Modern quilt ebook

I’ve been a book worm for as long as I can remember. The local libraries have been my home away from home wherever I have lived, and I still love visiting, picking up a few books, finding a comfy chair and flipping through them. Over the last decade or so I have been building up quite a library of my own and, this might not be a surprise to you, there are a few quilting books in there. Now, we ran out of shelf space years ago, and I have filled the bookcase at our cabin, so I (and the very patient husband) am very happy about the invention of ebooks, and some of them are even free.

McCall’s Quilting and McCall’s Quick Quilts has quite a few ebooks available, and lately they have come out with a new one called Modern Quilt Patterns - and it’s free!

It has patterns for 3 quilts, all made in lovely light and bright colours, perfect at this time of the year:

Baubles and Beads made with easy pieced blocks which would look great in any style or colour scheme

Rainbow Rhythm which is right up my alley colour wise these days I’d say. It comes with an easy to follow colour diagram so you get all the HSTs in the right place.

Lemon Squeezy, a fun free-form diagonal strip quilt in a quilt as you go style. It would the perfect way of making use of some of all those leftover strips from different projects.

The patterns are presented in the same format as in their magazine – easy to read with clear cutting instructions and detailed colour diagrams. I’ve been a subscriber to McCall’s Quilting for many years and it’s one of the magazines that does not get recycled within my group of friends as I keep them all myself (hence the full bookcases).

You can download the ebook, and yes, it’s totally free, just click here.

Round and round

I don’t know if you’re sick of rainbows already, but I’m still enjoying playing with little pieces of colour.

Even though a colour wheel made from circles looks totally awesome,

it’s not practical for my purpose as the coloured parts are too big, so back to the wheel of panties.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Photo challenged

I set up an improv photo set yesterday to photograph the colour theory blocks.

Like so many times before, I found getting just the right amount of light a challenge. Trying to avoid the glaring light from the sunny day outside, I was looking for a way to make an angled surface on where to hang my blocks. Ironing table to the rescue. Covering it (let’s face it, ironing board covers do not stay pristine for a long time around here) with a piece of white fabric, I leaned it against the table.

 

Perfect – just the right angle and at a comfortable height.

Would you believe the circles in the two top pictures are the same? I had to check myself that they really were and that I hadn’t mixed up the blocks.

I have found that leaving a little of the white background in the pictures gives more accurate colours, but these things still happens. Oh well, “It’s all relative” is one of the exercises in the class and here’s the perfect example. Colours really do change depending on which colours they are next to, but maybe not as much as these.

The kits are bagged and tagged and ready to go. Funny that the little zip lock bag contains a whole quilt top. Fabric is not that voluminous is it, that is until you try to squeeze more into your already packed stash..

Thanks for stopping by!

288

The number of rainbow coloured "panties" on my table ready to be made into imperfect colour wheels soon. I gave up on finding the perfect tints and shades after quite a few misses, so these are close enough for now. I'm doing a test run of the Fargerike colour theory class this weekend and am getting my ducks in order. They are glorious, aren't they!

To waste or not to waste

Usually I would classify myself as a frugal quilter. I will cut my fabrics and fusibles and batting with as little waste as possible. Working my way through 40 different fabrics for an upcoming test run of the colour theory class has changed that a little, at least for these Rainbow kits.

I’m using an Accuquilt Go which requires strips 1“ wider than the shape and for my test drive last fall I cut my strips using a rotary cutter. To speed things up a little, I am doing the following:
- tearing strips just adding another 1” to the width to compensate for any distortions of the fabric (1” not necessary, ½” would do)
- cutting the strips into lengths like I did the last time. I’m cutting 4 rectangles at the time, it speeds up the next step
- ironing each length; folding it in half, then in quarters accordion style and pressing the folds
- feeding them through the cutter factory style. I should probably do this on the kitchen counter; our old dining room table is making scary squeaky noises when I crank up the machine.

There’s more waste this way, but it looks so pretty and it will find a home - eventually.

Am I a fan of the cutter yet? Not really, but I’m sure it will grow on me, especially when I start cutting circles tomorrow. Anyway, I am very happy working with a rainbow of colours in the midst of winter. I don’t know how it is at your part of the world, but this is what the wardrobe at my physical therapist's looked today – dark and dreary.

I was quite happy to have to stop by our newly opened fabric store Stoff og Stil afterwards to buy more fusible; much more pleasing, right!

They opened on Thursday and I have been there three times already picking up things I needed for class. I know, it’s a hard life.

Tonight was the monthly meeting in our regional guild, Rogaland Quiltelag, and my friend Mona-Lisa brought two projects she has made from my book. Aren’t they so much fun, they put a big smile on my face!

Guild meetings are always fun – meeting friends and seeing what others are working on. Today was our annual meeting with all the formal issues like going through the annual report and electing new board members. We have experienced some difficulties getting enough board members for the last couple of years. Does your guild have the same problem, or have you had this problem in the past? If so, what did you do to solve the problem?

Thanks for stopping by!

Plague upon our houses

So this is redicilous but our family is yet again struck by a stupid bug. We're running fevers and throwing up like there's no tomorrow. I stayed home with a sick grandson today and then I got sick too. Brilliant. Third time this year, forth if you're counting the caughing cold that has kept us company for weeks and weeks and I haven't even finished the antibiotics for the throat thingie. Yeah, not a big fan of 2013 so far.

Although I always enjoy the company of our young ones, I'd rather have stayed in bed today. All is not bad though, in addition to a few rounds of Yatzy, I am enjoying a little nest of pretty threads from starting on some Rainbow kits sitting on my table. See, it does not take much to literally brighten up this gray day. These will NOT go in the trash!

One

Grandbaby is one year old today. Time flies. We shared a piece of low sugar chocolate the other day and he sat still long enough for me to take pictures.

Happy birthday sweetheart!

Colour inspiration

I'm home with a sick baby today. He's running a little fever, so I had to pick him up from kindergarden. I took this picture to send to his mom, and looking at it I realized that the colour combination was fabulous: bright blue, two shades of oranges, grey and a little brown.

See, inspiration is everywhere!

Tea Towel Take 1: I'm making scraps

I never pictured this would be my answer to any question, but last week I said these words out loud to my quilting buddies at our monthly guild meeting. I was ironing my stack of fabrics piece by piece and started slashing them totally randomly and when my friends asked what I was making I truthfully answered “I’m making scraps”.

Having been under the weather for quite a while, I could not seem to wrestle up enough energy to start digging through all my scrap boxes in search for suitable scraps for my made fabric (using made fabric in the quilt is a part of the Tea towel challenge). Instead I decided to use fabrics from a closet in my sewing room where my oldest fabric got stashed away years ago. I have been working my way through the content for a while and thought I would keep at it until everything gets used up or tossed away.

That first session at my guild meeting was spent ironing, slashing and piecing two and two pieces together. My box was quite full and my scraps rather messy when I unpacked it the other day, but still looking good.

For my next session I dug out my bag with almost empty spools,

made room for a cutting mat next to my machine and started adding pieces and strings, that is after ironing all the crumpled pieces.

Can you tell I’m a newbie at making fabric by the content of my waste bin? I find myself obsessively straightening up all the edges all the time which is a total waste so I won’t be doing that anymore.

Anyway, here’s the start of a few pieces of made fabrics.

I’m using quite large scraps or I’ll be making fabric way into 2014. Working with bright colours has been wonderful, but I think I’ll be enjoying the process even more without all the cutting...

Full bloom

There’s not much blooming around here these days except for my hard-to-get-rid-of-throat-bug-thingie. I’ve been feeling under the weather since I got sick even though I finished my antibiotics a week ago - which is tiresome any day and even more tiresome when you need all your energy elsewhere. After spending 4 hours waiting at the ER yesterday, I’ve got a new type of antibiotics which hopefully will get rid of that stupid thing already so I can get back to life as I know it.

Anywho, besides spending a fun filled Wednesday evening with my quilting friends, grandson and I did a little mixed media collage/paintjob last weekend.

Plain coloured paper, lollipop sticks and leftover circles from the gift tag extravaganza.

We ran out of glue stick and our craft glue was old and thick so we had to use a paintbrush to get it out of the bottle leaving shiny glue everywhere. Lots of tearing, gluing and happy use of scissors later we had two pieces of collage.

The next day we dipped into our little stash of acrylic paint and this is how we left our collages.

My mind has been playing with how to transfer this into a mixed media quilt including the shadowing and all. Hm, we’ll see.

Thanks for stopping by!

Non-fine stitching

Not exactley needlepoint, but I got my needle & thread fix today trying to repair the zipper in grandson's kindergarden suit. It is so thick that my fingers are sore from pulling the needle through all the layers. I'll probably do it over by machine later, but he'll be able to close the zipper tomorrow. It's freezing here, so that was the main goal anyway.

Zippers, need to work more with them, I am sure they get easier with more practice.

Going sewing

Yeeeey, I'm going sewing tonight! It's the first Wednesday of the month and the kids are staying with our co-grandparents tonight which means the night off for grandma to spend with quilting friends.

I have been digging through my old stash for fabrics for the tea towel quilt and came up with lots of cheery colours. To keep it on the non-tooth-aching side of sweet, I'll be adding a few dulls and neutrals. I have also a box of scraps and leftover shapes and blocks to add to the mix and even a little tumbler top which has been waiting around for a while.

Now, should I start ironing fabrics or just enjoy an empty house for a while. Hmmm, maybe I should lay down on the couch while deciding...