One Piece at a Time

McCall's Voting

Voting for McCall's design challenge continues until February 3. If you like Ambrosia just click on the "Vote for Me" button on the right side of the blog.

Those Little Bird Top Knots

I have had a few questions about how I did the really little feathers on top of the birds head so I put together a little tutorial for you on that. They are individual pieces and very small so I used my perfect petal technique to get those pressed. Seriously, there is a limit to how many times I want to burn my fingers and pressing those the normal way could be dangerous. For those of you getting creeped out by the lack of eyes...something on that is coming soon...I can't decide between beads and french knots...any ideas?

After you make your template trace it onto the back side of you fabric and cut it out.

Using a very small running stitch sew around the seam allowance.

Place your tiny feather on a pressing surface.

Gather the start and stop points under one finger and pull the thread.

Dab with some starch and press.

Remove the template and tad a now you have a tiny little bird feather. I added this to my pre-assembled bird after I had attached the whole bird to the background fabric. I just tucked these tiny feathers in until I like how they looked and glued. Sorry I forgot to take pictures of that step but I will try to remember next time.

Have a nice weekend everyone…be sure to visit next week for some piecing fun and a give-away.

Florabunda Reminder

Ambrosia Update: I checked with the McCall's website this morning and it looks like the voting will continue through Feb.3. I will post if that changes. Thanks so much for all your lovely comments and votes.

Just a quick reminder...Florabunda patterns are coming down this weekend. You can find them all here.

After the weekend they will be available for a small fee in my shop.The center block is my Miss Hannah pattern and is available in my shop. Just click on the "Visit My Shop" button on the left side of the blog.

Block 1…the Specifics

Ambrosia Update: Here is a another "Top o the Page" nag. If you like Ambrosia please vote by clicking on the "Vote for Me" button on the upper right side of the blog. One vote per day per computer. If you want to leave a comment on the McCall's site after you vote that's great too. The comments don't appear right away because they need to be screened.

I have some little tidbits I learned from making block 1. Here is a little tutorial on some specifics for block 1.

When making tulips like this

I sometimes find it helpful to make the template like this. This cuts down on the labor of making two separate petals and makes pre-assembling easier.

When I’m dealing with a large complicated flower like the one shown at the top of the page I like to pre-assemble the petals before pre-assembling the flower. Here’s how I do it.

Place the under petal onto the pattern.

Dab glue onto the seam allowance of the top petal.

Place onto under petal and hold until the glue bonds.

Continue to make the rest of the petals in the way.

Glue the centers on top to hold the whole flower together.

check back tomorrow for some of the bird "details" and , of course, another voting nag.

How to Make a Bird…part 2

Ambrosia Update: Here is a "Top o the Page" nag. If you like Ambrosia please vote by clicking on the "Vote for Me" button on the upper right side of the blog. One vote per day per computer. If you want to leave a comment on the McCall's site after you vote that's great too. The comments don't appear right away because they need to be screened.

Last week I showed you the method I use for making your bird parts with templates. This tutorial I want to show how I pre-make my birds before actually putting them onto the background fabric.

The first step is to have you pattern printed out and ready. Place the beak over the pattern drawing of the beak and dab a little glue on it. I’m using Roxanne’s Glue for this.

Now line the bird’s body up with the pattern and place the head over the beak. Hold it down for a few seconds until the glue bonds.

The next step is to line up the underwing with the pattern and dab with glue.

Place the top wing over it making sure that you align the top wing with the pattern.

Now we can start on the tail. From the pattern you can see that the two pink feathers are slightly under the orange feather. Line the pink feathers up with the pattern and dab with glue.

Place the orange feather on top making sure it aligns with the pattern.

Now the outer yellow feather can be placed onto the pattern and dabbed with glue.

Move the combined pink and orange feathers on top of this feather making sure that the feathers are all aligned.

The inner yellow feather can sit on top of the inner pink feather, just dab a bit of glue on the pink feather and attach the yellow one by aligning with the pattern.

Now the bird can be assembled. Place the bird body on top of the pattern. Dab some glue where the feathers will be attached.

Hold with your fingers until the glue is bonded.

Now dab glue along the edge where the wing will go.

Align and attach the wing…ta da now you have your first bird. All the other birds in this quilt will have a similar construction so refer back to these directions when making future blocks.

Design Wall Monday

OK, OK I know these blocks look very strange together but heck, this is what my design wall looks like right now. I have the birds up because I am finishing the tutorials on My Tweets Block 1 (maybe I should call it Tweet 1). The pieced stars are part of my “What the Heck do I do with a Fat Quarter Bundle” set of tutorials coming next week. I said I wanted to do more piecing this year and I have to say I am having a blast making pieced blocks.

Check back later this week, I have THREE more tutorials for My Tweets.

Head on over to Judy’s blog and check out all the other super inspiring quilter’s blogs.

Ambrosia Update: Thank you for all the lovely votes and comments. Voting continues until early February. Remember one vote per computer per day.

Oh....I forgot to add my daily nag. If you like Ambrosia please vote...once per day per computer. Just click on the Vote button in the upper right part of the blog.
Thank you Thank you Thank you

My Tweets Block 1

Happy Friday Everyone.

As promised here is block 1 of the NEW 2011 Block of the Month My Tweets.

Since these blocks finish at 14” and many of the blocks are asymmetrical I want to talk about printing your patterns. Each pattern has four downloads. Print each of these and tape them together to make your full sized pattern. Here is a diagram for doing this.

 

Here are the patterns:

 

We will do this the same way for all the patterns since it allows the patterns to be easily printed on a home printer.

Make sure to cut your background fabric larger than 14.5" x 14.5". Fabric can shrink with applied applique so save yourself the headache and cut BIG. My squares are cut 18" x 18". Another handy idea is to use a pinking rotary blade to cut. This eliminates some unraveling.

For those who like to share please go to the FLCKR group at

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1604241@N21/

and join the fun.

I hope everyone has as much fun making these blocks as I have had designing them.

Next week there will be two MORE tutorials on the various methods I am using so EVERYONE can be enjoy making this quilt.

How to Make a Bird…Part 1

As you can see from the center block and the My Tweets preview this quilt has a LOT of birds. All of them are similar so I’m starting off the year with a couple of tutorials on how to make birds.

When I am making a complicated shape that is somewhat large I like to use a double thickness of freezer paper to do my pressing. This lets me iron the template onto the back of the fabric so it will stay in place while I press. These templates can last for a few pressings but be careful to not get too much starch on the paper or it will not hold a nice crisp edge. The paper I like is shown here and I buy it here.

Several of the My Tweets blocks have symmetrical birds. This means you will need to make two birds each a mirror image of itself. Here is a simple way to do this. This method is good for single birds as well.

First, trace your individual bird parts onto a SINGLE layer of freezer paper.

Fold the sheet in half and cut out your shapes.

Now you will have two sets of templates that are mirrors of each other.

Now iron these onto a second sheet of freezer paper. You might want to retrace the shapes for ease in cutting.

Now iron your template onto the back of the fabric you are using and cut it out with a scant ¼” turn under allowance.

Press as you usually would but be careful not to get too much starch onto the paper.

I have also made a short video on how I press the tail feathers. These are very similar to the high curvature petals from Florabunda. It's a little overexposed. Just chock that up to me being a doofus.

 

Ambrosia Alert: Please remember to vote today, once per day per computer. If you leave a comment on the McCall's site you might not see it right away. They need to be screened.

McCall's Voting Update

We all heard from McCall's yesterday and they asked us to make sure our "public" knows that it is only one vote per day per computer AND one comment per day per computer. A very sweet staffer at McCall's has to read and approve all those comments and I think she is overwhelmed.

Thanks so much for your vote already, it's so encouraging!