Honeycomb Schnibble Finish!

My Honeycomb Schnibble for LePetite in August. 

Finished.....and I love it!  This one was tricky for me!  I was off to a rocky start and had to scrap, no pun intended, the whole first row I made because it was so wonky.  I was not a happy camper at this point.  This forced me to reevaluate what I was doing, try some alternate methods, and start over so I would end up with a straight quilt.  I tried to trim up that row, but to no avail.  It was a goner.

I realized to make mine work, I needed to starch like crazy, trim off the corners of the white triangles, and trim each color unit after I added the white triangle. Pressing the seams open helped tremendously! Once I got going, it was "all good" as my son would say.  I'm not sure why I wasn't using these methods to begin with! 

Carrie Nelson created this adorable pattern, and the fabrics I used in mine were Terrain by Kate Spain and some Kona solid.  I have never used Kona solids before...... yes, just gasp out loud and get it over with!  Are they a little extra stretchy?  Does anyone know?  I loved the fabric and it was really handy to use something that looked exactly the same on both the front and the back with these triangles and side pieces.  Maybe using Kona solid for the triangles with no starch was the root of my problem.  Should I always starch it?  Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.  Thanks so much for all of your helpful comments about my color placement on the last post.  It's so nice to be able to get input from my blog friends!      

Be sure to take a look at the others in the parade on Sherri's blog, and also on Sinta's blog in the next few days.  Thank you ladies so much for taking the time to put together the parade.  I'm sure there will be some beautiful quilts on display!   

What do you think?

My Honeycomb Schnibble made with Terrain fabric.  A work in progress.....help!!

This is one of the projects I'm working on right now. The Terrain fabric has been rearranged many times.  Besides being a little wonky and out of place because of all of my changes, do you think this layout is finished??  I'm having trouble with it. I've been trying to place these colors for longer than I care to say, and I was wondering what everyone thought. Now that I see the picture, the two in the bottom right corner are bothering me.  Every time I go to move a fabric, there is a reason I can't move it somewhere else!  To finish by the end of the month for LePetite, I really need to begin sewing soon, probably tomorrow after the soccer game.  I'd appreciate your thoughts!  Thanks for taking a look at it! 

A Project Fit For Hurricane Season And Another Use For Painter's Tape

This is a table runner that I planned on having finished for Easter. Well as you can see, that didn't happen. The quilting is what was holding me back. You see, I was determined to do some elaborate quilting on it to practice some fancier patterns, but I just didn't think that kind of quilting fit this table runner, so I had to change my plan.  That slowed me down, the table runner went on a shelf and was forgotten about for awhile. Until Hurricane Season began.

You see here in Florida, from June 1st through November 30th, hurricanes are on our mind.  You know when they are on their way, but maybe not exactly where they are going or how long they will stay around, so preparation is important.  Along with all of the essential emergency supplies and comfort snacks, I like to keep a handwork project around in case of a power outage. After experiencing days without power because of hurricanes in the past, I have learned that it is important to have a few things to  do to keep busy. If losing power is as bad as it gets for us, we consider ourselves very lucky, but after a hurricane passes through and it's 95 degrees and really, really humid, no electricity for a long period of time is a problem.  Distractions are a must.

That was my inspiration to get this table runner quilted now, so it would be my power outage binding project ready to go.  I just hope I don't need it!                 

Another use for Painter's Tape

I finally decided to go with some simple straight line quilting.  I thought it would fit the pattern well, and I'm interested in trying some more modern quilting fabrics and looks, and this quilting fit right in.  I'm not giving up traditional quilting looks by any means, I'm just a quilter who likes all kinds of styles and I try to keep my quilting options open to anything!  Wait until you see the rest of the quilt from my sneak peak last week!

When I started quilting this table runner, I was trying to keep my lines straight and it wasn't going well.  Marking the lines with a chalk pencil was just taking too long for my taste, and involved too much figuring, so I remembered the Painter's Tape.  I have a roll or two in my quilting drawer to use on rulers for quick reference when cutting.  I stick a piece or two on the ruler near a particular line or measurement I'm using so I don't have to spend time looking for a measurement or angle each time I cut. In fact, this helped me save a lot of time when I cut out my Honeycomb Schnibble a few days ago.  By placing a bit of the tape near the 60 degree mark on the ruler, I was able to find it easily every time I made a cut.  But for this table runner, I used it to mark where I wanted to quilt.  I just quilted slightly outside of the tape to make a straight line right where I wanted it, being very careful not to go through the tape.  Getting tape goo in your machine is probably not a good idea. Although this tape doesn't have much goo. That is part of the beauty of it.  

Can you see the quilting beside the tape on the purple fabric?


I just pulled off the tape and used it on the next block when I was finished with a section. It made the quilting much faster and easier than measuring it all out!  I've used this tip before and I'm sure many of you have too, but I thought it was worth sharing because it really helped me out. Painter's tape is one of my favorite non-quilting quilting tools!  Did you follow that?

The final result, ready for a power outage!

If you are still with me on this long post, here is the picture of the final result.  I was trying to get a good picture of the quilting and this angle showed the quilting the most, but didn't do the fabric justice.  I think you get what I'm going for though.

  This pattern was Framed Four Patch from Little Charmers II by Heather Mulder Peterson in case you are interested.  She also had a great tutorial on her blog about how to handle the odd angle of the binding that was very helpful.  I've done some corners greater than 90 degrees before, but I couldn't remembered how I did it, and Heather's tutorial was great.  

This was a long post for me!  Thanks for sticking around.  I hope it was helpful.

Summer Is Out For School

It's a Wordless Wednesday.

Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek of three of the fabrics in a challenging project I'm working on right now. More pictures to come later........ 

Happy Birthday Boy!

Along with getting ready for school next week, we have been celebrating a birthday!  My youngest son turned twelve and wanted to celebrate with mini golf and a day at the beach with fried shrimp from his favorite restaurant. We were more than happy to oblige!

Fired up!!

Creativity is one of this guy's strong points and when we have a birthday in the family, it is a tradition to go all out on the cake, and he is front and center in the planning and creation of these cakes. No detail can be left out. Trust me on this. We have made ipod cakes, cheeseburger cakes, lots and lots of different golf cakes, lego cakes and many, many, more zany creations.  Some successful, others not so much. 

When his birthday rolled around, we asked what kind of cake he wanted and he issued a challenge........whatever cake we thought he would like.  Surprise him. Yikes!!  What could we come up with that would impress him???  After some panicked moments, careful thought, and a desperate internet search, we came up with an excavator cake from Family Fun Magazine.  It went well with one of his gifts, a Lego Technic Excavator.

The Great Excavator Cake of 2011

First was the shopping trip for pound cake, mini doughnuts, Twix candy bars, yellow twizzlers, and Twinkies.  Where have all the Twinkies gone??  Go to your grocery store next shopping trip, and ask for yellow Twizzlers and Twinkies, and see what they say.  First they wonder what you're up to.  Next they will probably tell you they don't have either.  So much for an easy recipe!!  I was able to find a diet-cake-like-Twinkie-substitute, totally not appropriate for a birthday cake for a twelve year old, but that would have to do. (Later said, "diet-Twinkie-like-cake" was scrapped upon opening the box, because it turned out to be the size of a pencil eraser. I use some more pound cake instead).  I was finally able to locate the yellow Twizzlers at a drugstore.  Happy Day! 

On the first hole the birthday boy made a hole-in-one!

Making that cake turned out to be much easier than shopping for it, with lots of frosting on fingers, and we were really pleased with the results.  He was too.  He loved it! Yeah!  Happy Birthday!!

    

The most wonderful time of the year!!!

It's time for some serious school shopping around here!  We're mostly done, which is a good thing considering school starts August 16th.....not very long from now. The boys are looking forward to it.  Back to seeing more friends and having that school kind of fun.....with some studying thrown in here and there, of course!  When does school start in your area?

This notebook was a great find while looking for school supplies at Target.  I just love it! A few jumped in my cart and came home with me.  What does the cover of this notebook look like to you?

I recently read on Kate Spain's blog that there are some stationary supplies with Fandango fabric prints available at Michael's.  How fun......I am a fan of Fandango fabric!  I haven't been to Michael's in a while, so this is a great excuse to run over and take a look! See you later!!