Mason Jar Paper-Pieced Quilt Block

If you haven't noticed, there's a mason jar craze going on right now.  People are decorating with them, cooking in them and well, I guess still canning in them.  I know I am.

Thought I'd jump on the bandwagon by making a paper-pieced mason jar.  This is actually my second and a half attempt at making this block.  I should have taken a picture of the first one, but I had a moment of seam ripping inspiration and so I just got to work.  When you're inspired to un-pick seams...you just gotta go with it, cause it doesn't happen very often.

The first attempt, was far too wonky.  The lid of the taller mason jar was not a pretty sight, so much so, I had to re-do it....which meant unpicking the entire block.  Even this attempt is still a bit off, but I am much more satisfied, so it gets to stay.

My half attempt had me using a pale yellow, solid fabric for the sash...ahem...can we say urine sample?  Yeah.  Not attractive.  That was undone with lightning speed.

I am going to embroider the above phrase using some floss, but first I had to write it on and make sure I liked how it looked and if it was centered....The Mister wanted me to embroider on something random, but modern as he put it...because I wanted to write...Beets...or...Raspberries.  I don't know, I like to take his advice into consideration because quite often he is correct, but in this case, I just felt like putting something weird on would just be confusing and not modern.

This pen is my new favorite quilting tool.  The ink disappears under friction or a hot iron.  So you can write on your sewing or quilting lines with a pen that writes quite smoothly...and then it just goes buh bye!  No rubbing off and making a huge mess like with chalk and no tell-tale signs of pencil lead.  So a worthwhile investment!

Want to know The Mister's suggestion?  Salty Tart.  Yeah.  I don't think so.  We were watching a show about bakeries and there's one that's named the Salty Tart, which for the record is the best name I've ever heard for a bakery.  But...not good for my mason jar quilt block.  Just saying.  So I finally settled on Fresh Picked.  It's not fruit or veg, but it's not completely random either.  More...modern, if you will.

Oh yeah, and the red thing up there, is a beet.  Not a strawberry.  Artistic license. 

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Neutrals???

I don't do neutrals.  Let's just put it out there.  I like neutrals...I really do.  In fact I wear them on a regular basis...and when people use neutrals themselves in their own projects, I think, wow, that looks so good! But, to craft with neutrals...is something I just don't do.  Why would I when the colors of fabric are so beautiful.  That's the best part of quilting you know...playing with your fabric.

Last year for Christmas, The Mister only wanted one thing.  ONE THING.  Some shirts that weren't robin's egg blue, or lavender or sunset orange (can I just say too, the only reason The Mister has yet to receive a shirt that's Daffodil....is his coloring. He just blends into his clothes if they're too beige...and in turn makes him beige...but don't think I'm not keeping my eyes out for the perfect yellow shirt with his name on it). Now, the one thing The Mister wanted from Santee Clause was shirts in neutral colors...like... Navy and... Forest Green. 

Barf.

Whatever.

As the loving wife that I am...I got him shirts in turquoise and heathered sea grass instead... Just teasing.  I got him navy and forest green as he requested.  So, as I am considering how to make his quilt...I of course take into consideration his lack of vibrant, bright, color love...sort of.

Yeah...this is as neutral as I get.  And, as my first attempt to make a man quilt...this is as mannish as I get apparently.

A man quilt...with butterflies?  You say...ummm...yeah, but look at them, they're really tough butterflies...yeah, and, they're in neutral colors, and, in fact, the more I look at these butterflies, I realize they are in fact moths....and as we all know, moths are a manly insect.  So, yeah....moths.

And the flowers?  You ask...well...ummm....look, they're really stylized flowers and look more like art than real flowers.  So...yeah...these artistic flowers are very manly. 

Well, I love it so far...and one of the best things, this quilt is pretty fast to put together.  It is pure fun.  I get to use gorgeous fabrics..  Paper Piece, which I love.  And, it's a quilt that I've been waiting to make for...over a year.  I first saw this quilt, called Urban Lattice, on the Tracyjay Quilts Blog which is a blog I really enjoy, by the way...and knew it was The Mister's future quilt...but I had a few projects I had to finish up before I got to his.

Now, my husband is off on business...so even though I have two...ahem...yes two quilts that need me to complete their hand quilting , I am moving onward with some piecing on the Man Quilt...Love.

So, Tracyjay Quilts was making a quilt that originated from Me? A Mom?'s Urban Lattice Quilt Along and Tracyjay altered Cara's design a bit: she added another string of black fabric (which I think looks amazing).  The thing Tracyjay didn't do, was, she decided not to paper piece hers.  I like paper piecing because...I may or may not be the most accurate fabric cutter...ahem...and so with paper piecing, you really get much better accuracy.  I'm still not 100% accurate...that's due to my inherent impatience, but it's pretty darn close.

So, I took Tracyjay's idea, went to Cara's tutorial and made a few modifications and am now making Tracyjay's take while paper piecing to Cara's instructions.  Lots of fun!!!

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Bestill my Heart...

Looovve it!

What do you guys think?  I mean, it's not done yet or anything...but this flimsy makes my heart flutter.  Kinda like The Mister does.  wink wink.  It's called What's Coming Up Summer by Jodie Warner.  She's the one who designed This little Beauty that's sitting in my living room right now just until June 20th or so when hopefully the new one is complete.

I want to say what a creative mind Jodie Warner is.  She can put together a quilt block like I've never even imagined.  I'll show ya...

This looks like it might be straight forward...but the angles involved are ridiculous!  So each row is it's own pieced block which you later sew all together.  But then on top of getting all the angles right for the machine paper foundation piecing so everything matches up, she then has you make a couple extra blocks that you strategically place over the previous block and with a snip snip here and a snip snip there she manages to get those angles to match up with the previous angles...it's black magic if you ask me. 

Oh yeah...I also think the leaves kinda look like dragon's wings.  My Sister, who thinks the name Kaleesi would be a good one for a baby girl, would like these leaves..Do you watch HBO's Game of Thrones?  The Mister who is a former D & D nerd...would also like these leaves for obvious reasons.

I will also say as I've said before, the great thing about quilting is taking somebody else's idea and making it your own.  I love the bright reds and pinks and oranges that I've chosen and the border fabric is my favorite.  The Hawaiian theme makes me happy as I have a special place in my heart for Hawaii...

Thanks to The Mister and I honeymooning there and my Baby Bro for getting married there.

My Oldest gave herself a haircut the day before we flew out.  Right then.  As you can see, she was in awe of the man portraying himself as King Kamehameha at the Luau we went to.

My Youngest enjoying the view from my baby bro's rental house...pretty fancy.  I have dreams to this day of moving to Hawaii and buying this house...just need a little more cash.  Just a touch more really.  A smidge maybe

Anyway....Hawaii dream to be continued at a later date...in the meantime, back to reality.

It may not be as awesome as living in Hawaii...but I still think it's pretty swell.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

What's Coming up Summer...WIP

Not a lot of new sewing going on in my neck of the woods right now.  Just been busy.  Instead of crafting I've been doing a lot of...

This year, as you can see I am gardening partially in pots.  I am rotating my crops to help prevent diseases from infiltrating my garden plot...and I don't have anywhere else to put them really.  So pots it is.  I am going to do a little series on gardening as I have been taking gardening classes for the last several weeks and I am going to put to use my new knowledge.  I am a walking tutorial as we will see if this knowledge pans out at the end of the growing season.

Plus, we'll see if my seedlings actually grow and thrive...or fail completely. 

So, gardening has been my thing for a couple of weeks.  I'll get back to sewing...after today, when I plant my garden plot with corn and beans and beats and carrots and parsnips.  Yumm!  Plus, I really can't wait until I am harvesting  all this good stuff again!

In the first of my gardening series, I'm going to give you the recipe for what you should put in the pot before you put in a plant.  It's a witches brew.  It's science.  It's a witches brew and science all mixed up into one pot...or 10.

Okay, so onto the sewing.

What's Coming Up Spring...The Big Reveal

It's done!!  It's so cute.  It sits in a seldom used corner of my living room...that may I say could use a little zazzing up and I love it.

What do you think?  I don't mean to brag...but I did say it was going to be cuter than the one the designer of the quilt, Jodie Warner made.  It really is....if I do say so myself.  It's all relative....and I'll say it again, that's what's so fun about quilting.  You take somebody else's idea and make it your own.

How 'bout some close ups??!?

The cherry tree complete with cherry blossoms.  Her ideas are so creative.  I love that she doesn't just use your typical fabric.  She uses Organza here, where you melt the edges with a flame so they curl up and look like petals and attach them with beads.  Clever!  The Mister though, was quite concerned when I would sneak down to the basement to burn things...

This is made from the loveliest wool felt.  It's something special when you buy a material of quality.  Normally I would buy whatever Joann's had, but as we were at a lovely little craft store, I bought their true wool felt, it really wasn't much, maybe $6 for 1/2 a yard.  But as I am only using a bit of it, I want really nice quality.  My Mother worried that the dark brown wording over heather grey back wouldn't work...but I think it worked very well! 

The bee tag.  Again this was a very clever technique.  We used Organza again to make the wings.  You can't really see in this picture.  But the wings have veins sewn in.  Using your sewing machine you sew over a pattern, then cut it out a scan 1/8" around the edge and then lightly burn the edges to melt them sealed.  I was supposed to use an eyelet to attach the tag on...but I don't have an eyelet punch for one....and I didn't really want to buy one.  For another, I don't know how I feel about punching holes in my quilts.  Maybe, since I am making 4 of these and my Mother is making 4 we'll feel the need to buy a hole punch...but as for now, I just tacked it on and sewed the leather strap on.  I think it works fine.

The daffodil.  For the yellow center, we ruched a yellow ribbon and then over it, tacked on the little buttons.  Very nice touch.  Apparently though I forgot what she did.  My Mother said that she put all the buttons right in the very middle whereas I put them all over.  I think it's okay.

Here it is in it's place in the world.  It's only missing one thing and that's a wooden rod going through the back to make it hang straight.  The Mister has to get on to chopping one to size for me.  He loves helping me with projects.  Good news is...he's going to compost my vegetable garden today too!  Love!

Thanks for reading!

Heather

What's Coming Up Spring

My Mom got a wild hair and decided we should take a quilting class together.  The last quilt class I took with my Mom...just so you get a reference, was 10 years ago, I'm sure, and ended up with us attempting to make a terribly difficult project using the technique of reverse applique.  That little quilt sits unfinished...probably forever.  My tastes have changed considerably in 10 years and I no longer am a fan of the fabrics we chose.  That quilt pattern is still cute, maybe for my girls' rooms...but not for me.

So, fast forward to this weekend.  We think...we're pretty good, we know our stuff, we can handle just about anything...Well, this is all true, but at the same time, we are learning a lot!  We are taking a class from Jodie Warner called "What's Coming Up Spring.  It's totally cute and a fun idea.  She's made it small enough that you can hang it on a toilet paper stand and it will just tuck up someplace in your decor and be super cute.

I have had an entire weekend to work on this project mind you...here's what I have done...

Yup.  That's it.  3 teeny little blocks.  I guess the tulips count as 4 blocks.  So that makes 6 teeny little blocks I've completed.  But, darn if you wouldn't believe how long it takes to make one.

The iris is a lot of fun...if you can see here, it has a 3-D detail.  So cute.  But, what a pain.  I couldn't quite figure out her instructions...mind you, I took her first class, but unfortunately this detail was kind of rushed through, but...

the leaves on this puppy caused me to earn several new gray hairs.  Thanks Jodie.  She uses a tricky technique, that's quite cool, but her instructions left much to be desired.  You use an already pieced block and have to line up the seam of that block onto the seam of the other block, but you're working with crazy angles and....let's just say The Mister had to help me figure out how to line it up.  I had to quickly explain the intricacies of Machine Paper Foundation Piecing so that he knew what we were working with.  Yay him.

The other difficult part is, we are using quite large chunks of fabric and in paper piecing it's hard to determine just where your fabric is going to line up.  I need to take another geometry class I think, but, all I'm going to say about this is...Pin your fabric people. It'll help save you a few gray hairs.  My Mother says she wasted 1/2 a yard on this piece.  Luckily I was forewarned by her and I took extra precautions.

The thing I love about quilting, is what I am going to make is completely different from what Jodie made based off of fabric choices.  Mine's gonna be cuter...hehe.  But it's just fun to see what everybody ends up with.  She also taught a nifty technique so that you don't waste a ton of fabric...see above where my mom wasted 1/2 yard....hi mom. 

Can't wait to show you what else we get done after our next class on Saturday!  Oh and I'm working on my Swoon quilt again.  Yay.  I will talk more about that another time.  Just know it's got mitered corners and they are awesome!

Granny Square Pic of the Day

Gratuitous I got a cute kid pic of the Day

My oldest officially rode her bike without training wheels!!!  Not very far..but she did it.  Oh, and that curb she's headed towards, she totally dominated it.  Went straight over it and didn't crash.  Yay her!

Thanks for reading!

Heather

My husband cannot go further than this title page.

It's Mr. Because I Can's birthday next week and I have a particularly special surprise for him. 

I would say it's along the lines of this...

...but infinitely more awesome!!!!

It's not done yet though...but I can hardly contain myself.  I had to take it into the office to show the gals...I'm their hero now.

Just a sneak peek because I can't resist!!!!  I spent a good portion of my week hooking while Mr. Because I Can was at work.  It really takes a surprisingly long time to hook a head of hair.  I made myself a little outline that you can see so that I knew where the hair line went.  Turned out perfect!

One last little image...tehehehe...my favorite...

Oh yes!!  Joy of joys!!!  Chest hair on an amigurumi!!!  I have to give credit where credit is due on this one...thanks Karen for the inspired idea!

Whoo boy!!  I am in fact my own hero for doing this.

Granny Square Pic of the Day

If you are not in the in crowd of quilt blogging, then you might not be aware of the latest and greatest fad quilt block that's going around right now.  It's the granny square block and it's awesome!

Go check out Blue Elephant Stitches Granny Square Tutorial for all the deets! 

Thanks for reading everybody!

Heather

My husband can go no further than this Title. Thanks and love ya!

****I have updated this post just a bit.  So if you'd like, Click Here to be transported to the year 2013 ***

Just thought I'd start this post with a put him off the track picture...are you looking Mister? I hope not...by the way this is a tasty little creation of mine using chocolate ganache and chocolate pudding. Top it with homemade whipped cream and some chocolate shavings and you've got pure heavenly goodness. Make this.  I used Callebaut dark chocolate as my chocolate involved in the ganache and pudding and it was rich and awesome!  I also weighed my ingredients when necessary. Go get a scale, you'll be happy you did when all your recipes turn out amazing.

Sometimes I'm ambitious...maybe a little too ambitious some might say.  But, look I figure if I want to make a pillow case with a picture of a Volkswagen Camper Bus on it, circa 1970's...then by golly I should be able to do it!  Commence the very difficult project...

I had to scour the Internet for pictures of a VW Bus...because I'm not schooled in this lovely mode of transportation.  We only had 3 kids, we got to pile 3 deep in the back of the Lincoln Continental...seat belts optional. 

There are lots of pictures and of course I figure I can make my own paper-pieced block from my own brain cells.  I've done plenty of paper piecing.  I'm smart enough...good enough...etc etc etc...well...I am...I think.

This started out much more complex.  I figured I could do a slightly off center full-body view of a VW Bus...HAHAHA.  No.  You can't!  Don't try it! Unless you do try it and it works...please let me know if this is the case.

Look, you have to be able to keep everything perfectly centered and so you can't just put a piece wherever you want and hope it'll match up correctly.  There are seams involved! 

Just a fun little fact...the windows on this VW Bus are from one of my husband's shirts.  He thinks I'm a loon because I like to keep fabric from shirts of maybe torn sheets or whatever and save them for future projects.  I like to think I'm frugal...he thinks I'm crazy!  So it was a bit of fun revenge to use one of my scavenged treasures in his pillow.

Really I had to think and rethink how I was going to pull this off at several points during construction.

Because I'd get to sewing what I was sure would work....and then come to realize that I just made it have weird wings at the top...rethink time.

One of the trickiest things about paper piecing is sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and hope you are positioning your fabric correctly...because you are going to fold it over to the right side and sometimes angles are not so friendly!

I confess, I wasted more than my share of fabric on this project...but I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't know exactly what I was doing...I felt a little overlap was what i need to make sure everything ended up the way I wanted it.

Then I got to this point and realized I had to figure out a way to get the wheels on...hmmmm...won't exactly work with the current block, so luckily I had an epiphany and made 3..ish separate pieces to be sewn together at the end!  AHA!  Turns out it actually is part of paper piecing to sew multiple blocks and then stitch them all together at the end.  Now I know. At the time, thought I was a freaking genius!

Oh yeah, got me some wheels.  Of course things didn't exactly work out with these wheels the first time as I miscalculated and cut one of them off completely...right then....re-figure time. 

My seam ripper and I were besties again for this project.  So...the wheels are a little wonky.  But, by this time...the pile of wasted fabric and unpicked thread had piled up and I was a little crazed...so I figured wonky was the way I wanted it from the start...right?  Right.

Add the extra bits to be later finger-turn appliqued into place...and I was starting to feel really good about things.  The wings were gone...there were wheels, a bumper, the W on the front...HURRAY!!!

Finished product and DAMN if I don't love it!  I put a piece of paper over the personalized license plate...I know, I know...but just in case.  So you can embroider whatever you want on the licence plate to personalize it.  I love the Denyse Schmidt fabric I used to complete the pillow case.  What turned out to be an impulse buy I once regretted has now made me so happy!  I have made 3 things now using it and I love them all!

Here's the back.  I always like looking at the backs of blocks.  It's just fun.  Yeah...there are paper scraps still attached.  I was exhausted by this time.  And picking off every last piece of paper was not happening.

All done and it's love!  This might not be the side my loving husband ever sleeps on, as it's not exactly smooth, but that's okay.  I love it too much and am pretty sure he will too!

Thanks for sticking with me through the play by play. 

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Heather