Stay at Home Round Robin - 2

Are you playing along with the Stay at Home Round Robin? Ready for the next round, Plus Signs?

Making this round mostly green, I've pulled away from the red, white, and blue theme to bring out the green of the grass. Plus, I thought it would be nice to pull out yellow from the windows, adding spark again in the corners.

Unfortunately, I think the yellow is a bit bright, and wished I had chosen a different value. Am I going to remake those plus signs with a different yellow? No, because this is a work-in-progress, no-plan type of quilt. It is what it is, and all I can do is work to lessen my perceived flaw, both within this round and subsequent ones.

So, how about the addition of some blue plus signs to tone down those yellow ones and not make them so bright against the green?

Yes, that seems to work. And the blue ties the plus sign round with the piano keys and the center, while also minimizing the strength of the green. It's not exactly my favorite round so far, but we'll see what happens when the others are added.

There are seven of us leading this Stay at Home Round Robin, and I encourage you to visit each one to see how they are approaching each round.

• January 11:  centre blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 18: 1st Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• January 25: 2nd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 1: 3rd Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 8: 4th Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• February 15: 5th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 22: 6th Round: Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
• February 28: 7th Round ME!!! @ Quilting Gail 

We are definitely all doing our own individual interpretation of each round, which shows you just what is possible.

If your are joining us in sewing, link up this week with Emily at The Darling Dogwood.

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns

Flexi-Fuse Fusible Web Review

I'm so excited that I finally got to share my long-dreamed-of Snowflake runner yesterday. Just look at those snowflakes - they came out even better than I could have imagined!

 

A large portion to the success of this Snowflake runner is owed to a fusible web product called Flexi-Fuse (affiliate link). I had ordered both a Flexi Fuse pack of 10 (affiliate link) plus a pack of 25 (affiliate link) several months ago, but hadn't tried it yet. This was the perfect project for testing.

For starters, I would put the fusible 'weight' at around a light to medium, with good adherence to the backing paper. Some fusibles fall off the backing easily, but this is not one of those. The fusible itself has a nice grid/weave feel to it, giving me confidence that my appliques will stick.

Another reason I chose this product was because of the convenient 8" x 10.5" sized sheets. It dawned on me I could print my snowflake outlines, eliminating the tracing work. 

Unfortunately, nowhere on the package does the product say it can go through a printer. But hey, I was willing to try, even if it meant sacrificing a sheet. 

Usually I'm wary of putting items, such as a fusible sheet or freezer paper, through my printer. To get around that issue, I'll tape a regular piece of paper to protect the fusible sheet or to cover the slick freezer paper. 

Using small pieces of tape along the top of the paper edge which feeds into the printer, it provides protection for the fusible, or gives the printer something to grip instead of slippery freezer paper.

Something that I noticed when taping - the Flexi Fuse sheet is 8" wide. To make sure my snowflakes printed in the 8" space, I made sure the Flexi Fuse sheet was centered on the paper for printing. I could have ordered the Flexi Fuse Roll (affiliate link) and cut my own sheets to size, but these sheets are much more convenient. It certainly pays to check the width of fusible printer sheets before printing a project. 

In the picture below, the Flexi Fuse sheet is centered and taped to paper, ready for printing. Behind it is a snowflake printed out on Flexi Fuse.

The instructions for ironing the fusible sheet to fabric are easy and straightforward. Cutting out the snowflake shapes was also easy - the fusible stayed on both the fabric and the paper, and no loose threads or fuzz along the edge. 

Just as easy was fusing the snowflakes to the background fabric - no damp press cloth required! Check out the clean edges and no gumming up on the needle.

As for the final hand the appliques have, I'd say soft, especially since no excess Flexi Fuse was cut out from the snowflakes. Every single bit of white is completely fused to the background. It's certainly a nice feel!

I'm glad I finally got to test Flexi Fuse, especially with these snowflakes, and I'm looking forward to using it again.

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns

Snowflake Table Runner

Welcome to my day of the Hearts on Fire blog hop, hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt. I've showed several sneak peeks lately and now it's time for the big reveal of my heart themed Snowflake runner!

For years, I've wanted to make a runner of randomly placed and falling-off-the-edge snowflakes. But the mechanics of how to do that eluded me. Sure, I could cut paper patterns and trace them, but that didn't sound like fun.

Then, when the Hearts on Fire hop came up to use hearts, but with the stipulation that we couldn't use red, I had to think outside the box. It's then that things started to fall into place to finally realize my snowflake runner dream.

First, I started to play with the wreathmaker tool in EQ8. I made a few hearts, added extra elements to them, then adjusted everything with the wreathmaker tool to create my first snowflake.

(Note: Those of you who received the January QFab newsletter were treated to a free bonus download of a simpler variation of this snowflake. That bonus snowflake, #8, though not on the runner, is included in the Snowflake runner pattern.)

Turns out, designing the snowflakes became addicting. Within a hour or so, I had four heart themed snowflakes designed in EQ8. That's all fine and good, but how do I get them easily to fabric?

Element two now comes into play to make all of this work. Enter Flexi-Fuse (affiliate link), a new-to-me fusible web.

I had ordered this several months ago, but hadn't tried it yet. Then it dawned on me - I could print my snowflake outlines, eliminating the tracing work. Sweet! Tomorrow, I'll review Flexi Fuse, sharing some pointers on using it. 

Now, back to the snowflakes. All that was necessary was a suitable background fabric, a bit of random placement, and my snowflake runner becomes a reality.

Though the snowflakes look complex, they're really quite simple. Looking closely, most of them cut out as one piece. Some are several pieces of easy shapes. My goal was to make them interesting but not complicated.

Printing, fusing, and cutting went smoothly, as did the applique stitching using invisible thread and a short, narrow zigzag in free motion mode or what I call freemotion applique. 

What's freemotion applique? It's a faster way to stitch around an applique without all the turning, and the same technique I used on Gnome for the Holidays - check out the Freemotion Applique tutorial, or watch my Freemotion Applique in action on YouTube.

Once all the applique stitching was done, it was time for quilting. I chose a dense, echoed triangle fill for the background, plus outlining around the snowflakes.

Notice there's no binding showing. I'll go over how I did that in a post next week. For now, enjoy a couple more closeups of those pretty heart-themed snowflakes.

And the other end.

And I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! It came out better than I ever could have imagined.

A couple more things:

The Snowflake runner pattern is available in my Etsy shop at a blog hop special price, now through January 24. The pattern includes the 7 full size, printable snowflakes used on the runner, plus an eighth bonus snowflake. 

And be sure to visit these other quilters today for their heart inspired creations. 

 January 21

Ms P Designs USA

Beaquilter

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Ridge Top Quilt

For The Love Of Geese

Sew Many Yarns

Quilting Gail

For the full Hearts on Fire blog hop list for the week, please visit Carol at Just Let Me Quilt.

 Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns