Giveaways

Lots to talk about today.

There are a bunch of nice people out there in blog land and lots of nice giveaways. Boy I sure wish I could win one.

One great giveaway is from Lily's Quilts. They are giving away 22 fat quarters of Kona solids. Awesome.

I've signed up for quite a few other giveaways as well. It is a great way to find other quilting and sewing blogs full of cute ideas, tutorials and fabrics. So I've won even if I don't win.

QAL: I'm almost done cutting the long strips into short strips. By almost done, I mean I've done more than half. :-)

Ga Tech quilt: I'm in the process of designing a twin size quilt for my daughter, a student at Ga Tech. There isn't a lot of fabric with the GT design and only one of the designs is available locally so I've tried to order some. I ordered two pieces. They are the same print but on different backgrounds. They arrived yesterday, except they didn't. The fabric with the white background was as ordered but apparently the gold background one is discontinued. So, instead of contacting me, they substituted a UGA print instead. I'm truly amazed that they could think that that was an acceptable substitution let along that a substitution was acceptable. Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear what they want to do about it. I ordered extra fabric so I can substitute the white for the gold in my quilt but I'm quite annoyed. Now to find other fabric to match for the rest of the quilt. I intend to post here about my adventure in creating this quilt.

QAL Update

I decided I didn't like the colors of the jelly roll I picked out, plus there wasn't enough fabric in it to do the whole project. I went by Hancock Fabrics, which is not very close to my house, and found some fabric I like better. Here it is:


I bought a 1/4 yard of each (10) fabrics.

I was able to get 3 2 1/2 inch strips from each which leaves me 1 strip short. So I'm off to Jo-Ann's to see if I can find something that matches.
I've sewed all the strips I have to all the white strips and have made the center square. This is as far as the instructions have taken us.


I'm trying really hard to be consistent with my seams. I just can't seem to sew straight. When I use 1/4 inch seam allowance my strips come out too small so I've reduced my seam allowance a little. I guess scant means really scant. This will give me a little more room to play with when I go to square everything up.

Can't wait to continue next week.

Crazy Mom Quilts QAL

I've decided to join my first quilt-a-long. Crazy Mom Quilts started one this month with a patter she came up with and that I like. Week one starts here.

I bought my background fabric yesterday and cut it out today. The instructions were very clear (once I figured out the 65"x wof part). That did confuse me at first being more used to instructions like 2 1/2 x wof. The Jelly roll I purchased doesn't have enough strips so I will either have to buy another one or return it and get two packs of fat quarters with the same fabrics. I'm not really thrilled with the fabrics in the roll but they will do (in that they match the room I want to use the quilt in) but I'm going to try another store this weekend to see if I can find something I like better.
Here is a picture of what I've done so far:



Notes to self about the project so far:

1. Cutting strips out of 5 yards of fabric is a pain. I think all the strips came out straight but we'll see when I go to sew them together.
2. The instructions called for cutting shorter strips out of the 65" long strips. I made the shorter strips longer than the instructions called for just in case. There was plenty of fabric in the strips so I new that there was plenty of extra. I can always cut the extra off later.
3. When cutting the 65" strips into to two pieces, I cut the short piece off of the strip leaving the longer piece instead of cutting the longer piece. Measuring the short piece is easier than measuring and cutting a longer piece.
   

New Blog, just for quilting

Hi all.
OK, so there aren't a lot of you and in fact at this point there aren't any of you as this is my first post on this new blog.

My purpose:

Record my journey through the world of quilting, hoping that my experience will help others and that this blog will help me be more organized.

History:

I have only just begun to learn to quilt. I took a quilting lesson at Jo-Anns last fall and have since made a few small quilts as well as the big one I made with the lessons. I'll post details in a later post.

So welcome, I hope we all enjoy the ride.