Houston Stars Block, foundation pieced

Block 9

I was surprised to realise this block needs two reds and two golds and uses half square triangles. I was going to draft a single shape.

Houston Stars Block 9

ouston Strs Block 13

Twisted Sister trimmings

I sewed the Twisted Sister trimmings into strip sets which I'll use as a separate project or to put on the back. I followed Bonnie Hunter's idea of sewing 'leader-enders" instead of thread savers so that this task didn't involve any extra work but served a useful purpose.
Suggest you check out Bonnie's
quiltville.com
site.
It contains a plethora of free patterns and useful advice. She has lots of fans.

Starting TWISTED SISTERS

3.5" Three cats and print fabric strips were sewn to 5.25" plain navy Oakshott strips.
The red squares are 3.5" square.

Twisted Sister strip set

Cutting the strip set at 4" intervals

Trimming the oblong 4" wide units using Ami's special tool

.

TWISTED SISTERS

In March 2007 as a 60th birthday present to myself I attended Ami Simms workshops at a Cabot Conference in Bristol. They were great fun and although I am showing my work here you really need the pattern to get the most out of this technique. Ami gives lots of variations and ideas for using these shapes and in her class we learnt still more, laughing all the time!
I was very pleased (for once) with my choice of fabrics: African indigo type prints by the Three Cats company and others (bought from Maggi Relph of the African Quilt shop on the internet and at shows), Oakshott shot navy cotton (the amount I had determined howmany blocks I could complete out here) and an old fashioned scarlet print.
I made several blocks on the day and brought one out here to Oz as an example and made 20 more. I'd like this quilt for our bed so will get some more of the shot cotton when I get back. They source their fabric from India very much on a fair trade basis and the colours and quality are lovely.
So this was my second task downunder now ready to post home.

Twenty blocks plus one

Twisted Sister units ready to go

Sewing around the centre square

The first "Sister" is

attachedwith a partial seam.

Last step

The partial seam

is ready to sew.

Single completed Twisted Sister block

PIECING PANSIES

This is a single pansy block designed by Billie Lauder. When I attended her class at Houston 2007 we all received a copy of her Bloomin' Beauties booklet with several pieced flower designs and suggested layouts. Very good value, I thought, especially as it was only a half day class.

Single pieced pansy block

Pansy in pieces

Pieced units ready

to go.

Next step

Adding the

sides