Explaining Bonus HSTs

I figured I'd explain how I come up with my bonus Half Square Triangles.

Any time I'm sewing a square on diagonally, I like to sew 3/8th of an inch away for another block. It's almost like getting 2 quilts for the effort of one. ;)

On the Pinapple Blossom quilt, on each block I needed to sew four 3.5" squares diagonally. In the picture above, it's the line on the left.

Then if you look really closely at my needle's position, it's not in the center of the foot, but 1mm to the right. I had the hardest time understanding that at first!

I place the original diagonal line on the edge of the left side of the presser foot. The gap between the two lines make a 3/8" measurement. Bigger than 1/4", smaller than 1/2".

I try to cut exactly between the two lines. I use my ruler and rotary cutter to make the clean cut.

Basically, you have a 1/8th inch seam allowance for both blocks. I know that sounds tiny, but it's never given me any trouble.

By doing it this way, I get an 3" unfinished HST.

Hence the name of Bonus HST. :)

Now it's time for a confession. I'm a lazy quilter too. I don't like some parts of quilting, like pinning blocks together (can't sew as fast) or trimming... well, anything. So I didn't trim my HSTs at all. Sometimes I have to fudge it a bit, but usually it works out ok. I'm not aiming to be a perfectionist, I'm aiming to have fun. So what if one side is an inch longer than the other? I'm not sending it out to become somebody else's problem (like a long armer's). It's my quilt; I'll do what I want. ;)

With the Country Pineapple Blossom, I ended up with 120 HSTs.

I thought this would be a fun setting, almost like Birds in the Air pattern. With some borders, it should make a decent sized baby quilt.

The smallest size of a block that I'll "double sew" for the bonus HST is 2.5". I'll end up with a 2" unfinished HST, and that's as small as I'll go. Sometimes I even skip double sewing 2.5" squares. But bigger than that, I'll feel like I'm wasting fabric if I don't do the bonus HSTs. :)

I've done this a few times now. Like when I made Ann's NYE 2005 Mystery, all those pink and purple "points" gave me the bonus HSTs for the Girly Bear's Paw claws.

With my sister Sarah's Pineapple Blossom quilt, I turned the bonus HSTs into this green, purple and white baby quilt. I DID trim those bonus HSTs, and swore never again!

Overall, I really like doing Bonus HSTs, and hopefully I won't ever get sick of so many HSTs. Thankfully there's MANY different ways to use them! :)

Leah

Country Pineapple Blossom Finished!

Time for "The Quilt is Done, Done, Done!" happy dance. ;)

It's a great lap/baby size. I can't decide if it'll live near my bed or the couch. It matches the couch very nicely, which is a dark green. I love green. Can you tell? :D

I don't think I realized how densely I quilted it until I was done. I knew it was more than normal, but my nose was too close to tell until it was completed.

I just love, love, love how it turned out. I hope it never gets put away.

The backing shows the stitches much better.

But this photo is washed out - the backing colors are much brighter, like you can see in the label.

And here's a no-flash shot.

Really gives the impact of the quilt's "crinkle". But this crinkle is all soft and goodness. ;)

I wrote the label between the stitches.

First time I have ever been able to put the exact date on! :D

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Now for the "nitty gritty" details of the quilt.

The pattern is Bonnie Hunter's "Pineapple Blossom", free and a great stash buster. My version is without sashing though. I'm lazy like that. ;)

The fabric is from Connecting Threads, their Speckled and Stars Sampler, which consists of 15 fat quarters.

I also bought 1 additional yard of fabric for the binding, but I only needed 5 strips, so a half yard would have been more than enough.

I used 5 of the gold/yellows from the Sampler for the 3.5" squares. Each unwashed FQ gave me 30 squares. I had to cut VERY carefully, as you can see below, I only ended up with little "stubs" of fabric. Everything else "leftover" was less than 1/4".

The 10 other FQs netted a little more leftovers. From each 2" strip, I was able to squeeze one 2" square, a total of eighty 2" squares.

There was also just under 2" wide strip left after I cut what I needed, so I trimmed that down to 1.5" strips, one of each color.

And then I tossed in a pile o' ends from the 10 FQs. But they went into the trash after the photo. :)

So it's possible to make this quilt top for $25.33 using half a yard for binding and the FQ sampler... but you have to cut perfectly. There's no forgiveness allowed. Be perfect, or no quilt that's 5x6 blocks. If you do decide to do it and make a mistake, I'd opt for doing it 5x5 blocks, or add sashing if possible.

The thread is Milk Chocolate, and I pieced the top with Silver Essential Thread.

And there you have it! :)

Leah

Quilting later

I have some serious grocery shopping to do!

One of the stores is tripling their coupons up to $1 (so a 40 cent off coupon tripled will only give me $1 off) and I'm gonna take advantage of the great sales going on right now. :)

Leah

Shrunken quilt

I'm kinda stunned at how much the quilt shrunk after being washed. Not a bad kind of stunned though. :)

According to my math, the quilt was about 54x45 inches before washing. I just measured it, and it's 50x42! Wow. Does anybody know if it's mostly the fabric, or the Warm and Natural batting?

I can't get a good picture, the light sucks at the moment. So all you get is this teaser to let you know that it's bound and washed. Better pictures tomorrow! :)

Leah

A bit of real life

I don't think my sewing machine will be turned on today, I have a bit of real life to deal with. ;)

Gotta...
-run the dishwasher
-do 3 or 4 loads of laundry
-kitchen clean up
-go to church (ok, this one is actually gonna be first, but I'm still a little groggy from going to bed at 2:30. I was sewing the binding).
-return a book to the library
-probably more stuff that I can't remember at the moment. :P

I pretty much turned myself into a hermit since I got my fabrics on Wednesday. I didn't step outside again until Saturday!

And it's only because I checked my Amazon order to see where the shipping status was, and it said half of my books were here! What?! I order them on Tuesday, and it said it was here on Thursday! (Now why couldn't have my Connecting Threads order come that fast? :P)

I put on decent clothes and ran to the mailbox to get my goodies. And that made me realize that I buried myself deeper into the Pineapple Blossom quilt than I thought. :)

So today, I'll be catching up on a bit of real life. But I hope to have the binding done! I got 2 sides sewn down last night. I have some free time after church while I wait for the voter's meeting to be done with.

I must also add that the quilt is wonderfully warm, I can personally testify. ;)

Leah

The finish is in sight!

Whew! Lotsa quilting happened today. :) Which also means that plenty of thread was used too.

I opened the "Milk Chocolate" spool yesterday, and above shows how much I've used. Well over half of it!! I made a little mark on my Excel list to order some more whenever I make another purchase from Connecting Threads, probably not until some time next year. Perhaps in a year from now, I'll have 2 spools of each color "in stock" and even more of the ones that I use a lot, say black or white?

I also kept track of how many bobbins it took me to make this quilt.
-4 bobbins of the silver for the piecing of the top and adding the binding
-9 bobbins of the brown for the free-motioning! NINE! I have never used so much thread in one quilt before. I guess that means I'm getting closer to doing more custom work on my quilts?

Here's the top on my computer chair - I put it there so I wouldn't be tempted to sit on it and procrastinate on making the binding. :P

I did find the Connecting Threads fabric to fray a bit more than my normally prewashed fabrics, and you can see a bit of it on the batting.

Binding on, trimmed and ready to be hand sewn down!

And you can see a bit of the backing. It's one of my hand dyed backings - using leftover green and blue mixed together. Since my other backing choices were orange, purple and neon pink, I felt that the teal was the best shade for this quilt. :)

Leah

Quilting update

I merrily started to quilt the Pineapple Blossom last night, and then I discovered a little problem.

I'm quilting it waaaaaaaaaaaay denser than I expected to. I can't help it! My machine loves free-motioning with Essential threads. Absolutely loves it. So I'm having so much fun, and shortly after I quilted the third block... uh oh! I'm out of bobbin thread.

Wait! How can I be out? I figured I'd need two bobbins at the most. I wound up 2.5, just in case! And then I find myself done with the first bobbin - not half way through the quilt - but a mere 1/10th way done! Math time: so three blocks use up 1 bobbin, and there's 30 blocks... that's TEN bobbins! Yeah. I still don't get it. I used only 4 bobbins on my sister's quilt and it's twice as big at this one!!

Therefore, half of the quilt weight is gonna be in thread alone. :P And thankfully I have enough thread, but I'll be adding more "Milk Chocolate" to my next Connecting Thread order. :)

Leah

Pinning Progress

I got the layers trimmed and pinned.

I couldn't decide between a fluffy polyester batting, or some Warm & Natural cotton batting. So I compromise, W&N with a low loft polyester on top of it. It was a weight that I'm happy with, and hopefully it'll have the fluff and drape I'm shooting for after I wash it.

No yoga classes needed for me, weird pinning angles cover all the moves. ;)

And I decided to go with my husband's suggestion, brown thread. "Milk Chocolate" to be exact, and I think that's a great name for the thread, cuz you certainly can imagine yourself wrapped up in it with a mug of hot chocolate. :)

Maybe I'll even have it all quilted tonight! Dare I hope?!

Leah

I can't stop yawning...

I'm so sleepy right now... I just wanna take a nap. So logically, I'll sew to keep awake! That's right, operate dangerous machinery with eyes half opened. ;) But you know... I think I'll stay away from the rotary cutter for a few hours. :P

I'm also blasting out my playlist on the iPod in hopes of staying awake. And getting up a lot to go back and forth from the machine and computer. And yawning enough to put 10 people to sleep.

I'm tired cuz I woke up at 5am. I was sleeping with my hands above my head and my fingers were touching the wall. I felt some rumbling, and of course the first thought this California-born gal had was "earthquake!" Then my second thought was "oh no, my fabric fell through the floor... hope the rest of the building doesn't go down too." (I think it's time to bust some more stash!)

I looked out window and noticed some water on the glass. Was it raining? Can't see without my contacts. So I started to drift back to sleep, then there was this huge crack of lightening, followed by some more rumbling - thunder. Ah! Just a typical monsoon-like weather. But I couldn't fall back asleep, cuz I started to think about my quilt, and thinking of what thread to use... and what quilting pattern... and what to do with the bonus HSTs (yes, that's what the picture is)... oh, my husband's alarm went off. Might as well get up too. :)

Leah

Oops! And Thread Suggestions?

Well, as I was sewing the top together, I accidentally sewed the same fabrics next to each other.

Too late now! I think I'm only annoyed because it's really close to a couple other pinks, and I don't want it to pop out.

And hooray! I got the whole top pieced before bedtime... now we have our bed back. ;)

Can you give me some thread color suggestions for the quilting? I was thinking dark green, because that's what the binding will be... but my husband suggested brown. And that makes a lot of sense to me, cuz there's a bit of brown here and there, why not tie the quilt together with brown thread? But I love green! I'm biased. :P

Go ahead any suggest any color (and perhaps give a reason why?), I have almost all the Essential threads, except for a few of the neutrals and variegated ones. I'll probably be undecided on the thread color until I take it to my machine to quilt it.

Leah

30 hours progress

My quilting energy is certainly showing in this Pineapple Blossom quilt! I think it's because I've had this quilt on my mind since July. I got a Connecting Threads catalog in the mail and drooled over the Country Fabrics. Then with my car troubles and buying a laptop, I put my order on hold til we had a bit more cash. But my desire to make a Pineapple Blossom never changed.

So here's the tale of my past 30 hours, since I received the box in the mail, at noon. :)

Here's all the pieces I needed to make 30 nine-inch finished blocks. It doesn't even cover half of my cutting mat. Boy, do we quilters tend to overbuy on fabric or what?!


I sewed until a little after 10pm last night, and this was my stopping point.


By noon today, I had this much done.


By 6pm, I had all the blocks finished!

I succeeded in a few things. I did not want there to be any repeats in a single block. I also did not want any of the same fabrics touching each other in the final layout. That was a little tricky, kept having to play musical blocks to get a good fit. :)

Next I need to get this into one piece before bedtime, there's no way I want to try to refigure the blocks again!

And if I get my way, there will be no scraps left, except maybe a wee bit of the green from the binding... you'll have to wait and see what I mean. :)

Leah

It came!

Finally! It got delivered to my town at 4:30pm, but didn't make it's way to my mailbox until noon today.

I'm happy with everything! I already flipped through the Nine-Patch book (good job Judy!) and peeked at the Prairie Children and Their Quilts (I'll give it a deep read later).

More thread! I had to order their newest collection, "Garden Thread Set", along with 3 spools of silver for piecing, and 2 white spools for quilting. I'll have to remember to update my Excel list with the new threads. :)

Then there's the "yo-yo" makers. One makes flowers, the other makes circle yo-yo's. The circle one looks like it'll be a good portable quilting activity, like in the car or when I visit the in-laws.

Last of all, the fabric! 15 FQs (Fat Quarters) and a 1 yard dark green piece. The yellow/gold fabric is going to be the triangles in the Pineapple Blossom, and the other FQs will be for strips. The dark green piece will be for the binding. If I did my math correctly, I'll be able to get 30 blocks from the FQs. I'm *not* prewashing the fabric this time, I can't afford to let it shrink and I'd like to give myself a chance to quilt with unwashed fabrics. Of course I'll wash it afterwards. :)

And there you have it, my goodies. ;) I'm gonna eat lunch and then start to make the Pineapple Blossom quilt.

Leah

Disappointment

I'm a little disappointed today - my Connecting Threads order didn't come! I think it's because I so rarely order stuff online (half a dozen times a year?) that I count each second it's supposed to arrive. I check the tracking number about 200 times. It hasn't been updated since the 10th. And it said it'd be here on the 13th! Hmmph.

To console myself, I just made my purchase from Amazon.com. :D Hopefully it'll come some time next week and I'll bury my nose in the books while everybody else can enjoy Thanksgiving and the mad rush of Black Friday. Have fun! ;)

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I got this in the mail last week, all the way from England! A cute purple needle book.

Thanks Anne, I love the colors, and completely agree with the statement! I think I've only mended 2 things since I got married. One time was when a button popped off my husband's dress shirt. I took it to my machine right there, right then and sewed it back on before I could think about forming a complaint. The other item was a pair of exercise pants and the decorative side strip popped open a few inches.

No mending for me! I have a sister who loves to sew clothes and we made a deal - she'll sew whatever clothes I (or any future kids) need, and I'll make quilts for her and her someday kids. ;)

Leah

I'm 25!

Today's my 25th birthday!! I'm pretty happy about it, and things that have been happening. :)

The picture is the candle that my sister-in-law gave me yesterday, spiced cider. Mmm, mmm, mmm!! It'll be vying for attention for my nose along with Bath and Body Works "Sugar and Spice" lotion. Man, I just love that stuff. :D

Highlights of the past few days...

-We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. My MIL is going out of town on the actual Thanksgiving day, so she decided to do it 2 weeks early. That also leaves the day free for other family members to celebrated Thanksgiving on the actual day (like my sister-in-law's husband's family).

It didn't really feel like Thanksgiving - more like they were having a grand feast for my birthday. ;)

-On Saturday I got a birthday card from my only living grandparent, Pops. You all "met" him last Christmas. Inside of the card was a $50 gift card to JoAnn's. I'm *really* touched by this gift! Pops has never mastered the computer (yet! I still hope he will) and so finding a JoAnn's isn't a one-click away for him. And the gift card also says to me that he really appreciates his quilt and wants to fully support my hobby. :)

-This morning I got an email from Amazon.com... I nearly deleted it! It turned out to be an egiftcard from my parents, for a very generous amount! I am planning to buy the Foxfire Books, and the Dangerous Book for Boys.

I almost got the Daring Book for Girls, but I read a few reviews and somebody warned that there was palm reading, fortune telling and summoning spirits mentioned in the book. Just not the kind of thing I'm interested in promoting or reading about. Plus, a bunch of the Boys book review said it was great for girls too, so I'm gonna stick with that one. Hey, I was the one who wished I could be in boy scouts when I did a year in girl scouts. :)

I'm pretty excited about the Foxfire books though! I checked one out at the library and have been slowly reading it (a LOT of information to process) and would love to own all the books in the series. This is my chance! Thanks Mom and Dad. :)

-Since the beginning of October, I have lost almost 20 pounds. Whoo!!!!!!!!!!! This is my first time losing more than 10 pounds since 2001! Yeah, I have been struggling for years. One of the biggest changes I've done was to go off of birth control in the beginning of summer. I still gained over the summer, but since my visit to my parents house in October, I've been dropping. Feels so good. :)

While I was at my parents, I went to the thrift store and found this GREAT pair of dark green dress pants. Oh, I so loved the color, I just had to try it on, even though it was one size smaller than what I could comfortably wear. Sucked in my breath to get them to button and told my husband IHaveToHaveThesePants!

Yesterday I was able to get them on with ease, eat a Thanksgiving meal and touch my toes a few hours later! Yeah! :D

-I can drive a rental car now! In the past few years it's been a wee bit of an issue. On a couple of my family vacations we had to drag my dad around as the driver, cuz none of us kids could legally drive the rental cars. And my poor mom had to navigate Gettysburg to find a bike rental shop - for a quick second she forgot that I wasn't 25 yet and almost handed me the keys. :) (Of course, we kids teased her about not giving birth to me sooner so I could drive).

-Tomorrow my Connecting Threads order better come! I'm still pouting that my birthday has been declared a no-mail day, in honor of Veteran's Day. Sunday was a no mail day. I'm a mail-a-holic. Can you tell? :D

Off to update my profile, I'm no longer a 24 year old quilter!

Leah

Close to home

I'm sure many of you have heard about the Alum Rock earthquake in California. When I first heard about it, I was like "yikes! That's really close to my parents!" But felt better when I saw the magnitude was only 5.6. Ok! I know that might be a lot for some of you, but after the 1989 one, it's considered a more mild one, on my personal scale. :)

I've been looking at pictures online and trying to figure out how close to the epicenter my parents house is. From what I understand, it was just about 3-4 miles away. Too close for comfort.

The green arrow points to their house, the orange circle is where I believe the epicenter is. The epicenter is 7 miles from Milpitas (top left corner) and 5 miles from Alum Rock (bottom center).

My dad was sure thinking ahead when he built a steel-frame house (can "give" more than wood houses), but they gotta quit having so many adventures!

Leah