Tulip Fields is all done!

All done. Labeled,quilted and bound.
It took me three days to machine quilt it. It is only 64" square. But there are many seams and I wanted to make sure the string piecing had plenty of quilting to keep it intact. DD#1 washes her quilts a lot! This will be her Christmas present.

I cannot thank Our Bonnie Hunter (www.quiltville.com) enough for this beautiful pattern. It can be found in her newest book entitled String Fling.

Our Macy Gray is a sleeping spot stealer. She intimidates through glances and getting way too close for comfort. If she would just lay down next to her victims she could gather their heat too. But no.....

She wants it all!!!!

Poor MaggieMae.

She no longer has her heavy fur coat.

And my gigantic Log Cabin quilt is back from the long arm quilter and is all bound. I am waiting to put it on my bed. I want to take it to the next guild meeting for Show & Tell.

Efficiently string piecing

Efficiently string piecing is very easy if you plan ahead. Why cut up WOF strings to fit smaller blocks? I use those long strings to make larger (8 1/2") blocks and then use the shorter lengths to make the smaller (4 1/2") blocks. That way the repeat of fabric is reduced and those big blocks do get sewn, if slowly.

I am very pleased with the result of another two partial days of sewing.
I have five red 8 1/2" string blocks and fiftysix 4 1/2" red string blocks made.

I did not slice them on the diagonal as I did the brown string blocks. I do not know what I am going to use these in so they will simply go into the blocks storage bin.

You kinda need to make a bit of a mess with string piecing. That is OKAY!

Check out the right upper corner of the picture above...see the squirrels?
It is a momma and her baby. She brought him here yesterday. She stayed with him while he found all the feeding areas. That took a few hours. Then she deserted him.

He is solo today. Please excuse the dirty windows. The critters leave pawprints and whatever else daily. I am hoping that white streak is some flying bird do-do and not a scent marking from a raccoon.
XOXOXOXO Subee

My Tulip Fields designed by Bonnie Hunter

I cannot apologize enough to Our Bonnie Hunter for me not staying for her trunk show or for not attending the Crumb Class the next day.
But on the brighter side, I did get to see and talk to Bonnie. And I also made this great quilt:

The pattern, Tulip Fields, can be found in her newest book String Fling.

I only made 6 blocks during the class. But I have spent this week immersed in piecing this quilt. I decided on my color scheme by wanting a quilt to match this border fabric by Jinny Beyer. My burgundy fabric is also a Jinny Beyer fabric. Both printed by RJR fabrics. They are also both pretty ancient. I am sure they are both out of print (OOP).
I harvested the thin border strips from the fabric and used that for the sashings. I loved the effect!!!
I am not sure if I even want to add the thicker border print. I will have to let this quilt stay on the design wall for a few days as I decide.

Of course the thicker border print will be mitered.

I used 1 1/2" strips to cut my QST. And Bonnie taught another way in the class. (I am not telling!) So I took my ruler and cut a 3 7/8" square once on the diagonal and taped that UNDER my ruler and used that to trim all my units. It worked great!!

My copy of Pieced Hexies by Mickey Depre came on Tuesday. Such a great and clever idea for getting more "art" out of Hexies. Before it had come I did guess how she was achieving those results. And I was right. But once again I am not telling. Buy her book!!!!

The cooler weather has made me bake some whole wheat bread. Oh my is it ever good!!!  The happy postman came yesterday with his arms full of swap packages. He is so nice and so careful with these precious envelopes that I gifted him with a huge hunk of bread!!! He took it gladly!!!

I did not have any molasses as the recipe called for so I used honey. I will have to add that to my "winter" grocery list. I am slowly really stocking up the cupboards with canned goods. I try to buy all the heavy groceries before the snow and ice hit. DH put up three huge storage shelves in the garage for the excess canned goods. WHOOHOOO!!!!

Then I will start my Christmas shopping. I already have a few items bought from last year's clearance sales after the holidays. I get everyone two pair of pajamas. That is so easy to do.  Then socks and slippers and a few little items.
And I also buy myself "home wear".
 I am so looking forward to being snow bound with DH!

North Manchester and Our Bonnie Hunter

Yep! Here is proof...Bonnie is taller than I am!!!

 She is slim, lovely and ever so patient with all the newbie quilters. She showed them all how to achieve that "perfect 1/4" seam"! There are many methods that work and she helped each quilter adjust to their specific machine.

Signing books. Her time is sure not her own with 40 information starved quilters waiting with bated breaths.
The room was huge and she even had a microphone to get her words of wisdom to the far corners of the room.

The fluorescent lights really played havoc with my camera's settings. Some are very yellowish. The above photo is my day's work. My baskets are all string pieced in various shades of green. My tulip tips are burgundy.
 Six  7" tulip blocks made and three 3" spool blocks. The spool blocks are Bonnie's newest Leaders and Enders challenge. I even brought her a baggie full of pre-cut spool blocks for her own personal collection.

Here is my "space" set-up. I am NOT good in crowds. So I was in the last row on the end in case I needed some breathing room. I cannot help it. Even loving Bonnie as I do it was really a large effort to be there. 40+ women even with plenty of room was a bit too much for me.
On the chair is my Cinnamon Triangles quilt that is based on Bonnie's Pfferneuse pattern in her newest book, String Fling.  It made a great cushion.
I bought a black TV tray table that has three adjustable heights. It worked flawlessly at level #2. It was the perfect fit for the Janome 3160 QDC with the Janome 6500P's acrylic table that fits!!!!
A fellow guild member made me the ironing pad for the smaller TV tray. I was quite comfortable. When I needed to do some rotary cutting I simply stood up for a stretch too.
Here are a few photos of my neighbor's blocks:

So many nice people and the North Manchester College campus is beautiful. It is tucked into a residential area with lots of large trees and plenty of walking space.

I need to stay home with DH tomorrow so I called and offered my spot in the Crumb Piecing class to the next quilter on the waiting list. No charge of course.
Sorry Bonnie.....
XOXOOXXO Subee

String Fling has arrived!!!

I am doing the happy dance here in storm damaged Indiana.
Our Bonnie's (www.quiltville.com) newest book arrived in the middle of a terrible storm.
The book was dry and safe.
But having no power was a total bummer.

So for three days I was able to read and reread it for hours on end.

And this is my first choice of the fabulous quilts to make:

XOXOXOXOOXOXO Subee

Lots more string blocks made!!!!!

I know I usually have many more photos to show you. I do not know why I did not click more pictures. But I am totally happy with this week's sewing results. That almost dull Organ Titanium needle actually made it through all these string blocks. It is now just starting that dreaded "ticking" sound.
I really need to get the King of Greens quilt sewn together. DD#1's BD is at the end of July. I have all the quilting done. That was the hard part. But I could not stop making these string blocks.
They are such an addictive block. It warms my frugal heart. I made these blocks from fabric that some quilters throw away!!!

 I now have 45 brown string blocks made. That huge bag of strips is totally empty. I did raid my stash for corner squares. And I also used some of the fabric strips gifted to me from my new Alaska friend, Diane.
So total amount of string blocks made this week is 70!!!
45 browns
15 greens
10 yellows
All are 8 1/2". I used this size because of the size of my phone book pages. I can always cut them down to another size. But it would be very hard to make them bigger! HA!
I cannot wait to get Bonnie Hunter's newest book entitled String Fling.
It is due out in July 2012.

This is all that is left of my scrap strings. And these are the thicker ones. I know it is tempting to use thicker cut strips to get the sewing over faster. But believe me you want a good amount of really slender strips to add variety to your blocks. Most of my blocks have 17 or more strips per block.

String Fling-Day3

After another day of sewing yesterday I have 10 brown string blocks made.

But as you can see I have a very large bag full of brown strings.

 I hardly made a dent in that bag. My strings are so skinny that there are 17-20 strips per block. That is a lot of sewing!!!!

 On Sunday I sorted my personal supply of strings. I found a few more green and yellow strips but they went into the "odd" string baggie for now.

 I got up at 5:00a.m. this morning and got the washed purple strips all swapped out. I just piled them on the chair then....

 I packed up the bags for carrying to the Post Office. It is easier for me to carry things with straps as opposed to crates with handles.

 I set the baskets outside today with a thank you card to my new Happy Postman.

The infamous baskets....I use them for everything sewing related. I think I bought 40 from Big Lots a long time ago. ($1 each then) they cost much more now! Go figure...
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String Fling-Day2

After two days of sewing I have 15 green string blocks and 10 yellow string blocks. I squared them down to 8 1/2". And I have used up all my green and yellow strings. Zero inventory on these two color of strings.

 All cleaned up and now packed safely in plastic. I have the count on a slip of paper on the back of the baggies. They will go into a hopper for future use.

 Here is the beginnings of day #2 with yellow strings. I feel I have such good results sewing strings because of my prep work. I get no cupping or waving of the blocks. I feel this is because I stretch and press the strips BEFORE any sewing gets done. The end result does not need any pressing before squaring up.

 My sewing gets MaggieMae's approval of course. It does not matter that she was sleeping most of the day and only woke up for the cleanup.

 My used needle is still going strong despite all the paper sewing. But paper sewing does generate lint. I usually clean the lint every two full bobbins. But I was using up partial bobbins too.
See the little stubby screwdriver? I just love this little tool. It has a nice solid tip and is short enough to fit in every place I need it. Some of my guild members tried it at the retreat this April. They liked it so much that they bought some as favors for the June picnic. I bought mine from Clotilde.  (http://clotilde.com)  Item#518843

So after one solid day I sewing I cleaned the bobbin area. There was not very much lint. But the machine really "sounds" happier with any lint removal I do.
XOXOXOXO Subee

String Fling- beginnings

What do you do when you are in a sewing mood and the Log Cabin blocks are all made but you do NOT feel like making those bigger units up? And your wonderful Organ Titanium needle that lasts and lasts is just beginning to get dull???
Why you just start sewing up some string blocks. The size does not matter to me at this moment.

 MaggieMae in her customary spot and I begin making some green string blocks. I put a couple through at a time and then switch out the strings and add a couple more. This keeps the variety going and making more than one block at a time is much more efficient!!!

 I decided on green string blocks because I knew I had a small container with just green strings in it from cutting for the green 2 1/2" strip swap over at Quiltvilleswap on the Yahoo group. I also grabbed a couple baggies with full size strips in them to cut the corner pieces. At least when I get that far...

 I cut up an entire phone book into 8 1/2" square foundation sheets.

This stack gets me almost as excited as a stack of fabrics waiting to be sewn.
I know, I am a cheap date and easily thrilled. Simple minded and happy.
I am also saving the receipt papers from the Post Office when I mail the swaps out. They are 3" wide and several feet long when I am done at the counter. That way I can use up the shorter strips too for a piano key type unit.

 And as I was digging for the green strings I unearthed my massive collection of strings. All by color of course...they do not fit in that big container. At least not while they are in their baggies. I may have to remove the baggies and just make piles in the container...someday. But right now I am sewing!!!

 This was Monday's delivery loot. I have a new Postman. He is happy and knowledgeable about quilting!!! Today he brought five more packages and I gave him a BIG slice of freshly baked banana/cranberry bread.

I want to keep this guy happy!!!!! 

I hope he is our new regular Postman now.

And here are my purples all cut and bagged up. I am just waiting for a few more packages and I can begin the swapping out. We have 20 swappers this time. What a great variety of purples are just waiting to be dug in to!!!!