Mandalay Half Rectangle Triangle quilt is finished!

Another quilt is complete, and I'm so happy.  I love this quilt.  It's the second time I've done a HRT quilt, but I don't think it'll be the last.  The other one was a kite quilt.

The quilting by my LAQ is great.  This photo shows the Kona Cadet I used on the back, better than the last photo.

I used all the leftover Mandalay fabric to piece the quilt back.  I sure hope my daughter likes this quilt,  If not, I'll be glad to keep it!  This is a queen-size, 85" by 88.5".

Now I'm free to start some fresh projects.  I hate to have WIPs hanging over my head.  I think I'm going to make some baby quilts, one for a specific baby and others to have on hand.  You know how babies have a habit of popping up!  I need to be prepared.

May your bobbins always be full,

I've got a stack of quilts to bind...

And they're all queen-size.  From the top, Autumn Leaves 95 x 95", Vintage Modern 70 x 87", and Mandalay HSR 85 x 88.5".

It took me about 4 days to get to this point.  I had thought I'd have all the bindings sewn on by now, so much for thinking!

The colors of the bindings aren't showing up very well from the top, they ar Kona Wheat, Kona Black and Kona Cadet.

Now, I'm ready to start on the first one.  Photos to follow, of course.

May your bobbins always be full,

Mandalay HSR Quilt Top Is Finished.

From this stack of 11 fabrics, I cut many 5" x 7" rectangles to make the 308 Half Square Rectangles that I needed for this Queen-size quilt top.

During each step, I tried really had not to have the same fabric touching.  I was successful, with two exceptions, that are hardly noticeable.

The Mandalay fabric by Hoffman is so rich, but it really doesn't photograph well, especially in the sunlight.  Now, I'm going to think about what I want to do for the quilt back.

May your bobbins always be full,

Pluggin' Away

I've been slowly but surely pluggin' away on Sharon's Mandalay HSR quilt.  It's going to be Queen size, and I think it's going to be beautiful.

First I built some diamonds from Half Square Rectangles.

Then I joined the diamonds into pairs.  This photo shows four pairs of diamonds laid out.

Along the way, there was much truing-up.

This was taken a couple of days ago, now the stack is over 5 inches tall.

May your bobbins always be full,

Half Rectangle Triangle Tutorial

It's been about four years since I made a Half Square Rectangle quilt.  One of the important things I forgot and that I didn't pick up on when I scanned a couple of other tutes about making them, is that you can't do everything exactly the same!

So, here's my tutorial, and if you read it thru, you'll see what I mean.

For my project, I started with 5" x 7" rectangles.  Then I matched them up into pairs.

Place each pair right sides together, and draw a diagonal line on each pair.  If you want all you pairs to be identical, draw all the lines the same.  If you want to be able to form a diamond with your HSR's, draw some top left to lower right, and some top right to lower left.  (This is the part I forgot!)

Now rotate the marked rectangle a quarter turn, so they look like the photo  above.  Take them to your sewing machine and stitch a scant 1/4" seam on each side of the drawn line.

Cut along the drawn line.  Take them to your ironing board and press the seams open.  Go back to your cutting board and true them up to 4.5" x 6.5".

I haven't stitched these together, but you can see how you can turn them to get different looks.

This is my "cheat-sheet".  If I want to make diamonds I need to do half one way and half the other. 

May your bobbins always be full,

Getting started

I purchased this fabric, Mandalay by Hoffman Fabrics after I spotted the line featured in the 2015 Hoffman Challenge.  I had too much on my plate to consider doing a challenge, but the rich colors and metallics somehow reminded me of my youngest daughter, Sharon.

I think these prints will look great in a Half Square Rectangle layout, with no background fabric included.  That's my starting point, so we'll see how I do.  I've made one other HSR quilt, but it had a background fabric, you can check it out here.

May your bobbins always be full,

Productive

 This is the stack of FQ's I won.

I used every bit of this fabric to make these three quilt tops, plus some of it went into the quilt backs.

Kites, HSR quilt

Stash-busting Random Patchwork

Modern Rainbow.

Today, I work in the morning, and there's a "planned" power outage at home, (this is a scheduled post), so no sewing.  I think Bob and I might grab a bite to eat and see a movie this afternoon.

What are you doing this weekend?

May your bobbins always be full,

Kites, HSR quilt

The HRT quilt top is complete.  I think it looks like kites, so that's what I'm calling it for now.  This was finished late Friday afternoon, but we've been having uber-weird weather; I didn't want to try to take photos when it was 100 degrees and raining on Friday afternoon!  I took this one about 8:30 yesterday morning and it was already hot.

On Friday afternoon I started on the quilt back, using leftover rectangles from the quilt top.  I finished the back yesterday, but it was about 105 degrees, so Bob and I went to the movies, instead of taking photos.  I took these right around 7 AM this morning, to beat the heat.

The Kites quilt will finish at about 40x60 inches.  I think I'll bind it in chartreuse, a new favorite for me.

May your bobbins always be full,

Back on track

It's taken me a bit of time to get started on a new quilt.  I'm super excited about this one.

 

I won these fat quarters months ago, and was just waiting for the right idea to strike.  Finally just before my last vacation, I pretty much decided on a Half Squar Rectangle quilt.  I'd pinned a great tutorial for cutting HSRs, here.  I've already cut, sewed, lots of chain piecing, slashed and trued up my HSR's  Truing up is a must for these babies.  I started with 5 x 7" rectangles, and now they're 4.5 x 6.5".  I decided on bright Kona white as a background fabric.  Here's some shots of the layout on my dining room table.

I tried different layouts, but I really like the flow of this one.  I kept the placement as random as possible by shuffling the pieces I was working on at each step; instead of keeping them in order like I usually do.  Now, off to the sewing machine.

May your bobbins always be full,

Back from vacation

We're back from our vacation and we had a fabulous time.  No sewing going on this week, just a lot of catch up; I think I may be able to start cutting a new quilt on Saturday.   I've been rolling a lot of ideas around and I think I've settled on finally using this fabric that I won, a while ago.

I'm going to make a half square rectangle quilt, hsr, with white as a background color, if I don't change my mind before Saturday.  Stay tuned, tomorrow I'm posting a Pay It Forward.

May your bobbins always be full,