Thursday, February 23, 2012

preparing for a crafty weekend

My buddy's husband is out of town this weekend so we are having a big old craft a thon. I've been looking forward to having a weekend of crafting for a while now - the semester has been busy and the opposite of fun. I finished up work a little early today and came home to work on a couple projects to prepare for the weekend.

First, I finished up the circle block units for my twister block for February Beejeebers! I really like how this is coming alone. Last weekend I was about ready to scrap it and start over. I've glad I stuck with it because it is shaping up nicely. Here is it in "final formation." I looked up the order the board is laid out and then put the colors in order. I rotated the "special slice" for each block one quarter turn. I think it looks pretty cool. I think I should have picked up some green solid since the other blocks are 3/4 solid but this works. This was a total "from the stash" block. Plus the dots are awesome!


I also finished putting my postage stamp blocks together. Each block is 64 little squares sewn together! Next step is to put in sashing and lay them out. I bought some navy to frame them with and Kona Khaki for the background. I might try seeing what Bone looks like also.

 So many little squares!! I really like how this stash buster turned out.

Monday, February 20, 2012

twister block WIP

I've been slowly chipping away at my twister block for February Beejeebers. The theme is family board games and I picked Twister (mostly because I don't know most of the games!). I'm almost done with all my circle blocks - each is 4 parts made from quarter circle blocks. I have six more to go! As you can see, some need parts cut from them. My machine ate some of them -- oops!


I've been using my CurveMaster quilting foot - it is designed to help feed curves so you don't have to pin them. I'm finding that it is pretty trickly with these tiny little units - they finish at 2 inches. So tiny...


This is one where the inside stopped feeding - for some reasons, I find my Kona to Kona circles are easy. The lighter and "mixed fabric" ones are harder to get. I've done a lot of rip outs.

This is the block so far. It will be 4 of each color arranged all Twister style. I'll have to look up the order again before putting the rows together. I have to cut some new parts out (machine was hungry and ate some of them!) so I hope that getting some fresh cuts into my machine makes getting the last circles together without a lot of pain. At least I know that getting the circle hunks together will be painless!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

sparkle punch

I've been working on my sparkle punch quilt. I have to get class for tomorrow together tonight so - short post - but I'm excited by my progress so far.

 Perhaps "warm cider punch" is a better name!

I did my layout on the back of a vinyl flannel backed tablecloth. I hope my "fold up" kept my movable design floor in one hunk. My plan is to work from one end to the other, finishing up blocks as needed before putting everything together. You can see I have a few blocks to finish... mostly because I ran out of the bone fabric I was using when I did my first round of cutting out!

Other news is I started my block for beejebers this month. That needs it's own post so stay tuned!