More Cowbells - Updated!

 Hi Readers.  

I don't usually write tutorials but I am going to attempt to write out a tutorial on how I made the cowbell handles.   I used the Missouri Star small tumbler template to make this quilt on both the bell fabric and the handles.   I had seen a quilt made by Robbie Wise at the Fall Gathering in Starkville a few years ago, and my friend Lauren and I both thought we would like to make it.  I looked at this quilt, and realized she had hand appliquéd all the handles.  I don't do hand work,  if I can avoid it, so I decided I would figure out how to machine piece the handles.  This is a picture of her quilt.

Robbie Wise's Cowbell Quilt

The Fabrics:

I used all the different Mississippi State fabrics I could find and added grays, maroons, light maroons, white with maroon prints, blacks with bones and anything with a bulldog or paw print.  Since I had some of that in my stash it is hard to say exactly how much you should buy, but I wish I had thought to add some pirate fabric in honor of Mike Leach, but I didn't think of that.  Lauren suggested that a khaki for the background would make the white bells stand out.  I have also thought about using a black as a background, but then the dog bone fabrics would blend in. I used about 3 yards of background, but a throw would take less.

My Quilt

The Bells:

The Missouri Star template is designed so that it can be used on charm squares.  It is 5 inches tall and almost 5 inches wide at the bottom.  So I cut 5 inch strips of the various bell fabrics and if the fabric was not directional I would cut bells, flipping the tumbler upside down on every other cut.  That way there would be very little waste.   On the State fabrics, it was directional so it could not be flipped and there would be a bit more waste, but it wasn't too bad.  I had a thought later that a charm packet might give greater variations but I haven't seen one that is primarily maroon.  

The Tumber Handles:

I cut 1.5 inch strips of black and 2 inch strips of background and and used the strips to make a width of fabric strip set of background, black, background ironing toward the black. 

 I then cut these strip sets into 3.75 inch sub cuts.  I could get 11 pieces out of one strip set.  I then cut a bright piece of scrap fabric into 2 x 5/8 inch piece.  I used a bright piece so I would not lose it in my sewing area.  This was to be used as a spacer (not to be sewn in) so I would not line the handle block either too close or too far apart on the top of the tumbler strip.  So I took another 2 inch strip of background and put one of the handle on it right sides together and sewed it down.  Then when I got to the end of the handle part, I put my spacer down then another handle part.  I picked up the spacer and sewed my quarter inch seam across the top part and onto the next handle. 

(These are not actual handle pieces, they are end of strip sets that were a bit short or uneven.  I am just showing how I laid them out.)

I repeated this across the whole strip.  I ironed this to what would be the top of the tumbler.  I could fit 8 handle piece on one strip of fabric.  I then used my template to cut the handle tumbler.  Click here to go to MSQC

Layout:

I wanted my cowbells to float so I put tumblers cut out of background (without handles) on the each end of each row and between the handles on the top row.  I also put one background tumbler between each of the bells on the bottom row.   I also put a two inch strip on the bottom the give the bells some space from the borders.  I trimmed the sides two inches out from the side of the last bell.  I did 16 rows of tumblers.  I kind of wish I had done an odd number of rows and alternated rows of 9 and then 8, beginning and ending with 9, but hind sight is twenty-twenty.  In my layout I did 144 handles and 144 bells and 50 background tumblers.  To cut the background tumblers I cut a 5 inch strip and then cut one up and one down on each strip.  I forgot to count but I think you can get 10 or 11 per strip.  I sewed two 2 inch strip pieces end to end and put it under the cowbells, trimming to width of quilt.  I cut strips 5 inches x 15 inches out of the left over bell fabrics and put them around the edges so I could use most of the left over fabrics and not have too much more in the stash.  Here is a quick sketch of a smaller version, if you made the same number of bells in the top row as the bottom row.  

Finishing:

I used a gray and maroon plaid on the back.  Thought it looked like a man's shirt.  I put a piece of MSU fabric across it where I had to seam it together to make it big enough.

Back

label

I created a worksheet to help you plan your quilt...Cowbell Quilt Worksheet

Options:

This technique could be used to make Christmas Bells or as my friend Naomi suggested that they could be chimneys of houses or if you turned them upside down you could make popsicles.  So rethink how you use your tumbler templates!  The options are endless!

Sew on, 

Terry

Update:  Jim loved the quilt!!  His praise was over the top!  

A quilted jacket

 Dear Readers,

I have been working on a background project.  My daughter wanted a quilted jacket.  She picked a pattern and sent it to me and I made a bunch of quilt blocks and then let her pick the ones she wanted for the jacket.  She is an art director so she has a very specific look in mind and I was doing my best to fulfill it. 

So Celeste sent a pattern and I was trying to find the fabric for the jacket part and was not finding what we wanted for the jacket part.  Luckily I had a trip to Denver planned in February so I packed up my blocks, patterns and we were able to come up with fabric and a layout together.  

So we decided on this layout.  

I quilted it with rulers work on one side of the block and swirls on the other side of the block.

Now to make the jacket...

First the hood.  Then I sewed the quilted part to the jacket parts and assembled the rest of the jacket.  

I then took it to Denver and put the hem in the bottom and hemmed the sleeves to the correct length.  I have a good many blocks left so when I got home, I started kitting up enough to make a quilt.... not sure when that will get on the to do list.

I hope Celeste enjoys it.

Sew on,

Terry

Water = Life UPDATED

 Dear Readers,

It has been a while since I have participated in a quilt challenge.  In January Possum Town Quilters issued a challenge to create a 20 x 20 inch quilt with the theme water in your world.  You were given two blue pieces of fabric and they had to make up 20% of the quilt.  I chose to make mine to look like a national park poster as that was one of my favorite trips with my daughter.    I paper pieced the letters and curved piece the water.  I pieced the water and the sand and sky together then fusible appliqué to add in the mountains and the trees and waterfall.  

I used two layers of batting, one 80-20 and one wool to make the quilting show more giving the sky and water more movement.  

It was fun to do a challenge quilt - it has been a while since I have done one.  Used left over binding from the national park quilt I did for Sue and Bill.  These will be going to Pigeon Forge for their show this June.

Sew on,

Terry

So while I was at Quiltville Inn for a retreat, Judy told me our quilts had won first place in the Mountain Quiltfest Ultimate Guild Challenge.  That means a ribbon and $100 for the guild to help fund future challenged and entries.

Here are some photos of our quilts and the names of the makers.

The whole group.  I know it is hard to see so here are the groups.

Brenda Crownover, Gwen Sisson and Judy Stokes

Sandie Nix and Watana Cantrell

Julia Graber, Tonya Stewart and CC Coggins

Terry Turnage and Kimberly Smith

Welcome

  Hi Readers,

Last Spring as I was surfing the internet I found a Tula Pink kit (Pining for You) by Free Spirit, that I had been looking at for awhile on sale at 5 Monkey Quilt Shop in North Carolina!  So I took the plunge and ordered it.  I had a quilt retreat planned to go to in September, so I did all the cutting putting the parts for each pineapple in its own zip lock bag.  At the retreat I got about half the pineapples made and every once in a while I would pull it out and make a few more.  Well MQA put out an Unfinished Object Challenge (UFO) and I put the pineapple quilt on my list.  Each month you tackled a different one of your challenges.  I did not get the pineapple done in January.  But I did finish it in February.  

I had decided to custom quilt it and had watched the videos where Tula had talked about Angela Walters amazing quilting so I did a lot of things she did but tried to give it my own take.  I also tried to do something a little different on each pineapple except the ones with diamonds....I couldn't think of anything to do for those.  I also decided that each background color would get a different pattern.  I was thrilled with how this one came out.  

Instead of the rainbow back that Tula recommended I put her giant ladybugs on the back, because,  Why not?

My mother loved Pineapples and often said they symbolized hospitality so that is why I named it Welcome.  

This one has gone to live at Lauren's home.  

Sew on,

Terry

Story Time

 Dear Readers,

I had another finish!  It is called Story Time.  I got the call a little before Christmas that my fake nephew and wife were having their second baby.  I call him my fake nephew as he was my ex-husband's nephew.  I had made The Guardians , a llama quilt, for their first baby so I needed to come up with something special for this new little girl too.  So I ran across the pattern Book Nerd by Angela Pingel.  Bryan and Missy got married in a library and Missy is a principal so I know that they must like books!  So while I was in McKinney helping Will get a bit more settled, I took a day and drove around to a bunch of quilt stores.  Before I went, Will and Celeste helped me think of children's book titles that they had loved as children.  I had not thought to bring the pattern with me, and I didn't remember how many books were on the throw size.  My goal was to find fabric that represented the books.  So I needed lots more titles as I know there would not be a good match for every title.  Will and Celeste came up with tons of titles.  I could not remember if the pattern had 20 or 24 titles so I wasn't sure how to much to buy so I bought a few extra pieces.  While I was driving around I found a cute shop, The Quilt Mercantile, in Celeste, Texas they did not have the pattern tho so I was still buying blind, but they had lots of great designers, Tula, Quilt Apothecary and others so I found a number of things there.   

 Another shop I stopped at in Garland, Texas was the Rocking Bobbin.  They actually had a Book Nerd quilt on their long arm machine.  

She had the idea for embroidering or writing book titles on the spines and suggested using grunge fabric for the spines of the books.  Her quilt did not have the names on it, as her DIL did not want them.  Grunge has been a favorite for a long time so I already had a lot of different colors of grunge that could work for the spines.  She also had some fat quarters that were perfect for book covers.  we had a good time visiting and tossing around ideas.  

So here is my quilt...

I custom quilted this one too.  So I took some close-ups of the pairs of books.  I also wrote titles of other favorite books in the horizontal sashing and on the vertical sashing I did something different on each row.  Just trying to learn more techniques.  

Babar and Frog went a Courtin

        

The Velveteen Rabbit and Goodnight Moon

Angelina Ballerina and 101 Dalmations

Oh, The Places You Will Go! and Bambi

Cinderella and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

The Giving Tree and One Fish Two Fish

Curious George and Owl Moon

Winnie the Pooh and Mother Goose

The Good News of Christmas and The Secret Garden

On the way home, I stopped in Vicksburg and went to Stitch-N-Frame.  Pick up a couple of more fabrics and found a great piece for the back...This is a Robert Kaufman print...called Library of Rarities by Aimee Stewart.  

I really hope Bryan, Missy, Addy (the older sister), and the new little baby girl will enjoy getting under the quilt and having story time.  I know that is some of my most fond memories as a mother.  We read together a lot.  We loved reading stories and went to the library about twice a week.  Read on!

 Sew on,

Terry

Update:  When the quilt arrived the big sister, was so excited that she played under the quilt for an hour, checking out the books, texture and design.  You can't ask for a better reaction than that!