Wentworth County Quiltworks

The tutorial for the True Lover's Knot block is now up!  It's a fairly easy block and is block #16 of thirty planned blocks!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in beautiful, sunny Canada, and it was the warmest Thanksgiving I recall at 80 degrees F.  

Between that and on-going concerns about Dad (and hospital visits) after his latest heart attack, I haven't been online or sewing as much as I usually am.  I did, however, finish block #2 for the Bible sampler.  The tutorial will be up on Saturday.

Since it's a Bible block wedding sampler, I'm going to start posting cutting instructions to wedding and marriage-related blocks as well; they'll be up at the end of each month.

This week, I'm linking up to

BOMs Away Monday - What A Hoot!

Manic Monday Linky Party - Sew Happy Geek

Fabric Tuesday - QuiltStory

and for the first time,

Design Wall Monday - Patchwork Times

As my W.i.P. Wednesday #14 for October 12 I'm linking to

Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday #47 as well as today's WOW at

Esther's Blog.

My unstarted project inventory.  These aren't at the WiP stage yet; they're in the USO category:

Baby Nine Patch, only my colours are yellow and purple.

Midnight Shadows quilt kit that'll be made with...

...Midnight Garden fabric

Scrappy Flannel quilt that'll be made with...

...this flannel fabric

Abigail's Garden fabric for the second quilt I make with this pattern.

I also have my two antique Sunbonnet Sue quilts yet to finish.  My uncle's grandmother made the blocks.

As well, I've been acquiring fabric for "Quilted Purr-fection" - the quilt and the tote bag!

I have also acquired a dozen completed Log Cabin blocks and will make them into a lap quilt.

I keep forgetting about this wallhanging!  It shouldn't take long to do.

Don't forget Peaceful Pathways.  My fabric is ready, I just need to work up the nerve to apply paint to it!

I also have a few WiPs:  the Farmer's Wife QAL to catch up on, some thrift shop quilts to refinish and of course, my ongoing Bible quilt.    Plus my embroidered quilt.  And my poor, languishing Sunflower Sampler.

Wow.  I think I'd better call a moratorium on new projects till I get some of this stuff caught up!

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

What a busy week.  Not busy sewing, but busy behind the scenes again, on the computer.  Happily, before I got wrapped up with computer stuff, I did manage to finish pressing all the fabric for Peaceful Pathways, the Bible block wedding sampler and my next Elizabeth's Sampler.  I appear to be stalled on the Farmer's Wife sampler for now, but those little blocks are no problem to piece - although I haven't gotten into the ones with the weird geometric-shaped templates yet!

I've been on Blogger for almost a year and back in the late spring, I decided I wanted to build my own quilting website.  It wasn't anything I needed to rush into, so I didn't.  I've played with it off and on since May, trying to decide exactly what direction I wanted it to go in.

There are a LOT of blogging quilters out there so it's hard to find something original with which to interest people.  There are a lot of tutorials and block libraries and how-to advice for every aspect of the art, as well as posts featuring various quilters, quilt alongs and BOMs.

One thing I haven't seen is an extensive library devoted solely to pieced Bible sampler blocks, although there are sites that feature Bible blocks of various styles .

I'm going to build such a library; I blogged about it yesterday.  The plan is to discontinue the Blogger blog and move it over here.

However, I learned after I signed up with webs.com that you can't import a blog into their site.  You can link a blog, but not import it, even though they have a blogging application.  I'm completely redesigning the blog from the ground up and moving most of the posts, one at a time, but not all of them.  The problem is that I can't move the comments you've all left me at Blogger over the past number of months!

When I'm done, the Blogger blog will redirect to this website.  I have a lot of work yet to do on it, such as posting a variety of photos in the Photo section once I've finished moving posts.  It's going to be an ongoing W.i.P of its own, but I'm enjoying it and I never would've thought I'd enjoy playing with basic, simple web design.  I doubt I'll play with much fabric until next week, but by next Wednesday's W.i.P. post I'm hoping to be back at the sewing machine!

To see what everyone else has been up to this past week, visit Lee at  Freshly Pieced.

As I consider my current works in progress today, I notice that I'm still in the very starting stages of two projects, stalled on one and about to resume my languishing Sunflower Sampler, which is the first quilt top I ever made and is waiting for further hand-quilting. 

Peaceful Pathways by Esther Aliu

Peaceful Pathways is one that's in the starting stages, but farther along than it was last week!  I've now tested and pre-washed my red fabrics and will pre-wash the white this weekend.  I'm selective about when I run my laundry machines because Ontario hydro is billed by time of use and to run the washer during the day costs twice as much as to run it after 7 pm or on weekends. I always forget Esther is a day ahead of where I am, so today is the 15th of the month where she is and part 2 of the BOM has been released! 

Project #2 still in the early stages is my Bible block quilt.  I've done a tutorial for the first block, which will appear in the October issue of the Ruby for Women e-zine.  After making block #1, however, I took a look at the variety of colour in my pile of fabric for this quilt and decided I had best test and pre-wash these fabrics too!  My background is white with little green flowers and the other colours include various shades of blue, purple, red, brown and yellow.

Yesterday I started the soak, and it's a good thing I did!  Connecting Threads' fabric is great and I've never pre-washed it before, but the colours I've used haven't been quite as diverse either.  Some of my blues lost colour, as did the brown, red and orange.  I think to not prewash would've spelled disaster when this quilt was laundered down the line.

I'll finish the pre-soak stage by the weekend (purple and another blue) and then wash all the fabric - including the white - together.  Theoretically, the excess dye should be out of all the richer colours, but if not, I'd rather deal with getting misplaced dye out of plain white fabric rather than the white fabric in a completed quilt!  (Shout Color Catchers are not available in Canada that I've ever seen.)

My Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks are stalled at the moment while I fiddle with all this fabric.  But now that I'm done my summer quilt-along quilts, I want to get back to hand-quilting the Sunflower lap quilt that's on the frame in the basement.  It shouldn't take long to do once I get at it and STAY at it till it's done! I'm linking up to Esther's Blog today, as well as Freshly Pieced.  Check 'em out and you will be impressed!

Wow, a week has gone by already!  It's been a busy one, yet somehow the busier I get, the less I seem to get done!  Why is that?

Now that I know why my Farmer's Wife blocks were too small, I can re-do the twelve 6" ones and make them 6.5".  I've decided I'll take the smaller blocks and use them on the back when the sampler gets that far along.  Here are the first two of the twelve that I've remade, with the correct templates this time:

 Buzzard's Roost and Eccentric Star

This is now my third Eccentric Star block and I like it!  It went together quickly and I like my fabric choices.  This is the second Buzzard's Roost block I've done and it's aligned pretty well for being nothing but triangle templates (except for the centre square).  I realized I may have a problem with it upon laundering though because the red floral fabric hasn't been prewashed and I know the red will run.  My white may become a batik-style pink, but I don't plan on giving this quilt away or trying to sell it, so it won't really matter.  Guess what?  They're 6.5 inches now!  Hooray!

Here's what the first, 6" Buzzard's Roost (red) looked like.  I haven't redone Cats and Mice (green/brown) yet, but I will.

 I've also been making knitting needle cases this week.  The original free pattern can be found here but after making the first one for my sister a couple months ago, she asked for some adjustments on the next two she wanted.   Then the post office went on strike and held up the fabric.  And I did two summer quilt alongs.  Now I'm finally underway again and made my sample case with the revised pattern last week, after I revised the pattern.  This week I've got the fabric cut for the next two and they won't take long to complete. 

I also found a pattern for another quilt I want to make.  I have the panels but I need the rest of the fabric for the quilt.  It's so cute, and I love cats!

I think this line of fabric, called "Quilted Purr-fection," is slowly being discontinued so I'm going to have to order it soon if I want it!

 Today I'm going to link everywhere:  Freshly Pieced, Esther's Blog, Sew Happy Geek and QuiltStory.  Happy quilting!

My last dozen Farmer's Wife sampler blocks have finished at 6" instead of 6.5".  I was mystified:  my cutting is accurate, I've been very careful to press and not iron the seams and when I finally checked my sewing machine seam allowance, it was fine.

Here's a shot of the laminated template sitting on top of the paper template.  Look at the size difference - it's at least an eighth of an inch.

So there's that mystery solved.  My next question is, with eighteen of my blocks at an unfinished 6.5" and twelve at an unfinished 6", do I want to re-do the twelve and make them 6.5", trim down the eighteen and make them 6" (which will lose some nicely finished points), or add little borders to make the 6" into 6.5" blocks?  (I did that with some early Log Cabin blocks and didn't like the result.)  Half-inch discrepancy is too big to be able to ease the fabric successfully.

Alternatively, I could equalize the number of 6" with the number of 6.5" and just make two smaller, different sized quilts.  That's another option and may be the option I go with.

At any rate, I've now printed off lizquiltz' 15-page template document and double-checked it and these templates are the right size.  It's not a big deal to shoot over to Staples to get these ones laminated too.

("What's the big deal with the templates?" you may ask.  Well, the CD that came with my Farmer's Wife book was broken, and although I've contacted Sharon Rustad for a replacement, I've not heard a thing from her.  My guess is she's buried under requests for replacement CDs.  Rather than fuss about it, I figure if I make a collection of semi-permanent templates, I won't need the CD.)

I'm linking to QuiltStory today.  Check out the Fabric Tuesday eye candy over there!  It's delightful!

Farmer's Wife QAL weeks 6 and 7.   I fell behind on week 6 because I was wrapping up the kaleidoscope quilt, so I chose four easy blocks to play catch-up with:

 Rainbow Flowers, Friendship Star, Flock, Economy

I like Rainbow Flowers because it's reminiscent of a Log Cabin block.  However, the problem I had with it was reminiscent of problems I have with the Log Cabin as well.  For some reason with those blocks, they don't turn out the right size.  Usually I'm out by half-inch on the completed Log Cabin blocks I make, and I was out the same half-inch on Rainbow Flowers!

I've decided on my colour pool for my Bible sampler.  I'm going to use the colours that the Lord told Moses to use in the building of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness in Exodus 25:  after all, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the quilt will provide a covering for it.  It seems appropriate to me, plus, theLord gave Moses a nice variety of colours and a, well, colourful combination!

Ex 25:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering:  of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering.

Ex 25:3 And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold,and silver, and brass,

Ex 25:4 And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair,

Ex 25:5 And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood,

Ex 25:6 Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,

Ex 25:7 Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in thebreastplate. 

From the above passage, I've decided on shades of yellow, orange, blue, purple,red, white, and brown. 

My plans often change as I make a quilt, but I like to have ideas from which to springboard.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about quilting, it’s that what I originally picture and what the finished product looks like are often two different things!

I'm planning on doing the sashing in yellow and the backing in brown.  I’ll decide on the main print for the border and my contrasting prints when I find a fabric line I like and I am looking forward to fabric shopping!  Between the Farmer’s Wife quilt along (QAL),the Kaleidoscope quilt along, and the Summer Sampler Series quilt along (all of which can be found on Flickr), my fabric stash is depleting.  And look! Just in time to get more!

My next question then is"how big a quilt should I make?"  That's an easy answer - queen size.  It'll be my first full-size project and I'm planning on sending this quilt out to be done on a long-arm machine.  I know when the challenge is too great for me!

How many blocks do I need for a quilt that big? 

The blocks will be 12" but I've found a few patterns that are 6" that I can substitute to liven up the layout a little. I can either sew sets of two or four 6” blocks together to complement the 12” blocks, or I can just double the 6” patterns into 12” blocks.  Or I can just stick with 12" blocks.

 Assuming the sampler is made with 2.5” sashing strips and 6” borders, a quilt made with 30 blocks will be about 87”x101” finished size.  

 A smaller quilt will work well with 6, 9, 12 or 16 blocks.  A larger quilt will use 20, 25, 30, 36 or 42 blocks.

As well as the Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks, I've been working on two other samplers this week and my kaleidoscope quilt is waiting to be sandwiched and quilted. I marked the kaleidoscope quilt yesterday and bought some 505 temporary adhesive so I'm going to give my first attempt at spray basting a go!  I refuse to baste with thread and I'm hoping it'll be easier to quilt with the layers lightly glued together rather than pinned.  

One of the other samplers I've been working on is my Bible block wedding sampler:  it's still in the design stages.  I've spent some enjoyable hours playing with EQ7 and the Connecting Threads "Batik Paradise" files that I imported to it.  I'm almost ready to order the fabric!

I've also joined my third quilt along!  This one is the Summer Sampler Series and it's hosted by Kate at Swim, Bike, Quilt!, Faith at Fresh Lemons Quilts and Lee at Freshly Pieced.

The twelve blocks we're doing came from Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.   While the book isn't required, I went ahead and ordered it because Amazon had it and I'd been looking for it previous to this quilt along.

Three blocks a week isn't something I'm going to keep up with, given all the other projects I have on the go.  But it's a nice change to make 12" blocks again after all the 6" Farmer's Wife ones!  Also, these Summer Sampler Series blocks are more complex than what I've done before, so I want to make sure I do them right the first time! Here's the first one I made:  Mosaic.  It went together quickly after I chain pieced the sixteen HSTs.

The second block I did was Greek Cross.  It was another easy one.

Monday, I looked at what block #4 was and I think my easy-piecing days are over for this quilt along.  Flower Garden Path, in Brackman's Encyclopedia, is a thirty-six square block!  That translates into piecing 32 half-square triangles, unless you use the alternate pattern that Kate posted, which I just might do!

Being Wednesday, block #5 is now posted, and it's paper pieced.  I've never done paper piecing before, but the Star block tutorial looks clear enough.

I am in dire need of some quilt finishes, but I am having fun with my works-in-progress! As has become customary, I'm linking up with Esther's Blog: WOW and Lee's WIP Wednesday!