I have Spring Fever!

Spring Fever quilt pattern from the Buggy Barn book, Certifiably Crazy

 Last month i taught the 'Buggy Barn Way' technique. Click HERE to view my tutorial post.  And shown below is my finished quilt. 

Trinity Quilt clubbers...i'm bringing it to show this coming Sunday!

The Buggy Barn Way

Update January 2015

In the Fall of 2014, The Buggy Barn closed their doors....so sad  :/

 Their books can still be found today via a Google search.

I'm getting ready to teach a great technique, a unique technique!  It's The Buggy Barn Way.   Trinity Quilt Club will be learning this nifty way to piece together blocks.  After teaching a whole year and then some of the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, this will be a breeze!  Very forgiving, no need to stress over seams that don't line up 

and the blocks are big!  

Here is the beginning of my Spring Fever quilt.

Trace the pattern onto Freezer Paper and iron on to a stack of Fat Quarters layered in a specific order.

Using a large Rotary Cutter, cut through the stack of Fat Quarters (FQ).  Depending on the amount of FQ's needed, one may want to divide the pile into a manageable thickness for cutting.

In this particular pattern, the pattern is stitched together in quadrants. Each quadrant in the photo above has 5 separate pieces to be stitched together.

Shown below are the lower quadrants A and B.

 Square up ONLY the sides you will be stitching together.  I just simply placed the ruler on two areas that matched, and trimmed the rest. In the picture above, both A and B quadrants are trimmed and ready to stitch together.

 Once they are stitched together, again trim ONLY the side which will be sewn to the trimmed quadrant C and D.

 Once the sections are trimmed and ready to sew together, pin the middle intersection and i throw a couple extra pins in just to keep the block from shifting.  You can see how uneven it is! 

 Not to worry one bit!

Below is the block stitched together ready to be trimmed to the appropriate size.  My pattern said to trim it to 11.5", but my blocks are easily trimmed to 12".  

There is no sashing or border added to this quilt.  It calls for a total of 30 blocks, 5 across and 6 down. My mother-in-law gave me scraps from her stash over Christmas. I rummaged through them last week and found enough of the plaid and the farmer/strawberry fabric, added the white fabric from my stash and am making this for my little grand niece Sammy, for a drag around quilt.  Sammy's quilt will be 3 blocks across and 4 blocks down for a total of 12 blocks. I will add a border to make it a bit larger.  

Click Here to view the finished quilt 

The Paisley Pincushion

 Yesterday at our monthly quilt gathering I introduced everyone to a

 line of apron patterns from 

The Paisley Pincushion. 

This pattern company is owned by my high school friend, Katie. 

Katie was always known in high school for her art and her smile.  I thought apron making would be a great diversion from quilting and there would be  plenty of time to make one or two for Christmas parties or as gifts. Katie brought samples and here they are modeled by my quilt'n friends!

 Laura wearing Bloomin' Apron.  

This one is my favorite!!  

My friend Cindy has some old Dresden's from her grandmother that would be perfect!

 and here is Jean wearing Queen of Hearts

My favorite neighbor Sue showing off the Shopkeeper Apron

(she had surgery on her foot...therefore the black sock) 

Cindy modeling the Short Stack Apron

(love my friend Cindy!)

Me...with my Blue Plate Special

Miss Jan look'n all sassy wearing the Shopkeeper (pattern shown above)

 My high school friend Cheryl in the 

Busy Bias Apron

 Toni and her son Avi modeling 

The Worker Bee Aprons

Some aprons come with mother/daughter sets and even doll size aprons!

A couple more aprons: 

 Reversible Apron Pattern

and the Scalloped Apron,

 another one of my favorites!

If you are interested in purchasing any of these apron patterns or other fun patterns by:

Click HERE for the official website.

Now, I would like to proudly introduce my niece Hayley.  Hayley lives just a couple blocks from me and expressed an interest in having a quilt made.   I think she thought i would make it, (and i totally would) but how much more fun for me if she wanted to learn??!!  So this past week Hayley has been cutting out her blocks to make the pattern 

'Hip to be Square' and joined me yesterday at the Trinity Quilt Gathering.  I think she may be catching a bug...quilting bug that is.  She already has a keen eye for color and blessed with artistic talent.  She is 19, the youngest in our quilt club!!

Welcome Hayley!

Judith's Altar Cloth

Gathered for the Trinity Quilt Club retreat this past Friday and Saturday.  

Many of us were working on

 The Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks...

and others worked on their own projects.

Judith finished this beautiful 

Pentecostal Altar Cloth for our church.  

She was a bit (but not too much) concerned with the sequin 'bling' on the dove.

  I told her the Holy Spirit is full of Bling!

This is incredibly stunning Judith...thank you for sharing your talent! 

(click on this photo to enlarge)

 

 Moving on to some Farmer Wife blocks...here is what i accomplished in two days!

The following two blocks were made using the paper piecing method.  I always struggle getting my brain around this method.  I don't know why it takes me sooo long to get in the groove....I mentioned to the group i did not know which side of my brain was not functioning when using this method...Laura piped up and said it might be both sides.  I actually have to agree with her comment!  :) 

 At any rate, they turned out!!

Block #82  Spider Legs

 Block #105  Wild Goose Chase

   This next block uses 'Y' seams.  I will post a tutorial later on how this is done.  

The FW blocks are small and it takes a bit of patience to accomplish this method.

Block #10  Bowtie

The last block was an easy one to piece. 

 A simple 'Magic 8' method 

(tutorial on my side bar)

makes 8 half square triangles. 

Block #88  Star of Hope

We had 18-20 quilters this weekend...

and 1 observer.