Allietare! Clue 2

Week 2 of Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery is already here. I actually finished clue 1 all except for pressing. But all 294 of those little buggers are sewn!

 

 

This week we added color to the mix with the red. I cut all my red backgrounds and made sets so I was organized, often a challenge for me!

 

 

 

 

I did decide to mark the lines in the squares. It was well worth the investment of time. 

 

 



Chain piecing went quickly, especially with 2 friends in my dining room sewing with me, and one on Skype!

 

 





 

I was feeling down right confident after the first squares were stitched. But then .....I made a mistake and found out what happens when you stitch on the wrong side of the drawn line! A little bit the wrong way really makes a big difference when you press. Luckily only 5 sets were sewn this way, so a quick bit of unsewing and I was back on my way.

 Soon all was well again, and I was humming along.

These are ready for trimming and will be right on the money when done! So far I am happy with this mystery, though I have a bit of apprehension that Bonnie will throw in the dreaded chevrons next week.

Oh well, first I have to finish clue 2....halfway there and lots of time 'til Friday! I can't wait to see all the finished units at  The Mystery Monday Link-Up Part 2!   Happy sewing!!



Allietare Mystery- Part 1

Well it's time once again for the 2015 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, this year Allietare!

Four of us got together on Sunday to cut and sew clue 1... 294 grey and neutral half square triangles.

Curiously we all chose different methods to achieve our 294....

• Sheryl did the traditional Easy Angle Ruler method using 2 inch strips.
• Chris used her Accuquilt cutter Die 55319, using 2.5" strips, making 24 sets at a time.
• Nancy used a ruler that marks the center and sewing lines on squares, I am not sure of the name.

And I used the Magic 8 method for the first time. You can find a great tutorial on that method on Laugh Yourself Into Stitches Blog or on Craftsy

The basic idea is drawing an "X" corner to corner on the appropriate sized starting triangle, and then sewing a 1/4 inch on each side, then slicing 4 times through the square to yield 8 perfect half square triangles! Look at the tutorial for it to make sense.....

For this mystery I used 4 3/4 because frankly, trimming down to size makes me sad! So I hedged my bets that it would yield an accurate 2 inch unfinished unit!  

Low and behold, it worked!!! Happy dance!!!!

We had dueling Featherweights going......

All done Clue 1! Off to a great start and pleased with the method and results and ready for the Mystery Monday Link-Up Week 1 Now back to finishing my Christmas Mystery swap!

Cheryl Sees at Tidewater Quilter's Guild

This month, my Guild hosted a really talented speaker, Cheryl Sees http://www.cseesquilts.com/

She has some amazing quilts on her website and is an award winning quilter. One quilt she brought was the heart quilt below....

 

 

The quilt was part of a challenge....to make quilt inspired by a gift bag! I wish this picture did this quilt justice. There are all sorts of "hidden" images in the quilting. There are embellishments with fibers and crystals and even lace from her grandmother!

Everyone truly enjoyed her presentation and her gorgeous quilts.

I will be scoping gift bags for inspiration for sure!

TQG Spring Fling



 

Each year my quilt guild Tidewater Quilters' Guild hosts a Spring Fling. It's a nice day of quilting, food and fabric fellowship.

 

 

Classes are given by talented quilters in our guild, or if you like you can "Sit N Sew." It's hard to choose!!!

 

 This year, I picked the Quiltsmart- Mondo Bag which lots of people around here have been making, but which intimidated me!

You start out with a purchased foundational interfacing onto which you fuse 2 1/2 inch squares. Lots of cool color combos were working in our classroom.

 

Details are important....the pressing note is key!!

 This one is mine.....I had a load of blue batik scraps and strips from a scrappy trip quilt I made.

Construction was the most hairy part to me, but it was surprisingly simple.

At the end of the day, we "Show and Tell"....all the bags were beautiful!

Because I am the photographer and webmistress, I didn't get mine together, but that will happen soon!

College Banner

Had my step-daughter's 18th birthday coming up and wanted something special to commemorate the day and her acceptance to William & Mary. I looked at all the W&M logo's and came up with this little wall-hanging.

 

 

I started by free motion quilting popular W&M landmarks...Swem Library, Sadler Center, The Daily Grind, the Crim Dell Bridge.

I added some of the traditions such as The Flat Hat, the school newspaper, Raft Debate and so on.

I put a representation of the Crim Dell Bridge in the center with her expected year of graduation.

At our Hibachi dinner, I gave it to her....and she had a big smile, and that made me smile!

MAQF: Barb Olsen's Jump Start Your Creativity

This past weekend was the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival held annually at the Hampton Convention Center. The quilt show for me, sort of marks the doorstep to Spring, much in the same way the Philadelphia Flower Show used to when I lived in Philly! While the weather was totally uncooperative with a significant snow on Wednesday evening, causing me to miss my first class, by Thursday I was raring to go and excited for Barbara Olsen's, "Jump Start Your Creativity!"

She was a great teacher with lots of inspiring quilts to share...

 

 

We started with tracing our design on Sulky Totally Stable, making registration marks to aid in aligning the pieces.

 



Then we started auditioning our fabric in our pieces. I was using a big pile of Allison Glass Designs fabric in the Lucky Penny, Clover Sunshine and Field Day lines. Check out her stuff here: Alison Glass Design's

 

I was having a creative ball!

 

To me one of the things that makes the design is the quilting that Barbara did on her finished pieced.....just gorgeous!

 

My first petal was done my the end of class. I have since constructed 2 more.....plugging along, thinking of spring!

Click here for Barbara's website!