We've got the blues

We've had nothing but girl babies in this family recently. (Not complainin', just sayin'.) All pink, all the time. Fortunately, one of our nieces is expecting a baby boy early next year. Should we knit or should we quilt for the little guy?   Hmmmmm...... Let's go with a blue and white scrap quilt.

Step one - gather up a pile of blues, and try hard not to dither too much about which blues to use.

Done.

We blame Mrs. Pickles

Last week, we made the rounds of the Needle and Thread Network (as usual) to check on all the other Canadian crafters and we were really excited to see what Mrs. Pickles was up to. She's working on a block called Whirlygiggle. Now, if the name didn't grab you, the block would. Simple but there's movement about it. It just struck our fancy.

our Whirlygiggle Block - 9 inches square - ready to stitch

We decided we'd like to try it, too. We don't know how Mrs. Pickles put hers together but we thought we'd like to try to strip piece the fabric first because we're just in the mood to zoom right along. No fussy piecing for us today.

We want to make a baby quilt. Twelve 9 inch blocks with some borders. We like scrappy and we want it to be a little bit ... different. Not traditional colours. And it needs to be unisex. So ... off we went! In true CoCo fashion, we just dove right in!

First, we drew out the block (or our version of the block with apologies to Mrs. Pickles).

We put our 6 x 12 inch ruler on the drawing and put a piece of masking tape along the slanted seam line. We put another piece of masking tape to mark the bottom left corner of our 5 inch square. (This leaves us 1/4 inch seam allowances to end up with the 4 1/2 inch components ... 4 of them made the block.)

Next....what size strips will we need?  We measured and found a pair of 3 1/2 inch wide strips, 24 inches long will make the 4 components of one block.

We laid the ruler over the strip pieced set and cut up the right edge of the patch and across the top.

Then we turned everything upside down and aligned the ruler so that the 90 degree corner lined up with the previously cut corner and we finished cutting out the 5 inch squares. We cut 3 more the same way and stitched the 4-patch together. That's it. They went together really fast and they're accurate!

Thanks, Mrs. Pickles, for the inspiration!

~ Happy W.I.P. Wednesday, everybody!

WIP Wednesday: We did it our way!

We saw the cutest project on Sew-Sisters' blog.  It's a play mat from Moda Bakeshop. A Cathedral Window look-alike. Really, really cute! But you know Grandma Coco. She always has to do things her way.


First of all, we would never, never, never....in a million years, never!....cut 40 circles of fabric and 20 circles of batting and then try to sew them all together. Not gonna happen. That would be way too fussy. Nah, what we did was mark a circle on the right side of one piece of fabric. (We traced around a metal pie plate.) We layered this with batting and a 2nd fabric, stitched all around and then trimmed close to the stitching line. We ended up with a stack of 20 disks that didn't need to be turned inside out (which would have been a colossal pain).

The Moda Bakeshop tutorial blithely says that you should make a template of a square that fits on the circle where each point just touches the edge, in order to mark the lines which join the squares together. The designer does say that our square may not be the same size as hers because it depends on the size of the circle you started with and the width of the seam allowance, etc. However, she doesn't say exactly how to accomplish this particular bit of geometric wizardry. We scratched our head over this one for a while and then we figured it out. Measure the exact diameter of your circle. That's the diagonal of your template square. Draw a second line (the length of the diameter of your circle) at right angles to this line, through the mid-point. You have an 'X' where the end points are the 4 points of your square template, each one touching the perimeter of the circle. Join them up and cut out the square. It IS simple. We just couldn't visualize it at first.

Grandma Coco found it was easiest to mark the squares as we went. We're working with circles so we only really need to mark one side, slap another circle up to it and stitch. (Trying to match a marked line on one circle to the marked line on a second would again be a colossal pain.)

Once we had them all stitched together, we gave the arcs a little press just like the Moda Bakeshop lady said to do and then we riffed on her idea by top-stitching them down with a zig-zag satin stitch, finishing the edges and stitching them in place all at the same time. Cool!

Cassie gives it 4 paws up!!

Since there's been precious little quilting going on here

in the Kingdom of Coco lately,

we're delighted to be able to link today to the

Needle and Thread Network for the WIP Wednesday.

Be sure to hop on over there and see what everyone else is up to.



A New-fangled Double Wedding Ring



Double Wedding Ring Made Easy Workshop Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011



It's time for another in-depth report from the Nosey Nelly News' Intrepid Reporter Grandma Coco. Always on the prowl for a hot tip, she got a sizzler from Nan, the Marketing Director at The Quilt Pattern Magazine. The June issue of the magazine is out! And one of the features this month is a workshop put together by our very own Cheryl.

GC: Cheryl, you’re usually such a Shrinking Violet on this blog. Tell us what your workshop is all about.

C: Well, Grandma Coco, I really don’t think I shrink so much as I’m overshadowed but, since you asked….It’s an innovative way to make a Double Wedding Ring Quilt, one block at a time, quilting it as we go. I’ve always loved the Double Wedding Ring but the traditional approach is very fussy and precise.

GC: Hmmm….those aren’t words I’d use to describe you.

C: True! One morning as I was waking up, it hit me that there’s an easier way to go about it. Quilt-as-you go! With foundation piecing AND freezer paper appliqué. Easy peasey! The workshop is in 6 parts starting this month in The Quilt Pattern Magazine.

GC: Cool! What’s this month’s part about?

C: This month, the introduction, is all about gathering your supplies and getting ready. The whole workshop is broken down into manageable parts, so that step by step, we’ll go from the basic block to more exciting variations. If you follow along, you can end up making a complete crib-sized quilt…..not just a quilt top you’ll have to quilt later. No. A completely (some might say painlessly) quilted baby quilt. 

GC: Sounds intriguing. How do we get started?

C: Just head on over to The Quilt Pattern Magazine and set up a subscription. It's an online magazine so there's no delay, no waiting for the mail man. You'll get the June issue and everything you need to know is right there in the magazine. You can work on the workshop at your own pace and on your own schedule.

GC: Is there anything else you`d like to mention?

C: Yes, actually, once you’ve subscribed to The Quilt Pattern Magazine, you can join Pattern Pastiche which is a social group for subscribers to the magazine where quilters can make friends and show off photos of their quilts. There’s a discussion group set up especially for the Double Wedding Ring Made Easy workshop.  I’ll be hanging around there, listening in and ready to help if there are any questions. But  the workshop is really an exploration. There are so many variations on the basic Double Wedding Ring, I’ll be very interested to hear what the workshoppers come up with in terms of suggestions and innovations of their own. The workshop is a stepping off point. I fully expect once quilters get going, we’ll see an explosion of creativity.

GC: So, that’s the scoop on The Double Wedding Ring Made Easy Workshop. Remember folks, Coco knows! And now, so do you.