Category Archives: Quilt Therapy Lesson

The Color of Fall

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My (third) foster mother from Iowa is visiting us for the week and always brings us joy.  When she wintered with us last year, she had planted some lovely plants in flower pots to enjoy.  Unfortunately, we were unable to keep up with the watering schedule for all but one plant — which was frozen and mostly died — but my husband put his green thumb on it and it’s thriving on our dining room table.  That’s all that’s left of her beautiful flowers.

My daughters’ decided since we killed off all of her flowers, they needed to replace them.  This absolutely beautiful mum plant was used to decorate the coronation set design from our daughters’ school’s homecoming last week.  It is huge, with blossoms spilling out over the edge of the flower pot!  It definitely reminds me of fall colors:

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As with many things, I pulled some of the colors from the plant and this is what I came up with:

FallColors

I can envision a beautiful quilt made from the fabric colors above.  Can you?


The Half-Square Triangle Formula Revealed!

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The Missouri Quilt Company has some super quilting tutorials on YouTube.com.  You can subscribe to their feed so when they make a new tutorial video, it comes to your email inbox.  I have found that I dream about making quilt projects, just because the Missouri Quilt Company has shined their light on a better and/or smarter way to quilt!

There has been one that has had me stumped for quite some time.  I was not going to stop until I figured out the fabric formula.  I have truly been practicing various sizes for half-square triangles, all with failure until (of course) I finally figured it out! Here is the video:

First, let me say that in quilting, you should always clip your corners.  This video does not do that and it drives me a little batty.  Especially when using white fabric, once the pinwheels are put together, you can see the corners through the quilt.  NOT.  COOL.  It takes just a few extra seconds of your time to use a sharp scissors or rotary cutter to clip them – and you end up with a way better finished block and quilt!  Here is a photo of two of my pinwheels that have the corners clipped and two that do not:

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And here is the secret solution for the half-square triangle sizing.  My goal was to make that simple half-square triangle work for ANY size of blocks and not just for the charm squares that are shown in the video.  I set my sights on a 9″ (finished) pinwheel (9 1/2″ unfinished).  And the solution for what size squares I should use?  THREE (3) inches bigger than your unfinished block size!  This gives you a little bit of room to trim the edges of the half-square triangles so they are perfect!

There you have it!  Go tell it on a mountain!  Share it with your quilting friends…and remember, you heard it here first!

 

Quilting with Nature

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The prickly pear cactus flowers are blooming and they have such amazing colors!

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I took these photos to one of my image programs and wanted to see the quilt-worthy colors in the flowers.  Here is what I came up with:

Cactus

Not only is there natural beauty in nature, but it can clearly become hand-made beauty in quilting!  So, the next time you are out and about and see colors in nature, take a snapshot of them and then see if you can create a quilt that truly exemplifies all of natures colors – surrounding yourself with quilted color love from outside and inside!

btw – Speaking from experience, I do not recommend photographing a prickly pear cactus unless you are very sure-footed.

Quilt Police: Trim Your Points!!!

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Have you ever gone to a local fair or quilt show and really looked closely at a quilt?  And when you’ve done that, have you ever noticed that the person who made the quilt did not trim their points because you can see them through the fabric?

OY, drives ME CRAZIER!

Here’s a quick reminder – for beginning as well as more advanced quilters – TRIM YOUR POINTS!

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Four half-square triangles (HST’s) – two on the left have their points trimmed, two on the right don’t.

I shall repeat myself:  TRIM YOUR POINTS!!!!

One Quilt Block, Ten Different Quilt Designs

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I often challenge myself by taking or making a single quilt block in my EQ7 quilt software…and seeing how many different quilts I can create out of that one block.  My personal rules are that the colors must remain the same but the size of the blocks can differ or the orientation of the quilt can differ (such as a horizontal quilt versus an on-point quilt).

Wanna play this Quilt Block Challenge game with me?

For this demonstration, I have chosen one well-known quilt block – the Dresden Flower fan:

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And the proof is in the pudding…10 different layouts with the same exact block:

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D4

D3

D2

D1

D6

D7

D8

D9

D10

The quilted moral of this story?  Create the quilt blocks you love and place them in your quilt the way you love to see them displayed.  There is no right or wrong.  There are only your personal rules…and your creativity shining through!