Quilting Again

 It feels so amazing to actually be sewing again. I have figured out a thing or two. 

#1.   I can no longer sew for as long as I used to. It took me FOREVER, to cut up the fabric. It takes me much longer to sew things together than it used to as well.  I know a lot of it has to do with just being out of practice, so not going to get too down on myself over that.

#2.   My den needs some definite tweaking.  After the sun goes down, there is not enough light down here and what light I do have has a yellow tinge to it that for some reason is very offensive to my eyes.  

#3.   My sewing machine is sitting up too high to be comfortable.  Hubby is going to cut the legs of my sewing table down for me. Currently I am having to use a pillow to sit on in my chair to give me a little more height.

#4.   I decided to commit myself to getting proficient with my Pfaff Creative 2.0 a few years ago, since I already have it, since it is already paid for, and it was not cheap.  There are absolutely no usable videos or tutorials for this machine. I have looked. It has a good embroidery unit that attaches as well.  So, I will be posting about my adventures with this machine.  In fact, I am purchasing a set up to use my phone or tablet to make my own videos of what I do, how I do it, basic settings and such for the machine.  I named her IRENE, after my mom because she bought me the machine.  I have started a folder on my computer and saving photos of the screen for various settings of needle position since when you turn the machine off it automatically goes back to default setting.

In 2019, I joined a subscription for Sew Sampler Box. For a fee, I would receive a box each month from the Fat Quarter Shop. It was amazing...at first.  But then life was getting in the way and in  my opinion, the boxes were just okay, not great. Then they had to increase the price due to shipping cost going up.  Then, the boxes ended up just stacking up, not really being looked at except to check out what was inside. 

All those nice aqua or turquoise boxes, 11 of them because I did it for a year and have lost one of them, are the monthly sampler boxes.   Each box has a set of precut fabric, such as a charm pack or jelly roll, a pattern for a project (quilt, table runner, tote) that is designed for that fabric. There is also added in some kind of gadget (specialty ruler) or product (pin holder, lapel pin, marker) so you are getting way more value than you pay each month.  

That being said, it just wasn't for me.  I am a totally different kind of quilter.  I like to find my pattern, find my fabric, then hit it.  I was ready to start a project, I have a fairly good sized stash to pull from.  I pulled a few patterns, then hit the stash.  I bet I pulled out about 6 sets of fabrics.  As large as my stash is, I was always off one or two fabrics.  I either didn't have the color I needed, or it was a wrong shade.  So, I hit the Sew Sampler boxes.  I knew that for a quick little project (I rarely do larger than a throw) and finally landed on the April 2020 box.  

The pattern in box is called "Gala Garden" and included precut 10' charms from the "At Home Jolly Bar" which is fabric from the "At Home Collection" by Bonnie & Camille.  Since  the box was from 2020, the start of the covid craziness, I am not sure you can still purchase it.

I love rotary cut patterns. In fact all the boxes are supposed to be easy enough for beginners.  Which the pattern was pretty easy, I have to say.  Only problems...the pattern diagrams fabric did not match up exactly to the contents of the box.  I am kind of OCD when it comes to that kind of thing.  I just did my best to match the values (light or dark) of the directions.  Not ideal, but acceptable I think.  Another problem, some printing errors.  I HATE PRINTING ERRORS. That is where my tiny OCD comes out big time.  Spell it correctly, use the correct tense, use the correct word, and don't show me two photos and tell me to cut 4 squares out of each of two fabrics for a total of 16 squares.  Yep, think about that one a minute.

After cutting for 5 hours...yes for just one quilt, told you I had gotten slow...and a couple of mistakes along the way...I had it all cut out.  

I was quite pleased. I was even more pleased that the next morning after cutting all this out we left for a week end camping trip, which was for our monthly cowboy shoot,  and when we got back late on Sunday, my idiotic insane cat had actually left it all alone. Go figure.

Yesterday afternoon, I started making the pinwheel blocks for this quilt. Four of them. As I said earlier, a few of the fabrics shown in the pattern directions were not in the box.

So, I just tried my best to use the same tone. That is a hard thing for me to do as I don't perceive tone or shade differences like most people.  I am not color blind, I am told women cannot be, and I can tell if something is blue or red. For the most part I can tell if a print reads dark or light.  But in this case, a lot of the fabrics were in the grey range.  Literally, there is a lot of grey so I did my best with the judgements.  

Call the quilt police, but it is what it is and who is to care, this is a practice piece anyway.

Now, also, what they are calling the Half Square Triangles...other wise know as HST...is  not a true HST.  I am planning to do a short easy tutorial in a future blog about that, so stay  tuned.

This technique they used is more like what one would use for a snowball block.  You take the size square you want...in this case, 4 1/2 inches...then put a smaller square in the corner...in this case, 1 1/2 inches...place right sides together, sew diagonally corner to corner, then flip it back and press. If you trim off the excess from the seam to the outside of the block it gets rid of the bulk and makes it lay flatter. The way this pattern does it makes an odd shaped pinwheel. But, that is part of the charm of this design.

Is that clear as mud?  Good.  Let's see if I can clear this up a bit. Bear with me, I am still learning how to put photos and such in the blog.

For this pattern, the printed fabric came as a 5 inch by 10 inch charm...or precut piece of fabric. From one of those rectangles, I cut 2 squares, 4 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches.  Out of my white background, I cut 2 1/2 inch squares.  With a pencil and a ruler, a line was drawn diagonally on the wrong side of all the white squares. I placed a white square right sides together on the bottom left corner (actually any corner will do, but that is what the pattern directions showed) with the light square on top as pictured. I then stitched along the drawn line.

I assembly line stitched the squares together. It is kind of fun to watch the line come out of the machine. By the way, this is a great, quick way to stitch up some very easy beginner quilt patterns.  If you have never watched Eleanor Burns from "Quilt In A Day" fame stitch and throw the scrap pieces over her shoulder...you should.

Now here is a little tip or trick, what ever you want to call it. When you are stitching diagonally, move your needle over 1/2  inch. and stitch again. Use a ruler to cut between the two lines of stitching.

Then you will already have sewn a proper HST for another project. In this case, the bonus was 1 1/2 inches.  Just keep them in a bin or container of some sort and use them in a scrappy project down the road.  

No waste, I am notorious for holding on to every little scrap.

After adding the sashing blocks, I now have the four pinwheel blocks completed, pressed and waiting

for the next four blocks....which are called flower blocks...to be stitched up.  

Then the fun of putting all the blocks together around a center block, the border added and then basting and trying out my quilter.

More about her later.  

It has been a long day, taking my hubby to get an endoscope done,  and I am ready to just kind of veg out. It is my birthday today and I deserve it.

Thanks for visiting and come back soon.