Dear Jane yellow star quartet

My Dear Jane quilt will have 7 or 8 colors of blocks. There will only be 4 yellow blocks, and you're looking at them.
I finished my 4th yellow star last week, the small star within a star. (the pale paisley star below) The center star is about 1-1/4" finished, and the points of that star are folded and sewn into the seams, not paper pieced.

I'm using different fabrics for all blocks, and the yellows are probably as varied from one to the next as any color I'm using. Definitely not perfection on these blocks, especially the 8-pointed star, but they're done!

Quilt designers' blog hop coming

There's information about an upcoming designers' blog hop on Sandy Gervais's blog. Head there to read about all the specifics, the 12 designers who are participating, the dates, the fun, the projects, the rules -- all those good things.

The blog hop begins with a "guess the designer from a baby picture" contest. Anyone who leaves a comment on all 12 blogs on the appropriate days is eligible for the grand prize.

It looks like great fun.

Happy Halloween

This is a favorite wallhanging I display in the fall, my version of a pattern from nearby Country Threads. The hardest part of making it was deciding which fabrics to use for the pumpkins. Buttons are sewn on here and there.

After a week filled with gray skies and rain, rain, rain, the sun is shining and trick or treaters should be coming to the door any time. Official time for the door-to-door festivities is to be 5-7 p.m. tonight, but no doorbell rung in these first 25 minutes. It's so bright out that kids can't see that our porch light is on, the signal that we have treats ready to hand out.

Happy Halloween.

I'm a winner

On this gray, rainy Thursday, the mailman brightened my day. He delivered a package from Michelle, the Rosebud Quilter.

I was one of the winners in the Fall Quilt Festival. This is my new baker's dozen of Kaffee Fassett fat quarters. Michelle enclosed a note saying that she'd picked out fall colors, and they're as luscious in my hands as they are in the photo.

I think they show well on our new carpet, don't you?

They're beautiful, and I'm checking out possibilities in some of my FQ friendly books. Don't you just hate to cut into these beauties? But I have to quit petting and make some definite plans.

Thank you, Michelle, for your generosity. I'm a lucky lady. And thanks, Amy, AKA Park City Girl, for organizing another superb festival.

Helping with a finish

Daughter C works at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics as an x-ray tech. There are bare areas on the walls of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), so she offered to make a quilted project to decorate one spot. This weekend, while daughters helped with furniture moving and painting here at home, I added a narrow black binding to her wallhanging (not on yet in these photos). Decorative fabric items cannot be accessible to the public in a hospital, so she'll prepare an acrylic frame/box to house & display this 24 x 29-1/2" colorful delight.

I gave C the book Fantastic Fabric Folding by Rebecca Wat several years ago. The author combines origami techniques and fabric, and the resulting flowers are impressive. C used one folding pattern from that book for these batik "origami" flowers. (Batiks, courtesy of Mom). Each little block is 2-3/4" finished. She and her sister worked on a random arrangement and finally settled on this one.

I'm always proud when the daughters share their time & talents. This will be a lovely addition to the NICU.

Success finding a Rothermel fabric

I've had 100% success finding fabrics using the website missingfabrics.com. My statistics are only 5 out of 5, but 100% is impressive, no matter how few the number of attempts. One request was for someone else, but the other 4 were for fabrics I wanted -- not to finish a project and not because I needed more yardage to start a project. I just had a FQ or a small piece and I wanted more.

The fabric of my latest search is from the Classic Toile line by Judie Rothermel for Marcus Fabrics. I wanted the black background, not the chocolate brown or the navy background. I'd found an end-of-bolt piece on a table at Hancock's of Paducah when a trip took us there in August. Then I saw the same fabric used in a quilt in a magazine. I just HAD to have more of it.

I had no luck finding it locally, nor could I find it online. The fabric silently called to me for a month till I posted the request. And that request sat for a month till the right person saw it.

A very kind lady named Sandi B. happened to check out the missingfabrics website, recognized my fabric as one she'd seen in a store where she shops, and she passed the store's name to me. I am now happily petting 3 yards of my lovely black toile fabric, which I purchased from The Rabbit's Lair, in Rogers, Arkansas.

No specific project in mind, but I have a couple ideas.

OOPS -- I just spotted a misprint on the selvage of the fabric, where Judie's last name is spelled Rothremel. The misspelling isn't on the end-of-bolt fabric in the photo, but it's on my new yardage. Strange!

NOTE: I just checked Hancock's of Paducah, where I bought the bolt end. Their website says it's out of stock but they expect a shipment. I guess I could have waited, but the search was fun.

Recycling worn out quilting rulers

A couple days ago Lori from Humble Quilts showed her acrylic quilting rulers and raised the question, how many rulers does a quilter need?

When I sent a comment back to her, I mentioned that my husband has turned cracked or worn out rulers into usable templates for me. Lori asked how he did it.

Hubbie explained it to me as follows:
Supplies needed to turn unusable rulers into usable templates are --
1--acrylic ruler that is cracked, chipped, unused, lettering has worn off -- you get the picture
2--acrylic knife -- husband bought his at Menard's for $5 or less. I assume it could be found at hobby or craft stores or other home improvement stores, & it may have a different name. It opens like a pocket knife. In this first photo, it's partially opened, and the 2nd photo shows the very sharp point in position to mark acrylic
3--metal straight edge (he used a 12" metal ruler)
4--fine sandpaper.

Hubbie only made templates for me with straight sides. If you want curved, you're on your own.

He held the metal ruler in the position and "scored" the acrylic with the knife several times, running the knife along the edge of the metal ruler. The thicker the acrylic, of course, the more cuts you'll need. After several cuts into the acrylic, line up that cut on the edge of a hard surface (like a table edge) and POP the pieces apart.

He continues scoring and popping the acrylic until he has the piece he wants. The edges & corners can be sharp and rough. He gently smooths the edges and corners with sandpaper.

Here are six of the many usable templates and acrylic rulers he's made for me . If you would be bothered by the original markings and lines, this is not for you. (Or maybe you can figure out how to eliminate the original marks.) They don't bother me.

I'm gradually cutting scraps of fabric into two sizes of tumblers, (see top row) using the templates he made.
A recent request was for 2-1/2 inch, 3-1/2 inch, and 4-1/2 inch squares with a diagonal line drawn -- so I can square up HST quickly. After the square was made, he scored a diagonal line a couple times (not too deeply) and drew the line with a permanent marker down in that groove, so it won't wear away quickly.

As I told Lori, my husband is worth his weight in acrylic!

Stash gone wild

No quilting to write about. Hubbie, two visiting adult daughters on the weekend, and I spent the past 4 days preparing for installation of carpet in our 30-year-old split level home. We lost our living room carpet 16 months ago when many areas of our city had flooding. We were lucky--just 2-3 inches of clean ground water came in, from the over-saturated ground from too many days of rain. (Please don't ask why we've waited so long for carpet.)

The living room is now empty -- items moved to the garage, an upstairs bedroom, or piled in creative fashion on the dining area floor -- like turning a La-Z-Boy upside down and resting it over a sofa. This is the perfect time to update other things in the living room.

Thank you, DDs for helping to remove that outdated must-have-been-stuck-with-Crazy Glue wallpaper border. And thanks for helping to prime the 30-year-old paneling.
Painting first would have been wise before the carpet installation, but I refuse to select paint for an entire room based on a 2 x 4-inch carpet sample. First the carpet and then the paint color selection.

Because my sewing machine and hand sewing projects and anything related to quilting have all been packed away temporarily, I decided to show photos of my stash -- part of it. Most of my fabric is in a back room in the downstairs, but there's a bag or bin or two elsewhere -- in the garage, the upstairs hall closet, in two or three bedrooms, but absolutely none at the moment in the living room. It's nice to have one clean room in the house.

One word Wednesday

edible

More Round Robins, again

These are two more quilts from my group, made during our guild round robin this year. You can read our guidelines and instructions in this post, and you can click on any of the photos for an enlarged view.

Georgia began with a lively collection of fabrics with black, white, and pink, adding lime fabric for an extra punch of color.

My round was adding the border with appliqued flowers & leaves. The fabrics led us to a top that was graphic, bold & bright.


Chris began with one yard each of 9 ornate blue Hoffman fabrics. All of these fabrics are richer and more dramatic "in person." My 2-inch border included squares.

You may notice four 3-dimensional prairie points inserted outside of the center block, and the flowers on the 4th round were attached only in the center, so they're also 3-dimensional. The finished top is a lovely blend of her chosen fabrics.