Easy Street - Part 5

Part 5 is complete - sorry for the delay in getting it posted.  The good news is that Carolina Christmas is quilted and just waiting for binding. 

 

 

Link up to other at Bonnie's Part 5

Carolina Christmas

A little late - 2 years to be exact - but my Carolina Christmas is finally together.  I had also planned on getting it quilted this weekend, but my daughter called and requested  my help in making Christmas cookies tomorrow, so the quilt will have to wait a few days.

The center layout is not Bonnie's original, but something different I tried and then did not like.  Discussed with myself I put it away and 2 years later the thought of all that ripping was still not appealing.  So off to the bookshelf  I went for my copy of  "Scraps & Shirttails II" - made the outer border and now there is one less UFO in my collection.

 

Easy Street - Part 4

Before I share my results for this part of the mystery I want to thank everyone that has posted a comment and shared their thoughts - it means so much to me.  I enjoy checking out the posted links and trying to envision the beautiful quilts we are making to show Bonnie how much we love and appreciate her.

Sometime ago I learned that making flying geese 4 at a time gave me the best results, but for part 2 I decided to give Bonnie's method another try.  The results looked okay, but when measuring I found that a number were a tad too wide and had to be fixed.

So for part 4 - having learned my lesson - I made the geese using the no waste method, and all 64 turned out a perfect size.  My gold 3.5" squares are in place of Bonnie's green color.



   





I posted yesterday about the UFO that was donated to my quilt group. After taking every - already pieced - block apart and reassembling, the quilt top is finally together.  The pattern is called "On The Road Again" by Debbie's Creative Moments.  The focus fabric is a beautiful leaf print batik. 

 

Make sure you check out the Part 4 links tomorrow on Easy Street.

 

Happy Sewing,

Nettie



 



 

 



Donated Mystery

I belong to a quilt group "Comfort Quilts" that meets monthly at Byrnes Sewing.  We work on donation quilts for shelters and Philadelphia hospitals.  This past Monday one of the employees brought us a box of things that had been donated for our use.  There was fabric, books and in the bottom of the box a UFO with instructions. With that one of the girls looked at me and said, "you like mysteries, you take it home" - so home with me it came. 

A couple of days later I sorted threw the pieces and found that only one block remained to be pieced and it contained the same block I had just finished for part 3 of Easy Street. 

 

After the blocks were pieced I moved on to laying out the quilt.

 

 



At this point I realized that that I was heading for trouble.  None of the already pieced blocks were square.  I even tried to tell myself that maybe I could quilt it out on the longarm, but ......................

 

So far I have taken apart and reassembled all but one of the blocks.  In this case it wasn't the 1/4" seam but the cutting that was wrong. 

 

Hopefully at my next posting I will be able to show you the completed top.

 

Happy sewing,

Nettie

 

 





Easy Street - Part 3

The next part of Bonnie's mystery was posted early Friday morning and thanks to the calendar on my iPad it woke me up at 5:00 am - and I was sleeping so good, but it was Easy Street day so...............

I had been following Bonnie's colors for step 1 and 2, but now changed to the warm side of the color wheel for my next color.  As I have the Easy Angle & Companion Angle rulers I used the posted method of creating the block.  The block name is "Brave World" or "Mary's Triangle".

I noticed today on the google group - Quiltvillechat - that a number of people were talking about a youtube video by Deb Tucker.  She called the same block - shaded 4 patch, but it required the purchase of a chart that was only available by mail.  Then I remembered earlier seeing a post on Kati's blog where she had done a tutorial with mesurements for part 3, using the Deb Tucker method - so I sent a reply.  For anyone else that is not a member of Quiltvillechat - www.katisquilting.blogspot.com.

 

As I was making these blocks I kept thinking I had done these before and realized that they were the same blocks that were strung together to form the outer border on  - Orca Bay - last years mystery.

 

Happy Sewing,

Nettie in PA

Easy Street - Part 2

The second clue for the Easy Street mystery went live early Friday morning sometime after 4am EST - that's when the first message on the yahoo group Quiltvillechat was posted.  This step involved making flying geese and cutting rectangles that would be used in another part.

After gathering my purples and background fabrics I started cutting and making 128 flying geese - finishing up just as Bonnie was starting Friday nights Quilt-cam.

Make sure you check in on everyone's progress - Monday Link Up

Happy Sewing,
Nettie

Texas Tumbleweeds

A couple of months ago I was watching Quilt-cam on Quiltville - that's what Bonnie calls the web-cam sessions that she so generously shares with all that want to log on.  Anyway..... on her longarm I spied a quilt I had not seen before and wanted to make - so I grabbed my phone to take a picture and then someone posted a comment asking the name of said quilt.  As it turned out the quilt was a mystery quilt from a workshop in Texas and would be coming out in the November/December issue of Quiltmaker.  Problem solved.......

My quilt is not as large as Bonnie's but at least it made me attack the Batik scraps I had been collecting.  The finished size is 52" x 69".

 



This quilt pattern produced a lot of  2 inch "bonus triangles" - (I think that's what Bonnie calls them).  So in the same issue of Quiltmaker in her "addicted to scraps" article she shared a block that would use up all those 2" triangles.  So........why not!

This quilt finished at 49" x 65" and most of  the people that have seen both quilts like the 2nd one the best.  What do you think? 


Thanks for stopping by!
Nettie

EASY STREET - Ready Set Go.......

This morning at 6 am EST - Bonnie Hunter posted Step 1 of her new mystery - EASY STREET and I was not ready!  As today was Black Friday this was not a problem - the stores were opening early.

The yardage requirements had been listed since October 31st - but finding the right gray was hard.  What I ended up purchasing today was not what I had hoped for, but indecision time was over - so I chose and by mid January I will know if it was right or wrong.

192 - 4 patch squares later..........

 

 

Check out what others have accomplished - Easy Street

Wonky Scrappy Log Cabin Quilt

One week ago I was reading different blogs and came across Victoria's at Bumble Beans.  She was talking about the Sandy Quilt Block Drive that Michele at Quilting Gallery was running and offered a tutorial for a tilted scrappy log cabin quilt.  You could either make blocks or be a team leader - the other possibility I thought of was to make one from scratch.  So I called my friend Janet and we both started making blocks.

On Monday I picked up her blocks and along with mine started laying them out.......

The original scrappy log cabin blocks were to finish at 10.5 inches and then have an additional 2 inch dark color strip added to make the last round.  I did not have a 12.5 inch ruler - so used a piece of paper to make the final cuts - tilting half of the 42 blocks to the right and half to the left.  After sewing all the blocks together and adding borders it was time to get it mounted on the longarm and start quilting.

Wednesday I added the binding, photographed the quilt and shipped it UPS to Timeless Treasures in New Jersey for distribution.  The finished size was 81 x 93 inches.

The Winter Blues?

I mainly make quilts to be donated and most of the time I am pleased with the out come, but this last month I completed 2 that left me feeling blue. The technical part was correct - it's the combination of colors that I do not like.  The first one was made from all donated fabric and .......
The blocks finished at 8 inches - making the finished quilt 48.5" x 64.5". The pattern is called "Hour Glass", and a how to video is available on youtube.

The second one was fashioned after a pattern by Jaybird Quilts called Radio Way and finished at 49.5" x 69.5".  I started out making the strip blocks from my 2.5" box of strips and had trouble finding the correct color to  tie it all together.  I ended up using a light lime green after trying off white.  The thirty year old green colors are grayed and just lack the spark that todays colors have.

 

Hidden Wells

Two weeks ago I stopped at our local Book Mobile and found a quilting book by Pam & Nicky Lintott titled "Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts"

To my great surprise one of the quilts included was Hidden Wells that was created in 1989 by Mary Ellen Hopkins.  With her permission these instructions were adapted to use a jelly roll - some cut some not - in different widths 1.25 to 2.5".  My strip set started out looking like this before cutting both diagonals.

Once the technique is figured out you can make any number of variations by changing the number of strips and widths. My quilt with 3.5" borders measured 59" x 72" after quilting and binding.

Bow Tie 

This is another Bonnie Hunter inspired quilt made with a cheddar solid, or I should say as close as I could find - "Cat Paws" by makower uk.  Each bow tie is made with 2 cheddar pieces cut 2", 2 print pieces cut 2" and two -1 1/4" pieces for the snowballed corners.  Each square finished at 3" making my 16 x 16 square quilt finish at 49".

Boston Commons

The quilt was made from 3.5" cut squares and finished at 55.5" x 72.5".   

Orca Bay - DONE! DONE!

The Mystery "Orca Bay" is quilted and bound.

I used an all over pattern called Spikey Spinners and King Tut thread - color "Pumice" - shades of gray.

Less dense quilting would have been better with the wool  batting I wanted to use, but with all the sashing blocks and small pieces I thought it would hold up better this way.

Two years ago I started and never finished Bonnie's "Carolina Christmas" mystery and I was determined that would not happen this time.

On New Years Eve before the big reveal at midnight EST, I was working on another trip arould the world quilt for Camp Erin.  The good news is that it is also finished and will go with me on Monday for show and tell at Byrnes Sewing where our local "Comfort Quilt" group meets monthly. 

This quilt was made from 3.5" cut squares - 9 different colors - finishing at 51" x 70" after washing.

Orca Bay

Thank you Bonnie for creating another beautiful mystery quilt.  I did not kept track of the hours spent and the number of pieces, but  it was a lot.............. 

Now to decide on the backing.