Shuffle placemats and runner

I use placemats and runners on my table year-round. Switching them out to fit the season or occasion is an easy way to freshen up my decorating.  Shuffle was designed this summer, when I was pining for sandy beaches and ocean.  Though I was disappointed to miss my ocean visit this summer, my placemats captured a bit of that summer beach vibe.  

Strip piecing for part of the construction helped these come together quickly.  I easily cut and sewed the tops in a weekend, and quilted them the next weekend. 

Moda Grunge almost-solid fabrics gave this version a modern edge.  I love the way they turned out, but I know focus prints in the accents would look fabulous as well.  Or how about a focus print in the large square and coordinating small prints or textures in the rest?  That's what tester Debbie Crosby chose for hers.

Debbie Crosby's Shuffle placemats

Debbie did send photos without the feline inspector, but how could I not include him?

While I stuck to one color family for the accents, there's no rule about that.  Check out Tammy Howell's version.  It has me thinking of birthday cupcakes with coloured frosting.

Tammy's Shuffle placemats

You can see that Debbie, Tammy and I all used straight line quilting.  I can't speak for them, but I wanted to accentuate the diagonal direction of the accent pieces.  Also, straight line was quick and easy.  If you care to spend more time, the design does lend itself to sampling different freemotion designs, as Vivian McCagg's set showcases.

There is no reason to stick with a light-colored background.  Joanne Embury's placemats feature bold but effective colour.

Joanne Embury's Shuffle placemats

Buffie Lorah and Sandie L. both opted for print backgrounds and more solid accents for a different effect.

Buffie's version of Shuffle placemats

Sandie's version of Shuffle placemats

Thank you so much to all these quilters for their tests and feedback to help me produce the best possible pattern. 

Now that the pattern is published, I thought I might step away from the computer for a little while to get some sewing in, but first I made a little detour into EQ8 to plan some fall place settings.

I also played with Halloween prints, and Christmas prints, and kids' novelty fabrics, and a plethora of color options but I won't subject you to a core dump of my ideas!  I'm sure you have lots of inspiration of your own.  What color or theme would you make these in?

The Shuffle pattern is now available in my shop.  Get yours now through October 7th at 25% off the regular price.  

Frosty placemats

Here's one of the projects that kept me away from the computer over the last month. These fabrics had been calling my name for a long time but I was a good girl and didn't bring them home until I had a plan for them.  When a customer at the LQS where I work gathered these up and paired them with my Geese Across the Table placemat pattern, I took one look at her stack and knew I had finally found my plan!

It is hard to tell from the picture, but the grey is actually silver metallic, and all the fabrics have silver metallic accents.  You can see the sparkle better in the closeup below.

Sparkling fabric is not usually my thing, but these spoke to me.  Maybe it's because the sparkle is paired with blues.  You know I love blues!

I stitched in the ditch on both the place mats and runner, because really, the gorgeous fabric is doing all the work here!  The binding is machine stitched.  There's a lot of binding in 6 place mats and a runner, and I just did not have the time or inclination to hand stitch that much of it!  

I have some Christmas place settings on my table right now, but come January, my table will be dressed in frosty blues!

I thought my receipt had information about the fabric I could share, but it doesn't.  I'll check next time I'm at the shop and report back.  I'm pretty sure most of the blues are from Timeless Treasures, and the white background is from the Quilter's Linen collection by Robert Kaufman.  And I know Quilting Connection in Ames IA has kits made up and they accept phone orders! (Just note that the kits have a different grey/silver fabric for the accent.)

After working on these I'm in the mood for frost on tree branches and sunlight sparkling on snow.  Right now we have the cold, but not the snow.  I'm sure it will come soon enough, and then I'll be wishing for spring!

New patterns: Leftovers and Mostly Clear

Rosie wanted to let you know that the Mostly Clear pattern is now available in my Etsy shop.  You may remember I wrote about making the quilt in August.  Since then Kim Williams, Joanne Harris, Mary-Ann Vanner and Tina Fugate generously donated their time, effort and fabric to test the pattern for me.  I am very grateful for their help. It lets me release the pattern with confidence knowing it passed muster with independent quilters!

Mostly Clear by Canuck Quilter Designs

The pattern features strip piecing to speed assembly, and borders that come together in segments as the rows come together to avoid having to sew on long border strips. Last but not least, the part of the pattern that excites me most is the pressing direction guidance that lets you nest every single seam intersection for perfectly matched seams.

Rosie would also like to announce that there is now a pattern for the Leftovers table set, though I declined to let her pose on the placemats.

As I mentioned in September, these were a great cheerful pick-me up project in a grey, dreary spring. There's nothing like digging through a bin of colorful scraps to lift my spirits.  That said, I realize not everyone has scraps to paw through (though I'm sure those people are just beginning their quilting journey and will soon have a respectable scrap stash).  It also occurred to me that not everyone likes to cut and sew many small pieces.

Enter the strip pieced, less scrappy version:

Five prints and a background let you make 6 matching placemats and a runner.  I really love the blue prints I chose for this set.  I really need to finish binding the other 5 placemats!

The pattern includes instructions for both the super scrappy version and the strip-pieced version.  Thank you to Joanne Harris and Carol Andrews for testing and proof reading the pattern.  Thanks to them you'll know you have enough fabric for your binding!

Both  Leftovers and Mostly Clear are now available to purchase as PDF downloads in my Etsy shop at a special introductory price.  Enjoy 50% off the regular retail price through Friday, October 18th, 2019.  If you prefer a print copy, please ask your favorite local quilt shop to order it in for you from Checker Distributors or by emailing me directly.

Leftovers

As I was sorting through pictures on my phone I realized I never shared this project here on the blog.

Last spring was grey and gloomy and I needed more colour in my life to tide me over until the garden started blooming. There's plenty of colour in my scrap bins, and I spent several evenings sifting through those, petting the fabric and choosing small scraps, deciding whether I could really bear to use the last little bit of this or that favourite fabric.(You never know if there might be a better project for it right around the corner!)

This is not my whole scrap stash, of course!  These were just the ones I thought would play well in my project. Surprisingly, this selection hardly made a dent in the scrap stash.  Scraps reproduce inside those bins.  Someone needs to conduct some research into that phenomenon.

I even found scrap strips for the binding.

These placemats were a joy to sew.  They were colourful, quick to make, and gave me the satisfaction of making quick progress after working on slower, long term projects.

You can see I kept the quilting very simple.  Easy, quick, evenly spaced lines quilted with my walking foot add plenty of texture without distracting from the colorful scraps.

I love them, though the family is afraid of that white background.  No worries.  We just use different placemats when we serve spaghetti and sauce!

A New Year’s Wish for Quilters

 

May your points always meet

May your thread never break

May your borders behave

And may inspiration never desert you

 

Thank you all for your friendship and encouragement!  I wish all of you joy and peace in 2012.

		2011 Finishes VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

		2011 Flimsies VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

(Borders still pending on two of these tops…)

Stitching again

I’ve finally sat down at the sewing machine again after what feels like forever and it feels wonderful! 
First up were a few flying geese. Last spring and early summer I made this table set for mom.  As I worked on it I realized my flying geese were not consistent enough for me to enjoy making this quilt I planned out.  I really want to make this so I’ve been trying out different methods to see which gives me the most consistent units. 
Thank you Love for the tip about Eleanor Burns’ flying geese ruler and technique.  I always hesitate to buy specialty rulers, but I went out and got this one this week and I did in fact sew and trim nice, consistent units with the points right where they should be.  There is a bit of fabric waste, but I think that tradeoff will be worth it.
With that settled, I’m clearing the decks, so to speak, to clear the way for total obsession with the flying geese quilt.  I have a few projects that stalled at my less favourite stages of quilt making.  I decided to move them past the hump before I start the new project.
I finally basted and started hand quilting my leaf quilt. The top has only been waiting a year for its turn!   The basting and deciding how to quilt it were where this one stalled. I have decided to quilt overlapping sets of concentric circles all over.  I’ll have a picture once there is enough there for you to see what I mean.  So far I have 8 of the 42 blocks quilted.



Next I cut fabric for the borders on Whimsy.  That top was slow coming together and it is time for it to be finished.  Yesterday and today I started sewing triangle squares for the pieced borders.  I’ll need 100. 

Some of the ones I’ve finished are sewn together into strips.I hadn’t planned to add another border after the saw tooth one, but now that I have this up on the design wall I think the saw teeth look puny and busy by themselves at the edge of the quilt.  I think I’ll add that outer border to tame things a bit. I think I accidentally bought more of that green border fabric than I needed for just the inner border, so that should work out well in the end.
Next week I have lots of painting to do – we’ll see how much quilting I manage to squeeze into the evenings.   Did I mention that after the flying geese quilt, I have another quilt plan drawn up and waiting?  So many quilts, so little time…

Quilter’s block

For most of the last two weeks I haven’t managed much quilting activity other than staring at fabric.  I did get as far as unfolding and pressing my 25 FQs of bright fabrics, but then quilter’s block set in.

Every time I decide what I should make with them, I stop before actually cutting any fabric.  What if it isn’t quite the right project for the fabric?  What if I think of a better way to showcase the fabric after I’ve cut it and have none left for the better project?I need to just get over it and use this fabric!  But it’s so pretty, all laid out in gradations of colour…
Yesterday I set aside the brights and got to work on another set of placemats and runner, because I wanted to actually sew something.  Let’s just overlook the fact that the last one I showed you hasn’t been quilted yet. I really don’t get much done when the kids are out of school, though I’m not sure why. They are getting older and really don’t need me to entertain them, so what’s making me unproductive?
Anyhow, here’s where I left the new project last night.
This set is also made with 8 FQs and a little bit of cream yardage from the stash. I have to sew all the units of the skinny runner together, then I will add a thin border of orangey-red.  I fished through my small stash today and found enough of one suitable fabric for the runner’s border, and just barely enough of a second to bind all the pieces in the same fabric.  I also have some leftovers that will do for backing.  They don’t quite match the fronts, but they’ll be hiding on the back anyway, so I’ll go with it and use up pieces that have been sitting around for several years.  If I use the batting I bought for the previous set of (still unquilted) placemats, I might get them done by early next week.  Unless, of course, I suffer from another bout of serious sewing inertia!

Takes 1 and 2

The last few days I have been busy working on a set of placemats and a table runner from 8 fat quarters and a bit of solid cream yardage.  I pretty much knew what I wanted for the placemats, and they came together fairly quickly.
Recently I saw a few zigzag quilts and thought something like that would look fun in these fabrics.  A little nagging doubt at the back of my mind warned that while it would be fun it might have too much white space to really go with these placemats.  On the other hand the zigzag would be so much fun.  I ignored the nagging doubt and pushed ahead.  
I spent all day yesterday fighting with 64 HST’s.  Why do some come out perfectly square, and others, using exactly the same method and care, come out wonky?  Anyhow, I trimmed and sewed them all into submission and did end up with a fun zigzag.  It really needs a border, but I don’t have enough of anything suitable in my stash right now, so it is on hold pending at stop at the fabric store.
As the little voice in my head warned, it does have too much white space to go well with the placemats.  It really shows when they are side by side.  It will be fun on its own, but not as part of the set.
So today I obsessed.  Here’s Take 2 on a matching runner (I can’t believe I had enough left from those 8 fat quarters to make take two and I still have decent scraps left):

This is another example of how important contrast is to make the Twister block pop.  My fabric layout seemed to have a lot of contrast when it was just squares side by side, but by the time it was reduced to pinwheels a lot of the contrast was lost.  I see some pinwheels because I’m looking for them, but most just don’t show.  When my husband first looked, he saw scrappy diamonds instead. (Hmm…there’s another idea perking here for things to do with the Twister tool…)
That said, I think Take 2 will go quite well with the placemats. It is also much narrower so I will be able to have it on my rather narrow dining table at the same time as the placemats.   Usually I use a runner alone, and remove it when I set the table with placemats because I can’t fit both.
So here’s the set.  I need backing and batting, then I’ll have to figure out how I want to quilt everything.

The package is in the mail...

Mom,  your runner and placemats are almost in the mail!  They're in a box and addressed and everything short of being actually in the post office's custody.  Monday, I promise!

Finally a finish!

Finally, a finished (even delivered to its new owner) project. I don't think I've had one of those in a while. I suppose I could check my past posts to be sure, but I digress. This is what I was working on the last time I posted.  I ran out of time and didn't get a chance to go to the quilt shop to work out my freemotion woes so I planned out a quilting motif of squares, all nice straight lines, and used the quilting foot.  It came out OK, though I don't feel the picture does the runner justice.

I made this runner and placemats set for my good friend Monica.

 She and her hubby invited us to spend a few days with them and their two kids at their family cottage on Lake Manitoba.  We had a marvelous time.  In fact I was so busy having a marvelous time that I forgot to take any pictures of the fun we were having.  My friends who scrapbook would be appalled!  It was wonderful to see her.  I think this visit, at three nights, two days, is the longest we have visited in person in 17 years.  Thanks to regular letter-writing we just picked up where we left off the last time we saw each other 2 years ago.  The husbands even obliged by retiring early one evening so the two of us could catch up till the wee hours (very wee, about 4 am).

Since we were up in Manitoba, we used the opportunity to visit Winnipeg a bit and steep the kids in a little of their Canadian heritage.  This particular area was new to me too.  I've lived in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, and have family in New Brunswick, but all the middle part of Canada is brand new to me.  On the way up to the cottage we stopped in Morden so my husband could meet Bruce at the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre:

The hubby loves dinosaurs, and while Bruce the mosasaur is not technically a dinosaur, this prehistoric marine reptile has a head bigger than a T-Rex's.  Bruce was the best I could do without doing way more driving than the kids and I could stomach in our little "purple cramper", as my daughter called our valiant little Neon on day 2 of our drive.

I'm a sucker for living history museums and Parks Canada does a wonderful job with those, so Lower Fort Garry was a must.  We ended up spending most of a day there because we are a curious bunch and ask a lot of questions and look at everything.  The Manitoba Museum was also a big hit, and the kids were fascinated during our tour of the Royal Canadian Mint. 

There was supposed to be a visit to a quilt shop in there too to see if I could bring back some Canadiana prints, but I left it to the end of the visit.  I had found an address for a shop on our way out of town, drove through some construction to get there, and found it closed.  Sigh.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Now we're home again in mid-Iowa, the laundry is done, the fridge is restocked and I have drawn up a list of projects to move along:

1. Astro quilt - all quilted, just needs binding!

2. Mom's table runner and placemats - add borders and quilt

3. Hearts quilt - still quilting, still quilting...

4. Swap blocks quilt - add borders and prairie points then set aside till my freemotion skills improve

5. Leaf quilt - add prairie points and quilt (machine or hand? haven't decided yet)

6. Whimsy - lots of piecing still

I'm off to work on number one.  It's so close to completion!

*Edit*  I forgot to give credit for the runner pattern.  It was inspired by the pattern "Choc-O-Cherry Turnover Treat" by Monica Solorio-Snow over at Moda Bakeshop, but I pieced it entirely differently than she did to avoid cutting a zillion triangles and dealing with the corresponding nmber of bias edges.  The placemat design is all mine.

Going into summer

I've been absent from blog land the last couple of weeks. I've been otherwise occupied with end of year school field trips (3 all-day ones in in a little more than a week), puttering in the garden before the heavy heat sets in, stacks of Girl Scout paperwork, my mom's visit...

There has a been a tiny bit of quilting happening. I dragged mom to the local quilt shop and while it seems I won't turn her into a quilter, she had no trouble browsing fabric. She chose a lovely fat quarter bundle which I am turning into a set of placemats and table runner.

The placemats in the picture don't actually have any sewn seams yet, but I was playing with colour layout so I went ahead and took pictures. There will be a wider border in a darker print all around the runner, with matching strips on each side of each placemat. The pattern for the table runner is "Shades of the Season" by Gayle Camargo, free on the Robert Kaufman Fabrics website.