Blithe Fabrics Blog Tour - You don't know what you don't know!

Diamonds quilt with a scrappy binding

When Katarina Roccella posted on Instagram that she was looking for entries for a blog tour for her new fabric line, Blithe, with Art Gallery Fabrics, I got right to work designing a pattern.  I adore Art Gallery Fabrics for their rich color and wonderful hand.  They wash like a dream.  Not to mention that if you got chosen, Art Gallery would send you fabrics to make your project with!

I was so excited when my entry got chosen.  When the fabrics came, I got right to work cutting....

One thing I really love about finished quilt photos...you can take them artistically and keep your eyes off of the flaws.  Pretty much every quilter I know always points out all of the flaws and imperfections in their work.  Some imperfections are more than that though, they're straight up mistakes.

Quilt Back with leftover scraps from the front

This is my first sketch, I did two more after this, with colors and more precision and measurements.  But this is how I always start out.  In my head (sadly), half square rectangles were the same as half square triangles.  Yeah.  I know. DUH.

This is how all of my quilt patterns start out - messy and on graph paper

So I start to sew all of my ALREADY CUT fabrics and this is what I get...no points.  I thought, maybe it's my imprecise sewing.  Some of them look 'sort of' like points.  Sort of.

YIKES!! Where are the points??

Then I do what everyone does.  I Google "half square rectangle" and watch some You-Tube videos.  As my Nonni used to say, PAIN IN A BUCKET.  There were all of these wonderful videos and tutorials about how not to screw up your half square rectangles...like this...

From Heidi of Buttons and Butterflies
http://www.buttonsandbutterflies.com/2015/09/half-rectangle-triangles-tutorial.html

or this one, from the Modern Quilt Guild
https://themodernquiltguild.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/100-days-week-of-shapes-tutorial/

No points here either

So, now I know what I didn't know.  But I didn't then.  So this is what my quilt came out like.  Of course, I had to finish it, it was an honor to have my design chosen.   Too bad my execution wasn't as good as the original design!!

From far away, in the fresh snow, it's pretty.  Just squint.

 My daughter held this up outside in our back yard after the snow, and it looks wonderful in this light.  She's already claimed it.  She has no idea that there are supposed to be nice, sharp points on all of those triangles.  Thank goodness she doesn't care.

Photo cred to my daughter Ally for holding this up so I could get good pictures

I do love the back, and the scrappy binding I made with all of the left overs from my super-over-zealous cutting for the front.

If you have other tutorials, or wisdom about half square rectangles (or anything else that I don't know that I don't know), I'm all ears!
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Bare Feet Only - My first floor mat

This is a huge accomplishment for me. I am the Queen of unfinished projects. Or, if you like a positive spin, the Queen of started projects. This great rug I started a mere 3 weeks ago!!

I got a wonderful package of fat quarters from my super creative buddy Bari of her Art Journal line. The colors just jumped out at me and screamed "make something with us!". And I happened to have this pattern on my cutting table, because I was thinking it was an "achievable" project, and VOILA! I'm pretty sure I got the pattern from Above All Fabric. The idea of a sewn floor mat/rug just seemed SO cool to me.

The pattern is "Bare Feet Only" by Sweetwater. There were only three pieces to cut (6 of each), but that was a bit deceiving. I really had trouble making the circular trim pieces neat. They are only about 1/2 inch wide, and clearly, I flunked kindergarten, because I can't cut on a line to save my life it seems. I also found it challenging to cut the double sided interfacing for these pieces. By the time I was done my pattern piece was a mess, and I wished I had traced it and left it in the pattern. I will have a hard time if I try to use this pattern again.



I just love the little nests in this fabric, and I managed to find the most perfect pearlized teal buttons in my vintage button stash. They match the teal really well. The sewing itself for this pattern was simple, however, I had a few problems there, too.



I realized how difficult it is to zigzag stitch around a flower and make it neat and even. When I took the rug out of the sewing machine to examine my work I was surprised just how non-curved some of my sewing was. That having been said, I managed to convince myself it looked "authentic" that way. Ha ha!



I didn't have enough large pieces of the Art Journal for the back so I went to Sew Inspired and found this Art Gallery fabric that I think coordinates really well. The Art Gallery fabric has the most wonderful feel to it, but it's a bit more silky than a lot of cottons I've sewn with, and it didn't hold with the adhesive spray as well as I am accustomed to.



The result was that the back of the rug ended up having a bit too much fabric and being sort of bunchy. Overall, I am not thrilled with the workmanship on this project. I sort of see it as a prototype or a sample. I wanted to see what the whole process was like more than I wanted it to be perfect.



That having been said, I am THRILLED with my binding this time. A wonderful blog reader, Sara Strange (find her blog "Joy in Everything" here), posted a comment about my first quilt binding with a link to a Monkey See video for slip stitching. WOW!! The video made it super clear what I wasn't doing right before, and after seeing the video just once, my binding went from so-so and unattractive to just exactly what I wanted. Thank you Sara!

My daughter has already claimed this rug. She loves the colors and the "cute little birdies". I can't wait to upload these pics to Bari's flickr group. I am crazy excited to be pumping out projects at this rate.