First Block of OmiGosh!

Pin It Now!  Omigosh!
Well as I am sure you got by the title, my first block for Omigosh is done!!

However, now that I see it in the picture I just noticed I need to take it apart and switch the corners. The pink half squares should be where the brown/blue ones are and visa versa. Crap. Oh well! This is why you always do one block up first before you start chaining everything, haha! 

I am trying to have all the pinks on one angle and alternating blue/brown on the other angle. I don't think I need to say how much of a pain in the neck that is going to be!!! But it should be worth it in the end. I will fix it and repost how it should be tomorrow. 

Dear Jane

I also got my 3rd triangle done for Dear Jane!!! Super excited, so far they were not as bad as I was expecting, which is quite nice. I know they are going to get worse though, haha. Isn't this one fun though? I love the crazy orange print. Technically this is now a catch up week for the quilt-a-long but I think I might try to work ahead if I get the chance. We shall see. I still need to get that baby quilt basted and quilted before Saturday, I have Thursday and Friday off so I should be good :)

Friends With Benefits Swap!

Have you heard about the Friends with Benefits Swap being hosted by Kathy at Sew-Happy House? 

http://sew-happyhouse.blogspot.com/p/must-know-dates-confirm-your.html?showComment=1330327928539

The link above is to the instructions on how to join in. There is still a couple days to join. You need to let Kathy know by Thursday March 1st. 

On March 3rd Kathy will email out our partners 

We have to have the swap item in the mail by Friday April 27. 

So there is a nice chunk of time to do it in, you can also choose if you wish to have an international partner as well. 

This will be my first swap and I am sew (hehe pun intended!) excited. 

So please stop by Kathy's site and check it out!!

Contest Closes Feb 29th!

Remember to enter the Hexagon Needle Book Givaway, All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite colour on the Giveaway post

Click Here:http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-much-love-giveaway.html

Or if you don't want to do that you can post here if need be.  Contest Closes Wednesday Feb 29th Midnight Mountain Standard Time. 

Triangles!

Pin It Now! Happy Sunday!

Hopefully most of you are able to have a wonderful day of rest and get lots of sewing done. Here in Calgary we are seeing some Old Man Winter. Its -20 celcius with the windchill and it has been snowing off and on yesterday and all day today. Unfortunately that means I get to walk to the bus stop in this in order to get to the NICU for work. Yuck. But its a co-workers birthday and I really do love taking care of the wee babies so I guess I will brave it and bring some hand sewing to work on at break as a reward for doing so!! Haha.

Here is the lovely view outside our apartment. (Can you feel the cold!?)

Dear Jane

Yes, I started my triangles. I was a little bit afraid of them to be honest. How often do we really do patterns with large pieced triangles? But I jumped in this morning and got two done. TS1 and BS1

Now TS1 was not too bad. I kind of measured the lines and just did them all as long skinny strips. I did have to go back and sew over the lines taking just a bit more fabric into the seam allowance as the triangle was too big but it worked out. I have 3/8" on the outside for seam allowance and will trim to 1/4 once I actually start sewing these puppies together. Hence why there are little notches in each row. Those will disappear once properly trimmed. 

Now as for BS1. We did not start off as friends. I thought we had but when I went to trim it so I could put the white border part on it was so far off it wasn't even funny. I had somehow thought (by looking at the block) that I could match the seams on one edge and just angle the block. 

Makes sense right?....

Ummm totally didn't work. 

So I un-sewed them, after some cursing and confusion, and paper pieced them, but since I had cut them a little differently I couldn't follow the diagonal line. Confusing right? 

Any-who I used the template to ensure I had enough for seam allowance on one side and then just followed my old seam lines on the fabrics as they still matched up nicely, I just needed to off set the ends a bit for angling. It worked out OK in the end though!! It definitely does not follow the pattern exactly and I even had to fudge an extra white row at the bottom as when I trimmed it I had no seam allowance left in the bottom left corner. 

But you know what? I like it. And better finished then perfect as most Dear Jane'rs say. 

Contest!

Remember to enter the Hexagon Needle Book Givaway, All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite colour on the Giveaway post

Click Here:http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-much-love-giveaway.html

Or if you don't want to do that you can post here if need be.  Contest Closes Wednesday Feb 29th Midnight Mountain Standard Time. 

Happy Stitching

Kallie

Randomness & Giveaway Reminder

Pin It Now! Good Evening!
I have been holed up in my house today sewing as it was pretty gross out today! Lots of snow this afternoon as well, plus more in the forcast for this week. Unfortunately I start my stretch of 6 evening shifts in a row tomorrow, Just hoping I can get some sewing done!

Comrie
So I have been able to find out very little about my gorgeous new sewing machine. From what I can tell it is a Singer 15 Clone. I am doing more research to try and see if I can maybe figure out what year span it could have been made in. I think pre or during the WWII is when it was made as post WWII pretty much all the clones were made in Japan. If I can find out anything more I will definitely let you all know!

Dear Jane
Not much progress here, but I got my templates for my 3 triangles I need to complete printed out and I have B10 mostly complete. I did mine a bit differently and used reverse appliqué and  did my piecing differently from the original. I plan on appliquéing white triangle into the corners of the center square the cross is in.

Omigosh
Huzzah! Getting some progress here. I have everything cut and all my half square triangles sewn back together for my Shoo-Fly blocks. This means I can finally start piecing the half triangle to my four patches!!
You can see my pile of half square triangles that have been pieced back together below.

Randomness!!
Below is what I am entering into the Sliced contest hosted by Moda! They are open for audition pieces until the 29th and then they pick 4 people to compete against each other out of all the entries. They have some amazing prizes for those 4 people too!! In the likely event I am not picked by Moda, I will post a tutorial here about how to make it!

This is a keyboard/sewing machine mug rug! You can have your keyboard on either end of it and the mouse works just fine on it as well. The thing in front of the keyboard is one of those things to help keep your wrists at the right angle when typing. It also doubles as a heating/ice pack!! I used beans for the filling so if your wrists, back or shoulders start to hurt, go pop it in the microwave and instant relief.

Antique Sampler
Have any of you seen Sue Daley's new book New English Paper Piecing? There are some lovely projects in there! There is also a quilt outside of the book that I am going to dabble with when I have time called Antique Sampler. This is all done using English Paper Piecing and appliqué. Crazy. I know. But I am loving my choice to go with browns and creams. I might add a bit of green. We will see.

Organization!
I got this lovely bookcase today from Walmart as everything was previously just dumped in a laundry basket and I had no idea what I did have! So now I am starting to get organized. Its kind of exciting to me but thats ok if its not for you :)

Spray Starch!
So as I was doing those little English paper piecing blocks I decided I did not want to baste them with thread or glue. I had heard somewhere that I could starch it and just press over the seam allowance. OMG I LOVE IT! It is so ridiculously easy! Make sure not to use too much  though otherwise your paper curls up and distorts alot. I learned the hard way!

I was using Best Press to do this while at my LQS (they let me sew there too in the classroom when I come down) But they had just sold out a couple days before I was there. I liked the spray start so much I decided to make my own.

How you ask? (I love how I can make you ask just the right questions when I type them out!)

Vodka.

Yes Vodka. No seriously. I added about 1/3 cup vodka to 2 cups water, shake and spray. Use the crappiest vodka you can find as the starchier the better, but you can always add more vodka to your mixture if its not starchy enough for you.

Mine did not scorch or brown at all on my test fabric and after 2 spray, iron, cool cycles was pretty ridgid/ had that new fabric feel.

I have heard to be careful of it in really humid climates as sometimes bugs are attracted to the potato starch but it is completely dry here in Calgary and should work amazingly!

Anyway, it is 1 AM here in Calgary and I should probably sleep!


Contest!


Remember to enter the Hexagon Needle Book Givaway! All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite colour on the Giveaway post 


http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-much-love-giveaway.html


Or if you don't want to do that you can post here if need be.  Contest Closes Feb 29th Midnight Mountain Standard Time. 


Good Luck and Happy Stitching!!!


Kallie

EDITED: for putting in Link and adding title.

Snow Much Love & A Giveaway!

Pin It Now! Hello Everyone!
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Here in Canada it is a long weekend for Family Day tomorrow (Monday).

Random Project!
Well I was looking at the calendar and realized in shock that it was almost my "nephew's" 1st birthday -March 3. I say nephew but he is actually my best friends little boy, we are not related but I was there when he was born so therefore we go with nephew :) Any-who... Here is a little sneak peak of what I am making him. I was fortunate enough to find a jelly roll at Walmart of all places, and it was on clearance so it was a super sweet deal! It is paired here with Kona Snow. I am hoping to baste and quilt it by next Wednesday which gives me a couple days to do the binding!

 I also wanted to show you were I was piecing this all yesterday:

That's right. Cross legged on the floor. My lovely husband needed our kitchen table for a project he was working on. So it was either the floor or not sewing at all. Unfortunately we do not yet have another table I could use. Needless to say my back was kind of sore this morning, and I had to take frequent breaks!!

Hopefully I get my kitchen table back soon!

Aurifil BOM
Super Excited that I finished stitching the February BOM from Aurifil! It was soooo much fun to do as it is such a cute piece. This piece was designed by Sherri Falls and the link to the block is below
http://auribuzz.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/february-aurifil-designer-of-the-month-sherri-falls/

She also has posted the cutest finishing instructions if you want it as just a wall hanging here on her blog for Valentines day:
http://thisandthatpatterns.typepad.com/

Omigosh:
I have officially finished piecing and ironing all my teeny weeny four- patches! I am currently piecing all my half square triangles back into squares (print/white). I also cut up all my 2" squares into triangles which will soon be framing my four patches! Just keep plodding along and it will all get done....

All 575 of my teeny weeny four-patches!

My 2 3/8" half square triangles awaiting to be pieced. I have finished about half of one bag so far. 

Dear Jane:
 Slowly working away at Dear Jane. Not much progress done in the last 2 weeks but I only have 1 more block and my first 3 triangles to do before March 4. So not too bad! Most of my last few blocks worked out to be reds which was entertaining for Valentines day.

Giveaway!
Now I absolutely love, love, love my little hexagon note book. And Honestly I think you might enjoy one too! Heck yesterday I was using it as a pin cushion as I sewed on the floor.

Now who would like to win one???

To enter leave a comment with your favorite colour. 

This way I can go through my stash and make the winner's notebook in their favorite colour. 

Winner will be drawn on February 29 at midnight here in Calgary (this is Mountain standard time) by the random generator.

So get your comments in before that, tell whomever you wish as well. 


**Remember to leave your email so that I can get a hold of you if you are the lucky winner**

Here is a picture of what it could look like!

Good luck and have a wonderful day!! 

What a week!

Pin It Now! My goodness! Where in the world did this week go!

My apologies for a week going by without a post! Work has definitely kept me very busy this week with no time to post. I really dislike my day shifts as I feel exhausted afterwards and don't get much done when I get home. And this week I worked mostly day shifts. So not much was accomplished.

However you are here for quilty goodness and not to listen to my complaining :)

Comments:
I am trying to get a reply back button to be able to reply back to all the lovely comments you have been leaving me. For some I have tried to just leave a comment myself but I think that may get confusing and it is hard to remember to go back to a post you commented on for a reply. I am going to try to start replying by email to those who leave comments until Blogger lets me reply to those comments directly. Is everyone ok with that? Please let me know what you prefer as I do not want to be "spamming" your inbox if you don't want a reply that way!!

Red & White
My LQS did a quilt kit way back in 2006 and at the store I saw it completed and fell in love. It was called Rubies, diamonds and garnets too. Don't try looking for it online as you will not find it. It was done through just this quilt store. But I will post pictures as I work on it. I had been looking for a Red and White quilt pattern for my Mom & Dad for christmas and this fits the bill perfectly. Lucky for me they still have some kits available and  I can buy the blocks as I need them. SO just another project to add to my list.


Hexagon Needle Book:
I also make some cute hexagon needle books which will be another post likely tomorrow as it is long and a semi tutorial! Here is a sneak peak though!!

Aurifil BOM:
Now I am sure most of you know that Aurifil is doing a stitchery BOM. 12 different designers are creating cute little patterns for us to turn into blocks. Here is January's Block download- It is about halfway down the page.
http://auribuzz.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/january-aurifil-designer-of-the-month-roseann-kermes/

Here is my block:
Not the greatest picture, I know but best I could get in the lighting.

Now I don't really have access to Aurifil thread as I have not been able to find anyone local who carries a good range. So I used good old DMC floss in colours I liked. I also changed the pattern a wee bit so I liked it more.

February's block is adorable and I can't wait till I have some time to stitch it. The link is below and again the pattern is about halfway down the page.


http://auribuzz.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/february-aurifil-designer-of-the-month-sherri-falls/


Dear Jane:
Not much done on the Dear Jane front but I completed block B3 and I think it is my favorite so far! Don't you just love the little arrows!! Perfect for Valentines Day.

And here is the block I am currently working on B12,  using a mix of reverse and regular applique:

Omigosh:

Still plugging away at Omigosh. I almost have all my 4 patches together. I have a huge pile to cut apart (I am chain piecing) and iron. My current chain is as long as my apartment is wide!! And I still have half a baggie to piece!

Current pile to be cut apart and ironed

Pile of ironed 4 patches

Each teeny tiny 4 patch is 1 1/2" unfinished! 

I also managed to get all my 2 3/8" squares (white and print) cut in half and matched print with white. They are next to be chain pieced together for my Shoo-Fly blocks.

I am hoping to get the Shoo-Fly Blocks completed by end of February but it is looking more like mid-March! Eek!! Hopefully I will be able to find lots of time in the next two weeks to get my butt in gear!

Well I am off to make a tea and get some crochet done. Yes I crochet as well! I have some ladies in the NICU who order hats from me ad I have sadly been neglecting working on them. So I am hoping to get at least 2 finished today! Wish me luck and hopefully I can post their pictures tomorrow!!

And I shall leave you with a pic of my tea making set up just for fun!!

Busy as a Bee

Pin It Now! Good Evening!

My goodness have I been busy!

I went to my LQS on friday for the free demos they do then and brought my Winter Twitterings quilt with me. I decided I did not like the pink pointsetta print as a border since it seemed to make the whole thing look washed out, and I didn't have enough of the black and gold snowflake print as I am using it for the Japanese Flower Garden. So I needed to find something that would work, and play nicely with the other fabrics. Oh my did I ever find something, and it was 50% off, plus it was not something that I would have chosen originally.

Ready?? Here is the before:

Here is the After!

The black, red and gold print just seems to work better I think. The picture doesn't really do it justice, unfortunately I can only do so much with my current camera. Believe me in that the colours are better in person :)



Next big thing is that I have finished cutting out all my fabric for Omigosh!!!! All 45 different fabrics plus my white on white background fabric!! 

This is one of my fur babies Nox. He loves to "help" me by watching my scraps and sleeping on them to ensure they don't fly away. 

And finally 2 more Dear Jane blocks!!
A1 and I were not friends. We are on speaking terms now but only after making the block 3 times essentially. The first time I did it I measured it out but silly me only added 1/4" instead of 1/2" for seam allowance and it was much too small. It will become something else. Then I freezer paper pieced it. and forgot to reverse the template so it was very very wrong. I then had to unpiece all the blocks, refer to my "miniature block" for placement of everything and then sew it all together again. Needless to say, frustrating. However I certainly learned to pay more attention!!

Next up is A5 which was easy compared to this. My flying geese were paper pieced!

Well I am going to go back to piecing my Omigosh quilt again so that I can start cutting it up into 1" squares and sew those together again!!

(I think we quilters may be a smidge on the crazy side :)

Happy Stitching!

Good Afternoon!!

Pin It Now! Well hello blogland. Hope everyone is doing well!

I am going to be extremely busy this coming week! Working 6 evenings in a row starting tomorrow and I have a quilting pot luck to bake for on tuesday for my LQS group.


Still trucking along on dear jane and completed my blocks for this week in my Dear Jane Quilt Along at the Quilting Board. Here are blocks C1 and C3 respectively. Started using a mix of hand and machine piecing depending on what I have time to do.

I am hoping to get a head start on next weeks, working on them before I leave for work in the evenings.

I am also starting a quilt called Omigosh by Sue Garman which you can purchase from here http://www.quakertownquilts.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=omigosh+quilt+pattern

One of the ladies in my quilting group is working on it and I seem to be falling in love with itty bitty piecing. My nine patches in the quilt are going to be 2" unfinished!! Crazy right??

Update: 2300 hrs- Well I made huge progress on Omigosh! I decided to reverse the colours and use white print where the dark colours were and dark where the light was. I am also making it bigger to be a queen size. Needless to say, I was required to do a lot of quilt math!! But I now have all of my white fabric cut (all 5 meters of it!) into 1", 2" and 2 3/8" strips or squares. I also started cutting my 1/4 meter fabrics and I have 6 out of 45 cut out!. I am using dark blues, pinks, and a couple greens thrown in. I will take a picture in a few days of the fabrics once they are all cut out.

I also pieced together some strips for my teeny weeny nine patches!

Super excited about this project and can't wait to see if I can keep up the enthusiasm for it.

(hmmm. it seems like I have a lot of projects on the go......at least I don't get bored!!! )

Updates on other projects:

Still working away at my Japanese Flower Garden but no new pictures yet. 

My Winter Twitterings quilt top I think I may rip off the borders and put the black print in to frame it instead of the pointsetta pink print. It will make it pop better. However I need to find more of the fabric so hopefully next payday I can find it on ebay or something! I only need about a meter! Figures eh? So for now it sits off to the side awaiting a seam ripper!

I wonder if anyone is actually reading this! But at least it is a good way to me to document my journey in quilting and help me remember how I have progressed!

Happy Stitching!

Kallie

Two More Dear Janes!

Pin It Now!
Well, the temperature here is now a balmy -20! much warmer than the last few days at least. But still cold enough to spend my day off stitching! I just completed 2 more Dear Jane blocks like my title says :P Here are my completed A13 and B4 blocks

The points on my A13 were very tricky! It was definitely a challenging one to piece and it has a couple puckers which I think will come out well after the freezer paper is off and if pressed really well.

B4 I machine pieced the little strips and then hand pieced them onto the large centre square, as well as hand hieced the outer border.

Up next is C1 in a lovely red stripe print which I hope to complete tonight.

Jennifer Bosworth is having a free BOM program over at www.ShabbyFabrics.com 

http://www.shabbyfabrics.com/Country-Cottages-Mystery-BOM-Block-of-the-Month-Program-P12993.aspx

The January one is super cute! And I hope to get around to making it this month but we shall see. Working lots in the next 2 weeks.

Does anyone out there know of any other fun and free BOM programs? Applique, embroidery or quilting ones? I am thinking of compiling a list of them so that they are in one spot. So please, if you know of one give me a shout and I can start putting them together.

Happy Stitching!

Kallie

Trucking Along

Pin It Now! Good Morning!

While it is still fridgid here in Calgary I have been busy working on Dear Jane. I was able to complete 2 more blocks on monday and mostly completed one more block yesterday/today before work.

Meet blocks B1 and B13. B1 was my first attempt at applique in any form and I used a reverse applique process on it. I love. love, love, the polka dots. Someone had asked in the forum on Quilting Board that I am in about the lines you can see behind the white and it is just my freezer paper. I am leaving it on so that when I start sewing together the seam line is the exact as can be.

I have picked up the rest of my colours for fabric and have printed out my templates up to block D11.

There is a lovely cyber quilt along for Dear Jane at this thread on the Quilting Board http://www.quiltingboard.com/blocks-month-week-f9/2012-2013-dear-jane-stickle-2d-cyber-party-pictures-discussion-t175669.html

You can see all the cute blocks as people post them and there is a wonderful calendar showing which blocks to do when how easy or hard they are and there are even breaks built into the schedule. Of course you can work at your own pace and I have jumped ahead a bit to work with the fabric colours I had oon hand. Definitely go and check it out!

As for me I am going to go have a cuppa tea, watch sunday's episode of Once Upon a Time and stitch a little before I head off to work!

Happy Stitching!

Kallie

Hexagons and the start of Dear Jane!

Pin It Now! Good morning to you from the absolute frigidness of Calgary! We are currently at -27 with a feels like of -33. And our `high`for today? -22. Needless to say, its a quilting day. So I figured I would take some pictures last night to show my progress on my Japanese Flower Garden as I have been trucking along on it.

I have also started on my Dear Jane Quilt!

Here are my fabrics so far:

I plan on doing a muted rainbow jane quilt. My husband did not want super bright colours and my LQS has tons of gorgeous fat 8th bundles. So I am going to use those bundles for the quilt as there is 1 meter in each bundle. I still need to get purple, red and teal (sounds horrid but its going to look amazing!) and some more white bundles -they have white on white prints.

Here is my first block. Started with an easy one!

A6

The second one I did up last night was

A8

I have been hand piecing them using a Stem Stitch as the running stitch was just not working for me! Plus I do not have to worry about back stitching as much in the middle of the seam as I am basically doing that already. It has definitely given me fantastic seams with absolutely no puckering though!! Today I think I will be attempting to complete B13, A1 and B1.

Wish me luck!!

Happy Stitching!