Sew Modern August directions

August is my month for the Sew Modern Quilt Bee. I got my act together to get the fabrics pulled finally. My block is from Quiltville's String-X Quilt but modified by Nittany Block Party. Rather than try and make my poor Bee members flip between the two sets of directions on those blogs, I'm going to consolidate the directions here to make it quicker for them. Here's what the finished block will look like.

And here are my directions:
Start with the long center rectangle. Piece together the small rectangles (should be about 4 inches wide) until you have a piece 10.5 inches long. I just pressed all seams to one side. You can do whatever you prefer.

Cut it down to 3.5" x 10.5" and add white strips to the sides. Please press seams away from the white.

In your fabrics you will find a green triangle (it's a 2.25" square cut in half). Use that to measure and cut the corners off the rectangle.

Choose 2 triangles you would like to add to the outside and fold them in half leaving a finger press mark. Do the same with the center piece.

Unfold them and match the press marks in order to sew the triangles to the center piece. It's hard to see the press marks in this photo, but you get the idea.

Press away from the white fabric again. You should have a piece that looks like this.

If you want, you can square it to 7.25" or just leave it for me to square up. I sent materials for 2 blocks. Thank you so much for all your hard work!! Feel free to contact me with any questions.

My First Quilt

My first quilt is finally finished! I started this quilt in November of 2009. I was staying home with my daughter who was then a year old. And I was starting to need something unrelated to parenting to do. I got a flyer from my LQS (the now defunct Country Quiltworks) and decided to sign up for something. The class was called something like "Quilting 101" so I decided to go for it.


I had no knowledge of modern quilting or blogs or even online fabric shops. But I was hoping that this would be some type of updated quilting. I tell you I had to suppress a groan when I got to class and saw the sample quilt was a totally traditional sampler!!  The same class they have been teaching for 30 years or so. (funny side note, my mom had taken the same class ages ago and never did anything with her quilt top)

But, I'm so glad I took the class because I learned so many great techniques, it gave me a lot of confidence. So, here it is, my first quilt:

With the popularity of samplers right now in the blogging world I guess timing is good on this one! The one thing I do wish was that I had known about online fabric shops. Country Quiltworks had a very specific market (they weren't even selling Moda anymore) and I had a really hard time with the fabrics on this one and I'm not thrilled with them. But overall I'm proud of this one.


And what makes it even more special is that I had it hand-quilted. My grandmother used to quilt with our church for many years. When she learned I was doing this, she put me on the wait list with her old friends at the church. After a year of waiting, they were ready for me! They welcomed me to come in and learn too.

They wouldn't let me work on my own quilt, but I was allowed to pose as though I was quilting - haha! They have a beginner quilt for newbies to work on. But I was really excited to learn from the professionals. The best tip I got from them was using a deflated balloon to pull the needle out of the top, it's got great grip!


What's sad is that when my grandmother joined this group there were 11 ladies quilting, now they are down to 4. I hope hand quilting isn't going away! Look at these amazing tiny stitches....

Can't see them? Yeah, me either! Here's the view of the back.

And in case you were wondering, here are the names of the blocks in this sampler.

54-40 or Fight:

Double Churn Dash:

 

 Double T

Eight Pointed Star:

Courthouse steps:

Ohio Star

Pinwheels and Bear's Paw

Rail Fence:

Snowflake:

Scrap Basket:

Sunrise Star:

Wild Goose

Quilt Stats

Size: 88"x88"

Pattern:  Sampler 

Fabrics: various

Quilted: Wentz's UCC

Date finished: June 2011

On a personal note

A few people have asked where I've been and I guess it's time to share.  I've been working on a personal WIP.



I'm pregnant!


For me, this means several weeks of morning sickness (all day sickness). So there's been  a lot of neglect going on, not just the blog. I've done almost zero sewing,  no cooking (raw meat? gag), bare minimum cleaning and I've had a bunch of weight loss.


Funny related story, I asked my 91 year old grandmother if she had morning sickness with my dad and aunt and she says, "oh Becky I wouldn't remember that". Then about 5 mins later she says, "OH wait, I remember my doctor telling me to keep crackers by my bed to eat before waiting up. That was terrible".  I guess you never forget!  And seriously, doctors still give the same advice. I can't believe we haven't advanced much in 90 years. (for what it's worth - I took the nausea meds they give and they worked sometimes)


So at any rate, I'm starting to have some productive non-sick days and hoping to get back to some sewing. I have a couple of finishes to photograph and want to show you those soon. Thanks for hanging in with me!!

I've been featured!

I am super excited to be featured over on Feeling Stitchy for my Parisville Cameo embroidery. I am not an embroidery girl, this was a total spur of the moment idea that I just made up as I went along! So if you think you can't do it - don't believe it! Go check out Feeling Stitchy and leave me some love... and maybe learn some new skills too. It's a really cool blog.