I’m afraid that I probably should have gone counter-clockwise, so all that sparkly perfection may be in vain. I’m holding off on making a date with Mr. Seam Ripper, as well as sewing any more blocks until I have confirmed which direction the logs should be spinning. Either way, it’s a beauty to behold. Just wait until I have a photo of the completed technicolor king size quilt with pillow shams to show you!

Here’s my version of a Log Cabin block, stress-free style. The last red log wanted to go on the other side, so of course I obliged. (How could I refuse?) This one’s for my Dear Diary 2010 quilt, but it would be fun to do a whole quilt of these mixed up Log Cabins.

happy piecing! ^_^

Chidori-Tsunagi, 6″

Mashu-Zashi, 6″

Asa-no-ha, 6″

That last one is on pre-printed fabric (I’ve only just begun, my stitching is the lighter part in the upper left corner), the other two are drafted with a white pencil. Following the stitching lines on the pre-printed fabric is good practice, I’m getting better at the tiny stitches in the centers. I think I prefer drafting to pre-printed though. When you draft them yourself you can draw the designs any size you wish and you can be more free with your stitch length and placement. These blocks are going to eventually become part of a sashiko sampler when I’ve finished enough of them.

Here’s a necklace I made with my Fast, Fun & Easy Cover Button Jewelry techniques by stitching on the pre-printed Asa-no-ha fabric. That’s a 1-7/8″ button.

4″ Dear Diary block made with my sashiko practice piece

and another 4″ Dear Diary block using up the rest of my practice stitches.

Sashiko is a great take-along project. You don’t need a hoop or complicated equipment. I’d like to try sashiko quilting on my painted Spring quilt top, but I didn’t use any fabric paint medium in the acrylics so it’s not going to be the most needle-friendly quilt top I’ve ever made. Maybe I could limit the sashiko to the upper part of the center panel where there’s not much paint and machine quilt the rest. For now though, I’m just going to continue with my sashiko sampler blocks.

Satin stitching is one of those techniques I just don’t do. Too much stress, too much hassle, too much thread to cut out when things go wrong. I’m more of a blanket stitch kind of gal.

Unfortunately the fabrics I chose for this little blue mushroom didn’t have as much contrast as I’d imagined they should. So it was either make an entirely new block from scratch or attempt to save the day with some satin stitching in bright blue rayon.

Not bad for a satin-stitch-a-phobe. I could definitely try this again. Maybe someday I’ll even make an entirely satin stitched applique quilt.

So the very next day I did. I had a sample of Glide Trilobal Polyester thread from Fil-Tec Bobbin Central that I’d been saving to try out on a mini quilt top.

As you can see on the cloud applique, it satin stitches beautifully. Notice the tight curves and inside points of the cloud. (These are 4-inch blocks.) I LOVE that even though I stacked up quite a bit of thread to cover the corners and curves, this thread was fine enough that it didn’t jam up or get caught in the feed dogs.

Glide’s shine matches that of rayon, plus it’s colorfast. Check out their wide range of gorgeous colors. There’s even color conversion charts for Madeira and Robison-Anton. The only thing I could wish for is Glide Trilobal Polyester thread in variegated colors. Until then …

Get 10% off all Glide colors for the month of February. Stock up on your favorite colors and fall in love with Glide.

The purple and black Square-in-a-Square at right is another one of those blocks I don’t see myself making more of. (The dime is for scale.) It is pieced for real, not painted, stamped or fussy cut. I can’t imagine why I ever made it in the first place, but I can see why there is only one.

I was digging in my scrap box for more of the sheep fabric, but couldn’t find any. What I did find was this little gem, already inset into the muslin and just waiting for me. I think it fits in rather nicely.

happy quilting! =(^_^)=

It’s my Dear Diary 2010 journal and I post every day with my Zig pigment pens.

But unless you happen to meet me in the street (or maybe at Road to California later this month) you might never get to read it. I promise to give you updates here every now and then.

Dear Diary 2010 is coming along quite well. I’m still working out a few kinks in the program, such as: maybe it’s not the most realistic expectation to design, create, and quilt a new block each and every single night when you get started around 10 or 11 pm. I can definitely design it and at least fuse or piece each one daily though. As long as I don’t skip any days I’ll be able to catch up.

None of them are quilted yet because I’m still deciding how I want to quilt them. I’m leaning towards hand quilting around the edges with big-stitch quilting with top-stitching thread. (I really love the look of bold hand stitches, and the 4-inch blocks are great for taking along.) Once they’re quilted I’m going to connect them with E seed beads.

Here are my first week’s blocks:

Stay tuned for more!

The pocket pattern fit the print just right so that it looks like two pieces, but it’s really only one. I’m going to stitch the applique pieces down before adding the buttons to the flowers.

My border is a black-on-white polka dot. As I was embroidering I was actually thinking of a multi-color African print for the border, but somehow the polka dots jumped out at me when it came time to add the border. Then I decided to quilt the border with seed beads. … Speaking of seed beads, today’s tip is about choosing batting for beaded quilt wallhangings.

Check out the detail below. There are two different batting effects at play here:

I used black wool felt as the batting for the embroidery panel. Wool felt comes in several thicknesses and many different colors. (Choose a matching felt and if the fibers beard a bit you won’t notice it.) Wool felt is easy to pull the needle through and supports the beadwork very well.

The border was an experiment. It has two layers of Warm & Natural cotton batting. This also supports beadwork well, but gives a different effect. Look carefully and you’ll see that the nylon beading thread carried between the layers creates a bit of puckering like you would get on antique quilts (and new ones as well) when the batting shrinks in the wash. If you’d like the puckered antique look, but don’t want to wash your beadwork (dyed beads can bleed in the wash), this would be the way to go. I haven’t tested this technique with a single layer of cotton batting yet, I needed the heft of two layers to support the wool felt batting in the embroidered block.

The more beads you sew onto your quilt, the more support you’re going to need, so consider all your batting options (including non-traditional ones) before you begin beading. You could even sew a handful of beads on a sample sandwich or two to test the battings out first.

I’ve already sewn on the border but I’m going to keep you in suspense a little longer about exactly what kind of fabric it is. Anybody care to guess?

Last month I very nearly ripped all my hand quilting out of this quilt to start over with machine quilting. I’m glad I didn’t though, because now I know exactly how I’m going to finish the hand quilting in the solid yellow bars. =(^_^)=