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Christmas Mystery BOM

Yesterday I showed you my Mystery Block of the Month that I had to do some frogging on. I have finished that block and the next one as well. I think the third block, the wreath, is my favorite so far.

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It is so much fun to get these each month and see the creativity that each designer has in putting the block together. The packets are very generous with the fabric they provide too, so I will probably have quite a bit leftover when I am done.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Frogging

It wasn’t until I started visiting a quilting forum that I heard the word “frogging.” Frogging is a term used when you have to unpick stitches with your seam ripper. It is so called because you have to “rip-it” out. (Like Ribbit, frogging … get it?? ….) This method is also known as un-sewing. Needless to say I hate frogging. There is nothing in the world that I hate more than having to re-do something I just did 10 seconds ago. If I write a post here and lose the post because the internet is being wacky, I will not rewrite the post. When I take a test, I answer the questions and I never re-read them after I am done. If I make a quilt and the seams don’t line up perfectly, I embrace the imperfections and call it good because done is better than perfect in my eyes. Redoing anything is just not my thing.

That being said, sometimes I have no choice but to do a little frogging. I was recently working on a block and my seams were a little narrow so when I sewed two pieces together I ended up with some puckers, which you can see at the top of this picture:

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I set the block aside for a day or two and went back and forth with myself about whether it could stay or not. As I said, I.hate.redoing.anything, so this was a real long conversation with myself about whether this could stay or not. I nearly had myself talked into not redoing it, when I looked at it again. I finally admitted that these mistakes were just too obvious and I wouldn’t be happy. So I bit the bullet and did a little frogging. I tightened up a few seams, sewed things back together, and now I have no puckers:

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Though I was irritated at having to redo, I am very happy with how it looks now. Putting a few days between the original and the redo helped, and I know it will look better in the long run. I will show you the finished block tomorrow!

Happy Un-Quilting!
Rachel

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Family Reunion Pattern

A while back I started following a blog called A Bee in My Bonnet. Lori Holt is the blog owner, and she has the best applique patterns I have seen in a while. I am not big on traditional quilt patterns, so hers entertain me. I am particularity smitten with one called Family Reunion.

Click on the title of the pattern to see pictures of Lori’s finished quilt. The pattern can be picked up at Material Girls or if you are lucky, like me, on Etsy.

Since nothing is short of an adventure with me, especially since I have the worst memory in the world, of course it wasn’t easy for me to get this pattern in my hands.

First off, I have been putting off buying this pattern, because though it is well worth the price, at about $25.00 it is a little pricey. Finally one day I had $30 dumped into my Paypal account for a bunch of referrals I had made. It was like a sign, this money was meant to be used to buy me this pattern.

Unfortunately Material Girls does not take Paypal for payment, so I turned to Etsy. When I was doing my search I could not remember the right name of the pattern, so I typed in something like “Quilt Bee Bonnet” and a bunch of stuff came up including this pattern also by Lori …

That’s it! I thought and I quickly made my purchase before I reminded myself of the eighty-million more important ways that money could be used. I was so tickled at having bought it, that about a half hour later I went to Lori’s site to look at the pictures and dream of making the pattern. When I got there, I quickly realized my mistake!! While the pattern I bought was very nice, it wasn’t the one I have been lusting for.

I quickly hopped back over to Etsy and sent a 911 message to my seller telling her that I bought the wrong thing and was there anyway she could switch them or refund my money? Pretty please with ice cream on top? I crossed all my fingers and toes, braided my hair, and spun around in a circle three times while I awaited a response.

Lucky for me, my seller was so kind and understanding and said she would switch out the patterns and send me the one I really wanted. Yay!! I love wonderful sellers, and this one should get lots of love. So if you are ever in dire need of something quilty on Etsy, please check out Piper’s Girls, she is pretty awesome.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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I must admit

I have blog envy. I hate to admit that, but I do. I have about 250 blogs in my Google Reader, and while I don’t read them all all the time, I do read a lot of them. They are all so very interesting and it gives me blog envy. I would love for this blog to be alive with not only my quilting escapades, but my own voice too. Cupcake ‘n’ Daisies recently asked her readers what makes a good blog, and when I went to post, I thought about what I like in a blog. I like blogs that have a focus, photography, food, quilting, crafting, scrapbooking, finance …. But I also like when these writers incorporate their own lives into the blog. This is something I generally don’t do, and something I want to work on! I know there are not many of you reading this out there right now, with I’m cool with that, but I am not trying to impress anyone, I am just trying to share a little about me and about being crafty. So this long winded brain dump is to simply remind myself to not have so many expectations for my blog.

And since I think every blog post is so boring without a picture, here is one I took of my son’s Toy Story Legos, I was trying to get all fancy with my new DSLR. I actually think the pic is quite endearing.

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Happy Quilting,
Rachel

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Christmas Mystery Block of the Month

I have been looking to do a block of the month for a while. A block of the month is where you get enough fabric to make one block each month and then at the end of 12 months you have 12 blocks that you can make a whole quilt. I haven’t found one that struck me in a while, but I happened to stumble upon a mystery block of the month from the Fat Quarter Shop.

I have one Christmas quilt right now and I would love to have another, so I thought this was a good way to get one and do a block of the month. Since it is a mystery, I do not know what the final quilt will look like. I have finished just one block so far and am currently working on the second. Here is a picture of the first block.

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Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Quilty Inspiration

I draw a lot of inspiration from blogs, websites and forums. I like to bookmark quilts as I come across them so I can peek through them when I am feeling uninspired. I thought I would share some of the pics that I bookmarked every so often so maybe you can find inspiration from them too.

This week the picture I am sharing is a quilt I probably won’t make for a long time, but I love the look of it. It comes from the Sew Create It blog.

I know a lot of people use old shirts as fabric for quilts, I have been meaning to find some at a thrift store and try it out, but I haven’t done it yet. This quilt is a fun way to use an otherwise unusable part of the shirt. There is no tutorial with this picture, but I think if I wanted to make one I could easily figure it out.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Dr. Seuss Fabric

There have not been very many fabrics that I am so excited about, but the new Robert Kaufman line featuring Dr. Seuss characters has totally and utterly caught my fancy. The fabric will not ship until September, but it is on pre-order at Fabric.com. Here are a few designs:

I am not sure what kind of quilt I will make with this fabric yet, but I will probably make a lap quilt as that is my favorite size to make!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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The Last of my Bee Creative Blocks

I have already finished the whole quilt top, but I wanted to post up the rest of the blocks before I showed you the whole top put together. These are the last of the blocks that were made for my Bee Creative Halloween quilt.

By Behindtheseams:
Wonky eyed cat for Rachel's Halloween quilt

Second block for Rachel, June BEE Creative

From abbyreed3:
June '10 Bee Creative Blocks

From mamamary2:
Blocks for Rachel- Bee Creative

From Lynds0517:
Bee Creative June Block

There are a few others that don’t have pics on Flickr, but soon I will show you the completed top. It actually went together really easily.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Playing with the New Machine

About 2 weeks ago I finally had my Handiquilter machine delivered. The girl that I bought it from brought it over and her husband set up the whole thing in our basement.

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Luckily it fit the spot we were thinking for it perfectly. We had to rearrange the whole basement to clear that spot, but I am just glad it fit!!

The machine came with some thread, so I loaded up a practice piece to try some different stuff out. I used muslin for the back, Warm and Natural for the batting, and some sale fabric from my LQS for the top.

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I had taken a class for the machine a few days earlier, so I already knew how to check tension, thread the machine and try some stitches. The first thing I tried was a simple meander, this will probably be what I use the most in the beginning.

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Not too bad if I do say so myself. It’s hard to stay focused on making the pattern random, but I am sure it will get better with practice. The next one I tried was a pebble pattern.

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This one took A LOT of thread, I went around each pebble two or three times, I think I could get the same effect just going around twice, I will have to work on that one more, but I do like it. Another one I tried was loops with hearts thrown in.

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This was a little hard at first, especially to get the hearts going different directions, but I got the hang of it eventually.

Overall the practice quilt turned out pretty good. I did have one or two minor issues on the back.

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But that was mostly due to how I was changing bobbin threads and starting back up, I need to work on that a bit more. I ordered some Quilter’s Dream batting and some more thread to try out some actual quilts. I can’t wait to show you my very first finished quilt!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel