Archive for May, 2010

Our First Guest Blogger!

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Yvonne finished quilting her gorgeous Black and White Thinking Outside the Block and was kind enough to send in some of her ideas, tips and tricks for this project…

From our Guest Blogger, Yvonne Ericson

After reading the directions for “Thinking Outside the Block” I determined that I needed a “map” because I was using different colored centers for the quilt blocks.

After planning the color arrangement I then counted out how many blocks of each color would have to have seams ironed in and how many would be ironed out. This made it a very simple method for chain piecing the blocks.
The other thing that I did different from the pattern directions but I did not cut up the strips ahead of time. I took a WOF strip and attached the center blocks to it and then cut them apart. I continued on in this manner for the whole quilt. It was fast and allowed me to square up the blocks as I progressed. No surprises for me at the end.

Thinking Outside the Block  design plan 1

On to the quilting.  Using the ‘Toadusew’ color and quilt planning worksheet for “Thinking Outside the Block” I started out with a simple quilting plan.

quilting on B&W 1

When I finished this quiltingI discovered the spaces were too large to leave unquilted so I had to go back and add more quilting. New plan!

quilting B&W jpeg

I quilted to each colored square and then jumped over it and continued on. I didn’t want my black quilting thread showing in the colored blocks.

Final product after it's first bath!

Final product after it's first bath!

If you have a Toadtale you’d like to share as a guest blogger, please let us know at info@toadusew.com

Slice of Summer

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Slice-of-Summer---Large

Slice-of-Summer---placemat

I know, I know…. everyone is bummed we didn’t kit this one…  Slice of Summer is currntly featured in the June July issue of McCall’s Quick Quilts and they could not have made this one look any cuter!  We made these little cuties using stuff from out stash and a few odds and ends we picked up at one of our favorite local shops, A & E Pharmacy (don’t let the name fool you, these folks are all about fabric – the pharmacy is just a hobby LOL).  Anyway we were at A & E yesterday and much to our delight discovered that they have 2 brand new bolts of the red watermelon fabric, the green watermelon rind fabric and spools of 5/8″ rick rack.  They are more than happy to take orders for these items by phone.

A & E at 850 455-0112 and ask for Liz in the fabric department.

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