Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A Bit of Work From the Sewing Room

The rains have made such a difference in this August and the August of 2012; the pond is full, the grass is thick, and the cows are fat.  We're starting on the final hay work.  We know nothing of a vacation, other than it meaning a couple of weeks when there are no chickens to be constantly on our minds.
 
There has been a bit of work going on in the sewing room: doll dresses, baby bibs, aprons, and doll quilt tops.  This is one of those quilt tops, in simple pinwheels, made from Kathleen Tracy's book, American Doll Quilts.  I love the softness of the colors in this top.


I always have trouble with half square triangles, so a few years ago I purchased a pattern for paper piecing them.


The papers can be cut for the number of HSTs you will be making of each color.  In my case I needed four HSTs.  With right sides together, the print and the white are placed beneath the pattern,



then stitched on the dotted lines and cut apart on the solid lines, resulting in perfect HSTs.


I cut off the little "dog ears"


which my daughter suggested I leave for the Borrowers.  :-)  They can pick up threads from the floor and maybe find a very small needle to sew them into HSTs.

Have a good day!
Charlotte

13 comments:

  1. That turned out really pretty! I hope the Borrowers see the one you've pieced so they'll know how to set theirs together! LOL

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  2. I love the pinwheel quilts! Am working at trying to organize my material. I never know how much is in a piece and make the closet a mess so I am putting each piece on cardboard (side of kleenex box or any box) and pinning it with a quilting pin like they do in the stores and writing how much material on a piece of masking tape on it. Hope it helps me! Nancy

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  3. farming must be less worry this year with having wetter cooler weather. Too bad you don't get away though for at least a day to do something different.
    Doll quilt is cute - I use paper like that to do triangles too most of the time.
    Can't believe Roger is off to college already! the years flew by

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  4. Thank you for showing in detail how you made your pinwheel pieces. I have never used the paper before. Great job on the quilt top. I love the colors. And the story is always enjoyment!

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  5. That is so pretty, Charlotte. I hope the Borrowers find your leftover scraps. Little people need quilts too! Ha! :D

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  6. Great job as usual. I hope they find them. Oh how I love Pin Wheel quilts and can't make one to save my life..Hugs

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  7. I also wanted to add that hearing about all the rain you're getting has made my day.

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  8. Your pinwheels look perfect, that pattern paper stuff works.
    When the borrowers get done with a tiny quilt at your home, send them to mine, I have plenty of little scraps for them too.

    We have had lots of rain here in Oklahoma, so much better than the last 2 summers. We are in a dry spell for now and we kind of hope it stays that way so the cement truck can come do some work in our backyard and not get stuck. but who knows, I sure won't complain about rain after our almost 2 year long drought

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  9. Charlotte, I tried to comment earlier and kept going off line.
    Living in the country with an air card is not great at times.
    All you create is beautiful.
    Memories always surface of my mother and grandmother who could do anything with a needle - when I read your post...

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  10. The colors in this quilt do have a soft look which makes it look like an old quilt, and I do love that!

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  11. So good that you have gotten rain to make every thing good! Love the pinwheel quilt! It turned out so pretty!

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  12. Charlotte, your dolly quilt is so sweet! I love the new methods that they have come up with for making half square triangles. Quilting has really come a LONG way in the past 20 years. So much easier than what our grandmothers had to do.

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  13. I love pinwheels, Charlotte! Yours turned out perfect. I have an Accuquilt fabric cutter that James bought me for Christmas last year that will cut those half-triangles quickly and accurately, but I still manage to sew them together wrong for some reason. *Sigh* Practice makes perfect, I keep telling myself. :)

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