A little bit design into my quilting

I was sitting on the soffa stiching a quilt and watching tv. On the table in front of me was an Aalto vase. There are several in every Finnish home, big ones, coloured ones... I put my notions one by one into the vase. It's perfect, the best sewing box ever. The threads don't tangel, every spool stays in it's own place. It's compact, you only take what you really need.

The vase was designed by Mr Alvar Aalto in 1936. He called it Eskimo Woman's Leather Trousers. We call it Aalto vase and aalto means wave. It's really versatile. 

Open seams and stash management

I have made two decisions.

Firstly, from now on I'm pressing my seams open. When I started qulting I always did so, but then I learned you have to press the seams towards the darker fabric. The batting would come through the seam or your toast would burn! Now I'm very relieved to read several quilt designers open seams. I'm happy! That means less bulky seams.

Secondly, I studied Teresa's Fabric Therapy blog and read about her stash organization system. Amazing! I could hardly sleep after that. I decided I have to re-organize my stash or should I say organice, because it's not organinized at all. Especially my scrap stash is a mess. The rumpled and frayed pieces are in two big baskets and I never use them, because they are not attractive at all.

I have lots of tiny half square triangles from flying geese blocks. When you sew an extra seam you get a little half square triangle. And I love flying geese blocks. I began by sorting and pressing them.

Straw star - how should I finish it

I have four straw star blocks ready, but no idea how to finish it!

Looking for a straw star

Sometimes you just have to sew something special. I had to sew a Christmas table runner of straw star blocks.

This is what you need

• 4 squares 6" dark fabric (sky, woods)
• 1 square 1" red fabric
• 8 strips 1x9" light fabric (straw)

Sewing

Cut the 6" squares diagonally in half. Sew the strips in the middle. Sew two strips and a red square together to form a long strip.

Trim the 6" squares  to 53/4".

Sew the long strips in place and the block is ready. The finished block measures 11½".

But, in fact this is not a star block, this is a himmeli block. Himmeli is a traditional Finnish Christmas decorations, made of straw. I'm have to try again!

This is what you need for a straw star

The strips diagonally in the middle of the 6" blocks have to be made of two fabrics: light (6") + dark (3").

 Now when you sew it all together it looks more like a star.

This is a straw star, a Finnish Christmas decoration, too. Light straw on dark sky or woods. The little red square is the yarn that ties the straws together.

Everybody's making baskets

Several members in our quilting group have been sewing  charming little basket blocks in our meetings. I've been looking for my basket for a long time. Now I have found it

There are beautiful antique baskets in the American Patchwork & Quilting issue August 2007.

I want to make my baskets in dark colours on white. I call them candy baskets. I cut one basket, the one on the left, and then  made a couple with two colors. That's my basket.