KF Finish

I had another lovely weekend spending time with a my quilty mentor-friend and enabler, the Empress of the Universe.  It was such a blessing to stay with her and visit while attending a workshop at Linderella's Quilt Works (link).

So now, it's finally time to reveal the finished project using the Kaffe Fassett fabrics shown in my last post.  Did you guess what the tent would be?

A TUFFET!

View from the top; I adore the center button

 Bottom

This 2-part class totaling 6 hours is so satisfying. There is homework in between the weeks, and what a sense of accomplishment to come away from class with a finished piece of furniture!  Sharyn, the instructor, is loads of fun and carefully guides each participant step by step. 

A wonderful group of ladies worked together in the construction stage.

If you're in the NC area, I highly recommend signing up for this class.  You can check Sharyn's teaching schedule at Tuffet Source (link), and be sure to browse the website for more tuffet beauties

KF Tent

 Remember all these lovely Kaffe Fassett prints?

I cut them into strips and made 8 of these.

And those made this.

And this will be made into?

a) Toaster Cover

b) Tree Skirt

c)  Footstool

I'll show and tell next week.

Hehee.

Apple Chips vs. Apple Paper

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending time with my quilty mentor/friend.  I brought along some homemade apple chips which we fully discussed the making of.  

This is the gadget I used to prepare them:  My apple/vegetable corer/slicer/peeler.

With it, you can choose to peel or not, but have no control over thickness of slices.  Thicker takes a longer baking time, at 225°F for 2hrs. 15mins in a convetion oven.  But a great tool for raw apple snacks.


A few months ago, I purchased a mandolin to assist with salad making.  Works a charm for super-thin-sliced celery, cucumber, carrots, etc.  

My friend suggested that I use it to slice the apples, since one can have control over the thickness. "And don't bother coring them either", she said.

 Brilliant!

I first tried the thinnest slicing option.

Yikes!  You could actually see through them. 

  They took only 40 min. at 225°F, about one-third of the time for the thicker ones.  (I could put in 3 racks of apples, if I had another baker's rack.)

They're so thin and crisp...

I call it apple paper!

The man of the house came home and said he'd like them better with cinnamon, so round 3.

Here's how you can make them at home for about $2 lb., instead of paying around $15 lb. for the prepackaged store bought variety: 

• Slice honeycrisp (or your favorite) apples mighty thin, placing them on a 20x14 grid rack and baking at 225°F for 40 mins. The rack pictured (by Wilton) is the perfect size for the oven, and the grid allows the flow of air and heat from the bottom.

• I have a convection oven, so the time for your oven may be slightly longer.

NOTE:  If you make them paper thin, you MUST peel them off the rack immediately upon exiting the oven.  There is a window of time (about 60 seconds), until they will be stuck to the rack and break into pieces.  If that happens, shove them back in the oven for 2-3 minutes, pull them out and peel off.

I've been sewing several projects this week so come back to see the evidence in the next couple of days.

Teaser

"Beach" finish, and PhDs

I managed to finish up hand sewing the binding Friday night on "Beach", by Kaffe Fassett.  The previous evening as I worked on it, I fell asleep under it with needle in hand! 

The pattern is for 69 x 89, but I wanted a lap quilt, so it measures 56 x 66.  

I have plans to make this one again for a queen bed.

Now on to the PhDs (projects half done).

The following 2 patterns have been on and off of the design wall for, well way too long.  I've put them back up, with fresh new intentions of piecing them. ;-)

This one is by Kimberly Einmo, called 

"Checkerboard Rainbow Star".

I'm using mostly batiks, and this is a fun one if you like puzzles and color wheels!

Over many months, I've had fun collecting night sky and water fabrics with this pattern in mind, and still audition fabrics.  It's from the book "Quick Little Quilts" and the pattern is "Mother's Fantasy Windows".  The original design has only night sky, but I like the addition of sea life. 

(Cat in the corner isn't part of this quilt; he's awaiting a different pattern from this book.)

There are several quilts in this book that I want to make.  I've been checking the book out from the library on and off for much over a year...time to own it!  The quilt will measure 24.5" x 24.5", and most likely I'll hang it.

Time to make beads.....

Bella Babushka, Beach Blanket, and Birthday

Happy Birthday to me!

(borrowed photo)

I finished the Bella Babushka quilt top, and purchased the backing so it's ready for the long arm. 

I adjusted the twin size pattern to create one for my queen bed.

This gorgeous 108" purple fabric is perfect for backing, as was the price!  The width makes it so much easier for such a large quilt.

Also working on several other sewing projects while keeping up with my glass bead making.  I decided to make a summer lap quilt for the den and chose the "BEACH" design from Kaffe Fassett's Quilts in Sweden book.   

Some of the fabric is out of production, but I managed to round it up here and there.  And the kind lady at Glorious Color robbed enough of the border fabric from some sample kits for me.

Love all these bright colors!  They're so Happy!

The design wall isn't quite tall enough for all the rows.

Sandwiched and ready, I've started the quilting of this 50" x 60" myself, on the mid-arm Janome I purchased last year.

I set up and use my 6 ft market tables to make it easier to maneuver, with the tables handling the bulk of the quilt.  Now I've had to remove it from the tables so I can use them at the Monday market.

Lots more projects in the works to show next time and hopefully a finish!

Bella Babushka

   

...is the name of a quilt pattern created by 

Natalie Lymer of Cinderberrystitches. 

 I love this pattern! 

The "Matryoshka" dolls (Russian stacking dolls) hold special meaning for our family, having lived in Russia from 1994-2000.

See that teensy doll?  It measures barely 3/8" high.

Since around November, I've been working on this project whilst finishing up the market season with my glass work.

 



I couldn't locate the lovely fabric prints shown in the pattern, so I dug out some stash:

  

A layer cake. 

 

The fabric was part of a kit for a different quilt, but I wasn't fond of the pattern design.  These colors were spot on, and the cake was almost the perfect size for blocks. 

The Bella pattern called for another size of squares, but as a layer cake contains 10 inch squares, slicing the cake into quarters gave me plenty of 5 inch squares.  

And since I was adjusting the pattern for a queen size, I just added a few more rows of squares...

 

and (yay!) a 2nd row of dolls.

Still fairly new to quilting, I made some adjustments to suit my abilities:  I used fusible web on the doll bodies, cutting web 1/4" smaller than the template.  I turned the edges in over the webbing, then ironed flat. 
 

I machine appliqued the dolls, having needle-turned only their faces.

 Adorbs!

Now to work on borders.

Baby Quilt - Sailing

My niece is expecting and her second son is due next month!  Since she lives near the beach, I found what I think is the perfect quilt design to add to the nautical theme 

in this book:

I know you're all surprised at the author!  I've used this book to make several quilts, and have to say, I do appreciate the format and depth of instruction included.

Here's the quilt in the book:

And here's mine:

 {The blocks looking red are really the same dark pink color as the book quilt}.

I had some of the suggested fabric on hand, but improvised for the rest. The border stripes are from a man's a dress shirt I bought at a thrift store.

From the beginning of this project, I debated with what to do for backing.   I tried using remnants from the patchwork, but too many scraps just looked like a hot mess.  

I looked in the shops, found anchor fabric and such but they also didn't make the cut.

Then one day I opened an email notification of a blog post by a quilter.  There before me was a photo of four blue and white quilt blocks...

(Blatant swipe from imperamagna.com)

and for some reason, I was immediately reminded of signal flags.  

 

I decided to use the signal flags to spell out the baby's first name:

Quilt back

She liked it!

(My sincere apps to Freda for inspirational blocks).

I have another quilt top in the works.  Back for show and tell tomorrow.