June's Week 30: Double Wonky Shoo Fly

I'm cheating a bit as I really sewed these blocks last year - but oh well.

The blocks go together really quickly - but I've got about 50 of them now so don't think I need to make any more right now....!

: )
June

June's Week 28: Farm Friendliness

Again using fabric I received in a swap - now that it's together I can see that I should have picked darker fabric for the points....

Here it's even easier to see the low contrast!  (Added after Kathie's comment.)

June's Week 29: Forest Paths

I used material I received in an online swap...

The blocks were 3.5 so I had to cut them down to make everything fit - then I noticed I didn't have great contrast in the center....

June's Week 24: Nine-Patch

Man, I didn't get any 'exploring of nine-patches' done - 

but I

did pull out some pieces I received in a fabric swap and 

did make one pretty traditional one tonight!

June's Week 22: Liberated Leaf

I had fun making this leaf!  The curves are a welcomed challenge and it feels nice to be free in the colors and fabric I use (and not be using gray as the background)....!!!

I read the directions, then got sidetracked with testing what would happen if I cut a piece of fabric with a curve and resewed it back together (and repeated a few times).   It was a good exercise and made me more comfortable with doing this block.  I found it really helped me line up the fabric when I started the cut with a little straight area.

Tip:  Remember to include the side veins in the leaf before you sew it to the stem.  I had a little ripping to do as I was so concentrating on the curves in the leaves.  I didn't have a strip of brown handy so I made my branch yellow....  I made our now 23-year old son a pair of pants out the branch material... he was probably 3- or 4-years old.  'lellow was his favorite color.

: )  
June in San Diego

June's Week 21: Gay Two-Patch Quilt

I'm not sure what happened for me with this block.  If you look you'll see that my three smaller blocks on the outside are all consistently too large. 

I put on my liberated hat and just sewed it together.
It ends up 10.5 square, so I'm happy.

I forgot to invite you all to join in the Liberated Round Robin - you might be interested for a little change of pace.

http://liberatedroundrobin.blogspot.com/

It's a summer project.  Guidelines for adding rows will be posted every three weeks.... So there will still be time to do the FBP!

This block could be both the initial center block and the first row as they are triangles!

: )
June

June's Week 19: Mother's Own

This was a really quick block to do!  (I guess because it just has two colors and I set up my strip organizer so I have my FBP fabric ready to use in different widths.)

I decided to use green for the block, since it's the new color I added for my animal quilt.

Thanks Hetty for posting the block!

And Happy Mother's Day to everyone.

Hope we all have some time this weekend - either with our moms or our kids or someone else!

June's Week 15: Fish

I still need to do the final trimming to get this to 10.5 square, but it's pretty much done.

I used 3.5 inch square sections for the nine patch part, then added 2.5 inches to the end and 1.75 to the top and bottom.  I'm going to center the fish in the block.

: )
June

June's Week 9: Scottie

I measured to have fewer seams - thanks to Kathie L in Allentown for the tip on that! 

Went together really easily.  I'm getting my sewing legs/eyes back as I can see a quarter inch of background before the tips of the ear and nose!

Thanks again to Hetty for organizing this blog!

June's Week 16: Alaska Homestead

Starting to get a little caught up!

This one really was easy to get together - thanks Hetty!

June's Week 18: Standing Tangram Rabbit

June's Week 10 - Paper Pieced Leaping Frog

I hope the rest of you will enjoy making your leaping frogs!

It was fun for me to make.  I'm not sure if he is going to be leaping to the right or the left in my quilt....  I added 2 inch borders to make the block 10.5 inches square.

June's Week 8 - Paper Pieced Camel

Missing the ear and eye.

I hadn't planned on suggesting this block, but after doing the patchy heart I had a bunch of scraps and I thought doing a paper pieced block would help me make use of those bits of fabric.

I  haven't really done paper piecing before - looking at these videos helped me out:

Leah Day - For the beginner
TimbleArt - Adds a few more tips
Crafty Gemini - Adds much more detail


See Notes below...






Notes:

1. Print the pattern the size you would like - I suggest at least two copies!  I printed mine so it was 10 inches - so I had to bring it into an editing program so I could divide it and print on two sheets of paper (so I would get the exact size that I wanted.) Note:  For my 10.5 unfinished block, I should have set it to print to be 9.75 or maybe even 9.5 - when I sew my block to the next block the seam will intersect with the tail, rear leg, and be really near the face.....
2. Notice there are several groups in the pattern (head, neck, body, and legs) - cut the pattern apart at these lines - remember you will need to extend the lines by .25 inch so when you join them together they will fit! Along the outside of the entire block I added additional fabric to be sure to have enough fabric.  (I hope I added enough so when I sew the block to the next block the detail is not lost!)
   
3. There are just two colors to use in this pattern. So that part is easy. I marked the pieces where the camel would be to help me keep track of things though.  I used Kona Cotton solids so I did not have to worry about front and back side of fabric.
4. I goofed when I was making the tail and had to do it twice.  Because I had used the tighter stitches I couldn't pick it out and reuse the fabric, so the second time I basted things, checked to be sure it was correct, then when back and sewed with the tight stitches.  Still there were a couple of places that that I didn't have the fabric placed correctly.  I just added extra fabric where needed (so I have additional seams).
   

Paper piecing isn't as much fun as I thought it would be, but perhaps after doing a couple it will get easier and I'll be able to do more detailed projects.

I hope you'll try out the block!



To take some of the mystery of paper piecing patterns
How to Draw a Paper Pieced Pattern in PhotoShop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m28FWEd8pNw&feature=related Video 1 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmnfpMvoPQ&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL Video 2 of 2

June's Week 7 - Heart

I'm still trying to stick with my selection of colors for the blocks, so did my patchy heart in orange and pink.  I should have flipped where I put the colors though as the pink is fading in with the background.

Thanks for picking the block Hetty - It was fun to do!

June's Week 6 - Chicken

I resized the block so it would end up being 10.5 square.

I recorded the sizes I cut my pieces on my blog...

June's Week 4 - Standing Purple Cat

This standing cat is really cute!  It went together pretty quickly.  The directions were clear, but I found I had to draw a diagram to be sure what I was supposed to do.

I found that by sewing the diagonals a little off center the flap covered the original material. When I sewed right in the middle it didn't work out right.

: )
June

June's Week 3 - Fool's Square

I wonder how they came up this this name for the block?

I've added dark purple to the colors I use for the Friday Block Party!

I need to work on my measurements. I could see as I was sewing that things were not lining up correctly.  Still looks nice and when I add a grey border it will float nicely I think/hope!

June's Week 2 - Elephant

I finished my elephant block!

So can confirm the directions on the Milk and Honey blog are very clear!

I took pictures of the steps I followed as I was sewing...  It was really fun to see the animal picture start to appear.

: )

June's Week 1 - Marion's Choice

Here is my first block for both the Friday Block Party and for 2011!

I had put all my sewing stuff away as I had a friend staying here while I was gone - but I think everything is set now so I can sew again!

I'm going to use this ash grey for my light backgrounds and I will probably be including a lot of the pink as my friend gave me a lot of this color.

Looking forward to these weekly challenges!

: )
June
http://quiltquest.blogspot.com