Quilt Chaos

Test iPhone Post

2011-02-28T13:26:00.001-07:00

This is a pic of a restaurant booth that I think could be worked into a quilt pattern.

- Posted from my iPhone

Purse Post for Mom

2010-12-29T15:34:00.001-07:00

I have some pictures I'll post later, but here's the basic info on my bag.

I started with this pattern: http://tinyhappy.typepad.com/tiny_happy/2006/06/shoulder_bag_tu.html

Body: My finished bottom dimension is 14 inches where the pattern shows 17". Don't forget to add a seam allowance. I started out making an even bigger bag than shown, using 18" as the cut measurement, but found it more of a laptop/book bag size and not ideal for what I wanted. My next bag will actually be an inch or two smaller even. The cut height on the pattern is 10", my finished height is 11", again add a seam allowance to that. This shrinks some when you square up the bottom, my actual finished height is about 8.5".

Keep in mind when cutting patterned fabric that the "sides" of the pattern are the center of the finished bag and the center of the pattern is the ends of your bag. If you want to match up the pattern along that center seam, you'll need to lay it out carefully.

Strap length: I knew that I would be carrying the bag crosswise rather than on one shoulder so I made an oversize adjustable strap that I end up hardly ever adjusting. If I'm wearing something bulky I just put it under my coat. My strap is 27" from the top of the purse body to the center of the strap. If your fabric is cut fairly straight, you could get 25" of strap on an 11" cut body from a yard length of fabric and that's probably enough. My next version will have a patchwork strap, so I'm not worried about getting it all from one piece of fabric for the outside, only the lining. My strap finishes at 1 5/8" wide and I like that width which is much narrower than the pattern. Also, my curve from strap to body is more gradual, about a 6" radius for the circle (think dinner plate). I like that too and will do it again, I think it eases the transition to my narrower strap better.

Assembly: I wanted to have a pocket for everything, so my assembly involved quite a few more steps than the original bag. Follow the steps through sewing the front & back seams, but do not sew the bottom seam yet (bright blue on diagram). Also, I interfaced both of my fabrics which is not shown in the tutorial. Without an iron to fuse it, you'll probably need a sturdy fabric. Borrow an iron from someone at work or buy a cheap one, you only need it for a few minutes to fuse the interfacing to the flat pieces, but I use mine a ton when it comes to turning things prior to top stitching.

After stitching the centers, turn the lining so the right side of the fabric, the inside of the bag, is facing out and the centers line up (yellow dashed line). You will have something that looks roughly like the diagram below. Determine now how much you are going to square off the corner later. My bag is deeper than the pattern, I sewed my corner at 1.5 inches instead of 1". Don't sew the bottom or the corner, but you need to know this measurement now to place your pockets. Don't forget to allow for the bottom seam allowance, your RED vertical mark will be a seam allowance longer than your horizontal. I would suggest marking this with chalk or lightly with pencil so you can use it to place your pockets later.

Zippered pockets (purple line on diagram): this is the tutorial I used for the zippered pockets - http://u-handbag.typepad.com/uhandblog/2007/02/zippered_inner_.html If your machine does not have a zipper foot, you might be able to do this, or you can skip them. I like having them, they are huge inside my bag, I used 7 inch zippers and they go all the way down to the red horizontal line where the bag goes from side to bottom. If you are going to use a snap fastener later, make sure there is enough space between the purple line where you are placing your zipper and the top edge of the bag to allow for seam allowance, fastener and the width of your foot for top stitching. I would say about 2.5-3 inches. I put one on each side of the bag, centered on the seam. Make sure you fold the opposite side of the bag out of the way when you are stitching.

Open pockets: Cut two pieces of fabric for each row of pockets, I have them on both sides of the bag so 4 total. . Mine are 5 inches finished height, but your size will be determined by the size of your bag. Measure the area on your bag lining that matches up to the navy blue box on the diagram, add seam allowances, put the fabrics right sides together and sew around all 4 sides, leaving an opening for turning on one long side. Clip corners, turn right side out and top stitch along the long side with the opening only which will close it. Position each pocket with the top stitched edge towards what will be the top opening of the bag, with the bottom at or just above the horizontal red line, and pin in place. Fold back your zippered pocket and the far side of your bag and top stitch around the 3 remaining sides, attaching the pocket piece to the bag. This will give you one big pocket. I then sewed a few vertical lines on each side, dividing the pocket into sections for my wallet, notebook, pen, phone...etc. I found it helpful to have the items in front of me so I could get the sizes right. Keep checking to be sure that the zippered pocket and the far side of the bag don't sneak under what you are sewing. This will save you from time with the seam ripper later.

Fastener: at this point you can insert a magnetic fastener in the lining just above your zippered pockets. I used the center seams to make sure mine matched up. If you want a button & loop like the original pattern, this is the point where you go back to those instructions. Sew the bottom seam and the corners in the lining & outer fabrics and then follow the excellent directions for stitching up the rest of the seams, the strap and the opening in the lining.

Call me if you have any questions.

Lattice Quilt Finished

2010-10-04T10:07:00.001-06:00

I finally finished my Lattice Quilt from Mary Quilts. I don't often go with this trendy of a color scheme, but I love with the way it turned out. I will say that it was fussier than I expected getting the lattice corners to line up nicely. Finished size is 37x49. It's backed with the paisley in the border and machine quilted with a pantograph called "Surf's Up" which looked a bit like a very simple flower to me.

Rant about Food

2010-08-14T13:38:00.002-06:00

So the other day I was surfing the internet and came across a blog where someone was questioning whether Vegetarian or No Fat refried beans were the better nutritional choice. Genuinely questioning, asking for people's opinion. Not shocking.  They were pretty close...close enough that I would have shopped by price.

What I did find shocking was that easily 3 out of the 6 comments actually said that canned refried beans were too "processed" a food and they would never eat them, "people should just make their own" and "it's easy".   First of all, that wasn't the question. If you are going to leave some crappy wholesomer than thou comment that doesn't even address the question you're just being a jerk. Second of all, refried beans in a can are no more processed than refried beans you make at home. Our store brand ones don't even have any preservatives. Yes, at home you can better control salt & fat, but when your average person talks about eating fewer processed foods.....WE'RE TALKING ABOUT TWINKIES AND LIL SMOKIES!!!

End of rant. I need to go put refried beans and Twinkies on my grocery list, Lil Smokies are just too gross even for me.

Summer Time

2010-08-12T12:33:00.000-06:00

I don't know where the time goes in the summer, just 2 weeks left until school starts up for the boys. While almost no quilting has been going on, there have been other things.

Riding the Birthday Scooter until we collapse from heat exhaustion.

Driving the Jeep with the top down.

Napping in between destroying the backyard and the dog beds.
That was a TREE you idiot, not a chew toy.

Just plain napping because I'm perfect.

Tearing up the bike park BMX track.
No bleeding rule only violated by other people's children this day. HOORAY!

Going to dog training. Will they PLEASE teach the 60 pound dogs to jump in the truck on their own?

Sewing a tent. Remembering how planning ahead is important when the parts are 8 feet long.

Remembering how heavy canvas is.
Sometimes it's a dog crate, sometimes a sewing aid.
Hey David....I could use a bigger table. Wanna come to Denver?

And finally, slowly, working on quilting the Pink & Brown quilt.
Thank goodness she took the whole 12 week FMLA leave!

All these lovely photos taken with my new Canon Rebel T1i. No more broken camera!!

Design Wall Monday

2010-06-21T08:56:00.001-06:00

In an effort to post more frequently, keep myself moving forward on my projects and to celabrate going back on swing shifts and having the mornings to sew.....I'm going to try joining Judy's Design Wall Mondays. We'll be ignoring the fact that my design wall is a flannel duvet cover draped over a piece of plywood.

Today I'm working on this baby quilt using Mary's Lattice pattern.

Also, a quilt based on this pattern that is still at the test block stage.

Go to Judy's blog HERE to see other cool projects in progress.

Distractions

2010-06-08T16:03:00.001-06:00

Can I blame my recent lack of posting & sewing on these 3??

New dog, officially now 'Diesel' is the Weimareiner in the center. We found him running loose on the street and after some negotiation with Animal Control over how we should pay them to be allowed to keep him even though they never showed up to get him when we called, he's ours. He's put on about 5 pounds and could use 10-15 more before he's up to full weight. He and Cisco get along like brothers and even Princess Seli is tolerating him. Smaller furniture is in our future, our evenings are now a tangle of Weim & Pointer legs in a heap on the living room floor. The boys sleep in a pile which I've never seen before. Growing up we only had one dog and Seli never let the Cisco anywhere near her when she was sleeping even when he was a pup. I can't blame her, getting your ears chewed on is not so restful.

Retreat Weekend

2010-04-13T18:00:00.000-06:00

Just two more workdays and I'll be off to quilt retreat at the Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp. It's been a slow start to my sewing this year after dashing through those two quilts at Christmas, so I'm hoping for some inspiration and uninterrupted progress.

I've got a pink & blue & shirting Civil War Reproduction project started which will be my main project and a UFO Woodland Ohio Star which is based on this pattern from Judy L. I actually started with just the Ohio stars and was going to make a baby sized quilt, but that baby is already born and walking and I decided I needed to make it larger, so when I saw Judy's pattern I knew just what to do with those blocks that have been lying around. I am not going to make that border, just the setting blocks.

When I went to retreat in October I took 5 or 6 projects and worked on 2, this time I'm trying to pack lighter, but I was looking around the sewing room this morning for something already kitted up in case I need a third project. It's only two and a half days!!!

Ooooo Shiny Singer 201-2

2010-02-05T10:21:00.003-07:00

I have to say, I love Craigslist. This beautiful Singer 201-2 came to live with me last week. It has been re-wired already, but sits in what I believe to be the original cabinet and came with all the original accessories, the manual and even the original oil can & tube of motor grease. In the background of the second picture you can see the seat it came with also. Serial number indicates it was made between June 1938 & June 1939 based on the Singer website.

Here on the table you can see the worst of the water damage. On the wing side the veneer has lifted a bit and the finish is completely gone from both sides of the hinged area. This and needing to buy seam guide or marked needle plate are the only things keeping me from sewing on this machine right now. (Oh...and that icky working for a living thing.)

I think that large black thing with the spring is a knee lift, but I'm not sure. Anyone out there know?

Final 2009 Projects

2010-01-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

As promised, here finally are the pictures of the two quilts I finished at the end of December. This first one was given to my oldest son as a Christmas present. Although this quilt is my own design, a lot of inspiration, especially on the quilting, came from looking at quilts made by Jacqui at Tallgrass Prairie Studio.

This Whirlygiggle was given as a baby shower gift for a baby born yesterday. My many thanks to the numerous people who have posted this pattern and various tutorials. I needed fast and easy for a quilt made in the week between Christmas and New Year's and this certainly did the trick. I finished it on New Year's Eve and the shower was New Year's Day. The blocks are about 8 inches, making it around 40" square and it's quilted in all over 2" diamonds. The colors are a bit off in this picture, it was much brighter in person.

2010 Begins

2010-01-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

It was a busy end of the year, 2 quilts finished and the sewing room rearranged. Pictures up soon.

Lone Star Top Complete

2009-10-20T08:30:00.006-06:00

I mitered the borders and everything. Actually, to be honest, the mitered border part was an accident, but it turned out great. I was worried about the 2 inch border squares stretching apart at the seams, so I put the black borders on both sides of them....then realized that the only way to make a nice box with the colored part would be mitering. Aside from a bit of shock over just how much extra border I needed, I was pleasantly surprized by the whole process and I love the result. Now I need to get something for the back and figure out how I want to quilt it. Playing dogs & playing with Picasa Collage.

Good News

2009-10-14T10:31:00.005-06:00

The cable for connecting the camera to the PC re-appeared last weekend while we were frantically cleaning the basement for company on Saturday and even better, I can get pictures off the camera with it even though all our card readers say the data is corrupt. So the camera will work for around the house photos, I will just have to be very careful about taking it places as the shutter is still stuck open.

Here is a picture of the box with the parts for the circle quilt from last week. There are more circles than 53 now as I cut more and pieced a couple more 16 patch sections over the weekend. I also found some fabric in my stash with strawberries on it and added a few bits to the mix, messing with my perfectly counted piles of 16. Progress on this quilt now totals 2 complete 16 patch sections, 2 that need a bit more top stitching when I swap thread colors, all the center fabrics cut & divided into groups of 16 (plus a couple spares) and somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 circles cut.

I left the picture full sized, so you should be able to click on it for a larger copy & under the box you can see a bit of the design for the one quilt I'm sewing for Christmas this year. The test block is made & all the parts cut & bagged up for retreat at the end of the month. The recipient has no internet access, so I'm ok with showing a preview here.

Too much time at the computer & hunched over the sewing machine has caused some swelling in my right shoulder, so I've been poking around folding and tidying in the sewing room rather than jumping in on a big project while I wait for it to heal. I've been trying to pay better attention to my posture & really need to get a sewing table that puts my machine at a better height, but I just haven't loved any that I've seen (unless of course they are way beyond my budget).

Red & Black Hearts Finish

2009-10-04T16:00:00.003-06:00

You'll notice on the sidebar that Red & Black hearts are finished. Finished & gone even. I didn't really like this quilt once I got towards finished. My murky hearts are no reflection on the original design. Perhaps if I'd followed the directions better......
Add in the fact that red & black is just not my favorite color combination and you can say I was relieved to take the finishing stitches in this one and send it off to a friend's house for her dog to snuggle with. Camera is still not working, so that's a picture from my phone. Being kinda out of focus was actually good to this quilt!!

Red & Black Hearts approx 40"x44", set in vertical strips with red with white stripes. Background & side borders black with red gingham hearts. Top & bottom borders white with tiny red polka dots. Backed with a cheater quilt fabric in 2 inch squares that coordinate with the printed hearts on black. Quilted in red, diagonal lines 2" apart. Bound with straight strips of red with white stripes. No label .

Mostly working on organizing projects for an end of month retreat this week. How many do I need for 3 days?

Olfa Circle Cutter

2009-09-22T08:01:00.005-06:00

I've walked past this thing 16 times at the quilt show with the serene knowledge that "I don't do circles so I'll never need one." But then the internet spit out a circle quilt that's all sewn in straight lines and suddenly I needed 576 circles. I cut the first 48 by hand....then I whined and Don let me buy this and I cut 53 more in less than an hour. (edit: yes, originally this quilt was smaller)

I've also made other progress on the quilt, cutting all the remaining center squares and organizing them into piles of 16 so there aren't too many close together repeats, but you'll have to trust me on that one as I can't get the pictures out of the camera. I can't find the cable to direct connect the camera to the PC, and all 3 of my card readers reject the card. We did have an incident with the camera on the last camping trip, but I thought we had recovered from dropping it to the muddy ground at the lake shore. Darn.

We'll make do with this one I stole from Olfa.

Hancock's Catalog

2009-09-13T08:43:00.002-06:00

Just received my first order from Hancock's of Paducah. I hate to order online because a) I can't tell what the exact color or scale will be most of the time b) I'm an instant gratification freak and c) I like to support my local shops. But this time it was discontinued fabric and I already bought out my local shop, so I had to go online. Anyway, the order came and it was perfect......but in the bag with it was the MOST FABULOUS CATALOG. 165 pages of oohh & aaaah and I want that!! I'm sure I'm the last person in the whole world to see this, but just in case I'm not......go online & order this catalog. Quick, before you do your Christmas shopping and run out of money.

New Project & Labor Day Camping

2009-09-10T10:46:00.002-06:00

For the last couple of years I have been saving jeans as they are grown out of or have too many holes and I've accumulated quite a pile and thought I had enough to start a quilt with them. I found a pattern online and started. I hoped to kill the pile of jeans and also make a dent in my scrap bin. My circles are fairly small because some of the jeans I'm using are very small, making this project a bit daunting. The idea is to have a picnic sized blanket when I'm done so I'm aiming for 441 circles. After doing that math and counting pairs of jeans.....I don't have enough pants. I have a little bit of new denim, but also am going to need additional pairs from friends and family, so if you have them....send them over. I'll also take 5 inch square pieces of fabric for the centers if you have something you'd like to donate to that.

This is not a quilt. This is my new toy. After years and years of wanting a Jeep we finally bought me one. I wasn't supposed to get this until the Spring, but it was a good deal and we couldn't pass it up. 1973 CJ5, original 304 V8, 3 speed manual transmission and NO BRAKES. We towed it home, but have cruised it around the neighborhood a bit and will work on getting it to stop here in a couple of weeks so I can drive it for the last bits of nice weather.

We picked up the Jeep on our way back from camping over the Labor Day holiday weekend. We got a Colorado State Parks pass this year for the truck, so we've been trying out a new park every month. This was Rifle Gap State Park over on the Western Slope. The weather was lovely, but the fishing not so much and the lake shore very squishy and slimy with clay based mud. The dogs did a little swimming, but no one else really got in the water.

Disgruntled boys in camp chairs.

Cisco does great as long as he has his blankie.

Actual Quilt Content

2009-08-18T08:40:00.003-06:00

Two posts in one day, shocking I know, but this one is actually about quilts.

The Kindergarten quilt took me most of my free time in May and is the fastest cut to quilted work I've ever done. That said, there are things I would have done very differently.

The first step on this quilt was to have each child draw a picture with crayons on a square of white fabric. Then they picked strip for the right and bottom sides of their block and I sewed them on there in the classroom. I used the Kona 200 thread count bleached white muslin. I've been using this fabric for my white and cream for a while and really like it.

I started my part with Tonya's free pieced letters. Aside from a few test letters from the scrap bin, this was my first attempt and her tutorial is fantastic. I was really happy with how these turned out. In the second picture below you can see a little bit of the dates that I included in the side borders, just the years 2008 & 2009.

The bottom border with the points made itself late one night. I would do a border like that again, but not the way I did it. I broke every quilting rule there is on that one and had to rip the stitching out twice. In order to make it work, I ended up sewing that section to the batting & backing right sides together like a pillowcase, then flipping it out and putting it on the quilting frame bottom end first.

I also would not use the crayon on fabric technique again. Despite multiple ironings prior to washing, I lost a ton of color in my shortest cold water wash cycle. Despite the potential for drama with permanent ink, I would have the kids use Sharpies if I do this again. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole top, it looks wrinkly instead of quilted, but each square was quilted to coordinate with the art and the sashing & borders have curlicues. I paper pieced the heart for the bottom right since I was short a block with only 19 kids in the class.

It was so neat to work with the kids and they all had stories to tell about their family members who sew or quilt. They were pretty young, but I would hope they all took home the possibility of sewing themselves some day.

Below is the "before" of the Flag Day Farm disaster that is keeping me from the sewing room. I'm going to tackle this now before I let anything else distract me. Well, I might need some coffee first.....and I should run the vacuum......and walk the dogs!!! I don't know what I was thinking, I really DON'T applique.

p.s. Did you know Blogger thinks "sashing" and "Kona" are typos?? Crazy! They need to hire a quilter out there at Google.

Gratuitous Puppy Video

2009-08-18T08:28:00.002-06:00

We got a puppy about 3 weeks ago. Once you get over the teeth on everything and the not sleeping through the night, they are pretty cute.

Stuck

2009-08-06T17:19:00.002-06:00

It's been a busy summer and not a lot of sewing going on. I did finally break down and buy a jelly roll of Flag Day Farm fabric. I've been wanting some for a while and usually by the time I've decided to buy it's too late and everyone is out of stock. I made a small top, completely pieced with borders and all and decided I didn't like it, so I tore it apart intending to applique the center part that I liked onto a background and then re-use my borders around that. Funny thing, until I had it all picked apart I "forgot" that I don't applique!!!! So now that project is sitting in a heap on my cutting table and staring accusingly at me every time I go in the sewing room. It makes it difficult to start anything else.

I did finish the kindergarten quilt before the school year ended and will post a picture soon, hopefully before the new school year starts.

Bits & Pieces

2009-04-16T07:33:00.006-06:00

I've been sewing, just not really making progress on anything substantial.

I finished the first 6 grocery bags and have actually remembered to use them for the last 3 weeks. Despite my plastic bag average of 11 per weekly trip, I don't think I'll need that many cloth ones. Either they hold more or the baggers fill the space more efficiently. I think a little of both. I have fabric out on my cutting table for a few more, but they are boring and that sure saps the motivation.

I got the corner pieces on the Lone Star, going with black, but I still have another couple feet of border to piece and then attach. No pictures of that yet.

My birthday came and I got to open the presents I told my husband to buy.
A Curve Master presser foot... ...which helped me with my first ever Drunkard's Path block.

And this book, inspired by this blog. And that green piece which is pretty typical of everything I've been sewing for the last few weeks.......half a good idea made up of scraps from my overflowing parts bin and destined to return there for the immediate future.

I'm not sure where my motivation has gone, but I hope it comes back soon. I signed up for a class with Jackie Robinson at the Denver National Quilt Festival and have picked & washed my fabrics, but still have a bunch of cutting to do.

I also have most of the parts cut for a quilt to make with my youngest son's Kindergarten class. Just need a few more fat quarters that I'll pick up this weekend.

Goodies

2009-03-19T17:03:00.003-06:00

I stood over my husband last night, even lent him my debit card (his got eaten by the ATM last weekend) and he got my birthday presents ordered. Week after next I'll be "surprised" by them and have cool new sewing things to play with and a new CD to listen to while I sew. Even better, got an email from my Mom today that my folks will be HERE for my birthday. Now that's a fantastic present.......except for the cleaning that must be done. My house is always so dusty. I really wish we had grass in the backyard instead of dirt.

Late night at the quilt shop tomorrow and a whole day with no work to prepare for it. I hope I have some progress on quilty things to report after that.

Curtains

2009-03-16T07:18:00.002-06:00

No quilting going on this weekend, but I did manage to finally put together something other than raw edged pieces of fabric to cover the front window. We've only lived here 3 years!!!
After much pacing back and forth in the decorator fabric section of Joann's we decided on this stylized floral. Pretty proud of the redneck, he was leaning heavily towards stripes and hates green so this was a big stretch for him.

2009-03-05T06:33:00.007-07:00

I've been sewing, but not making real progress on anything that's worth a picture yet.

I finished playing around with the design for the brown & peach quilt in EQ6 and I realized I need more of the solid peach and a couple full yards of one brown for the setting triangles.....but I haven't been able to shop.

The weather in Denver has also been preventing much weekend sewing. If I could have anything I wanted with this house it would be a sewing room that wasn't in the basement. Spring is definitely doing it's best to make an early showing here and I don't want to miss it down in my cave. Nothing in the UFO pile can compete with the pull of the garden in Spring.

I'm also looking for a pattern that makes use of the Tri Recs rulers. I have an unopened set in my drawer that's been down there so long I don't even remember buying them. If you know a good one, let me know. Last year I learned how to use the Easy Angle and now I use it all the time, I can't imagine how it could have sat in a drawer for so long. Now the Tri Recs looks at me accusingly every time I reach in there for the other one.

Two for One

2009-02-23T08:03:00.005-07:00

The weekend before last I had 3 days off and managed to get the Valentine Log Cabin top completed. Don hates it. The crooked lines really bother him, but he says I can still put it on our bed when it's quilted. I think he's hoping it will just vanish into the bins of unfinished things, but while I'm not 100% happy with it, I do love the pink & green combination and the way your eye just wanders on it. I had to take a picture draped over the bed because there wasn't anyone home tall enough to hold it.

This weekend was a shopping weekend. First, on Saturday we bought me a new desktop, my old one had a bad power supply and a chip set that would not upgrade to Vista. This is my first brand new PC ever, normally Don builds me something out of spare parts or buys a refurbished box and upgrades what I need. Pretty exciting.

More exciting was that there was budget for fabric this week. I finally got the black for the Lone Star corners and I also got a white for the back of the Valentine quilt. I think I have batting for both already. Then I needed something new to inspire me.

These peach & browns will be trees. I picked out the design already, but was having so much fun playing with them that I haven't cut yet.
This pile doesn't have a plan yet, but I just had to have the heart fabric and was amazed to find that stripe with the same weird yellow green. They really do match in person.

Friday night was another UFO sewing night at the quilt shop and I didn't really accomplish much. Since I was kind of in between projects with the finish on the Valentine top, I messed around with some baggies of things that I found in a bin and also with these heart blocks that are a simplified (fewer fabrics/smaller block) version of the heart pattern I saw here. I'm not super thrilled with the black edged ones. This picture is very tiny here, but you can click for a very large version. I need to re-load my photo editing software on this new PC as I could not figure out how to re-size them in Vista.

Before anything else, some more clean up of the sewing area needs to happen. The only flat surfaces available for picture taking this morning were my ironing board and my chair. Yikes!

Oops!

2009-02-10T20:42:00.002-07:00

After messing & fiddling & un-stitching and re-stitching for what seemed like half my life, I finally got two rows of the Valentine blocks together.....only to find that I've sewn the E section on upside down. Doh!! On the plus side, all of the blocks are done even though I ran short of greens and had to leave off the last side of some of the blocks. The size difference is only 1 green strip, so 2" or so. This is making the putting together a little more creative than I'd expected, but it's working out since the blocks I shorted are all set between whole ones and I have plenty of burgundy left to use for filler.
I love the green & pink & burgundy combination and I already see big areas to play with new quilting ideas building themselves in the design. Since this quilt is going to stay here with me, I intend for it to be a machine quilting practice piece and don't expect than any two blocks will be quilted the same. So many good patterns & ideas for quilting float around out there, I need to expand beyond diamonds and stippling. Here's a shot of where I'm leaving it for tonight. Maybe there will be time to pull those 4 blocks out before work tomorrow.

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

2009-02-01T14:55:00.002-07:00

...for a school project.

Next week is my Kindergartner's 100th day of school and he was tasked with finding 100 of the same item to count and bring to school. I was all for buying him two rolls of pennies at the bank and being done, but my sarcastic husband told him that I had "at least" 100 pieces of fabric downstairs and that's what he should take. And it stuck. So we picked 100 different pieces out of the scrap bin and I spent my Sunday morning making this for him.

Now back to the Valentine quilt and possibly some football or commercial watching.

No Sewing Weekend

2009-01-26T07:31:00.003-07:00

Last week I managed to get a few more rounds on the Valentine quilt during the week, but I didn't get to sew at all this weekend. I also think I might have over estimated just a bit when I said I was halfway done with the blocks last week. As of this morning I have 4 of the 25 blocks fully sewn, but not squared up. The other 9 blocks that have the panel centers need 1 more round of strips and the 12 paisley centered blocks need 2 rounds each. Not bad.

What could be more important than sewing? My front door. Week before last Don slammed the front door and it bounced back and ripped the strike plate and a big section of door jamb out. My suggestion was we use the dead bolt to lock the door for a few weeks while we saved up for the really nice door I've been eyeing. Unfortunately Don can be a little stubborn. He wanted to replace the jamb immediately. So last Friday he went off to the Blue home improvement store and bought the stuff he needed to repair it and instead of just replacing the piece that was damaged he decided to take out all 3 pieces "so they would all be new." I have to say, my husband will whip through car repairs that make me want to suck my thumb and replaced my sewing room light switch when the old one kept blowing the basement breaker and I had given up and was calling electricians, but he generally leaves 90% of things cooking and wood related to me. I'm not necessarily better, but I watched my Dad do a lot of stuff and all those hours of HGTV are good for something. I got home last Friday evening to find that I had no front door, no door jamb, no exterior trim and a husband who was too frustrated and cold to re-install the door and had broken some of the existing pieces getting it out. Did I mention that we had no front door and it was about 25 degrees?

Leaving the oldest boy behind to guard the house we went out in search of a pre-hung door. No luck finding the right size at the Blue store, but we got lucky at the Orange store. There was the correct size door on clearance for $69. Of course it looks like an apartment door, all plain and ugly, but it was the right price and we actually got it in the hole last Friday night and the majority of the gaps sealed up. This week I bought new exterior trim and have been painting it in the kitchen, but I'm afraid the painting of the exterior part of the door is going to have to wait. Every time I have time, the weather is too cold or too wet. Last week when I had to work....gorgeous, sunny, 60 and 70 degree days that would have been perfect for painting. Of course Don is banned from painting...........

What To Do With An Extra Day Off

2009-01-19T21:56:00.003-07:00

Sew of course.
I started a new project yesterday. Not the project I had intended, but one I've been sitting on for a long time. It all started with a Moda Valentine panel from 3, maybe 4 years ago. I remember being married when I bought it, so it's no more than 6 years old. Periodically I would pull it out and remember that I'd bought something that went with it and the parts kind of piled up in a bin. I actually intended to steal the pinks and greens for another project, but after doodling around in EQ6 for a while I decided to do what I'd always intended and make a random Log Cabin with some blocks centered with the panel squares and some centered with a pink/green paisley.
Log Cabins go so fast, I'm already about halfway done with the rounds. These are finishing in the 16-18 inch range so it will be a roughly queen sized quilt when I'm finished. I had more variety in the greens, so the pinks are all cut in roughly 3" strips and the greens are 2". I wanted them to finish pretty square but still very, very relaxed, so I cut the strips and centers about 1/4" out of square and try to keep them from going too crooked in any one direction on each round.

I had good intentions of getting lots done today as there was no school and I was home with the boys. My sewing machine had other ideas...running out of thread on one block and bobbin on the next! Add in the shouting from upstairs "He hit me!" "He was touching my stuff!" and I think I'm going to go trade my scissors for a shot glass and a TV remote.

Oh, don't forget to check out the cool pink & green stripe in the first photo that will be the binding because I needed a good excuse to buy it this morning.

A Star is Born (Mostly)

2009-01-18T14:35:00.003-07:00

I've completed piecing the star for my Lone Star and am auditioning background fabrics, currently leaning heavily toward black. I'm really pleased with how this turned out, expecially since I was hating piecing diamonds around 10 o'clock this morning. Really the only thing that kept me from dumping this in a drawer was my goal of finishing everything I start this year. The center is even flat. Well, mostly flat. Flatter than I had expected, given that the long seems all seemed to need a lot of adjusting to make the seams match (again "mostly" is the key word here).
I don't have the black for the background, so this is being set aside until payday. But only until payday, I promise. I think I'm going to pull some fabric I've been saving and start on a slightly edited version of this quilt.

On a side note. I'm bad with titles. In fact I can sit here an type for hours and then my brain just freezes up when the time comes to put on a title and then it's either unreasonably dorky (see above) or gives no clue as to the content of the post. Do you write the title first or last?

Night at the Quilt Store

2009-01-11T08:00:00.004-07:00

Last night was UFO night at the quilt store. While I've never taken any regular classes there, I really enjoy these nights as a way to spend relatively uninterrupted blocks of time sewing, as well as getting to see what other folks are working on and what's new in the world of fabric. We ate and sewed and shopped a little from 5pm to midnight and I got a lot done on the first quilt of 2009.

I also realized that I set no goals or resolutions for this year. I'm not a resolution kind of person, but I do want to set a goal for the year that NO quilt started in 2009 will become a UFO. I've added a list to the sidebar where I will add a list of each project I start. At this point the definition of "start" is going to be when I cut fresh fabric for something that has no parts partially sewn already. I might add that any UFO projects I pick back up have to be completed too, but there's some unsewing intensive stuff in that bin and we all know how fun that is.

The store that hosts these evenings is one of my favorite quilt stores ever. Someday, when I have a shop of my own, it will look remarkably like High Prairie Quilts inside and if I get really lucky I'll find staff as welcoming and helpful. For anyone reading this in the Denver metro area, it's also their Open House sale weekend, with 20% off all the regular priced stuff and 15% off classes. (I'm going back this morning for some fabric.)

This Lone Star is the quilt I'm working on right now, I cut it last weekend so it's the first quilt on that sidebar list. Last night this went from a baggie full of diamonds to what you see below. Two sets of strips are sewn together which is hard to see in the picture. I'm being careful about matching the corners, but not obsessive, so it's going pretty fast. I was 5 pink diamonds short last night, luckily I have another piece of that. I should have known I was short as the blue fabric had to move up the design as I didn't have enough and the pink was also a fat quarter, I just had two.It was an interesting night at home while I was gone quilting, but that's a story for a post AFTER breakfast.

The End of 2008

2009-01-03T14:06:00.005-07:00

OK, so 2008 ended several days ago, but we were travelling and had no Internet for the past few days.

We spent Christmas at home in Colorado, opening a mountain of LEGOs, eating a half batch of Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls & then cleaning up, cooking and eating a very nice dinner of ham with friends & family.

Our plan for the rest of the holiday week had been a leisurely weekend of packing, then driving to Port Townsend to spend a couple of days with my folks. Christmas day, when talking with my dad, he mentioned that we should come earlier than planned as everyone else was arriving a day before us. Friday morning the weather forecast for Denver was 10 inches of snow. We rushed the packing, fueled the truck and begged the kennel to take the dog a day early, allowing us to hit the road around noon. We traded drivers every 200 miles or so and drove straight through to Poulsbo, WA in 26 hours. Despite the horrible forecast, Colorado & Wyoming were dry & windy and we didn't start hitting nasty snow until western Montana, but it lasted right through to Snohomish Pass just before Seattle. Frankly, I'm not sure they got any snow in Denver as our whole yard melted while we were gone.

We saw this Blazer in the parking lot at lunch one day on our trip. It didn't even have a lift, but someone needed a step up. I hope they didn't see me giggling & taking pictures.

While in the Northwest, we stayed 2 nights in Poulsbo, then 3 more at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend. Both are cute little touristy towns. Poulsbo has a quilt shop, so I picked up a tiny bit of fabric and a couple of magazines to entertain myself as there was no TV to go along with the previously mentioned lack of Internet and in my rush of packing I didn't bring a single book.

We visited with my parents.....and with my Dad's side of the family. It had been 7 years since I had seen most of them so they had never met my husband or the youngest boy.

We had an uneventful drive home and picked up my girl from doggy jail this morning. She's home and all cozied up to her "blankie" in the basement where she likes to hang out with us.
Now the holidays are over and some deadline free sewing can commence.

The Weather Man Lies...

2008-12-08T19:37:00.002-07:00

...because "up to 5 inches of late afternoon snow" sounds so much better than "Horizontal, freezing rain starting 30 minutes before rush hour."

One of my favorite things about living in Colorado is the snow. Growing up on the Central Coast of California snow was a rare and magical treat we usually only saw after hours in the car. I feel blessed that, even though I drive in it 4 months out of the year now, snow has never lost it's magic for me.

Two Finally Finished & Snow

2008-12-08T07:34:00.003-07:00

I've been doing a lot more sewing the last couple weeks than I had time for earlier in the fall. I'm 98% finished with my Christmas sewing and that's freed me up to quilt.

This quilt finally got it's binding and first wash. It still doesn't have a name as I rarely name them. These are the first set of blocks from Bonnie Hunter's Orange Crush mystery. It hung on the back of my quilting frame fully quilted for a long time. Until I washed it I really didn't like the batting I used. It was unpleasantly stiff and weighed too much for the relatively small size of the quilt. I finally bound it with store bought navy blue binding just to finish it and then after it was washed I fell back in love with the quilt. It softened up, got some drape back and then puffed and crinkled just right. It was also my first attempt at a pantograph. Next time I will mark better for more even spacing of the rows of quilting. I'm also considering a free hand stipple between the rows next time. I really like the texture that comes from closely spaced quilting when it's washed.

Here is a close up of the corner with the extra blocks. I don't like the way the purchased binding is wider than the seam allowances elsewhere and covers a portion of the design. It is convenient to not have to press my own, but I need to either allow for a wider final border or suck it up and turn on the iron.

I also finished this baby quilt in time for seeing her again on Thanksgiving. I misplaced the intended peach backing fabric in my pig sty of a sewing room and ended up backing it with white flannel and am really happy how that turned out. It is quilted with random stippling and loops. The flannel back also stretched a bit during quilting which allowed me to work around the very less than flat edges. This is a Bonnie Hunter pattern also, but I completely skipped the directions on how to do the borders so they didn't make waves like that since the edges of the blocks are on the bias.

My sister called me from Hawaii yesterday, on her way home from days & days of snorkeling. I'd call her something nasty, but it was good to hear from her even if it's going to snow here again today. Our part of Denver got it's first snow in November. it was token snow that melted by lunchtime and was the latest in the year for "first snow" since I moved here. We got some more serious snow last week and it was beautiful, movie set snow, all fluffy and sparkly. I'll hope for more of the same for this afternoon. The picture is the morning of the first snow, I had taken the day off as the boys were out of school and we visited the Celestial Seasonings tea factory up in Boulder.

Next on the table in the sewing room is a quilt that actually has a name. I'll leave you with that teaser......it's name is "Doggie in the Window." (Now you know why I don't bother to name them.)

We're Back!

2008-11-05T07:09:00.002-07:00

A fantastic time was had by all in Florida. And also in New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri & Kansas. We put just over 4600 miles on my Jeep in 5 days on the road (3 out & 2 back). The boys have seen more states in their 5 & 10 years than I saw before I was 19.
We visited the beaches at Cocoa & Daytona. My non-swimming boys surprised me. Both were more than ready to tackle the ocean and the swimming pool. They might be growing out of their fear and ready for lessons that won't involve screaming on their part and embarrassment on mine.

They all participated in a "pit road challenge" while we were at Daytona, teaming up to change a tire in 20 seconds. The tour of the track was shorter than the one Don & I took last year, but the boys enjoyed it and we were once again lucky enough to have cars on the track racing that they got to see.
Of course the pinnacle of the trip was Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The day was everything I could have wanted to my kids first trip to Disney. We arrived in time to be sung into the park by the opening crew, rode every ride we were tall enough for, scrambled all over Tom Sawyer Island, watched the lighted parade & the fireworks, and collapsed into happy sleep 11 hours later.

Countdown

2008-10-15T07:15:00.003-06:00

11 days left to vacation...we haven't taken a vacation with the whole family in over 4 years and some days I wonder why we started with Disney instead of a nice week camping in the mountains. Beyond driving from Colorado to Florida, there's the sheer amount of stuff involved in taking a family of 4 anywhere. Because we wanted to make sure we have actual relaxing days, we are staying for 8 days in Florida, but we only bought 2 day Disney tickets. This gave us days for the beach on both the Gulf and Atlantic side, a day for Daytona so the kids can see the race track and a whole day with nothing planned ahead in case we hear about or see something down there that we really want to do.

It's also a relief that we split up some of the planning. I gave Don a dollar figure and we set up direct deposit to split off a small amount each paycheck to another account. He's then pushed any extra from our regular budget over there too. Periodically he'll bring out his planner and we'll go over whether we're on track. It's been a completely painless way to save for something that seemed huge when we laid it out. So when we drive away next Friday, we just switch debit cards to the "vacation" account. In turn, I set up the condo we're staying at, bought all the various tickets and took on the packing lists. That last one...to be honest, he wasn't going to make a list, but he sure likes having one to check off when we're loading the car!!

I'll try to get one more post in before we go, might even have sewing to report if this weekend goes better than last.

That's not a quilt!

2008-09-29T07:02:00.004-06:00

Once again held up by the baby quilt I didn't want to make, I didn't sew for almost a week. I made up for it last weekend, but I'm tired of being hostage to this quilt.

I've been saving this tiny piece of batik rayon forever and was super excited to find a pattern that would work for it. The ribbon threads through casings on the top front & back and creates the straps and the bow at center front. I have a wider velvet ribbon that I'm going to put through and then stitch down...which isn't in the pattern, but I think this fabric migrates around on the ribbon more than the heavier weight of a dress will and I'm not 100% comfortable with the whole thing being held on with that little bow. The dress isn't finished yet, but on the list for this coming weekend. Also made this cute zipper purse. It's made from a dark rinse denim and has turquoise lining & stitching. It also has a padded pocket for electronics on the inside, making it a camera bag on a very long strap.
And finally the quilt top. This is a Quiltville pattern called Hidden Spools, not scrappy like Bonnie's, but made using her directions for the strip sets. Still to be quilted and bound, but it zipped together too fast for me to be cranky about it.
I didn't make this last thing...I bought it. But I didn't kill it yet and love the red color of the leaves that didn't show up so well here. Fall is in full swing here in Colorado, cool nights and lovely, not too hot days. I was going to crop out the foot high weeds at the bottom so my Dad wouldn't see, but then we mowed and weeded and tidied up the front yard so I don't feel quite so bad about the weeds in the back.
24 days to vacation...

One down, one to go

2008-09-14T22:47:00.003-06:00

It's been a long week, all of my sewing being the ripping apart & finishing of this Flamingo quilt for early Miss Rebecah Jane who was born on Thursday instead of sometime next month. The bird itself is from a Billie Lauter book, "Guess Who's on My Quilt."

I adjusted the head on one and the legs on another, then played with their lineup in EQ which led me to a color change. These guys originally had a white background with the floral birds on their test run and I had bought the blue fabric to use with hand dyed flamingos for the actual quilt. But...the hand dyed pinks looked too similar to the blue "sky" fabric and a whole lot of the charm of the test birds was the floral pink. The color change involved taking apart 1 whole & 2 half flamingos, but I am really happy with the result.

The background fabric is a piece from my Mom, that explaining the tropical Hawaiian print that I would not normally have chosen, but it goes remarkably well with the warm weather birds on the front and was incredibly soft.
It's machine quilted in 1.5 inch diamonds (which went really fast) and bound with a very narrow solid pink. My only regret is that the width of the background prohibited me from putting a strip of blue on the left & right sides to keep the birds more contained, but it also would have made the overall dimensions even wider and it already felt too wide to me in relation to how tall it was.
I would absolutely use this pattern again, 3 rows of 4 flamingos would be a nice size for a twin size bed and I do have 2 of those upstairs that I could cover. I have plans for the dog from this book on a future project, but still have 1 more baby quilt to complete before vacation in October.

More quality time with the seam ripper is pending...I've changed the design on the argyle quilt too.

progress at last

2008-09-01T15:52:00.004-06:00

I'm done with the quilting on the first set of Orange Crush blocks. I really need a better name for this quilt...right now it is being referred to at home as the Jeanette quilt in reference to the intended recipient. Since I found no navy binding lurking in my bin and I don't want to cut up the rest of that fabric just yet, binding & washing will have to wait, but I can move on for now.
I didn't want these extra 4 patches to feel lonely in the (overflowing) scrap bin so they got to be part of the border.

And this is what's next:

I've been wanting to do something with 1930's reproduction fabrics for a while so I bought a jelly roll at the quilt show earlier this summer. I don't think I'll do that again. I felt very constrained by the limited size of of the strips. I think I would have been better served by a set of fat quarters, but the strips did work nicely into diamonds and the pieced diamonds will be set with alternating plain ones in a scrappy argyle pattern.

I pieced a lot of these diamonds as leader/enders while putting together the Not Orange Crush top which I don't normally do. First, my day job involves a lot of multi-tasking, so I like to avoid it at home as much as possible, and secondly my space is pretty limited and I'm not very neat so having two WIP projects out at once makes a huge mess and makes me want to retreat to the other side of the basement and surf the internet instead of sewing. In the normal course of things I tend to spend the time I'm piecing thinking about the person that will receive a quilt and when I love that person or even feel pretty friendly toward them it's very pleasant. In this case, the quilt is kind of obligatory, and the more I think about the person who will receive it the less motivated I get so I had to sneak these pieces past my psyche in order to get this thing done.

(not so) Big Quilting Weekend

2008-08-31T12:34:00.004-06:00

This was supposed to be a big quilting weekend. I have a quilt on the frame that needs to be quilted before I can continue piecing on two baby quilts for October. It's after lunch on Sunday and my sewing machine hasn't even been turned on yet. I'm carefully ignoring...not printing & trying very hard to not even look at Quiltville's new Labor Day Weekend mystery because I'm not done with my Orange Crush and I fully intended to have it quilted by today so I could bind it during NASCAR tonight. I might still get there, but no one here is holding their breath.
My Orange Crush bears only a faint resemblance to Bonnie's pattern, but that's not her fault. It did start out as the mystery and I tried hard to embrace the busy, scrappy design and my orange fabric, but I couldn't do it. I ended up using the star blocks in this large sofa sized quilt. I added sashing & scrappy cornerstones and used up my spare 4 patch blocks in the border.

Things I learned from this quilt:

I hate orange, or maybe I just chose unwisely and hate MY orange. Either way, there is no orange in this Orange Crush derivative.

Scrappy is neat and not exclusive to sampler quilts which is the only place I've used it before. There is fabric in this quilt from my 3rd quilt, and I cut into pieces that I've been "saving" for 15 years that wouldn't have gone with anything else and it felt good to use them instead of flipping past them in the bin.

I learned to use my Easy Angle ruler...still in it's original packaging from who knows when. And I used it again on a baby quilt that's in progress, so not only did I learn how to use it, I successfully applied that to blocks that didn't say "use the Easy Angle here" in the directions.

What about the other half of the Orange Crush blocks?
Well, I did make 3 of them exactly as instructed. Yuck. My orange was WAY too orange and I'm not fond of the Album block pattern. It felt kind of clunky after piecing all the smaller scrappy parts and oh my eyes! That orange was way too much for my other colors in that big of a piece.

I haven't pieced them yet, but I think these other blocks are headed toward a Churn Dash/Shoe Fly arrangement with the big triangle turned in instead of out, possibly with a red center (since they are already cut) and maybe a sashing with red cornerstone to tie that together.

Thanks go to Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com for the inspirational design. Mystery quilts and scrap quilts probably won't become a regular thing for me, but I didn't fall over dead because everything didn't match perfectly or because I didn't know what the final product would look like.

The First Day of School

2008-08-27T11:28:00.000-06:00

The first day of school was actually Monday, but Kindergarten didn't start until today. I like to embarrass my older son by walking him to his door and taking his picture on the first day. This clearly labels him a geek and then none of the bad kids will want to hang out with him. Are there bad kids in 5th grade these days? We had one when I was in elementary school, always sitting out recess in detention from Mr. Decker.
This one wouldn't let me in the door with him. He kept asking me if I was going to work yet. No, little boy, I didn't go to work. I went to Starbucks and sniffled in my mocha and then I got tires on my car because we have 2 insane road trips this fall/winter and I'll be right here at home waiting for you to walk home from your first day of school.

They are supposed to walk home together. I hope Zack remembers to pick up his brother. I wrote a C on his hand with permanent marker this morning to help him remember and told both teachers about 46 times each how this is supposed to work. Is it 2:30 yet?

Let Me Introduce Myself

2008-08-24T17:44:00.000-06:00

My name is Jill and I live in Aurora, Colorado with my husband, two sons and a dog. I've been quilting off and on for 15 years, mostly self and book taught. I'm currently learning to machine quilt on a frame.

Earlier this year I pulled a wet bar out of my basement and replaced it with an area to store my quilting and craft stuff. This left room for a new Grace quilting frame at the other end of my half of the basement. Construction & organization is not quite complete in the pictures, but it looks about the same now...only messier.

No, I have no idea why the builder put a fireplace in the basement.

I also upgraded to a shiny new sewing machine. I love my new Juki 98% of the time...that other 2% being the trek from basement to car & car to shop for classes as it weighs in at about 30 pounds.

You can see the the now mostly retired "Little Brother" in the background.

I'll leave you with a full picture of the quilt I Photoshopped into my header. This was based on a pattern that I have since lost, so I can't give credit. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's intentionally narrower at the bottom as it was designed to fit into the bow of a sail boat. The cabanas and the palm trees are my favorite parts.

Take 1

2008-08-24T12:53:00.000-06:00

When I recently turned to the internet for tools and ideas to expand my quilting, I discovered (like Columbus...discovering a continent that thousands of people already knew about) an incredible resource in the blogs of other quilters and then I discovered that I might have something to say too. Let's see how this goes.