The Goose in the Corner

I designed my Golden Goose quilt on paper, with a fair amount of grumbling.

And I decided to put EQ7 on my wishlist, which I know Santa checks. And he did!

One of the first things I did was to put my design for the Golden Goose into the program. And it only kind of worked, because the program doesn't think anyone would ever want a seam in the corner on one end of the quilt and triangles in the corner on the other. I felt both irked at EQ and pleased that my brain-and-paper technology was so capable.

Anyway, I drew my block and made the quilt:

And then I made the logical variations (again with the corner issue):

And then I just couldn't stop:

And I imagine there's even more variations to be tried. Anyway, once I saw how very versatile that simple little block could be I wanted to show you all about it!  So I'm planning to share a little "goose in the corner" block tutorial soon.

Time to give...

Thanks for all the book recommendations! I knew you all would have some great ideas. I can't wait to choose some to add to our collection of books, hopefully this weekend!

It's only fair that I share my recommendations too. My little one has a serious love for the following books (and I like them too):
I Like it When
Little Pea, and its brother, Little Hoot
B is for Bear and any other book with stuff to feel or flaps to lift
Doggies and Opposites, both of which she knows the words to now
No No Yes Yes and Quiet Loud by Leslie Patricelli
How are you Peeling and its out of print cousin, Baby Food

Oh.... and congratulations to the winners:
For the GO! and one die: #49 Colleen
For the two dies: #129 Robin (RsIslandCrafts)

Hope everyone is having a LOVEly week!

Go around again!

Three years ago I felt very lonely as a quilter. I wasn't having much luck connecting with like minded experimental quilters through my LQS. In a fit of hope I started this little blog. Fun fact: my very first commenter was Tonya of Lazy Gal Quilting. That just totally warms my heart.

First slowly, and then quickly, I found myself connected, online and face to face, with impassioned, inspiring quilt artists. You make me look normal instead of obsessive. You give me goals and ideas and challenges.  I'm looking forward to going around again with you this coming year.

To celebrate, how about we give away that Accuquilt GO! cutter I've been talking about forever?

I'd like to draw two winners: One gets an Accuquilt GO! and one die of their choice. The other gets two dies of their choice. That way if you've already got a GO! cutter you can play too. And yes, international entries are welcome. Thank you so much Accuquilt for this great giveaway!

To enter the drawing, leave a comment below telling me whether you're entering for the GO! or the two dies and ALSO tell me about a book you'd recommend for little ones 2 and up. I'm trying to get out of this Go, dog. Go! rut we're in and learn about some obscure books we might not find on our own. 

Entries welcome through February 14th. I'll pick the winners by random number generator. If I don't have your email address I can't contact you about winning though, so if you're one of those no-reply commenters (or if you're not sure) you should leave your email in your comment.

A room of her own

At two years old, our kid finally has a room. Blame it on the cosleeping and the ever-constant home renovation, but her mattress has laid in the nook outside our bedroom door for the past year. No longer, my friends. Witness:

Everything cute that you see here was my husband's concept, design, and work. Except that tree. I dreamt it and painted it, with guidance from our daughter about leaf placement. I had almost forgotten how fun painting is. That sweet little houses quilt is from my grandma. Shown in full here.

My handyman-by-night husband turned the closet into a little private nook/pillow playhouse. He also made a cubbyhole over the drawers.

He even found an old window, secured it in plexiglass, and trimmed the whole house out to look cuter than anything I've ever seen. I mean, real doorknobs for goodness sakes!

The attic access door was turned into a chalkboard, a decision that we regretted immediately. Only first time parents make these kinds of mistakes. Most days I keep the chalk out of reach in the cubbyhole.

The kid loves it. It took three times longer than we thought (doesn't everything?), but, for a while at least, we've shed our "slacker parents" vibe. Yee haw! We just had our first weekend not working on this project, and it meant more sewing time for me! A wonderful surprise was that the kid now sleeps through the night, waking at 5 or 6 instead of 1 or 2. Uninterrupted sleep...how I've missed you.

Just keep pinning

Here's where I am with the wedding quilt. I've got the arcs together, seam allowances pressed under, and pinned to the whole cloth top. This thing is ginormous. 105" wide. Honk!

I didn't like my original layout as well once I laid down the actual arcs, so I played with them until I came up with this arrangement, which seemed "right". When I stepped back again after pinning I realized it looks more like a loop-de-loop than two rings. But my compassionate husband said that it looks like two rings to him so I will continue forward on my path.

I have some hand appliqueing ahead of me. Which will give me time to ponder my quilting options. I do enjoy a good ponder.

Accuquilt: Bunting Quilt Tutorial

This post is all about how I made my bunting quilt with the Accuquilt GO! Cutter and the Triangles in Square die. Geez, that is a lot of links.

I was only using the triangle (A) part of the die, not the half triangles (B).  The area of fabric needed to cut the triangle part is 4x6".  So for the white fabric, I used three strips 4 inches across the width of the fabric. This seemed like the way to waste the least amount of fabric, as opposed to cutting lengthwise strips as Accuquilt advises. A few of the white triangles did seem a little stretched out compared to the other triangles but it didn't seem to affect my final results.

I layered my die, fabric and cutting mat. It makes me a little crazy to send the die through the cutter without using half of the die, since those blades are cutting into the mat anyway and deteriorating it over time. But I didn't really want any half triangles hanging around so I just cut the whole triangles and sent the die through without any fabric over the half triangles.

There was not much fabric wastage as I cut the white triangles, because the trailing edge of the first cut could be lined up with the leading edge of the next. The only significant waste was at the beginning and end of the strip. Three strips gave me about 54 white triangles.

Of note, my sister called me as I was about to cut the white triangles and I was able to cut all of them while talking with her on speaker phone. I don't think I would have tried that if I was cutting these triangles with a rotary cutter! This is all that was left of my strips after cutting my white triangles.

Then I picked some fabrics for my flags. I made myself a little template and used it to cut 4x6" rectangles from 25 different fabrics. Then I stacked those up and cut them, four layers at a time, for a total of 8 triangles per pass.

 
Using individual rectangles instead of strips resulted in a little more fabric wastage, but I think you'd have most of that cutting it with a rotary cutter too, simply because the triangle shape leaves odd scraps. 

This kind of gave me chills. They look so beautiful and perfect! They stack up quick.

Piecing triangles does not come intuitively to me. But with these dog eared corners, anyone with a pulse and a sewing machine can get it right.  Why not have a margarita? No, wait. Two margaritas.

I started by piecing 50 units of one white and one colored triangle each. I think this would make a great "leaders and enders" project. That was my original intent but I ended up grabbing it on my way to a guild sewing night at Modern Domestic and doing it all in one sitting. You do need to make sure you piece the units consistently (white on the left, colored fabric on the right, for instance).

After piecing all the two piece units, press seam allowances toward the colored fabric. Then piece the units into four strips of about 12 units each.

You may want a little helper to figure out your preferred arrangement. Lengthen or shorten the strips as needed. Use the remaining white triangles to add to the ends that need them.

Lay out a single piece of white fabric, about 36"x44". Lay your bunting strips where you want them to go. Then slide your fabric ruler 1/2" underneath the top edge of your first strip, then carefully lift the strip up and mark the cutting line on the fabric (I used a regular pencil). Replace the strip and repeat along the bottom edge, marking a line 1/2" above the bottom of the strip. The fabric between these lines will eventually be discarded. Repeat, marking lines for each strip.

 
Cut and sew these seams one at a time. Do not try to cut them all at once. Even cutting one at a time you will have some crazy bias situation and pins are the answer to that problem. Pin it to death before you even pick it up. This is coming from someone who almost never pins anything, so you know it's serious business. Sew with the pieced strips on top to reduce stretching in the bias edge.

Square it up, congratulate yourself heartily, and finish that sucker.

Whew! I can honestly say I only did this project because I had the Accuquilt GO! cutter. If I'd had to learn how to cut all those triangles on my own I'd still be in the design stage for sure. The GO! cutter made a somewhat challenging design more doable. I'd say it's a pretty handy tool. A handy expensive tool. If mine disappeared and I had to decide whether to buy a new one, I'm honestly not sure what I would do. I might take the middle road and get the GO! Baby because of the big price break between the two. The GO! cutter does seem like a quick way to get scraps cut into usable consistent sizes and that's how I've been using it lately. I keep some squares I've cut handy so we have something to use when my toddler heads to the sewing machine saying "Mama, sewing?".

I really think one of these cutters would be a good thing for a group of quilters to share. Unless you're pumping out a quilt a week, this thing is going to sit in your closet most of the time. I'm hoping to make mine available at guild sewing events, and PMQG members, if you have a project the Accuquilt GO! could help you out with, talk to me about borrowing mine!

If you make a quilt using these directions, I hope you know I'd be tickled pink to see a picture! Now let's see about getting an Accuquilt GO! into the hands of one of you lovely readers... soon, soon, soon!

Accuquilt: First Impressions

Way back when I learned I was getting an Accuquilt GO! cutter, I also learned I could choose three dies to go with it. I took that decision very seriously. Like, obsessing about it for two weeks seriously.  I even woke up once in the middle of the night thinking about it. No joke.

Mostly this problem occurred because I am a weirdo, but I also had a hard time figuring out from the Accuquilt site how their dies fit together. For instance, with the chisel die they tell you that another die will finish the shape out to a rectangle, but is there a triangle that you can sew to the shorter side to finish it out to a half square triangle? They don't say, and their information about the shape doesn't give you the height of the short side, so you can't even go researching their other triangles. Trying to figure that kind of stuff out took way too much time and energy.

Finally, after I woke up thinking about it in the middle of the night, I just made myself decide. My first decision: no strips and no squares. I occasionally do bonehead things with my rotary cutter but can generally be counted upon to manage these straightforward tasks. So, angles and curves only. Yes, I know I could do these things with my rotary cutter too. But, let's face it: I'm lazy and I probably won't.
I chose the triangle in a square. It seemed versatile.

And the isosceles triangle. I like the idea of making a kaleidoscope quilt.

I also chose the 7 inch drunkard's path. I read Heather's review and got excited about the little notches to help you match the curves up. I'm kind of impressionable.

While waiting for the Accuquilt GO! to arrive, I tried to figure out what I was getting into. I watched some of Accuquilt's YouTube videos. They cleared up the general confusion I had about how the cutter worked. The one video that stuck with me was "Lee's Stripper Tips" (you can see why I had to click on that one). I dare you not to laugh while watching this.

When the box was delivered I busted it out right away, and grabbed some scrap fabric to try it out.

When I unwrapped the dies they looked like big pieces of dense dark foam. The blades are under the foam. I followed a tip I saw on SewCalGal about marking the cutting lines with a silver sharpie, making them easier to see. I also used the sharpie to mark the size of fabric piece necessary to make the cut, so I wouldn't need to remeasure it every time I went back to use the die.

I tried the cutter out like I'd seen in the videos. You make a "fabric sandwich" with the die underneath the fabric and a cutting mat on top. As the sandwich moves under the rollers, the blades are pressed through the foam in the die and cut the fabric against the cutting mat, upside down compared to how you use your rotary cutter.

The dies are supposed to last, but the cutting mats will give out eventually from repetitive cuts. When you run the die through the cutter it leaves cuts in the mat each time.

Reading the instructions I learned that for accurate cuts you are supposed to feed the fabric through the cutter along the lengthwise grain. If you are working with a scrap and you don't know which is the lengthwise grain, Accuquilt has some tip about how to yank on your fabric and listen to which direction makes a higher pitched sound. This totally cracked me up. My rotary cutter does not ask me to listen to my fabric! I have a lot of scraps and I am not really into precision piecing so I decided I would probably ignore this advice, for my sanity. 

I loved that I could cut fabric with my toddler crawling all over me and the cutter without anyone getting hurt. But the first few times I tried to pass a die through the cutter I couldn't get it to go through and I honestly thought it was broken. It took more strength than I expected to get the die to catch under the rollers.  Soon I figured it out and after a few cuts I felt familiar with the routine. So I embarked upon my bunting quilt. And that's what I'll show you next time!