Value Finder, Chinese Coins and Another GG Block

Kathy asked a great question. She saw a green value finder and asked when it would be used. The simple answer is that a red value finder doesn't work particularly well on red fabrics so that is when the green tool would be used. And the green doesn't work well on green fabrics but the red does. Green neutralizes red and red neutralizes green. If you have both a red and green value finder you can use them together to determine the value. The view will be brownish (remember my post yesterday about mixing complementary colours to make brown) but it will give you the value. This can be helpful if you have a multi-colour fabric. Thanks for the great question Kathy!

A friend made a Chinese Coins quilt. I was having an overwhelming urge to quilt feathers so I asked if I could quilt it and she said yes!I love all the bright colours in the columns!

The first thing I did was stitch in the ditch on either side of the columns. I used Superior Monopoly on top and Superior The Bottom Line in the bobbin.

I marked the spine of the vine and was off to the races! I used a brown Frixion pen that has a super fine point; it makes a very fine line that can barely be seen and when I quilted the spine it just disappeared!

I started at the top of the column and quilted the spine working towards the bottom of the quilt. When I got there I started quilting the feather. When I got to the top I quilted back down about 1/4" away from the spine. I'm still using The Bottom Line in the bobbin but on top I switched to Superior So Fine! I'm really loving this thread because it is soft and light weight so there is no heavy build-up where I backtrack. In addition it doesn't produce lint and that makes my sewing machine very happy! It also makes me very happy because it is very affordable and it has the look of a lovely cotton thread!

When I got to the bottom I quilted the right side of the feather. From the top I echo quilted back down along the right side of the feather. I still have to do the left side.

There are four beige columns. Once they are quilted I'll fill in the background and then figure out what to do with the pieced columns. My open toe metal FMQ foot does not like quilting near seams as is the case with the echo quilting. I've got a few other FMQ feet so I'm going to try them out and see if they do a better job for me.

I've got another GG (Godstone Grannies) block finished! That outer round of hexagons took a lot of fussy cutting. There are 28 hexies in that border so that's a lot of fabric. Fortunately I had quite a bit of yardage of the fabric and had only paid $3/meter for it so I didn't mind turning it into Swiss cheese!

Tomorrow will be the launch of my next quilt along, Value Proposition! All of the blocks are made of 1" hexies and they stitch up quite quickly. I hope you'll read along and if you have time sew along with me!

Until tomorrow, happy sewing!
Karen H

A surprise, more machine quilting and Godstone Grannies

Tomorrow is March 31 and it is a special day for me! It is my blog's one year anniversary. I've very much enjoyed meeting and getting to know so many wonderful people. As you know I love working with Superior Threads. It is a great company with great products and wonderful customer service ad it shares loads of information that is helpful to quilters. Check out the long list of Superior reference guides here. Superior has agreed to help me celebrate my anniversary! How you ask? Come back tomorrow to find out!

I really enjoyed quilting the open spaces, also known as negative space, in my Lazy Girl quilt. I used Superior So Fine! on top and as always The Bottom Line in the bobbin. I wanted to try out a few more ideas but most of my quilts consist of many small pieces. So I asked my friend if she had a small quilt top I could play around with and she did! She made a lovely Chinese coins quilt from a bag of scraps. She pin basted the quilt so I could play around with it. As always step one is stitch in the ditch! I'll try quilting this one with some nice loopy designs including feathers in the beige columns!

The scraps are leftover from another quilter's project. There's always a home for scraps no matter the size or shape! This is such a bright and happy quilt. I've just about finished the stitch in the ditch and time permitting I'll get cracking on the quilting today or tomorrow!

I had shown you a little cardboard suitcase I found and I plan to use it to store the bits and pieces for my next project. So what am I going to make? You can see the clue on the right hand side! It's going to be another hexagon quilt!

While travelling around the interweb I came across a picture of a hexagon quilt that I just fell in love with so it is the inspiration for my next hexagon quilt. The quilt is at the Quilt Museum and Gallery in York, England. It is a museum dedicated to quilting and textile arts. I encourage you to have a visit and a look around the Gallery.The quilt I am in love with is called the Godstone Grannies Coverlet and is dated 1960-1965. It was made at the WI Denman College by a group of women from several Women's Institutes. The description reads "materials for the patchwork were largely supplied by dressmaking friends". You can read about the quilt here.

Aside from the fact that the blocks are diamond shaped, I love how colour and print is used to create visual interest and secondly patterns. What you can't see clearly in this picture is that most of the patches are fussy cut. I'm not sure that I'll fussy cut all of the patches but I will certainly fussy cut many of them. The first thing I did was sketch out some of the blocks to be able to calculate the number of hexagons I would need for the path and the amount of fabric. I determined that I will need 17 hexies to make the "V" shape that is shaded in my diagram and I'll need 31 V's in total. I'm using a subtle rosey buttery print for the path. My diagram is sitting on top of my path fabric.

I've cut out all of my path fabrics and glue basted my 3/4" hexagons to the so that they can be thread basted.

Here is the first V completed!

Earlier this year I saw some 100% cotton napkins on sale and I was able to get a package of four for $3 so I snapped them up because I thought that they would be great for fussy cutting! This just might be the project that they go into!

I'll keep you posted on my Godstone Grannies hexagon quilt progress and my machine quilting progress!

And now a little Soupcon update and trunk show. I've been asked if I will share what I do with my two Soupcons as far as making them larger, quilting and binding. So I think I'll do just that (I need more hours in the day!). I'll get started as quickly as possible and I'll share with you what I do! And now for the mini trunk show!

Jean's been busy embellishing her Step 5 border on her pink and purple Soupcon. She had added lots of little details including some embroidered embellishments. I love the combination of diamonds with little hexagons on either side of the large hexagons. So very effective!

Cissa K has completed her Step 6 and this quilt is and absolute treat for the eye. There are lovely embellishments, fussy cutting and her fabric choices are making me drool. The little blue stars on the red hexagons are lovely! Well done Cissa!

Until I post again tomorrow, happy sewing!
Karen H