Just Flutterin’ and Woven Ribbons

Two more patterns that were on the Hoffman California Fabrics website that are now back out of retirement and the patterns are available in my free pattern pages…

 

Woven Ribbons – Sand In My Shoes Collection

and here’s the version of Woven Ribbons that I made from these fabrics

As I was looking for the pattern instructions above, one of the other things I’m finding are other potential quilt designs that I did for the same fabric lines but were not selected as the final quilt design to use.    I had forgotten about this one, which I called low tide, and was one of the potential designs for the Sand in My Shoes fabric collection.  It reminds me of a beach where the tide has gone out and left that bit of blue water running diagonally through the design in  low spots on the beach.  I still have fabrics from that  collection in my stash so I may have to see if I have enough to make this quilt.

 Now that I’ve dithered away the better part of the day looking through old files, paying a few bills on line, and ordering some new clothes — I think I’ll actually get to sewing on my Camp Loopy project border blocks.

Snowglobes Revisited

Out of retirement next is the Snowglobes wall hanging.  This was the very first design I ever did for Hoffman California Fabrics and is still probably my most favorite. It was also kitted and sold through Keepsake Quilting and was so exciting to see it in their catalog.  Hmmm that was back in 2010 – I think I really should get my own sewn up.  I think most of the blocks are appliqued so I may have to put it on my list to get finished before the season rolls around again.  As with the other patterns coming out of “retirement,”  near bottom of sidebar – click the Hoffman Retired Patterns page to get to the downloads.

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Ancient Tiles of Istanbul – another retired pattern

Ancient Tiles of Istanbul, another design retired from the Hoffman California Fabrics website downloads, can not be found by scrolling down the PAGES section in the sidebar to the RETIRED PATTERNS link. This one is partially paper pieced but very simple paper piecing.

PatchKats Progress

  I’ve been busy today.  Friend Gloria came over late morning and we spent several hours sewing.  I’ve got all except two of my PatchKats April blocks done – the Kat heads.  I think I may go looking for a gold color to use for the last two.  Then I need to go back and cut out all the other Kat block and background pieces.  I only cut what I needed for the head blocks so far.

There was a trip to JoAnn Fabrics involved since Gloria  needed more supplies and what did I come home with –

a pretty new shears – that is actually sharp unlike every other scissors here.  I’ve tried sharpening some of them but it has not worked and I  am tired of searching thru them to find one that is just as sharp nipping with the tip as it is cutting with the whole length of the blade.  I had a 50% off coupon and I had a gift card in my purse I hadn’t  used so free pretty blue scissors.

It’s been a lovely spring day here- I’ve had the windows and doors open since early this morning.  The warmer temps and sun the past couple days have the leaves starting to pop out on the trees and green grass everywhere.  Not quite time for the first grass cutting of the season but soon.  I need to wander down to the apartment garden plots because I can see rather large green clumps of something in the plot where I had my garden last year.  I want to see if it’s something that has voluntarily sprouted and is a good plant or if it is a weed since sometime before Memorial Day they’ll be coming to till up the garden plots and I’ll dig it out and stick in a pot if it’s something good that’s growing out there – tho most likely a robust weed.

PatchKats BOM

The March installment download is now available for download – click PatchKats quilt image in sidebar to get to project page.

Here’s what my finished Ribboned Heart blocks will look like.

 The colors aren’t quite true in the photo but pretty close.

 

And here’s all the rest of my border pieces.  There are lots of Stitch & Flip corners to add this month and my suggestion is to make sure to draw the diagonal lines on the back of those squares.  I sometimes get lazy and eyeball them instead of drawing the lines but they are never as accurate since when you stitch the diagonal lines, you really should be stitching a thread or so away from that diagonal line and not directly on it to account for the fabric taken up in the seam. It may seem like such a small amount  but it can really make a difference as to how your blocks turn out.

As you can see from my little piles of pieces, I have many seams to be pressing open before I go on to the next step so I’ll be heating up that iron soon.

My only challenge with these pieces – when I was working the other night I wasn’t paying close enough attention to my background fabric – it has a light dot print on it and I had to redo several pieces that I flipped the background wrong way around on.

Feel free to share photos of your fabric choices or blocks in progress for this project through the Justquiltin Flickr group.  The link to the Flickr group is also found in the sidebar of the blog.

It’s finished! and more PatchKats

As for the finish – I finally finished my Wiggle Wrap last night.  I haven’t taken a final photo yet and it needs blocking, but that was a whole lot of knitting!  I haven’t looked it up yet but I think with the yarn I used, I knit close to 2400 yards of fingering weight yarn into it.  Now that’s going to help my stash busting tally!  I started the Wiggle Wrap nearly a year ago (during the winter of unrelenting cold — tho the last couple weeks  have been very reminiscent of that time) planning ahead to this winter. But it got set aside for Camp projects and a sweater or two. Yes, I was supposed to have this done so I could wear it to ward off the cold.  It’s nice and wide and long so I can wrap it over my head and around my shoulders over my coat on those coldest days.  There will still be time to wear it I think but if Mother Nature wants to make it too warm outside for me to be able to wear it this year — I’m okay with that too. 🙂  It’s also bright enough that if I should get stuck in a snowbank, someone should be able to see me and pull me out.  It was an enjoyable, easy knit, but I’m glad it’s finished.

Now on to more PatchKats — I was just adding in random fabric styles and colors and quickly swapping them out in EQ so here’s a few more ideas (there are some fabrics I would swap out for something that shows up a bit more, etc. but it’s just to give you an idea since I was doing a quick swap and replace) – 30’s fabrics, black/gray/red more modern prints, batiks on black, batiks on light background – just more possibilities.

  Remember the yardage requirements and general info are on the PatchKats project page.  It’s the big button on the right of the page that shows the quilt cover.  Click on that image to get to the information on the project page.  If you are reading thru email subscription, please go to the blog to access the project page.

My fabric order for my PatchKat quilt was placed this morning and my Box of Fun is headed out in the mail to be today so I should have my fabrics on Monday.  I’m mixing some fabrics I had previously purchased, and then added to them with some additional fabrics.  I had a background fabric here I wanted to use but needed more of it and it’s currently out of stock so I think the background around my Kats will be one fabric and the background in the border will be another fabric — both from the same fabric manufacturer so the colors should be very similar – just different tone on tone prints.  Will have to wait and see once I get all the fabrics if it will work out as I plan.

Knitter’s Gifts – From Head to Toe – the final installment

  Since I’m going to be busy tomorrow morning, I loaded up the final instructions for this project tonight so they are now available to download.

 

The final border which, if we are keeping in the “knitting” context, resembles a row of garter stitch or, in the quilting context, is made up of a whole heap of drunkard’s path blocks.  Now occasionally in EQ I draw a quilt design that looks great as an image but may not necessarily be easy to piece.  So I did actually test out these pieces since most drunkard’s path block sections I’ve made in the past were larger.   I’m happy to report that while I consider a drunkard’s path block putzy (no matter what the size of it – due to clipping one piece and having to pin each end) my two tester blocks went together very nicely.

 

Here’s the test blocks I made.

I just grabbed two fabrics off the top of a stack near me to try them. I was especially curious about the block on the right which is used only four times – once in each corner.  I’d never pieced one like that before and it was no more difficult than the block on the left.

Sigh… yet another project (in addition to my Dog Pound Pals) that I need to get moving on and get finished since I still need to make some of the center quilt blocks.

 

Two more patterns brought out of retirement

Check  out the Free PDF Pattern Pages for two more past projects I’ve brought back out of retirement can now be downloaded.  These were both from my 2013 bird series.

BIRDBATH – 30″ X 30″
August 10, 2013

Livin’ The Tweet Life – February 2013

Free patterns update going on……….

 

If you’ve been reading my blog awhile,  you know that many free patterns I post to the blog – for special projects, BOM, mysteries, quilt alongs, etc., only remain live on the blog for a certain amount of time and  then the pattern is removed/retired.

I’ve decided to add some of these patterns back into the FREE PDF QUILT PATTERNS PAGES and I’ll continuing adding some others in as I have time.   One important reminder regarding these patterns — they are not to be shared in any way.  If your quilting friend wishes to make one too (after you’ve shown the gorgeous version you’ve made), please send  them to my blog to download their own copy.   If you have not read the “Copyright /Use of my Patterns” info which can be found at the top of my blog in the header listing, please do so.  It also contains important information regarding downloading of files from Box.net in case you’ve never downloaded any of my files.

Also, if the pattern was originally done as a mystery or instructions were given in separate steps posted to the blog, the instructions are still in that format.  I’m not going to waste time rewriting them into one continuous pattern so you’ll need to make sure to download all files listed for those types of projects.

Let’s see … so far I’ve added back in:

Bits ‘n Bytes

 

City Streets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let It Shine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mix ‘n Match

 

Saturday Stitching time

I haven’t been able to decide what goodies I want to bake today – bars, scones, cookies – so decided to head into the sewing room.  So far I’ve been rather productive in there but looking around, I do need to clear away some of the clutter from last weekend’s mystery quilt making so I can get the wedding quilt layered on the table and get to quilting it.

In the meantime tho, I’ve been working on more flying geese blocks for my Moda challenge quilt and, because I want to use the large design wall to lay out the challenge quilt pieces so I can figure out how many more geese of each color I need, I decided I’d better quickly get the rows to my mystery quilt sewn so I can take it off the design wall.

  Here it is, rows all sewn.  Now it can come off the design wall and I’ll get back to it after I get the wedding quilt finished.

So a bit of pressing on the geese blocks I stitched this morning and then I’ll add the other triangle to them and get them all up on the design wall so I can see where I’m at.

Then a bit of straightening up of the sewing room as I do some baking and maybe find some lunch – I will deserve a treat if I tidy the sewing room before it actually becomes a disaster area again!  Then perhaps tomorrow I can get busy and get the wedding quilt layered.