Showing posts with label Thangles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thangles. Show all posts

Sunday, November 15, 2015

A Week of Satisfying Sewing

Gosh, this past week has been just chock full of sewing fun. I have taken so many pictures of beautiful quilts, delicious food and wonderful friends. Most of the quilt pictures have been posted, but in recapping the week I have found that I've left a few things out. Today's post will be a catch-all post of the fun of the past week.

On Tuesday a group of us sewed at Terry's. Click here to read about the fun project Sheryll and Jan worked on. I finished the t-shirt quilt and left it for Terry to quilt. Here are a couple of additional details that I didn't already share.

Terry has 3 sweet dogs that make themselves right comfortable when all the quilters come. They are the most precious pups.

Terry began the day trying to finish these colorful zipper bags, but gave it up around noon. I think those zippers got the best of her. She worked on a different project in the afternoon and made better progress - but I have no pictures to show, unfortunately.

Wednesday found me at Sherrie's for the annual Veterans' Day sewing and socializing. This year seemed to be more about socializing than sewing, but that's all good. The food is always fantastic. Here are some of the goodies we enjoyed.



It's a potluck affair, and we always have more than we need. From the top:bacon-chocolate appetizers; potato soup and fixings; cranberry breakfast bars; broccoli quiche; salad with pears, apples, cranberries, cashews, swiss cheese, romaine lettuce and poppy-seed dressing; pumpkin bars.

Hettie and her daughter came with the new baby, Joel. He found himself surrounded by adoring Frienzies. Lyn is entertaining him in this picture - or is it the other way around??


Hettie also had this sweet quilt to show us. It is not, as you might think, for her grandson; it is for a baby shower coming up soon.

For my own sewing that day, I took my first foray into using Thangles, a brand of triangle papers. It was something I'd wanted to do for quite a long time.


And from that first Thangles effort, I made this Monkey Wrench block.

After careful consideration, I decided that I wanted more complexity, so I altered the construction a bit and made several Churn Dash blocks which you can read about by clicking here. After leaving Sherrie's, I made more blocks, stopping at 9. You can see my little table topper/wall hanging here.

In the meantime, I have made several more HSTs using the 3" size of Thangles. I saw a picture on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. Click here to see it. It is called Friendship Star Wreath, so I thought it would look pretty in Christmas colors. Stay tuned for more on that.

And I'm not done yet! Also on Pinterest, I saw the cutest little clutch bag, and it looked so simple. I could hardly wait to get to the sewing machine to give it a try. And so I did. Take a look.

This was as easy as advertised. It took me about an hour to make, and that includes the time it took me to select the fabrics. I have since made 2 more, and I daresay that a few of the females on my gift-giving list will have something like this under the Christmas tree.

Finally, I have been able to sit at my quilt frame quite a lot these past few days. With all the NCAA football games yesterday, and the Cleveland Cavaliers last night, I have achieved sore-finger status. It feels so good to glance over at the quilt and see the little stitch indentations in the shadows of the bay window.
And that wraps up a full and fun week of stitching. No UFOs breathing down my neck, and new stuff to play around with. Quite satisfying. I will go back to some of those UFOs still to be finished, but it has been nice to have a week in which I could experiment and play. Very, very satisfying.

Have a great Sunday!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Wall Hanging or Table Topper?

The age-old question for quilters -- is it a wall hanging or a table topper?

That's an exaggeration. Quilters really don't care how it's used, and in some instances it can function in an either/or capacity. So really, we aren't obsessing about it at all.

 I turned all my churn dash blocks into this little creation - a table topper. I didn't have much fabric to begin with; I limited how many blocks I made so that I would have options for settings and borders. I may just go ahead with a few more blocks and add onto this. Then it really does become a wall-hanging, probably.

To make the HSTs, I used - for the first time ever - Thangles. Those are pre-printed papers that have markings for sewing and cutting. I'd bought a bunch of them in a variety of sizes several years ago. I pulled out the 2" package, and went to work. In very short order, I had all the triangle units made, and not a bit of stretching or distortion. The paper foundations kept those bias seams in line. I like using Thangles, and already have ideas for some future projects.

It's Saturday! This is the first Saturday I've had free in a couple of weeks. Last Saturday was the bazaar and before that was the Spark! class. I am going to enjoy this day by watching some OSU Buckeye football, quilting at the frame, and making an apple pie. Good activities for a fall day in Ohio. Go Bucks!

Happy Quilting, Friends!