Ohhhh I have been so involved with my purchases from my gift cards. I have burned out three of them at 250.00 a crack. Boy! was that fun hahhahahah. I ordered several knitting books and have been reading those and some quilting books and this very neat software (e-bay) that can take any picture and make it banner size if you want ...that has yet to arrive. Well one the books was a "Kaffe Fassett"..I love him..he is coloratic like me. Well he had this Clamshell quilt in his book (K.F. Museum Quilts). He has a copy of the muesum quilt and one he made with his fabric line (georgous) except for the workmanship. I know it's a difficult quilt to make and he must have been on a timeline for the book and he must have had someone make it...oh I'm rambling.

Anyway, I don't think I have ever seen the Clamshell done machine wise. I would never touch it...too much hand sewing. Well I kept going back to that quilt. There must be a way says I. Needless to say, I went to bed at 5 am. I did three work-ups. On the sewing machine of course, I used the template in the book first and it was a bear to get this far. I knew there was something wrong with the template but at that time in morning it didn't register.

Ok, then I thought..there must be an easier way. I opened up Block Base in my computer and searched for clamshells. I found two. Ahhhh, you can print them any size, now that's the ticket! The bigger the better? I did the one where you can see the tail of the previous row extending down into the next row..sorta like when you have a space between your front teeth?




Then I did the other one and this one has a pointed tail, like the one in the book. By this time I really had the hang of it and found the error on the original template. The seam allowance needed to be extended another 1/8 of an inch...picky, picky but it makes a difference. Mind you, all this on the sewing machine. I am so impressed with myself, I hug myself lol. In order to succeed with this pattern ..one has to have a lot of patience..but after sewing 35 of them together, I find it's is very doable. Now I dont' know which one I like the best...help!!!

There is fabric everywhere....these are decorative samples from the home decorating line. I have at least three bins worth..they are great for when I need to practice on blocks before going to my stash. ..never- the - less...these still turn into beautiful quilts. I waste nothing.




Then I went back to the orginal small clam and added another row with the new template and it went a lot easier.

The clam shell are made in a diamond shape and there are 49 clams (the original small size) in each diamond. I see he has about 6 diamonds and the half ones for the sides and tri's...oh boy!! but if I do the big ones? well let me poll you. Which one do you like the best. Which one looks the best or shows off the design the best. I also just read in the book that he and a student worked on it it and she did a great job of ironing out the kinks lol...he said it wasn't quilter quality....it looks good if you didn't look too close. I think the student did well for a quilt like this.

To top the day off ...Deco American sent me a huge box of all the latest fabric craze stuff...fashion beads, writers, new paint ..all fabric related (I'm still one of their helping artists)...I get to try all the new stuff. I will definately do something fun with them soon.