Snow day sewing...

We had a snow day from school yesterday. When you work for the school district, you get as excited as the kids when they announce no school. Even though you know you will have to make it up later on....

I spent the day doing quilt related things. I started out the morning working on a new design for a sampler class. It's just in the beginning stages, so not sure where it is going right now. But it's a start! Then I worked on getting the flying geese into some sort of order for the quilt I'm working on. This is taking way longer than it should because I'm not sure what I want to do, so I have to keep stopping to decide what to do next. It's way faster to just sew!

When I got tired of sewing, I got out some half hexies I cut when I was working on the Tasty Tablerunner braided quilt and put them up on the design wall as hexagons. Even though they will have a seam down the middle, they will still make a pretty pillow!

A gaggle of geese

I spent some time last night sewing up some flying geese. These are 1 3/4" x 3 1/2". Aren't they cute?

Pillow finishes and more geese

Gretchen sent me a picture of her finished Modern Cathedral Windows pillow! Isn't it awesome?

Karen's turned out pretty too, such a fresh, modern look with the teal and white. I have a feeling I will see some more finishes soon. This pillow goes together really quickly!

I think I finally know what I want to do with the borders on the flying geese quilt I have been working on off and on for awhile, so I cut some more geese parts last night and marked all the lines. I will be ready to sew them together tonight.

Lotus flowers & leftovers

 I spent Sunday working on sewing the blocks together for the Lotus Flower quilt. You always have these edges when you do this type of quilt. I guess you could leave the zigzags, but I'm not that fond of them, so I straightened the sides.

 I them stay-stitched all around the edge as these edges are stretchy because of the way the blocks are cut. I am considering a border, though I don't think it needs it. What do you think?

After I was finished with that, I got out the rectangle that was made out of the leftovers from trimming the black, red, gray Lotus. I decided to make a pillow, so added a border to the long sides of it, so that it would be 18 1/2".

Then I folded it so that it was 18 1/2" on the front, added some extra to the ends to make an envelope back. 

I think it's nice to have some pillows that match the quilt. I haven't done anymore with the triangles I've been sewing together, but they will probably be a pillow eventually too. What do you do with your leftover blocks or "pieces"?

Karen finished her teal Modern Cathedral Windows pillow top yesterday, too! Read about it and see it on her blog.

Modern vs. Traditional Cathedral Windows

I had a great time teaching the Modern Cathedral Windows Pillow class yesterday. Lots of ladies were eager to learn an easier way to make an old favorite.

 Some used motifs that they could fussy cut for the windows. I took closeups of these sunflowers because they have surprise "Meow" centers that you might not notice at first.

 This is one happy pillow. Jane said her grandson would claim this one as his own because he loves yellow.

 Several ladies chose a Christmas motif and we talked about how you could make a pillow for every season and just change them out. This pillow is made with an envelope back so it is easy to take out the pillow for changing seasons or washing the cover.

You could also make a table topper with this size, maybe adding a border to make it a bit bigger. It fits an 18" pillow.

 I did a demonstration of how you make the Cathedral Windows blocks using the traditional method with hand sewing. I like to know how things are put together and the students seemed interested in that method as well, though we all agreed that it would take a lot longer to make a project sewing by hand!

Everyone had a vision of where their colors would be and how they wanted the final project to look. It is so much fun to see all of the different versions.

 Love this cowboys and indians motif!

 Someone in my last Cathedral Windows class brought some show and tell that she had gotten at a thrift store...parts and pieces of someone's traditional quilt. She gave me one of the panels! It is about 14" square, so I brought it to class to share.  I passed it around so everyone could feel how heavy it was and examine the hand stitching. We were all amazed at the amount of work that went into making this.

 Here is the back....the individual squares are 1 1/2"! With this 10 x 10 setting, that is 100 little squares to make this 14" top. Unbelievable! When you make it the traditional way, you don't have to back it as it is already backed.

I plan on finishing the 2nd Lotus quilt today, I have the triangles all ready to sew together into rows, so it won't take too long to do...I hope! I am excited to see it finished!

Piecing leftovers

 When you cut out the jewel shapes for the Lotus quilt, you have lots of leftover triangle pieces. These are the ones from the Lotus I cut out over the weekend. I saved all of them from the black and red Lotus, and started sewing them together as leaders/enders while making that quilt.

 I have continued sewing them together as I put together the blue/brown Lotus, first into pairs,  then quads and then in set of eights, just grabbing them and sewing in no particular order.  So now I have to figure out what I want to do with them. I really do love to making something out of the leftovers....it's sort of like getting a bonus after you finish the quilt!

I worked on the blue/brown Lotus last night for awhile and have all the pieces sewn into the large triangles, so I am ready to sew them together.

 My daughters are taking me out for my birthday tonight, so it will be fun to have some family time!

Play day

  As I worked on the Lotus quilt a few weeks ago, I noticed other shapes that the jewels and triangles made that weren't as prominent with the color orientation used in that quilt. I noticed flowers, as well as hexagons, so I wanted to play with the coloring a little. I found some greens/blues/browns that I had purchased last summer, so started cutting jewel shapes and triangles Sunday night. I decided that all the triangles would be the same color, so that they wouldn't distract from the flowers I wanted to make.

They are pretty large pieces, so I wondered if it would look nicer to have them split like this, but I decided I didn't like it as well as the big floral look. 

 I did some digging to find a few more fabrics that looked good with these. I ended up not using that light blue in the center, but put it on the outer edge as a half flower instead because I thought it was too  light. I found a better blue with an uneven check that picked up the other blues better.

Once I had it all on the design wall, I had to figure out where to start. The pieces are sewn into triangles first. With the Lotus, you sew 3 identically colored jewel shapes into a triangle, then place them in rows and sew together.With this coloring, it was harder to see the triangles, so I really had to be careful as I put them together. I only took two off  the wall at a time to work on.

 I have one more row of triangles to make, then will be ready to sew them together. I have a class tonight, so hope to get back to it tomorrow night. It's so much fun to see the pattern come together, isn't it?