Deb Tucker's Rapid Fire Hunter's Star Tutorial

Today I thought I would share a video tutorial with you. Many of the customers at my local quilt shop, Sager Creek Quilt and Yarnworks, have fallen in love with the Deb Tucker line of rulers. The shop carries the full line, including a new one that just came in last week. I have a couple of the rulers myself, although not this one. Whenever Pam at the shop teaches a class on this method, she gets a lot of enrollees and some fabulous results. These rulers help you make precision blocks that turn out perfectly every time. Take a peek. I'll post other videos whenever, like now, I don't have a lot of my own quilting to show.

Debbi

Easter ironing

Happy Easter everyone.

I spent most of my day doing some routine cleaning and some major ironing. This, of course, leads to the very controversial topic of washing fabrics.

Yes, thanks to having been burned in the past, I wash all of my fabrics before I use them. I use the gentle, handwash setting with minimal soap and no fabric softener. I then spray the fabrics with  Magic Sizing and iron them. That means that I've been washing all week and ironing just as long. I'm down to the last 10 fabrics - all of them larger yardage pieces. I'll probably still be ironing this time next weekend!

I didn't get any sewing at all done this weekend although I can now prepare the backing for another UFO that just needs borders. Next week I hope to get the bindings ready for the black and blue quilt and the Red Sea quilt.

I've prepped a lot of my colorful new batiks, so I can start ironing on freezer paper owl parts as soon as I get the rest of these fabrics finished and put away. I'll show you picture as soon as I chose which fabrics I want for which owl.

'Til then,

Debbi

Spring is here!

I've been out surveying the overgrown mass that used to be my gardens. I used to garden a lot before I started quilting. And before the "Great Freeze." The freeze came after a winter very much like this last one. We had no lasting cold weather, and all of my plants, trees, and flowers were in their spring growth phase with everything that could bloom, blooming. It was beautiful. then, on February 4, we had a terrible freeze. It killed nearly everything in all of my gardens. The freeze only lasted two days, but that was enough. I was so depressed that I completely gave up gardening. That's one of the reasons my husband wanted me to have the sunroom - so I could have indoor plants. The gardens didn't exactly go away completely - they've just got very overgrown.

Here's my iris garden again. You can see a few of my free-range chickens in the background.

They're a little hard to see, but these buds will be beautiful, large pink blossoms in a few days. The bush is already loaded with buds.

The remnants of my rose garden. These buds will be a riot of red blossoms soon. I still have three or four rose bushes that force their way through the vinca every year.

This is what happens when vinca and creeping ivy take over a garden. The blue blooms of the vinca are very pretty in the spring, but this stuff is impossible to get rid of!

Even the tiny buds of a wild rose are getting ready to burst open. Unfortunately, all of the wild roses on my property are white. My neighbor got the pink wild roses. I'm jealous! I'll probably wind up digging out this wild rose after it blooms. Wild roses are another pest that are very difficult to get rid of.

This little rose, however, isn't wild. It's my tiny yellow rose. The blossoms are already opening (there's an open blossom at the top of the photo). I took this photo yesterday, and today there are several blossoms totally open.

And, of course, there's Maxie. She meowed out the window the entire time I was playing in the garden. She thought it was very unfair that I wouldn't let her out to play as well!

Yep, there's there she is, complaining loudly.

And I just had to show you this. I bought a king-sized litter box! The kitties LOVE it. They have forsaken all others. I have 50 pounds of litter in here, but the cats don't kick it out of this box because of the high sides. I left two of the smaller boxes in the photo to show you just how big it is. It could easily be a child's sandbox! I still have the five smaller boxes throughout the house, but they really only use this one. They like it well enough to take turns! I have to clean it out every time I pass it.

Tomorrow I'll go back to talking about quilting, but I had to share some other aspects of my life today.

'Til then...

Debbi

Good news on the UFO front!

Okay, after several weeks, I finally sewed the label on my hearts quilt. Finished - officially! Now I can finally update my UFO page and my To-Do List on my home page.  : )

And that's not the only news. Are you ready? My Tonga batik quilt has been quilted! Yes, yes, I still need to bind and label it, but it's close be doing done, does that count?

Mom did a fantastic job, as usual. Happy dance! I discovered something about batting, though. I'm used to using Warm and Natural 100% cotton. It's a nice, medium weight batting. This time I needed a king sized batting, which I did not have in my stash. I also need a king for the Red Sea quilt that is at Mom's house as we speak. Well, I found two affordable king sized Hobbs 100% cotton battings, so I bought them. This must be the one that hand quilters use... I have never seen such a thin batting before in my life! The quilt weighs next to nothing and is barely thicker than the original top! My biggest challenge now is to figure out  what width of binding to use. I usually cut a 2" binding to get an even 1/4" per side. I'm thinking maybe

1 1/4"-1 1/2". Anyone have any suggestions? I'll have to practice with some scraps and see what works.

Here is my next good news. Mom also finished quilting my Black and Blue quilt. Can you see the pretty swirls at the top? I love my red stripe! It really pops in all of the blue and black. *Smile*

I have a Dogwood Guild meeting tomorrow, so I won't be home in the morning to get any quilting done. I will probably spend the afternoon in the garden trying to tame back some of the overgrowth and find some of my flowers. I'll give you a hint of what you'll see here tomorrow...

Wild irises. : ) Surrounded by weeds. : (  And yes, all of those white dots you see in the upper background are, indeed, dandelion clocks. Sigh.

I'll meet you here tomorrow and show you some more garden shots.

'Til then...

Debbi

My school now has a mascot!

I teach adults a technical training institute (that's a fancy way of saying vocational school). I've been here for 13 years, and we've never had a need for a mascot since we don't have a team of any sort. But, be that as it may, we decided that we need a mascot (after all, the rival college in the next town has one even though they don't have intramural teams either).

Anyway, would anyone like to guess what our mascot is? Would you like a hint?

That's right! Talk about a fortuitous choice of wall hangings! I just happened to chose an applique pattern featuring all the family members of our new mascot, Otis the owl - We give a hoot! Now I'll have to do the darn thing. I've been working on drawing out the figures on my freezer paper, but it's taking forever. The tree is in 15 pieces one piece drawn in segments on 15 pages! I have to draw out all segements then join them together to form a single piece to iron on the brown fabric. A challenge - I like it!

I guess I'll have to applique Northwest Technical Institute at the top of the quilt as well... Oh well, incentive to keep working on it.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Back to drawing on freezer paper...

'Til later, hoot, hoot!

Debbi

And now for something new and different - well, no, actually it's even MORE fabric!

Even I can't believe how much fabric I still have to show, so I'm going to throw the last pictures on here and get it all over with today. That means that I'll actually have to get back to sewing after today so that I can't keep relying on photos of fabrics to get me by. I'll actually have to start working with them now! Yeah!

I love these three batik fabrics! Look at that luscious piece on the top left. Can't you just see that as borders? I hope I have enough. I can't believe I spent so much money and can still want more! The store had the same pattern in a white color-way, but I love rich colors. Mom bought the lighter version. I did give in and buy some of the light batik on the bottom right though.

Keeping with my aquas theme, here is another aqua background fabric paired with a lovely pink batik. Sigh. Aren't they beautiful? Those swaying flowers on such a delicate pink background make me want to don a tutu and dance. Remember the hippos from Fantasia? : p

Have I mentioned that red is very difficult for me to photograph? This shiny looking piece actually is very rich and vibrant looking. I LOVE it. I'm going to have to make another four more quilts just to use up all of the additional red fabric that I've bought since I made the last two red quilts! : )

I love geometric prints. Squares, plaids, circles, blocks, I don't care - I love them all! This violet-blue is going to be perfect for something some day, I just know it!

Another selection of batik fabrics. These just cried out to me. I have yet to make an entirely pink quilt, but I feel one coming on. Wait a minute, entirely pink? I think not! Look at those lovely blues, greens, and purples in the print fabric. I can do all sorts of things with this fabric! This is one of the pieces that most grabs my attention. That is, when I'm not distracted by the next two fabrics...

 Again, I love motion and activity in a fabric. I could never make an Amish quilt because I just can't do solids. This is a nice lavender background fabric with lots of character.

Since I was a child, I have loved pink with blue and lavender with blue. This is a little of all three. Again a batik just crying out for love!  

Owls anyone? The lovely brown batik will be the tree fabric if I decide to do my owl wall hanging in batiks. The assortment of fat quarters on top will become owl wings, heads, and bodies. Below are the lighter, pastel fabrics that will become owl breasts and faces as needed. The black batik will be the hole in the tree for one of the owls to be hiding in.

If I decide to use regular cottons rather than batiks, I will use the lovely pastels in this charm pack to make my owls. While you can's see the fabrics, you can get an idea of the colors. I don't want to remove the squares from the packaging because they'll get scattered and lost. I'll just keep the label wrapper on them until I get ready to use them. You don't get to see the actual fabrics, but I get peace of mind.

So which is it going to be - batik owls or regular cotton owls? Any opinions?

'Til later,

Debbi

Ready for more fabric photos?

These are probably my favorite batik fabrics from this purchasing foray. All three are varying shades of blue-grey (or gray). I bought one, two, and three yards from right to left. The polka dot is by far my favorite. I probably would have purchased more if I hadn't been being watched very carefully by a sweet lady who really wanted some of that fabric herself. I had never met the woman before, but all quilters are friends, so I was happy to share (okay, semi-happy).

The neutral at the upper left is going to be the background for my owl pattern and the goldish material will, believe it or not, be the tree. Again, photographing in a small, dark, enclosed area with less than perfect lighting definitely poses a challenge in getting the color right. It's actually a carmel brown. Now, that's the plan. However, look at how well that color matches the fabric in the middle... Oh dear. I may wind up buying a different brown for the tree and pairing these two fabrics in a different project. Do you ever do that? Buy a fabric with one project in mind and then steal it for something else?

This is not a good photo, color-wise. I tried several times, but you still can't tell that it's green. I love the movement in this fabric, though, so I had to have it.

Anyone like yellow? Bright, eye-searing yellow? I do!

I bought both of these batiks at Sager Creek in Silaom Springs. The brown is perfect tree color for a batik version of my owl pattern, isn't it? I'm torn between regular cotton and batik for that project. I prefer to quilt with batik, so I'm really beginning to lean that direction. In fact, later this week I'll show you the batik fabrics I bought just-in-case I go that direction.

Bits of this drgonfly batik would be good in owls, too, wouldn't they?

Reminder: Here's my pattern. Regular cottons or batiks? Leave a comment and tell me what you think. I really am torn... (and of course, I have fabrics for both - two quilts, maybe?)

More fabric tomorrow! 'Til then...
Debbi