Lasso The Moon

A Quilty Link

Just popping in today to point you to a quilting blog I just learned about, Piecemeal Quilts.

Sandi is relatively new at quilting (2003) but her blog is full in information, history, design, and great ideas on the subject. 

Here's the post she just wrote on Log Cabin Quilting.

And at the very end, you might see a familiar name...

Here's what she wrote about my style of log cabin contruction:

Here’s another version that uses bright, saturated colors, by Anna at Lasso The Moon. You can see photos of the finished quilt in her Flickr photostream, but I really like how this photo of the blocks shows the variety of colors. What I find interesting with these blocks is that she used two colors in each block, but built one color around a center of the other color.

And here's the link to my original post on the process of improv log cabins.  Thanks for the mention, Sandi!

Oops

Everybody makes mistakes.

Case in point:

 

I thought I could finish piecing the entire thing in one evening, and I was playing this game with myself (my dad used to do this on car trips.)  Okay, now I am 1/5 of the way finished.  Ooh.  Now I'm 20% done.  Somehow if you occupy your brain with a little math, the task itself seems less mundane. 

At this point I was so excited to announce to Donnie that I was 80% (even though it was nearly midnight) that I sewed one whole strip on backwards.

 

Do you think anyone will notice?

I have a rule that if I make a little mistake, just pick it out and barrel through.  But if I'm tired and I make a big mistake, it's time to stop for the night.  I'll pick it out and fix it in the morning.

Getting close

I have been sewing until my fingers are just nubs, and now I'm trimming and laying out the squares. 

 

Isn't the illusion of the diamonds lovely?  Sigh.

It's nice to take a breather and admire the progress...okay, back to work!

ZZzzzooooooooommmm!

That's the sound of my sewing machine lately.

Before trimming:

 

After trimming:

 

The center of each square is kona "stone" and it is the same fabric I used on Ethan's bunk quilt top.  There will be many more squares in this quilt, so I used a thinner strip, one inch.

These are so fun to make, but exhausting!  I have to make each color combo 6 times, and with five colors, that makes 60 squares total.  I've been trying to do all one color in one sitting, but even that is a beating.  I had to make 24 of each half-square.  So of the blue triangles, 6 will pair with orange, six with green, six with brown, and six with yellow.  Ok, I think I've shared too much.  I might have to write a pattern when this is done, just to keep the details straight!

Sometimes you need a plan

I have mentioned before that I prefer any project that kind of plans itself.  If I have to pre-cut 1000 squares for a quilt, I'm likely to run out of steam and never piece them together.  It's just a tendency that I've learned to live with, so I avoid anything with tons of prep work. 

And that's why I love the idea of the string quilt with its paper foundations.  It's a kind of plan-as-you-go style that suits me perfectly.  But don't get me wrong--these are not shot-in-the-dark-grab-a-scrap-out-of-the-bag-and-use-whatever-comes-out projects.  They are carefully designed...by the seat of my pants.

But then I came up with the design for this string quilt for the top bunk:

 

The sketch is so, well, sketchy because I had to keep redrawing the thing to get it right.  If you look closely, each square (mine will be 9 1/2 inches) is actually two different colors, so I'll have to refer to this "map" constantly as I piece the squares. 

Here's an idea of what they will look like.

 

Yeah, sometimes you need a plan.

One Down

I was going to put one down, one to go...but I have learned that after you get a quilty success or two under your belt, your mind starts to discover all sorts of needs around the house for anything quilted.  So as far as the kids' bunk beds go, one down, one to go.

 

This is the finished top for the bottom bunk.  I mentioned before that there were tons of strips left over from this one, so I'm jumping right into the second quilt top.  Then I'll decide on backing and quilt them both at once.  ( Well, one after the other.  If anyone knows of a way to quilt simultaneously, let me know!!) 

I'll share the design for the next one soon.  It's much more complicated than this one was!

Sashed

 

Still working!

WIP (Work in Progress)

Just a few peeks at the progress.

 

All the blocks have been sewn together, but they still need to be trimmed.

cutting 2-inch strips for the sashing.  I used the Kona color, "stone".  (I think that's what I used!!  We were only in the fabric store for a few minutes, and I had  both kids in tow.  It's kind of a blur.)  It pulls everything together and makes the quilt look more boyish.

The strips that were left over after the last log cabin was finished.  I'll use these as the start of the "top bunk" quilt, not yet decided as far as pattern goes.

Back to the sewing room.  See you later! 

A solid start

A peek at the progress.

 

 

These are so much fun to make!  I should be done in no time...

Starting Something New

When I saw this shower curtain at Target the other day, I think my heart skipped a beat.  Sometimes something is just so right, it's impossible to resist.  And that's how I feel about this shower curtain.  But it's not for any shower in our house.  I'm going to cut it and sew it into some curtains for my kids' room windows.

 

But before I do that, there is another project that is calling my name.  My kids have always shared a bed, but that's getting a little crowded these days, and it's taking longer for them to get to sleep with all the he-hit-me and the she's-on-my-side-of-the-bed conflict.  That should all be resolved with the addition of bunk beds to the room sometime this month.  And with new beds, come new blankets.   That's where the new project comes in. 

I've been wanting to tone down my fabric stash for a while, and have had some success, but this should really make a serious dent.  I'm making two twin-sized quilts, and I plan to buy as little fabric for them as possible.  Here are some of the fabrics I've pulled for the project so far:

LOVE this color scheme!

The plan for the first one is another "string cabin" style quilt, but with really big blocks--16 1/2 inches each.  And there will be 3 block across and 3 blocks down.  And sashing in some neutral color between each block.  Although I don't love preplanning, I thought a simple sketch would help with the math, and to know how many of each I wanted.

 

As you can see, even the sketch has been altered already.  But I think I'll be happy I did it anyway. 

See the first bits of progress tomorrow.