Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Kansas Troubles Stash Society

October 13, 2009 4:30 pm ⋅


Last night was the Kansas Troubles Stash Society meeting at Prairie Point Quilts. There are five of us which generally attend the meeting together, but forces were working such that I’m the only one who made it to the meeting, and then just barely.

I got out of the house in time to run by the library to pick up Part One of Diana Gabaldon’s Voyager and grab a bite to eat at the Sonic across the street before going to the meeting. While I was waiting for my food, I popped in the first disk and started listening to the book. When I got ready to leave, the engine wouldn’t turn over. Apparently, between the cold and leaving the lights while waiting on my food, my old battery couldn’t take it. So, I called my husband to the rescue. We jumped my car off, swapped vehicles, he went home and I got to the meeting about 5 minutes late.

Lots of great quilts using Kansas Troubles fabrics both in KTQ patterns and other patterns. There were two pattern books which caught my eye. Scrap-Basket Surprises by Kim Brackett and Positively Pineapple by Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith. I’ve looked at Scrap-Basket Surprises a number of times, but I haven’t gotten to the point of purchase. Tonight was no different. I’m not sure what is holding me back, except for my pile of UFOs and more patterns in my personal library than I’ll ever get around to making.

Positively Pineapple came closer. There was a quilt with 2 1/2″ strips and another with 1 1/2″ strips. Neither the book nor ruler came home tonight, but I do have the book on reserve at the library. After I look at it closer we’ll see if it makes the cut the next time I have a bit of book money.

What did come home with me? Just those 4 eighth yard cuts — which were paid for back in January or February.

So tell me, does it count as a new project if I make a sample block, or if I’m using strips from my pre-cut bins?

Posted in: books, KTS

SBS Block Due 10/18

October 13, 2009 6:30 am ⋅


K8 – Grandmother’s Fan

I am not a big template fan — as in draw around a template and cut it out with scissors. However, sometimes it can’t be helped and this is one of those times. Fortunately I have EQ6 and was able to draw this block and print out the templates. I suppose I could copy them out of the book, but I don’t know if I could get the book to lay flat enough in my scanner, and I haven’t taken it to the office place to get a spiral binding.

Anyway, I’m pleased with the way this block turned out. After working on the DWR, I didn’t have any problems with these curves.

Posted in: EQ, SBS

Next to the Last Block

October 12, 2009 4:30 pm ⋅


This is the next to the last block to be hand quilted before I can pull the quilt off the frame. I finished it up Sunday night after a two week hiatus. I pushed myself a couple of weeks ago and aggravated my wrist. Needless to say there was no hand quilting for a while and now I’m limiting my time at the frame. I’ll miss my self-imposed deadline of October 15th, but since my DWR is not going to be finished by then I still have time — my guess is it will take another week — for both.

Posted in: dwr, hand quilting, Josh's Quilt

What’s On My Design Wall? – 10/12

October 12, 2009 6:30 am ⋅

Ladder to the Stars is up on the wall. The blocks have been made since May, I’m currently working on the paper pieced sashings. I’m not sewing the sashings to the blocks yet, as I’m still deciding if the blocks are in the right spots.

I’m flitting back and forth between this quilt and the DWR.

See what other quilters are up to by checking out the link’s on Judy’s blog Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, dwr, Ladder to the Stars

Stash Report Week # 41

October 11, 2009 6:30 am ⋅

Two weeks in a row with no fabric coming into the house. Tomorrow night is the Kansas Trouble Stash Society meeting so I’ll be in a quilt shop for at least an hour, so there is no telling what will come home with me. At least 1/2 yard of Kansas Trouble fabric.

After Monday’s marathon sewing, I was only able to spend 10 or 15 minutes at a time at the sewing machine. But still I accomplished a bit. Finished another 9 sashings for Ladder to the Stars and added arcs to both sides of 12 melons for the DWR. Saturday I had more time and it all went to the the SBS Block.

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 281.583 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1.125 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 76.054 yards

Net Stash: +205.529 yards (162.583 was gifted)

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: KTS, Ladder to the Stars, SBS, Stash Busting Report

SBS Block Due 10/11

October 10, 2009 10:37 pm ⋅

H7 – Odd Fellow’s Chain

73 tiny pieces. The half square triangle units finish at 3/4″. Originally I planned to paper piece this block, but this evening I realized I could use my Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers. All in all, the block went together quite well, it just took ‘forever’.

Posted in: notions, SBS

My Favorite Quilt – Quilt Festival

October 8, 2009 11:01 pm ⋅

Amy at Park City Girl is hosting the Blogger’s Quilt Festival today through Oct 16th. She asked us to post a picture of our favorite quilt and tell it’s story. Well nearly every quilt is my favorite quilt, but I could only pick one, so here is my Blue Charm Applecore quilt.


Actually, it’s my husband’s. This quilt was finished New Year’s Eve 2005. It was only 2 to 6 days late — depending on whether it was supposed to be his Christmas present or his birthday present, and that was dependent on when I finished it. Regardless, with the exception of the quilt I gave my mother for Mother’s Day 2005, it’s the quilt closest to meeting the gift giving deadline.

I’ve previously blogged about this quilt here.

My best guess is I purchased the pattern, ruler and rotary cutter (love my Ergo 2000) in October 2004 at a quilt show. It might have been the previous year. The pattern sat for a while and then late spring 2005 I got a wild idea to make this quilt for my husband in all blue fabric — at this time, no deadline had been set.

Previously I had been collecting music fabric, so now I added blue fabric to my collection each time I entered a quilt shop. I gathered fabric from my friends’ stashes. When a fabric was both blue and music themed I scored.

Part of what makes this quilt special is the time I spent collecting the fabric with my friends. My friends T & S and I took a road trip to Iowa to hit quilt shops. We left Kansas City late afternoon on Friday and then hit 11 shops over the next 2 1/2 days. By Monday, we were so exhausted, we walked into one of the last quilt shops and said “Yep, this is a quilt shop” and then left without any of us buying anything. I picked up blue and/or music themed FQs at each shop.

Surprisingly, I ended up with only a couple of duplicates fabrics.

It helped that I put together a book of my fabric before I left home. This quilt is made with 6″ circles that overlap. So, before the trip, I started cutting circles of each of my fabrics. I then scanned them 18 – 20 of them at a time, and printed off the scan so I had a record of my fabrics.


I was still collecting fabric – I wanted all 400 pieces to be unique, but impatience won out in late summer and I started it when I only had about 225 different blue fabrics. The next decision I had to make was how to arrange the pieces. I finally decided on light to dark to light. So, I took the scans I made earlier and converted them to black and white to help with value placement — then I went back and cut additional circles where I had more fabric.


The final quilt has 400 pieces in it. Not including the 400 pieces of the backing. For the backing I purchased 10 different pieces of blue flannel.


So when it came time to putting the quilt together, I had to know where in the quilt to top fabric belonged, and which piece of the back went with it and keep all 20 rows in order or the pattern (front and/or back) would be disturbed.

I ended up stringing each row together, and as I finished each step of the process, it went back on the table in the correct position.


My husband likes the quilt — It’s too warm for me with the flannel backing, not to mention it’s heavy. It think it finished about 70″ square, more or less.

Check out other quilter’s favorite quilts by clicking on the button below.

Posted in: Applecore, blogger's quilt festival

Marathon Sewing

October 6, 2009 4:30 pm ⋅


Last night I had 3 hours of uninterrupted piecing. The 34 arcs for the next row on the DWR have now been pieced and I pieced 10 more sashings for Ladder to the Stars. Didn’t get the last of the trimming finished as I simply ran out of steam.

Posted in: dwr, Ladder to the Stars

What’s On My Design Wall? – 10/05

October 5, 2009 6:00 am ⋅

This does not mean I’m finished with my DWR.

This is a 6″ version of Ladder to the Stars. I designed this quilt to be raffled off by the quilting group I was in a couple of years ago. The original quilt has 12″ blocks and finished approximately 87 x 105. This one will finish around 58 x 70.

I’ve finally gotten the sashings down to a ‘science’, so need to cut the rest of the blue fabric so I can go to town on it. That’s not to say I’ve put away my DWR. The row that was up on the wall last week is complete and needs to be attached to the quilt. I’ve got the pieces for the next row sitting on my sewing machine ready to be pieced together. This coming week it will probably be a bit of both, plus this week’s SBS BOW.

Check out what other quilters are up to by visiting Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, dwr, Ladder to the Stars, SBS

Stash Report Week # 40

October 4, 2009 5:51 pm ⋅


This week I managed to use a smidgen over a yard of fabric making my SBS blocks, cutting the background for more DWR rings and cutting the background fabric for a dozen paper pieced sashings to Ladder to the Stars (I need 80).

Nothing came in – and I stepped foot into a quilt shop on Friday. (OK, just as the store was closing, as I was waiting to the owner to go to dinner, but doesn’t it still count as being in a quilt shop?)

More fabric might have been used this week, but I traveled to Rock Springs, Kansas for String Romp. My original plan was to sew in the hotel room Saturday on the sashings, but a combination of events resulted in me driving out myself Saturday afternoon, so I didn’t bother to drag the sewing machine. The group above is the 6th grade orchestra that my husband conducted this weekend. The kids were from all over Kansas.

Back to the report:

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 281.583 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1.050 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 74.929 yards

Net Stash: +206.654 yards (162.583 was gifted)

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: dwr, Ladder to the Stars, SBS, Stash Busting Report, String Romp