Sewing in Circles . . . and my Favorite Tools

Circle quilts  I have tried circles by various methods . . . freezer paper applique by hand, circles sewn with an interfacing back then top stitched to the block, joined drunkards path blocks, etc. 

And then I discovered pieced circles.  Although there are many steps, the freezer paper method for piecing circles the result is perfect circles that take less time than the other ways to do them.  I developed a case of circle mania.

Favorite!!! quilting tool . . . leather roller foot.

This was a happy birthday to me present several years ago.  It is the perfect foot for piecing circles and generally sewing curves as it has no inclination to sew a straight line.

It is also good for free motion work.

The Bernina link is below, they have a little video. http://www.berninausa.com/product_detail-n25-i152-sUS.html

Claudia has done a great tutorial of the freezer paper pieced method on her blog Machen & Tun.  Thank you Claudia!  http://machenundtun.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-how-to-sew-circle.html 

There are some tools that make the process much easier . . . the Olfa Rotary Circle Cutter.  And the Bernina 55 Leather Roller Foot.  I don't know if other manufacturers make a roller foot, but bless Bernina for providing this specialty foot.

A quick how to > > >
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkiLVdwInQM 

The circle cutter does a great job cutting away the backing.  And you have nice little circles cut for another project.

Use it too for cutting the circle out of the freezer paper template.

So you know where to set the pin of the circle cutter, mark the center of the circle using the freezer paper cutaway and a small hole at the center.

The easiest . . . pressing the seam outward gives a reverse applique look

Takes some extra effort . . . pressing the seam inward gives an applique look

Making sense of all the scraps.
I'm an extreme scrapper . . . next to nothing goes in the waste basket.  One of these days I'll post all my end-of-quilt scrapworks. They're going into a quilt that is all the leftover bits from my other quilts.

16 months later ... The Super Nova Quilt is Done

I was so taken with this quilt when I first finished the top 16 (yikes!) months ago.  And I'm still taken with it.  But gee, it sure took a long time to find a fabric I was happy with for the back.

Super Nova stack n whack quilt.
Here is the link to the original post which
details how I did the stack n whack

http://busybeeno16.blogspot.com/2013/01/super-nova-quilt-easy-stack-and-whack.html

To digress a little bit ... in the 16 month span it took to find the back, I started watching the quirky British TV show Doctor Who.

Anyone who has watched Doctor Who might see that the radiant design of the Super Nova blocks sort of resembles the opening of graphics of the show.

And then I found this wonderful rosy brick colored fabric with French script ... and a phantom hand doing the writing.  To me that phantom hand was very Doctor Who-ish.

At that moment, the Super Nova quilt became the Doctor Who quilt.

The phantom Doctor Who hand !

The quilting ... parallel wavy lines
with random whirls

The Super Nova Doctor Who quilt and
it's blocks that radiate from the center
of the universe ... available in my Etsy shop!

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/190004076/super-nova-cotton-batik-homemade-lap?ref=shop_home_active_2

eXtreme Scrapping: A Table Runner from Leftovers

I'm a little bit silly about saving fabric scraps.  I save just about every little bit of usable fabric.  Usable for me can be as little as 1/2 inch.  Does that move me from the silly to the compulsive category?  May be so.  So be it.

Extreme Scrapping Table Runner - Batiks
leftover from the Tsunami Quilt
http://busybeeno16.blogspot.com/2012/12/tsunami-quilt-descent-into-chaos_26.html

The center squares are done by topstitching
(with a decorative stitch)
two little scrappy bits together.

I do not use a foundation, just slightly
overlap the pieces, topstitch, press and trim. 

It is a technique I developed when I decided
I needed to use up all the little bits leftover
from the New York Beauty Christmas quilt.
http://busybeeno16.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-new-york-beauty-christmas-quilt.html

I thought this would be a great project to try
quilting with Perle Cotton.

And quilting with my
grandmother's crochet thread ... why not?

The back ... and all the hand quilting.  

The quilting was all done free form,
experimenting with the different threads.

The difference in look of the
10 and 30 wt crochet threads.

The 10 wt bedspread weight thread is a bit too heavy and was hard to pull while quilting.  But I really like the heavier look of the thread.

The  Perle Cotton is the easiest to quilt with and
also has the heavier thread look.

The 30 wt crochet was also easy to pull.

It's a Boy! It's a Girl! Oh My, It's Twins!

My cousin is having her first baby.  But it's really babies.  As in twins, a boy and a girl.  And she is over the moon about it.  I made these quilts a few years ago and have been saving them ... now I know why, and for what occasion.

My standard wrap for quilts ... like
the English Christmas 'crackers'

I came up with this wrap the very first quilt I gifted.  I of course did not have a box to put it in ... but I did have tissue paper, wrap and ribbon ... and it just seemed natural  to roll the quilts up.

Hug and Kisses, X's and O's ...
one for a boy and one for a girl

I knew these matching Michael Miller gingham's would be perfect for the backs of the twin quilts.  I think I have just enough of these fabrics for another set of baby quilts.

And by luck I had matching color graded fabrics for the binding, one in a pink yellow colorway and the other in a blue green colorway.  I really like something interesting going on with the binding on my quilts.

 I just love how these two quilts turned out.  Can't wait for the babies to get here... early February!

Matched Pair O' Christmas Quilts ... Enough Fabric for Two!

I've had this little stack o' Moda Christmas fabrics for a very long time.  Not quite long enough to qualify the fabrics as vintage, but quilters will recognize this very sweet line of Christmas fabrics that is resplendent with roses.

I had enough fabric for two lap size quilts.
So I made two.

And they are a very nice size
for table toppers.

My dining room table was my grandparents.
There has been 85 plus years of living
around this table.

The table top needs a good size topper
to cover all that living,
and it truthfully could really use a refinish,
but why erase all that history?

I played my first poker game around this table.
And Papou could always deal
the littlest kid a winning hand.

Both of the quilts have the same sweet
green fabric with sprays of red roses.

And a band of white with some
little leftover bits for interest.

Both of these quilts .... 

... are available in my Etsy Shop
https://www.etsy.com/listing/169461182/patchwork-christmas-lap-couch-quilt?ref=shop_home_active

and

https://www.etsy.com/listing/169461386/patchwork-christmas-lap-couch-quilt?ref=shop_home_active

1970's Calico Quilts

These quilts were made with fabric given to me by a very dear woman named Dorothea.  She was an accomplished hand quilter ... and made each of her 6 children exquisite quilts in the 70's and 80's. She pieced by hand.  And quilted by hand.

Checkerboard Lap Quilt

But her arthritis got so painful she could no longer quilt.

I dated her son Chris and she was just tickled that I was a quilter.  As none of her children or grandchildren quilted or sewed she gave me all her fabric.

That Christmas I made Dorothea a quilt ... a quilt for the Quilter.  I used at least one piece of every single fabric that she had given me.

There are hourglass blocks, because there are lots of hours in making a quilt.

There are appliqued hearts, because quilters love to quilt.

There are spool blocks, because lots of thread is used.

And there are a few random crazy patch blocks, because quilters have to have a little crazy streak to cut fabric into little pieces just to sew them back together again.

She loved the quilt.  And was very touched.  That made us all very happy.

Chris with the Quilters Quilt for his Mom

Just finished is this little baby quilt ... very country, and very scrappy.  It was made with little unused pieces that Dorothea had already cut ... I just had to cut a few more.

The blocks are sashed with unbleached muslin squares alternating with calico squares ... I don't know what the pattern would be called, but I really like how it turned out.

Scrappy Baby Quilt ...

... with a darling scrappy 'make do' back

 So that is how I came to have all these sweet little calico's from the 1970's.  I made these quilts for my Etsy shop ... I know someone will love the 1970's calico's and the Little House look of these quilts.