Marsha McCloskey

Weekend Sewing

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I have been doing a lot of weekend sewing lately.  Quick and simple projects that offer me some instant gratification – I love instant gratification! Most of these pictures have already been up on my Facebook page, but I thought I would share a little more about the projects I have been working on and not blogging about. There are way more than this, but these are finished and photographed!

One of my wonderful blogging friends, Eileen, and I had a conversation about hand embroidery back in June and she oh so generously offered to send me a little starter kit to learn some of the basic stitches.  When I opened it I was blown away. There was a hoop, 2 patterns, 2 pieces of muslin with tons of stitches done to show me, 2 needles, a needle threader, and TONS of thread (both perle cotton and floss).  I was so excited but as you all know in July my hands took a turn for the worse.  Well this month I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and I gave the hand embroidery a try and I am now officially ADDICTED!

This is my first project and I have to tell you I was so tickled when I finished it. I don’t know why but it was a BIG deal to me, probably because I really thought I wouldn’t be able to do this. I have a lot more embroidery stuff to share with you and even the find of the year, but that will all have to wait for a future post!

Another project I worked on was for my hands to bring myself a little relief. I made myself a booboo bag. I know I’m kind of old for one, but ice packs make me really uncomfortable so I thought a flannel covering with a flax seed filled muslin bag might feel a little better on my wrists.  I love it because I can throw it in the freezer and it just feels so good on my aching hands and wrists.

I decided to go with the super cute and kid friendly fabric in the hopes that if Anne needs to use it she will be enamored with the bunnies (she loves bunnies) and will be willing to have it on her booboo.

The last project I am going to share with you is Anne’s new art apron! I followed the wonderful Smock Monster Pattern by Rebecca Ruth Designs. It was super easy and came together beautifully. The cool thing is that when I went to my LQS, Ruby Street Quiltworks in Tumwater, WA to find the ric rac I needed, the person who helped me color match…was Rebecca herself!  She works at Ruby Street. She is just the sweetest lady ever. Check out Anne modeling the 5T size.

Now you  may be asking yourself…”where is the monster exactly?” Well I did option E of the pattern which is just a basic pocket. I was working with laminate – a first for me – and I wanted simple and doable.  Anne loved the apron so much she wore it for about 4 hours straight and only took it off when I told her it was time to take a bath!

So I told you that last week was a rough one. We had to deal with some ongoing health issues for Anne and that is never easy. Hard to explain to a 2 year old that the tests are painful and uncomfortable but absolutely necessary for her well being. She doesn’t care about those things, she only cares that someone is hurting her (and I don’t blame her one bit!). Well on Thursday we got to meet one of my wonderful blogging friends and bee mates in person, the wonderful CeLynn from The Sunflower Patch.  It was so cool to put a face with a name!  We went fabric shopping and in the middle I got a phone call from the doctor  and CeLynn was awesome enough to go with us to the lab to pick up stuff for Anne’s testing.

Then on Sunday I realized that the Pacific West Quilt Show going on in Tacoma, WA- a 45 minute drive later and Anne & I were surrounded by some amazing eye candy!  The coolest part, aside from buying a ton of thread from Superior Threads, was meeting Marsha McCloskey – author and designer of the Feathered Star books and ruler that I blogged about back in May! I bought 2 more of her rulers AND she gave me a copy of one of her books! How cool is she!!! Here is a picture of the 2 of us in front of one of her stunning quilts:

And so long as I kept the snacks at the ready…Anne seemed to have a good time too!

Ok, you’ve heard enough from me for one day. Tomorrow I will have a post up about a fun blog hop I will be participating in next month, so be sure to check in.  Also, if you haven’t already I am have a fun giveaway up as part of the Quilting Gallery Blog Hop, so make sure you go enter, there are 6 Amy Butler Fat Quarters up for grabs and a great book too!

Feathered Star Tutorial – Part 1

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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!

Marsha McCloskey’s Feather Star Ruler Review

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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.

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