Welcome to Mountaintop Quilting Studio

This is where you find me exploring a variety of creative adventures mostly about but not limited to quilting. I'm a firm believer that one increases their creativity by being open to and playing with a variety of cretative endeavors ... at least that my excuse for today. Enjoy your sourjourn through my studio playroom. May you find encouragement and inspiration, and on occassion, a little pin-prick that may be thought-provoking or spark your imagination. Thank you for stopping by.

Ah a day for petting the fabrics, playing in the scrap bins, and getting a little bit ahead on the cutting for several different projects while I prep for Saturday's class using my pattern called MQS 112 DIAMONDS ON THE DOUBLE at Pumpkin Patch Quilts in Lee. Here's what I worked on cutting:

• First and foremost I cut the patches needed, both print and background for Diamonds on the Double. I will need several blocks as I will be making a king-sized bed quilt for Mike and me. I haven't decided yet if it will be a Winter or Summer quilt, but right now I'm thinking I will probably use a very light weight batting and make it a summer quilt. These colorful 30's reproduction prints just seem to fit a summery mood.
• I found that as I cut my prints for Diamonds on the Double across a fat quarter I had enough left at the end of the strip for the large square needed to make flying goose units using the Wing Clipper ruler from Deb Tucker.
• Sometimes when I opened up a fat quarter there would be a scrap left from previous cutting sessions just the right size for cutting more hexagons for my Engish paper-piecing project ... my scrappy flower scatter garden.

After I had a few patches cut I put together the stepout storyboard to illustrate each step of the process for making one 4 1/2" patch unit. Four patch units will be combined to make a complete block.

This is a patch unit that can sometimes be quite challenging to keep square with the 45 degree angle and the small corner square. My pattern shows you how to oversize and custom cut each of the patches so when you are on the last step you can trim away the small bit of wiggle room from the oversized cut and square the unit to the correct size.

I will be demonstrating different rulers showing the pluses and minuses of each when squaring up units like this one. These pictures show two of my favorites ... the Precision Trimmer from Marsha McClosky and the Tucker Trimmer 1 from Deb Tucker.

     Precision Trimmer                             Tucker Trimmer

Everyone "sees" ruler lines differently so I like to give my students options as to which ruler will work best for them.

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Comments

• Hi Kay Thoroughly enjoyed the class today. Tricky block but easily learned with your instructions, demonstration and explanation. Went home and finished cutting, lined the pieces up and tomorrow I hope to sew. Thanks - it was a fun day. See you on Tuesday. Jeanne
  by Jeanne on 10 April 2011 at 6:13 a.m.
• Hmmmm ... Hairy nutcracker???? Are you in my group? This could be interesting:)
  by Kay on 10 April 2011 at 6:12 a.m.
• I love the Precision Trimmer and feel only slightly guilty about not having my DD finished. It's been too much fun making hairy nutcracker blocks for the SS exchange. Great job on the storyboard.
  by Ruth Hofmann on 09 April 2011 at 5:20 p.m.

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