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Finish it up Friday 4-12-2013

Yay! Its Friday!  This quilt is almost finished.  I hope that counts for a finish it up Friday post.  I only have to quilt the border and bind it.  It should be done this weekend.  Which is great since the baby its a gift for, was born Monday.  A month early.  Hey, I would have been on time if he would have stayed put.  :)  He is a cute little guy though.

I found the pattern for this quilt in Quiltmaker magazine.  All of the blocks were weird sizes though so I redrafted it so the blocks were all 2" finished blocks.  This way I could make all the blocks from 2 and 1/2" strips.  I use the easy angle ruler to make all my half square triangle blocks.

I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts today.  I can't wait to see what everyone is up to this week!

Craftsy!!!!

I am sure all of you know by now about the great site named Craftsy.  And if you don't, you should.  Signing up for the site is free.  You get access to all sorts of free classes, paid classes and great deals on all things Crafty.  I have taken several classes with them that I absolutely loved.  One of my favorites was Bag Making Basics.  I did a blog post about the awesome zipper pouch I made here.

These are a couple I made.  I have made 5!  And I have fabric and zippers set aside for more.  They are super easy after watching the videos.  The instructor was awesome and everything was super clear.  And this was just their free class.  I have also taken a couple of machine quilting classes that I will, at some point, post reviews of.  And they were just as amazing. 

So if you haven't checked out Craftsy yet you should!

WIP Wednesday 4-10

This is this weeks work in progress.  Its a block from Baltimore and Bali.  I think this is the sixth block I have made.  Not sure though.  I should go back and count.  The pattern is done with all batiks but I am using cottons instead.

All I have left is to finish the orange flower and stitch down the yellow pieces on top of it.  Excuse the washed out pictures.  Its raining and cloudy so the flash is making my pictures look bad.  :(

I know these pictures are big but I wanted to show a close up of my stitches.  The section above is all done.

Here's a close up of a flower bud.  Please excuse all the fuzzies.  Black fabric picks up every little thing.

You can see in this picture that the bottom of the orange flower is not stitched down but the side is.  That's where I started.  

I turn all of my edges before stitching them down.  I have plans to do a tutorial soon on exactly how I do it.  But basically I use an applique foundation that I get at Purple Daisies.   Then I use a elmer's school glue stick to turn all the edges.  I even do all the stems that way.  The foundation is left in after you are done so I don't want the stems to look different.  After you wash a quilt that uses this foundation it puffs up and looks almost like trapunto.  Just not as puffy.  After I turn all the edges I baste it to my background with Roxanne's Basting Glue.  Love that stuff.  Now to stitch it all I have to do is grab my thread, thimble, and block and go to it.  Its so quick and easy on the go.  I love applique this way.  It took me a couple evenings to do the prep work.  I usually do it on a tv stand in front of  the tv so I can catch up on some shows at the same time.  (BTW, I watched Argo one of the nights I did this and it was such an amazing movie!!!)  

I have done needle turn but I was just never happy with the way it came out.  I am a bit of a perfectionist and could never get over the learning hump.  

A few posts ago I complained about the thread I was using.  I use Masterpiece bobbins from Superior threads.  My thread kept breaking.  It was getting frustrating so I wrote the company to see if I was doing something wrong.  And I was.  I was using too long of a strand.  And on top of that I think the foundation was fraying the thread as well.  So now I take extra care to make sure I stitch right in the fold and not get the foundation and I have had much better luck.  Still a couple breakages but so much better than before.  

This week I am linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced.