Today I picked up a 4 foot shelf at Michaels, and DH put it under the windowsill in the "dining room" where I now do my sewing. My African violets have gotten too big for the windowsill, so now they have more room to spread out. I started out with 3 violets, but they keep having babies, so there are now six. They are in special 2-piece violet pots which keep them watered.
For my red and green quilt, I've got the additional 15 blocks cut out and ready to sew together, and I have 5 strips of 7 blocks put together with the sashing. I hope to get the top ready for the borders by next weekend. I've already contacted the woman who machine quilts for me, so she knows it will soon be heading her way. She does a beautiful job and is reasonable in pricing her work.
In the mail today I received a new set of templates I had ordered. These are CATS templates--Cut Accurate Triangle Squares templates. I saw these demonstrated on QNN, and it was a real DUH! moment. Why didn't someone make these before now? They are for making half-square triangles, and using them you can whip out dozens of perfect HST's in minutes. The set makes 5 different sizes, from 1" to 3" finished. I have tried triangle paper, speed-piecing methods, almost any way of making HST's but this will speed things up considerably, and because you don't cut them out until after they are sewn, they end up perfect every time. I might even try to demonstrate these at my quilt group for a program sometime. No affiliation with the product, but when something really works, why not spread the news?
In the interest of fair play, I also can recommend the Fons and Porter triangle rulers. I have three of them--the Half and Quarter Ruler, which makes great HST's but also makes QST's
(quarter-square triangles,) the Flying Geese Ruler, and the Easy Diagonal Sets Ruler, which makes the setting and corner squares for quilts where the blocks are set en pointe. I also bought a CD that shows each of the rulers being demonstrated by Fons and Porter, so if I forget how they work, I can refresh my memory--although there are simple directions printed on the rulers themselves. I bought these rulers at JoAnn and Hobby Lobby.
I also recently bought a new Quilt in a Day book--Still Stripping After 25 Years by Eleanor Burns. I saw her on QNN demonstrate a really neat method of making nine-patch blocks, and the instructions are in this book. I want to try making baby quilts with this method--each block starts out with only two 8" squares, and they seem to work up really quickly. There are, I think, 16 quilts in the book, all made with 2" strips. I think Eleanor Burns is the main impetus behind the resergence of quilting in the 80's and 90's, and I don't think she gets the respect she deserves. Her teaching style harks back to her days as a special education teacher, but the beauty of her classes is in the simplicity. Anyone can quilt using her methods--anyone. She got me interested in quilting, although as a child I watched my mother hand-piece many quilts and hand-quilt them to boot. I swore I would never do that, but watching Eleanor on PBS, I decided her methods looked a lot easier. She is the perfect teacher for beginners. I have many hours of her early programs on VHS. If my DIL's or GD's ever decide they would like to learn, I am ready! My DH has even started reminding me, in his best Darth Vader voice, to press things
'to the Dark Side!'
No comments:
Post a Comment