Another Favourite Tool

First, before I begin, I have added a few classes onto the Class Schedule.  I have been approached by a number of women looking for an introductory one day class for patchwork.  I have tried to come up with a solution, learning patchwork in one day is a challenge.  I have broken down the patchwork basics as best I can into several classes.  This first class is all about rotary cutting. Students will cut fabric for a small project that they can assemble at home.  This class takes place on 22 April from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm.  There is a second class that follows on from this one on the following Sunday, 29 April.  The second class is all about half square triangles and flying geese.  These two courses will allow the students to work on their own at home during the next few months. Sew, if you or any friends are interested in learning patchwork then give us a call and reserve a space.

Since we all love pictures and I have nothing to share regarding the above paragraph I am sharing with you how I spend my summer months! The chap in the purple and gold on the right hand side is my oldest boy playing hurling for the Co. Wexford development squad.

Back to patchwork! We all have a favourite tool, I talked about my stiletto in a previous post and how I use it. Another favourite tool of mine is a square up ruler from the Quilt in a Day Company, the fabulous Eleanor Burns.  Say what you like about El and her style, she does know her business and I find some of her rulers superb.  This little 6 1/2" square ruler is the key to creating perfect half-square triangles. Everyone that has started using this gem absolutely swears by it.
Essentially, you create your half-square triangles about an 1/8" larger than called for and you trim it down after you sew on both sides of the diagonal line.
Let's say you need to create two half square triangles, using a dark fabric and a light one. The HST's are to be an unfinished 3 1/2" square. So, you begin by cutting two squares, one light and one dark each measuring 4" not the usual 3 7/8". Place your two squares right sides facing and draw a diagonal line from one corner to the opposite corner. Sew 1/4" on each side of the diagonal line. When you have finished sewing your two lines you can cut on the center diagonal line, thus creating your two HST's. Now, before you open up the triangles to gaze at you gorgeous squares do two things. First, take you triangle in one hand and your Square Up ruler in the other. Place the ruler over the triangle with the 3 1/2" line over the stitching line and trim around the two sides of the triangle.

Second, take your triangle and press open. Be sure to press, not iron, and open up the seam from one point to the other. I personally finger press my seams open and I run my thumb all the way along the seam making sure that at the points the fabric is completely open. Measure and hold your breath that the square is exactly 3 1/2" square! Ta Da!!!

 I admit these are not the greatest photos, you have to see me do this live in order to appreciate the magic!

Absent for a Good Cause

Last week, we found this little lady in the field all alone. Her mother wasn't well and the new born lamb had wandered off. More than likely she survived for 12 hours or more without nourishment which for a new born is very dangerous. The poor little baby was brought into the house, wet and lifeless. My faithful canine friend, Sheila, sat with me by the fire for several hours warming the little baby and feeding her slowly with warm formula. By bed time she was alert and standing on her own. Sheila was licking her constantly and sitting by her crate keeping vigil.
Well, the little lamb is thriving and is such a sweet dote! Sheila still greets her and allows her to nuzzle up close which is a no go for our fierce little terrier. Lambs are adorable but serious maintenance, the rewards are priceless.

Appliqué II

This Sunday, 11 March, we are hosting an Appliqué II workshop.

I have made two pieced blocks and am using the appliqué block that you see as my middle block for a gorgeous spring table runner. This project evolved as part of a weekly class that takes place on Monday mornings. I developed the idea after we all discussed what skills everyone wanted to learn or improve on. Although I am a huge machine enthusiast, I do recognise and appreciate how important hand sewing skills are. Some of us are going to scallop our borders and others might be adding prairie points. A table runner is, in my humble opinion, the perfect project to use for developing certain skills. It takes very little time, not terribly expensive and best of all, if you don't enjoy the technique your learning it won't take you forever to complete the runner. Can you imagine trying a new technique on a king size quilt and half way through it you're wondering if you'll ever complete it? Or better yet rolling it up in a ball and shoving into the back of the press swearing you'll never touch it again! sadly we all have projects like this.

I believe that everyone is capable of learning and perfecting a wide assortment of skills and creating beautiful quilts. Hopefully these classes encourage women to believe in their abilities and become more confident in what they could achieve.

What's New!

The days are flying by and with spring just around the corner life is good! The days are getting longer and we have a few new inhabitants here in the garden. Yes, you heard me right, this gang of troublemakers has taken up residence in our garden. We have five pet lambs that we are raising, every year we have a few pets and every year I lose a few more plants in the garden. One year all my lavender was pulled up and eaten or destroyed.

With the arrival of spring comes the arrival of GAA. Two of my three children are heavily involved in hurling, football and camogie; why share this with you? Well, I need to set some shop hours so as not to disappoint people.

I have classes Mon thru Wednesday morning so you can count on me being in the shop on those days, although Monday afternoon is not a great day to stop by. I am however here all day Friday and by appointment on the weekends. As far as Thursday is concerned, please call because that is my only day to get errands done but I am around. I work very hard at trying to accommodate everyone, especially my customers that drive great distances to shop with me.  I am extremely fortunate to have been supported by some fantastic women over the past several years, their patronage and continued support has been a god send and I appreciate each and every customer that walks through my door. So while I try to set some sort of hours please do know that if they don't suit do always call and I will always try to accommodate.

We had a bag workshop here two weeks ago and here are two bags.  Everyone left with a finished bag and hopefully had a great time!  I am planning on another bag workshop, a rucksack is on the agenda. The new schedule of classes are in development and will hopefully be added this week.  We are moving right along with our website and working on developing a user friendly site so that our customers around the country can order online.

New Arrivals

All those brown boxes are filled with the eagerly anticipated Prairie Paisley II and Twirl. A delivery like this is more exciting than Christmas, well for a quilter that is! Due to the courier schedule I am at the start of his route, 8:50 am that fabulous white van pulls up, and the best part is I never know what day the delivery is going to happen. For some that would be annoying, not me.

 
So, Prairie Paisley II is on the shelves and for the first time ever we have ordered all forty bolts of fabric. The blues and reds are gorgeous; the blues are the reason I purchased the entire range. Each bolt of fabric could stand on its own and be used as a feature fabric.  I also felt that the Prairie Paisley range was perfect for those of us who have boys, lots of paisley and small prints that don't scream flowers and feminine patterns.

Everyone that has passed through the shoppe this weekend has ohhhed and ahhhhhed over this collection.  I already know what I am going to do to show them off.  If I can manage some free time that is.




The creams and tans are pretty awesome as well, maybe I should just move into the shoppe and live with them, such is my utter devotion!

We also received a small collection of Twirl by Me and My Sister Designs.  This is so bright and cheerful, it would be perfect in a little girls room as either a quilt or a decorative item.  With summer coming, it would be the perfect fabric to use in making a rucksack for the beach.                                                                                                                                                                                                    
 
The lime green and orange is fun and bright.    I for one have had an extremely busy week and am utterly exhausted. Last weekend we had a fantastic time with a quilting weekend and this Saturday we had a full class in our Bag Workshop with zippers.  Zippers are easy and nothing to fear and everyone left with their completed bag. I will load some pictures up as soon as I can. Have a great week everyone and happy sewing!

Oh My, What A Weekend!

Boy oh boy, what a great time we had this weekend. Six ambitious quilters took on a fun challenge with the hope of combining fun as well as learning something new. We started on Friday with some serious cutting, no one was to go to bed until all was cut. A few of us that had ours finished helped cut. We headed off to bed around midnight.

Saturday morning after a good breakfast with plenty of caffeine we got to work. First up was the centre of our block, a square in a square using Monique's Fit to be Method. This is a great method and once you start using this method you'll never use the traditional method again. The ruler trims your block down with a perfect 1/4" seam allowance remaining and the triangles are perfectly sized.

Fit to Square Ruler

The group started in on their half square triangles. The pattern we were using had the half square triangles slightly larger than the finished size and would need to be trimmed down. We used the Quilt in a Day square up ruler. This is my own personal favourite, guaranteed perfection. You know we all strive for perfection. This step was a bit labor intensive but we did get good results.







We all called it quits around 11:00 Saturday night.
On Sunday we all decided that we needed to get the remaining prep work done and put a few blocks together to give us some extra motivation.
It was a great weekend and the girls who arrived as strangers are planning a electronic reveal on 16 March and are on about the making this an annual event! I have added the pictures to the Kilbora Quilt Shoppe Facebook page.

Happy sewing

Mairead's block is coming together

The brights Elizabeth is using are stunning

My blocks, can't wait to get it finished

The race to the finish

Gorgeous!

Keeping all your pieces organized

Gorgeous sunlight on Sunday Morning

Ta Da!!! Happy Faces

Quilting weekend!

Next weekend Kilbora Quilt Shoppe is hosting a fun filled "Quilt in a Weekend" workshop. We have 6 participants so far and knowing all of these gals we will be having a lot of laughs!

The project we will be tackling is very do-able for a weekend project and will be gorgeous when it is done. Also, the cutting was simple and doesn't need hours to prepare. The quilt requires 10 dark fat quarters and 10 light fat quarters. Now the darks can vary as you can see from the photo. I picked out blues,greens,  reds and oranges. I could certainly add in some browns as well. The lights are tan and gold, they are light in comparison to the darks.  All of the fat quarters were chosen from the Moda Kansas Troubles fabrics that we carry. I also chose a selection from Moda's Minick and Simpson collection as well. The lights are creams, tans and have a variety of prints. Varying the tones in both the darks and lights will give this quilt interest.

Because I will be using and teaching Monique Dillard's Fit to be square method I won't be publishing the cutting instructions for the lights just in case some of the girls want to try this method rather than the traditional square in a square piecing. The darks however are easy to cut, from each fatqtr you cut three strips. The first strip is 4 3/4", the 2nd strip is 4 1/2", and the third strip is 2 1/2". All of these strips are WOF (which of course is 22" because remember we are using a fat quarter).


Subcut the first strip 4 3/4 into 2 squares measuring 4 3/4"x4 3/4". Also, 2 pieces 4 1/2" x 3 1/2".

Second strip, 4 1/2" should be Subcut into 6 pieces measuring 4 1/2" x 3 1/2".

Third strip, 2 1/2" should be Subcut into 8 squares 2 1/2"x2 1/2".

There are three borders; first one requires 5/8 yard, second one requires 3/8 yard, and the third border requires 1 5/8 yard. The rest I'm afraid will be revealed next weekend! I hate to be so mysterious but that's what keeps life fun.

I highly recommend you take a look at Monique's website, Open Gate Quilts. I really enjoy her patterns and her quilts are gorgeous. I first heard about Monique and Open Gate thru Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co., Carrie highly recommended the Open Gate rulers. Well, everyone who knows me will attest to my love of rulers and gadgets! I just had to try these rulers out and put them to the test. It was love at first use! Once you get your head around the trimming you create perfect flying geese or square in a square. I can't sing praises high enough with regard to the rulers, which then of course led me to her patterns which I have found very straightforward and create beautiful results. We carry her rulers here in the shop and they come with a free pattern which is nice.

On another note, you know that spring is just around the corner when you look out my window and this is what you see! Awwww......and no mint jelly jokes - that's not nice.

Happy Sewing
Anne Marie