RJ Ward Design

This quilt top has been a long time coming - a year to be exact! I've learned so much and I have to thank Craftsy for sponsoring a year long Block of the Month. Amy at Stitchery Dickory Dock provided me with a visual and printable handouts to be able to go at my own pace and learn new techniques that I've never even thought of doing before.   The one thing I definitely learned is I will not be making anything that has to do with hexagons! I hated the hand sewing to make the hexi's and the attachment of them on the block. Hand sewing is just not my thing!   I also learned on the curved piecing that I do need to use spray starch on one of the pieces. This picture is actually my second block of the same thing. The first one was so crooked and out of shape it was quite embarrassing. By starching the curved piece and keeping the top piece flexible I was able to handle the curves much better and get an accurate measurement. I've said it before and I thi...

  The Craftsy 2012 Block of the Month just might be a finish by the end of the month. When I signed up for Shanna's "A Lovely Year of Finishes" I honestly didn't think that I would get all those blocks done. Out of 20 blocks I only had 6 (3 months) done!     I now have 10 more done! Yeah! I have 4 more to go and of course I have saved the Hexi's blocks for the last. I've also cut out the pieces for the curved piecing blocks so I can get to those ASAP. You can see all of the blocks over in my Flickr page.   It's funny how once you take a picture you see things that you definitely would do different in a block. There are a few blocks that I have done that I've made a mistake on or the color combination is terrible. I'll be ripping one block out that is upside down and redoing it (if you see it don't point it out, I already see it), and one of my original blocks I have to re-do because the background is totally different. ...

  I kept going back and forth over to Shanna's blog Fiber Of All Sorts to decide whether I wanted to join her new group and be accountable to all my unfinished UFO's. Then she sent me a message to join their flickr group called "A Lovely Year of Finishes". I have quite a few but the one that I jumped into last January with both feet because I wanted to learn to quilt has appeared to be a project that I got tired of. I joined the Craftsy Block of the Month 2012 and stopped when she got to April. I'll be honest I love to cross stitch but I really hate hand sewing. Hexi's to me is hand sewing and I just stopped because I don't like to hand sew. I just received a new email that 2013's BOM is out so I really need to finish this top.     This was the Balkan Puzzle Block from February that I never talked about. Luckily I have done a few more months in the past year and on Saturday sewed June and July's blocks. To finish this UFO I have to...

I've been a paper piecing fool! For 3 days straight I've been playing catch up to get caught up with the NY Beauty QAL. Since work and family life has occupied my time I needed to get to my sewing machine pronto before I got even farther behind. Since I'm technically doing each block 4 times it took me almost 2 days just to cut and sew. I decided early on since I had so many blocks to do that I'd just get all the paper piecing done first and then put the blocks together. I didn't want to take the time to keep switching my needles and stitch lengths everytime I got a block done. This is Block 1. At first I was going to add a solid as the 2nd color. I made all of the pieces with the 2nd color to finally come to the conclusion I'd rather keep it a 2 color block - white and my purple print. So I technically had to go back and start over on the piecing. I'm glad I did because it makes the blocks more elegant looking without the 2nd color thrown into the mix...

Sara at Sew Sweetness is hosting a New York Beauty Quilt Along on her blog that I have happened to join along in. These blocks are all paper pieced and I have found a new love for this art. This quilt was at the quilt show I went to a month ago and when I looked at this quilt I then wondered what I had signed up for. All those pieces should have made me run as fast as I could but it didn't. I was scared with all the colors so I was still undecided on what fabrics I was going to use. So the 5th of March was the day that the tutorial for Block 0 came out over at My Go-Go Life  hosted by Kim. As I read over the directions I decided that the curved seams were going to be my hardest part. The more I read the directions, the more I told myself I could do this. I continued to watch the Flickr group to get inspiration on colors. One particular square kept catching my eye and I knew what I was going to do. I decided 2 colors were going to be my desti...

I cannot begin to write about how much I have learned from doing Sew Happy Geek's QAL this past month. When I found Jenna's blog over a month ago I really had no clue what I was doing.  To get you caught up you can find the first blocks here , here , and finally here . This block was called the Quatra Star. Jenna has a video up on her site on how to do this block. It could have been done 2 ways - paper or foundation pieced. After watching the video I decided I'd rather screw up on a piece of paper than a piece of fabric, no matter how scrappy it is. Call me scared but what little fabric I have I need to make the most of it. I've done a few paper pieced blocks from participating in the Solstice Star  blocks by Fresh Lemons Quilts so I felt more comfortable in this technique. Good thing is because my handy, dandy seam ripper came through again for me. When you paper piece you really have to make sure that you have enough fabric to cover the area that it ...

I'm still plugging along on my blocks that I've commited to doing for Quilt Along's. Remember these: here and here . These blocks are the ones I've been doing over at Sew Happy Geek . We're getting to the end of the quilt along,  then the hard part will be what to do with these squares. That's when I need to start practicing some Free Motion Quilting - eek! Onto the blocks since I've had these done since they first came out but I haven't posted about them yet. The block above is called the Churn Dash Redux. Love how those red and black triangles are working. They just POP! The last block I've finished so far is the HST Diamond. That red in the middle reminds of something that I should be staring at and it will change into something. It doesn't but it certainly looks like it could! I can't believe how just scraps of fabric that I've had laying around for years is turning into some beautiful blocks. The last 2 blocks are the...

Call me crazy, over ambitious, excited or just plain geeked! While catching up on all the latest in blogland a post from  Sew Sweetness and Sara  caught my attention. Sara was blogging about a new Quilt Along that starts in March. While reading she also had posted a picture of a Mini Quilt that Katie from The Blue Chair  had made. I have pinned on Pinterest  a very similar piece a few weeks ago that I just loved. Since indulging in this new found hobby of quilting I've come to really enjoy the art of paper piecing (I've only done 2). Well these BOM are all paper pieced. This must be my month of just going for it because I've joined the Flickr group (the very first member - eek!), downloaded the button on my blog and I'm now blogging about it right here. I'm now committed! So I'm now off to finish start the other blocks that I've been doing so I'm ready for this to start. Have a Great Day!

I've accomplished some more blocks for the Sew Happy Geek Quilt Along. Have I told you how much fun I'm having - I'm having fun! My husband asked me a few days ago what are you going to do with all of these . . . I have no clue is my answer. I'm learning and besides I figure it keeps me busy during the day when I'm not working. First up let me show you the Flying Geese Pinwheel Block. I said I didn't like the white fabric with the blues, red and blacks but I must admit defeat when I say that fabric turned out great in this block. Instead of solid red I found this scrap piece of fabric that I had and used this. Makes my head a little dizzy sometimes looking at it because I literally can see the Pinwheel moving. The black fabric was an after thought and I'm so glad I stuck it in. The next block was the Fireflies Block. The color choices on these blocks amaze me. I'm a very conservative person and using bright reds with black and white is re...

In January I saw an email from Craftsy offering a free online class doing a Block of the Month by Amy Gibson. All my friends know me as always finding great bargains at the grocery store and clearance racks, so to find something to teach me how to quilt that was going to be free was right up my alley. I bought a Layer Cake at Joann's called Sunny with beautiful grays, blacks and my favorite yellow in them. I figured I didn't want to spend a small fortune on nice fabric since I didn't know how well I'd be able to piece this together and how many times I'd be ripping it out. Then I didn't know if I'd end up with a 12.5" square piece of fabric in the end. Well I'm thanking my lucky stars that I didn't spend that small fortune because I had to do each of the blocks twice - Ugh! Here are my two first tries at the Asterisk Block and the Wonky Pound Sign Block. The Asterisk Block consisted of repeatedly cutting the fabric and sewing in strip...

Talk about jumping on the bandwagon with all these quilt alongs. I found another blog that is doing a quilt along called Sew Happy Geek and she's been posting a fun quilt along. I went through my stash of fabric that I had laying around and starting picking some colors. Black, Red, White and also a flower print that I wish I didn't really use because it just isn't fitting in very well. My first block that I did was called the Woven Block. It really seemed to go together very well. I was happy with my seams and when I don't have to rip anything out I'm even happier! Next block was called the Snowball Block. We had to lay 2.5" squares on top of our 6.5" squares. Sew in a diagonal and then cut 1/4" past our seam. Again luck was on my side and the seams and points turned out very well. Friendship Star Block will be my 3rd block for the Quilt Along. What I thought was going to be a very easy block turned into more of a challenge. Those Half...