Des Moines Here I come…

Is anyone else going to the AQS Quilt show in Des Moines or want to go, but can’t find a room?  I have a room at the Quality Inn, my plane ticket and am signed up for a few classes.  Unfortunately, the only rooms available were a master suite with a king sized bed and a living room…so sad.  I am taking my machine because why be around all that inspiration and not sew right?  Plus I have to practice what I learn in class.  I have taken a few sewing classes and I tend to be the slow sewer who never finishes the projects in class.  I do much better sewing at home with no distractions or the feeling of others watching and judging me…probably not happening, but it feels that way to me.  Anyway, if there are any quilters out there that would like to share a room drop me a line and we can discuss it.

I got an opportunity last week to teach a young lady how to sew and it was exciting.  We are making a baby blanket for her sister.  Once I got her going she was making HST faster than I could iron them and square them up.  We are making the quilt with the Broken Dishes pattern from the Broken Dishes Quilt Along at Ariane Quilts.  I think we are a little ahead at this point, but I only had her for a week so we had to get going on this.  Ariane just posted a wonderful tutorial for a Triangle in a Square block that she is going to use in the border, can’t wait to see what she does with it. We had a fun time picking out the fabrics.  The Mother-to-be’s favorite colors are black and white or zebra prints, not so babyish so we picked a gray for our background and two shades of each of 4 colors.  I am really liking the way it is turning out, though I think we are going to add a row to the side and the bottom.  We are going to make a narrow border out of black and a wider outer border out of a darker gray.  Hopefully the Mother-to-be will like our choices and now I have fulfilled a dream I have had of introducing a young lady to the world of sewing and quilting.  I must say she did a great job and was pretty proud of herself and we had fun in process!  Here is what we have done so far on the design wall…

Sharing my love for sewing…

sew rewarding!

 

Ferne

Farmers Wife or Elm Creek

I am thinking of starting a sampler quilt.  I have been inspired by the many bloggers doing Farmer’s Wife quilt blocks.  I have had the book for at least a year and didn’t get inspired to do the blocks until I saw others doing them with such bright and cheery fabrics.  Funny thing though is that every time I try to pick out some fabrics for the blocks I go to civil war fabrics or calicos.  I recently bought a Baby Go! cutter and one die that cuts 2-1/2 inch squares, triangles and a larger square.  I thought I would get the most use from this die and I think it was a wise choice.  Well, I didn’t realize that the cutter doesn’t come with a cutting mat so I ended up waiting another week for the mat to arrive then found that I ordered the wrong size for my die.  A trip to JoAnn’s is a 45 minute drive so I waited until I had a day off work and a grocery shopping list and errand list (with a trip to JoAnn’s on it), and finally I am in business.

I noticed that the Contrary Wife block was done with 2-1/2 inch blocks so I got out the Baby Go! and went to work.  Every triangle matched up perfectly!  Now I will have to search for more blocks I can make with this die.

Another sampler quilt that I got a book for and not done anything with until recently is the Elm Creek book for Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler quilt.  There are a few blocks that are also in Farmer’s Wife, but just a few and since each book has over 100 block patterns that is pretty amazing.  I made the Flight Block from the book.  Both books use 6 inch blocks too so I am thinking that I will choose my favorites from both books and combine them into a sampler, but what would I call it?

The best part of doing a sampler is that you learn so many different methods in the process and you don’t get bored doing the same thing over and over.  A box of chocolates are pretty great because they are all different, so different blocks should really make a quilt fun and special.

I think before I really take on either one of these projects though I had better finish up a few other projects first.  Meanwhile, it will be fun playing with a block or two once in a while to keep me entertained.  Right now I am spending more time in the garden than the sewing machine where I found this double daylily quite entertaining.  Today, though, I went fishing for a few hours and I caught 21 fish!  Now that was entertaining!!!

ferne