McCall's Quilting Magazine N/D 2015

 

Hello Friends,

 

Today, I'm happy to announce two of my quilts are in the McCall's Quilting N/D 2015 Magazine. The first is called Colorful Stars and the second is Ice Garden.

 

Check um out.

 

 

I used Andover fabric for Colorful Stars. The sashing is Chambray fabric in the eggplant color and the fabric for the stars are designed by Alison Glass.

 

Ice Garden is designed by Laundry Basket Quilts for Moda Fabric.

 

 

For both quilts, I used Aurifil 50 WT thread and Warm & White batting by the Warm Company.

Use this link to purchase an issue:

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/issues/November_December_2015

 

The patterns are featured at these links:

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Colorful-Stars-Bright-Easy-Lap-Quilt-Pattern

http://www.mccallsquilting.com/mccallsquilting/articles/Ice-Garden-Sparkling-Stars-Lap-Quilt-Pattern

Subscription issues began shipping September 15, 2015. By September 29, 2015 the issue will be available on newsstands.

 

Enjoy,

Sandra

How to Pin and Lock Patchwork Seams

 

 

Hello Friends,

 

A recap from last week when I talked about my daughter. Many of you sent me sweet remarks and I so appreciate them. As many of you said, by the time she came home from school, she was back to her happy, spirited self. Phew.

 

Today, I'm sharing How to Pin and Lock Seams to achieve the perfect point in your patchwork.

 

Locking seams is when seams in patchwork meet up without overlapping. Many precise quilters strive to have these seams lock perfectly. To ensure locked seams, place the top unit’s seam away from you and the bottom unit’s seam towards you as you feed the units into your machine. When the units are stitched together, the machine will slightly push the top unit’s seam into the bottom’s unit’s seam, ensuring a perfect stitch.

Okay, so what does all that wording really mean. Here's an example. We are constructing a pinwheel block. We have pieced our half square triangles and stitch together the top and bottom units of the block. Now, we need to stitch the top and bottom units together.

 

In the next series of photos, we break down two techniques: pinning and locked seams. As a beginner, I highly encourage to pin. As you build confidence, the less you’ll pin.

Here are our top and bottom units on the left side of the photo below. The block on the right side is where we want to be: a perfectly locked unit with perfect points.  

 

  

To stitch together the top and bottom units, we pin the center point by inserting the pin through the intersecting seams of the top unit.

 

  

View the tip of the pin from the right side of the unit to verify the pin is coming through precisely at the point.

  

With the same pin, push the pin into the bottom unit by inserting it at the point on the right side of the unit.

 

Push the top and bottom unit together. Make sure the pin is evenly through the unit.

 

 

 While holding the two units together and even, insert two more pins to each side of the first pin.

 

Remove the first pin. Feed the units into your machine. Aim just a hair to the right of the point. Remove the pins right before the area is stitched.

Tada. A perfectly locked and stitched point. I pinwheeled the seams and pressed.

 

 

Enjoy,

Sandra

2015 Summer is Over

Hello World,

Wow, I can't believe the summer is over! We spent the past two weekend vacationing in Colorado. The last couple of months have been a mad dash of getting things done for my quilt business. The last two weeks, I really put a lot of that stuff to the side by really focusing on my family, catching up on sleep, and exploring outside my 5 miles radius of my home. It was well deserved, but by the end of it, I was itching to get back to the grind.

My baby, o how I love her so much. I want to make every day filled with unicorns, rainbows, and bunnies. Her happiness has been filling all my thoughts this morning. She has moved up to her 4 year old Hippo's class. I'm entering a whole new world of emotions. My daughter, Audrey, is an introvert, me an extrovert. My husband an introvert. I'm outnumbered and need to show more compassion and patience to my loved ones. As most introverts, change is hard. For her, starting a new class has both its ups and downs. She was so excited to be a Hippo. Now, it's Thursday, and she had a bad day yesterday. The teachers told us that she spent a lot of her day sad and crying. When we got home, I asked her what made her so sad. She couldn't really say. What I was able to get out of her was that her friends didn't want to play with her. O no! My heart filled with sadness too. All I could speculate was with the new class, there's new activities, new places to explore, and I told her that it was okay if her friends wanted to do something else. Further, I said she could follow them or do her own thing, but crying isn't going to 'make' the kids do what you want to do. Side note, she likes being the leader. I just hate seeing my daughter sad. She's my one and only, and I can't help but think I'm doing something wrong. Maybe we should have a second kid to tougher her up (nope, we are done with having kids... that's a whole other post.). Maybe I should plan more play dates. Maybe she gets too much of mommy and daddy time. Or maybe, just maybe, I don't need to do anything because this is all part of growing up. I don't know. This is all new territory for me. Before I scouted her off to school this morning, I told her to seize the day by choosing to be happy. I can't wait to pick her up to hear how she did.

Switching gears... I can't dwell on her all day. I will see her afterschool. But now, I need to focus on quilting. I have a tons of stuff coming. I'm gearing up for Fall Market. I'll be pitching new ideas there and hope something materializes. I have 4 quilts to finish this month and something for you. I'll be posting a series of piecing techniques. There will be tips and tricks and we'll do it without wasting fabric. I plan to kick off the technique series next week.

Before I let you go, here some pictures of our summer together. And no, I haven't downloaded the pictures from the last 2 weeks.

Check me out on instragram and facebook. I've been posting pictures of my quilting progress when I'm working.

 

"The tan will fade, but the memories will last forever." - Anonymous
Sandra