Anything Goes Monday Archives

May 5, 2014June 14, 2014

Anything Goes Monday

Welcome to Anything Goes Monday!

My name is Heather, and I have the honor of hosting Anything Goes Monday for Marelize today. I am a mom to my (almost) 15 month old daughter, who loves to sew and quilt! While being a mom takes up more of my time than sewing, sewing keeps me sane. I have been known to take my Singer Featherweight on more than one vacation, because I can’t stay away from sewing that long 🙂

I usually have all sorts of projects on my to-do list, from piecing quilts, paper piecing, and designing patterns to sewing clothing for my daughter and myself. Some examples of my projects are below. If you like what you see, please follow my blog or check out my instagram @bobbinsandbullets!

Top Left: Geranium Dress, Top Right: Pandora’s Box Quilt

Bottom Left: Spinnaker Quilt, Top Middle: Practice Lucky Stars, Bottom Middle: Starry Log Cabin, Right Middle: Baby Blazer, Bottom Right: January Lucky Stars

In addition to my personal sewing, I am a long arm quilter. My Millennium can handle almost any quilt you can throw at it, so if you are wanting to reduce that stack of unquilted tops, please consider me!

As an added bonus, if you contact me for long arm services and reserve a spot during the month of May, and mention you found me through Anything Goes Monday, I will take 15% off the long arm quilting fee!

I also have my first pattern up on Craftsy! The Square Dance Block is a paper pieced block that anyone can do – whether you have paper pieced before or not! My paper piecing tutorial for the Square Dance Block will guide you every step of the way. The pattern for an 8 inch finished block is free this month. In June, I will be publishing the full version of the pattern with multiple block sizes.

Now it’s your turn to share with us what you’ve been busy with!

Rules:
1. Link up ANY recent blog posts, it can be one or more, but PLEASE do not share blog posts you might have linked up in the past.
2. Somewhere in your blog post, you must link back here to my blog, OR grab the ‘anything goes’ button for you sidebar.
3. Try to visit at least a few of the other blogs linked, the whole point of having a party is to connect, share and maybe get a few new followers…remember to leave a comment to let them know you stopped by!

An InLinkz Link-up

March 31, 2014May 29, 2014

March Bee Blocks and BoMs

It’s the end of March, and I finished my March Bee Block and BoMs!

First up is the block for Stash bee, hive #12. Jennifer requested the Arizona block from the We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler at Sewn by Leila. She wanted orange and turquoise, so I hope she likes this block 🙂 I think I am going to have to make another one of these in my colors!

Up next, I am still working my way through the 2013 Lucky Stars BoM. Below is the March 2013 block. I had the absolute worst time with this block. I don’t blame the instructions, it was completely me. It seemed every piece of fabric I could cut wrong, I did. Or sew on backwards. Or run out of the fabric less than halfway through the block.

Let’s just say I was very happy when this was done. I am also convinced there is any easier way to get this look than the way this block was done. If I didn’t have such a terrible experience doing it, I would probably figure out the easier way. Instead, I just plan to have this be the one and only time I ever do this block.

I am also doing other blocks for the sampler as I see ones that I like. This is the January 2013 Aurifil BoM.

I think this one puts me at 11 total… I did the math, and I think I need 36 with the sashing I want to get it the size I want. Almost 1/3 of the way done!

Linking up to Anything Goes Monday, WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced, Paper Piecing Party @ Quiet Play, BOMs away, and Let’s Bee Social Wednesday @ SewFreshQuilts.

February 23, 2014May 29, 2014

Stash Bee – Dutch Rose Block

For February, Cheryl of Texas Quilting Gal, Hive 12 of Stash Bee asked for the Dutch Rose block. This block is also currently well known as the Swoon Block from Camille’s fame. She had us use this tutorial from The Double Nickel Quilt Challenge blog.

The Swoon block is a huge 24″ block. This Dutch Rose tutorial is constructed differently, and makes a 16″ finished block. Quite frankly, this block still looks large and I can’t imagine it another 8 inches larger! Then again, this block is a fiddly block with lots of steps, so maybe a 24″ version is the way to go…

Also, I know this is not the 100% original layout of the Swoon/Dutch Rose. I did it on accident at first, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. I think maybe even more so than the traditional version of this block. I really want to try one that doesn’t have the white part in the gray and purple lattice square corner. I think that could look really cool.

Cheryl asked for a radiant orchid inspired, purple and gray block. I realized that despite liking purple, I only have about 8 purple fabrics and half of those have some other color mixed in. Hopefully with Radiant Orchid as the Pantone Color of the Year, the quilting fabric companies will make some good purple fabric this year.

Anyway, on to talk about the block. The tutorial was designed to use charm squares, but if you are cutting yardage leads to quite a bit of waste. Or as the write refers to it, “bonus blocks.” I don’t personally like as many “bonus blocks” as this leads to, so I re-did the math on some portions and maybe I can save someone else some fabric.

No waste flying geese….

The first change I made was to use the no-waste method of making the flying geese units. This method makes 4 units, and this block requires 4 units. Perfect, right? To do this method, I used this tutorial, or you can just google “no waste flying geese” and find others.

To make a flying geese unit that is 2.5″ x 4.5″ (as required by the tutorial), you need 1 square of background fabric that is 5.75″ square and 4 squares of the star fabric that are 3 3/8″ square. This creates 4 units that need to be trimmed down to 2 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches. As you trim them, you can make them more perfectly shaped so that the block goes together better.

No waste half square triangle units….

The second change was to the HST blocks. In this method, you end up with 8 “bonus blocks”. Or, you can use a no-waste method. I used the 2-at-a-time method from this tutorial. I don’t know why I did that, I should have done the 4-at-a-time method. Both ways are demonstrated at that link. To do the 2-at-a-time method, you need 4 squares that are 3 3/8 inches of each color. Follow the tutorial, and you will make 8 HSTs without any wasted fabric. Once again, these need to be trimmed down.

Using this method, the only waste is below, and it is unavoidable due to how the pentagon shaped sections are formed. The truly no waste method would be to construct those sections using HSTs, but then the pattern gets broken up, so I consider this a small price to pay for the neater appearance of the final block.

I’m a little late making the block this month, but I hope this isn’t too late to help someone else out. I hope you like your block Cheryl!

Linking up to: Anything Goes Monday, Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Quilt Addict, and Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Ft. Worth Fabric.

February 3, 2014May 29, 2014

Fresh Sewing Day – January Summary

January flew by! I can’t believe it’s already time to do a summary for Fresh Sewing Day and the Small Blog Meet. For those coming from the Small Blog Meet, I am a quilter that loves to piece and quilt, and sew clothes for my 1 year old daughter. Welcome, and please check out the other projects on my blog.

I joined two bees so far this year. I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s a lot of fun to do colors and blocks that I wouldn’t have thought of myself.

For the Stash Bee, I made this red and yellow block for Heather from Quilts in the Queue.

I made my test block for the 4×5 Modern Bee.

I also participated in Kids Clothes Week. Part 1 of my week can be found here. The pants were really the highlight of the week. I finished up the week by turning the Oliver and S Hopscotch Knit top into a onesie. The completed outfit is shown below.

She kept pulling on the neck, I think because it is much stretchier than the onesies she normally wears.

O+S Hopscotch knit onesie and Sandbox Pants

It’s such a soft knit, I kind of wish it was for me. However, I only had 1/2 a yard, so I managed to get a 12-18 month onesie and thought I was doing good.

The linen pants are a little big despite being 12-18 months, but I’m ok with that because I love them and hopefully they will still fit this fall.

And now, she shows off the whole outfit 🙂

Thanks for checking out my blog, and I hope you stick around and see what else I have here!

Linking to Lily’s Quilts Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet, Anything Goes Monday, and Feather’s Flights.

January 25, 2014May 29, 2014

Go Army! Beat Navy! Baby shirt :)

The greatest rivalry in college football – Army vs. Navy was the second weekend in December. That was awhile ago, and I had this post half written forever so I finally decided to finish it and hit publish anyway. Since we didn’t have any plans to do anything to celebrate, originally I was not going to make anything for the little girl. Then my husband asked if we had anything for her to wear. I then sorted through some drawers to get rid of too small clothes and I found a shirt that would make the most adorable Army baby shirt. Fast forward a couple hours, and I cut up two (scratch that – three) adult women’s t-shirts to make 1 baby shirt. Not sure how that happens…

I’m doing another version of the Bimaa from LouBee Clothing, this time with the shawl collar. My last version is here.

The front of the shirt didn’t go up high enough for the pattern, so I used the arm of the shirt to cut out the extra fabric I needed.

The sleeves and cuffs came from the back of another black t-shirt I had set aside to make a t-shirt quilt out of. The shawl collar was supposed to be the only new fabric in this shirt (Thank you, Girl Charlee Black Friday Sale). Look ahead to see what really happened.

This is what is left of my former t-shirt! Just imagine another black shirt without a back – the black doesn’t photograph well. Turns out this is how it takes ~~two~~ three women’s shirts to make one baby shirt.

Once I cut out all the pieces, I rethreaded the serger with black thread. Does anyone else have trouble deciding what thread color to go with on a multi-color project? I considered using black and white as needed, but that seemed like a lot of thread changing. In the end, when I had to piece together the front pattern piece there was black fabric in almost every single seam so I went with black.

When it came time to put the shawl collar on, I didn’t like the striped fabric. It would have worked, but it wasn’t quite as athletic as I was going for with the color blocking and logo on this shirt.

That led to the 3rd t-shirt being cut up. I need a black collar. Luckily, I am never going to wear my old unit’s t-shirt again so it doesn’t matter that I cut the bottom six or so inched off to make this collar. I love it with the black collar!

Here is a closeup of the shawl collar. I tried to lighten up the photo to see it better, but it is still kind of hard to see. Black is hard to photograph!

The back – slightly wrinkled from the fit test.

Game Day outfit is below! She was almost adorable enough to make up for the terrible football game.

Then, because it seemed logical, I didn’t want the fabric I used for the collar to go to waste, and I had an extra black color block piece for the front… I cut out another bimaa. The next one is below.

Linking up to Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Anything Goes Monday at Stitch by Stitch, and You Flew Sewing Linkup at Feather’s Flights.