JCQA Petals

I've made some progress on the petals for the Jacob's Coat Quilt Along. Some progress but not much, which is better than none at all. I've made 36 of 637 petals needed for the quilt top. I wasn't planning on hand stitching these to the background. I was planning to do it using Harriet Hargrave's machine applique method. Except that I just realized that my favorite stitch for that method was on the sewing machine I sold to my SIL. I guess I'll have to play around with the stitches on my Kenmore to see if I can find a substitute.

By the way I highly recommend both of Harriet's books: "Heirloom Machine Quilting," and "Mastering Machine Applique." They are my go to reference books with oodles of drool worthy pictures. I must give credit where credit is due, Harriet's books taught me about 90% of what I know about quilting. I know the books seem pricey but they are sooo worth the money many times over. They are the perfect books for beginners and intermediate quilters that take you from the very basics (what is a quilt, bias, binding, etc) to more advanced stuff (marking, free motion, etc.)

Joseph's Coat Quilt-along: Template Help File

I've gotten a few recent comments from individuals trying to join the JCQA (Joseph's Coat Quilt-along.) It seems some of you are having trouble downloading the jpg template file. Now it would be easier for me to email you directly but some of you still have your email settings turned off on blogger, so I can't email you back! I just hope you somehow happen to read this post.

1)First Click on the picture of the template found in this post here.

2)You will then be re-directed to media fire. Click here:
3)You will then be taken to the following page. Click here:

4)A pop up window will prompt you to save or open file. Make sure "save file" is selected. (your computer will then save it to your default location which is usually under my documents, my downloads.) Then click "ok"
5) Now press "back" on your web browser and follow the same steps for the petal template.
I hope this helps!!

Joseph's Coat Update

On Saturday I spent some time auditioning and interviewing my fabrics for a role in my Joseph's Coat quilt.
My process began with a set of 12 fat quarters from Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet line. I purchased my fabrics from Lori of Stitches N' Giggles. Not only does she have the best prices for Meadowsweet that I have found ($7.50/yard) but she has great customer service and shipped my order out the next day! I didn't take a picture of the package when I got it but my FQ's came folded up into cute little triangles. Lori cut all my chosen fabrics into FQ's without charging me any more {yup $7.50 for 4 FQ's! That's about $1.88 per FQ}

The second part of my process involved pulling fabrics from my stash that I though would play nicely with my Meadowsweet. Some were immediately rejected for bad attitudes {just not feeling it} and fighting {clashing.} After the first round of cuts came the second call back where each of the fabrics was auditioned against my beautiful Kona Cotton Charcoal. Here I rejected some fabrics mainly based on hue. The problems main problem was that some of the fabrics just looked "blah" on the background. The were of a more subdued hue and did not provide the "pop" I was looking for. The final part of the auditions involved pairing each of my fabrics with each other to make sure they were in harmony with each other.

Yesterday after church I was able to finish up all the petals for my first block.

I was still unsure of my color choices as I was working on the petals. But as soon as I laid them out on my Charcoal I was sold! I really really love the outcome! The colors just pop and it is just super duper perfect! {Yeah, I'm excited!! ok enough exclamation points.} Even Mr. PD paid me an unexpected compliment by saying "Wow! That looks really good." I was afraid the gray would overwhelm the prints and colors, but they work marvelously together.

I really enjoy the process of picking out fabrics for a quilt. {The color geek in me comes out to play! It's sad that I never got to take the required "Color Theory" class while in college because I think I would have loved it.} Do you enjoy the fabric picking process or do you hate it? Do you mix and match fabrics from different lines, manufacturers, and designers or so you just stick to using fabrics from the same line?

Joseph's Coat Quilt-along

*Edit* if you are having trouble downloading the template, click here.

I've decided to join along with "Don't Look Now's" "Joseph's Coat" quilt-along. Seeing all of the beautiful creations in the Flickr pool has really made me want to try this out. The one that really caught my eye and gave me the push to join was Cabbage Quilts' block (top row last one.) Her bright cheery colors and charcoal gray background have really captured my interest. I have a feeling this will take a couple of months to make the quilt top.

1. Joseph's Coat Quilt-along, 2. DatongPingyaoShaolinLijiang Dec 2009 440, 3. Jacobs Coat, 4. josephs coat quilt along 007, 5. First two, 6. joseph's coat, 7. block 1, 8. block 2 , 9. Block 1

I've ordered all of my materials and am ready to start as soon as I get moved into the new place. I'll be using Meadosweet by Sandi Henderson and Kona Cotton in Charcoal. I've even made my block template and everything. I'm itching to get started but I've already moved my sewing room over to the new place so I can't even work on it when I find a spare moment.

Making the block template was a challenge. First my really nice compass {from my days in art school} was missing it's leads and missing a piece, rendering it completely useless! I took a quickie trip to Wally-world just for a compass. I bought their nicest one and came home all excited only to find out it doesn't open up wide enough! It's a good thing I'm handy with a mouse. I whipped up a template in Illustrator and I'm making it available to all of you who might not have a compass handy. You can either have it printed at Kinko's, Staples, Office max, etc on a large enough piece of paper (it measures 11"x11") or you can print it up at home on several pages and tape it together very carefully.

Click on the image to be taken to download the file, then click on "Download all images in folder" to also download a single "petal template."