week I decided to take a look at the UFO’s I have and I pulled out the one that should take the least amount of time, or the one that is closest to being finished. Maybe you have one or two of those? A project that had to be put aside because a deadline came up or you needed to get more fabric to finish? Or maybe you just needed a break from it. As I stood in my room I looked around thinking about the projects I have and realized that I had one project that needed just 5 more blocks made.
The reason I had stopped working on it was because I didn’t have the right red to finish the last blocks. Once upon a time, a friend gave me a rainbow set of batik fabrics. They are beautiful, and I kept them waiting for the right thing to make with them. And then I found the right project.
It’s the cover girl on this magazine.
Please notice that this magazine is from 2014. If you are looking for this magazine (whether it be this issue or something more current), they stopped printing in May of 2018. It appears that you can still find issues on Ebay if you are truly interested.
I don’t know about you, but I always like to put my own spin on things so of course I wasn’t doing it exactly the way they had in the pattern. I opted to use a dark instead of a white for my background. Having cats and kids nothing stays white for long. Since there are 7 rows it fits perfectly for Roy G. Biv where I could use my gifted batiks. The last change I made was to use a pair of batiks for each row of color and alternated their placement. I did this mainly because a fat quarter would not have given me enough to complete 5 blocks in the 5 block row and in order to keep things balanced, this seemed like a better option.
Alternating fabric placement.
The problem that I ran into was that I didn’t have the right red to pair up. So this project sat, until now. This week I was able to finish those blocks and start assembling them into a completed top! All that’s left is the quilting.
The reds are finally done!
Have you ever noticed sometimes that your seams pop a little? Some times we put too much tension or handle things to much or maybe clip our threads a little too close? Yeah, I’m guilty of that sometimes. I was just so excited to get it done! After all, this is my fast finish!
Uh Oh! Seam popped a little…
So, what do we do about it? There’s a few things we can do! First you can take a couple stitches past your fabric edge and leave a little bit of a longer tail so the threads don’t pull as easily. You could not handle your blocks as much so the thread isn’t encouraged to undo itself. You could also take a back stitch or two on your edges, but that can create another issue (tune in next week when we get back to the Jacob’s Ladder blocks and I talk about that!). Another option is to use pins to keep things together until you get them sewn. I opted to make sure that things were still laying correctly and at the end of assembling the top, I took an extra step to stitch all the way around the quilt top to make sure that those seams stay exactly where they are supposed to stay. If you have borderless quilts or quilts that have pieced borders such as flying geese or piano keys, this is a great way to ensure that all those seams stay together!
Here you can see my stitching around the edges.
I just did a regular stitch because I was worried about things coming unraveled as some of them seemed wont to do. You can lengthen your stitch to more of a basting stitch and that should do the job just as nicely. I am also doing this as a 1/4″ seam, there is no need to go in further. Once the top is quilted, chances are excellent that after squaring and applying binding that you wont’ even know that stitch line is there! If it really bothers you, you can always pick it out after quilting.
So, here she is in all her glory – my fast finished UFO that is just waiting for the quilting! This month, take a look at your UFO’s. Do you have any fast finishers? Sometimes completing one of these is just the boost we need to get our quilting mojo back. If you have more than one fast finisher, this could be a really productive month for you! Nothing feels better than getting a project completed!
Isn’t she lovely? All she needs is the quilting!
As always, Happy Quilting! Feel free to share any pictures of your UFO’s – we always love show and share!
So here we are for week 3 of this project and I thought it might be a good idea to talk a little more about the tricky blocks. It turns out that there are 3.
Of course the first one is the jellybean block. I opted to take it apart and give it another chance.
A little peek at the back of the block.
Please know, I am not judging the person who sewed this block. I am simply doing what I can to turn these blocks into a quilt. Block trades are tricky. You may get back blocks that you feel do not belong. Remember that this is a trade and you are trading with people from different skill levels than yours. Quite simply, it is the chance you take. Round Robins and Row By Rows are similar. If you are unfamiliar, a Round Robin is when you start with a center block that is usually fairly large and you pass it through the group participating with each person adding a pieced border of some sort around your center. These usually have a limited number in the group as things can grow quickly and sometimes there are more instructions about what kind of look you are going for. Row By Row trades work by attaching full rows. If you are someone who is particular about your piecing and how things look, these types of social quilting projects may not be for you. That is okay. The world of quilting is vast and varied. There are multiple ways to do things, patterns for every skill level, and endless varieties of fabrics. Trades are not for everyone. However, if you find yourself drawn to try one, I encourage you whole-heartedly! Just be aware that what you get back may or may not be what you were expecting.
Ta-Da! Taken apart!
As you can see, I opted to take it apart in sections. With the help of my spray starch, I pressed them and got them ready to trim to a uniform size. You might be able to tell from the picture that not all of the sections are similar size. So, the question becomes to what size do I square them and how do I make that decision?
First, I took this as a opportunity to do a little measuring of the other blocks and found that there were two that were off. One that I suspected and another I wasn’t counting on.
The two trouble makers.
Most of the other blocks will square up easily to 12.25”. Which is what I thought I would try to get the jelly bean block to measure. After measuring the other two trouble makers, I found the green one that will get me to 12” and the red, white, and blue at 11.25”. What?!? Well, in a block trade you will have these types of things. As the red, white, and blue block appears to be well pieced, I don’t feel as though I need to take it apart and it may be a case of wrong measurements being used. That’s okay. We will make some magic happen.
Since there are 15 total blocks, my 3 trouble makers can drop into each column so they don’t stand out too much. I should be able to make that happen with minimal rearranging. Two of them are already in different columns so it shouldn’t be any trouble to move one block around. (Fingers crossed).
But how am I going to make a 12” and a 11.25” block work with 12.25” blocks? And what is going to happen with the jelly bean block? The answer is sashing and this means I will need to rethink what I am doing with the sashing. At this time I am thinking that each block will need to be bordered out to the same size and then assembled into a quilt top. I could certainly use the same color for each or multiple colors, but that will wait until next week.
Now, it is time to deal with jelly bean. I first measured all the sections and it looked like it would be best to square them to 4.25”. As I know that there are two other blocks that don’t quite measure to size, I am not as worried about trying to make this jelly bean reach a certain size. Measuring the sections and finding the best size for all of them makes it easier to put the block back together.
Ahhh, much better!
It turns out that jelly bean measures out to 11.75” so it fits in nicely with the other trouble maker blocks. Now with the rest of the blocks squared up I can turn my attention to sashing and setting.
Next week we will start to play with the layout and sashing and see if we can’t get these one step closer to being a quilt top.
If you have blocks from trades that you are working with, I hope these posts help you to turn those trade blocks into a quilt! As always, we love show and share so feel free to share any block trade blocks or quilts in the comments or on our Facebook page! Happy Quilting!
They are arranged a little differently than last week. I tried to mix them up a little bit making the brights a little more interspersed with the reproduction fabrics. It feels a little more balanced than it did before. I also opted to have them all facing the same direction. Since there will be some sashing separating the blocks, they won’t be able to form any kind of secondary design so it felt like it would be distracting if they were turned different directions.
If you haven’t done much with secondary designs, they can be a lot of fun! If you are ever looking at a quilt that seems like it is really complicated, take a closer look. It just might be that the blocks are turned so that they create a secondary design. Sometimes putting two different blocks in an alternating layout, you can achieve some fantastic secondary designs as well. And they have the added benefit of making your quilt look more complex that it really is!
As I got these on the wall and started to take a look at them, I noticed a problem.
Those Jelly beans are fun!
This block looks like it needs a little extra help. It is not quite lying flat and things are not really meeting up well. So now a question, what to do about it? I can leave it as is and trim it up which may or not be the easy answer. Easy because it’s quick and not easy because the block is not lying flat and trimming to a good size means it may be much smaller or that enough parts are cut off that make it look too different from the other blocks.
My other option is to take it apart and see if I can give it some help. I run some risk there as well. First of all I do not have any of this fabric, so if there are any major issues I won’t be able to replace it exactly. Second of all, it is going to be more work. I would need to hopefully take it apart in sections and see if by pressing and maybe squaring up individual section that I can start to bring it into shape.
You might be asking yourself why wouldn’t I just take it apart and replace fabric if necessary? Well, because this was a block trade that I did with my friends. One of my friends made this block just for me and did the best they could. So, it does give me a little pause. However, I think in the interest of not having one block possibly skew the quilt because of size and not lying flat I am going to go ahead and take the block apart this week and see what I can do to help it so stay tuned!
You may also notice that one block is a little smaller than the others. This is also a potential issue. however, I am not worried about it just yet. I’ll help the jelly bean block first and then measure all the blocks. If the one turns out to really be much too small, well, I’ll make another one. And that’s okay because it is a block I did and I still have some of that fabric.
While I had the blocks on the wall, I started to look at options for sashing.
I looked at 3 different colors that I thought would be the best fit for these blocks. I opted to audition dark sashes so that the blocks could shine as we will be using this quilt to show quilting examples. If I were to choose a light fabric, my blocks would look at little washed out as some of them have a white or light background.
A little close up of black as a sashing option. You can also see the too small block here in all of it’s glory.Here is a blue and a green.
For now, I believe I will kick the green option. There are quite a few blocks that have a similar shade of green and I would rather the entire block shows instead of parts of blocks blending into the green.
The blue is a nice bright blue that sings to me and black usually goes with anything so I feel good about either one of those choices. This week instead of getting started on sashing, I will work on the block in need of help. I have not squared any of the blocks yet as I will need to wait until I fix the other block. Once that task is complete, I can measure and make the decision on whether I need to recreate the too small block. With any luck I should be able to get them all trimmed to size this week. Then I can look some more at sashing options. I like the idea of the blue so I will search my stash for some yardage and see what I can find.
Maybe you have been involved in some block trades and are unsure of what to do with your blocks. I would recommend that you start as I am – at least until we get to the sashing part. Once we get all the blocks prepped and ready for sashing, there are lots of different options to talk about. For this project, however, we will be using a simple straight set.
Of course when you are involved in a block trade you do run the risk of getting blocks that do not suit you. If that is the case and you aren’t wanting to keep the blocks, you can always turn it into a donation quilt. Or keep the blocks that you do like and make some more in similar colors to complete a quilt for you. There are always options.
If you have an opinion on sashing color, please feel free to leave a comment! Be sure to check us out on Facebook (Quilting By-You) and our Etsy store! Until next week, happy quilting!
Sure it’s not stocks like we may have been watching in the news, but have you ever been a part of a block trade? Once upon a time when we were still working our office jobs, we found that there were others who enjoyed or wanted to learn about our quilting hobby. Perhaps you have similar where you work or live? Pandemic conditions have certainly added a layer of difficulty to this kind of thing.
At any rate, we decided to get together once a month for lunch. Bring your own meal, met in a conference room or other large area in the building that was not in use, and we ate lunch while talking quilting. Projects were shown, new gadgets and tools shared, and sometimes there would be questions about projects that people were having trouble with and needed a little help. It was nice and there was no obligation.
However, it began to get a little boring and so we decided to spice things up a bit. At the time Nickel Quilts (where Char is a co-author) was popular and we decided to trade 5” squares. We would have a theme such as a particular color or novelty prints and we traded a pair of 5” squares with everyone once a month. This was to keep it cost effective for everyone.
As can happen with groups, the longer you meet the more the group evolves and we decided it would be nice to do a block trade. Now, it was a little prohibitive to make quilt blocks for everyone as we had quite a few people in our group at the time, so we did it a little differently. Each month someone would lead the luncheon with their favorite block and write up instructions or give a link to a free place where we could print instructions ourselves. They would share tips for making the block and maybe a little history behind it or why they like it. You could ask for blocks to be a certain color or kind of fabric (batik or Oriental or whatever) and the next month you would get one block from everyone and the next person would take a turn.
As we continued to meet, our group grew smaller as sometimes happens. Some left our office, new ones joined, and others lost interest. We then opted to modify our block exchange a little and some began to provide a particular fabric they would want included in their block, or were more specific about the types of fabrics they would like.
I’m not sure when or how it came to pass that we no longer were meeting, but eventually all good things must come to an end. We did our best to share our hobby with others and tried to learn something new and for a time it was good.
As it happened, while cleaning my sewing room I came across one set of blocks from my turn teaching a block. The block I had chosen was Jacob’s Ladder. It still is one of my favorite blocks.
Here are the blocks I have. It is a little wild for me as I did not set any kinds of parameters except for which block and what size. If you have ever done a block exchange you know that they are not always the easiest quilts to finish. Often the blocks come in different sizes because they are being made on all different machines by people with different levels of skill. You also run a risk that the fabric choices of others may not be as pleasing to your eye. However, when you are able to complete such a quilt, you have a gift created by others that may be close friends and regardless of where you all end up, you have a little piece of them in your quilt.
If you are thinking about starting or participating in a block exchange there are a few things to remember. First is that you should be clear about any color choices and expect that if you don’t sent any parameters that you are going to get a wild assortment. As you can see, I have a bit of a wild assortment. Second, you want to be sure to set what size your block should be so that everyone is attempting to make the same size block (unless you would like more of a challenge to set blocks that are intentionally assorted sizes). Third, you want to set a time frame for when blocks are turned in. Maybe you get together once a month and it will be expected that blocks are turned in at that time or they should be in the mail by a certain date. Of course we should try to be flexible, but by having a bit of a deadline means that when you receive your blocks you can begin the process of turning them into a usable quilt top. Block exchanges (maybe not quit the right term for this) can also be a great way to create a gift for a friend. Perhaps there is a new baby, retirement, or wedding on the horizon for someone in your group or who is close to your group. It would be a wonderful way to create a personal gift. Everyone would create a block (or 2 depending on how large a quilt you want to gift from your group) and then work together to assemble the blocks into a finished quilt. When doing a block exchange as a group, you may be making one block for each person in your group. I would suggest that you set a further parameter regarding the complexity of the block. Some may do something complicated and some may do something overly simple. It will save hard feelings in the end if you take this into account if you use more of a sampler quilt style approach.
Now that I have found my blocks again, I would like to turn them into a finished quilt. This set of blocks will become a quilt where we can showcase some different ways of quilting the same block to show customers at the shop examples of our quilting.
If you are working on some old UFO’s you may find that you are going through some of the same things that I am about to and so I thought that I would take you through the steps with me as we work through this project. Not only will we be turning this into a quilt top, but we will also work through different quilting methods for each block.
The first step is for me to press and count my blocks to see if I have enough for a quilt top or if I need to make some more. At this time I also like to use a spray starch such as Magic Sizing to ensure that everything is pressed crisply. As it turns out, there are 15 blocks which is plenty big enough for the 3×5 layout pictured above.
My next step will be to trim them all to the same size. In order to do that, the first thing that I will need to do is measure all of them to see what is the smallest block size. Providing that all of the blocks are fairly comparable to each other, I can trim them all to the size of the smallest block. If there is a substantial difference (like over 1/2″) then I will have to make some decisions. Should I take the one block apart to see if I can make it closer to size or perhaps I will need to give some thought to putting a border around all of the blocks with some being wider than others to accommodate the differences in size.
This week I will work through measuring and trimming the blocks and next week we will start to talk about layout and sashing options. As you can see, there are lots of different styles of fabrics in these blocks and it will take some thinking and auditioning to find a way to bring them together. Feel free to get out your block trades and work along with us!
Quilting By-You 