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Archive for the category “Reviews”

15 Jun 2013

Persian Plum gone Wrong

The sabbatical is over and I’m making some changes to my site in the near future. It is said that the only constant is change and with that I’ve decided to change from my slothful nature and get back to posting what I’ve been up to.

All of the monthly blocks of the Persian Plum block of the month square are completed. When I opened the setting kit it was with a lot of trepidation. As I flipped through the fabric I was extremely disappointed that some of the fabric hadn’t been cut properly. I promised that I wouldn’t go off on a rant about it and proceeded to just make it work. It was so disheartening that I have taken a lot of time to put this together only to find more work for myself to correct the manufacture’s mistakes.

Because of this and my general nature of needing to have multiple projects going at the same time, I completed what I’m calling my “Chopsticks Quilt” and am still plugging along with the “Oh Canada” quilt that I started the year before. I found while going through fabric with my wife a mini-quilt that she started but hadn’t bound and asked that I be able to hand quilt it for her. Yes, another project!! It brightened my mood and I’m almost a third done with that one now.

Back to the Persian Plum however, she’s been helping me piece the other squares together in return for hand quilting her mini. We’ve just about completed all of the other squares from the setting kit and should be finished piecing those this evening. I’ll post up Blocks 11 and 12 over the next couple of days to give an idea of what the collection looks like.

Until next time,

Posted in Block of the Month, Blogs, Daily, Reviews and tagged block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review, Sew, sewing, shopping

26 Sep 2012

6 Comments

Quilts and the iPad

Like almost every quilter I have a phone and a computer. I read a lot of books as well, though mostly fiction. Until recently I had a Nook from Barnes & Noble that I used for the bulk of my electronic reading, but a friend of mine was upgrading his iPad 1 to and iPad 3 and made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. If you’ve ever held an iPad, you’ll notice a huge difference in weight between it and an e-reader.

As great as it was, it was just too heavy to use for reading and it languished on a shelf for a while. One day while flipping through a favorite quilting magazine I noticed on the back an advertisement showing that you could put a subscription of the magazine on the iPad. Color me intrigued!! Though for me, the iPad is much too heavy to use for normal reading… the larger screen and size is actually ideal for walking around with quilting patterns and instructions.

You may be saying that a magazine is just as easy, but I’ll make two points about ease of use. One, the most distracting thing is to have a magazine open while reading cutting instructions and have the pages flip on me while I’m reading it. This invariably leads to some not so nice verbiage from me. Secondly, I can carry around 12 issues… or 32 quilt patterns chock full of pictures, measurements, and ideas that can inspire my creativity wherever I am.

Send me a note on what you do to inspire your creativity!

Posted in Books, Daily, Reviews and tagged beginner, blogging, books, crafts, Fabric, gadgets, learning, manage, project, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review, Sew, sewing, technology

17 Aug 2012

6 Comments

Joann Fabric’s Persian Plum Block 10

Persian Plum Block 10 had so many little pieces of fabric. It had me thinking how I was going to be able to make a block big enough.

Sewing them together I had to make eight flying geese. They were so small and cute, but the fabric is so thick it took a little to get the seams ironed down.

Then sewing everything together the block looked so nice, don’t you agree?

Posted in Block of the Month, Daily, Quilt-a-long, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, manage, project, purple, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review

15 Aug 2012

6 Comments

Joann Fabric’s Persian Plum Block 9 Block of the Month

Thought I’d start out with this picture… I saw these outside of a restaurant near the downtown area and couldn’t believe how uplifting a patch of flowers can be.

It’s past time to finish and review Block 9 for Joann Fabric’s Persian Plum Block of the Month. I am excited about getting this quilt finished, the fabric is so heavy and will make a fantastic, long-lasting quilt that I’ll really be able to enjoy during those cold winter months.

Block 9 is ALL triangles and as beautiful as any of the rest of the blocks. This one went together very easily and I’m very pleased with the outcome.

And then the it was finished and I am only three blocks from the end!

Posted in Block of the Month, Daily, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, manage, project, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review, Sew, sewing

20 Jul 2012

Joann Fabric’s Persian Plum Block 8

Block 8 for the Persian Plum was definitely an easier block to put together than block 7 was, at least for me. It was fun and went together in less than 30 minutes!

I can hardly wait to see all of these blocks together in what I hope is going to be a beautiful quilt. Let me know what you think of this one.

Here is the fabric that came with the kit:

And then the sewing began…

Here is the block almost finished

And here’s the finished block

I took a break from my quilt to put this block together and you can see the reviews of my post for the previous blocks

Posted in Block of the Month, Blogs, Daily, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, project, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review | Leave a comment

14 Jul 2012

2 Comments

Joann Fabric Persian Plum Block 7

Block 7 was a real challenge and I almost took it completely apart and put it back together. The quality control for my cut pieces left a little to be desired. I would say that 80% of the pieces were cut to the proper dimensions, but it was the 20% that gave me fits. When I started to put this block of the month quilt together however, I promised myself to use what was in the kit only and see how the quilt turned out.

The pieces supplied had me scratching my head for a little while… as a guy I tried to see how everything would go together without looking at the instructions. I think that is hard-coded into our DNA! After looking at the instructions though, I quickly started putting the block together.

It was at this point that I realized that the pieces where going to be a little off-center which I tried to correct. It didn’t turn out bad, just didn’t go together as seamlessly as the other blocks had.

And here is the block in comparison to the picture of it

Posted in Block of the Month, Daily, How to, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, blogging, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, project, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review

11 Jul 2012

1 Comment

Work in Progress

My new work in progress has been delayed, as I was lucky enough to get the flu over the past two days… yea me!! The pattern is called Arcadia, by Mountainpeak Creations and will be reviewed once the quilt is completely together. I love the whimsical nature of these fabrics. I have to say that I found it difficult determining what pattern to use with these fabrics… they are not your ordinary run-of-the-mill patterns.

After three days of searching, I found one that I thought would work and have made the first panel. Now, I did end up created three squares roughly 11 1/2″ X 11 1/2″ as test squares to find that I needed to sew my seams a little different. The strips needed to be sewn with a scant 1/4″ seam, while the block needed to be sewn with a full 1/4″ seam. That to me is very frustrating to have to remember while sewing. Sewing it any other way and I ended with rectangles instead of squares.

Rather than wasting the fabric I have planned to of course make a throw or a mini with the strips that have already been sewn and just throw in a border to compensate. The queen size pattern I tested, was tested with the first complete panel. As I put it on my bed and looked at it, it is definitely large enough to be used as a queen sized quilt and gave me a preview of the completed quilt. WOW! is what I was thinking as I imaged what it will look like when finished.

Have you ever picked a fabric without regard to actually having a pattern for it? I’ve done this before, but never had such a difficult time as with this one. My biggest issue was that I liked all of the fabrics and didn’t want them to “disappear” into the quilt, but stand out individually. Speak out and let me know struggles that you’ve had!

Posted in Daily, Reviews, Shopping and tagged beginner, blogging, crafts, Fabric, Joann Fabrics, learning, mini quilt, project, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review, Sew, sewing

02 Jul 2012

6 Comments

Persian Plum Block of the Month 6

I did everything I promised myself I would do this weekend. Yes!!! The Arbor Lane quilt is finished and I’ll post a pic of that one tomorrow along with the nursery quilt that I also finished. I even had time to start the week out right by finishing and being able to post this morning the Joann Fabrics Persian Plum block of the month quilt block #6.

This was an interesting block of flying geese. I will mention right now that no matter how I sew this together I’ve never quite go the hang of having the finished size come out good. The length is always correct, but the height is off by 1/4″ almost every time. We persevere though, don’t we?

It came complete as has all the blocks to this point. The measurements were correct and the instructions clear. The colors I will still say are the most striking aspect of this quilt and flying geese is the motif.

Then we just sew them in the correct configuration for the block

Le me know how yours turned out. Mine ended up being about a 1/4″ off, but I’ll fix that when I go to put them all together. Here’s the comparison to the way it’s supposed to turn out.

Posted in Block of the Month, Daily, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, crafts, Fabric, joann, Joann Fabrics, learning, project, quilt, Quilting, Quilts, Review, Sapphire, Sew, sewing, Sewing machine, Viking

27 Jun 2012

5 Comments

Joann Fabrics Persian Plum Block of the Month Setting Kit

For all my friends… I normally don’t post in the middle of the day but had to let everyone know that Joann’s has re-stocked the persian plum line in stores and online. This means that if you are missing any blocks or the setting kit, now is the time to get in on this so you can finish this project.

You are more than welcome however to continue to follow my blog as I put one block together each week. Check out my posts as I take you through putting this beautiful quilt together. I have currently finished block 5, with block 6 getting completed next week.

Until next time!! happy quilting…

Posted in Block of the Month, How to, Reviews and tagged beginner, block of the month, joann, Joann Fabrics, Quilting, Quilts

27 Jun 2012

2 Comments

Persian Plum Block 5… almost half-way there!!

I’m so happy today that I was able to get accomplished the behemoth task of working late today and still managing to get the block finished and sew on the binding for my Arbor Lane quilt. Of course I’ve probably stayed up a little later than I normally would to make sure I could finish this. So here it is: