Charm Swap

There has been a plan brewing between myself and 5 other Moda Designers.

We have some fun planned.  Every wednesday for the next 6 weeks.  What is it, you ask?  Well, we all swapped charm packs and made quilts using each others fabrics. 

Today, we start it off with Lynne at Kansas Troubles 

Here is her quilt and go to her website to get the free pattern.

Isn't it adorable?  

Here is the schedule for the blog hop.......

Here’s the Schedule …
June 26 ~ Kansas Troubles  http://kansastroublesquilters-lynne.blogspot.com/
July 3 ~ Sherri McConnell  https://www.aquiltinglife.com/   
July 10 ~ Laurie Simpson  http://minickandsimpson.blogspot.com/
July 17 ~ Me and My Sister Designs  https://www.meandmysisterdesigns.com/blog/
July 24 ~ Primitive Gatherings  https://lisabongean.com/
July 31 ~ Lella Boutique  https://lellaboutique.blogspot.com/

Laters,

Laurie

Sewline

In my last post I showed you the top I pieced in the English Paper Pieced style.  EPP, as it is commonly known, is made easier with a few handy tools.

Sewline makes quite a few of them......... this is an item available from them - The Quilter's Starter Kit.  

Included in the Quilter's Starter Kit are:  : 5-1/2" Snippet scissors, Fabric Glue Pen, Duo Fine Fabric Marker & Eraser, Styla Fabric Marker with water erasable ink, Aqua Eraser, Stayer permanent marker, Sewline Fabric Pencil in white, and Fabric Eraser.

I used the glue pen (and a couple glue refills) glue basting every piece of this quilt.

Sewline Glue pen is fast and easy.  Once every paper shape was glue basted with fabric - then I could sew at my leisure to make all the blocks.  

The papers stay in place until you lift the fabric edge and peel it away from the paper.  All of these steps are easy to do on the road (summer trips!) or in front of the tv or watching a sporting event.  My kind of quilting!

The Sewline mechanical pencils are always in use here too.  They come with several colors of lead refills - and I have a mechanical pencil ready in every color. You never know what color will show up best on a particular fabric.  What do I use them for?  Mostly for hand piecing, but I mark quilting lines occasionally with them too. 

I often have a hand pieced project in the works here.  Many of the recent ones have been done using acrylic templates like this one.  I rotary cut the fabric needed - then mark my hand sewing lines with the pencil.  In this case - just the corner dots - and I hand sew dot - to - dot. 

While Moda Fabrics + Supplies asked me to write about these tools - I wouldn't do it if they weren't a tool I loved.  Here is a picture of my sewing notions ready to be used next to my stitching chair - there are quite a few Sewline tools in use.

Hope you have a hand work/travel project ready to go for this summer.

Laters,

Laurie

English Paper Pieced 6 Pointed Star Quilt

There were some scraps left of Northport prints and wovens after I made my 3 quilts for International Quilt Market.  I decided to make an EPP (English Paper Pieced) quilt with them.

 The picture isn't very good. I JUST got the border sewn on and since thunderstorms are threatening here - I quickly took a picture before it was pressed.  Thunderstorms. Again. Poor Gibby doesn't like them at all.

 The quilt has 9 stars and 3 half stars in this setting.  The border is 7" wide and it finishes at 67" x 78"

This is how the pieces are arranged to make the star block.   

 And this is how they are set....

The hexagon is 1" size and each block uses 1 hexagon.  The half-hexagon is a 1" half hexagon and you will need 16 for each block.  The 3" equilateral triangle is next and you need 6 for each block.  The 3" diamond (60 degree) will call for 6 in each block.  The 6" equilateral triangle is the 6 blue triangles that surround each block.  Finally - you need 6" diamonds (60 degree) for the setting - the red large diamonds.  It all depends on how you set the block together as to how many of these large 6" diamonds you need.  For this quilt I needed 35 - plus 3 half diamonds. 

All the paper templates and the acrylic templates to cut the fabric came from Paper Pieces. 

I'll be posting more on techniques later this week.

Laters,

Laurie