Double Duty (An Accuquilt Go! Tutorial)

I've had my Accuquilt Go! for several months now. I was lucky enough to win a blog giveaway that included the Go! as well as 3 dies of my choice. (See my review of the Go! here.) Well this was a very tough decision since there are over 50 dies to choose from! I ended up choosing 2 strip dies and the Double Wedding Ring die. This may sound completely selfish but I mainly picked my dies according to price. There is just no way that I can afford to pay $80 per die. So I choose the more expensive ones that I wanted knowing that it would be easier for me to spend $30-$40 once in a while on some of the smaller dies.

I was really torn between picking the Double Wedding Ring die ($89) and the Rob Peter to Pay Paul die ($89.) In the end the Wedding Ring die won out because I really love that design and I know that some day I want to make a Double Wedding ring quilt and I can't imagine hand cutting all of those tiny pieces. As I was looking at the 2 dies side by side on my computer I had a wild and crazy idea that I could use the double Wedding Ring die to re-create the Rob Peter design!

Even though I recently received the Rob Peter die from Accuquilt I still wanted to test out my theory. So last night I pulled out my Wedding Ring Die and put my theory to the test.

 1. Cut one center section

 2. Cut 4 of the arc pieces








3. Sew the arc pieces to the center section

Here I was trying out a few different methods of sewing the arcs to the center piece. I tried pinning and also this method of not pinning. I think the non-pinning method will work better with practice. I also have the curve master foot (which I couldn't find at the time) that essentially is the same as the non-pinning method but with the help of a special foot.

This is the reason some of the corners are off. For this method to work you will need to be accurate in your corners or it will not look right in your finished quilt.

4. You will now trim your block to 9" centering the center fabric (stripes) within the 9" square. You basically have to eyeball this and 9" is enough to give you a 1/4" seam allowance at each of the 4 corners. Here I've added a small border to the block so that you can see that having your corners match will be very important!


As you can see corners 1 and 4 are really nice and perfect. Corner 2 is the worst and corner 3 is decent. I would suggest finding a method that gives you accurate piecing results for step 3 so that your blocks will turn out gorgeous!

Just to give you an idea of what the finished quilt would look like I whipped up these 2 quilt tops through the magic of Photoshop.

5 blocks x 5 blocks =about 43" square

On point with setting triangles and border

4 blocks x 5 blocks = 50"x 62.5" (plus border)

Enjoy!
~ Norma

New Fabrics and Notions

Over the last couple of months I've added a few new fabrics to may stash:




From left to right and top to bottom:

The first stack were all  from fabric.com There's some Amy Butler Lotus, Michael Miller Snow Dots and Holiday tree

The second and third stacks are from a very generous "secret pal" at quilt guild that has gifted the 1/2 yard stacks of gorgeous fabrics. I know the blue and brown stack is from Hobby Lobby, I'm thinking the green and red stack is also from there.

The 4th stack is Dr. Seuss and I can't remember where I bought them but they arrived super speedily!

The 5th picture is the fabric I was searching for in this post and is Marcus Brothers Storybook (now out of print.) I was lucky enough to find 3 yards at Colonial Crafts.

The last stack was in the same order as the first from fabric.com and they are all Kona Cottons in bright summery colors.

I was also very lucky to become affiliated with Accuquilt's Blogger Program so I have increased in my die collection with these new dies:





I've got some tutorials planned with these new dies as long as life cooperates :)

I've been very blessed recently!

~ Norma

DQS 10 v1.3 - Finito

Well my DQS 10 is finally finished and should be halfway to it's new home by now.








Stats:
- Shoot I forget the measurements LOL. I think it ended up being something like 22"x22" I know it was definitely less than 24"x24"
- Fabrics: Kona Charcoal (dark gray), all other fabrics from my scrap bin (Katie Jump-rope, Kaffe Fasset, Meadowsweet, Amy Butler, Patty Young to name a few)
- Backing: vintage sheet
- Pattern: modified from Lily's Quilt Along
- Free motion quilted by me on my Kenmore (made by Janome) using the Hooked on Feathers method. I love that there is no back tracking using this method!
- Thread: Essential Cotton in Charcoal ($2.49/spool) Slightly heavier weight (50/3)
- Needle: Schmetz 90/14 Quilting needle. I had previously used this thread with a lot of thread breakage, but switching to the 90/14 seems to have done the trick this time around. ( I LOVE their Essential PRO, it's a thinner poly thread)

Over all I loved it and wanted to keep it so very much :)

Oh and I received my lovely DQS 10 from my swap partner. This was my very first over seas partner and it was kind of fun to receive a package from the UK. My quilt was made by the talented Ethne of Flaming Stitches. I love the oriental feel of this bird quilt!




~ Norma

DQS 10 v1.2 - Butterflies

I don't know if I'll ever get over the nervousness and butterflies in my stomach feeling every time I start to free motion a quilt that does not involve stippling/meandering. There's is a certain safety net in doing a simple all over meander in that you really can't completely trash a quilt top. It never fails though, every time I set out to do something beyond a meander I hesitate. "What if I mess up the whole quilt top?" "What if it doesn't complement the piecing?" and all sorts of other wonderfully negative comments flow through my brain. Inevitably I put off the quilting for a few days. Finally I work up the courage to stare the quilt in the eye and show it who's boss.

The first few minutes are agonizing as I struggle to find my rhythm and loosen up. Eventually "it" just comes together and the quilting flows like I actually know what I'm doing, but really I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. Somehow or another I end up with something that really surprises me {and Mr. PD too!}




Of course every little flaw jumps out at me. The little snag, the slight hesitation in the curve, the skipped stitch (grr I hate those), the abrupt stop when my hand ran into the sewing machine, but all those little things are what drive me to keep going, to do better, and to one day master the whole machine quilting thing. In reality it's the part I love the most. One day I plan to be as good as Diane Gaudynski, Carla Barret, and Sally Bramald (to name a few of the many women that inspire me.) I just have to remember what Diane likes to say "Keep quilting - your work gets better every day!"

I'm about halfway done with the quilting on my DQS 10 and I'm falling more in love with it each day. I showed it to Mr. PD for his nod of approval and all he had to say was "seems like an awful lot of work for such a little quilt!" He liked it {of course he has no choice but to show approval} but I had to explain to him that just because it's a small quilt it doesn't make it any easier or less work. I don't think he understood why I would put so much effort into such a small piece.

Well dear partner I hope you like what you see so far.

~Norma