Fat Quarter Shop

April Bee Blocks

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Last month I did bee blocks for the Trust Circle of Do. Good Stitches and for Sew Bee Blissful. I really love how all of the blocks turned out and it was really hard parting with the ones for Sew Bee Blissful.

The blocks are for my bee mate Contented Caroline and she says the fabrics are Tilda fabrics from a range called Summer Blues, aren’t they gorgeous!

The first quarter of the other 2 bees I am in has come to an end, and the 2nd quarter starts tomorrow. Here are the blocks I collected from my incredibly talented bee mates:

May is my month for Sew Bee Blissful. I bought my fabrics from Julie at Intrepid Thread. She helped me pick out some manly prints from the Ty Pennington Impressions line. This is going to end up being a quilt for my husband. Everyone is following the Fireflies tutorial that I shared during my Christmas Sampler and Jenna’s Sew Happy Quilt Along.

Today is the last day to enter the Fat Quarter Shop giveaway for Flock by Thomas Knauer! Go enter!

 

Easy Dresden Ruler Review and Mini Tute

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Dresden Plates are hugely popular right now across the blogosphere. Everywhere you look you will find a Dresden Plate. The first one I ever made was on Jenna from Sew Happy Geek’s QAL. I really loved how it turned out and thought it would be great to try a few more projects with them.  During the giveaway from Fat Quarter Shop last month I asked everyone what notion they wanted to try most and one of the top listed was the Easy Dresden Ruler.

The Easy Dresden Ruler is another ruler designed by Darlene Zimmerman and can I just say that she knows what she is doing! You may remember she is also the person who designed the Tri-Recs Rulers that I loved so much!

The ruler comes with cutting instructions and for the standard Dresden Plate. Like this Big Fat Dresden by Lily’s Quilts:

Big Fat Dresden by Lily's Quilts

The cutting instructions help you cut wedges 2″ all the way up to 8″ at 1/2″ intervals.

There are also included instructions for Dresden Fans, here is the one I made following Jenna’s tutorial for the Sew. Happy. Quilt.

The included instructions again are for wedges 2″ all the way up to 8″ at 1/2″ intervals. The block size is 1/2 the finished size of the wedge plates.

Also included, a pattern for a quilt, and then 5 different suggested projects without measurements or instructions.  There is also a guide for cutting rounded tops on the edges. There is an image for a tumbler quilt and that is where I got the inspiration for my Flock Quilt that I made for Anne last week and finished quilting Tuesday.

This is the epitome of a mini tutorial, sorry about that, but I didn’t take any pictures, luckily it is so easy you do not really need them!

  1. You will need five 1/4 yard cuts of your favorite fabric – I used Flock by Thomas Kanuer and 3/4″ yard of a coordinating solid – I used Bella Porcelain.
  2. From each 1/4 yard, cut twelve 8″ wedges using the Easy Dresden Ruler.
  3. From the solid cut two 5.5″ by WOF strips and four 3.5″ by WOF strips.
  4. Each tumbler row is 20 wedges sewn randomly together – make 3 tumbler rows – press seams open.
  5. Assemble your top – use image as a guide
  6. You will need approximately 1.25 yards for a backing and I used a crib size batting. I haven’t bound it yet, but I will be purchasing 1/2″ yard of fabric for the binding.

Easy Peasy!

Things I like:

  • The instructions are very clear and complete with lots of suggested projects
  • Block sizes for the wedge plates – 8″ to 20″ and block sizes for the fan plates – 4″ to 10″. Making the tool incredibly versatile!
  • Free pattern included – it is a small wall hanging size pattern and is perfect to really learn the technique
  • When using it for tumblers it would be great for quilts and borders alike

Area’s for Improvement:

  • The circle center and rounded top stencils do not come with instructions explaining resizing for different sized wedges. This is something that could use improvement.

Final Thoughts:

The Easy Dresden Ruler is worth every penny. I see lots of projects in my future utilizing this tool.  Do you have this ruler?  Do you like it? If not, you can purchase one from Fat Quarter Shop. I would love to know if you make Anne’s new Flock Quilt!

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway from Fat Quarter Shop to win one of two Flock Fat Quarter Bundles!

 

 

 

Sponsor Highlight: Fat Quarter Shop & Giveaway

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Fat Quarter Shop – known throughout our blogging community as having one of the widest selections of fabric, notions, patterns and pretty much anything the modern sewist needs.  One of the things that I love is that they have a HUGE selection of Specialty Cuts: Fat Quarter Bundles, Fat Eighth Bundles, Charm Packs, Jelly Rolls, and Layer Cakes.

I love pre-cuts and specialty cuts  – they are great for quick and easy baby quilts, especially the Charm Packs, Jelly Rolls and Layer Cakes. I also love that you can pick up a small amount of an entire line. The best part about pre-cuts is that there are patterns written specifically for them! Buy a layer cake, get a layer cake pattern and you have a quick and easy quilt.

Check out this great pattern from Jenna at Sew Happy Geek:

Pick this pattern up with a Layer Cake

Say Walk in the Woods, and you have a quick and easy quilt you can whip up.

Now I love Fat Quarter Bundles because you get a fairly good sized cut of fabric for each print in a line. Check out these Fat Quarter Bundles of Flock by Thomas Knauer

I like the idea of being able to have an entire line available to me to mix and match at will in a project.  Fat Quarter Shop sent me a EZ Dresden Ruler and five 1/4 yard cuts of flock at the beginning of the month and here is a sneak peak of what I came up with.

Would you like to win some Flock? Fat Quarter Shop is generously giving away 2 Fat Quarter Bundles, one of each colorway!

How can you enter? (you must be a follower to enter)

  1. Head over to Fat Quarter Shop and tell me your favorite “Specialty Cut”(ie. designer and line) – leave me a link
  2. Follow me on Facebook or on Twitter, come back and tell me.
  3. Spread the word – blog, facebook, or tweet about this giveaway, come back and tell me.

Two awesome prizes and 3 chances to win. This giveaway will be open through 9pm Pacific Time on May 1st and I will announce the winners on May 2nd.  Come back tomorrow for a review on the Dresden Plate Ruler and a mini tute on the quilt I made!

 

I love Saturdays

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There are lots of things to love about Saturdays but one of my favorite things is that I announce giveaway winners on Saturdays.

This week Fat Quarter Shop was so wonderful in giving away a fat quarter bundle of Historia Avalon.

They also gave away a set of Carol Doak’s Foundation Papers.

So to start this weekend off with a bang…the winner is:

Author: Crystal
Comment:I follow you on FB.

Crystal, I will be emailing you later in the day. Congratulations!

If you weren’t a big winner this week, check back on Monday, I have another fun giveaway up my sleeve for you!

 

Star & Dot Wall Hanging Tutorial

9 Comments / Fat Quarter Shop, Giveaway, Paper Piecing, quilt, tutorial / By

This is block is called Star & Dot and is attributed to “Comfort” from the year 1910.

You will want to download the cutting templates and the paper piecing templates.
(Please let me know if you have any trouble downloading these files – I would be happy to email them to you as well.)

You will need:

Helpful Supplies Include:

  • Fabric Glue Stick
  • Pins
  • Light Box or hiking head lamp

I like to start by lowering my stitch length; this makes it easier to tear off the paper when you are done with your piecing. I lower mine down to 1.6.

Using your cutting templates, with the fabric right side up, cut the following (I like to cut mine slightly larger (about 1/8”) than the templates – gives you a little wiggle room):

White – 16 pieces with A2
Black – 16 pieces with B2
Black Medium Diamond – 8 pieces with A1
Black Medallion – 8 pieces with A1
Blue Medium Diamond – 8 pieces with B1
Blue Floral Medium – 8 pieces with B1

Starting with the B Sections follow the picture tutorial:

If you have a clear plastic sewing table – like the one that came standard with my machine, I recommend putting a light underneath it – this will help you arrange your pieces to be perfectly in line with your paper piecing template.

As you can see in the picture below, the bright light from underneath will help you align your pieces and it allows you to not only sew at night when you can’t look out your window for natural light, it also saves fabric – you can more precisely line things up and won’t have to use big pieces.

You are now ready to sew!

NOTE: It is important that you sew each piece in the order, I’ve listed – this will help you match up your seams when you piece your sections together!

Make all 16 of the paper pieces.  Then bust out your iron and press the sections down.

Cut your sections apart along the outer dotted lines.

Remove your paper backing – if you are using the Carol Doak’s Foundation Papers, they will virtually fall off!  Don’t worry, with a small enough stitch length regular printer paper will come off fairly easily too.

Next, pull out your diagram and match up your sections, place them in two piles – white pile and black pile.

Remember how I had you sew your sections together in a VERY specific way…this is because it will make joining your sections super easy. Your seams will lock together.

I love chain piecing, I think I have said that about 10 other times on this blog, and here again I am employing it. If you don’t already chain piece, I would highly recommend it! Saves lots of time!

You will have sixteen 6 inch blocks, I press mine open and trim the dog ears.

Next layout your blocks and sew your stars together.

NOTE: When sewing your squares into blocks – it is more important that seams match up rather than the squares fit perfectly together. The seams matching up (interlocking together) is what will give you the perfect star points!

Time to quilt! I used black thread to quilt mine so it would blend in nicely. White would have stood out beautifully and made a great statement, but I wanted the quilting to blend.

You will need three strips for the binding in a solid blue. Feel free to follow my binding tutorial.

Bind and voila!

If you are not a fan of this particular design, here are a few other options, all made with the same paper pieced template and the same number of segments.

 

Enjoy! And if you end up making anything from one of my tutorials I would love to see it!

Make sure you enter to win the Fat Quarter Shop giveaway that I am hosting – you could win a Fat Quarter Bundle of Avalon AND a set of Carol Doak’s Foundation Papers.

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