Blogger's Quilt Festival

Have you heard of the Blogger's Quilt Festival? 

I'm not sure how I missed out on this in the past, but I am entering my Courting Quilt in the Applique category. 

Visit Amy's site HERE

The Courting Quilt

Appliqued and machine quilted by me! 

Of course, my favorite blocks are the bird blocks.

Robin's Nest

Red Winged Blackbirds

Swooping Bird

Bluebird

The Courting Quilt was finished in November of 2012 and measures 41"x 60". 

My inspiration to make this quilt was the beautiful book A Bountiful Life by Karen Mowery, published by Kansas City Star. I used only Jo Morton fabrics from my stash. Because I planned to hang the finished quilt, I chose not to do all the blocks and borders from the book.

I will always cherish this quilt because of the friendship I formed with Karen Mowery who passed away earlier this year. She was an inspiring and sweet lady and I am so thankful I was able to be her friend for a short while as I worked on this quilt. 

Be sure to check out the other entries and prepare to be inspired!!

Scrappy Happy!

Yay! Finally we have some Spring happening here! I went for a little walk early Tuesday afternoon and the lake was still full of ice--it kind of looked like a Slushy. By early evening, the ice was all gone thanks to the 90 degree temps that day.

A long time coming!

Are you excited about the news from Andover blog?  Will you be ordering some of the Downton Abbey fabrics to make your own drop-waist flapper dress to wear while watching the latest new episodes this fall?

I haven't been sucked into the Temecula Quilt baby Bow-Tie craze yet, but it was a lot of fun to see Bev's quilt featured in their blog HERE. 

Bev's Quilt--awesome!


I'm working on using up some of my scraps and will be posting photos soon. In the meantime, check out these scrappy quilts in progress from quilt camp last month! 

Carol's stunning Karen Stone blocks!

It was fun watching Jane's quilt grow

from this box of strips! 

Susie's paper pieced S'more's by Jo Morton

The Judy Rothermel sashing fabric looked so cool with the scrappy little blocks!

Barb was working on Kathie Holland's Charming Addition from the December 2012 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.

A simple block, but so fun in scraps!

More to come soon!!

And Another Thing...

Aurifil Thread on cones can be ordered from J. Hittle 

A lot of quilters wanted to know where to get Aurifil on a cone and I neglected to add that to my previous post. So sorry!! I purchase my cones from an online seller: J. Hittle. They are a whole-seller,  but also sell to regular customers at a discount price. Just enter your email in the popup box and check casual sewer. Then you can search for Aurifil on the left-hand side bar. The cones that they carry only come in about 7 neutral colors. I don't believe they accept credit cards, but they do use PayPal (or you can send a check or money order). If you get together with a couple friends (or you really stock up) shipping will be free for orders over $100.

I'm not affiliated with them, just a pleased customer. I have ordered from them numerous times and have always been happy with my order.

Grandmother's Choice Block #37: Nameless Star

I've been working on my split stars (18 of 48 to go) but managed to squeeze in the latest Grandmother's Choice block--a very easy one for this week!

Since it's getting close to graduation, I wanted to share some photos of a quilt Jan worked on at quilt camp. I believe she said this quilt would be a gift to her Grandson for his graduation. Whatever the occasion, I think any guy would love to get this quilt as a gift!

Off to a good start! 

This is a shot of all the blocks put together laying on the carpet.
It almost felt like you could walk into the mazes. 

Careful! Don't fall in!

Jan hung it up on the wall so we could get the full effect. She planned to add some borders.
The original pattern was for a square quilt, but she added some blocks to make it bed size. 

Labyrinth Walk  pattern from the April/May issue of Quilt magazine.
Warning: the magazine rates this pattern as Challenging!!

Try using Google to search for "Labyrinth Walk Quilt Images" to see some versions in other colors!

Quilter's Favorites/Share and Learn

I'm joining in on Geta's Quilting Studio link-up party. 
Lot's of bloggers are sharing a few of their favorite tips, tricks and notions. 

Visit Geta's site for more participants with great tips!

If you haven't been to Moose Bay Muses before, welcome! I'm Karen, and I love to make quilts. I especially enjoy adding applique and embroidery to my quilts, and you should also know that I am crazy about blue and white and scrappy quilts. 

This is a peek at what I'm working on right now:

I'm going to need 48 of these split stars for my next project.
I'm using up the remains of my Indigo Crossing fat quarter bundle.

A few of my favorite quilting tools:

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I love all of my Karen Kay Buckley tools--her Perfect Scissors, Circles and Stem--they are the best tools for making applique easy and enjoyable. 

Sewing up accurate half square triangles can be time consuming and a little tedious. 

The Angler 2 or the Clearly Perfect Angles tools attach to your machine bed and eliminate the need to marking that line down the center of the layered squares before sewing into triangles.

 These are both pretty much the same tool. 

The Angler 2 is a clear stiff plastic that must be taped to the machine bed. The Clearly Perfect Angles (CPA) tool is a cling vinyl that lays on the machine bed without tape. After using for several months, my CPA tended to curl up and it also tore in several places. It's more convenient to place on the machine, but I'm back to using my Angler 2 since it's more durable. I use blue painters tape to secure it in place. 

After sewing, using the Eleanor Burns Triangle Square-Up Ruler makes trimming those half square triangles a lot faster. By laying the ruler on the stitched line, you only have to trim once!  

Color Scheme Advice:

Since I'm a scrappy quilter, anything goes, but I have learned that contrast is very important. (see my sad story HERE)

Some thoughts about thread:  

For piecing (and occasionally machine quilting), I use Aurifil thread. My advice: find a neutral color you like and buy Aurifil on the big cone--it's saves money and it last forever!  Also, wind up a lot of bobbins at one time so you can just pop a new one in the case when the bobbin runs out of thread. 

Tips for easy piecing

You will have great success if you can achieve accurate piecing. Nothing is more frustrating than having seams that don't line up or chopped off triangle points! My Angler II helps me to keep an accurate quarter inch seam, but I've also been using this little magnetic seam guide and it has helped a lot! 

The sewing machine:

I've been using my Juki since January and it's a great machine. You can read all about it HERE--yes, I was completely swayed by Lisa! 

Two things that I have added to ALL of my machines (the Juki, Bernina 440, my Singer featherweight, and my HQ16) are a Command hook to hold my little scissors for snipping threads, and 

 I recently added Ecolux lighting to all my machines---a big investment, but awesome lighting! 

Modern quilting tools:

Although I'm not very proficient in using it, I'm so glad I have my Electric Quilt program. 
I haven't taken the time to educate myself on a lot of the features, but I do manage to do some basic tasks. This summer I am following the EQ7 Summer Drawing Sew Along. We are designing blocks using all of the different methods in EQ. The first lesson was really fun AND I learned some things that I didn't know I could do in EQ. 

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to visit Geta for links to other Quilters Favorites! 

Finishing Up

May's Dixie Diary with heart
Tokens of Dried Roses

May's Dixie Diary with star--oops, should have picked off that thread!

Did I ever mention that Barbara Brackman showed a couple of my blocks on her blog last month?

What's Up entry HERE 

I'm still thrilled about that!

Grandmother's Choice Block 36 Sunbonnet Sue
I'm not a big fan of Sunbonnet Sue (sorry Anne!) and apparently there are a lot of  Grandmother's Choice participants that feel the same way. Check out the variations HERE
I took a little flare out of her skirt and made her some shoes with heels. 

I packed several projects to work on while on retreat. My first project was Hat Trick for Another Year of Schnibbles that I showed you HERE.  

After I got that put together, I pulled out my Leesburg quilt blocks. 

I had pieced all of the blocks before I left home, but had to add the setting triangles to make the strips and then add the border print between them. My plan was to use the border print like this in the center:

Or maybe this:

We all agreed that both those options really drew the eye away from the blocks and straight to the center of the quilt. Then I tried just a strip of the light blue in the center. You can see that still draws the eye from the blocks.

I really wanted to work the lighter blue into the quilt somewhere, but it just wasn't working.
Now I have a lot of light strips to work into another top!

After a lot of discussion and input from my retreat buddies, this is the outcome. I'm really happy with it and won't be putting any borders on it, so it will be a true Strippy Quilt!

I didn't bring along enough dark strips to retreat, so the last strip went on at home.
The original pattern doesn't have the border strips on the outside edges, but has borders all around. 

Original pattern Here

Buggy Wheels was my third project. The blocks were all pieced, and I just had to add the sashings and border.

From Sew Scrappy Vol. 2 magazine

Carole and I usually have tables next to each other at Quilt Camp. Carole is the Queen of Quilt Settings. I am always in awe of the unusual and interesting settings she comes up with. She is a firm believer that there should not be a "partial" block at the edge of a quilt. 

Those half Shoo-fly blocks around the edges of the quilt had to be finished!

Of course, I didn't bring along enough of my Indigo Crossings fabric, since finished Shoo-fly's weren't in the plan.
I got the center all pieced at camp and added the borders at home. 

Carole was right--love it!!
Thank goodness I had cut my lengthwise outer border extra long and it still worked with the added inches.

Sandi brought this version to Quilt Camp--she had already been educated by Carole on dealing with those partial blocks.
Her blocks were made from waste triangles--stunning!

Spring Cleaning?

Yesterday I motivated myself to do a little Spring Cleaning even though it looks like this in our backyard:

This is the bay we live on--Moose Bay.Yes, that's still ice. No Spring here.

 Usually the bay is open well before the rest of the lake,
 which typically has ice-out around April 20th.
I will be surprised if the lake is open by MAY 20th!

Well, I guess it's better than this lake view from my room at Quilt Camp.

(Those aren't bars across the window--just the blind slats)
It's a little difficult to see Green Lake beyond the huge mound of snow outside the window.
This photo was taken April 22nd.


One of the drawbacks of a retreat (for me),
is that I want to make everything that other quilters are working on. 

Several were working on tiny bow ties to make this quilt:

Charming Bow Ties by Florence Edith Goggin
from Quilter's Newsletter Magazine May 2000
You need 1,840 bow tie blocks to make this quilt.

Bow tie components ready to sew together--sweet!

 This one's finished--so cool! 

Isn't it beautiful??

It almost has kind of an op-art effect. 

Temecula Quilt Company recently posted here that they will be giving a setting using 1200 to 1500 2" bow tie blocks.

Hmmmm....... 

I'm trying really hard not to get sucked into this....

The usual size is cute, but the little ones are really calling my name!

These little houses were another project a lot of people were working on . 

They are from a blog in Holland, Building Houses from Scraps. 

Last year, there was a sew along to make one of these tiny houses everyday for a year. 

You can get the pattern from her Etsy shop here.

What is it about little blocks--especially scrappy little blocks?

How cute are these?

Okay, I did get sucked into these, but only one...so far....