This is periodic news from The Fabric Room.
Things that I am working on, things that I am experimenting with.. general stuff from my 'Studio'.
Welcome to my new Blog here on Blogger. I had started a blog on my web site, but was having problems getting it published so everyone could see it. If you want to read my previous posts, they are still active on my web site at Rusty's Quilts.
What you will find below are some of the posts from my web site, enjoy!
(Because of formatting issues, I have moved the text lower so it does not overrun the items to the right of the screen)
I have been thinking about doing this for quite sometime now, and I finally sat down and did it. I have lots of ideas that I would like to put here and if I can figure it out, I may even put video 'clues' for my mystery's here as well.
Today I am just working on getting this set up. Nothing much going on in the office today, lazy Sunday with a holiday tomorrow, so we shall see what trouble I can get into with this blog.
I have in the works the creation of the pattern for the title quilt "Lovely Twisted Dresden"
This quilt won 2nd place in the 2013 Iron Quilter contest that is sponsored by the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Believe it or not, this quilt was a last minute creation! I saw the contest and the fabric, but at the time, I really didn't think I had enough time to come up with something, so I passed. My husband even said that he did't think I had enough time to do something that would be 'contest' worthy. So I passed and went on to another project.
I came back to the page about a week later (after thinking about it for a week) and decided to purchase 4 charm packs, just because the price was right, no intending to enter, just to put them in my stash.
I love Dresden plates, and can whip one up in a matter of 15 minutes, but I didn't want to just make a Dresden plate because I figured that was to easy and others may already be doing that (and several entries did just that) but I wanted something spectacular. I had just created a twisted circle table topper earlier in the year with a large wedge ruler
Sitting there staring at my fabric stash shelves I see my Accuquilt Cutter. I get out the calculator (because I am horrid at math) I decided the 5 inch squares by 1 1/2 and came up with 3 (duh!) I have a 1 1/2 strip cutter, Whoo Hoo!!! So I cut a few 5 inch squares from scrap fabric and ran them through the cutter to see if it was even possible to use my Accuquilt to cut all of the strips and it was! Whoo Hoo again, I sewed them together and found the angle I wanted on my Dresden ruler and again.. OH Bother! The 6 inch blade that I want is too long, what now? Well, for the rest of that answer, you will have to buy the pattern ;)
After I solved that little problem, the rest was a piece of cake, or I thought. I made the center Dresden plate on a Sunday and had to go back to work the following day, so the project sat on hold till the next weekend. I then picked it up on Saturday of the next weekend, not thinking to look at the position of the Dresden template and cut the rest of the blades for the outer half Dresden's. I sewed them together and held them up to the first one and about had a heart attack! They were BACKWARDS. The dark was supposed to be the center and then light the outer, but I cut them backwards so the light is now the center and the dark the outside. I thought I was finished. I went to the web site and found that the charm packs were sold out and so was my LQS and just about every shop that I found on line. I could have purchased a layer cake, but I really didn't want to spend any more money on something that I really did't think would win anything. So after walking away for the rest of the day, I decided to put them together, backwards. To my surprise, when I put them on the design wall against the center, I got goose bumps!! I couldn't stop looking at it, OMG, this was beautiful, so I pressed on (no pun intended)
Because this was a design of my own, I had to measure and calculate and figure and fussy cut and keep my fingers crossed that I purchased enough extra border and background fabric and by the end of the day, I had a finished top.
Now I gauge my designs, how good or bad they are, but the first response or look on my husbands face. His immediate response was WOW! I pressed on, cut the backing and the batting, and stared at it for a day or so to figure out what kind of quilting I wanted to do. I already had the Dresden's appliqued down with a blanket stitch in purple rayon thread, but I really didn't want to take away from the quilt with any type of 'quilt design' so I went with quilting in the ditch and a few simple lines, went back to the border fabric that was left from the fussy cutting and fussy cut the binding so it would act as the final border and the binding and Wholly Molly, The Twisted Dresden was born!
I uploaded the picture 2 days before the deadline and crossed my fingers. On the day of the first round, I kept refreshing my phone so many times, I had to charge it twice during the day LOL. Each time I refreshed, the numbers jumped and jumped and jumped... I couldn't wait to get home to my computer. The next 5 days were the longest I thing I have ever had... nope, there is round two..agggg bother! I am number 2, right where I want to be, because I really didn't need the sewing machine and I wanted the quilters cash. Round 2 opens and the numbers jump again just like last time, but this time they have opened the voting to Google plus not just Facebook. At the end of the competition, I am number 2, WONDERFUL, right where I wanted to be and the number 1 quilt, yeah, I voted for it, but she also voted for mine, so ... She took the quilters cash, I didn't want the sewing machine, so I took the $500 of RJR Fabric and 3rd place took the sewing machine, which turns out the third place winner was desperately in need of new machine, as she was sewing on a machine that was 25 years old, so it all worked for the best!
Now this only gets better. I was contacted by the rep from RJR Fabrics and she asked me to pick out what I wanted as my prize! Your kidding, I get to choose? SUPER WOW! I went to their web site and choose a few lines that I liked, from lines that have not even been released yet, figuring that they would choose one or two from that list, but no, they sent EVERYTHING that I choose! OMG, I got a message from FEDEX that they had 3 boxes totaling 69 pounds coming to me. What could they be sending that is 69 pounds and is worth $500 dollars?
Again.. OH Bother!! I have now gone to South Carolina for Christmas, so I have to wait till after the New Year to find out, but my DH sends me this picture when the boxes arrive:
OK, I knew that the box in the back was a whole collection of fat quarters, because one of the selections that I made was Thimbleberries - Shades Apart collection, but what were in the other two, I couldn't guess, jelly rolls, fat quarters, layer cakes, yardage, what? DH said he would not open them and take pictures, so I had to wait... gurrrrr! He just laughed, thought it was funny to taunt me this way LOL
I get home at 10:30 pm on January 2nd, and by 11:00 pm, this is what I had found:
Let me break it down for you...... what I have listed as RJR Fabrics is the Thimbleberries 2014 Collection.
  
For those of you who are keeping track, that is 179 1/4 yards of Fabric! At 12.95/yard that is $2321.28!!! At $10.95/yard that is $1962.78!! Much more than the anticipated $500 prize. I was speechless, and that is saying a lot for me. Now the question of 'where do I put everything?" My stash shelves are full and I know that I need to get the fabrics out of the cardboard shipping boxes for long term storage (you don't think I am actually going to use this do you?) so off to IKEA, the storage masters. Thank goodness for after Christmas sales. I picked up storage containers that worked perfectly, rearranged my shelves and stacked everything perfect.
The jelly rolls and other fat quarters were able to fit in the stash, but I wanted to keep the Thimbleberries and Hand-spray collections separate, TB is in the left 3 bins and Handspray is in the others, I still have one empty container... that will not stay empty, I can guarantee that! LOL
I found that the fat quarters were packaged in such a was as they were split in the middle. The middle had 4 of the same fabric and then from there, they were 2 of the same on each side of that, so there was a total of 1 yard of each colorway. Sweet!
So now that that project is done and the prize is now stashed, I am turning my thoughts to this years Iron Quilter and thinking of a design that will be just a spectacular, but it is hard to recreate beautiful mistakes.
So follow me this year as I create a mystery quilt or two, and even try to come up with a quilt for the next IQ.
For now, Happy Quilting!
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