Tag Archives: Studio 180 Design

Spotlight on Quilt Designer Katrina Thomas

I wanted to help raise funds to support The New York Mills Historical Society (my hometown), so for me that means “Quilt Raffle”! I chose a pattern by fellow Studio 180 Design Certified Instructor (CI) Katrina Thomas. I met Katrina last March at our CI Reunion. This girl is on fire when it comes to quilt designing. Katrina is one of the features in Fons & Porter’s “Scrap Quilts” magazine for Summer 2015 on news stands now.

I lover her pattern called “Rolling Stars”. Katrina is a very creative designer. Her patterns feature the use Studio 180 Design tools, which I love! Check out Katrina’s website The Hope Chest Quilting to get her wonderful quilt patterns.

I chose Katrina’s pattern Lemoyne Baskets to make my raffle quilt.

I love Lemoyne Stars. This pattern is a twist on this process using the Rapid Fire Lemoyne star Tool by Deb Tucker. It also requires the Studio 180 Design Tech Sheet Lemoyne stars as Triangles.

Tuck, his brother Earl and his other brother Earl are in charge of quality control.

And Dave is keeping a close eye on my stitches.

The fabric for this quilt is Lady Slipper Lodge by Moda. I have named this quilt “Lady Slipper Lemoyne

Pop Luck

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I just finished a class sample that I will be teaching soon from a pattern called Pop Luck created by Deb Tucker for Studio 180 Design. With the Corner Pop tool you can choose from 22 size options available and accurately remove a 90 degree corner from a base shape such as a rectangle, pieced unit, or block and leave the necessary 1/4″ seam allowance intact. You’ll then add an oversized replacement half square triangle and use the ruler guidelines and cutting edges to quickly clean up the corners to the perfect shape and size.

I made half square triangles, then I popped of the corner and added an oversized triangle and trimmed it up using the Corner Pop Tool.

You’ll be saving fabric and have pressing options not available with traditional the folded corners technique.

This is the finished Pop Luck top!

This is a fun project and a beautiful quilt.

I Love New York…. & Sew Much More

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I’m getting excited. Next week I head south to the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton Virginia. I will be helping out Deb Tucker at the Studio 180 Design Booth, so please, if you are there stop by and say hello. I’m sorry I will have to miss my local guild “The Mohawk Valley Quilt Club’s” 35th Anniversary celebration. Congratulation to a great group of quilters.

I’m test driving my new Nolting quilt frame. It is pretty spectacular. Having a commercial frame makes my mid-arm work better. I have dreams of improving my quilt skills immensely. I bought the frame from Delightful Quilting & Sewing. Joyce and Ron Blowers are Nolting Dealers and drove 3 hours to my house in a snow event and set it up for me. I really liked them a lot! I need to take some lessons from Joyce.

I usually finish my quilts in the order they are pieced, (just a little OCD) but I wanted to finish “I Love New York” to celebrate the mountains of snow we have, with more on the way. There is a group on Facebook called “One Block Wonder Quilt Forum”. Someone asked me how I quilted my hexagon quilts. I meander mine, not just because that’s all I know how to do, but by going over every seam and center they lay nice and flat.

I was trying to be arty and photograph my quilt out in the snow, but there is so much snow (close to 3 feet in parts of my yard) I had a very difficult time getting a good angle.

So I gave up, scraped off mounds of snow and came inside.

No Pattern??? No Problem !

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Did you ever see a picture of quilt that you really wanted to make but couldn’t find the pattern? If you can identify the units that make up the block, you don’t really need the pattern. Last year I blogged about being a “Block Detective”. I saw this quilt in a book By Doreen Speckmann. I loved it and wanted to make it, but not with the paper templates that the author suggested.

So, being a Certified Deb Tucker “Block Detective” I decided to try it out by making a block with 2″ finished units. I loved the bright colors against black & white backgrounds.

Now the search was on for fabric to make a whole quilt this time. I found the outer border fabric first and then pulled the colors for the block from that. I decided to make six 20″ finished blocks containing twenty-five 4″ finished units.

I initially chose yellow, orange, red and green fabric but later added a blue fabric . I also needed 6 different black & white prints for the block background.

The tools required were Studio 180 Design V Block, Squared 2 & Corner Beam Rulers and the Technique Sheet for making Sidekicks and High/Low units and don’t forget your Magic Wand!

Each Block contains 4 V Blocks with black & white side triangles,

and 4 V Blocks with black & white center triangles.

Each Block contains 4 Corner Beam Units with yellow center beams,

and 4 orange and red Corner Beam units.

The center of each block contains 1 Squared 2 unit.

There are 2 High/Low Left & 2 High/Low Right Units in each block.

I cut all my pieces first then laid them out one block at a time. I constructed the corner flowers as shown below.

I press the seams as instructed for each of the units, but when I joined the units into the block I pressed my seams open.

Join the units into rows.

Then join the rows to form the block.

These are some wild colors. This quilt was fun to make. So next time you want to play “Block Detective” get out your graph paper and Studio 180 Design tools and discover what you can do! If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me.

My last Quilt Class in Virginia

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Today I taught my last quilt class in Virginia. In about 6 weeks I will be moving to Upstate NY, Utica to be exact, my hometown. Today we finished up our Doubly Charmed class where we first made the Corner Beam quilt.

We saved our side triangles to use in our V Block quilt.

I want to thank Nancy, Denise, Carol and Karen for a great last class!

Jennifer Griffin will be taking over the Studio 180 Design Tool Demo classes in Virginia Beach. She is happily holding up the Diamonds Rects tool. In her first demo class she will teach you to make a simple Storm at Sea using the Studio 180 Design Diamond Rects and Squared2 rulers. I know she will do a great job! Look out NY, get ready for One Block Wonders and Deb Tucker’s spectacular rulers and quilt patterns.

Green with Envy????

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No, just green with batting. Quilters Dream Green that is. I completed “Twister” a Studio 180 Design pattern for a class I was teaching several months ago, but I just now found time to quilt it. I love this pattern, it is a companion pattern for the Tucker Trimmer I. There is nothing like a pieced border to give your quilt eye catching appeal. I used a focus fabric by Alison Glass called Lucky Penney in the border. It was my jumping off point for the colors I chose.

This was my opportunity to try Dream Green earth friendly batting, made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. Recycled plastic bottles are cut into chips, washed, melted and extruded into fine polyester fibers. Processed using the close-the-loop recycling chain, it is pro-environment in both its raw material source and its manufacturing process. Each pound of Dream Green Batting keeps 10 plastic bottles out of our landfills.

Dream Green loaded easily and stitched beautifully. There is no scrim or resins, yet you can stitch up to 12″ apart. I machine washed it in warm water and dried it on a medium heat. I thought it behaved very much like cotton batting. There was very little shrinkage. I was pleased with Dream Green and will use it again.

Twister is a great skill building pattern.

I Am No Longer a Wool Virgin

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If you have ever wanted to make migrating geese, I am here to tell you they are not difficult. You do not need a special tool. This process is a Precision Technique so be sure to use your best skills when cutting, marking, stitching & pressing. Deb Tucker has a Technique sheet that shows you a quick easy and fun way to make these migrating geese in 7 different sizes.

I decided to try (for the first time) Dream Wool by Quilters Dream Batting. Dream wool is made in the USA, from a blend of fine domestic and Merino wool. Dream Wool contains no scrim or resins, it is carded, crosslapped and thermally boned for uniformity and strength. It was like quilting on air

Quilts made with Dream Wool may be machine washed and dried with little shrinkage using cool water and a cool dryer. Of course I did not follow these instructions because that is how I roll. I did wash it in cold water, but I dried it normally, as I would any quilt. It did shrink, but not dis-similar to a quilt with 100% cotton batting.

I love this process for making Migrating Geese and encourage you to try it.

Victorious

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I just finished quilting and binding my Studio 180 design pattern “Victorious” I’m on my quest to branch out and try other battings. Of course my preference is any batting by Quilters Dream. This time I used the “Blend”, 70% cotton & 30% polyester, needle punched onto an ultra light scrim base. It was created especially for machine quilters.

It was very nice to work with. It didn’t stretch out of shape at all. It stitched beautifully. It held its shape throughout the washing and drying process.

Victorious is a beautiful traditional quilt pattern that uses the Deb Tucker V Block tool and the Squared2 tool for units in four corners of the border. The V Block tool was also used to create the diamond shapes in the border. Although, now Deb has created the Diamond Rects tool that could also be used to create the border units.

Dreaming of the Orient, (Batting that is)

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I’m a cotton girl. I’ve always used 100% cotton batting. But, this year this Batt Girl is breaking out of her Batt Cave! Today I quilted my Studio 180 Design quilt “Wish Upon”, but I used Dream Orient by Quilters Dream Batting. This batting is made of bamboo, silk, tencel and cotton. When I opened the package the first I noticed was how luxuriously soft it was. It seemed a little thicker than Dream Cotton Select. It was wonderful to touch.

I have a small house. I was determined to find a way to get a long arm. I bought a queen size “John Watts” quilt frame from Australia. It only weighs 50 pounds, so when I wasn’t using it, it hung on the wall of the garage. I bought a Nolting “Fun Quilter” It weighs 40 pounds. It has a 17″ throat and has a speed and stitch control. After 7 years of lugging the frame in and out of the house, my husband finished the back pork so I could leave it up full time.

For today’s adventure, I have loaded the backing.

I then loaded the Dream Orient. It handled really nicely, didn’t stretch out of shape at all. It feels great.

I have the top loaded. See my tractor seat stool? It is great for rolling back and forth while I pin the backing etc. to the leaders.

I am now ready to quilt. Like butta, I tell ya, smooooth!

Last row done. It looks wonderful. I’m off to trim off the excess batting and sew the binding on. There was so much red in this quilt that when I washed it I put in 10 color catchers (they came out pink, so I’m glad I did). I washed the quilt in cold water and dried it normally. When I pulled it out the dryer, I noticed immediately how soft it was. They say quilts quilted with Dream Orient drape beautifully, and they are right! I am definitely using Dream Orient again.

This pattern is by Deb Tucker. We just had a Studio 180 Design Certified Instructor Reunion. Deb gave this to us as a mystery, but she will making the pattern available sometime this summer. It uses the Split Rects Tool and the Wing Clipper I and the Tucker Trimmer I. I love this quilt.