Saturday, April 2, 2011

Thursday's Sewing Night # 6

Well, It's now late Saturday night and I am finally sitting down to post about my Thursday Night with my sewing machine, and I must admit, all I did on Thursday was trim more HSTs.  It seems like I have been doing these forever...

I shouldn't have to square up a 3.5" squares, but I did.  I also discovered why I had such a difference in some of my 3.5" HSTs.  My 1/4 inch foot wasn't on my machine!  Here is what happened.  About 3/4 of the way through the project, my machine began rattling and my timing needed to be adjusted.  I took off the foot, put it in a box with all my other feet and when I reassembled my machine after adjusting the timing, I put on a 3/8 foot... I didn't even know I HAD a 3/8 foot, but I do.  And it looks exactly like the 1/4 inch foot.

SO, I decided to trim ALL of them down to exactly 3.25".  
This is what my trimming looked like...





I kept all of the trimmings so I could take this photo...  Wish I had a use for all of this...



So, after completing all of my trimming I realized that I somehow mis-counted and I was 30 short for my Red on Reds.  So, I sewed up 30 more red on red HSTs...



But all of this trimming and cutting HSTs was driving me nuts, I just HAD to sew something, so I decided to set the big project aside and work on a few other things that are sitting around in need of some attention.

So, I completed my two BOM blocks (I still need to do the standard stashing).




Robert Kaufman Fabrics gave our local chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild, Columbus Modern Quilt Guild some Kona Charm Packs to give away to members! We were challenged to create a quilt that uses as many of them as possible.  The theme is Summertime Fun.  The only real requirement is that the Bright Color Kona solids be prominently featured in our quilt.  As such, we were asked not to add a lot of other fabrics.  We all agreed to limit ourselves to one additional solid and/or one additional print.   So, here is the charm pack layed out on a grey pebble print that I am going to use as a backing, and possibly as a background fabric on the front as well...



 And after laying it all out on the table, I couldn't resist and I started sewing.  At first I was thinking I would do a pinwheel quilt.  I started sewing some more HSTs for my pinwheels.  I decided to use a new method... (well, it was new to me and can be found HERE), and I will NEVER do it any other way, it was so easy and accurate.  (NOTE: While I like the explanation on the link, I don't know about the accuracy of some of the math)... But after doing 3, I stopped.  I JUST made almost 600 of these, I want to do something DIFFERENT.
So I changed gears and started sewing the charm pack squares into large nine patches.  I dropped them all into a box and started grabbing them out and sewing them together, almost randomly.  I got them all sewn into sets of three, next, I'll combine 3 of those to make a nine patch, and then I am going to start cutting those up and re-sewing them together... I'll try to be better about getting "in process" photos.



Then I looked at the clock and realized it was 2 AM, and I reluctantly put it all away and went to bed!

Until Next Time...
Paul


7 comments:

  1. Love the look of the Kona solids all together! Sorry but I had to laugh at the machine foot episode...been there done that! (sorry no T-shirts...there should be though!)

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  2. Sounds like you had a fun sew night and early morning.....

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  3. If your slivers of scrap is not gone, try putting it between 2 layers of water soluable and quilting the bee-zeebers out of it. You can make some interesting new cloth that way! I love playing with nothing to see what happens! It's a sickness I know! hehehehe

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  4. Love the Kona solids----so pretty! Good luck finishing all those HSTs!!

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  5. Love all those bright colours Paul. You must be an expert at hst's now - bet you can do them in your sleep! The trimmings would make good bedding for my hamsters!

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  6. Love the bright colors. I've been throwing snippets of fabric and thread in the back yard for the birds to use in nest building. I don't know that they are, but I do know the snippets keep going somewhere. See ya. Lane

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  7. solid design for quilts...click here. http://www.weaveron.com/

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