Quilt Show !

So, my guild had a quilt show this weekend .... It was FAB :) I just wish I could have taken more/better pics!

 

Lil Twister Part 2

So, last week I gave you a mini tutorial on making Lil' Twister blocks. Afterwards I thought - wow, what a lousy job, I really need to beef up the visuals!

On the left the blocks are laid out in order. I take them to the sewing machine this way. Then, going from right to middle I sew together the first 2 blocks for each row, and of course follow this up by sewing the third, left block to make up the 3 rows.

Of course you press the seams for the 1st and 3rd rows in one direction, and for the 2nd row in the opposite direction, like the pic on the left. Sew the rows together, then using your unsewer (aka seam ripper) undo those little stitches @ each intersection so they can spiral as in the pic on the right! If you haven't discovered this trick - try it. It helps your intersections to lie flat! 

And voila!! You should have a block like this! Reverse view on left, front side on right! Now, all I need to do for my own table runner is get some borders on and tackle some machine quilting. Wish me luck!!!

While blog surfing recently I came across the funniest site I've seen in a long time - new to me, maybe not new to you ... Texts from Hillary :) Click on the pic to go to this tumblr site to enjoy more !!!

TTFN

Mini Tut on Lil Twister!

So here's a mini tutorial on using the Lil' Twister  tool. First you decide on a colour scheme, in my case blue because this table runner will be for mother and she has blue in her kitchen and I have a basket full of blues! Once you have your colours chosen sew 4 5" squares together and border with 3" strips, in my case I bordered the squares with white.

Align the lines of the Lil' Twister tool with the seam lines in the block at the bottom left corner (see pic). Next move the tool up to the next seam line and cut around the twister, the "scraps" it leaves can be saved for another project.

Now it's time for the third cut, again, align the lines on the tool with the seam lines. For the next set of cuts aline the lines on the Lil' Twister tool along the center seam of the block, maintain the same angle as with the first set of cuts. And then cut the final three along the right side of the block.
Putting the blocks together is easy when you use distinctive prints, however, if you were to try this scrappy you will have lots of fun arranging the three blocks per row. Here's a finished block

 And my semi finished runner with the chosen backing fabric. Next week (I hope) I will show you the finished product!!

  TTFN

Let's Twist!

So, it's the long Turkey weekend and I have finally carved out some time (pardon the pun) to make a project I've had on the wish list for ever so long. I got this Lil' Twister tool at my favourite quilt shop (The Marsh Store). The first step in the process is to pick fabrics.
Well, this wasn't too hard for me I just pulled from my stash some interesting blues in dark, mediums and lights, and cut 5" squares. You sew the four squares together to make a block. The hard part for me was finding the whites for the 3" borders. Thought I had loads of whites, what I have is loads of off whites. YIKES - it's 9:30 at night and no fabric store open. Phew! I managed to find just enough :) Guess that's going on my list of "must have"!

 So once the blocks are all sewn and pressed you get the ruler and start cutting!

I took my lead from an online tutorial by Tamarack Shack Thank you, Thank you for the great tut, you can see a pic from her blog behind the sewing machine! The pic on the left shows the difference in the finished size from the square block to the twisted block! It may seem like you're losing a lot of fabric - but not really, besides, don't we all have loads and loads? On the right is one finished twister block, seven more to go, I can't wait until I finish this one ..... will post pics
TTFN and Happy Thanksgiving!!