Author name: Melissa Dunworth

Owner/Operator

A Thank You Note

17 Comments / Personal Post / By

I have had so many wonderful people in my life come to our side and aid since my hubs deployed to Afghanistan. The support of all my wonderful twitter and facebook friends, all of my wonderful blogging friends, you have all touched my heart in so many ways.

One of my wonderful friends that I met through a group on facebook, Jessica, sent Anne the most touching gift. Jessica owns and operates Noguchi Designs. She makes clothes, dolls, toys and recently got into quilting.  She emailed me right before my hubs left and said that she wanted to send Anne a deployment present. I had no idea what she was going to send and she just blew me away!

This is a Bubba Doll.  He didn’t come with the name tape – we happened to have an extra one at my parents house (don’t ask me why, I’m not really sure why it was here).  His uniform is made from an actual ACU top and it even has a pocket in the back so you can put a picture of daddy in there.  He came with his own birth certificate and care instructions. All that aside, he just made my baby girl’s day!

Anne and her bubba doll have been inseparable. Since he arrived. They nap and sleep together.  They even play angry birds together.

Thank you to everyone for all of your support this past month, we are at 34 days and counting.

Today is the last day to enter the Fat Quarter Shop giveaway for a layer cake of Quilt Blocks – make sure you head on over and do that! I will be closing the comments later tonight and announcing a winner tomorrow morning before we head back home to Washington.

Feathered Star Tutorial – Part 2

10 Comments / block tutorials, Fat Quarter Shop, Feathered Star, tutorial / By

Welcome back for part 2 of the Feathered Star Tutorial – this will be assembly.  I have done an all picture tutorial for you – I am a visual learner and for a technique like this I think it will be really helpful. If you are looking for part one (cutting) – go here.

NOTE: ¼” seams are of vital importance for this block.  Check that you are using an accurate seam allowance BEFORE you start piecing this block. ALSO! Be sure that you do not stretch the triangles when sewing them.

We will start with putting together the HSTs that you made yesterday following the 2 wonderful tutorials I linked to: I recommend chain piecing your pairs together for speed.

 

The star points are assembled in pairs. Here is the layout before for each pair, you will make 4 sets.

Starting with the right side point, you will assemble the diamond section first:

Assemble the left section the same way, except you will need to reverse the pieces

Next assemble the right side center section:

Add left side of center section:

Make sure that you stop sewing at where the sections meet (1/4” from end)

Add inside triangles:

Add diamond sections:

Add top triangle, start with the left side:

Next sew right side:

Make center “peekaboo diamond”:

Assemble the border for the center section:

You have now assembled all of the sections – you are ready to layout your block – it is a basic 9 patch now! Sew it up and you are done!!!

 

 

The first time I assembled this block it took me 3 days, but keep in mind that I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a tutorial for the block that I designed, I just went with it.  I have now made 3 of these and the third one took me 2 nap times to assemble (that’s about 4 hours total) – 1 nap time to cut, 1 nap time to sew. I measure all my sewing time in nap times 🙂

Good luck and if you make one of these from my tutorial I would love to see it and if you have any questions, please let me know! And don’t forget to enter the Fat Quarter Shop giveaway for a Layer Cake of Quilt Blocks – which is what I am using to make my feathered stars!

I’m linking up to SewHappyGeek Manic Monday and Quilting by the River Tuesday Linky Party.

Feathered Star Tutorial – Part 1

13 Comments / block tutorials, Fat Quarter Shop, Feathered Star, Marsha McCloskey, tutorial / By

Let’s start out with a little disclaimer…this block looks intimidating and scary, but once you break it into small sections, it really isn’t that hard. Especially if you use the bias strip piecing method for the HSTs – I am sending you to 2 fabulous tutorials.

I am going to show this tutorial in 2 parts, cutting with links for the HSTs and then assembling on Tuesday. I think that will be a good break, as cutting takes me a good while.

Finished block size – 15.5”x15.5”

You will need:

2 Squares: 10×10” of focus fabrics
Scraps from 4 different fabrics
Peekaboo fabric for center – 4.5″ square
White Background fabric
Sewing Machine
10×10 inch quilting ruler
Quilting Ruler with 45⁰ lines on it
Nice to have but not necessary: 45⁰ Ruler by EZ Quilting or Marsha McCloskey Feathered Star Ruler

Cutting White Fabrics: Everything is pictured with the Feathered Star Ruler – but you can easily cut these with the 10” ruler listed above.

Using Larger 10×10 ruler to cut next one:

Simple Squares

Using 45⁰ Ruler – cut diamond shapes – 8 total

Using standard quilting ruler marked with 45⁰ markings:

Cutting for center square:

Half Square Triangles (HSTs):

I used the Bias Strip Piecing method to assemble my HSTs. I learned this method from 2 fabulous tutorials. One by Erin at One Piece at a Time and the other by Molly at It’s Molly’s Place (you will need to scroll down a bit to get to the triangles).

For this block you will need 32 HSTs measuring 1.5”. You will use the two 10”x10” squares for this – the part that is confusing from both tutorials is how wide to cut your strips – follow their method for cutting and sewing and cut your strips 2” wide.

Come back tomorrow and I will show you how to put it all together! And don’t forget to enter the Fat Quarter Shop giveaway for a Layer Cake of Quilt Blocks – which is what I am using to make my feathered stars!

Ole Frog Eyes Update!

6 Comments / Lily Pad Quilting, Ole Frog Eyes, product review / By

Happy Sunday Everyone! I know I’m usually not here on Sunday’s but today I just had to come and share something cool and fun with you!  Do you remember back in March I did a review of Ole Frog Eyes web tool?  Well, I finally paid for my year long subscription and just in time too! Guess what was released on Friday?!? The drag and drop feature I recommended was implemented! I know I am not the only person who asked for the feature and I also know that it was something that they had been working on for quite some time and I am just so excited to use it! I have already finished my quilt top from the Sew Happy Geek QAL, but I decided to log in to Ole Frog Eyes and play around with the lay out yesterday…mainly because it was so EASY!

Here is my original – and yes all these pictures will be screen shots so you can see what I did.

Hover over the block you want to move and place your mouse on the green icon (looks like a wrench).

Click on the wrench, hold the button down, and then you can drag you block where ever you want!

and Voila! The block is moved!

I am so excited about this new feature. We head back to Washington on Friday where I have a bunch of purple bee blocks and my month of Sew Bee Blissful waiting to be photographed and loaded up. I can’t wait to start playing with potential quilt layouts – it is going to be a million times easier now!

Thanks for listening Snoodles and the Ole Frog Eyes Team!

PS. This is not a sponsored post – I am posting it because I love this product and wanted to share with all of you!

 

Marsha McCloskey’s Feather Star Ruler Review

11 Comments / Fat Quarter Shop, Marsha McCloskey, product review / By

Happy Friday Everyone! As you all know I have spent the last 2 weeks working on Feathered Star blocks – I now have 3 completed and with each one I get faster and the look better.  At the beginning of the month Fat Quarter Shop sent me Marsha McCloskey’s Feathered Star Ruler to play with and I have definitely enjoyed it!

So I will start out with, I have NEVER done a Feathered Star block before and all I knew for sure was that there were going to be some challenging seams in this block. When the ruler arrived there were 4 pages of instructions, which I really appreciated, but the one thing I really hoped would be in there but wasn’t is a pattern or block tutorial.  This was somewhat disappointing because as I said…I’ve NEVER done a Feathered Star block before.  Well, you know me…I’m resourceful!  I started scouring the web for tutorials, I found 2 that were excellent (I will share them both with you on Monday), and finally I went to Electric Quilt 7. I went into the block library and found that there were 16 blocks in the library!  I took one and changed it a bit to fit my personal style.

I learned how to make the half square triangles from the 2 blogs mentioned above – they use an awesome technique I had never heard of before, bias strip HSTs. Awesome for small piecing.  The rest I took into my own hands.

The cool thing about this ruler is that it is designed specifically for these blocks. Almost every single piece of fabric you have to cut for this block is an eighth or sixteenth measurement. This ruler has these measurements from 7/8″ to 4 3/16″.

Things I like:

  • There are four sections on this ruler that give you different cutting measurements
  • Each section has a line down the center – this is perfect for cutting triangles – and you have to cut A LOT Of triangles for this block!
  • The included cutting instructions mentioned the bias strip HST method that I spoke of above – because of this I have learned a whole new method that I will use forever!
  • While I could use a regular cutting ruler to cut these blocks, this ruler guarantees accuracy because it has sixteenth inch measurements on it. It is the only ruler I have seen with measurements that small.
  • I see this ruler being useful with lots of different blocks, especially ones that involve triangles.

Areas for Improvement:

  • This is the first ruler I have ever used that did not come with a tutorial or pattern. That was disappointing, but on the upside I have became self-sufficient and figured out a difficult block, pieced it and made it my own.

Final Thoughts:

Ignoring the fact that there is no pattern, this is a good product. It can be used for Feathered Stars and other projects as well.  I would recommend it with the caveat that there is no pattern so you will need to find a tutorial or purchase a pattern if you would like to make a Feathered Star.  On Monday I will have a tutorial for the one that I made above.

If you haven’t already, make sure you go enter the giveaway from Fat Quarter Shop for a Quilt Blocks Layer Cake – it is the same fabric that I used to create the stars above.

Scroll to Top