Month One Ruffled Roses

[Jo H.]

Thanks Margo. I thought that was what you did but for some reason my brain said "hey--make one long piece and then sew it on." Hopefully, I won't have many "duh" moments.

Thanks for all your work on the PDF. I rewatched the show you recommended with Susan showing the piping demonstration and forgot how enjoyable a show that was.

[Margo C.]

Trust me....you won't do it but one time using one strip of fabric to turn the corners! Ask me how I know that!! :roll:

[Margo C.]

Margo,

I just finished reading and saving your tutorials on piping and machine applique quilting in the lessons section. They are both great. I am working on my stems right now using the needle turn method of applique. After reading your machine applique tutorial, I will be giving machine applique a try. Your instructions and photos are great.

Thanks for taking the time to do this for us.
SueW
Upstate NY(near Plattsburgh)

[Constance G.]

Margo,
Your Piping and Appliqué tutorials are outstanding! Thank you for leading us all by the hand!

[Eileen K.]

Here's what I'm working on right now. It has to be done in 2 weeks :shock: :shock: :!: :!:
As soon as I'm done with it, I can start stitching.

[Dawn S.]

Eileen, Yup that looks like a Katy Pasquini-Masopust class/quilt! What is the deadline for? Hopefully to go into an upcoming book of hers?! I have a quilt in the book she published with Brett Barker, so I know she likes to put students work into her books. This particular quilt of yours looks quite confusing, but fun! Kind of like what we used to call "modern art." Hopefully you'll be done soon and onto the 2011 BOM!! I'm having great fun with mine, and can't wait to be far enough along to post a picture of it!

Dawn
In beautiful Northwest Montana

[Eileen K.]

Hi Scoopie,
Yup, it's a Katie PM piece.

I'm chomping at the bit to get to Ruffled Roses so I'd better get back to it.

[Eileen K.]

I went to one of her quilt retreats many years ago down in Santa Fe. It was great!

[Annis C.]

I've finished piecing the block units for the queen size quilt I started last month and spent most of yesterday doing the quilt in-the-ditch on my Ronald McDonald challenge quilt so I treated myself to a few hours to make my version of this month's block. It took more than a few hours though, but once I got started I had to finish. I think it's going to look more like a circus quilt than a Christmas quilt. I'm picturing circus animals on unicyles when I look at it from a distance! That's okay because it's grown larger than originally planned and will be a lap quilt for my grandchildren instead of a wall quilt. I used Ricky's Stable Stuff for the appliqued hearts and hand sewed them on after the block was complete so they would be easier to center. Thanks Margo for the tutorial on this. Everything else was paper pieced. The block finishes at 10". I will confess that I unstitched some of the corners of the outside striped setting triangles to get them to line up perfectly where they join at the tip of the background fabric. I won't tell you how much they were off. And I did a lot of pinning, basting, and careful positioning.

The first thing I did was print a 1/4" grid horizontally and diagonally on an 11x17 sheet of vellum paper. This is available at Office Depot and comes in a 50 sheet pad, item #345-854. I use it for most of my paper piecing now because it is see-thru, feeds easily through my printer, and tears away easily.

I made separate templates for the 1"x5" strips of triangles. I drew my complete design on the graph paper and basted the center in position so it wouldn't shift. Some of the small triangles had to be preassembled in order to paper piece. I left the paper on until they were sewn to the center, then removed the paper and basted them by lining the edges up with the grid lines so they wouldn't shift. Then I added the background triangles, trimmed the seam allowance to 1/4", preassembled the corner setting triangles, then carefully pinned them in position for sewing with a 1/4" seam. The paper is removed and I'm anxiously waiting for next month when I have to decide whether I want the block to end with the green or let the first narrow strip of yellow show. The next fabric is the black with scattered dots at the top center.

[Eileen K.]

Annis,
I love your hearts!!! OMG, where did you find that fabric? I think it looks "wintery" rather than Christmasy. JMHO. The stripes are perfect.

[Margo C.]

I love this!! And I don't think it's more circus than Christmas! GOOD JOB!! Thanks for adding it to the BOM Show & Tell page!

[Margo C.]

I love your fabrics........I especially love the stripes!

[Annis C.]

Annis,
I love your hearts!!! OMG, where did you find that fabric? I think it looks "wintery" rather than Christmasy. JMHO. The stripes are perfect.

The fabric was either purchased in 2002 when I was combining novelty prints with plaids for rag quilts, or maybe even earlier when I was going to use the motifs in cards to sell, which I obviously never found time to do.

[Jo H.]

Annis,

It's FABULOUS! I just love it....so fun and whimsical.

I must thank Terry Knott (quilting00) for helping me on Friday learn how to use Superior's invisible thread. I would have given up and used Masterpiece but she just whipped my bobbin case into shape and helped me find the perfect top tension to get it to stitch perfectly. I'm now in the midst of zig-zagging all of my pieces.

Oh by the way -- Terry makes a mean french onion soup that is to die for and has a wonderful quilting room!!!

[Eileen K.]

A wonderful quilting room? Got pictures? Hmm.......?