Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Fandom in Stitches

Fandom in Stitches is a web site with all kinds of fan related patterns. They are mostly paper pieced or stitcheries. There are some amazing designers out there who make designs of popular characters and make them available for free. You are not to make and sell items from the patterns. One of the designers, Lynne Schwarz is working on a series of Disney villains and I tested a couple of her patterns for her. These still need a little embrtoidery detail to finish them off but I will do that after I remove the paper. Piecefully, Joanne

Friday, July 25, 2014

Introducing Diana, a new quilt pattern from Cora's Quilts

Shelley from Cora's Quilts (here) put out a call for testers last month. Since I am not a designer and have no aspirations to be one but I am reasonably good at proof reading and following directions I signed on. The table runner I made is from the first pattern I tested for her. The pattern is called Diana and is due for release today. Be sure to visit her site later today as she has a launch post ready to go. With everything that has been happening around here I did not get this quilted, although it is pinned and ready to quilt.
Shelley described the technique she used as pinless and I figured I better follow the directions exactly since I was testing.  I can honestly say this table runner was totally sewn and assembled without the use of pins. The pattern instructions are clearly written with good illustrations and laid out in simple easy to follow steps. I like her writing style and hope to test for her again. Piecefully, Joanne

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

HSTeria my small contribution

Vicki over at Field Trips in Fiber-Adventures in Quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art (here) has been running HSTeria for a couple of months. I must admit my half square triangle supply is out of this world but I tend to make pinwheels and more pinwheels. Her contributions and design suggestions are very good and definitely worth having a look at if you too have a large supply of HST waiting to be made into something.
This little baby quilt is 25" by 32". I was given a milk bag full of triangles. Note I said triangles not half square triangles. And for any American followers Canadians buy their grocery store milk in 4 Litre bags. So first of all I had to sew all the triangles together to made a pile of half square triangles. I did that task as Leaders and Enders and tried to  press them as they were created. The Half Square Triangles were 1 3/4" when sewn together. When I was visiting friends for a little retreat I dumped the bag of HST onto the table after dinner and we all sorted them into like bundles. Then I sewed them into the pinwheels and arranged them into a small quilt. There are 130 pinwheel blocks or 520 HST in the quilt. I just stitched in the ditch to quilt it. They served as a good distraction and I do get a boost from making something out of nothing but I am happy it is all done, labelled and ready to donate to my Scrapbag group when we start up again in the fall. Piecefully, Joanne