Coaster of the Month - September

I thought this month I would work on trying some more detail oriented free motion quilting.  I'm getting the feeling I'll have more luck at big sweeping designs than the more intricate ones, its pretty difficult to judge just where the needle is sometimes.

I've seen some people cut off part of the plastic at the bottom of their quilting feet so they can see where they are going in certain directions, and I might have to do that too.



Going to have try harder to find interesting coaster patterns if I want to keep this up, I think my goal should be to make awesome coasters, not just get something done each month ;) With all the quilts I'm in the middle of I think I'm getting a bit scattered.

I used the Heart Paisley design at the Free Motion Quilting Project.  If you haven't checked the website out, its got tons of patterns and advice on FMQ and quilting in general.  Now I'm a bit more prepared to re-look at some of the FMQ books I just scanned before, I wasn't ready to absorb any of the information then.




Its telling to look at the back of my FMQ is - messy and tangled, I'm guessing I can use that in the future to judge how much care I take when quilting.

This originally had two full rows of hearts on each side but the piece of binding I had already prepared was too small so I trimmed and trimmed until I ended up with this.  Hence the uneven rectangular ;)   My bindings getting somewhat better (from the front at least),  I'm even happy with 3 of the corners.

Coaster of the Month - August

I wasn't sure what to do this month, then earlier this week I saw a tutorial at Canoe Ridge Creations for their contribution to the Festival of Hexagons series of hex tutorials which just finished up.

I've been meaning to get around to paper piecing some of them, but this was the first actual hexagon I've cut and used.

This was nice fast project, it took me less than an hour and that included a few minutes with a seam ripper (don't ask...)



I stitched around the edge with white thread, then some Aurifil around the hexagon, then my common sense deserted me and I started making sewing triangl-y bits around the border...I don't know what was up with that, I thought I'd use more of the variegated thread for some amazing effect... if I were to do it again, I'd just sew around the center hexagon with a few rows of thread. 

The back?  I just grabbed a couple of pink scraps.  I don't think I plan on turning this over too often, but I do plan on making some more of this shape, it was a fun project.

One thing you might be wondering if  you don't have a hexagon template is "How the heck do I make a 1.75" hexagon?  The website Incompetech has a great free tool to be able to make your own hexagon or triangle templates for paper piecing, graph paper, and a few other fun things.  You just plug in the size you need and voila!

Coaster of the Month - July

I was working on an applique mug rug for this month's coaster, but then while looking for chair cushion patterns I saw a zig zag and had to drop everything to go make a zig zag mug rug. 

I'm pretty sure I need to take my machine in for a tune up - my bobbins aren't winding well & I'm having a devil of a time keeping my tension even (though really that's been an issue for some fabrics since I bought it). 

I need to work on spacing, but it's a lot better than last month's coaster, so I can't not be happy!  I still need a LOT of work on binding corners, but at least 2 of them are squarish?  I know there are better ways to deal with the end of the binding too, good thing I have the internet to look things up.

I used bits of fabric from Lucy's Crab Shack, Pezzy Prints & Serenade charm packs with some Kona Solids and Rowan shot cotton in Tangerine.

The next project I'm noodling on between other things is a quilt based around Piccadilly Circle's "Main Floral in Pink"that I got from Intrepid Thread.

I ordered some Kona solids to coordinate with it, and now I'm looking for the perfect pattern.  Pretty sure I should do it the other way around next time, but it just yelled SUMMER to me so I figured...hmm, no I didn't think beyond the yelling, fabric yells and I obey :(  Usually I have so much common sense too!

Coaster of the month: June

I actually  made this at the beginning of the month, Im about 7% better at taking pictures now, so I'd take a better picture of the front but...well my coffee mug runneth over and it didn't get back to pristine white after laundering.  I like to think that I've learned a bit more info about reverse applique this month, and if I took another shot at this, it'd come out better. (That and I bought one of those olfa circle cutters which presumably will make my circles actually circular shaped.)

My machine stitching in the round wasn't very impressive, so I just added a blanket stitch yesterday which is going to keep any edge fraying in check.  And sheesh, looking at these pictures I HOPE my sewing has gotten leaps and bounds better in just the last few weeks.  Next month - mug rug! And it will be an almost perfect rectangle or I'll start over, I mean really, not sure I could take the embarrassment if I can't eventually get my basic shapes down ;)

first ever applique project - uh..woohoo?

Coaster of the month: May

Poor slightly deformed coaster front

beloved monkey coaster

Coaster a month...why not?   I like to drink things, and summer is coming up which means iced beverages galore.  We use glass topped coasters in the computer room, and I can't say how terrifying it is when the condensation makes the coaster stick to the glass for a few seconds before it disconnects itself and crashes to the desk.  It almost always happens on hot days (or with margaritas!)  so two years ago I started putting iced things on a napkin instead.  However my husband can't seem to resist the lure of his Monkey coaster (I like to think it's because we picked out our coasters several years ago on a pretty fantastic vacation, so it's deeply sentimental to him!) and so this is still happening with regularity.  It seems like a fabric coaster is in order to calm my nerves.

Jelly roll strips

Used leftover strips from my kitchen mat to make triangles for the front.  For the back I used the the scraps left over to make an abstract mishmash.  I sewed the batting to the first side before sewing the right sides of the fabric together, turning it right inside out & hand stitching the opening closed. In retrospect I should've sewn the batting to the back side instead since it was the one with the abstract pattern - it did need to be sewn through with a zigzag stitch on the back, as the scraps were so small I didn't have a seam allowance available to secure them all together. Lesson #42 learned - think things through! (should've been lesson #1 probably ;)

coaster back

 I am sure my projects can and will improve over the next year. I mean, it can't get too much worse!  I'll use seam binding in the future to provide a nice square look to the corners when my bamboo skewer doesn't seem to be vicious enough to stab them into pointy-ness.


Pondering trying a porthole for next month's coaster, I've been really starstruck with some of the porthole quilts I've been seeing.