finish it up Friday, week 17

Welcome to finish it up Friday!

What a week I've had!! Today is the first day of the week that everyone in my family has been to school/work. We've had illness, snow/ice day, kindergarten registration day (therefore no school for my kindergartener). It's been....interesting. :)

All that to say, I don't have much to share today. But I did manage to finish my February bee blocks for the Two's Company quilt bee. These flying geese blocks are for Jackie. I've done more paper piecing in this bee than I had anticipated. But that's great! It keeps me from getting rusty. Now I just need to mail them! Why does that seem to be the hardest part of a bee? Or is it just me?

Now it's your turn! Link up your finishes for the week and then go visit some others and cheer them on, too. Thanks for linking up with me. Happy Friday!

paper piecing

Can you believe that I paper pieced this block with less than a fat quarter of background fabric? I did and I can hardly believe it!

This block was made for Mary as a part of the Two's Company Bee. Thanks to some tips from the group members (and a phone call with Tara), I was able to make this block with less than a fat quarter of red fabric. As one who hates to waste fabric, this got me pretty excited!!

What I did was cut out the templates from paper, then add 3/8" around each piece. I numbered the pattern pieces to correspond to the pattern of the block. I folded my background fabric into 4 layers and fit the pattern pieces on the fabric like a puzzle before cutting anything out. Then I cut very, VERY carefully. I was skeptical as to how it would work to paper piece with pre-cut pieces, but it went so well! I still had to do some trimming after I added each piece, but the wasted fabric was so minimal, I was truly amazed! And it was easier to see where to place your fabric piece, because you didn't have to deal with any extra bulk. I'm excited to try it again sometime! I'm by no means an expert on paper piecing, but I know enough to get by. I'm feeling pretty happy to have a new trick up my sleeve!

Speaking of paper piecing, Penny is teaching a paper piecing retreat again this year. I was able to attend last year and it was a blast. You may want to check it out!

Happy Monday to you!

Mary's quilt

Yesterday afternoon I was hanging this quilt up on my rain gutter on the side of my house (for my third round attempt at a decent photo) and a lady was walking by with her young children. She stopped to ask me if I made the quilt. It turns out she is a quilter, too, and new to the neighborhood. We chatted a little bit and I invited her to our little neighborhood quilting group next month! What a fun surprise to meet yet another quilting friend on my street. So, maybe it IS good that I am the crazy quilt lady in the neighborhood trying to get that one decent shot of the quilt for the old blog. :)

I made this quilt for my friend (and yet another neighbor) Mary, with the help of my lovely Two's Company Bee members. Thanks so much, ladies!! I couldn't have done it without you! It turned out to be such a bright and happy quilt, don't you think?

I requested red, aqua and white maverick stars, and I got such a beautiful variety of blocks back. Each bee member so graciously added a few of their own fabrics in their block, which helped make this a scrappier quilt. Just what I was after! If you ask me, this is THE PERFECT bee block. It's easy, it doesn't use a ton of fabric, each person can add their own personality, but the blocks are still unified with all the others in the end. That's just my 2 cents. :)

I pieced the back, of course. The center print was in my stash and it was wide enough to cover the width of the quilt with a few inches to spare. There was just enough leftover after trimming to add a strip or two to my scrap bucket. Sweet! I added a solid aqua and a white and blue dot for the rest. I LOVE this back!

I stippled the quilt in white thread and machine bound it (yay!) with this leaf print. Instead of using my normal warm and natural batting, (I didn't want the flecks to show through all the light fabrics), I used some Fairfied 80/20 batting that I had on hand. It has no flecks, but it has a higher loft. That made me nervous, because I was afraid of puckers. (Been there, done that!) All went well with the quilting, thankfully, and after washing, the loft settled down just a touch so it is the perfect thickness. Unfortunately, one of the stars bled (boo-hoo), but with all the variety of reds, I guess I wasn't surprised. (Yes, I did use a color catcher, but it didn't help.) It really didn't bother me too much. Like we say a lot in our house, "It is what it is." :)

The quilt measures 60" x 72", which is a perfect lap quilt. I gave it to Mary yesterday, (which was so fun!!!) and she loved it. Hurray!

setting seams

I made this bee block for Bonnie yesterday and all the while I was thinking, 'boy, i sure could benefit from a precision piecing class.' Those little red blocks finish at 1" square! The block is 9.5" total. That leaves very little room for error. I love piecing tiny things, but I definitely have room for improvement in the accuracy department.

Just as I was finishing up this block, I recalled reading/hearing about setting seams. (There is a short video here that explains it well.) I was somewhat skeptical, having tried it in the past and didn't notice a big difference. I decided to give it another try yesterday (what did I have to lose?) and you know what? I really do think it helps. I just might be a convert.

So now I'm curious...do you set your seams? Do you think it helps? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

asterisk block

This block is for my dear friend, Tara, for the brand spankin' new Two's Company Quilting Bee. The red and white quilting bee was the brainchild of my friend Andrea, and I'm so happy to be a part of it! The block was actually designed by my friend Penny. This also doubles as my Fancy Block for the week, a paper piecing challenge that I am doing with my friend Melinda. I LOVE my quilting friends and I love quilting WITH my friends, even if it is virtually most of the time. :)

Hope you are having a happy Saturday!