Row 11 of the Hometown Nostalgia Row Quilt

 This month's block is Card Trick.  It isn't really too hard to sew, but it might give you a challenge to lay out and get all the pieces in the right order!  Don't work on this one if you are not alert and awake!

Card Trick is a block that uses two varieties of triangles - half square and quarter square.  You can make this block with four different fabrics, or you can use three, just make sure you put your duplicated colors opposite each other.  

To make this block in all the same fabrics you will need 3/8 yard of background and 1/4 yard of each of your colors.

I'm using shades of black for my blocks on this row - I remembered I had a Stack of Island Batik Bodacious Blacks, so that gives me a nice variety for my blocks!  I'll be using each fabric twice.  The lightest ones I pulled out and substituted other fabrics from my stash. 

Now, on to the sewing!  I started out with sewing the 2 7/8 inch colored triangles to the 2 7/8 background triangles.  Use a 1/4 inch seam, then press the seam toward the background and trim off the dog ears.  Next I sewed one of each of my colored quarter square triangles to a background quarter square triangle.  Sew with the background triangle on the top and stitch from the corner to the point.  Press seam toward the colored triangle.

At this point you will need to lay out your block to make sure which triangles to sew together.  Take your time - and try taking a picture and looking at it on your phone to make sure everything is laid out right!

Here is an example of what not to do!  The center is fine, but I've got some pieces in the wrong places!  

This one was almost right, but I had the two dark fabrics switched in the center.  This is a tricky block, so take your time!  I hope to do better on the next ones.  

To sew the center, sew your triangles together in pairs, then sew the pairs together.  Press seams toward the dark for the pairs, then however you like for the final seam.  For the remaining units, sew your pairs to the half square triangles, and press the seam to the half square side.

When it's all sewn together correctly it should look like this!  Just take it slow and you will be ok, and if not, there's always the seam ripper.  I've learned my lesson on taking my time, and the next two blocks didn't need one!

I'm liking this row a lot so far!

Download the free pattern here!

Weekend Storm Sewing

 We had a lovely week of company - my Mom and Sis came to stay with us!  We did a lot of laughing and chatting and enjoyed doing four jigsaw puzzles.  So much fun, and my sis ordered me an early Christmas present of a puzzle scoop and sorting trays, so this really upgraded my puzzling abilities!

This is a fun puzzle, lots of sewing notions!  In the process of putting this together, I started wondering about the Home Sew company.  I grew up on their cute little catalogs, we ordered from them regularly and I always loved those surprise bags of trims you would get it your order was high enough!  I looked up their website, and was surprised to find they did still exist, but were in the process of having a going out of business sale.  Sad, but such good prices that I had to make an order right then.  I'm glad I did, because it looks like their site is down for now (due to a large amount of orders).  You might want to keep an eye on homesew.com, if they do bring their shop up again, the prices were great!

I got my order yesterday and am happy to be stocked up on some of my favorite things!  There was an assortment of 12 spools of Signature thread that was only $15.00, and it had the perfect shade of gray I needed to hem a pair of pants, so that made the entire purchase worthwhile as far as I'm concerned.  Thread has become quite an issue since JoAnn's closed.  When doing alterations, it is becoming more difficult to make sure I have matching thread for the projects and it's so hard to judge color online.  Anyway, now I have a nice charcoal gray, plus assorted other neutrals.

We also went out to the beach and enjoyed watching some big waves crashing!  It was the perfect October beach weather - sunny and not a bit of wind!  

On our walk there, we saw the biggest mushroom I have ever seen.  You can't tell from the picture, but the stem on this was as big around as my neck!  So amazing!  It was behind a fence so I couldn't really capture the scale of it, but it really was huge. We sure enjoyed their visit and were sad to send them home again. The rest of the week has been about work for me, two days at the shop, then at home catching up on alteration projects. I decided that this weekend would be time to work on my own projects!

The weather report for this weekend called for lots of rain and wind, so perfect for staying indoors and sewing.  Except for the fact that I had to go to a meeting Saturday afternoon.  Luckily it was at a coffee shop, so at least I got a yummy pumpkin bar and a latte!  When I got home, I tidied up the sewing room and decided to look for a backing for my new project.  Lo and behold, I found the perfect thing!  This is one of those fabrics that I had a sizeable piece of - it has never worked with anything I tried to use it with, but it's just the right colors for this quilt.  I am excited to get this to the next phase!

Next on my list was putting together the rest of the October row for the Hometown Nostalgia Row Quilt.  I did get three more leaves sewn and chose fabrics and got the remaining six blocks cut out.  

It won't take long this afternoon to sew them together.  After that, who knows what I will find to play with!  Hope you are having a good weekend and are able to do some sewing!

Pamela

Row 10 of the Hometown Nostalgia Row Quilt - Maple Leaf

 It's mid-October, and fall has definitely arrived!  The leaves are starting to turn here, and we are starting to see more rain.  Still, the sunny days are absolutely perfect and I treasure each one!  For this month's block, the Maple Leaf is the obvious choice!  And it's a nice easy one.  Nothing too difficult, just a few half square triangles and a simple sew and flip to make the stem of the leaf.

If you are using the same fabric for all of this row, you will need 3/8 yard of dark and 1/4 yard of background.  I am using different browns for my leaves, and a nice background with subtle leaves on it.  I think it will shine in this block!

The cutting goes quickly with just a dark and a background to deal with!

Start out by making the stem units.  Layer the small background squares on one of the dark squares.  Sew the diagonal line, then trim 1/4 inch from the seam allowance and press the background out to the corner of the block.  Repeat on the other side and you will have a 2 1/2 inch stem.

Now you can sew your half square triangle units.  As always, you can use your favorite option for making these, as long as you end up with a 2 1/2 inch unit.  

Lay out and assemble in the typical fashion.  

And here is the first finished block for my row!  I'm excited to see what other fabrics I can chose to complete it.  It's been fun using up my scraps.  Actually, I should just say using as I am nowhere close to using them all up!

Download Row 10 instructions

Enjoy!