mastering geese for a swoon

so, i started something new a little while ago. no surprise there! when i get the urge or the itch, i just dive into something. this time i decided to join the IG #swoonalong. in celebration of her 10th year anniversary in the quilting business, camille rosskelly started a quilt along of her most popular pattern, swoon. i've had the pattern as part of her craftsy.com class i purchased a few years back, and it's been on my "to do" list for ages. it's on everyone's "to do" list because it's so awesome. when the swoonalong came up, i resisted for a little while before being sucked in.

i'm eyeball deep in projects, so i wanted a quick version of swoon. i decided to make a swoon variation of my stella grande quilt pattern: one giant swoon block with a top and bottom border. i'm using heather bailey's floral picnic bouquet in gold as my main fabric, sandi henderson's meadowdot in mint as the secondary fabric, and essex linen from robert kauffman as my background.

i decided if i'm going to make the ultimate quilt, one of the fabrics better be my ultimate favorite: meadowdot, of course. i picked the floral to compiliment it. and i've always wanted to try linen. it seemed a good time to do that, too.

i started cutting away on the floral. and did it wrong. the swoon pattern i have is for a 24"block, but i wanted a 60" block. so i had to do some math. and i did some wrong. then i decided after reading up on quilting with linen that i should use a 1/2" seam allowance rather than the standard 1/4". so i did some more math and re-cut my floral center square.

at this point i realized i was not going to have enough of the floral for the quilt, even before i made my cutting error. so i had to visit etsy and ebay to hunt down that out-of-print fabric i was committed to using in my quilt. lucky me, i found 3 yards of it, so i'm safely stocked again.

and then i ran out of essex linen in flax. i went to my new local shop and go more, but thought it seemed to look a little different than the piece i had picked up earlier in the week. after washing it was still a different color! i talked to the shop owener and found out it was the wrong one. stalled again. whew!

while i was waiting on fabrics, i was also following the #swoonalong progress on instagram. i noticed some of the pieces in the pattern that were originally composed of hsts (like the pattern i have) were being made with flying geese instead. that makes for less seams and a more composed look, so i decided to just figure that out, too.

basically, i've rewritten the entire pattern myself.

i'd love to share all of it here, but that would be giving away a copyrighted pattern. sorry. can't do it.

i had to experiment with the geese to figure out the technique and math for those, too. with some trial and error, i got it down. i had some extra squares of linen not yet used that i paired with some solid scraps,

  the upper left-hand corner of linen is a failed attempt at getting the corner the right size. i tried just cutting a triangle and sewing it on. it came out wrong. i don't even remember what size it was. i think i probably used the leftover piece cut off some of the other bits i'd already done.

i read up on making geese a little and decided to go with stitch-and-flip rather than trying to just sew a corner on.

the geese i need are 12.5" x 6.5" unfinished. i think what i used was a 7" square for the corners.

after stitching both a 1/2" and a 1/4" seam allowance (for reinforcement), i clipped the corners off, per the flip-and-stitch method.

 the linen doesn't behave exactly the same as cotton, so i found i needed to sew a scanter seam so it would reach where it needed to be to line up with the block.

in the end, i completely nailed my tip for my flying goose (singular). it's exactly perfect. which is what i'm going for with this quilt. i've found that when working with large scale patterns, all the little flaws are much more noticeable. since there aren't that many pieces for this quilt top, i think it's worth the time and effort to get them right.

i now have most of the geese units completed, so it's on to the corner units. only i've turned back to the other projects i had going. my grande swoon is in the wip pile for the moment. when i do get back to it, i'm ready for a fast finish and i've got the tricks to getting it right down pat.

if only i remember them . . .

chain mail

 if that post title makes you cringe - yeah, me, too. but it was just too obvious a title for these little chains of envelope blocks. so even though i have never liked chain mail, i do like these liberated envelope blocks, which were the last "liberated" block i worked up from an ::angled:: class tutorial to donate for charity quilts. rachel said we could send chains of 1 to 5 envelopes, as many as we wanted. once i cut out hsts, i had to use both of them, and then i also wanted variety in the way the envelopes were constructed. so i just kept going until i made myself stop.

for some reason, these were the hardest blocks for me of the 3 styles i tried. not only did i have to unpick and resew a few times, i ended up with three reject blocks (that now need a home or an unpick). two of them have points that were cut off by the seam allowance and one of them i turned the wrong way so the darkest color was not the "flap" of the envelope, which rachel had requested. i think the ones that cut off the point were because i wasn't using a true hst on the right side (green dots). they looked like hsts but i didn't check them to make sure, so they didn't trim up right.

but despite these rejects and a few other unpicking moments, i did like the way they turned out. especially with the light blue background. i just might need to use up scraps for a quilt in this style for myself someday.

now the envelopes and other blocks are all in the mail.
i can't wait to see them worked into actual collaborative quilts!

::angled:: liberated blocks

wonky stars block

 at the end of each instruction week during the ::angled:: class, rachel taught us how to make an improvised, "liberated" block from angled scraps leftover from the shapes cut during that week's lessons. if we wanted to practice the block without committing to an entire project, she kindly allowed us to submit the blocks to her for inclusion in a charity quilt to be donated to a child in need, much like her do. good stitches groups make.

i have long wanted to be involved with charity quilting but have been unable to commit to the monthly time and deadline involved, so i really appreciated the chance to try out these blocks and have the honor of contributing them to a quilt rachel was making. and i was also a lot bit nervous about making a block good enough to be used in the quilts. while my skills have been improving, precision is still not my strongest suit; hit-and-miss at best.

first, i did the wonky stars block, comprised of small hsts and 2.5" squares. rachel asked for blocks that had either the star points or the background in a solid. i did one of each. i must have got my scant seams right because the blocks were just large enough to trim squarely at 6.5" finished. whew! that was the bit i was most concerned about. my corners do not all match up exactly, but some do and the others are only a hair off. i think it's good enough.

this was a super fun block to make and my kids loved it so i will probably be finding a project to feature these at some point in the future. maybe a fun christmas quilt?

as a sidenote and tip, the first block i pressed all seams to the side and although there is some bulk, all was well. when i tried pressing open for the second block, so as to reduce bulk, it simply did not work as well. i had to go back and do some extra pressing to get the block large enough to be fully square. this is the opposite of what i expected.

liberated butterfly block

next up, the liberated butterfly block, which is hsts sew into the corners, sew-and-flip style, of 3.75" blocks. these blocks were super easy and have a playful, retro feel to them. one of my butterflies is on the small side and the rest are medium to large. the only bit of redoing required here was on that teal and floral block. originally, one of the butterfly wings had a navy flower in it and the other didn't. it just looked wrong and completely un-butterfly like. so i quickly undid the block and switched it out for another piece with a navy flower included. while it's still not symmetrical, it works and looks so much better. i'm glad i took the extra 5 minutes to rework the block.

there are two more liberated block styles rachel shared with us and asked for submissions for a charity quilt. i may or may not have time to try those out this week before the mailing deadline. either way, i had an enjoyable sunday evening working on these blocks and am so excited to see them in rache's quilts when completed. i wish i had the opportunity to contribute a few quick and simple blocks like these more often.

and d4 reminded me last night, as she was helping me select fabrics for these blocks, that we need to finish up our own charity quilt from girls weekend. maybe when the family gets together over thanksgiving?

200th post e-course giveaway

blog (design) love is an e-course designed to help bloggers design and code their own custom blog design. Whether you blog on typepad, blogger or wordpress.com this course can help you dive into the world of web design.

as part of my 200th post celebration, i'm giving away one spot in this self-paced blog design e-course for anyone interested in improving their blog design or even diving in and starting a blog. to enter the giveaway, leave me a comment in the post below.

if you are a no-reply blogger, please make sure to enter your email address in the comment or i will have to select another winner since i'll have no way to contact you.

giveaway closes wednesday october 30th at 11:59pm MST.

blog changes

 i have got my apron on and i am cleaning up this place. things are going to look different.

actually, i was wearing the apron because i was baking orange-infused scones and making them into strawberry shortcakes. but it was a more exciting intro and better photos than my old blog screen look. and the baking was much less impressive than it sounds yet every bit as delicious as it looks.

i signed on for a blog design course, blog (design) love, that i saw elise blaha cripe and elsie larson were offering mainly because i wanted to make my own banner for this blog, but also because i was interested in customizing it a bit in other spots. it wasn't that expensive and i was intriqued.

that's all rather silly since no one really reads this blog but me and i already have a ton of things to do. why would i spend time designing a new blog look just for me? well, it sounded fun. and it is. and i'm learning a lot from the course, which so far rocks. already i've gotten some great insight into making the blog more "me" style-wise. now, i'm just starting to get into the techi part of it. html code here i come!

original look

since i was writing this blog for me and didn't have much time to do that, i didn't spend much effort on the look when setting it up. i picked a color combo i liked (red and a light blue, or at least it was supposed to be) and got as close to that as possible with the colors in the template as best i understood how. it was good enough. but red and aqua are everywhere and it was starting to bother me. even before the course, i had a new color formula picked out: red, lemon yellow, grass green, lipstick pink.

first attempt at update - color story change

this week i started putting that into play on the blog just through the template tool. it's okay. sorta. but i want it better because it really looks watermelon-ish to me. so please don't judge elsie and elise's excellent class on what you see now. i haven't really started.

some content changes i have made include revamping my "about" page to more accurately reflect who i am and what this blog is about. it's evolving and i need to streamline my text more, but i'm liking it.

i moved the long story of "how i came to sewing" from the about page to it's own post here and added some more photos for interest.

i created a page (with photos) for tutorials and removed the links to them from the sidebar. now you can access them from the tab at the page's top.

the apron page has become the gallery page because i plan to use it to feature any sewing projects that are not 4sqs or quilts. i do create those on special occasions.

i widened the content column so now i can use larger photos.

the sidebar has been tweaked a bit with lots more plans to be executed soon. i have ideas about pages, new ones and changes. but next up, i hope, is a custom photo banner.

since starting this post, i got my wish. after a few hours (i'm brand new to photoshop), and a few (several) goof ups, i have a new blog banner header which showcases my work and of which i am fond. yay for me!

my house could really use some clean up and decorating but today i'd rather do the blog.

so i've spent most of my creative friday in my office at the computer. the kids took care of themselves. in fact, numbers 3 - 6 scoured the house for our four tea sets (where did they all go?) and put together a tea party. so cute.

pretty chevrons and a wip report

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