To Everything There Is A Season.....

 

Hi, all!

To everything there is a season.  Profound words that are really resonating with me right now.  Changes are coming for us as my husband prepares to retire at the end of May, and life is full right now.  It's full of good things, but the preparation required to make the retirement process run smoothly is taking up much of my time now.  

As I look at the things I "want" to do and the things I "have" to do, I'm finding that blogging is ending up in the category of "things I have to do".  That means that my quilting time is taken up what I need for blog content, and some quilt-y things that I've wanted to do for years are still waiting to be done.  

I've been blogging for about thirteen and a half years now, and this is the first time it's felt like a chore.  And that makes me sad - but it also makes me want to do something different.  To rest from blogging for a while.  To see if I get the urge to blog once again. 

So I'm taking a break.  I don't know if it will be permanent or just for a season, but I do know that if/when I come back, I'll have lots and lots to talk about!  

Thanks to those of you who have checked in to see if I'm ok, and to those of you who may have missed the blog over the past few weeks.  I'm sorry if anyone is disappointed, but I'm also relying on your kindness as quilters to understand.  You'll still be able to find me on Instagram, (I'm @fabricaddictquilts) and I hope to become more consistent about posting there as I work on some fun things that have been gathering dust in my studio.  And you can always email me at salliesue57 (at) gmail (dot) com!  

I'll miss you all!  Thanks for all your support over the years.  Keep making quilts for others - it's good for your heart!

Hugs!

Sarah

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? An Unusual Week....

 

Hi, all!

Well, Friday has finally arrived at the end of what seems like a very long week, and we all know what that means - it's time for us to get our whoop whoop on!  Are you ready?  Let's go!

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Tuesday of this week was primary election day in Tennessee, and I was fortunate enough to get to work the polls for the day!  It's a lot of fun, but really hard work, starting at 5:45 am and running through about 8:30 pm by the time things are all packed up and delivered where necessary.  So Monday is my usual day for housekeeping tasks like paying bills, laundry and grocery shopping, and Tuesday I was at the polling place all day.  

But Wednesday - Wednesday was the day I had to finally bite the bullet and take up a special task.  On the previous Sunday, my husband asked me if I could take up the sleeves on his sports coat.  Of course, I said, "Oh no, let's take it to the alterations shop" because I'm a quilter! But it turns out he wanted it for this coming Sunday, and no alterations shop would do it that quickly.  

Let me say here that while I used to make all my clothes (way back when), and have even made a man's suit (NEVER AGAIN!), altering the sleeves of a sports coat is something I've never done before, and I will admit to being quite intimidated.  I watched YouTube videos and looked at WikiHow pages, then finally bit the bullet and jumped in.

The first order of the day, after taking off the buttons, was removing these fake buttonholes.  Did you know that if you find just the right thread on the back and tug on it, they will pull right out in a chain reaction?  I found that out after I picked out the first one the hard way.

Then I opened up the stitching between the lining and the outside fabric of the jacket.  Ugh!  It looks really complicated in there, but it's too late to stop now!

Am I the only person here that takes lots and lots of pictures when doing something new, so I can remember how to put it back together later?  I have about ten pics and a couple of videos on my phone that helped get me through this.

At one point in the process, my husband, who had been providing me with the YouTube links, said, "This seems to have been much more of a process than I thought it would be!"  At least now he knows why I was so hesitant to do it myself!

But here's the finished product - beautifully shortened sleeves with buttons!  No buttonholes - there's no way you could make me do that! But it still looks good on the outside....

...and on the inside!  And when my husband tried it on, both sleeves were the same length AND the right length, so win/win!!

He actually had the bravery to show me how it looked, then say, "You know, I've got a suit and another sports coat with sleeves that need shortening..." but when he saw the look on my face, he backed up and decided to take that up in a few days!

So - - - can I get a whoop whoop?

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And now it's your turn!

What's making you whoop it up this week?

What's got you doing a little happy dance?

Share!  We want to dance right along with you,

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah

Fat Quarter Frenzy Is Woven Today!

 

Hi, all!

We are back this week with another Fat Quarter Frenzy quilt tutorial!  We've been discovering new ways to utilize fat quarters in quilts, and if you're like me and have way too many, a way to use up some of the stash!  So far, we've used 48 fat quarters (!) - 16 in Meet Me in St. Louis, 14 in Kaleidoscope, and most recently 18 in a new version of Supernova.  But I'm still overflowing with fat quarters, so today we will be exploring a new tutorial, this time for a quilt I call Woven.  Let's go!

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Woven

A Fat Quarter Friendly Quilt

FABRIC REQUIREMENTS:

Fat Quarters (FQ) in three different contrasting color groups

Color A - 7

Color B - 5

Color C - 4

CUTTING:

From Color A FQs, cut:

26 4.5” x 12.5”

30 4.5” x 4.5”

To achieve this, and assuming your FQ have 17” x 20” of useable fabric, cut your first six FQ in this manner:

This will give you 24 long strips and 24 squares.

Take your remaining FQ and cut in this manner:

This will give you your remaining 2 long strips and 6 squares.

From Color B FQs, cut:

13 4.5” x 12.5”

30 4.5” x 4.5”

To achieve this, cut the first 3 FQ in this manner:

This will give you 12 long strips and 12 squares.

Take another FQ and cut four 4.5” x 17” strips.  From one strip, cut one 4.5” x 12.5” strip and one 4.5” square.  Cut the remaining strips into 9 squares.  This will give you one more long strip and 10 more squares, for a total of 13 long strips and 22 squares.

Take the final FQ and cut three more 4.5” strips, then crosscut into 8 4.5” squares, giving you a total of 13 long strips and 30 squares.

From Color C FQs, cut:

48 4.5” s 4.5”

To achieve this, cut four 4.5” x 17” strips from each of the four FQ, then cross cut them into 12 4.5” squares for a total of 48 4.5” squares.

ASSEMBLY

This quilt is made up of three separate blocks, shown as follows:

Block 1:  Make 13

Block 2:  Make 6

Block 3:  Make 6

LAYOUT:

While it may look complicated to lay out, it’s really quite simple.  First of all, take Block 1 and lay it out in a checkerboard design, with 3 blocks in the 1st, 3rd and 5th rows with the stripes running horizontally, and 2 blocks in the 2nd and 4th rows with the stripes running vertically.

Take Block 2 and place them between the horizontal stripe blocks in rows 1, 3, and 5. 

Now take Block 3 and place them between the vertical stripe blocks in rows 2 and 4.

Assemble and quilt as desired!

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I hope you enjoy this quilt pattern, and that it helps you use up some random fat quarters in your stash!  See you next Sunday with another Fat Quarter Frenzy quilt!

Hugs!

Sarah

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?

 

Hi, all!

What do you know - - - it's Friday again!  And we all know what that means - it's time for us to all get our whoop whoop on.  Are you ready?  Let's go!

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It's been a busy week around my studio this week, and my quilt math brain has been stretched to its limit - but I have a finished t-shirt quilt top to show off!

It's been a while since I made one of these, and because I made some adjustments to block sizes as I went to fill in empty spots, I ended up needing to do some quilt math at the end to make sure everything fit.  Hopefully the second one this season will go a little easier now that I remember all the little tricks!  Quilting will come sometime next week, as I've got a busy weekend coming up.

Once I finished the top, I decided to take a little break and clean off my cutting table.  It feels so nice to have at least one little corner that is calm and peaceful and neat!

Then I decided to play around with an idea I had at church last week - a jelly roll quilt made with ombre fabric.  I had this piece of ombre, about a yard and a half, sitting in my stash, so I ironed it well and cut it into 1.75" width of fabric strips - the widest I could cut the strips and get 42.  I sewed them together, matching the yellow ends and the blue ends, then proceeded with a typical jelly roll quilt, and here's what I ended up with!  Isn't it pretty?

My friend Piper at church is working on the same thing, with a more traditional light-to-dark-to-light ombre, and I'm interested to see what hers ends up looking like!

And here's my final whoop whoop for the week - my daughter (the one on the left) celebrated her tenth birthday this week!  It's always so much fun when it's a leap year and we get to celebrate her "real"  birthday.  Her party will be on Saturday, because Lilli is away at DECA State Competition this week, but we went out to dinner with them Thursday and had a great time.  Where do the years go?

So - - - can I get a whoop whoop?

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And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?

What's making you do a little happy dance?

Share! We want to dance right along with you,

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.  

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah