Zeus on the Loose with Me!

It’s my turn!! Yeah!! Have you ever played Zeus on the Loose?? We love it! It’s basically a counting strategy game. That description doesn’t do much for it, but take my word for it. It’s fun!

Originally I wanted to make a notebook cover for my son, but my Improv Lightening Bolts kept being too big, so it turned into a pillow! It was really hard to get it as small as I wanted it to be!

I went through a few plans of projects to make this year. Usually I know exactly what I want to make. Not this year. Then I remembered our new favorite game. But what to make?? At first I got my Greek Gods confused and for a minute I was designing something with a trident… Um, hello, my to ‘I minored in Ancient History’ self…. Zeus and tridents do not go together. Lightening Bolt my friend!!!  Then I was all over it!

I’ll give you a super quick idea of how I made it! Since it’s improv, there are no dimensions or anything to go with! To make the Improv Lightening bolt is simple!

First, cut out a ‘leaning’ triangle, then sew on a thin layer of the ‘bright light’ fabric and then a thicker layer of the background fabric. So that you end up with two ‘leaning’ triangles. And you want them to both be leaning in the same direction!

Next, I folded over the top of the triangle to get an overlap. Once I liked where the overlap was, I ironed it flat. This ironed line is where I sew-ed it together.

And then I trimmed a quarter inch seam. Repeat these last two steps over and over until you have each side of the lightening bolt how you like them. then sew the two halves together!

Add in the rest of the background fabric for the shape you need for either a notebook cover, a pillow top or quilt blocks…. And quilt away!

I thought it turned out pretty cool. And once I got my husbands seal of approval, I knew it was pretty cool! (yes, he’s very honest and has no qualms telling the truth about his feelings on my work! Usually he likes it, but not all the time!) I think it’s going to be loved, along with it’s inspiring game!

 

 

Sept 9th- Liz and LiZ  from Simple Simon and Co

Sept 14th- Stacey from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy Crafts

Sept 16th- Narelle from Threadistry

Sept 19th- Debbie from A Quilter’s Table

Sept 21st- Louise from I’m Feelin’ Crafty

Sept 23rd- Al from Shaffer Sisters

Sept 26th- Michelle from Factotum of Arts

Sept 28th- Ashley and Emily from Frances Suzanne

Sept 30th- The Recap!

 

 

 

Ultimate Frisbee with A Quilters Table

Let’s kick off another week of Sew Ready to Play with my quilty friend, Debbie, from A Quilter’s Table!

Debbie and I have become great friends over the years participating in Seattle Modern Quilt Guild activities. And just recently we were roommates again at our retreat. I can’t wait to show you more about that weekend. Debbie came to retreat with a bunch of triangles and left with a finished quilt top! She’s speedy! And I’m so glad she decided to play along again this year!

Be sure to go to her blog to learn more about it!

 

Sept 9th- Liz and LiZ  from Simple Simon and Co

Sept 14th- Stacey from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy Crafts

Sept 16th- Narelle from Threadistry

Sept 19th- Debbie from A Quilter’s Table

Sept 21st- Louise from I’m Feelin’ Crafty

Sept 23rd- Al from Shaffer Sisters

Sept 26th- Michelle from Factotum of Arts

Sept 28th- Ashley and Emily from Frances Suzanne

Sept 30th- The Recap!

Snakes and Ladders with Threadistry

Yeah! Another Day of Sew Ready to Play!

Today we have a long term Sew Ready to Play player! She’s played along every year! Yea! Today is my blogger friend Narelle. She was originally from Cook, Clean Craft, but now blogs over at Threadistry.

She has a tutorial today for making a Snakes and Ladders game board. I’m used to Chutes and Ladders, so I had to google Snakes and Ladders! All sorts of interesting articles! What did we do before Google?? Sounds like it’s what Milton Bradley based Chutes and Ladders on! Head on over to her blog, Threadistry, to learn more!!!

 

Sept 9th- Liz and LiZ  from Simple Simon and Co

Sept 14th- Stacey from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy Crafts

Sept 16th- Narelle from Threadistry

Sept 19th- Debbie from A Quilter’s Table

Sept 21st- Louise from I’m Feelin’ Crafty

Sept 23rd- Al from Shaffer Sisters

Sept 26th- Michelle from Factotum of Arts

Sept 28th- Ashley and Emily from Frances Suzanne

Sept 30th- The Recap!

January doGood Stitches Quilt

This is my first doGood Stitches post for the year! WOW!

Have you seen the Forest Quilt Along Quilt hosted by Shape Moth? It’s precious! But A LOT of work! Each block is either an animal or forest plant. For our group, we each got to choose one block. And then Kat from Kat and Cat Quilts pieced them. I choose the fox! I’ve been wanting to make the fox for a long time. So I jumped on it!

I do love how she put all the pieces together. And the triangle piece going through, but tying it all together at the same time.

My block was pretty straight forward. I picked the Maple Fox by Sewing Under the Rainbow. But some of our bee mates blocks were not so straightforward. Some of the blocks the instructions were very confusing on how to actually put the paper pieced sections together. The fox is pretty easy in that sense. From what I hear, all the blocks are time consuming. But don’t they look great!? It’s a great BOM project for sure.

You can see the fun quilting and someone added eyes to the little fox! Smart thinking!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to make the fox, Kat!

 

 

A Memory Quilt Using the Complete Quilt Design Planner

Remember the Friendship Bracelet quilt that I finished not long ago? Well, originally I agreed to test Blair Stocker’s, AKA WiseCraft, pattern to make a memory quilt. Very quickly I realized that wasn’t going to work for that pattern.

Then she asked me to test another pattern, The Complete Quilt Design Planner Pattern. I was one, very intrigued by the name, but also knew it would work well with my memory quilt idea!

The pattern is really not a pattern at all, but step by step guide to designing your own one of a kind quilt! It has layouts for 6 different sized quilts. It was really fun! My son and I laid out all the fabric we were going to use, grabbed some colored pencils and we both started designing!

A friend of mine from way back… Like Middle School I think? I was actually best friends with her younger sister for a while… Anyway, she asked me to take her sons clothes to make into a quilt. I ended up separating the piles and using mostly wovens on the front and the knit t-shirts on the back.

I really loved this little center guy from a baby outfit! I also think it also tied together the colors from the other clothing pieces. Once I had it designed, I realized not all the pinks were the same, etc… So there was a bunch of laying out and picking up and laying out again to get it right!

And the back is a t-shirt quilt. These t-shirt quilts take a long time. I didn’t want just a bunch of regular squares, so it took a bit, I mean a lot, longer to layout than I thought it would! I also added in a few colored blocks to fill in the spaces in between.

This is a great pattern, especially for beginners. It also got me to try something new. I don’t think I’ve ever done a whole quilt out of the same size blocks before. It’s always fun to look at quilt design a little out of your design comfort zone and this is exactly was I experienced with this one.

You can see more examples of this quilt here.

AND… It’s the one thing that I actually finished this quarter! oops…

 

 

Technicolor Galaxy Quilt Update

I took a LONG break from this one and finally got it back out!

I finally finished the outer circle. It’s 3 blocks, 4 times… 12 blocks. I did take some liberties on these blocks!

The first one I did was supposed to be orange peels… But I hated them… I tired to do them per the directions. Didn’t work out. Then I tried them my own way… Still didn’t like them. Ok, the truth is I couldn’t make them. They looked horrible! So I branched off and did cathedral windows. They kinda resemble the orange peels. Maybe? Anyway, I like them!

Next up was the hexie flowers…. Well, I didn’t want to do flowers. The idea is that this quilt might go on my son’s bed, and I didn’t want flowers. So I did a little random hexie thing!

And lastly, the moons. Easy peasy. This is the same circle technique I used for my sports quilt. Love it!

And here it is all put together! Well, not exactly PUT together, but laid out together. I just have one border to go! I can do this!

 

Modern Sampler Quilt Along Blocks G, H and I

Man! I’ve been playing catch up on this quilt along, the Modern Sampler Quilt Along with Salty Oat!

You know I’m more of a bright color kinda quilter, so this one has been a challenge. But I like the low contrast with a pop of color! But this is a very challenging pattern and I got really frustrated doing these blocks! I think they came out quite nice despite the lack of instructions!

This is Block G. I didn’t do any measuring around the curves. And I like how they turned out. Not perfect, but I think they are pretty close to perfect.

And Block H. This turned out pretty nice. A LOT of practice with Y seams for one stinkin’ 12″ block! Has anyone else made this one? I’m curious how you made it. I considered doing it as an english paper pieced block, like I sew hexagons by hand. But then decided that would take way longer than I wanted to spend on this one….

And lastly, Block I. I’m actually in love with this one! It’s pretty near perfect! (If I do say so myself…) I took my friend Debbie’s advice and did the strips as paper pieced triangles. It worked! Nice and quick!

And look at those Y seam corners! Oh, yes!

Please ignore the horrible picture, but this is the quilt so far! I do like the quilt, but making it has had some frustrated moments!

Three more blocks down. Nine blocks done. Three to go!

Friendship Bracelet Quilt

Another finish!

Yea! I have to say, I love the pattern, but wasn’t really excited about the quilt…. But the more I look at it, the more I like it!

A SMQG friend is also a quilt designer and author and all around pretty cool lady! She’s Blair Stocker, AKA WiseCraft. She asked for pattern testers fir her Friendship Bracelet Quilt and I was looking for an easy idea/pattern for a memory quilt, so I said YES! But then it ended up it wasn’t going to work well for my memory quilt, but I did have a jelly roll that would work quite nicely!

It’s a jelly roll that I’ve had for years and never used becuase the fabrics are exactly me so I haven’t used them. For years, did I mention that? I’ve gotten so used to only quilting with mostly solids, it’s been a little hard to embrace this one. But it’s growing on me!

The quilt went together very easily and quickly! I’ve seen the pattern in solids, and I think I’m just drawn more to solids. It’s a GREAT pattern for newbie’s! The directions are great and easy to follow.

It all went together so quickly. Until…. I started quilting! I’m pretty sure the quilting took way longer than all the rest of the quilt construction! I really want to start keeping track of how many hours a quilt takes. Does anyone else to this?

I did the quilting with a freehand square spiral. I also did a big one on the bottom, until it ran out of quilt nad then I moved and did two smaller square spirals on the top!

I had a couple of strips left over so I sewed them together to start the back layout. And the rest just evolved with the fabrics I had on had that coordinated!

And I get to use another one of my labels! Since they are dated, I can only make 48 more this year!

A little behind the scenes moment… My lovely husband of 10 years today (the 20th) is nice enough to hold most of my quilts. (He does grumble a little bit.) shhh…. But he does help!

The more I look at it the more the contrast between the stripes show and that makes me love it more!

 

Finish-A-Long 2016 Quarter 2

I hate to do this, but my finish a long list is pretty much identical to the first quarter finish a long. I can mark one off the list, but that’s it! The Seattle Modern Quilt Guild BOM quilt is the only one I finished!

Like usual, it’s going to look familiar….

First up, The Riley Blake Challenge quilt. I totally missed the deadline on this one, but I still want to finish it!

Oh, and there’s the EZ Quilting Challenge triangle quilt challenge…. Also a Quiltcon challenge like the Michael Miller one. Again, I’ve gotten the ruler, but no clue what to do with it. Totally missed the deadline, but I think I have an idea now! I might even connect the Riley Blake challenge with the EZ challange!

I’m working on the Technicolor Galaxy Quilt again!

I’d love to get these two done too!

So those are my old ones, but I have a few new ones that I would also like to complete!

This month is my month as quilter for my do.Good Stitches group, so I’ll want to get that one done ASAP!

I’d also like to get my two Libs Elliot quilts done. They are both pretty far along….

#memoryquilt top and back done! #wisecraftcompletequiltdesignplanner #wisecraftpatterns #quilting

A photo posted by Louise Wackerman (@imfeelincrafty) on Mar 27, 2016 at 8:26pm PDT

And lastly, my memory quilt that I started! The top and back are both done… So I should be able to finish that one, right??

Ok, this list is insane long… But I want to get these DONE!!!!!!!!

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Giving Committee

Typically when I make a block for a charity quilt, I don’t show it until the quilt is done. But I’m really excited about this one, so I’m sharing it early!

This block is for the next Seattle Modern Quilting Guild Giving Committee quilt! X Marks the Improv!

image via A Quilter’s Table

This block was designed by my friend and co-chair of the giving committee, Debbie, originally for her do.Good Stitches Group. But we love it so much we thought we needed to do it for our Giving Committee as well. You might recognize it from the blogging world! Her original quilt was done in blues with different color accents, but we’re switching things up and doing it in reds with yellow accents.

I am pretty excited about how I was able to line up the crosses! When I was first reading the tutorial I didn’t think I’d be able to line them up perfectly as I did. But it worked!

I don’t know why I love this back picture so much, but I do… No idea!

The block is 24.5 x 12.5 inches and might seem daunting, but it’s not time consuming! I made my block in about an hour. I might have to make some more of these or even my own quilt! I can’t wait to see how our guild pulls this one together. It’s going to be fantastic!