making half square triangles

My Quilters Quick Quarter rulers have arrived!  These are totally nifty little gadgets.  You use them to mark the 1/4" line when making Half Square Triangles.  I have taken a couple of photos of the process.

 Here is the 12" ruler out of the pack.  They also come in 8".  I think 12" is a handy size

 Instructions on the back

 Place the ruler diagonally across the back of the light fabric, and draw lines on either side

 Stitch on the drawn lines, and you can see that I chain pieced.  i sewed up one side of a pile of them and down the other side.  Then cut the threads

 I lay them on my cutting mat 2 or 3 at a time and offset them like this, then cut through the centre.

 Please use your normal cutting ruler for this job.  Do not use the QQ ruler as it is too narrow, and you will cut your fingers!  Ouch!

 They are now seperate

 Press to one side

 And trim off any excess.  I always cut my squares 4" or 5" or 6" then once they are made cut back to the 1/2" needed.  It is usually only a slither than you have to take off.

You can now make heaps of HST in an hour or so.......off you go!

The rulers are on the Legend and Lace website for $8.80

Cutting two quilts at one time

 

When I started cutting up my last quilt - the scrappy Wrench - I decided that I would cut another square of the same fabric for another quilt.  At that stage I had not decided what the "other quilt" might be.  However, as I sewed the wrench blocks, I also sewed sets of half square triangles.  There are lots of things you can do with HST's.  By the time I had finished the first quilt, I had 30 of the little blocks made and set aside.

 Last night I got busy and cut another 30 light squares and 30 dark squares.  It did not take that long and today I sewed them into blocks.

I am still playing with ideas for these little pieces.  No matter what I make, I know for sure I will need a whole lot more!  Or will I?  should this be a full sized quilt, or will I just leave it at cot size?

I started with a zig zag, but if you turn the blocks on another angle, you end up with straight lines diagonally across the quilt.  No doubt I will work out the size and setting in due course.  It is rather appealing to know that I can make 60 little blocks in about an hour using the Quilter's Quick Quarter ruler.

I like these rulers so much, that I decided to stock them on the Legend and Lace website.  They are not there yet, but will be in a day or two.  Will post again with a demo on how to use them.

Big Stitch Quilting

I have just about finished my "big stitch" quilting on my scrappy wrench quilt.  It was easy enough to do, but I had to work hard to make my stitches larger!  I kept doing them small as that is what I am use to doing, then having to correct myself.    I did mostly cross-hatching, and some "in the ditch" stitches.

The border I did differently

Can you see my stitches?  I traced along the line of the fabric print.  It was absolutely perfect for using this technique.  Now I just have to do the binding, and I hope to have time to get to the sewing machine tomorrow for that.

It took me 2 reels of DMC 8 thread to do this quilt, and already I am planning the next one.  I have my scrappy Trip Around the World to quilt, and I was thinking of doing it on the sewing machine, but this might work even better.  Just have to get those stitches bigger!

Rose Garden Block of the Month - Block 10 is on the Legend and Lace website.  Sorry to has taken so long, but I had things happen :-(  I had a trip away, then when I came home my computer would not connect to the internet.  I did all the tests myself, unplugged, re-plugged, disconnected, ran virus scans etc,  Finally, I called in the Big Guns (brother in law) and he could not work it out either.  We got onto the ISP and after much convincing, they sent out a technician.  Turns out it was the connection at the telephone exchange, plus lines to our house which were problems.  All fixed now.

The Rose Wreath Block is all ready to download.  Thanks for your patience if you have been waiting.  When you see the photo of the block, you will see that the leaves and buds swirl around in a clockwise direction.  However, when you download the pattern, they are going anti-clockwise.  Oops!  this is because I drew the design onto the back of my background for the back-basting applique, but forgot to reverse the design.  Never mind, I say to myself, who cares ? what difference does it make to me? None! You can reverse it if you like, or leave it as it is.

Rose Wreath

Block 10 - Rose Wreath.  I am pretty much going to be late with this one, for the first time in the 10 months the BOM has been going.  I have lot of excuses, and I am sure you want to hear them!  The main one is that my iron blew.  We had our Scrap Day on Friday, and we begged and borrowed irons, power boards and extension cords from all over the place.  My iron was on the ironing board, and someone called out about "something burning" - yes it was my iron.  We think it was the extension cord that was the problem, but it burned my iron's plug.  My "emergency" iron, I just chucked out as well.  The good news is that I got most of the block completed, as you can see.  The only parts missing are the tiny circle centres of the flowers.  Can't do them without the iron, as I use Perfect Circles, and you have to iron them. 

The good news is, with Mother's Day coming up, a lot of the shops have irons and other trinkets on sale, so I should be able to get myself a new one at a good price.  That is how I bought the last one.

The scrap day was very successful.  We had 3 quilts on offer, and 36 people attending.  I have some photos and will get them out of the camera tomorrow.