Inspiration and Fun

April 9, 2018 leafthroughmylife3 Comments

I always love the first weekend of the month because I meet my peeps for breakfast on Saturday morning. It’s a great way to start the day with good food and lively talk. The talk is not always about quilting though it is always inspiring.

I didn’t work on my April Patchwork Barn blocks yet. Instead I pulled out some 10-inch triangles that I inherited from my good friend and mentor Jeanne Bronikowski, my she rest in peace in quilter’s heaven.

There were a few light triangles paired with dark triangles so I continued pairing the triangles. While I was doing that I realized that some of the triangles were from my stash. Then I remembered that we were in a triangle exchange together along with quilter from all over the U.S. I don’t know what Jeanne had in store for these triangles but I decided to make Delectable Mountains. I still need to make a few more blocks and play with the layout.

Once the triangles were sewn together I trimmed them down to 8 inches because that is easily divisible by four. That left me with all these little scraps. I just love how little scraps look when they are piled up. They look so pretty I didn’t want to throw them away.

So? What to do with them. This!

Not sure what I am going to do with these babies, maybe coasters for the MooseFeathers.

It has been a great weekend. Next weekend will be starting out pretty awesome also. I’m taking a bus from My Material Matters to Rosemount for International Quilt Festival. It’s going to be so much fun.

Happy Quilting

Patti

Patchwork Barn March Blocks

March 21, 2018 leafthroughmylife2 Comments

I finished my March blocks a while ago but was distracted by other projects I was finishing and forgot to post them.

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This block was more difficult than I thought it should be. It’s interesting that taking pictures of the blocks outdoors and on the grey deck really brings out the greyness of the blocks.

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Who doesn’t love a Bear Claw’s block. Last but not least Flying Geese.

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I now have 27 blocks done.

My friend Nancy is also doing this quilt. She is using Grand Traverse Lake from Minick & Simpson. She recently sent me pictures of her blocks. I love seeing the blocks made in a different colorway.

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These are Nancy’s January and February blocks.

The two quilts are going to look completely different even though they are the same. Love that!

I will post other projects I finished shortly. In the meantime have fun quilting.

Patti

The Blocks of February

February 25, 2018 leafthroughmylife1 Comment

Here are the blocks of February.

This one was an easy block to put together. Next was a block that was a little harder.

The last block almost took me out. As you can see it is a little wonky.

It is going to look great on the quilt though as this is another one of those blocks that will appear to float on the quilt.

I also quilted two UFO’s this month. Will post pictures soon once the binding is sewn down on them. My UFO stack is getting depleted. I LOVE THAT!

For those of you who consider Sunday the last day of the week, I hope you end your week with some quilting. For those of you who consider Sunday the first day of the week, I hope you start your week with some quilting.

Patti

January Blocks

February 14, 2018 leafthroughmylife4 Comments

It didn’t take long to catch up to the block of the month. I finished January’s block and have started on February. Here are the blocks for January.

Block 1

jan block 1

What I love about this block is that you use your sashing fabric for the light color so the black squares will look like they are floating on the backround. I think there are several blocks like that.

Block 2

jan block 2

At first I didn’t like this one. I thought it was too plain. But now I really love the simplicity of it.

Block 3

jan block 3

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. The piecing could of been better. I hope when it plays with all the other blocks it will look okay.

Glad to be back from the frozen U.P. We were unable to get the busted pipe fixed. No one is willing to work on it until spring.

Happy Quilting.

Patti

Patchwork Barn the fabric

February 9, 2018February 14, 2018 leafthroughmylife3 Comments

My fabric arrived from Craftsy. I placed my order on the 3rd and received my package on the 6th. I did not pay for faster shipping so it came really quick. The fabrics are called High Society by Boundless. Below are the color palettes. The one on the left is mine the one on the right is the original. I will start making the blocks when I return from the annual family ice fishing weekend. It is very cold here in upper Michigan and we have a broken pipe so no plumbing. Waiting for the plumber to call me back. In the mean time we are using a porta potty from our camping days. Good Times!

Hope you all have a nice weekend with lots of quilting.

Patti

New Year New Goals

February 4, 2018 leafthroughmylife8 Comments

I wanted to do a block of the month this year. My goal is to have that be the only new quilt I start this year while I finish up some UFO’s. We’ll see how that goes. I looked at several block of the months being offered and decided on the Patchwork Barn by Edyta Sitar offered by The Quilt Show.

At first I was going to try to use fabrics from my stash. I thought I would do more of a rainbow colored quilt using batiks. These are the first two blocks I made up.

This would be okay but one of the things I like about the quilt is the calming quality. I think the batiks might work but given the batiks I have it would not be calming. Then I came upon these fabrics from Craftsy. I can’t wait for the fabrics to arrive.

Are any of you working on blocks of the month? I would love to see which one and why you chose it.

Happy quilting.

Patti

Half Square Triangles

December 29, 2017 leafthroughmylife2 Comments

Since I am off between Christmas and New Years and spending the time in the frozen lands of Upper Michigan I decided to use a Cake Mix Recipe to make half square triangles.

cake mix

I am probably not going to do the individual blocks but use the half square triangles to design a quilt. I should end up with 176 – 3″ x 3″ half square triangles and 704 – 1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″ half square triangles. I decided to use the Cake Mix so that I could get a variety of fabrics.

The process is rather slow. First you layer two 10″ squares right sides together. I am using the Layer Cake of Melbourne by Andrea Komninos for Benartex that I last posted about last time and a cream on cream. Using the paper pattern guide you pin it to the 10″ squares and sew on the dotted sewing lines.

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Next you cut on the solid lines. Then comes the pressing. The directions suggest either to the dark side or open. I decided to do open seams as I am not sure how I am going to sew these baby together. After the seams are open, I am cutting off the dog-eared triangles. Slow going but I think this will improve my accuracy when sewing the triangles into a quilt.

Now that I have finished some of the triangles I am a little worried about the directional nature of some of the fabrics.

directional

Hopefully it won’t be an issue.

In case you don’t have any snow where you are this is what it looks like outside my front window. The highs and lows this week has been between 10 to -15. Sofie still wants to go for a walk everyday. BURR…..

burr

Hope you get some quilting in this last week of the year.

Patti