Free Quilt Patterns at Quilt Patterns from Seattle

For those of you who are new to this blog, it is dedicated to being a resource for quilters throughout the world.  We try to feature things on the Internet that will help quilters do their projects.  We have links to everything in our sidebar from free half square triangle papers in all sizes to colorwheels and patterns.  This is a jumping off place to help you in all of the technical aspects of your quilting.

Today's post features Cindy from Quilt Patterns from Seattle. 

She has offered quite a few quilt patterns with nice pictures of each.  There are also some border designs available.  Most quilts have size options and color options with a downloadable pattern you can print out.  It seems like there are as many patterns for whole quilts here as on Bonnie Hunter's site.  Cindy invites quilters to come on over and use her patterns.  Please pay attention to the rules about selling her patterns or mass production.  These are common sense rules, but for those new to the Internet or quilting, we need to be careful about what we take from others.  This is someone else's hard work and creativity.  We need to give credit where credit is due.  We cannot sell other peoples pattern as our own. 

This is just one example of Cindy's designs, and there are MANY.  Check her blog out and enjoy what she has designed.  Thank you Cindy for all of your hard work.  We really appreciate it alot.  You are very generous.
You can find Cindy's designs at Quilt Patterns from Seattle.  We will have a permanent link to her designs in the Blocks and patterns section in the sidebar.

Enjoy,

Debbie

Wool Applique Tutorial

It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel, because someone already did that very well.  That's how I feel about this tutorial on wool applique.  Ann at Cottons 'n Wool did a fantastic job with her explanations and pictures and gave some great tips that I have never seen before on wool applique.  I have been working on something like this, and this tutorial has changed the way I am going to finish it.  Please visit her blog and see this great tutorial.  She also gives sources for wool and how to start a wool stash.  I will post this in our tutorial section for future reference. 

See the wool applique tutorial here.  Enjoy!  Debbie

Number Of Squares From A Fat Quarter

Have you ever wondered how many squares you would get if you cut up a fat quarter? 


1 Fat quarter = 18" x 22"

This is how many you will get if you cut them all the same size:
99 -  2" squares

56 -  2 1/2" squares

42 - 3" squares

30 - 3 1/2" squares

20 - 4" squares

16 - 4 1/2" squares

12 - 5" squares

12 - 5 1/2" squares

9 - 6" squares

6 - 6 1/2" squares

Someone in the guild was saying she attended a class where the teacher had a formula for cutting all of the sizes you would get in precut sizes like layer cake, charms, etc. and have almost nothing left of your fat quarter when done and get a variety of sizes.  She would like to find this information again.  If anyone knows this formula, please let us know.

This will be a permanent resource in our tool section from now on if you should need it.

Debbie

Half Square Triangles Made Easy - Part 2 and Flying Geese

Remember my last post on half square triangles?   I went into a couple of my favorite ways to make half square triangles.  One way was the Wondercut Ruler, and I gave you a link to a tutorial on how that works.   I love this ruler for a VERY easy and fast way to make many half square triangle blocks when you have larger pieces of fabric.   The other was a link to free half square triangle paper in many sizes.  If you want to see the details go to the previous post here.

Since then I have found another method that I love.  At a class I took from Sharon Rotz we made lots of flying geese in our quilts.  This was a wonderful class on her pattern Keep Your Quackers in a Row.  The picture below is the one my husband sleeps with every night.  It is so soft.

 This is a delightful, fast and easy quilt that has no batting, just fleece on the back and extremely easy to quilt.  Very nice weight and super soft.  I have made four of them and counting.  They take me about a day.  My family grabs them up as soon as I can make them.  So, you know I have lots of leftover scraps of triangles from these four quilts.

The method used for the flying geese was the Mary Ellen Hopkin's method of putting a square in the corner and sewing diagonally on the square, then flipping it over.  Mary Ellen Hopkins tells you to never clip off the extra fabric underneath, as this adds stability to the quilt.  Many people do clip these extra little triangle pieces off and sew them together later or throw them away, as they add bulk when you want to quilt.

Sharon Rotz gave our class the idea of sewing an extra line parallel 1/2 inch away from the first diagonal line before clipping the extras off.  This saved lots of matching and work. You cut them apart after sewing the second diagonal line. You then have many half square triangle blocks left over after the quilt was done to square up and use in some other quilt some other day.  I love this idea!  I did this and had enough to make this quilt.  It is not finished yet, but you get the picture.  This is my pattern for using up half square triangles.  Just two blocks.  Sorry for my photography.  If anyone wants a clearer picture. let me know, and I will try again.

I was surfing the Internet looking for ideas for you, and I found a wonderfully perfected tutorial of what I just shared with you at Sew Many Ways.  Karen's version is much neater and not so hard on you when you go to square up the half square triangles, ie. standing for hours at a table with ruler and rotary cutter squaring up hundreds of HST (half square triangles).  As a small preview, she draws the lines before stitching, which makes things much more accurate in the first place, and then she has another secret to square them up, which can be done in front of the TV with a scissors.  You will just have to go there and see that part, as I don't want to steal her hard work.

 I love it when you can quilt in front of the TV with the family.  You will end up with a bucket of half square triangles to go in no time.   She gave me permission to copy a picture from her blog and send you her way. You will have to see her blog for all of her secrets to this method.  Believe me, you don't want to miss this tutorial.  She has wonderful pictures to show you exactly how it is done.  Thank you Karen.  Please see her tutorial at Sew Many Ways.  Karen also has many wonderful posts on how to use tools in ways you never thought of.  I love her blog and check there weekly for her endless ideas.  I know you will love it too.

Lastly, what do you do with all of the half square triangle blocks?  There are a wealth of patterns to use scrap half square triangle blocks at Bonnie Hunter's Quiltsville.  You will be amazed.

Debbie

More Finished Projects

These are the final pictures of projects completed by our local members.  Come back soon, because I have something pretty interesting to share with you about another half square triangle tip that scrap quilters are going to love.

This is Carolyn's Van Duser's Take Five Quilt.  The colors were so cheerful.  Carolyn says it takes one yard of five fabrics to make this quilt.  Nice work, Carolyn.

Here is Donna Widerquist's Ugly Fabric project from Quintessential Quilt's challenge from their July Airing of the Quilts.  The ugly fabric is what Donna has in the border.  I did this clallenge myself, and it was very difficult to use that fabric.  Nice job pulling it together Donna.

Bea Statz did this very cute quilt called Tattered Toby.  This is another pattern from Judy Hasheider who does some very cute designs.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  Very adorable quilt Bea.

Lucille Dierking made this very sweet quilt for a baby in Idaho.  I don't know when I have seen a month go buy that Lucille didn't finish something.  She is in her 80s and works too.  Puts us younger ladies to shame every month.  Like I said before, when I grow up I want to be just like her.  Such a sweetie too.

This is one of the cutest kid's quilts I have seen in a long time.  Shirley Alexander made this quilt called Safari Babies.  It is a fused applique method. 

This is a quilt made by Linda Kirby's mom. It is a really nice pattern. It is called Midnight Twilight and is an unpublished pattern that will be taught at Quintessential Quilt's next workshop/retreat February 26, 2010.  Jan Krueger will be the teacher.  Jan taught our fall worshop, and she is a teacher you don't want to miss.  Everything she does looks hard, but she has a way of making it very easy.  Jan uses Mary Ellen Hopkins techniques for piecing.

June Behnke made this gorgeous "gazillion" pieces Bears in the Mountain Cabin Quilt.  June is an expert piecer whose points always match and are never cut off, even with tiny pieces.  Her quilts are always amazing, and I can't remember a month where she hasn't finished multiple quilts.  She is always sewing for charity and blessing people.  This lady has a huge heart.

June Behnke also brought in this Twilight Wonders quilt that she finished.  These were all colorful batiks.  Just stunning colors.  Beautiful job June!

Marge Meyer made this beautiful Bears in the Woods watercolor wallhanging.  It reminded me of the north woods of Wisconson.  I absolutely love the north woods, so this quilt was very fun to look at for me. 

November Show and Tell Projects

As I mentioned in my two previous posts about our November meeting, it was a full meeting.  I tried to upload all of the pictures today, but the cloudy sky was slowing down my satellite service considerably, so this is the first half.  I will wait until we have better atmospheric conditions for the last half of Show and tell, hopefully in the next day or two.

This is Kelly Kroon's spiderweb quilt in progress that she worked on while away at quilting classes this summer.  I really like the use of color.  The workmanship was quite good too.

This is Alice Muscanero's New York Beauty Blocks.  In October she took the class at Quintessential Quilt's Fall Retreat weekend by Judy Hasheider.  They were really  nice.  Points all nice and crisp with none of them covered up.  This is on my list of things to do.  I think they are beautiful.

Also at the Fall Retreat for Quintessential Quilts was a class on making these Quilter's Carryall Bags.  The inside has vinyl compartments for your mat, rulers and the supplies you would take along for classes or retreats or travel.  Marge Meyer is on the left.  For those of you who don't know Marge, her favorite color is purple.  Alice Muscanero is on the right.  We were kind of goofing off here taking these pictures and making them pose.  I think Marge and Alice are even prettier than their bags.

Donna Widerquist made this wool needle case.  It is really lovely.  I had found this pattern in a magazine a number of years ago and made several.  Mine gets used a lot.

Donna also participated in the monthly raffle blocks at Quintessential Quilts.  I think the way it works is that you buy a packet with the material, get the pattern and then make as many as you can with the purchased material.  Then you turn them in.  You get one raffle ticket for each block you turn in.  Donna won the raffle on this particular month.   She brought another project which wouldn't seem to upload in this batch, so look for that in a day or two.

Teena Castle made this Squares in Shadows quilt.  Teena is new to our guild, but an accomplished sewer before she ever got here and was responsible for the cute Every Witch Way quilt from last month.  Nice work Teena.

This wallhanging was so cute.  I hope you can see that from the picture.  Pam Board made this Christmas quilt.  I love the Christmas message on it and the sweetness of the whole wallhanging.  Pam comes up with some really unique ideas.

This is a charity quilt that Bea Statz made.  I love it when quilters are generous.   It was all "flannely" and soft and had cute moose on it.  It looked like some special person is going to have something very warm and soft to cuddle up with.  Great job Bea.   I feel like going into a sermon here about unselfishness and generosity.  I think it will save it for another time, but know that your efforts to bless other people have far-reaching effects, and you can make a difference.  Less griping, more blessing others.  It has a way of changing us.

Debbie

Art Quilt/Fusing-Piecing Quilting Tutorial

This is the second installment of our November meeting.  The above two pictures are the samples that Kelly Kroon brought to show us how fusible qulting is done.  This is a fun, fast, and easy technique that is perfect for art quilts and would be wonderful for kids.  Kelly learned much of this technique from the book Fuse And Tell Journal Quilts by Laura Wasilowski. 

   Fuse a sheet of Fusible, like Heat and Bond Lite in this case to the back of all of the pieces of fabrics that you will be using.  This is before you cut anything out.  After it has cooled remove the paper on the back and KEEP it for a pressing sheet.

This demonstration was of a wompy log cabin block.  Put your first piece down on the saved paper backing pressing sheet.

Press it to the pressing sheet.

 Add your next piece and overlap just slightly (maybe 1/8 inch).  Press to the paper pressing sheet.  Cut off anything you don't want.  Continue adding pieces.

Keep going until you have your desired block, which in this case was 6 inches.

Fuse onto a square of fabric.  Fuse this onto batting.  Fuse a backing piece on.  She even used a fused raw-edged binding in one of the first two pictures to bind her art quilt. Kelly cut her binding with one of the fancy wavy rotary blades, and it was very cute.  It was then machine quilted, and the pieces were permanently kept in place by the quilting process.

Some helpful tips: 

1.  Titanium needles gum up less than other needles

2.  Batiks don't always fuse well.  Test your fabrics.

3.  Laura Wasilowski's books have many cute ideas for this technique, from arty to traditional. 

4.  This would be a great beginning project to get a child interested in quilting.

5.  This would be a fun way to make greeting cards.  Fuse to Cardstock.

6.  Kelly used the floss holder box to organize her fused scraps in the picture below for future projects.

As you can see from the last post and this one, we had a really great meeting.  Many people can't see the work that goes into putting on a demonstration or class like this.  I just want to thank Kelly Kroon for putting a wonderful meeting together and this demonstration and also Lynn Butler for her demonstration on the hexagon stars.

Next post will be show and tell, so come back in a few days to see what the girls have been making.  We had some wonderful projects shown this month.

Debbie

As an addendum, the following is a copy of a comment we received from Laura Wasilowski in the comment section below.  Thank you Laura for additional tips to this very fun technique:

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for using my book, Fusing Fun, for a tutorial on fusing!

I have a few tips for you when using this book. Wonder Under #805 is the brand of fusible web I use. It will not gum up your needle when stitching. Remember, you always have to steam set the fused quilt top to the non-scrim side of batt before stitching first. Then the hand or machine needle will glide through like stitching in butter. (not that I've ever stitched butter, but you get the idea.)

Have fun!

Laura Wasilowski