Quilting Gallery and A Quilt Guild Lesson

The Quilting Gallery has added my blog to their blog list. I am happy to be included in a great place to find lots of great quilting blogs!!

Check out the Quilting Gallery for some great ideas on lots of great quilting blogs!
http://quiltinggallery.com/quilting-bloggers/

Last evening I had the opportunity to give a lesson at a quilt guild. It is the first time I have taught at a quilt guild. I have allowed people in the past to have some of my info to teach their own guild.

So this was a first for me. I am not a great public speaker. My hands were shakey to start but once I started talking about my favorite subject  - My Boston Block - then it all came easily after that.
The ladies were all really wonderful and I felt very welcome there. I enjoyed sharing some of what I do with these great ladies.

I hope I can teach at a quilt guild again in the future. I love sharing what I learned and I want to expand the scope of sharing my shortcut methods with more quilters.

But the Lord will lead me in His will and I will go where He leads.

I am in the process of finishing up a wall hanging and a mini tablerunner. I also have a doll quilt to make for a swap on the Quilting Haven. I am going to try to finish these before I move on to other things. When finished I'll post pics of them.

Wishing you all Sunshine and Laughter!!  Rhonda

One of the things I love to make are Dresden Kaleidoscopes. These are fussy cut with a dresden plate template. I make my own template and then use it to mark the elements on the fabric so I can lift it and place it on the next repeat.

I used one of my Dresden Kaleidoscopes for the center of this doll quilt. I added a green border putting the center on point. then used the same fabric the Dresden Kaleidoscope came from for the 4 corner triangles.  I backed it with a light green print.

  This Doll Quilt went into the mail to my swap partner yesterday! I hope she likes it!!
   It measures about 16" by 16". The dresden kaleidoscope is 8"

                                                       

Wishing you all Sunshine and Laughter!! God Bless and have a great day tomarrow!!  Rhonda

                                                                                  

I developed some shortcut piecing methods I called the Cut Down Method.  Well I didn't think that was a very interesting name but couldn't come up with anything better. so Now I have.

I am now calling my cut down method -- Piece & Cut Method 

You see the process involves cutting fabric pieces and sewing them together and then cutting out the center with a template. It makes piecing quick and easy. and it also makes it possible to make minis without handling tiny scraps of fabric. You can use this method with a 1 1/2" template or a 4" or larger template if you wish. The method is easily adjustable.

Because you can make pieced squares with the seams already in the square this allows me to design some awesome quilt blocks that can be made easily with my P & C method!!

I have developed 8 different "Pieced Blocks" using this P & C Method.

Boston Blocks        Star Point Blocks      Kansas Dugout Blocks
Wings Blocks         Half Square Blocks   Drunkard's Path Blocks
4 Patch Squares      4 Patch Triangles    

I also use this method to do Bear's Paw and Trip around the World.

There are lots and lots of traditional quilt blocks that can be made using my designs.
One quilt block I have done a tutorial on to show how to do it my way is the Card Trick. It can be done with my Boston Blocks and one 4 Patch Square for the middle.

I use a 2 1/2" template or a 3 1/2" template to make a 12 1/2" unfinished quilt block.
I also offer many free original designs using my shortcut blocks.

I have many free tutorials using my methods that are free to copy off.

You can find my tutorials on my websites - I am still updating and adding to them so they are still in progress. I will be getting all of my stuff on there eventually LOL as I have time. Rt now they are spread over two quilt forums and two blogs.  My goal is to have them all in one place.

http://www.patchworkbyrhonda.com/  This will be my all in one place site. I do have quite abit on it now but will have it all on there soon.  My patchwork gift items are offered here as well as my acrylic templates. I have ebooks on my Boston Blocks / Star Point Blocks/ Wings blocks / and my Dresden Kaleidoscope Blocks available here as well.

http://www.bitsnpiecesworkshop.com/  This one is going to be my site for news and updates and anything I want to highlight. I am also thinking of doing some online classes here.

I also have written 23 lessons on using the EQ software programs. Electric Quilt Sofware. This is on EQ5  EQ6 and EQ7.

So if you are interested check out what I have to offer on my sites.



                                                                 Boston Block process

                                                                       Boston Block

Some Quilt Blocks made with my Boston Blocks

If you'd like to see how to make these quilt blocks just visit my Patchwork by Rhonda site

   

Mini Tablerunner

I'm going to try to keep up with my blogs a bit better I hope.
Thought I'd share a pic of my mini tablerunner I'm working on. I got the top finished last night and now I just need to back it and quilt it. I use the birthing method since I don't like to use binding. It does make it a bit harder to quilt it down tho. I only know how to do STID so it will be fine I'm sure.

This tablerunner unfinished measures 9" by 17" so will probably finish at 8 1/2" x 16 1/2"