DQ Sunny Bee - Blue and Yellow Flower Marble Star Tutorial

Hello everyone..

I've been wanting to make this blue and yellow combination since I saw one wall design in one restaurant here in my town. Sunny Bee is a perfect time to make my dream block into reality. It's pretty simple one. Since I'm not very good with words, I took few number of pictures which I hope will be helpful.  This is similar to my QAL's in Desi Quilters, but instead of using flying geese method I used  5" squares and 4.5" squares. 

Let's do it...

WHat you need:

1. Solid white poplin cotton

2. Navy blue floral cotton

3. Yellow floral cotton

I'd love poplin kind of cotton which is easily available in India. 

A.  Cut the fabric according to the pictures:

 1. White Poplin - 4 (5" x5") 

           2. White Poplin - 4 (4.5" x 4.5")

3. Floral Blue - 4 (5"x5")

4. Floral Yellow - 4 (5" x 5")

Finished block size : 16.5" x 16.5"

B. How to do it

1. Make HST but pairing (right side together)  each fabric. whites and blues, whites and yellows, and blues and yellows and shown in the picture. 

2. Mark diagonally and the sew along 1/4" on BOTH SIDES of the LINE

then cut across on the LINE . Sorry I was in a hurry and forgot to take the pic of the cutting piece :(.

3. Once you cut everything, iron them flat and take out the 4" squares SOLID WHITE and arrange them according to the pic below:

sew them together row by row 

and Voila your block is ready

Easy peasy isn't it?

Let me know if you have any questions :)

Happy Quilting

Finishing star quilts

Hello everyone,

It's almost end of August and I have not written any blog post this month. There are so many things going on this month. Sometimes, I open my laptop and trying to write something but I can't think of something. Too many things going on in my mind. 

source : Pinterest

Well, sewing wise, I finished 2 quilt tops (yay!!) and now are with Tsala Studio in Bangelore for quilting. 

The quilt top above is from the quilting bees we did in Desi Quilter in 2013 (OMG!!). Thank you Sudha Sekhar, Prasanna Narasimhan, Nikhat, Damayanthi Bhat, Manju Narain, Tina Katwal, Sandhya and Aliya Mir for making these blocks for me *group hugs* 

I posted the tutorial for the block in HERE in case you want to try it :)

For the backing, I wanted in yellow. I have another yellow and blue print which I thought I will use but when I put them together, I feel it's too busy. So I stick to the original idea. I found this mulmul cotton fabric in yellow with small white flower print. It's perfect!! 

The second quilt top is this Double Friendship Star quilt. The block is based on MSQC Youtube Tutorial. I started this quilt last year. I posted my progress in Instagram . I used batik Jellyrolls and white cambric cotton for the background. The batik part finish at 40" x 48". I thought I will finish it as another throw quilt but then I want the quilt to be usable. I have a few throw quilt which mostly end up in my cupboard :D

After browsing Pinterest for idea, I decided to add wide borders in white. I added 9.5" wide on the sides and 12.5" wide on the top and bottom. I love how it turned out! 

For backing I chose multi color ikat print in glace cotton. Glace cotton is very soft and it has a glossy finish. I love it!! 

Oh and I have 2 blocks left which I will make cushion covers! Yay! 

Well, finished is always better than perfect, right? Finally this winter, we will have new quilts. yay!

I still have one more bee blocks to assemble. I already got an idea and hopefully it will work out :D

Thank you for stopping by and have a nice weekends!

~ Elvira ~

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TGIF - Hipster Cat

First time mending a quilt

 

I mend a quilt! This is the first time for me. I watched a lot of quilt mending videos and I particularly love the visible mending one. This quilt was on my son's bed and last week  I took it out for washing when I noticed there's a small tear.  

After inspecting it for a little while, I then re-attached the border first, where the stitches came off using a slip stitch. I took a video below while I was working on it. 

I used a yellow dyed fabric from my scrap bins. I tried searching for the same fabric but could not find it. And it was a pretty humid day, so I did not want to waste my energy looking for a small scrap piece. 

The tear was only on the top of the quilt. So while mending it, I did not sew all the way through the backing. Now I am thinking, maybe I should? What is your opinion? 

After washing it, I noticed there are a few places where the stitched came off, so I will mend those in the next week. This was a quilt made from quilt bee blocks, some blocks are sewn with longer stitch lengths. I suppose that's why the seam easily breaks. 

I am pretty happy with the result, though! At least for now it will do. If you watch the video, please let me know what you think and what I should keep in mind while mending a quilt. 

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And I have some exciting news! As I wrote a couple of months back regarding my fabric shop, I am happy to announce that I am back! I have been taking stocks of what I have and have been busy creating exciting one-of-a-kind fabric bundles. Also, I am able to find a few resources so that I can provide a more competitive price and better service. So more pretty Indian fabrics are coming to the store soon! 

For international orders, shipping on ETSY is only via FedEx at the moment. I offer flat rate shipping for now. 

Here are a few that are already in the stores: 

ETSY | WEBSITE

 

ETSY | WEBSITE

ETSY | WEBSITE

Check all the collection of fabric bundles in my ETSY and WEBSITE

Cutting fabrics and making bundles always boost my sewing mojo. I have a couple of projects in mind, some Kawandi projects and also 2 hand quilting projects. I think I will make a couple of videos as I am working on it. I started this one but I think I will re-do the quilting. Maybe doing Kantha style. Let's see. 

That's all for today. Thank you for stopping by! 

Happy Sewing!

Elvira

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Queen Bee - My Double Star Block Tutorial

I was the Queen Bee of January 2013 in my quilting group Desi Quilters. I was so excited and I already hearted this block I saw on Flickr, but could not find any tutorial about it. 

So, I sat down and drew my own based on the picture I saw on Flickr. 

I called it Double Star block. This is quite simple to make. 

First, here’s what you need:

1 - Background color  is BLACK

2-  Star colors: 2 CONTRAST COLOR and use ONLY SOLID

So, here we go :

THE CUTTING:

BLACK fabric:

-          Cut  4 ½ “ x 4 ½ “ -  4 pcs

-          Cut 4 ½ “ x 2 ½ “  - 8 pcs

-          Cut 2 ½” x 2 ½” – 4 pcs

SOLID  contrasting color:

-          Color  #1 : 2 ½” x 2 ½” – 7 pcs

-          Color #2 : 2 ½” x 2 ½ “ – 7 pcs

Finished block: 12" x 12" 

THE METHOD:

1.       Making flying  geese:

Take 4 BLACK 4 ½” squares and take 4 pcs of each 2 ½” squares of solid and make into 4 flying geese.

2.       Make the  1 ½ flying geese (umm that’s what I called this piece, btw)

PLEASE REFER to the picture of the complete block for the placement of the color squares in this piece. 

Like making the flying geese, place 2 SAME  color of 2 ½” squares  SOLID  on one side of the 4 ½” BLACK squares  and CONTRASTING color of 2 ½” squares  SOLID  on the other side.

3.       Once you’re done, don’t forget to  first IRON flat all the seam to the dark side. Then arrange all the pieces and accordingly stitch each row and then assemble the whole thing.

Tadddaaa…your double star block is ready. Easy peasy,  isn’t it? ^_^

Happy  Sewing ^_^

Celebrating Independence Day

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

This is the way quilters celebrating Independence Day. And in my case, I have 2 Independence Day to celebrate, India and Indonesia. 

We at Desi Quilters are having August Challenge with the rules: (1)  Make a mini not bigger than 12"x12", using pieces not bigger than 1.5" finished (2) Colours to be used - saffron, white and green ONLY..Yes, the Indian Flag colours.

I was in the middle of busy Ramadan, but I just can't stay away from my sewing machine especially when I have this lovely block to try which I think will be perfect for the challenge. Yes, it's Great Granny from Bee in My Bonnet

So here's my entry for the August Challenge:

6.5" squares Coaster 

and the second one, today 17th August  is Indonesia's Independence Day. To celebrate it, today I first attempted making this coaster using foundation piecing. Which is TOUGH!! But I made it, though it's not as neat as I'd like it to be. The finish size is 4.5" squares. I should have tried something bigger than that -,-. 

So, here's the Red and White (Indonesian Flag colors) coaster:

Until then...Happy Quilting ^_^