Archive for July, 2009

Would You Like to Win These Prizes?

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Prize

There’s a contest going on for Ruby magazine. The contest is creating a slogan for Ruby beneath or after it’s name. The slogan should capture the essense of this new women’s online magazine.

As one of the editors I have made and donated one of the prizes. This past week I made a quilted jacket for a future issue in a quilting magazine. I had pieced quilt blocks, sewn them into panels, layered, basted and machine quilted the panels and washed and machine dried the panels. After cutting out the jacket pieces I had leftover these lovely scraps-too beautiful to throw away!

So I cut out rectangles, bound the edges with binding I used in the jacket and made this checkbook wallet-in fact made two of them keeping one for myself. I’ve been trying it out this week with my shopping-it isn’t heavy or bulky to hold.

http://magazineruby.wordpress.com/  is the place to see the other prize made and donated by Karen Gass, main editor of Ruby.

More prizes are coming in and the deadline for the contest is August 15th. You can peek at the July issue at the blog address. Keep your slogan to six words or less. I hope you win!

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Radiant Butterfly-it’s Ready!

Monday, July 20th, 2009

The pattern, Radiant Butterfly is in the catalog! Look for the link on the homepage. It’s easily made and big enough for a throw or a fabulous table topper or wall hanging (size 50″).

The fabric is from the Chop Chop Artisan Batik collection from Kaufman fabrics which should be released in August.

Radiant Butterfly

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Would You Like A Peek Inside Ruby?

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Are you curious about what Ruby, the new online magazine for women is like? Click on the link to the Ruby blog http://magazineruby.wordpress.com/.

 Karen Gass, main editor, has put together some of the pages of the July issue. Gina, the paper doll, has a new page just for this peek. Hope you like!

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How to Add Borders to Bed-Sized Quilts

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Do you struggle with adding borders to your bed-sized quilts? Here’s some tips to overcome the 90″ or more of border strips you work with to add to each side.

 Most measuring tapes are 60″ long here in the US. To fit a full-sized bed you will want at least a 86″ long quilt. Queen and King sizes require a 90″ or longer length-especially if you want the quilt to cover the pillows and not use pillow shams. So here’s the technique I developed when making quilt tops for a woolen mill business which filled them with their wool batting and sold them in their shop.

1. Fold the completed quilt center in half making sure the ends are even to get an accurate measurement. I usually add the left and right sides first so I fold the quilt center with a horizontal fold.

2. Measure with your tape from the center fold out to the ends. Because now you are working with half the measurement your tape can easily tell you what the number is instead of being too short. Let’s pretend that you are making a 96″ long quilt. When folded in half you find that the measurement is 42 1/4″ long which is an 84 1/2″ quilt center.

3. Piece the two 6 1/2″ border strips your will need for the left and right sides of the quilt center. Fold your border strip in half. Measure from the center to the ends and mark where 42 1/4″ is. Trim your border to that length. Repeat for the second side border. Sew the borders to the side and press the seams outward.

4. Repeat what you just did for the top and bottom borders. Fold your quilt center in a lengthwise fold. Measure from the fold to the ends. The center is 96 1/2″ so the measurement when the quilt is folded is 48 1/4″.

5. Piece your borders and fold them in half, measure and trim them to a 48 1/4″ length. Add them to the top and bottom sides of your quilt.

Wasn’t that easier then laying the quilt center on the floor and crawling on your hands and knees with pins and a stretched out tape measurer?!!

Happy quilting,

Rochelle

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Ruby (Online Women’s Magazine) Contest!

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

 “Ruby Magazine is holding the first of many contests! This contest will be: Create a slogan for Ruby! We need a good slogan to go after or below our name “Ruby”.

This contest is open to EVERYONE! You don’t have to be a subscriber, but we hope you’ll want to :)

The slogan should be succinct and capture the essence of Ruby. 12 words or less. The top 6 slogans will be chosen by the Editors of Ruby and then YOU will vote on the 6 slogans. The entry with the most votes will be our new Ruby slogan. AND!  You’ll win a free subscription to Ruby AND!!!!! (yes there’s more!) a Grand Prize Goodie Bag which has been created from top to bottom by the Editors of Ruby. We are all creative and crafty and many of us are making a fabulous ’something’ for the bag – which will be an original design by Amy Designs! And filled with things I know you’ll love. (There will be a picture soon)

If you’d like to enter a slogan into the contest, please email it to Ruby Contest by clicking on this link:

rubycontest@cottonspice.com?subject=RubySloganContest

All slogans should be submitted by Aug 15 and the winner will be announced in the September issue.”

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Southwestern Table runners Coming!

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Do you like southwest motifs? Do you live in that part of the US or have moved from there?

Am beginning to develop some large table runners for the door-sized coffee tables that people use in their home decor. Specifically a table runner that is 45″ to 50″ long! A quilt shop in Arizona has asked me to develop several for them-something completely outside my culture!

SW color block                             cactus

It’s becoming an exciting adventure-coyotes, chili peppers-SW suns are showing up in my sketchbook. What is your favorite SW motif?

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July Sunday Afternoon Bike Ride

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Would you like to go on our bike ride with us? I carried along my camera and shot some photos on our ride this afternoon. Very few of you live in my quiet area of Michigan so you might enjoy seeing where my husband and I bike sometimes.

We rode out to a country road named Finn Road east of our small town. It has a RV park at the end and a slip leading out to the Saginaw Bay. Twelve trucks and boat beds were lined up near the slip- their drivers all enjoying the Sunday sunshine in their boats. There’s a paved sidewalk running along the slip out to the bay that we used to get as near as we could to the mouth.

July Sunday Bike Ride

Here’s a photo showing the way back along the slip to the RV park.

July Sunday

This is a shot of the fields south of the Saginaw Bay-always quiet and peaceful. It is very flat in our area.

July Sunday

After leaving the Finn Road Park we traveled back home along paths built on dikes just south of the bay. Here’s one section for you to see:

July Sunday

Bullfrogs were calling and birds flew back and forth over the graveled path. The path curves to the right and runs through the woods and it was cool and shady. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to make the round trip-not too bad with bucking a southwest wind on the way home!

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