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One thing you may not know is that finding quilting tools in India is quite difficult. I am very lucky that we have a quilt shop in town to send my quilts to as this is quite rare here. One thing that is nearly impossible to find locally is rulers and the imported ones are very expensive. When I wrote up my triangle pattern, I decided it might be worth it to try and get a triangle ruler printed here. That way people in my community could actually attempt this quilt. My husband worked in Adobe Illustrator which for triangles, was actually harder than it originally seemed. After a lot of trial and error, we came up with this one. 

One of my mistakes in this process was assuming the triangle I was using from Quilt Sense Wonder Triangles was a 60° angle. It wasn’t. It was less than 60 but not enough to be super specific in a way that people would connect to. This took a lot of trial and error because I’d already made the example quilt. 

 

Now that we have a file, we can send it off to the local vendor and get a test run. Here goes nothing!

I actually have no idea all that I want to do in the new year, but I do know that I want to finish writing a Pac Man quilt pattern.

 

Hand Piecing: I want to finish this Tula Sunrise quilt; however, I’m not going to do the triangle border. I also did it in batiks because I hoard my Tula Pink fabric. 

After that I’m not sure.

For machine quilting: I do have an Elizabeth Hartman: Awesome Ocean, to finish. I haven’t finished it yet because I ran out of gray and had to wait until last summer so I could buy more while in the US.  I think I’d also like to do this Kinship Pattern and this Elizabeth Hartman: Rapid City.

For hand piecing I would like to begin working on Tula Nova. I have two small pieces done, but took a break to work on the Tula Sunrise with a friend. I want to hang this in my quilting room, so I am using my favorite Tula Pink fabrics. 

For knitting and crochet: I must finish at least 5 scarves and one blanket. I bought this yarn when in Leh, Ladakh. It is from Ganga.

 

Why window frames?

I saw a quilt once that looked a bit like this but couldn’t find the pattern to purchase, so I tried to replicate it. I really like the thin white sashing and how it makes it look like frames.

I also love Tula Pink’s fabrics and used fabric from at least five different lines. I enjoy how colorful her fabrics are and her use of animals. 

Where can you get it?

If you like this pattern, visit my Etsy shop: Window Frame Quilt Pattern. 

 

Christmas

This year I made one quilt specifically as a Christmas gift and I also gifted four previously made quilts.  

Gift 1

I made this quilt for my son’s girlfriend. I used a variety of blue fabrics that I already owned and some white from my local Chennai quilt shop “The Square Inch“. I chose the “By the Sea” quilt pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Co. It was made for 10″ squares and was quite simple to use.  

Gift 3

I made this cassette mini quilt for my husband using a portion of Lysa Flowers “Cassette” pattern. I had originally planned to do the whole thing, but I ran out of time and the pieces were very small. 

Gift 2

I made this quilt top last Christmas but it didn’t get quilted until after the holiday. I created a sampler using patterns from the pattern book Block Genius.  I titled this quilt, “Raven’s Surprise” because my daughter played with the blocks and when put them back in order I mixed up a few. After sewing it all together I noticed two of the same blocks  next to each other. Instead of taking it all out, I just decided to embrace the mistake. Can you see it?

 

 

Gifts for my sister

A couple years ago I started making blocks from 100 Modern Quilt Blocks from Tula Pink. I chose to make three different quilts.  I started making blocks using batik, some with Tula Pink fabric, and ones using regular quilting fabric. I laid out the blocks differently in all three quilts. For this one, I made a very thin sashing because I didn’t like how it looked without it but I didn’t have much of the sashing fabric and living in India, I was unable to order more. 

 

 

This quilt pattern: “Pretty Birds”, is from Elizabeth Hartman. I loved making it. Elizabeth Hartman makes such fun patterns. I also like how colorful her examples are. 

In between my other quilt projects I was working on “Year of Scrappy Triangles” by Leila Gardunia. This foundation paper piecing was vey fun. I learned a lot.

Holiday Triangle Quilt 

 

This year I really wanted to make a red and white holiday quilt. I’d been collecting red and white Christmas fabric for a couple years and wanted to do something but didn’t know what.

 

I decided to try and make my own pattern using triangles. I’m not super good at them, especially since I don’t have a large triangle ruler to help square up the final blocks, but I’m not going to get better if I don’t try.

 

My final version isn’t perfect but I love it anyway.

 

If you want to try out this pattern you should first cut the middle triangles using a triangle ruler. Then I am not good at cutting triangle sides, so I simply cut long strips, sewed them on and then used the original middle triangle as my template. If you have a large triangle ruler then this would be even easier.

My middle triangle pieces were 1 1/2″ strips.

My outer triangle pieces were 2 1/4″ strips. You could use 2 1/2″ if you like.

 

 

Sewing triangles together can be challenging. You just need to practice. I always leave the corners on instead of using the rulers that have the ends nipped off. Those rulers are good for helping you put the triangles together but I find having the corners, helps when you put the rows together. If you need help with this, there are a lot of videos online about how to sew together triangles.  NOTE: you need to make sure the tops of the middle triangle line up on the final row or it will look wonky. 

You can make as many rows as you wish. I made 6 full triangles and 2 half triangles per row for 5 rows, for a total size of 56″x69″. 

Choosing the fabric

I have many different holiday fabrics that I’ve accumulated over the years. I sorted through and picked the red and white ones I liked and realised that I needed to add grey if I was going to have enough variety. 

 

The Triangles

I used my Omnigrid 60° pyramid ruler (6 1/2″) to cut out center pieces of both the dark- Reds/dark grey and the lights- white/light grey. I decided to alternate from darks to lights.

 

Block Placement

I placed the blocks alternating between light and dark, as well as trying to spread out the fabrics throughout the quilt. 

What do you need…

Fabric- I bought mine from many different places and was given some by my mother-in-law.

Rulers- I used a variety of rulers. I needed the Omnigrid 60° pyramid ruler (6 1/2″), but also used two different sizes of straight rulers. The shorter was Omnigrid 4×14“ and a longer one (Omnigrid 8 x 24″) to help me square up the rows.

Iron, Ironing board, Sewing Machine, rotary cutter (I prefer Olfa brand 45mm), cutting mat (I prefer Olfa Self Healing, but can’t find that in India and use something local),  Thread (I prefer Coats and Clark large spool cotton machine quilting thread but you will need an inner wooden dowel).

I don’t quilt my own tops, but if you do, you will need batting. 

I made this space invader quilt pattern early in my career and used fabric that I would never use if I tried it today. I didn’t realize you should only use cotton and couldn’t find bright neon cotton in Chennai, India, so I bought what I could find. It turned out to be a polyester type fabric that was difficult to sew with and sometimes looks wrinkled.

Even though I don’t like the fabric I used, I love the pattern.  If you are looking to make a quilt for someone who is nostalgic, simply loves the 80’s, or is difficult to shop for, this quilt pattern could be the ticket.

This pattern consists of four different blocks: the Squid, the Crab, the Octopus, and an Explosion block. Each block is made from 1 3/4″ x 1 3/4″ squares in order to make the more pixelated design in keeping with the original game.

Finished product- Throw Quilt 57 1/2″ x 48″

Check out my etsy listing. 

 

 

 

Today I made some woven Christmas ornaments for my daughter’s teachers and a few colleagues. If you have the right tools, this is quite easy. I watched Mr. Domestic’s video to learn how and whipped up seven in a weekend. They are a bit time consuming, but definitely worth it. He also has another video for no sew ornaments, but I haven’t tried that yet.

1st: Pick fabric. I prefer to pick two fabrics that contrast well such as a light and a dark. Also, Iprefer to use fabric with no or very small patterns. I find the larger patterns detract from the finish product as you can’t really see the design anyway.

2nd: Cut the cloth at 1 1/2″ x wof.  (You will need @ two for each star- You’ll be cutting them into 5″ pieces and will need 8 of one and 12 of the other)

3rd: Iron the fabric as if you are making bias- so outsides into the center. Then I fold it in half and iron again.

 

4th: Sew the pieces on both the left and ride sides. I do the open edge first and try to sew as close to the edge as possible. My seams are never perfectly straight but you won’t really notice in the end unless you’ve gone really off.

5th: Cut the strips into 5″ pieces. You will need 8 of one color and 12 of the other. 

6th: Get out your wefty, pins, and either craft foam or a cushioned iron/cutting mat. You then pin three of one color next to each other, then put one of the off color on each end. Use your wefty to weave through three of the main color and then the other two off colors, pinning them down after each time. Reminder: When you weave you have to go opposite for each one. Ex. over, under, over, under, over. and then the next one would be under, over, etc.    Do this twice. You need two of these to make the final piece.

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7th: Unpin the the two off colors on one corner and glue (I like Aleen’s fabric glue) down where they overlap. Then take the ends and glue them together and use a clip to keep them set. See photo. then do the same to the next ones in. Repeat this for each corner.

 

8th: After waiting for the glue to dry, take out the pins and take off the clips. Put the two pieces together with the loops facing in. Then weave the ends you didn’t glue, through the loops of the opposite star. Glue the end of the strip into the outermost loop, making sure to get the edge to the point of the loop. You will be cutting off excess and it needs to cover the whole back. Use a clip to keep it in place.

 

9th: After the glue is dry, take off the clips and snip away and extra fabric that is peaking outside of the loop. Then choose one to put a ribbon on and you are done.