Catching Up and Turning Twenty

I have taken a break from the "Little House" quilt over the holidays and due to illness, but will be resuming the project this weekend, along with others.  This is my most recent quilt.  One of the little girls at church is being baptised in a couple weeks, so I worked on completing this simple "Turning Twenty" quilt.  The top flew together and was in my draw waiting for a special someone.  It's an easy pattern, very suitable for a beginner quilter.  I have a Handi Quilter rail system which will allow me to machine quilt easily.  Takes a bit to set up and about an hour to load a quilt properly.  Advantage:  Only cost $500. when I bought it about 10 years ago.  Drawback:  Only enough space to quilt what will fit under your machine, which in my case is about 6 inches...which, shortens to less as you take up the quilt.  But I am not complaining, it gets the job done and I am leaving it up

for the time being so I can get inspired to finish some more quilts before I take it down.  It is living in the living room right now.

This is a photo of the quilt hanging from our front porch, I did not have the binding on it at this time, but the light was right to get a little photo.  I have embroidered her name on one of the patches, which I think she will enjoy.

This photo is taken at night with the quilt fresh from the dryer after a quick wash and dry.  You can see the binding and the detail of the quilting.  This is one of those patterns that, as you are making it up, you think...hmmm, not sure I really enjoy this one, not much of a challenge, but when you get it quilted, it shines like the comfortable little quilt that it is.

This is a photo of the back of the quilt which I pieced.  More of that story below.  During this quilting experience I ran out of thread.  I know, hard to believe.  Well, I rummaged about and found a thread that I thought might blend.  After one row, as I was taking up the quilt...to my dismay I saw that the tension was way off with the new thread and I had not checked it before merrily stitching along...my bad.  So, off to the store to get a sharp new seam ripper to pick out all that thread and while we're at it, let's just get the right thread.  Done and done.

Picking thread is not my favorite task, but it can be rather zen like.
Here is the finished quilt with the binding on.  The binding was another episode.  Where was my head?  I'm stitching along and after getting a quarter way around the quilt, I notice that I am stitching the folded edge to the raw edges.  In my 35+ years of quilting,  I have NEVER done that.
Oh my, where is that seam ripper again, have a seat girl, you're not done yet.  The weekend of quilting was a comedy of errors!

The rest of the story...Looking for backing fabric, I had this large, perfectly sized piece, one problem, there was a miss dye in the middle of the fabric run that looked like someone had spilled a bottle of bleach right down the middle.  So I cut it out and replaced it with a piece of floral fabric and used the remaining bits to make the binding.  I think it turned out well, considering all the little challenges that came along with it.  Below are some links for the Turning Twenty quilt if you want to make one for yourself or a friend.  Again, beginner easy, and QUICK!  Also a link for the Handi Quilter frame if you want one for yourself.
Handi Quilter II with 48in.-125in. Frame

Turning Twenty Around The Block (Turning Twenty)Turning Twenty - Just Got Better (Turning Twenty Book #1 New Edition)Turning Twenty...AgainTurning Twenty Feelin Groovy (Turning Twenty Book 4)Turning Twenty Pick-a-B: Four New Patterns: Still Fast, Easy & Fun! (Turning Twenty, 7)

Little House Quilt slide show.

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Little House Quilt - Landscaping #7

Click on the photos to open and see the whole picture

I hope you are having fun, sorting through your fabrics and finding creative ways to landscape your Little House Quilt.

This page of the blog will update several times today so that you can see my process.

The photo below is the beginning of the rough landscape, I am playing right now so things may change as we move along, you'll have to check back later today to see. Remember, you will not be ironing down any of your pieces yet...we might want to move them around, you are just setting them on your lot to see if you like them.

I want a waterfall, we don't have one, but I want one, so I have created a waterfall feature in my imaginary landscape. We have big Ponderosa Pines out here; you can see the trunks, I have not yet cut the needles. I'm still playing with placement. The leafy fabric that is currently directly behind the house had some pink flowers in it and looked out of place, so I simply clipped a bit of the fabric and placed it right over the pink parts.

Click on the Photos to open and see the whole picture.

So, I hope you are working along on your Little House Quilt, this is one of the "fun" parts for me. Don't get hung up on being precise, enjoy your process, you can lift it off if you don't like it, but you'll never know until you cut it and put it into place. It just might be perfect! See you in a few with some more pictures. By the end of today, we will be ironing in place our base landscape!

Told you I'd be back with more.  So here is an example of an easy way to get rid of an element in the fabric that you may not want.  Remember the pink flowers, now you see them...
 And with a few quick snips, now you don't!  These leafy bits are going to be the madrone and oak forest  behind my house.

I have a big helper this morning.  This is Beatrix, aka Honey Bee.  Her very important job its to make sure that none of the bits gets away.  You can see, she is very intent on doing her job this morning.  What are quilts without cats, right?  I am at a pretty rough stage right now, but liking it so far.

Okay, back to the quilt, see you in a few with some more photos!  Clip, clip, clip...and remember, let the fabric do some of the work for you.


I have added in some darker rocks to create depth and now I am working on the branches of my pine trees.  I have moved things around a bit and will probably move them again before I'm happy.  But things are coming along nicely.

Slideshow of the Colfax Quilt Show 2010

A picture slideshow by Smilebox

Another Ribbon from The Colfax Quilt Show!

Well here I am early in the morning, next to my entry. It was a nice little show, fun to walk the sidewalk and look at the beautiful quilts.  There was a broad array from beginner to advanced.  The back lighting on this picture doesn't help show off the colors, but when you were there in person, it was lovely to look at.

The local officials and local businesses, purchase ribbons to present to the quilt they like the best.  It's all very subjective, but that is the fun of it.  The first year I entered I received a ribbon from a local business, the second year I received a ribbon from California Department of Forestry, this year I received a ribbon from The City of Colfax.  It's fun to hear people comment on your work as they walk by, I could sit there all day and listen, but John would not do well, so off to Bob's Dogs we went for a celebratory lunch.  If you haven't been to Bob's Dogs in Colfax, you have to go!  And take your appetite with you.  At this point I didn't know if I had a ribbon for my quilt yet, so we were just celebrating the fact that it was in the show and people were making nice comments as they strolled by.  At 3pm I took off with Suzette Cowperthwaite to the Relief Society Women's Conference at the Stake Center in Auburn.  As our evening there drew to a close, I called my husband, because the anticipation was getting the better of me.  At first he wasn't going to tell me, said I would have to wait until I got home ( he wanted to see my face) but after a short bit of pleading on my part he spilled the beans!  Already planning the quilt for next year.

Here is the ribbon I received from The City of Colfax.

Colfax Quilt Show, Colfax, California

The annual Colfax Quilt Show will be held tomorrow, September 25th.  Quilts will be displayed outside between the posts along the sidewalks of this historic Gold Mining and Railroad Town.  This will be my third year with an entry and I am excited to be displaying my quilt which I have titled Miner's Peacock.  The show is one day only and is an absolutely delightful event.

I had a big helper today as I was finishing up some last minute stitching by hand on the binding.  Little Honey Bee so carefully holds the fabric in place for me, she is so gentle and seems to instinctively know when I am working on a quilt, she plops herself down right in the middle of it to make sure that none of the fabric moves.

She is quite effective.  Notice the placement of the paw, just so.  It's a technique that she has developed over several years.  You can tell by her face how very serious she takes this work.  More pictures will be forth coming tomorrow as the quilt show unfolds.

Little House Quilt - Selecting Landscaping Materials #6

Click on the photos to enlarge and see detail.
You are ready to put in some general landscaping.  WE ARE NOT FUSING ANYTHING TO OUR BACKGROUND AT THIS TIME.  Remember when you were a kid and the teacher had a felt board and she put things up on it and then took them down, or maybe you had one of those toys as a kid that would let you apply the plastic sticker to the background and then you could easily peel it up and place it somewhere else or remove it altogether?  We are going to do the same thing for right now.  Everything in our design is in flux.  We are like that boy in college that you thought you liked, not ready to commit.  You will be laying your pieces on the background to develop your Little House Quilt, but you will NOT be fusing them in place yet.
Just like the house, the fine detail can be done last.  This is a great time to go through your fabric stash, and that of your friends (share ladies, you know you covet her fabric...LOL).  Below are some examples of fabrics that would work in a landscape.  Think about making the fabric work for you, I plan some boulders in my landscape, so I will look at using some of the fabrics that have a mottled, hand dye look about them and mix it up a bit.  

The watery blue fabric in the center would make a great pond, or turned differently, a great water fall.  Leaves and ferns in the forest of course.  Don't rule out large print fabrics, you can fussy cut a leaf and it will become a shrub with delightful detail in your landscape.  One time I used cabbage leaves...they were great shrubs!   Think about how you want your Little House as you select fabric, are you going for reality, whimsy, ethereal, early American country...what ever you choose, it's your landscape and there is no wrong choice!  Let yourself explore all the possibilities that exist and then you can pare down to what please you.
Again, let the fabric do as much of the work for you as you can and don't think about details right now, you want a general flow, it's like, if you looked through a pair of foggy glasses, or squinted your eyes and just caught the general outlines of the trees, fences, shrubs, etc.  We are roughing it in.

When you have assemble the fabrics that you would like to work with, start cutting out some shapes and laying them on your Little House lot to see how they will look with your house.  It's okay to layer, we like layering, it's our friend.  Layering will give a sense of depth to your quilt.  Are there trees behind your house?  If you live in a big city, there may be other buildings or landmarks that would give your quilt a sense of placement.  Maybe you have a silver trailer with a pink flamingo in the front on some astro turf.   Do you live on a farm, think about row crops, bountiful harvest, the checker board landscape.  Maybe you live in the mountains, selecting a variety of fabrics and creating several ridge lines will give your quilt more depth and interest.  Do you live in the forest, like I do?  Well, your trees may be a mix like ours of madrone, a variety of pines, oaks, manzanita.  If you are going for whimsy or an early American folk country style, you can create conical trees, or circle trees with stick straight trunks.   Maybe you live on the east coast and the hills are ablaze with the glory of fall.  What about lavender fields, or beds of roses, maybe a trellis, poppies, tulips, daffodils...what's in your garden and what would you LIKE in your garden.   The point is to have fun with it and let your mind go.

If you have patience, I will be on vacation for a couple weeks and will return and post detailed instructions on finishing, along with photos. I will be returning September 20th.
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For those of you who just can't wait and want to get hopping on this...here are some basic finishing instructions.

Once you have all the basic components in place the way you want them, fuse them to your quilt.  Like that guy from college that you fell in love with, you both graduated, married and are now committed!

You can now start to place windows, doors and smaller details using the same technique of trying out different fabrics and then when you are certain that you like them, fusing them in place.

Next will come the detail stitching or if you don't want to stitch, you can embellish your Little House Quilt with a fine tip permanent marker, fabric paints, what ever your heart desires.  You can add crystals, beads, buttons, ribbons, yarn...think outside the box and have fun.

Layer your quilt with very thin cotton batting, select your backing, and then quilt your piece as desired.

Attach binding and a rod pocket if you wish.

You are ready to display or give as a gift.

Little House Quilt - Let's Build The House! #5

By now you should have worked through tutorials 1 through 4, you have two copies of your pattern, one trimmed to the house and numbered and the other one intact and numbered, you have created a base lot and sky to place your house on and have a pretty good idea where you want to place it.  You have gathered up the materials for your house and have some type of fusible bond to work with.  Remember, if you want to stitch on your piece and not gum up your sewing machine needle, you may want to consider a fusible like "Mistyfuse" or a very light weight heat and bond, if you want to do your detail work with a marking pen and not a sewing machine, you can use a medium to heavy weight heat and bond.
First thing to do is separate the body of your house pattern from the roof.  Simply cut it apart.
Now you have some decisions to make.  You can cut the individual pieces of the roof and sides of the house into your numbered segments and place them individually, or you can leave them intact, which I am going to do for this quilt and create your definition with stitching, embellishment or you may elect to piece certain portions and not others to achieve your end look.
REMEMBER, right now we are only dealing with the body of the house and the roof, details of windows, doors, stairs...etc. will all come later in the process.
DON'T WORRY if you have a little strip of siding up in the roof area like I do; the area where the roof gables are at different heights.  I will cut a little strip of my "siding" and fuse that over the top portion to fill in that space.  For right now, you just want to separate the roof area from the house.
Having selected your fabrics for both you are ready to apply the bonding agent (misty fuse or what ever you have elected to use) and cut out your roof and your house.  TIP:  When you cut your house, give yourself a little extra allowance on the area where the roof and the house will meet so that you can overlap the roof slightly.  Doesn't have to be much, an 8th of an inch is plenty.
Place your "house" pattern on top of your fusible backed fabric and trace around the outline with a disappearing ink pen, very light pencil or chalk.  Cut out your house and set that piece aside.  You will do the same for the roof and set them both aside...NOTE:  VERY IMPORTANT!  YOU WILL NOT BE FUSING THEM TO THE BACKGROUND AT THIS TIME.


do the same for the roof...

TIP:  If you have little pieces to cut out, or narrow bits...just put scotch tap right over the top of the pattern onto your fabric, trace on the tape and leave it in place until you are finished cutting your piece, then remove the tape.
Here is the basic house...REMEMBER do not fuse this to your background yet!

Okay now, remember I told you my Little House has some siding up in the roof area and the gables meet at angles.  This is how I deal with that...Originally I numbered my roof pieces, I know that piece #6 on my roof pattern is a piece of siding.  I cut apart the roof pattern and select that little piece #6, place that on my house fabric and trace around it, cut it out and again, using my roof pattern pieces, I line up the area where that siding piece #6 is going to go and fuse it into place.  Example below:

Now you can see in the picture below, we have added a little bit of definition, you can see the siding area on the roof.  I will add more definition in the final stages of the quilt with machine stitching to show the actual roof lines, so we won't worry about that now.  For this segment of the project, we just need to have our roof and sides assembled.
REMEMBER:  you are not fusing this to the background at this time.  TIP:  Save your left over bits of fused fabric, you may need them later in the project to add definition to an area.

Alright now!  Things are starting to take shape.  Your next task is to look through your stash and assemble fabrics that will serve as trees, flowers, rocks, walls, fences, ponds, driveways, paths, what ever you want in YOUR landscape for your Little House Quilt.   Look at the example quilt in the photos section and you will see that I used fabrics that would do the work for me.  The pine tree fabric offers the swirls that you might imagine as branches, I simply cut out cone shapes... the trees with the birds...well that was just too easy,  some fluffy circles a little thread embellishment and I was done!  This is the time to let your imagination run wild!  It doesn't have to look just like your photo...you can get rid of your neighbors, put your animals in the yard, your family, your car, your boat, wildlife, you can do ANYTHING you wish!
Let's meet back here shortly to start  Landscaping our Little House!

Little House Quilt - Choosing Construction Materials #4

We are starting to have some fun now.  What is your Little House made out of?  Brick, Stone, Wood, Siding, Stucco, Adobe?  What color is it?  What about your roof?  Is it Wood Shake, Tile, Shingles, Gravel, Metal, Shale, maybe it's flat and you can't really see it?  This is the time to explore your fabric stash and think about what your Little House will be constructed of.
Our Little House is made of wood siding that has been painted.  I could select a pin stripe fabric but then I would have to be concerned about all the various angles on my Little House.  We have bay windows on both ends so that would present a little challenge, not insurmountable.  But what I will choose to do is use a solid color fabric for the siding and later during the embellishing stage, I will stitch lines to represent the siding.  (besides, fresh out of pin stripe...LOL)
Below are some examples of construction fabrics, some would work well for a roof, some for the body of the house.  I have hundreds of fabrics, I just pulled these for an example...look through what you have and be creative...if your house is brick, but you don't have "brick" fabric but you do have a solid or very small print that is brick color, use that, you can always stitch the "bricks" on after.

Depending on the size of your project, generally speaking, very small prints work best when you are trying to "read" as a solid for siding or roof.  The black and white print above is very electric and could work as a roof fabric but your house better be just as dynamic.  Some of the center fabrics in the gray range work well as both house or roof fabric.  The plaid could work well for a brick house or a barn, the pattern next to it is a little to blocky for my taste, it would cut up the lines of the house too much.  The fabric on the far left would work well for a brick house.  The wood grain fabric, although interesting, might be a bit too large for a house, it would depend on the side and whether it was placed horizontal or vertical.  Play around, your house can be very vibrant, color crayon like, or it can be very realistic...your call.
Next weekend, we will get started on constructing your Little House, so have your construction materials at hand!

Little House Quilt - Sighting Your House #3

So by now you have 2 copies of your Little House Pattern and you have created a basic Lot to build your home on.  Take your black marker again and start to number the "basic" pieces of your house, you don't need to worry about windows or doors, just number the walls and the roof for right now.  Place the exact same numbers in the same location on your second copy of your pattern.  Take one copy and cut out your house, just like a paper doll, just trim around the outside.  Leave your other copy intact.
See example below:


 Okay, now we are going to explore some perspective in sighting our Little House on our Lot.  Below you will see what happens when I place the house directly on the horizon line.  This would be a good placement for a home that is on level ground on a street perhaps or out in the prairie.  Watch the perspective change when I move the house down below the horizon line.  We are on a steep hillside so my actual horizon line would be very high behind our home.  Don't get too excited about the horizon line, you will be placing trees, shrubs, other hills, what ever excites you before you actually place your house, right now you just want to get a feel for where you want it on your lot.  It does not have to be centered...you may wish to have a pretty landscape feature to the side of your home, a waterfall perhaps or a brook, this is the time to kind of think those things out a bit and play with your vision.



Again, study the examples above, play with your Little House and see where you would like to place it on your lot.  Once you have a pretty good idea, you can do one of two things, either place a mark on your house to show where the horizon line will be, just a little mark at each side of the house; you don't need to draw all the way across.  Or if you have a digital camera, you can take a quick little shot to remind you.  Either way will work.
Okay, we are on to Step 4 - choosing our construction materials!