Showing posts with label wonky star block. Show all posts

Thursday, June 08, 2023

Rainbow Neighbourhood Houses Finished

Welcome to week 434 of Free Motion Mavericks. I don't have any free motion quilting (FMQ) to share with you but I finished the last two houses of my Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL. It's good to celebrate small accomplishments and focus on enjoying the process 😊!

Last two houses done ✔

This first block is the third of the night houses. I had a wonderful time making the wonky star for this house and the next one. I used Missouri Stars' video, "Make a Tiny Wonky Stars" quilt to remind me how. You will find the link in the Related links section below.

Dark fuchsia house with a Wonky Star block

I love these little owls - they come from a scrap bag that was donated at our guild meeting. The same bag yielded the main fabrics for the next house too!

This next house is my version of the home by the lake of my friends who will receive this quilt. There are still a few more details to add to this house. Here is the block followed by the existing house.

Brown house with a Tiny Wonky Star

The existing house

Adding details to the yellow house

When I made this block, I was still working out how to add the extra elements for each house. I'm not finished since I want to have something in the windows of each house, but here are some additions to the yellow house.

Yellow house with an Ohio Star and extra elements

What I learned

As I mentioned before, I tried various ways of adding the extra elements to the houses. My favourite method has been using the adhesive bonding web to keep them on. This allows me to stitch them on when I'm ready. They are very fiddly to appliqué, so I have to be in the right head-space, and that isn't the night before the post is due!
I really liked using fancy stitches from my sewing machine to add details such as the door knob to block 2, the mauve house with a blue Friendship star. I'll be doing that as I finish each house.
If my calculations are correct (that's a big IF that can be easily adjusted!) I have about 5" between houses and 4" at each end to add the yards. My very flexible plan is to start with the first row of houses and see how that goes.
I think that it'll be best If I machine appliqué the extra elements, such as fences and trees, onto the fabric between the houses. It worked fairly well for the fence on the porch of Block 8. It also means that I can use the adhesive bonding web to see if I like it before stitching everything down.
The only possible exception to this are the small trees behind the Brown House, since the trees are part of the pattern.
I've used the images of the blocks to illustrate a rough plan of what I want. The measurements are not accurate since I'm only using PowerPoint. I bought some graph paper so I can figure out a more accurate layout.
I have one week according to Sandra's schedule to finish my flimsy. I think you know what I'll be doing during the next week. So make sure to drop by to see the finished flimsy! 😁

Very rough layout of the quilt

Free Motion Mavericks

Thanks to everyone who linked up last week!

Sharon of Ms. P. Designs shared with us her “Bonus” HST Squares from RSC2021 and RSC2022 quilt that she quilted using a chevron design. It's really very effective quilting for this colourful wall quilt.

“Bonus” HST Squares by Sharon of Ms. P. Designs

DonnaleeQ is quilting her "Nine Plus One" quilt using her Quilters Select ruler. It's extra thick, and the back of the ruler sticks to the fabric. She lines it up ruler to the side of her machine foot and guides the stitching without issues. The large holes in the center lets her grip the ruler and guild the machine's foot right along the edge. Thanks so much for sharing this tip with us Donnalee!

Donnalee is quilting her "Nine Plus One" quilt
with the help of her Quilters Select ruler.

It's now your turn!

Wednesday, October 05, 2022

Exciting News

Hi, you may remember that I taught a Meditation Stitching course this summer. It was a great experience, and I'll be repeating it (in French!) at the end of November.

Getting Ready

I know that I have a lot of time to get ready, and that this is probably another great way of procrastinating, but I've prepared this lovely piece to show at the course.

Joyful

There isn't anything very about doing mindful stitching. It's all about taking the time to be creative, to set a few parameters around what you want to do, and then enjoying the meditative process of stitching. I believe that doing this process regularly can help to keep you grounded, bring relaxation and encourage creativity.

As an exercise, I used my wonky block sample to see if I could create four different blocks from each quarter of the cut-up block.

I cut this sample block into 4 to make meditation blocks

Here is my stitching process. I chose various fabrics that might go with the base block and then started stitching. My favourite stitches are the running stitch, cross stitch, blanket stitch, chain stitch and a variation of the fly/feather stitch. These embroidery stitches are about as basic as it gets.

Adding fabrics and colour

Using stitches to add texture
(and more colour!)

At some point I trim the block, although I do like having things sticking out when I can. 😊 Here are close ups of the blocks.

First block

You can see that all of the bases started with the wonky star but evolved pass that! I love using different thread, yarn, and fabrics like hand-dyed cheese cloth, organza, felt, linen and velour. The flowers were cut from one of my favourite top.

Second block

I love how I can use up little bitsy pieces of some of my favourite fabric. Now I have an excuse to keep all of my tiny scraps if they are interesting :-)

Block 3

I also added beads on this last one. It looks so elegant!

Block 4

Creating a 4 drop hanging

One of the things that I want to include in my class are options for how these wonderful mindful stitching blocks can be displayed.

While reading a "new-to-me" Creative Embroidery book by Dilys Blackburn, I found a wonderful example of a drop hanging that is used to display embroidery pieces. The link to the book is in Related links below.

Since my finished blocks were roughly 4" square, I decided to make the finished hanging square 4½". I started by cutting my white fabric in 5" squares. I placed 2 squares facing each other, then added the square of batting on top. With my walking foot, I stitched with a ¼" seam all around the square except for a 1½" opening on one side. I then trimmed the batting and then turned the square inside out through the hole. In the image of my first block, I left a 3" space to turn the square inside out. This was a little too large, so I reduced the openings of the other blocks.

Opening pinned before stitching

I repined that opening so that the square would be more square. Then I top stitched around the whole square, as close to the edge as possible. After the four blocks were finished, I attached some wide white ribbon.

Back of the hanging

To prevent fraying, I cut the ribbon with pinking shears and the added a ½" fusible web and folded it over. I made sure that the ribbon was long enough so that I could sew a single layer over the original top stitched line. After I was all done, I just hand-stitched the edges down to stop them from flopping over.

I attached the meditation blocks with a couple of beads on the top corners. I want the students to be able to look at the blocks as much as possible. This also allows me to switch out the blocks if I wanted to.

I then went on a photo shoot in the back yard.

Twix and Taffy (my brother's dogs) exploring the area.

A close up with the tree and sun as backdrop

The picture that I took at night because I was so impatient 😊

What I learned

I do find it difficult to know when to stop embellishing these beauties. Often it's when I've had enough 😊
I've been reading about blogging and decided that I need to up my game by taking better photos. It's not always easy because I usually finish a piece in the evening and then have to wait for the next day to take good pictures.
I got so caught up with making the hanging that I only took one process picture. If I make another, it might be a good subject for a tutorial!

Saturday, September 10, 2022

Blue Wonky Star Mat

I had originally planned to just read today but then I went down the rabbit hole of quilting blogs 😊. This is a squirrel and a blue wonky star mat for the 2022 Tables Scraps Challenge. A quilter who is doing the RSC-22 challenge is making some very lovely wonky star blocks. I got intrigued and a few hours later, my mat was done!

Learning to make wonky stars

Wonky star mat for September's 2022 Table Scraps Challenge

September's colour is light blue and the theme is pumpkins. Sorry, don't go looking for the pumpkin - it's not part of the mat.

I found a tutorial on YouTube by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star (see links below). It really took me a while to get the hang of making the wonky star. I kept wanting to place the second leg of the star backwards.

I did a quick practice block to see if I could make a wonky star. I did it, but realised that the fabric colours were all wrong. Since I'm going to Almonte on Sunday to demonstrate meditation stitching at the Out of the Box booth at Fibrefest, I'm going to cut this block up and see what I can do with it.

Practice wonky star block

Once I knew what I was doing, I cut up a bunch of 1½" squares and made a small wonky star block. I then sewed the other squares together.

Wonky star block surrounded by blue squares

I sewed the block to the batting using the walking foot. To make sure that I learned from my experience, I re-read my blog post of the Happy Hexie Mug Rugs. I'm glad to say that I didn't make the same mistakes...just some new ones 😁.

Getting ready to attach the back

I just realized as I'm writing this that I forgot to stitch-in-the-ditch on one side....oh well.

I stitched the front to the back and then in the opening, turned the mat out. Once the opening was stitched up, I sewed around the edges with the walking foot.

Glamour shot :-)

I found a pumpkin!

Blue Wonky Star Mat with Pumpkin 😊

What I learned

I should know better than to work with tiny square pieces of fabric. They don't hide the fact that I'm accuracy challenged. I did quite well on the wonky star block but the other square pieces aren't great. I know that I shouldn't worry about the quilting police but somehow it's ingrained in me!
I ended up cutting the back fabric the same size as the front but it didn't give me much fabric to close up the opening.
I sewed the front and back using a seam allowance that was too small. I had to go back and fix one area that hadn't been stitched properly. A generous ¼" would have been good.