Did You Know

As some of you may know I have been selling Accuquilt Products since 2010. I have been using the cutters and dies so long that if I can't make a quilt using the dies I have (and they are many) I don't want to make that pattern. I know that sounds silly but after using them for so long it is really faster to cut lots of different pieces using the cutter and dies. Depending on which cutter you are using you can cut 6 or 10 layers at a time. If you have an Accuquilt system but would like to know more about getting more ideas on how to use it you can watch the live videos they do every week on Wednesday at Noon CDT (convert to your time where ever you may be.) They last between 30 minutes to 50 minutes and you can pick up tips even if you have been using your cutter for awhile.

Meanwhile last week I took a class at Bobbins Quilt and Sew in Buhl, Idaho and we made a potholder in the hoop. It is a Kimber Bell design and there are six fruit designs on the CD. They are made to be Chenilled but I like them just sewn. Think I will head out to the quilt room and try the Pineapple.
If you have something to share would love to see it.

Welcome to 2019

The time sure flies the older you get the faster it goes. I don't know if I mentioned it or not but I am an Authorized Retailer of Accuquilt Cutters and Dies. I have a facebook group (AccuCutUps) for my customers so we can exchange ideas, ask questions post our projects and so on. We meet monthly to sew and visit sometimes we do a potluck and other times we just bring a lunch. At the request of the group we do a block of the month so they can check out dies they may be interested in adding to their inventory. The block for February will be the Pineapple Die which I have been having lots of fun with. I made a table runner that needs quilting and a couple of other block playing with some color packets I had on hand. We have also done the Kite Block, Lemoyne Star, Ohiostar, Blazing Star, Apple Core and if I remember correctly we also did the Snail's Trail. We will be meeting again on 20 February if you are going to be in the Rupert, Idaho area and would like to join us you can contact me for directions at 208-430-7144 or email is ohiostar46@gmail.com .
By the way in the previous post I mentioned the contest Warm Company was having. I did not win but I thank all my family, friends and customers who did go and vote for me it was fun to see the many different quilt shops and quilting businesses nominated.

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. 

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.

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.

Saturday Accuquilt Workshop

Saturday was our first workshop of the year and we had a good turn out. I reserved a classroom at the fairgrounds and invited my Accuquilt customers and anyone else I know who has an Accuquilt to come spend the day sewing and using their Accuquilt Cutters and dies. Kellie and her Mom have been coming since I did the first one. Kellie was working on a double wedding ring quilt with 30's fabrics.

 Dena had gone to the Dollar Store and purchased some placemats to decorate for her young relatives to have come Christmas time. The one here I did today after seeing her idea. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the other projects. Linda was working on a quilt for her Granddaughter and Liz was working on fabric gifted to the quilt guild which she was using to put together some charity quilt tops and Julie was working on a baby quilt for a new grandchild. I didn't hear what Anne was doing, but it was really nice she could make it and have some fun with us. I'm looking forward to seeing some finished projects.

These are the placemats I purchased today to do some decorating on. The colors didn't come out like they should have they are black, lt green, brown, beige and red.

So have any of you purchased and use an Accuquilt system. Any fun projects to share?

Accuquilt Projects

 







 
 

With my customer's permission I thought I'd show you a couple of things she made using her Accuquilt Go and Go dies. The turkey placemat she used the Dresden Plate Die and the Christmas Accessories Die to make them. The Table Runner is her original pattern which you can find on her website . Look in store and then under patterns.
If you own an Accuquilt have you made anything with it? Let us see your projects.

Summer is Almost Over

Hard to believe that summer is almost over. Joann's is celebrating and giving gift cards away. Check out their promotion at the link below. They are launching something called Buttercream.
https://www.quikly.com/1047-joannstores/t/6DMCsiR-lnk

I finished and donated this quilt for Crop Walk to raffle off.

 

http://hunger.cwsglobal.org/site/TR/2015CROPHungerWalks/TR-CHW2015?pg=entry&fr_id=20814

 

Above is the link you can use to check out Crop Walk if you are interested.

 

For the last 4 years I have been an Accuquilt Dealer so I have been making demo quilts to show off the dies some of which I have posted here from time to time. Recently, I have been making the pattern that comes with the Cat & Bat Die.

 

 

I added the Owl and made the bats purple at the request of a couple of friends. Now to get it quilted. It makes up much larger than I thought it would from the picture on the pattern.  What do you think so far?







2nd Accuquilt Workshop

Saturday we did our 2nd Accuquilt workshop. As with the first one in June we had a good time and started some project plus two people brought projects they had used their Accuquilt cutters and dies to make.

 

We are lucky to be able to use a room at the Fairgrounds for our workshops. We will probably do another one sometime after the first of the year if there is enough interest.

 

 

Thank you all for attending I enjoyed our visiting and creating together.

Butterflies

Spent some time last night playing around with the new Butterfly Die from Accuquilt. They are ready for the decorative stitching. Fast and easy to do. I used Steam-a-Seam lite on them.

 

It's probably been 10 years since I've done machine embroidery or fancy stitches. So I'll have to practice before I do these. The more I use the Accuquilt Go the more I look for things to make using the dies I have. I wonder if there is a support group for this addiction?

 

Well, have to get back to entering my inventory so I can start using the The Square to take credit cards. Have a good week.

 

Is It Hot Where You Are?

We are having four days of very hot weather here and breaking records. It is really nice to have air conditioning when this happens.

In spite of the heat I have been getting some things accomplished. Yesterday DH and a friend put up my pegboard so I could get my Accuquilt products displayed.

 

After some looking they finally found the studs. We were looking for 24" on center and they were 16" on center. Once we knew where to look it went smoothly. I finally ended up with the following:

 

Now to get a shelf to go under it so I can put the Go Baby and the Accuquilt Go cutters.

 

Some other things I have been working on and finishing are a couple of quilts using some of the dies for the cutter. The design wall is up and in use. The quilt on it is a donation quilt I am working on for Cropwalk this fall. The tumbler quilt was made using the 3.5" die and lots of scraps. It's a partial inventory of my fabrics. (A full inventory the quilt would cover many beds).





This quilt was made using the 4.5" Equilateral Triangle die and is fast and easy to do. I used a soft fleece backing and now batting in this one.

The Blue & White Tumbler Quilt was made using the 4.5" Tumbler Die from the Nested Studion Die set. It is even faster to do than the triangles. This one was a gift for a friends new grandson.

This quilt I've had the top done for about 18 years. Couldn't decide if I wanted to leave it as is or make it larger. I finally decided to quilt it as it was. It measures 61" x 61" and was done in a class taught by Marilyn Doheny in Edmonds, WA. To get it to curve I cut the print strips 3" and the white strips 1.5" and put it together just as you would a regular log cabin. All the prints in it are flower fabrics.

Last but definitely not least Squeak has decided to squeeze himself into a small box to take his afternoon nap. DH says he's packed and ready to ship. We would miss him greatly if he were gone. Well, that's what I've been up to the last several weeks. What have you been doing in your corner of the world???

March Already

By a slim margin I managed to complete a demo quilt for my February finish.

I had a stack of 6" squares of mixed colors mostly red so I decided to use my nested tumbler dies from Accuquilt on my studio cutter. I made stacks of ten and proceeded to cut 100  4.5" tumblers in 15 minutes. Since the dies trim off dog ears it was really easy to sew these into rows. I have about 5 hours total in the construction, quilting and binding of this quilt. I think I'll probably be making some more tumbler quilts it's a great way to use up scraps. The nested dies will make 1" to 8" tumbles. I'm sorry the picture quality isn't as nice as it should be some days it's hard to get a picture with 3 cats all wanting to be first on the new quilt.

Another Stolen Quilt

I just heard there has been another quilt go missing. Read all about it here http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/02/help-get-word-outanother-stolen-quilt.html. Pass this message on to your friends and quilt groups maybe this one will be found.

On a more cheerful note. Miss Emma is back home and acting much better. I think she is happy to be home, but not to sure how she feels about Squeak.

Well, the big news around here is that I am now an Authorized Accuquilt Dealer and my first order arrived this morning. I am doing a demo for two quilt groups with in the next month. So keeping fingers crossed someone likes the Go as much as I do. It would be a shame if the UPS guy got a hernia for no good reason. lol.