Curlicue Creations: February 2019

Thursday, February 28, 2019

New Fat Quarters in the Curlicue Creations Shop ~ Week of 02-28-19

A beautiful cut of high quality quilting fabric, Blue Plaid Heart Quilt Fabric by Fabric Traditions. 100 percent cotton, fat quarter cut. Easy care, machine wash cold water, tumble dry low.

The design on this fabric features tiny white hearts and a white plaid design on a blue background. Perfect for your next quilting or home sewing project. So unique - be creative!

English Collection Fat Quarter

A beautiful cut of high quality quilting fabric, English Collection, from David Textiles. 100 percent cotton, fat quarter cut. Easy care, machine wash cold water, tumble dry low.

The design on this fabric features hearts and stars on a brown background. Perfect for your next quilting or home sewing project. So unique - be creative!

Western Blue Fat Quarter

A beautiful cut of high quality quilting fabric, Western Blue, from Wamsutta Fabrics. 100 percent cotton, fat quarter cut. Easy care, machine wash cold water, tumble dry low.

The design on this fabric features western motifs on a light blue background. Yee-ha! Perfect for your next quilting or home sewing project. So unique - be creative!

Bittersweet Fat Quarter

A beautiful cut of high quality quilting fabric, Bittersweet, Moda Classic, for Moda Fabrics is 100 percent cotton, fat quarter cut. Easy care, machine wash cold water, tumble dry low.

The design on this fabric is a lovely harvest pattern featuring pumpkins, acorns, and leaves. Perfect for your next quilting or home sewing project. So unique - be creative!

For all these and more, click here to visit the Curlicue Creations shop.

Be Creative ~Sew Something Beautiful Today!

Jennifer Thomas

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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Magnificent Minis featuring Miss Minnie Sue Pickle

Disclaimer: The materials used to create this quilt were generously given to me by Island Batik, Aurifil, Hobbs, and Accuquilt.

Meet Miss Minnie Sue Pickle, my smallish sized Pickle Dish quilt.

Miss Minnie Sue Pickle is my Island Batik Ambassadors challenge quilt for the month of February. We were challenged to make our quilts 24" x 24" or less. I pushed the limits and made mine exactly 24" x 24".

I selected brown, green, white, and pink as the main fabrics for this quilt. I added in a variety of fabrics from the 5" wide rolls to spice things up.

This quilt did not have a lot of pieces I could cut with my new Accuquilt Go, but I did cut the pink border with my 1-1/2" strip cutting die. I love how straight my border cuts come out when I use Accuquilt's strip dies.

My 9 year old is always ready to help. He bagged and labelled my pieces. He even added a flower to the label.

Here is a close up of one of the Pickle Dish blocks. Pickle Dish is a traditional quilt pattern.

I paper foundation pieced all of the arcs. If you would like to learn about paper piecing, check out my tutorial, here: How to Paper Foundation Piece

Fun, folded quilt photo.

It's been raining so much here, I felt blessed to have the sun out today. We had nine rainy days in a row, and the weatherman is predicting another eight days of rain beginning tomorrow.

I used Aurifil thread to quilt Miss Minnie Sue. I used the big white cone and also the brown thread all the way over on the left.

I also used Hobbs Thermore batting. It works wonderfully for small projects as well as clothing.

While I was quilting, I ran into a small speed bump. Oh kitty! Ragamuffin is taking her job as quilting kitty in training seriously.

I quilted ziggy lines inside the pickle dish blocks and did an outline in the block corners. I simply quilted the pink border with parallel lines.

I backed my quilt with Island Batik's Check it Out fabric.

I used the same pink fabric for binding as I used in the border.

Sew pretty!

Miss Minnie Sue Pickle

Quilt Stats:

Finished Quilt Size: 24" x 24"

Block Size: 5-1/2" x 5-1/2"

Fabric: Island Batik

Batting: Hobbs Thermore

Thread: Aurifil

Carolina Asmussen ~Carolina Asmussen

Gene Black ~ Gene Black

Pamela Boatright ~ Pamela Quilts

Connie K Campbell ~ Freemotion by the River

Anja Clyke ~ Anja Quilts

Tina Dillard ~ Quilting Affection Designs

Becca Fenstermaker ~Pretty Piney

Jennifer Fulton ~ Inquiring Quilter

Barbara Gaddy ~ Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Dione Gardner-Stephen ~ Clever Chameleon

Sarah Goer ~ Sarah Goer Quilts

Vasudha Govindan ~ Storied Quilts

Lori Haase ~ Dakota City Quilter II

Joanne Hart ~

Mania (Magdalini) Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for Quilts

Carla Henton ~ Create in the Sticks

Stephanie Jacobson ~ Steph Jacobson Designs

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs

Joan Kawano ~ Moosestash Quilting

Kim Lapacek ~ Persimon Dreams

Emily Leachman ~ The Darling Dogwood

Leanne Parsons ~ Devoted Quilter

Bea Lee ~ BeaQuilter

Toby Lischko ~ Gateway Quilts & Stuff

Bill Locke ~ Studio Bill Locke

Denise Looney ~ For the Love of Geese

Leah Malasky ~ Quilted Delights

Sally Manke ~ Sally Manke

Maryellen McAuliffe ~ Mary Mack's Blog

Kathleen McCormick ~ KathleenMcCormick

Carol Moellers ~ Carol Moellers Designs

Karen Neary ~ Sew Karen-ly Created

Lisa Nielsen ~ Lisa Lisa and the Quilt Jam

Jackie O’Brien ~ If These Threads Could Talk

Laura Piland ~ Slice of Pi Quilts

Michelle Roberts ~ Creative Blonde

Vicki Schlimmer ~ Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Gail Sheppard ~ Quilting Gail

Sherry Shish ~ Powered by Quilting

Anita Skjellanger , Quilt in a not-Shell

Laticia "Tish" Stemple ~ Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Jennifer Strauser ~ Dizzy Quilter

Jennifer Thomas ~ Curlicue Creations

Terri Vanden Bosch ~ Lizard Creek Quilts

Alison Vermilya ~ Little Bunny Quilts

Sandra Walker ~ mmm! quilts

Suzy Webster ~ Adventerous Applique and Quilting

(Debora) Anne Weins ~ Sweetgrass Creative Designs

Geraldine Wilkins ~ Living Water Quilter

Janet Yamamoto ~

Be Creative ~Sew Something Beautiful Today!

Jennifer Thomas

Click here to visit the Curlicue Creations shop.

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Sunday, February 24, 2019

Paper Piecing Tutorial

Today, I'm going to share my method of paper piecing with you. Many quilters are intimidated by paper piecing, but it's really not that difficult. It just takes a little practice to get the hang of it. Once you understand how to paper piece, you can sew beautiful points and complicated looking blocks with tiny patches or unusual angles with ease and accuracy.

I'm going to demonstrate with this curved section I used to sew the Miss Minnie Sue Pickle quilt. When you begin your paper piecing, you'll need to make a copy of the pattern to do your sewing on. There are several products out there you can purchase for paper foundation piecing, but I've always used regular copy paper and had good results. I recommend using a copy machine to make your paper pattern copies, but if you don't have one available, you can always tape your pattern to a window or light box and trace it.

Paper foundation piecing feels a bit like sewing backwards at first. Your fabric will be on the back of the printed side of the paper. The sewing will be done with the printed side face up. You'll need to cut your fabric patches large enough to have at least 1/4" extra on all sides to accommodate the seam allowance. Begin by placing the fabric you are using for the first patch (B1 in my example) on the back of your paper copy. It needs to cover all of B1 and extend into the seam allowances. The patch should be face up on the back of your paper. You can see the back of my fabric in the photo above.

This is how your fabric should look on the back of the pattern. Fabric right side up, paper pattern back side.

Next, you'll place the fabric you are using for the second patch (B2 in my example) face down on the first fabric. Be sure they are extending about 1/4" into the paper pattern piece B2 so you will have an adequate seam allowance.

Holding, or pinning the fabric patches in place, flip the paper pattern over to the front (printed) side. Sew along the seam line for your pieces (In my example B1 and B2). Start and stop your sewing at the seam allowances, using a machine knot or backstitch to secure the line of stitching. Set your machine to sew a very short stitch, (1.5 works well on my machine). This will make it easier to remove the paper later.

After stitching, the back side of your piece should look something like the above photo.

Flip the second fabric patch over (the pink B2 in my example), make sure it is covering all of the second patch on the paper pattern (B2) and extending into the seam allowances. If needed, trim the seam to 1/4" between the two pieces (B1 and B2). Press.

Continue on in this manner, adding the pieces in numerical order to complete your paper pieced unit. An easy way to trim the seam allowances between each patch is to fold the paper pattern back as shown above...

and trim to 1/4" with a ruler and rotary cutter.

Don't worry about the ragged edges as you sew along. Here is how my piece looked after adding the third fabric patch. This is normal.

When you have sewn all of your fabric patches, your piece should look something like this.

Trim off the ragged edges so your fabric is even with the paper. This is your completed paper pieced unit. Depending on your pattern, you may or may not need to remove the paper at this point. Follow the directions in the pattern you are using.

Be Creative ~ Sew Something Beautiful Today!

Jennifer Thomas

Click here to visit the Curlicue Creations shop.

This is an affiliate advertisement. Clicking on this link and making a purchase may result in my receiving a commission.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

The Making of the Dot to Dot Quilt

Disclaimer: The fabrics used in this quilt were given to me by Island Batik at no cost.

Good morning. Did you see my Dot to Dot quilt in the recent Island Batik Getaway Blog Hop? Today I'm going to show a few photos of what went into the making of this quilt.

I used Island Batik's new Winter Park fabric collection.

Along with this Island Batik Custard fabric for the backgrounds.

I only turned my back for a minute...she knows better!

Another photo of these fabrics ~ so pretty!

This quilt features 288 fusible appliqued circles. I like to use Heat 'N Bond Lite. I used a circle stencil and a Sharpie marker to make drawing the circles easy.