Curve, Circle or Ring Quilts & a Giveaway

Welcome to this week's Linky Party!

The theme this week is Curve, Circle or Ring Quilts. These are quilts made using pieced curves, inlaid circles or rings. Names they go by are Drunkard’s Path, Dresden Plate, Double Wedding Ring, Cathedral Windows, Grandmother’s Fan, Japanese Fan, et al, and includes any quilt with curves or pieced in such a way as to give the impression of curves.

You may share any quilts or blocks you have made or are making yourself, works in progress (WIPs), unfinished objects (UFOs) or finished projects.

                                                                       

Please enter your name and a link to your blog or a picture in Flickr.  If you don't have a blog or a Flickr account, email me (hputi01@gmail.com) a picture of your quilt with a write-up and I will post it on my blog page called Members' Quilts.

Link up your quilts or blocks (you may enter more than once) using Mister Linky below and do visit as many of the other links as you can.  You will get some great ideas and may even find new followers and/or blogs to follow.

At the end of each month, all linky entries for that month will be tallied and one lucky winner will receive a charm pack of 20 (5") scrappy squares!  The monthly giveaway is open to residents within and outside the United States.

Be sure to check back each week to participate in a different quilt theme.

Double Wedding Ring Quilt - A UFO

Double Wedding Ring Quilt
A long-time UFO

Considering  a linky party on quilts with curves, circles or rings is long overdue, this unfinished object (UFO) which has been hidden on purpose for decades, is a prime example of one. 

Every one of the seams on this quilt is a curved seam, but that's not the prime deterrent to finishing it. I've completed 16 blocks because that's how many centers have been cut out.  For a king size quilt, which is what this quilt is meant to be, I need 72 centers!

This brings me to a couple of tips I'd like to share from 22+ years of quilting experience.

1. Think small! 

In the beginning (huge sigh!) and this quilt was dreamed up way in the beginning, I wanted to make only king size quilts. My first big quilt should have taught me a lesson, but oh no! it didn't. The king-size Sunshine & Shadows or Trip Around The World is beautiful, but took me 3 years to complete. With age comes wisdom and these days, I rarely make a bed-size quilt if I can possibly help it. What I should have done in this case, is to make a cushion cover to make sure that the technique and process is enjoyable, before diving into the hugest quilt imaginable.

2.Finish cutting before piecing! 

In the beginning (another huge sigh!) patience was not one of my virtues. Instant gratification was a must, so what did I do? I cut all the small pieces first (165 melons, 288 arcs and 288 corner squares, or something to that effect). Then I cut only 16 centers! "Why", you ask? Because of the need to see what the blocks would look like! It looked great, but guess what? Piecing 16 blocks was so exhausting, that everything was folded up and all put out of sight!

3. Get organized & keep everything required for a project in one place!

Thus was a UFO born and sits in its infancy, begging to be completed. For close to a decade, I couldn't find the dratted project! Then I had to locate all the fabric that went with it! And finally, I discovered there were still 56 centers to be cut out! So with another loud sigh, I turned away and ignored what will one day be a beautiful quilt for my blue bedroom.

4. Develop a plan to turn a UFO into an FFO!

In order to turn this unfinished object into a finally (no, not a f***ing) finished object (FFO), will require an MS Project Plan to be created with definite timelines and critical criteria and critical path all mapped out. If you look closely and rearrange the two completed segments, I have 2 rows of 8 blocks completed so there are only 7 more rows (or 7x8=56 more blocks) to complete. 

So wish me luck with that! and till then,

Cheers, everyone!

Fan Quilts & a Giveaway

Welcome to this week's Linky Party!

The theme this week is Fan Quilts. Names they go by are Grandmother’s Fan, Dresden Fan and Japanese Fan, et al.  

                                                                       

Please enter your name and a link to your blog or a picture in Flickr.  If you don't have a blog or a Flickr account, email me (hputi01@gmail.com) a picture of your quilt and a brief write-up and I will post it on my blog page called Members' Quilts.

Link up your quilts or blocks (you may enter more than once) using Mister Linky below and do visit as many of the other links as you can.  You will get some great ideas and may even find new followers and/or blogs to follow.

At the end of each month, all linky entries for that month will be tallied and one lucky winner will receive a charm pack of 20 (5") scrappy squares!  The monthly giveaway is open to residents within and outside the United States.

Be sure to check back each week to participate in a different quilt theme.

Quilts for Boston Modern Quilt Guild - Get details on Flickr

Donate quilt blocks to the Boston Modern Quilt Guild - Details here.
Take a look at donated blocks on Flickr.

DQ April 2013 Challenge - Mouse Pincushion & Reversible Scraps/Threads Catcher

Mouse Pincushion in
Scraps and Threads Catcher

This challenge organised by Desi Quilters (DQ), a creative group of modern quilters from India, was a really fun project because I love pincushions and other sewing and quilting accessories. Add to this the fact that April 22nd was Earth Day this year and I was able to combine a few of my interests to come up with this entry.

Plastic tray from a box that holds biscotti

Breakfast most mornings is a cup of hot or cold coffee and a biscotti. My favourite brand of biscotti comes in a box with a plastic insert and I've been collecting these inserts which are quite sturdy with the intention of turning them into useful objects. It was so gratifying to recycle them in support of Earth Day. 

Plastic tray beside finished
scraps and threads catcher

The insert looks much nicer dressed up in fabric and housing a funny little mouse pincushion. The plastic tray is much easier to empty than a thread catcher made from fabric alone. 

Mouse Pincushion found on Pinterest

I came across a picture of the pincushion in Pinterest and discovered that there is a great You Tube video demonstrating the technique involved in making this pincushion as well as a well written tutorial.

Finished project showing the
other side of the scraps and thread catcher
 all trimmed out in ric-rac

Both these accessories were so easy and fun to make, especially watching the mouse come to 'life' and taking on it's own personality and attitude! Note the pierced ears, for example! 

I'm working on a tutorial for the scraps/thread catcher and should have that done soon. It will provide instructions for using any size and shape of insert to make a cover for it.

Until then,

Cheers!

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Crazy Quilts & a Giveaway

Welcome to this week's Linky Party!

The theme this week is Crazy Quilts. According to How To Quilt’s Glossary of Quilting Terms, Crazy Quilts are “quilts that are made by covering a foundation piece of fabric with odd-shaped pieces of fabric, and usually include fabrics other than cotton - for example velvet, silk, corduroy. The fabrics are often embellished with fancy embroidery stitches.”

                                                                       

Please enter your name and a link to your blog or a picture in Flickr.  If you don't have a blog or a Flickr account, email me (hputi01@gmail.com) a picture of your quilt and a brief write-up and I will post it on my blog page called Members' Quilts.

Link up your quilts or blocks (you may enter more than once) using Mister Linky below and do visit as many of the other links as you can.  You will get some great ideas and may even find new followers and/or blogs to follow.

At the end of each month, all linky entries for that month will be tallied and one lucky winner will receive a charm pack of 20 (5") scrappy squares!  The monthly giveaway is open to residents within and outside the United States.

Be sure to check back each week to participate in a different quilt theme.

Winner of April's Giveaway

Congratulations, Abby West, the winner this month of a charm pack of 25 (5") scrappy squares!

Benartex CITY BLOOMS Charm Pack Fabric Squares Kit

            

All the linky entries for April 2013 were tallied, after I omitted my entries, and one lucky winner was picked using Random Integer Generator (http://www.random.org/integers/). 

Here is the comprehensive list of entries for April 2013.

Theme	Entry #	Assigned #	Name
9 Patch Quilts	3	1	Sandhya Karandikar
	4	2	Mary Smith
	5	3	Smita Prabhu
	6	4	Tina Katwal
	7	5	Sangita Kamath
Star Quilts	1	6	Kelly Vetch
	6	7	Elvira Threeyama
	7	8	Elvira Threeyama
	8	9	Elvira Threeyama
	9	10	Elvira Threeyama
	10	11	Elvira Threeyama
	11	12	Elvira Threeyama
	12	13	Ranju Gandhi
	13	14	Brinda Crishna
	14	15	Brinda Crishna
	15	16	Ranju Gandhi
	16	17	Madhu Mathur
	17	18	Ranju Gandhi
	18	19	Uma Srinivasan
	19	20	Ranju Gandhi
Half Square Triangle Quilts	4	21	Marelize Ries
	5	22	Ranju Gandhi
	6	23	Abby West
	7	24	Abby West
	8	25	Ranju Gandhi
	9	26	Ranju Gandhi
	10	27	Ranju Gandhi
	11	28	Anuradha Rayapareddy
Stack & Whack Quilts	1	29	Ranju Gandhi
	2	30	Ranju Gandhi
	3	31	Ranju Gandhi
	4	32	Ranju Gandhi
	6	33	Jennifer Houlden
	7	34	Darla Gibbens
	8	35	Abby West
	9	36	Vanita Roy
	10	37	Shannon Fabric N Quilts

 

Random Integer Generator

Generate 1 random integers (maximum 10,000).

Each integer should have a value between 1 and 37 (both inclusive; limits ±1,000,000,000).

Format in 1 column(s).

True Random Number Service

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

35

Timestamp: 2013-05-04 18:01:49 UTC

© 1998-2012 RANDOM.ORG 

Thank you, everyone who entered, for participating in the quilting themes for April 2013.  Please visit again for May’s linky parties, of which the first quilt theme will be announced soon.

Have a great day!