Dresden Table Runner

Take Two - I wrote this post last night and then it conveniently disappeared. I Still Love Technology...Always and Forever...

I got this magazine a few months ago and Loved It!!! It's filled with greatness from large quilt to placemats and everything in between. 

I love that they are starting to make magazines for Modern Quilters.

I fell for this table runner right away and wanted to make it. My mom came over a few days later and did the same. She said she would love it in Red and Purple. I went to my stash and started pulling fabrics. 

I'm loving the gray and yellow trend that's going on right now!

I cut out the Dresdens and threw them on the design wall. I really love having a design wall, it makes such a difference. I don't know why every time I want to take pictures the sun hides from me :)

It was a dark day - sorry for the bad picture

This dude went together really quickly!!

I have a really funny story.  I decided to do some echo quilting to finish it up. I finished it up, took it off my machine and the stitching started to unravel. Seriously hilarious, right? Needless to say the project got shelved for a while. I talked to our "Quilt Mama" at my local Modern Quilt Guild and she gave me some great advice. I got out my seam ripper and got to rippin. It took me 2 hours to rip out all the stitches!! The next day I started echoing again. I wasn't feeling it this time around. Here we go again....Thank goodness I only had to rip out 4 dresdens. I decided to go with straight line quilting and I love the way it turned out. 

Yay, I got another project checked off my list!!! I'm pumped :)

I'm linking up to  Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday. Some amazing work has been posted. Hop on over when you get the chance.

I hope you guys are having a wonderful day!

~ January ~

Craftsy BOM FEB

So the first block for February is the Balkan Puzzle Block. If you haven't checked Craftsy out yet, you will love it. They have all sorts of classes for really great prices and the classes look high def. So the great news is that this block of the month is free and is done by the lovely Amy Gibson over at Stitchery Dickory Dock. 

This month is all about Half Square Triangles and she shows two different methods. This method is called the Magic Half Square Triangle. It was so much fun! I wrote down the direction and some how doubled the pattern. It was so funny, I kept thinking this is going to be a huge block haha.

You need 2 5.5" squares to make four half square triangles. For this block you need two contrasting fabrics. I used a blue with white background and a yellow with white background. You need a total of 16 half square triangles. So that's two of each color. Sew right sides together with a scant 1/4" all the way around the block.  They also have coarse materials and direction you can print out over at Craftsy.   

Then after you set the seams, take it over to your cutting surface and  with your ruler cut diagonally from one corner to the other.

Then without moving your fabric, turn your ruler and cut diagonally on the other corners. 

Set your seams and press. I pressed all the seams to the dark, but I found that when I was turning them to make the balkan puzzle the seams were both going the same direction. So I had to re-press in order to make the seams lock. No biggie. Don't forget to clip your dog ear and be careful they all have bias edges. 

So here is the layout for the Balkan Puzzle. 

So I sewed the block in strips from left to right and then sewed the top two strips together and then the bottom two strips together. Then I joined the two halves together. Make sure each strip's seams are all going one direction and the next strip's seams are going the opposite direction. ETC. 

I loved this block!! It was a lot of fun to put together. 

Now Amy was right you have to be careful when putting this block together. It's not called the Balkan puzzle for no reason. I sewed the wrong side. I opened it up and thought that doesn't look right HAHA. I really like this block as well, but I decided to rip it out and do it right. 

That looks better :)

I'm linking up with Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story  

 Pop over and have a look around. There are some great projects posted. You might meet some new friends as well.

I hope your guys are having a wonderful Valentine's day!