Diagonal Pieced Back Excel Formula

Adding on to my previous post, I want to assure you that there is an EASY way to figure out the yardage. Once John Flynn originated the method, others got busy figuring it out and one site posted an Excel template! We can all thank Horizon Quilt Patterns for providing this. I used this formula to assist me in estimating the amount of yardage I would need. Not being too trusting of my cutting and measuring skills, I added a few extra inches.

Another hint I want to share with you. I found the photos on John Flynn's page a bit hard to see, so before I cut into any fabric, I tested his method on a rectangular piece of paper. Once I did that, I understood what to do. 

I will say that a small piece of paper does not compare to 2 yards of fabric all laid out. So here is my next suggestion. Get help. You hold the tip of one corner of the fabric, and have your helper hold the diagonal opposite corner. Then, fold on the fold, taking your helpers corner to yours. Fold that way again. Lay it down and trim about a quarter or an eighth of an inch on the mutltiple folds. When you pick it up, you will have two triangles of equal length!

Then, lay them down and slide one down, leaving the other triangle where it is, until you have the width you need. Double check that you have the length you need as well. Carefully pin the bias seam and stitch about a half inch seam. Press the seam open and then trim the big bunny ears off to arrive at a rectangle.

Again, practice with a piece of paper first if you have trouble understanding how to do this.

A little bonus shot for you all today, in case you follow Brangelina. John Wylie, a local pilot, takes some very interesting aerial shots from time to time. Here is a shot of Brad Pitt's beach house near El Capitan Beach in the Santa Barbara area.

Quilt tops and Piecing the Backing

It's been  too long since my last post, but I have been busy... kind of.  I have been down to Los Angeles to help my sister Leslie and her friend Maureen each recuperate from surgery. Leslie's was planned... cataract surgery; Maureen's was not... emergency appendectomy with complications. Eleven days later, Maureen is still not doing that well. She sees the doctor tomorrow. 

Before I left, I finished my Camp Ocean Pines Retreat quilt top. I am thrilled to say that most of the points lined up well. I loved putting the sashing in as it surely helped square everything up. I actually have not used sashing before. This was an excellent project for learning color choices and precision piecing. Thanks Annie Smith!!

Here's a block close up: 

As soon as I finished the top, I set out to use John Flynn's method of piecing a back diagonally on the baby quilt top I made. (To find his directions, scroll half way through the above link.)

I am thrilled to say, I figured it out and successfully pieced it together. Luckily, I had two Costco tables I could set up in a spare room to prepare the quilt sandwich. The quilting is not my favorite part! I need a lot of practice with free motion quilting! I have lots of books and videos and classes on machine quilting but now I have to get in a lot of practice time. Poor baby quilt. It will have to be my practice piece for now. I have a feeling I may have to resort to stitch-in-the-ditch method for my camp quilt!

Oh, by the way, of course when I was down at my sister's, I had to go shopping too. Living in a semi-rural locale leaves me famished for shopping at the hot spots like Bed Bath & Beyond, Catherines, Beauty Supply, Claimjumpers, AND Candy's Quiltworks! I just had to buy something at Candy's, like I really needed more projects. I bought a simple Christmas apron pattern with matching potholders. Cute, and maybe fast to make.

 

I had to chuckle a bit today when my sweet daughter and her husband came up from San Diego for the weekend. They were having fun playing with Baby Carrie, and I caught them playing Peek-A-Boo, or something like it, while Carrie was supposed to be taking a nap. Only difference was, Carrie was practicing the Bronx cheer and Megan and Allan were egging her on. It was fun listening to all three!

Fabric Coasters

Last year I was at a professional seminar and one of my colleagues who is an avid quilter was making these coasters. I thought they were really cool, so knowing how bad my memory is, I asked her to show me how while I shot video of her demonstration using my trusty Canon Elph cam. They come together really easily. I hope the video explains the process well enough for you to duplicate. 

Peggy used 5" squares. To make one coaster, do the following. To make a set of four, quadruple it. 

You need 5 squares of your favorite fabrics, one square of lightweight fleece or batting, and one square of white or other color fabric. Fold 4 of the fabrics in half, wrong sides together. Lay them down, as in the video, on top of a sandwich of white fabric, batting, and then your chosen fabric. Stitch all around the square. Turn it right side out, and you are done.  Just follow the video to clarify these scant instructions. Enjoy!

A major issue for me is precision piecing. I have a hard time keeping a consistent scant quarter inch seam. This makes for big problems when you are putting together a quilt square with lots of segments. Well, with the help of some friends, my problem may be solved! 

My friend Maureen gave me a Bendable Bright Light for my birthday so I can see the quarter inch seam guide better on my Janome 6600P. That is one solution. Thank you Maureen! 

The other idea comes from my new friend Janis Shipley. She told me about a Sally Collins DVD on Precision Piecing. I tracked that DVD down and learned a lot from it. Sally just lays her Ott Light down on the bed of the sewing machine to see the presser foot area better. 

THEN, I learned something else from the DVD. When Sally cuts out her fabric, she places her Omnigrid ruler line to the inside of the fabric. The effect of this is she is cutting the fabric a scant bigger than called for! Ah ha, no more stitching a scant quarter inch using your quarter inch foot! If you cut the fabric a scant bigger, you can simply use the quarter inch foot seam guide as it was meant to be! Yea!! I hope this works for me. 

I don't like moving the needle over to account for a scant quarter inch because it seems inaccurate from day to day. Of course, I try to be really accurate when cutting fabric, but I know I mess up at times. I am counting on Sally's idea to end my quarter inch seam woes.

Wordle and Spoonflower

Here I am again. Still Saturday. I can't tell you how fascinated I am by all the ideas I have found on blogs! One thing leads to another and you can go from one blog to another blog to another and easily get lost. Well, I found this great idea at this last blog. 

Have you ever heard of Wordle? I played around with it in August and had a lot of fun. I showed it to a former colleague who wanted me to make a poster for her for an upcoming school event. Time passed and I forgot about Wordle till now.

Enough suspense already. Go to this web site and play around... Wordle. I suggest you leave out unnecessary words to arrive at the best looking design. Words like... and, to, the, but, etc. If this kind of fascinates you, read the directions they provide which will show you how to change fonts, colors, direction, and more. 

When I was happy with one of my 'designs', I took a screen shot of it to save it to my hard drive. Mac users can hit the Shift-command-4 keys to select the area they want to include in the screen shot, or, you can hit Shift-command-3 to obtain a shot of your entire screen. PC users: you have a key on your keyboard that says Screen or something like that. 

So, on with the cool idea I came across. This pillow image comes from jcaroline. Check out what she has to say about using a Wordle design to create cool things. Her blog is really interesting and she has an online shop that has decorator and other fabrics and goods. I am still discovering all that she has on her various sites.

In order to get a usable Wordle image you will capture your favorite design online and then print it out on fabric sheets using your inkjet printer. I can see lots of possibilities for this. If you make a Wordle project, will you take a photo and send it to me? I would love to see all the creative ideas people could come up with. 

Spoonflower: I mentioned it in the title for this blog. This is an amazing new fabric design group that offers all of us the opportunity to have our designs printed on fabric, and not by a home style inkjet printer. Go to their site and read what they are all about. They are still developing the process and are in beta testing thus far. 

Today's sports news... Notre Dame won handily and now I am watching the Dodgers wipe out the Cubbies. As a big sports fan, I am in heaven. USC took care of Oregon, avenging themselves after their loss last week to Oregon State and last year to Oregon. I'll have to check on UCLA and see how they are doing. Not a big year for them thus far.

Making a Pillowcase

I haven't made a whole lot of progress on my two projects this week. I did get over to Creation Station and buy backing for the ladybug quilt and sashing and border material for my Fabric Choices quilt. I am now watching Notre Dame football vs. Stanford. Most of my readers are Domer fans so I can be safe in saying that the Irish are currently wiping out Stanford. Of course, that could change. The Thousand Oaks kid, QB Jimmy Clausen, is doing a much better job this year. And, he finally cut his straggly mop. Bet the coach made him do it. Or his mom.

Anyway, I was reading a query on the Janome Yahoo Group where someone wanted to know how to make the pillowcases that are so popular right now. So, here's my story. I became aware of these a couple of years ago but never made one. Lost the pattern too, but now the patterns are everywhere. It's easier to watch someone put one together than to read directions, so, last summer I was at Candy's Quiltworks in Reseda and asked one of the ladies to show me how to do it. I took out my trusty Canon Elph cam and shot the following video. 

WARNING: This video has one error! 

I did what they demonstrated and had to take it apart after I stitched the layers together. The mistake they made was that the main body (largest) piece is supposed to be laid down with the wrong side up... the gal in the video put it right side up. Otherwise, the video is correct. 

If I had read Jen Buettner's blog more carefully, I would have caught the mistake. By the way, Jen's blog has all the instructions you will need to make a pillowcase. Be sure to check it out.

So, when the football game was over, I trekked upstairs and made two pillowcases. Once the three pieces are cut, they take very little time to put together. I think the next time I make one, I will make the flange much narrower. I cut a 3" piece for the flange and I think I will follow Jen Buettner's advice and make it 2" . It makes it stand out better being smaller, I think. 

Here is our cutie pie in her new green dress. Most appropriate for a Domer day!