Cluck Cluck Sew

Well hi! 

I didn’t mean to take such a break from blogging, but life caught up with me as it often does.  So to make up for it….this is the longest blog post ever (sorry!).  

First about this cute quilt: 

I begged (bugged) Windham Fabrics to send me their newest line Playground by Dylan M ,it comes to stores in January.    It’s a soft, almost neutral color scheme with darling prints like those hand drawn animals.  

I used the Fat Quarter Friday pattern (this is the extra 2nd pattern in it) to make a fast quilt for a family member.  

The family I’m gifting it to has 4 small kids, so I backed it in the softest minky wideback 108″ and sent it to Kaitlyn for quilting (this is the Sashiko Clamshell design).   

I machine bound it using this tutorial. 

Jane is getting so tall…and I can’t cut her hair because then she won’t be my baby anymore (right?!!). 

I wish you could feel how heavy this quilt is, the denseness of the quilting, batting, and a heavy backing make it the perfect weight for snuggling.  

Other fall thing we’ve been up to: 

Harvesting SO many pumpkins this year!  Over 100 big/small/orange/white pumpkins.   

We had another crazy-but-fun Halloween with 1000+ trick or treaters and two pink/purple/blue haired princesses.  

My kids have been begging for a dog since ours passed away a few years ago…and NO WAY was I getting another dog.

I’ve held my ground for three years…and last Saturday I folded like a lawn chair.  

Seriously though… how could I not?!  My oldest is almost 13, and I knew I’d always regret not getting him a fuzzy best friend.

He’s a Golden Retriever, and he’s had about 5 different names, but for now I think it’s Finn.  

Basically I have another baby now. 

Even though he’s the kids dog…we alllllllllll know he’s really Mom’s dog.

So far I’m surviving puppy-hood, but if you have any tips for what to give him for the chewing and biting I’d love them.  His vet recommended some little teething bones but he hates them…he much prefers our shoes/arms/clothes/hair/feet/furniture/pillows/remotes/couch/books/baskets/Jane.    :)

First off, thank you for your patience with me after the Diagonal Seam Tape sold out… for now it is BACK IN STOCK!!! 

You can find the listing for it here, and I’ve opened up international shipping (read the description in the listing for more info). 

You can find the Diagonal Seam Tape website here with all the info about it, and my blog post about it here. 

I hope you love it as much as I do!

The last half of the summer was so jam packed I didn’t sew one stitch.  Instead I made some pretty fabric piles like this one that sat on my cutting table staring me down for a couple months. 

I used some Rifle Paper Co. florals that I’ve been saving, and mixed in lots of basics to make a Trellis quilt.   

My kids started school on the 4th and I spent allllllll afternoon sewing while Jane played and napped. 

I used Diagonal Seam Tape to make the blocks super fast, and I sewed….

and sewed….

and sewed.  

I seriously felt like a new woman.  The end of the summer was long.  ;)

I made the crib size of the pattern, and obviously I made the “ombre” version…sort of.  

The Trellis pattern can be found here as a PDF, or here as a paper pattern.  

Even though I didn’t get much sewing time this summer (hence the pile of fabric on my table), we did manage to get in a few sewing lessons for Sophie and the boys.  Sophie and I made a sleeping bag for her doll, and the boys made pouches and pillowcases.

Next up is piecing quilts for Mom!  ;)

Back in stock in my shop here!  

I shared a peek at this last week, but I thought it probably deserves it’s own post since it took me forever to develop!  

I’ve been using painters tape as a guide on my machine for years…I even wrote a post about it 9 years ago here.   I usually use it for sewing diagonal seams instead of marking lines, but I also use it for making HST’s.  There are lasers, or plastic seam guides you can buy and attach to your machine with adhesives, but I found them bulky and a pain to use.   

So I decided to make my own tape that is pretty, functional, and easy to use.  

Diagonal Seam Tape™ is washi tape that is tough but thin, and easily removable.   I made a long web page devoted to it here: 

How to Use Diagonal Seam Tape

It’s placed in front of the feed dogs of the machine, and the red line is the stitching line, placed in front of the needle.  The black lines are just a perk, they represent a 1/4″ seam allowance and are helpful when making HST’s, keeping strips straight while strip piecing, or even helping a beginner learn to piece.  

Mostly you’ll use the red line for making diagonal seams without marking a pencil line on your square, like when making a snowball block: 

Or you can using it when making flying geese units: 

You can use it anywhere in a pattern that tells you to “mark a diagonal line”, or anywhere you need to sew a diagonal seam.   In patterns with multiple diagonal seams like Chickens, Bats, Trellis, or Shimmer…using tape is what saves me the most time!

I could go on and on…but ALL the info and more is in the web page for the tape you can read through here. 

You can find Diagonal Seam Tape in my shop here.  

I’m thrilled with how it turned out after months of thinking about it and working out the details of printing (long story short… it’s a big fat pain and costly to have something so precise printed on tape!).   After using it on my own machines for a couple of months I can’t imagine not having it.   I don’t know if I’ll re-print it again, so I hoarded enough to last me at least until I’m 90… or until I get a sewing machine with a fancy laser guide built in (all machines should have them!).