KCMQG Block of Every Month #6 The Improv Spike Border

Hey there folks!

Here is the sixth portion of the #KCMQGBOEOM. Improv Spike borders are awesome! They are really great looking and are quick and easy to make. I made a video, so the instructions are there. I have all the other videos on my Youtube channel and there are also links to them on my website. 

You can see how my version of the quilt is coming along. I am trying to figure out the last part that will be available next year. Between you and me I really just want to get one to the best part...the Quilting!!!!!!

Here is the video. I bet you will be able to see it better on Youtube, but I can't figure out how to make it bigger here. Oh well.

The Improv Spike can just be used as individual blocks too. 

Yay Improv Spikes!!!

xo!

Tia

KCMQG Block of Every Other Month #5 - The Wonky Star

HI there! 

Thank you so much for shopping from me this Holiday season. It really means the world to me. I am a tiny business and most of my time is spent quilting. I don't make time to market my shop and that has been a poor decision on my part. For those of you who have sought out my shop and bought fabric, patterns and things from me I truly truly thank you. 

xoxo

Hi There! Are you ready for the next Part of the KCMQG BOEOM?

 It is stars! I love stars. I always turn to these wonky little stars when I am feeling my quilting muse has abandoned me and I'm not totally sure what to make, but I feel like I must make something!

I love to use ombre or gradient dyed fabric. I used Cotton+Steel Pigment Gradients for these stars. I think the different shades really add so much to my quilts. I used Navy and Marigold. The two different sizes really make the stars shimmer.

I have a Youtube video for you to watch if you want to. 

Wonky Stars are easy to make. They are basically a 9 patch block, and those are super easy right?

I used 2 different sizes, a biggish one and a little one.

The bigger one is made using 2.5 inch squares and the little ones are made with 1.5 inch squares.

You will need: 

8 background squares

5 squares for the star.

Cut 4 of the star squares in half diagonally, keep the 5th square for the center of the star.

Choose 4 background squares and lay 4 of the star points on the lower right corner pretty side down like the picture above. When you do this hold them down at the stitch line to make sure after you sew them the star points will cover all the triangle part behind the point. I don't always do this step, at this point in my quilt making life I can eyeball it pretty well so I don't check. If you are new to this type sewing do check. It will save you some frustration.

Sew them all down. If I am going to be making a bunch of stars I chain piece these puppies by the bucket full.

Flip over and press the star point down then trim away the extra fabric so there isn't a lot of bulk. This step will make it easier when it comes time to quilt your quilt.

Do the same thing with the other 4 star points. 

Same sewing 

Same pressing and trimming

The last step is going to be sewing the block together and trimming it to whatever size you want it to be. If its too small add some fabric, if its too big trim it down. Easy Peasy.

After you have made your stars you can make them into a border I used 13 large stars and 10 small stars. I knew I wanted my border to be 10 inches wide, so I added more of the Navy gradient dyed fabric to make the star segments 10 inches wide. Then I scattered them around the 2 sides of the quilt and filled in with more fabric. Not very fancy or precise, but that is how I work.

I used a bunch of the stars in this Menagerie Eclipse quilt too. Once you get going you will knock out a big stack and have so many stars you don't know what to do with them!

So I am making the next blocks already. Just to tempt you a little they will be spikes!

Have the best day!
Tia

Cyber Monday sale!!!!

Good Morning!!! 

I am having a Cyber Monday sale on everything in my shops! 10% off EVERYTHING in both my etsy shop AND my website shop. I loaded up a bunch of face studies, fabric, quilts and aprons. Everything is on sale.

use code 

CYBERMONDAY

at checkout. 

Until Tuesday. Sale ends Tuesday.

I know you will be bombarded with sale emails and offers. I feel like I have been carpet bombed for months about Christmas shopping. I don't want to be a bother I promise, but I have some pretty great stuff that you can make great things with or that you will be happy to give as a gift (or keep for yourself). I have not done a sale before, so this is new to me. Im trying to figure it all out! Yay.

The Studio Apron Pattern

Hi There!

I hope you are all doing well. We are great. Gearing up for the holidays for sure. We are having people over for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yikes. Half of my downstairs quilt lair has been converted into a guest room for my sister and her husband to stay when they come at Christmas. We have also been cleaning the house like a herd of enchanted gnomes, yet magically it dirties itself right back up. 

I spend my day working in my basement. I quilt and cut fabric and sew from time to time. I also love to wear an apron. I suppose it stems from when my sister and I would cook with our mom as kids. She had a big drawer filled with dish towels and our Grandmothers old aprons. We would pick out our aprons and we got to cook. My favorite was a pink gingham smock style apron. It was easy to button in the back. I think about that apron so many times, so I drafted one for myself.  I wear it as my work uniform (I wear other stuff too, not just an apron. The basement is too chilly for that nonsense). The apron I wear normally is a simple smock style apron with a big pocket to hold my phone, scissors and a lip balm. I made it fancy by adding some lovely hand tatted lace that I bought at a shop in Weston. I love that apron so much. When I put it on it is like immediately getting in the zone. I am ready to work. Sometimes I am so focused on work that time slips away from me and my alarm goes off warning me it is time for the mail run and school pick up. I have to dash out of the house and more often than not I forget I have my apron on. All the sudden strangers in the post office compliment me and my wonderful outfit and ladies ask me where I bought my top at the grocery store. I say "Thanks! I made it." I do like to say that. Well, now you can say that too! I made a pattern for the apron! You can get it on my website and print it off in your home, or take the file to a print shop with a large scale printer (that is what I do).

Studio Apron Pattern

The PDF pattern is available now and soon we will have some paper patterns available. Seriously this is the easiest apron to make. One piece of fabric, as many pockets as you want to sew on, easy tomato fancy and tart up if that is what blows your hair back. These are so cute in Cotton+Steel linen canvas, but that are great in all sorts of fabric. I am currently making them in the faded green canvas from an old Thermos tent. I have several aprons listed in my shop that I made while testing out the pattern. If you don't sew that might be an option for you.

 Here is my little model out doing her thing in one of the aprons that I added a ruffle to. See how the back snaps? It is so easy guys!

This is me in a longer version. It dawned on me that I'm pretty short. Most of humanity is taller than me, so I added some extra fabric onto the bottom of this one with a French Seam. 

I will be making a video soon to show how to make the apron if that is helpful, but frankly I don't think it is necessary. It is really the easiest pattern. If you make one I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see it!

Now that I have discovered Adobe Illustrator get ready for all sorts of patterns! They have been clogged in my head for so long.

xo

Tia

More quilts have been quilted

Hey there folks!

I have been busy busy busy down in my quilt lair. So busy in fact that many quilts have left the house without being photographed. Oh well.... Lets look at some I managed to get shots of.

This is a Pickled Beets quilt that I quilted for Kelly. She wanted it ultra feminine, with massive cabbage roses all over it. She that is what I did. Between the large scale quilting and the wool batting this will be one ultra fluffy quilt.

I took the Pickled Beets workshop that Latifah taught when she came to Kansas City, but I am no where near as focused on finishing my projects as Kelly is.

This next one is by Klonda. I loved those cute pinwheels and I decided they needed some wind to blow them.

So this one got big spirals and wind.

I lift the black squares and the pinwheels unquieted so they would pop with the wool batting.

This is an Eclipse quilt I made for myself. When the Cotton+Steel Menagerie fabric came into my shop I couldn't help but cut it up and make a quick quilt. You can find the Menagerie fabric in my etsy shop. Go on...help yourself and buy it all. I would like that very very much.

I made an eclipse moon with reverse Appliqué. I made this quilt quite some time ago now that I think about it.

I wrote in the larger stars some info about the eclipse like how long the totality lasted and where the eclipse happened. I saw this on an antique quilt and knew I had to add this to mine. I quilted it with an edge to edge design named Modern Curves. I programed the machine to jump over the stars and then I came back and quilted them in later. The texture on this quilt is so great. I love how soft and lovely the drape is.

I spent weeks quilting this lovely quilt for Morgan. The traditional ones take me so much longer. She wanted the quilting to create a secondary design in the background. You will be able to see it better on the picture of the back. I had rather lousy light to get the pictures.

The back is pretty awesome if I do say so myself.

I quilted this one for Lori. It turned out so pretty, but again the pictures stink. Sorry.

I did straight lines in the purple areas and swirls in the pale and yellow backgrounds.

Oh and I did this whole cloth for my bed this winter. It is made with Essex linen in Aqua and the back is the most beautiful lawn from Allison Glass. This whole quilt was inspired by Alison's booth at Spring quilt market. Karlee Porter had quilted a gorgeous large scale whole cloth quilt on linen and I knew that I would need to make myself one before the year was out.

This is a little better detail picture. Maybe it is just my eyes and you all can see fine. I had to get glasses a couple months ago and I swear it is humbling to have to use them. I made it almost 43 years without needing help, but now I NEED them, of course I hide them from myself all over the house. That's always fun.

Have the best day!
xo,
Tia

Some more awesome quilts I got to quilt. Yay!

Hey there folks! 

I hope you are all doing great. I have had the pleasure of quilting some pretty great quilts lately. Oh heck all the quilts I get to quilt are great. Here are 3 custom quilts I finished recently.

Facts:

• I quilt with a 30 inch Gammill Optimum that has a Statler Stitcher.
• Most of my Custom quilting is done freehand but I do like to use the Statler when the quilt calls for it.
• 2 of the 3 quilts in the post were quilted with Quilters Dream Wool Batting. Wool really makes the quilting pop.
• 
  

The first quilt is a Metro Rings quilt that Betsy made. I used grey thread. What really makes this quilting pop is the little narrow 1/4 inch borders I defined the blocks with and the wool batting. I really love how this quilt turned out. I have wanted to quilt a Metro Rings quilt for a while and I was so excited to get to work on Betsy's fabulous quilt.

I was a little stumped on the wide border, so I quilted in a big fat free hand feather.

This quilt had lots of ruler work. My favorite rulers are my own half circle rulers and The Quilted Pineapple rulers. I love them and I think I used ALL the rulers on this quilt.

Next up is Laurie's wonderful Neighborhood quilt. I had a blast quilting this one. It is a good example of my Feathers, Lines and Swirls style quilting.

I used a silver So Fine #50 thread on this one and a blend batting. I was going for clouds and wind in the background and all the little houses are quilted a little different.

Gwen made this awesome Flamingo quilt. There was so much wonderful background to quilt! She wanted me to do my Feathers, Lines and Swirls technique on this quilt as well. I just love it. The pictures aren't awesome. I didn't have the best light.

This quilt also had Quilters Dream Wool batting and So Fine #50 thread. I used white thread in the background and a peachy orange thread for the flamingos.


So there are some of the quilts I have been quilting away on. I got to spend most of yesterday unpicking bad tension stitches from a quilt and moving it to my other machine. Everything was going awesome and then it wasn't.

Have a great day folks!
Tia

KCMQG Block Or Every Other Month - #4 The Small Churn Dash

Hi there folks!

I hope you are all well and ready to make some great little quilt blocks. 

This is the 4th installment of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild Block of Every Other Month

Today I present to you the Small Churn Dash.  Isn't is so adorable? Daniella wanted to do Churn Dashes this month. The Churn Dash block is a classic in every sense of the word. I fussy cut the centers and I prefer the block on point, so I added the triangles on the sides. This is optional (as are most things right?) you can easily just omit the triangles and make it a traditional square block.

Here is the video Daniella and I worked on showing how to make the block. Daniella is the sweetest lady.

Here are Daniella's Churn Dash blocks as a table runner. Hers look like crosses the way she worked her colors and her HST (half square triangle) corner blocks don't have a specific background color. I love how you can make blocks look totally different just by color placement.

Here is how I have used the blocks in my quilt. I really am trying to NOT make a Medallion quilt, but the quilt seems to want to be a medallion. I do have a plan to force it into another configuration. I am really loving how this quilt is coming together. If you are following along I would love to see yours.

Cutting instructions:

• Center 2 1/4 inch square
• Churn Dash 3 1/4 inch square and 1 1/4 inch x 10 inch strip
• First background 2 1/4 inch square and 1 1/4 inch  x 10 inch strip
• Second background 5 1/2 inch square (this can actually be a 6 inch square that way you won't loose your points like I did)

* in the picture above I have already sewn my 2 strips together ready to submit into the pieces of the churn dash and background.

*the video will show me sewing around the 4 sides of the 3 1/4 inch squares and then cutting them in half diagonally twice as well.

Cut your second background in half twice diagonally

The corner HST blocks will be 2 inches. Submit the strip pieced part into 4 x 2 1/2 inch pieces and piece the block like it is show above.

Last sew on the 4 triangles pieces and trim the block to about 6 1/2 inches. Be careful with your pressing as the triangles are cut on the bias and tend to distort. I don't mind this as I can force them into the piecing easier, but some folks don't like this. It does;t bother me in the slightest.

Have the best day and let me know what your quilts are looking like! Ask questions below in comments if you have them. I may have left something out. Next time will be wonky stars...my all time favorite.

Cheers!
Tia