Sunday was lovely weather for my visit to Sanford, Maine for a trip to Marden's department store. Marden's is a chain, but not every one of their stores boasts a fabric department.
I met up with Grace there and we had fun shopping in spite of a bit of a wait time to get to the cutting table.
The cutting table was right beside a big shelf of neatly stacked remnants and I kept finding pretty reds that I had to take home with me!
The highest price that I paid was $4.49 per yard and I had found some very nice neutrals, too. My total bill was $37.67, right on target for my goal to not go over $40.
My only mishap was a stupidly forgotten camera that I had left in the cart as I was leaving the store. Fortunately, the man who found it turned it in to the courtesy booth. I was able to claim it later in the day when I returned for it. He didn't leave his name/number so that I could thank him, but God bless him!
In the meantime, back at the ranch, I've resurrected a project that had been set aside. Remember those endless winter days filled with the construction of Sawtooth Stars? Well, I built quite a stack of them!
These are 8" when finished in the quilt, but I've been dragging my feet to begin making the alternate block of 8" hourglasses. Finally, I broke the inertia and got started.
I have over 60 star blocks so I need 60 of the quarter squares. too. I used 4½" width of fabric strips in red and neutral.
Very carefully, I stacked them up with right sides together, four layers deep.
Then the wonderful Companion Angle ruler made cutting the ready-to-sew stacks easy.
Turn it upside down for the next cut and do the whole row.
The only tricky part of making quarter square hourglass blocks is to remember to feed the parts into the sewing machine in all the same orientation so that each sewn pair is the same with no mirror images.
I was able to get 7 quarter square blocks out of one width of fabric run that was stacked four layers deep. And I sewed the cute little 4½" HST's scraps from the two ends, too.
I laid out one Sawtooth Star with four of the Hourglass blocks on my ironing board so that you could have a sneak preview of the layout pattern.
Happy sewing!
I met up with Grace there and we had fun shopping in spite of a bit of a wait time to get to the cutting table.
The cutting table was right beside a big shelf of neatly stacked remnants and I kept finding pretty reds that I had to take home with me!
The highest price that I paid was $4.49 per yard and I had found some very nice neutrals, too. My total bill was $37.67, right on target for my goal to not go over $40.
My only mishap was a stupidly forgotten camera that I had left in the cart as I was leaving the store. Fortunately, the man who found it turned it in to the courtesy booth. I was able to claim it later in the day when I returned for it. He didn't leave his name/number so that I could thank him, but God bless him!
In the meantime, back at the ranch, I've resurrected a project that had been set aside. Remember those endless winter days filled with the construction of Sawtooth Stars? Well, I built quite a stack of them!
These are 8" when finished in the quilt, but I've been dragging my feet to begin making the alternate block of 8" hourglasses. Finally, I broke the inertia and got started.
I have over 60 star blocks so I need 60 of the quarter squares. too. I used 4½" width of fabric strips in red and neutral.
Very carefully, I stacked them up with right sides together, four layers deep.
Then the wonderful Companion Angle ruler made cutting the ready-to-sew stacks easy.
Turn it upside down for the next cut and do the whole row.
The only tricky part of making quarter square hourglass blocks is to remember to feed the parts into the sewing machine in all the same orientation so that each sewn pair is the same with no mirror images.
I was able to get 7 quarter square blocks out of one width of fabric run that was stacked four layers deep. And I sewed the cute little 4½" HST's scraps from the two ends, too.
I laid out one Sawtooth Star with four of the Hourglass blocks on my ironing board so that you could have a sneak preview of the layout pattern.
Happy sewing!
4 comments:
So glad you and Grace were able to meet up during her visit to Maine (okay, you were visiting there, too, but only because she was visiting).
Marden's is one landmark I missed while visiting that state. Looks like you did very well--and I'm glad you got your camera!
Loving the stars set with the hourglass blocks. This is a setting I have always admired and have yet to try.
I will have to remember that store--beautiful fabrics and great prices. Beautiful reds! You are making great progress
ooh vic that is sooo gorgeous...i love love love it! you always make such pretty red quilts...
I'm just a week late to see this post. So glad you and Grace got to meet up! I look forward to seeing your stars-and-hourglasses put together.
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