Woot! I'm on Facebook!!

Woohoo!  Seamingly Beautiful Quilts is live on FaceBook.  Bet you thought I was talking about a personal profile huh??  Just kidding, I've had a personal FaceBook for years, it may not be the same one I started with but I've been linked up with social media since the MySpace days.  I decided that it was high time this blog get some better visibility and hopefully get my name out there.  I'm not the most magnificent quilter in the world but if I want to make this passion of mine a real job, I have to start now.  As I'm still relatively new to the whole website and blogger layout thing, my blog still isn't where I want it to look, hopefully I'll be able to fix that minor detail but for now I'm putting myself out into the world and hoping someone will take notice.  

I hope that everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend.  I know we did, we threw a BBQ at our house and celebrated a birthday in conjunction.  I had way to much to drink and came out of the night with a dislocated toe... yea I have no idea how that happened but it's a story for our future kids (when they happen, and no that was not an announcement).  This weekend has flown by entirely too quickly and neither one of us is ready to go to work tomorrow.

Now that it's cooled down a bit, I've finally busted out the fabric my sister sent me and I started starching, ironing and cutting the base squares for her chevron quilt.  With some of the tips and tricks I picked up from my Craftsy classes, I will have this quilt put together in no time flat.  Hopefully most of the top will be done by the time I get to San Antonio next month... EEK, next month, I can't believe that my trip is almost here.  I have so much to do still, but at least I'll be able to work on projects while I'm gone to school.  

I hope your weekend was fun and productive.  

Rachel

Find me on FB here

Yaay for Air Conditioning!

Whew, it's been a HOT few days, and when I say hot I mean hot in every sense of the word.  One of the downsides to living in WA is that almost no one has A/C, except for businesses.  It makes life a little challenging when it's hotter in the house than out and I just don't know how people did it before A/C was invented.  Call me spoiled but boy do I need and thoroughly enjoy somewhere cool to rest my body after a hard days work.  I know, I know, I should be grateful for being home and not deployed in the heat and that I need to remember there are brothers and sisters in arms holding down the fort in some pretty nasty and horribly hot places.  Believe you, me, I do know and I think of them often.

So we acquired this portable A/C unit last night since every store is sold out of affordable A/C units.  When I got home with the A/C unit last night it was nearly 90º inside the house!  I couldn't believe it, we were suffocating inside the house and our dogs were none to comfortable anywhere.  We were unable to cool the house before it became cooler outside than in so we opted to open the doors again and suck the cool air in with our floor fans and wait until early morning when my dear hubby went to work, he would then close up the house and turn the A/C unit on full blast and keep it going all day.  I came home to an amazingly comfortable home today, except for the fact that this A/C unit creates condensation in a catch pan somewhere in the unit that isn't removable!!  I got home and my hubby had gone through 4 towels trying to soak up the water that had been drained onto the carpet in our living room.  I don't care so much about the water, that's totally fixable and we can get a small carpet cleaner to suck the water out of the carpet but I was just flabbergasted at how much water had been soaked into the carpet.  Needless to say we moved the A/C unit to the hardwood dining room to continue to pump in cold air to keep us comfortable and thank goodness we did.  Not 15 minutes into dinner do I hear this gushing water sound, and I panic and when I get to the A/C unit I see it just shooting all this water out the back of it onto the floor.  I couldn't believe what I saw, it was just crazy!  Well the A/C unit is off for the night and we've decided that we won't run it tomorrow while we're at work because it's a short day.  Nick will go and get some tubing so the water can be pumped outside and we won't have to worry about a flood in the house anytime soon.

The last few days, even though it's been terribly hot I was able to get some sewing done.  I stopped by the Wild Rose quilt shop the other day and I purchased Carol Doaks 300 Paper Piece Pattern book and it came with a CD.  It's so awesome to have the CD because I can take blocks in the program and re size them to work for a particular project.  I was able to get 3 of my cornerstones done out of 12 I need for my Craftsy BOM quilt.  I'll post pictures soon but I don't have any as of yet.  I really enjoy paper piecing, it's fun and there's no reason to be precise when cutting fabric.  It's a good way to let loose with your design and have it flow from your project.

Well, I better head off to bed.  I can feel my eyelids growing heavy.  I'm excited to be working out at Stadium HS tomorrow morning for PT with some really great people, I'll need my rest cause I have a feeling tomorrow might be slightly exhausting.  In the coming weeks look for a Facebook page from me, I have to get all my ducks in a row for the page but I haven't had time to really sit down and play with what I want.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to chat soon!
Rachel

Oh Boy this Heat!

Well, I haven't been hiding under a rock but between the rain and now the heat I just haven't gotten much done.  It seemed like monsoon season was in full swing here in good old Washington state the last few weeks and during that time I was able to crank out a QAYG tinker tote.  The tote is courtesy of the Quilt As You Go class through Craftsy.  It was tedious and so much fun.  It turned out great but the only thing I dislike about it is the binding.  It was awkward and instead of machine finishing the binding next time, I'll go old school and hand finish it.   Any who, here's the pictures of the bag, you can also follow the project and any others that I do here.

So on to this heat issue.  Most homes on the western side of WA don't come with AC, more specifically older homes and almost all apartments are void of this perk.  It traditionally only gets hot here for a few weeks or so and then it's back down to bearable levels but this Texas girl still thinks that AC is a necessity. All the stores that sell portable AC units are sold out now and we don't want to put one in the window of our rental.  Nick and I stocked up on floor fans and have been sweating out the heat with our dogs.  Well they don't sweat so much as lay on the floor, panting heavily because the only place they can really go with AC is PetCo or PetSmart.

I really wanted to sew this weekend, Betty (my 1958 Singer 404) just came back from being serviced and I wanted to really get some projects going on her.  I'm waiting for a FMQ foot I ordered just for Betty, none of Veronica's (my Brother S400) feet fit Betty.  Ok, ok, yes I do in fact name my sewing machines, for goodness sake I named my car Snowball and call her Snow for short, but back to my sewing dilemma.  So I wanted to sew this weekend but with it being 80+ in the house I just can't focus enough to work any type of project.  All the chores have gone neglected, I tried to clean some today but it just gets too hot to move.  Even as I type this my eye lids are heavy, indicating it's nap time even though it's only 4pm.  I love Washington summers though, even through the heat and lack of AC, the summers are amazing.  It's a wonderful break from the dreary rain and a nice opportunity to get outside and do things before the weather gets nasty again.    I hope your summers are in full swing too and you are keeping cool where ever you are!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Bias Binding... A Tutorial

Did you ever see a pattern for something that had rounded or scalloped edges and wanted to try it but because it called for a bias binding, shied away??  Yea, me too.  I've never had the courage to try a bias binding or attempted anything calling for bias binding.  I guess it was a fear of the unknown vs. an unwillingness to try.  I took a binding class once and we spend about 30 seconds covering bias binding, I still shook in my boots anytime I heard something needed bias binding.  Until today.

I enrolled in this awesome class through the Craftsy website called Quilt-As-You-Go Patchwork Bags taught by Tara Rebman, and the first lesson is a (QAYG) potholder with none other than curved edges!!  Well, I told myself I needed to put my big girl panties on and give bias binding a shot.  None of the classes I'm enrolled in cover bias binding so I set my wonderful search engine to the task of finding me instructions on how to make bias binding.  What I found was this video put out by Connecting Threads on how to make bias binding, but they don't take you much farther than cutting the strips, after that you just have to figure it out.  I'm linking the video for you but I'll write the instructions and post pictures as well so you know what I'm talking about.  Today I have successfully created and finished two potholders with BIAS BINDING!  I'm so proud of myself.  It's ok to be fearful of bias bindings, I don't know any quilter who just loves sewing on the bias.  For newer quilters sewing on the bias is one of the biggest challenges if not the worst thing to give a new quilter as his/her first project.  I use some pretty colorful language when I have to make half-square triangles from a bias edge and then see my square come out something other than square.  So, here's my instructions on bias binding.  I hope you have the courage to try it, it works and I know you'll be successful.

Bias Binding Video

First, measure each edge of the piece you want to bind.  Mine was 10 inches on each side.  Once you have your measurements, add them all together and then add an additional 10 inches.  Once you have that, multiply by 2, then take the square root of the sum.  So here's what my math looked like...


10+10+10+10+10=50x2=100 and the Square root of 100 is 10... that was too easy.

So whatever your end number is that's the amount of fabric you need in inches square.  So for my 10x10 potholder I needed to cut a 10x10 square from my binding fabric.

Once you have your square cut, fold one corner down so that you have a 45 degree angle, the video shows this really well because on a 10x10 square, you just fold one corner to the opposite corner.  Once you fold your corner down, put one of your rulers on the folded edge, you're going to trim the folded edge off, just a sliver of fabric not a huge chunk. You have now exposed the bias... yaay!  So gently separate your two triangles and you'll place them so the bias edges are facing away from you when they are right side up, sitting next to each other.  You'll want to flip one over top of the other and sew the edge together and what you'll end up with is a trapezoid.  Pretty cool huh?

Once you've sewn your trapezoid together you'll then line your ruler up so that you will cut 2 inches off the bias edge.  Continue until you've cut all the 2in strips that you need.  Once you have all your strips cut out, take 2 of them and put them right sides together at a 90 degree angle and sew a 1/4 inch in from the cut angle.  When placing the right sides together, make sure the points come off either side by a 1/4 inch.  This will ensure your strips end up even.  Once you've sewn all your strips together press the seams open, take care not to tug or wiggle your iron on the fabric, it's on the bias edge now so it super stretchy and will warp easily.  After you've pressed your seams open, fold your binding in half to make a 1 inch folded binding.  Again, take care not to tug on the fabric, you'll be able to feel the give in the fabric when you're folding it over.  After that, take it to your project and start sewing on the binding with raw edges facing away from the project.  When you get to those rounded corners, just take it slow and manipulate the binding around the edge.  It may look like you're getting puckers in the seam but I promise you aren't.  Once you finish machining the binding, fold it over to the other side and stitch down; either by hand or machine.

There you have it, two biased potholders :)

May your bobbin never empty and may your tension always be perfect
Rachel

It's all about the Hexis!!

Craftsy 2012 BOM

Craftsy 2012 BOM


 

Well hello there! If you are just joining me, welcome. If you have been here before, it's nice to see you again. One of my latest obsessions is English paper piecing. It's done all by hand and if you have everything ready to go, it's quite simple and can be done anywhere. I first tried English paper piecing (EPP) during the Craftsy 2012 BOM taught by Amy Gibson. I had a friend who started EPP a few years back and always thought she was nuts for trying to make a quilt out of these small hexagons. I guess EPP really isn't for the faint at heart but for those of us who want to step away from the sewing machine and get some good old fashioned hand sewing into the mix.  The first two pictures are my the EPP blocks from Craftsy BOM 2012, this is where I fell in love with EPP.

Right now I'm working on a project pouch from the book Tiny Obsessions by Vicki Bellino.  I purchased this book from www.connectingthreads.com.

I have in my stash, 1 1/4 hexis and a bunch of batiks that I used on a log cabin quilt.  I went through my fabric stash and just pulled out all the batiks I had on hand and started cutting them into 3 inch squares.  I find that 3 inch squares give me the most fabric to fold over with minimum bulk on a 1 1/4 hexi and cutting a square is just easier than trying to cut out circles from your fabric.  I'm all about efficiency and time saving since I don't have a lot of time to work on projects.  I'm not sure how many hexis I will need since I blew up the pattern to more than 250% of what the book tells me to and I'm using larger hexis (don't worry, once I know how many I need I'll put that info in here).  I made it bigger because I was using bigger hexis and I wanted a larger pouch that I could stash all my sewing machine feet in.  I'm not done with it yet, and I haven't actually pieced any of the hexis together, I'm still in the basting stage for all my hexis.  I'm trying to get a good variety of colors in so I can mix and match. 

If you like EPP, I highly recommend purchasing Tiny Obsessions, it's chalk full of fun, little projects that you can do quickly and would be easy to make them larger by using larger hexis.

If you don't have any hexis on hand, you can always look for a free picture online and then print your own on cardstock or something heavier than regular printer paper and then cut them out.  Hexis are measured for their length on one side.  So the ones that I have are 1 1/4 hexis, which means they measure on one of the sides at 1 1/4 inches.  Hexis come in a variety of sizes and you can get almost any shape for EPP.  If you don't want to print and cut you can go to your local quilt store (I recommend a local shop and not a big retail store because big retail stores don't always have what you need, and you're supporting small business).  I bought mine from a local quilt store in Yelm, I love going there because they have so much fabric to look at, I lose track of all time when I'm there, plus they usually have everything I went there to get and much, much more.  If you're new to the hexis you also might want to consider fabric stick glue (it looks just like a glue stick) or some extra pins to hold the fabric in place.  The fabric glue will come off when washed and is just there as a light adhesive to make your job easier.  I used pins to baste the fabric to my hexis for the blocks pictured above, for only a few of the current ones I used the glue stick.  I've found as I get more comfortable basting hexis, I don't need anything extra to hold the fabric in place, just my hands. 

Once you've got all your hexis basted you can start whip stitching them together, it's fairly easy to do and if you cut a long enough thread, you can whip stitch a bunch of hexis together without having to tie off every time you move to another hexi.  As always, whip stich them right sides together so you can hide the tail of the beginning thread under the back.

After your hexis are all stitched together in the pattern they need to be in, you can remove the basting threads and templates from the insides of the hexis.  You do this afterwards so the hexis hold their shape while you are stitching them together.  Paper pieces can be re-used, I use mine until there are too many holes in the paper or the template is starting to fall apart, it is paper after all and it will end up losing some of it's toughness after it's had numerous holed punched into it and ironed a bunch of times.

If you've never given hexis a shot, try a small project to see what you think.  It might become a love you never thought you'd have.

If you'd like to see a hexi tutorial, please let me know and I can get one out. 
Enjoy those hexis
Rachel





9-Patch Mug Rugs and FMQ Practice

I've been inspired lately to practice my free motion quilting (FMQ) but I didn't have many small things to practice on. Instead of finding two pieces of fabric and making a quilt sandwich I wanted to practice on something that had practical use. Knowing that these small items will probably look rough and not be my best work, because let's just be honest, I don't FMQ all the time and I really need the practice. So where did my inspiration come from you ask? Well I'm a Craftsy.com member and while browsing through projects others have done, I stumbled across a person who practices her FMQ all the time and she has some beautiful work and is fairly new to it. I want my feathers to look like hers and I want my stitching to look like I'm comfortable with FMQ.

So here's my free 9-patch mug rug with directions and pictures. I hope you enjoy.

Materials
I cut enough fabric to make 5 mug rugs but you can certainly tailor this down for just 1.
-Rotary Cutter
-Cutting Mat
-3.5 inch square ruler
-25 x 6 inch ruler
-3M Spray/pins for basting
-Best Press or Starch
-Coordinating thread
-1 regular machine foot, 1 walking foot, and 1 darning/open toe FMQ foot
-4 different but coordinating fabrics
-Batting (I think about 1 yard should do it, I used scraps that I had laying around)

-Cut one 2.5 inch strip (selvage to selvage) from each of the 4 fabrics
-From those strips cut twelve 2.5 inch squares
-Cut one 6.5 inch square from each of the 4 fabrics (I know we're making 5 right.. so you can either pick a 5th fabric or cut two from one fabric, I cut two from one fabric)
-Cut five 15.5 x 9.5 inch rectangles for the back (I used the same 4 fabrics that I used in the 9-patch)
-Cut five 15.5 x 9.5 inch rectangles from the batting


I laid out all of my squares into five 9-patch blocks (not all five are pictured). I like variety so I made them all different. If you like you can make them all the same. Once I laid them out into an order I liked I started sewing. You can sew them any way that is easiest for you but I'm a really big fan of assembly piecing. To assembly piece a 9-patch I take the first two squares (right sides together, always) in each row and sew them together (I chain piece here, so that means I don't cut the thread between sewn squares, I just keep moving along). Once I've sewn the first two in the last row together I cut the first two rows off the chain and pick up the 3rd square and sew it to the appropriate square on the appropriate row. Once I finish all three rows in a block I move to the next block in the same manner, don't cut the first block off the chain just yet. Once You've sewn the two squares on the first row of the second block go ahead and cut the 1st block off the chain. I don't cut all three rows apart until I'm ready to iron (this way I keep my place). I did this for all five 9-patch blocks. It seems like a lot but this is how I feel I sew the most efficiently.


Once you have all the rows done for all your blocks, it's time to iron. Iron them with alternating seams so you can nest the blocks when it comes time to sew the rows together. Once you have all 5 blocks sewn together, match a 6.5 inch square to each block. Personally I waited to cut my 6.5 inch squares until all my blocks were pieced so I could choose which fabric went best with which block. Sew the 6.5 inch block to the 9-patch. Iron it out and then match your top with a back and batting. I used 3M Basting Spray to baste my quilt. If you choose to pin that's up to you but these projects are small enough to use spray. Make sure you spray your fabric in a well ventilated area, I went to my front porch to spray the backs of my backing and tops.

Use your walking foot to put stabilizing stiches in the mug rug, I stitched in the ditches of the 9-patch. Once you finish stabilizing you can either draw your pattern on to the 6.5 inch square or just put your FMQ/Darning foot on your machine and go at it.












I used the self binding tutorial from Made By Rae I just top stitched the binding down using my walking foot.  I hope that you love your mug rugs as much as I love mine.  They're so cute and small that you could use them for yourself or give them to a friend.

 Happy Quilting!

Rachel

Memorial Day, Not Just for BBQs

Memorial Day, what does it mean? No really, take a second and think about it. What does it mean to you?

Some people might say oh it's a 3 or 4 day weekend where my family and I take a trip, or it's one of the times where we throw a big BBQ for all our friends. My response is, it is a time to remember and reflect those individuals who paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we so enjoy every day.

Almost 9 1/2 years ago I raised my right and repeated these words...

"I, (state your name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Every person who has enlisted has said these words at least once, every person who has come before me and that will come after me. It's pretty powerful stuff. When I attend a re-enlistment of someone who has decided to continue to wear the uniform, I get chills. The good kind of chills where I feel the love of country and the pride and honor in my service to my country. Many of us feel the same way, we don't think of it as a sacrifice it's our calling. Some people feel called to preach or teach or be lawyers (just a few examples), I was and still am called to be in the military. We don't ask anyone to thank us, for many like me we feel it's just what we do, it's our job. I'm not extraordinary because I'm in the military, I do it because I love it. I would deploy again in a heartbeat if my country asked me to, and I'd do it with pleasure.

Today, well really this weekend, I don't ask that you approach someone you know who is in the military and thank them for their service (unless you want to), but I do think that we all should recognize and reflect on what those who came before us gave in order to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" so that we may live free today.

Yes, I had permission to take this picture during our squadron picture day.