It's a Patchwork City, Group 1

I bought Patchwork City: 75 Innovative Blocks for the Modern Quilter by Elizabeth Hartman a while ago and I have finally come around to getting started on it.  Craftsy was having a sale on a mystery fat quarter bundle from Freespirit Fabric, so I bought that and I have started.  I am also getting started on a small wall quilt for the office using Robert Kaufman's Color Union, so I decided I would use some of these prints as accent pieces in all of the blocks.  I am planning on making all 75 of the blocks in the book, so this will not be a quick project.

Here are my first three completed blocks: Post Office Box, Intersection and Kiosk

I think all of the colors are looking good and the Color Union prints really pop.  I also fussy cut the ship in the kiosk block.  I had a few issues putting together the intersection block.  The book came with templates and two ways to get them.  There were paper templates in the book that could be traced but there is also an option to download a PDF that can be printed right on freezer paper.  I elected the second choice.  I printed the template out, cut it with my old rotary blade and ironed it onto my fabric.  The directions say to cut out the pieces adding a 1/4 inch seam allowance on all sides, so that is what I did.  When i was done piecing the hourglass part of the Intersection block, the directions said it should measure 4.5 inches and came in at 4.25.  I checked my seams and everything looked good but I decided to make another just in case.  The second time I was very careful to make sure all of my cutting was correct, I took extra time lining up my corners and everything.  I pieced it all together, took it to the iron and measured it again......4.25 square again.  I am guessing there is a printing error or there is something special that needs to be done when adding seam allowance to a triangle.  I decided to just go with it and put the rest of the block together.  I started asking around and it turns out that I am not the first person to have some of these issues.  I decided I'm going to stick with it because I already bought the fabric and I can hide some of the differences with the final quilt layout.  I'm still looking forward to completing this quilt and I will keep you all updated on the progress.

The next three blocks will be:  Porch, Meow, and City Hall...

-Adam-

New Year, New Projects

Hey All,

Hope you had a wonderful holiday and a very Happy New Year.  We were so busy in December.  We had a Holiday Party, made tamales, we traveled down to Sacramento for Christmas, I made three dresses for gifts and we still had to get our work done.  Life is still going strong and we are looking forward to where this New Year will take us.

Some pictures from our trip down South (after the snow), Duchess and Pixley chilling on the couch.











Ben's friend Shannon at work came over and we made tamales.  It was my first time making them by myself.  I was nervous but everything came out delicious.  I made everything from scratch and my grandma was definitely watching over me.  We had such a good time during the process, so I'm sure it will become a tradition in our home. Cheese for Ben and I and pork for Shannon.                            





Here are a few pictures of the dresses that went out for Christmas.  They are both patterns from Figgy's.  Her construction makes everything look so polished and professional.  The red dress is her Scirocco pattern.  We have made this pattern a few times and continue to love it.

The twin dresses are the Sunki dress.  They were made for two cousins that are best friends.  I used some Tula Pink fabric and think they are so fun with all of the color and the cute butterflies.  You can't really tell from the picture, but the center of the front is an hourglass shape with cutouts on the side.  In some of the versions that I have made, these were contrast fabric but I wanted to see how good I was at lining thing up and after I finished these, I gave myself a huge pat on the back.

There is still so much to share but I will leave it at this for now.  Wishing everyone a wonderful year. Best wishes to you all.

Adam & Ben

One last picture of my deer friends who visit every week or two.