Meet Frankie

 This little guy is Frankie. I found him in our backyard just laying in the grass with no sign of a Mom or siblings. So I picked him up and brought him in the house. With a Hawk in the neighborhood I couldn't leave him outside by himself. So in the 4 weeks he's been with us he has really grown and blossomed. He knows no fear and plays at full speed then all the sudden he just collapses where ever he happens to be and takes a nap.

He has been such a joy. We have laughed until we hurt at his antics and the other cats have finally stopped hissing at him and are now playing with him.

 He'd been with us about a week and he started crawling up in my knitting bag and then making his way into my recliner so he can get me to play with him. One time I found him sleeping on the knitting bag.
Tonight he went over to see Echo our dog and laid there playing with the leash. That is a first usually if Echo looks at him he will hiss and dares Echo to try something. When Echo turned his head Frankie just laid there and didn't react. They may make friends yet. I think we have another fur child.

Making an Ohio Star Block using Accuquilt Go and Die

This is a tutorial to show how I use the Ohio Star Die # 55174 to make this quilt. The Ohio Star Die cuts the 4.5"quarter square triangles used to make the star points for the block and it also cut five 4.5 " square which are the corner blocks and the center block of the square. Both the quarter square triangles and the square finish at 4". In this quilt I used 12 blocks set 3 x 4.

As you can see I have marked my die with the size of the blocks. To this measurement I added 1/2" to allow the material to cover the blades. I find that if I cut my fabrics to fit the die plus one half inch I waste less fabric than if I try to fan fold it. You may use whatever method works best for you.

I will use the colors I used in the quilt to make one block as an example. You may make your stars whatever color you want. I cut a strip of blue 5 3/4" by width of fabric. From that strip I was able to cut seven 5 3/4" squares. To make 12 blocks you will need 3.5 strips of fabric 5 3/4" by WOF to make enough squares for twelve blocks since you will need two blue square per block and 24 squares of blue fabric in total to make the blue star points for 12 quilt blocks.

Next I cut a strip of the red fabric 5 3/4" by WOF which also gave me seven 5 3/4" squares. You need one 5 3/4" square per block which means you need 12 total. Two strips of 5 3/4" by WOF strips of the red and two strips background will give you enough squares for 12 blocks.

The squares above when cut apart will give you the cut pieces shown on the right side which when sewn together will give you one complete block. I used a pre printed block in my center you can use the same color as your background or a 4 patch or a red center what ever you want to use in the center.

When I sew the quarter square together I lay them out as pictured. I flip the red triangle on the right to the blue on the top and sew the seam. Then I flip the bottom blue to the white (background) triangle and sew that seam. I usually press my seams open to reduce bulk then sew the two halves together. Do this 4 times and you have all your star points ready to lay out your block and sew the 9 squares into a block as shown on the right.

I hope you find this helpful in using your Ohio Star Die and making an Ohio Star Quilt. If you have any questions please do contact me. 

Two New Dies for Accuquilt

 Accuquilt is releasing The Spool and The Wonky Hearts Die today. They both make a 6" finished block. As you can see I had a chance to get the dies early so I could make up a couple of sample pieces. They are both very easy to sew. I really enjoyed doing the spools and even though I'm not really a wonky heart person the block was very easy to cut out and sew. There is a video out on doing these blocks on the Accuquilt website by Pam Heller and she was doing the wonky hearts using a layer cake of batiks. Very pretty blocks. Give these dies a try and let me know how you like them.

I Love my Accuquilt Studio Cutter

How many of you have the Studio Cutter? I purchased mine after I started selling the Go and the Baby. I like all the cutters but hands down my favorite is my Studio. Recently the Studio Dies went on sale and I had just discovered the Hawaiian Dies so I quickly purchased a couple of the dies to try. These two dies with one cut give you a Negative and a Positive look. These are just two of 8 different dies by Stacy Michell you can use to make a Hawaiian Quilt . I have since purchased the Dolphins, Palm Trees and the Butterfly Dies. When I get a couple of them cut out will be posting more pictures here. These are really fun to do. Now I just have to sit down and sew around the pieces so I can figure out how I want to set them together. Soon as I figure that out I'll post pictures.  Have you made any of these block if so have you posted pictures of them somewhere? I'd love to see pictures and how you put them together. I've been having so much fun out in the quilt room hope you are also having fun with your quilting.

Click for Babies

Happy August I am coming up for air once again. I hadn't intended to be quiet this long but as life sometimes does we were thrown an unexpected surprise in June when we went for our 6 months health check ups. The end result is my DH had Open Heart Surgery on 12 July so I have been busy taking care of him. He is doing much better and I am able to spend some time sewing now which I really needed it is my therapy. I did manage to get this finished and ready to deliver.

Tomorrow I am making some dill pickles and some bread and butter pickles. So that is it for now I have some time to go sew for awhile maybe I'll be able to post pictures of what I am doing in the next couple of days.

Oh the reason for the headline:

http://www.wpxi.com/news/national/knitters-needed-to-create-purple-caps-for-babies/581687440

Saw this online and thought I'd pass it on in case anyone is interested in doing this. If you do let me know so we can post pictures of what you got done.

Graduation Day

Today my husband Graduated from BSU in the 100th Graduation held at BSU and the first one held in Albertson Stadium on the Blue Turf of the football field. It was a cold and windy somewhat rainy day, but all 1755 Graduates and family members stuck it out. He has worked for several years for this day and I'm very proud of him. I did manage to get some pictures even though we were on the top row of the second tier. In the first one he just rec'd his diploma holder the actual paper will come in the mail in about 3 weeks. The second picture is having his picture taken and the last one is after the ceremony on his way to the truck singing free at last, free at last.

Other things happening here are the Accuquilt workshop scheduled for the 13th of May if you would like to attend contact me at ohiostar46@gmail.com  for more information.

I'm also planning to start an online Accuquilt tutorial about once a month or possibly more often on how to make blocks posted by Accuquilt using the CUBE Dies and how you could make them if you don't own a CUBE. Would you find this helpful and be something you'd like to see? Let me know if you have any requests or ideas. Hope everyone has a great weekend and A Happy Mother's Day on the 14th.

March and Daylight Savings

Every year it seems like it gets harder when Daylight Savings rolls around. It seems to me that it would be much easier to have Summer hours and Winter hours and not cause so much chaos in peoples lives. Okay, now that my rant is over here's the news from our little corner of Idaho.

Marcus Fabric is having a mug rug contest and I finally discovered some Marcus fabric in my stash so used my Accuquilt Dies and cutter to make my St Patrick's Mug Rug. It was a fun and fast project made much easier with Accuquilt.

Then Accuquilt was having a sale on their Studio Dies so I invested in a few I had been looking at one of which are the Scottie Dog. They would look really cute in a border of a quilt. I have a friend and Accuquilt Customer who has a new Scottie puppy.

As you may have heard we have been having serious flooding here in Southern Idaho from snow melt. We have had a lot of snow this winter and when it started melting fast and the ground was frozen it had no where to go. It's hard to see but the fields and the road are underwater. So the Army Corps of Engineers came in and put these 12" pipes to pump the water into the canals to drain the fields. Our road has become the place people come to see how bad the water is and if it has gone down any.
Fortunately the weather has warmed up into the 50's so it feels like spring here the last few days and has been lovely and just like spring. Now if it just lasts for awhile before it gets to summer. That's pretty much how things are around here.

Already March

I've been really remiss and okay I'll say it lazy about posting anything the last several months. As you may have heard Idaho is having record snowfall this year. I've been told by those who have lived here a long time the last time they remember having a

large amount of snow was winter of 79/80. This is the start of our 8th year here. We had a few days this week above freezing and some rain and snow started to melt which is turning the hay field next to us into a lake. We had between 2 - 3 feet of snow. Hard to tell exactly with the drifting.





While we wait for spring I started knitting this sweater. It is a kit from either Mary Maxium or Annie's can't remember at the moment. So far an easy knit.


I also took advantage some sales and purchased a kit from Craftsy. It is a small quilt so far one block down and 8 more to go. The pieces are an odd size so I am having to cut them with a ruler and rotary cutter. If I do it again I'll use my Accuquilt dies and same time and wear and tear on my wrists. Wonderful and easy pattern to use up lots of scraps.

I've also made this quilt top using the Accuquilt GO Big die for Snail's Trail on my Accuquilt Studo Cutter. It was fast and easy and the top pieced really fast.

So I am going to try and do better at posting and staying in touch.

Talk to you soon.