A Finish; A New Ruler; A One Monthly Goal; and a Fresh Start

Ha!Ha! How come it’s only Tuesday and there’s already so much going on in my New Every Morning quilty week? Honestly I am feeling the need to focus down; a whirling, undisciplined approach to all aspects of my quilty world can be rather disorientating and exhausting.
So, for the Finish of this post’s title: I’ve been making a Plus Sign quilt alongside teaching a beginners patchwork and quilting course at Purple Stitches (Viv designed the quilt and gave me a selection of Makower’s Kitty fabrics to play with). The final lesson of the beginners course is this coming Saturday when we’ll be making and attaching binding but I’ve run ahead – couldn’t wait to see the quilt bound in the coordinating stripy fabric.

A New Ruler: I like making Flying Geese blocks using the four at a time, no-waste method but find using a regular ruler to trim the units down to size quite fiddly. Last week I saw this demo on You Tube and decided to go ahead and purchase the ‘Wing Clipper’ ruler – I found it on-line at the appropriately named ‘The Running Chicken‘ quilt store. The parcel arrived today (at this point I have to proudly say I didn’t open the parcel until I’d finished the in-progress housework 🙂 ).
This afternoon I tried out the ruler making two sets of blocks: finished sizes 1″ x 2″ and 3½” x 7″. The leaflet that comes with the ruler has a cutting chart and very clear instructions (for right and left handed users). Cutting the pieces as per the chart gave a small amount of excess fabric around the units.

Using the ruler to trim the units was very easy. The ruler needs to be positioned on each unit twice and it takes just a matter of seconds to line up everything before cutting. Once trimmed the units are very precise and easily pieced 🙂
 
 

I am in the process of developing a block pattern that has Flying Geese units so I’m very glad to have the ‘Wing Clipper’ in my ruler collection (incidentally, if you type ‘wing clipper’ into your search engine you will be given links to articles about caring for chickens! 😀 ).
My One Monthly Goal... As I said in my opening paragraph I am feeling a need to focus. My goal is to make the Three Twenties quilt – piece, quilt, bind, finish AND write a tutorial. I’m starting with all twenty horizontal strips pieced but in need of pressing and arranging, so a way to go!
 
And the Fresh Start? Well! Here I go a bit sheepish and try to tell you about my on-line shop. Last year I didn’t promote my Etsy shop very well and, not surprisingly, didn’t sell many quilts, runners or tote bags. The shop ran down to empty as listings expired and I then made the decision to re-open a shop on the UK crafters site, Folksy, instead. Last month I went on a bit of an adventure and employed a local photographer, Maree Lock of Reflections Photography, to create images of ten quilts and eight runners. We spent a very chilly but enjoyable afternoon first hanging the quilts in quick succession on a photographers backdrop frame and then took plenty of other shots too.

You can click the shop button on the bar at the top of this post to get to my shop page and from there to individual listings or click over to my Folksy shop here. My goal for this year is to produce patterns of my designs to sell as hard and soft copies. This is my main LEARNING challenge of the year – but me and software… not a marriage made in heaven!
Whew! that’s my Tuesday round up. So happy to have a quilt finished 🙂 and be making progress in other aspects of this quilty life.
Linking with over a hundred other quilty bloggers at Elm Street Quilts for the March One Monthly Goal and with Connie at Freemotion by the River for Linky Tuesday.
Allison