Four Patch Charm Quilt with Tutorial

Free PDF Pattern is now available for download.  Click here! 

I have had this quilt in the works for a  few months and finally got to quilt it this week.  When I loaded it on my machine I was planning on doing a panto but it kept nagging at me that it deserved some custom work so I gave in!  :)    Large pebbles and swirls it was!     I had made the blocks at a guild UFO day and had a few guild members help me decide on the finally layout as there are so many options when playing with HST style blocks. I really like how the blocks are worked into the border and glad my friends suggested it!  :)

 I used  soft yellow So Fine thread for the background quilting and a light brown Lava thread on the dark batiks.   Batting is Quilter’s Dream Blend.

I used a Stonehenge extra wide backing.

I thought I would share how I made the blocks as I didn’t use a pattern but used a technique that I saw on a Missouri Quilt Company YouTube video that you can see here on how to make quick HST blocks. But instead of using just two fabrics from a charm pack I resized it and replaced one of the fabrics with a  Four Patch made with 5” charm squares and that turns out to be 9 1/2” square.

Once I had the four patch sewn I cut a 9 1/2” square of my background fabric and layered them right sides together and sewed a 1/4” seam around the outside perimeter.

Then I cut the block diagonally twice.

Then press open the four sections ( to the dark side) and end up with four HST blocks. Trim blocks, if needed, to 6 1/4" square.

Now the only down side to these blocks are they are all bias edges so you have to be very careful when sewing the blocks together that you don’t stretch them out of shape!  When adding the border cut 6 1/4" strips WOF of the background and piece in the two corner blocks that extend the design into the border. DO NOT piece white and white HST in the border as that would put bias edges on the outside edge.  I have had a few readers do this and that makes for a very unstable outside edge.  So if you have a few charm packs sitting around and want make a fast and easy quilt why not give this a try!  I used 3 charm packs and my quilt finished 63 3/4"x 69 1/2", that includes the 6 1/4" border.  I used about 3m of background/border/binding fabric for this size.

Polka Dot Pinwheel

 

This is Helen’s Pinwheel baby quilt and when she brought it to me she said the polka dot fabric reminder her of Minnie Mouse.  She asked if I could incorporate a quilting design with the Minnie Mouse theme as her granddaughter loves Minnie Mouse.  I had no clue what to do at first but gave it some thought.  After searching online for images of Minnie I realized her main accessory is her bow and realized that would be the perfect design to recreate.

I printed out a bow image and using my sewing machine without thread I stitched along the outline to perforate the image.  I didn’t follow the outline exactly as I didn’t want the bow to be as tall as in the image.   I then used my Chalk Pounce pad and transferred the bows into the black fabric.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!  :)   You can see the quilt has a border of Prairie Points and I also quilted loops in the border and sashing to go with the polka dot theme.

There is still ice out on the lake but it is only 2” to 4” thick and melting quickly from the shoreline.  Tim and I got the canoe out and went for a paddle around our bay and then around the island that you see in the distance in my last photo.   The wind has been blowing the ice towards the island today so I didn’t think we would make it around but we managed to squeeze thought a few tight spots and break the ice in a few areas!  That was a lot of fun and I’m glad we didn’t get stuck out there!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2014

It’s that time again Blogger’s Quilt Festival and I thought I would share our Lug Nuts quilt.   If you are new to my blog I am a longarm quilter that has started designing quilt patterns with my friend Lori Suss, we call our design company Highway 10 Designs.   I live near Flin Flon, Manitoba (hence all the snow in the photos!) and Lori lives in Dauphin, Manitoba and the highway that connects use is Highway 10 so that name just seems to fit us perfect.

Our Lug Nuts pattern creates oversized Hexagon using 9 fabrics.  We used Little Black Dress 2 fabrics and chose 3 ivory, 3 grey and 3 black fabrics for our quilt but it can be made with any 9 fabric, 3 color combinations.

I quilted it with a pantograph called Fascination, used So Fine thread and Quilter’s Dream Blend batting.  We had fun with the backing as we had a few blocks left over.

You can find this pattern in our Esty shop here.

I’ve entered this quilt in the Original Design Catergory in the Bloggers Festival. Hope you’ll head over there and check out all the other quilts in the Festival!

Signs of Spring!

So nice to see signs of spring when I returned home today after 10 unplanned days in Winnipeg.   No quilting happening here, that’s why the blog as been so quiet.  I had an opportunity to get some more dental work done ( another crown)  that a local dentist said I needed but when I got to Winnipeg to see my family dentist he said that the tooth is not strong enough for a crown as the root is reabsorbing!  He sent me to a Endodontic specialist and he agreed, no crown, no root canal…it will just have to be pulled eventually.  He also said my face pain problems are related to my teeth clenching so I am back home still feeling crappy!  Think I need to take a different approach to my face pain now….any teeth clenchers out there with any suggestions for me.  I hate wearing the splint at night!!!

It as also a good for me to spend a week with my mom as my grandmother is in the hospital so I was able to drive us to visit her everyday and give my mom a break from the 4 hour of city bus rides she does every day to see her!  I could drive us to the hospital across town in half an hour!  It was good to see my grandmother get stronger over the week and eating better too!  I told her that was because I came to visit!  :)

So you can imagine my quilting ‘mojo’ is pretty low right now but I hope to get back at it next week.  Looking forward to spending the long weekend with my husband and boys.  Might get the canoe out to paddle around the ice and take pictures of the Northern Pikes that are swimming around the shoreline.  The loons are back and it is so nice to hear their song again.  Spring is here!!

Boxy Stars

This is Robin’s Boxy Stars quilt and the pattern is free on Bonnie Hunters Quiltville site here.   The pattern can be made with scraps of 2 1/2” strips but Robin used a jelly roll.  When I asked her how she wanted it quilted she said it didn’t matter as she didn’t like the fabrics she used.   So I took that as a challenge and hopes she likes it a bit more now that it is quilted.  I really like the corner stone design she used, it really adds to the pattern.

That panto is called Whirlygig and the batting is Quilters Dream Blend.  The thread is brown So Fine.

Stonehenge Meets Jamestown

 

This is Marg’s Stonehenge Meets Jamestown quilt and I found a link to the kit here.   The quilt is made entirely of Stonehenge fabrics and is a mix of Log Cabin and Sampler blocks.  This is going to be a gift for a guy so I chose Mimosa for the panto and an orange Lava thread.  The batting is Quilter’s Dream Wool so you can really see the definition of the quilting.  Took this next picture last night when I just finished it and  it was sunny but today is very cloudy and might rain.

You can see the snow is disappearing fast here but the ice is still on the lake, it usually is gone by May 10th so we will see if that happens this year!

Marg’s quilt looks lovely against my neighbours cottage as a backdrop!

Baby Quilts Plus a Special Birthday!

  
I was giving a few small baby quilts to finish this week, there seems to be a lot of babies arriving this month in town.   The first one is Sandy’s and she made this top with a few non-quilters but I would have never known if she didn't tell me.    The pattern is called The Amazing Jelly Roll Quilt by the Three Dudes, there is a YouTube video by Missouri Quilt Company here.   I did freehand 3’s and E’s in a light yellow So Fine thread.  Yellow must be my thread of choice these days!

This next one is Crystal’s and she wanted light custom and puffy!  I used Dream Puff batting and she brought a Polar Fleece backing.  I don’t mind Polar Fleece on small quilts but it is too stretchy for larger one.  It is so nice to see my rocks again, the snow has been disappearing fast now that we are getting 12’ highs.

And I wanted to share one more thing with you, today is my husbands 50th birthday!!  I can’t believe he is 50, he really doesn’t look it at all in my eyes!  We were able to celebrate Tim’s birthday a few weeks ago when we were in Winnipeg with family and here is my favourite picture from that day. Happy Birthday Tim!

Quilt Show 2014

Well another guild Quilt Show has come and gone and if you ask any member or anyone that attended they would say it was a great success!   For our little town area of 5,000 it is amazing how many quilters live here.   We had 150 quilts on display, our attendance and ticket sales were the highest they have ever been.   But I have to say my favourite part was when my friend Lori, the other half of Highway 10 Designs,  arrived on Friday to spend the weekend here and see the show.   It was fun just hanging out with her and helping others pick fabric for their projects as we spent most of our time at Mami’s Country Quilt’s booth.  We both use to work at the local fabric shop but it close 5 years ago so that was fun to do again.  Here is the pictures of the booth…we gave them the whole stage in the hall.  They did an amazing job setting up their displays and drove 6 hours to come to our show!

Here is the view of the show from the stage.

When we put on our first quilt show 16 years ago we had 6 custom quilt ‘trees’ made to hang the large quilts and those are placed in the center of the hall.    We also had a cable attached the one wall of the hall and that holds all the smaller bed quilts so I’m glad that is still there!   Four years ago we had 4 frames made that hold 6 lap quilts each.  The hall supplies the white pegboards that are perfect for our wall hangings and baby quilts.

Along with our main raffle quilt we had three more quilts and a handmade quilt rack for raffle.  I ran around and took pictures before it got busy!

We also had a display of our guilds Comfort quilts that we donate to the community.  The two quilts hanging are guild members quilt not comfort quilts, we hang quilts where ever we are able too!  :)

And here is our Paint Chip Challenge display.  We had a total of 21 members participate and for a guild of 54 members that is a pretty good percentage.  We attached each members paint chip sample card to the quilts story card so viewers could see what colors they had to work with.

So the show is over and I didn’t come home with raffle quilt like in 2012, (see story here) so I guess it’s time to get back to work and get some quilting done.