What I'm Working On

My plans for yesterday fell through at the last minute.  But that was A-Okay with me.  I ended up spending a quilty morning finishing up the quilting on my table runner and sewing the binding on the table runner and my pink quilt.  All that is left to do on them is hand stitching down that binding.  Which is still the way I prefer to do it.  As I am typing this though, I realize neither of them have a label which is something I usually do before sewing on the binding.  So I will need to get off of here and get at making a couple of labels.

The binding I used for the runner is one of my favorite fabrics.  I love those black flowers on that brown fabric.  I am sorry to say that other than this one small scrap it is all used up.  I have no idea where I bought it or what manufacturer it came from.  There was nothing on the selvage edge to tell me.  Or if there was I used it up in a previous project.  Being a scrap quilter I have my go to favorites.  They could end up in every quilt I do, color permitting of course, and this brown was one of them.   Guess I'll have to stumble on to my next favorite.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day.  I will be heading to the pond to go fishing with family and then to dinner with all of them.  What will make it so good is of course family time.  And it doesn't hurt that I will get to sew all morning.  I love three day weekends.

                     Son Jesse and granddaughter Grace, fishing Memorial Day 2010. 

Design Wall Monday August 29, 2011

Here is my current project.  These are blocks from Thimbleberries Block by Block book.  The book shows using six blocks and making a wall hanging with a wide border.  I will be making just one more block and then I plan to do some type of scrappy sashing and border.  This will be for a table runner to go in my living room. 

I also finished the quilting on my version of Bonnie Hunters Blue Ridge Beauty.  This pattern is from her book Adventures with Leaders and Enders.  It was an easy pattern to follow and a lot of fun to make.  The two pieces I used for the back would not look good right next to each other but ended up looking just great when I put a scrappy strip of blocks between them.  My plan is to get the binding on this one this week. 

Have a great Monday and be sure to check out all of the other design walls at patchworktimes.com.

Procrastination

Okay, this morning I am just full of other things I want to be doing besides what really needs done.  I have spent an hour sewing. Cleaned the kitchen and done two loads of laundry.  Oh, and wasted time writing this post.  So now I should to get to the real needs of my day.

Thursday night an awesome wind blew through and did some horrific damage to my yard.  I call it an awesome wind because I could hear it rolling in.  Looking back on it I should have headed to the basement. It was that apparent that it was going to be a big blow.  And what I thought was patio furniture taking a tumble must have actually been my huge old trees taking a break from their lofty heights.

This is a red bud tree that is broke in half and of course it is way over our heads.  But as can be seen it is just laying up there side ways and will need to come down.  And it seems we will just take the one next to it too.

Luckily this big branch broke off nicely at the top and just needs to be pulled down, cut up and cleaned up.  The tree should live.

This big old Walnut tree was kind enough to lay itself down across my chain link fence. And to say it has caused us problems is an understatement. 

This is how far we got.  Four hours and still can't get that largest branch to break loose and to top it all off there is another broken branch way up on the left and not much left to the tree once it all comes off.                 

So after some consideration and frustration it has been decided that the entire tree must come down.  Okay, it made me mad and I'm ready to make kindling out of it.  We had an offer we couldn't refuse.  BIL Bill is willing to come help with the removal in a few days.  His help in this will be terrific.  As you can see there is a metal building behind the tree and I am standing in between my house and the tree to take a picture.  So there is some risk involved.  But as long as I close my eyes when they make the final cut everything should turn out okay.  And if not - that is what homeowners insurance is all about.  Right?

Hope everyone has a lovely day.  I know I am going to.  I plan to spend the rest of it outside with my family.  Yes, we will be working like crazy but it can be great fun to have a common goal. 



Design Wall/Table

   This is what I have going on today.  This was originally going to be part of the back to my pink quilt but it didn't make the "cut".  So I decided to just make a table runner out of it to give as a bridal shower gift.  I will give it and the pillow cases together.  If it gets finished by this Saturday.  No problem.

                          

I see from this picture that nothing would make my kitchen table look good. 

   Enjoy what is left of your Monday.  And be sure to check out all of the other design walls at Judy Laquidara's site. http://www.patchworktimes.com/2011/08/15/design-wall-monday-august-15-2011/   I see she has made it to Brownwood.   Sounds like quite the move. 

B.O.M. Saturday

In my opinion it is too early on a Saturday morning to be up and thinking about quilting or blogging for that matter.  I woke up 10 minutes ago (6:55) jumped out of bed, took a few bad pictures and here I am.  Okay, I'm always up this early and usually at my sewing machine by now.  But in less than an hour I'll be headed out to Holton to pick up this months B.O.M.  These are not my colors but they are great blocks to be learning something new.  And so far so good.  My points are pretty good.  Just don't look too close at the center of the orange one.  And as seen in a previous post the one on the right had to be remade when I cut it wrong and then remade again when I was told they would ALL have the same blue background.  But that just means I'll have yet another orphan block for my pile.

The colors are meant to be the same as what are in the Kansas flag. And since Kansas is celebrating 150 of statehood this year that seems very appropriate. 

And now with absolutely no more time to waste I'm off to have a great day.  Good thing I took time to run a spell check first though.
  

Read The Directions

These are the pillowcases that will go with the pink quilt when it is done.   Be sure to click on the picture so you can see the paisley fabric that was used. They would have been finished in no time at all but I am not one to read directions.  Therefore, I spent time ripping out a seam that should never have been sewn.  In this case the seam was the side and width of a pillowcase.  Just reading the one line "fold in half - wrong sides together" would have saved a lot of ripping.  Oh, well they are done and I like how they turned out. The pattern that I used was from http://www.canadianquiltshop.com/.  I will let you go to their store and find the free pattern yourself.  As I did not ask permission to post the actual pattern link.  The pattern is called Hot Dog Pillow Case.

The Pink Top is Done

Here it is.  The pink top is finally done.  And I love it.  I like the variation in color depth.  This picture isn't great.  But I'll post another picture once it is quilted.  I only noticed one time where I actually got two pieces of the same fabric together and it was too late in my opinion to do anything about it.  Move one block in a quilt like this and you have to move ten.  At least it was an off white small piece so unless I tell someone it will never be seen.  And I'm not going to tell a soul.  In the picture it looks like there are two of the same darks together but they are different fabrics and up close it is easy to see the difference.

You would think I like pink with all the pink on this blog.  But it is not a color that is found in my house with the exception being the stash in my sewing room.  I might actually have to FINISH a quilt for myself that is done in pinks.  The quilt in my header picture has not been quilted yet.  Some day it might will be.

I must have been needing to add some color to my life.  I ordered new dishes and are they ever bright.  They are great.  But now I need to paint my kitchen because they clash.

You can just barely see my kitchen wall and even though it is yellowish orange, it is neither orange or yellow and does not look good with these bright colors.  There is also to be a blue set but two of the saucers had flaws and alas they had to go back for exchange.

Have a great day and happy sewing.

Julie

Spiky Star

We started a new block of the month in June at Quilting on the Square in Holton.  Needless to say we are due to show our proof it's done to get Julys block tomorrow.  So today is the day to get my block done.  At least I didn't wait until tomorrow morning this time.

First to be noticed is the dark blue at the bottom of the picture.  That is the original blue that was to be cut 4 1/2" wof.  Nope I cut it 4 1/4" and that was not going to make anything come out square.  So luckily I had a sort of blue kind of purple fabric in my stash which worked just fine. 
Second is that if you don't line up the pieces correctly it won't form a square when done.  So it is just a good thing that I did not assembly line sew these pieces or I would have had to rip out more than one.

Even though the picture didn't turn out very well the block turned out just fine.  However, I felt like a beginner with this one.  This block was a great learning experience.  And has led me to believe that I probably won't be doing a quilt using this pattern any time soon. 

There are only a few more hours until I see what next month's block will bring.

On the Wall Today

Here are a few more blocks from my pink quilt.  I have about 100 of the 8" blocks done.  So I still have many, many more to go.  But I love the way the colors look. 
I also have several more rows of my red/white/blue done.  So I am about half way through getting that top sewn together.  I am using the pinks in between the r/w/b to keep both of the tops in progress.

And I got EQ7.  I have been wanting it for months.  Mom will tell you I look at it all the time.  Well now I actually get to look at it on my computer.  In order to get free shipping I needed to spend a few more dollars so I bought five yards of material and they threw in a fat quarter as a "free" gift.

The program is loaded on my computer but I have not spent the time to figure anything out yet.  I am reading through the book and will start watching the videos when I can drag myself away from the sewing machine.  The two bottom fabrics have already found their way into the pink quilt.  Those little pictures on the site aren't really large enough for me to tell the colors so I got what I ordered whether it was really what I was anticipating or not.

Have a wonderful day.

On The Wall Today

Here is what I am working on this week.  This pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's book Adventures with Leaders and Enders.  Her quilt is done in blues and is named Blue Ridge Beauty. I think this one will require a name revision.  I currently have about 100 four patches and 100 half sq triangles sewn.   As can be seen I will need to spend some time laying this out to mix up those lights and darks.  For some reason I think I have to cut out the whole quilt at one time.  So I have hundreds and hundreds of pieces cut out for this using over 30 different whites and off whites and over thirty different pinks.  As soon as I pinned these up on my wall I knew it is going to be hard to give this one away.  Guess I need to get it done before worrying about that.

This is a design book I made using my shirt scraps.  I wanted something to carry around in my purse to jot down any ideas that my come my way.  It also needed to have graph paper. So I printed a page off the internet, ran it through the copy machine, cut it in half and wa la.  Two different sizes of graph paper and all cut to fit in my purse.   I sewed button holes inside to fit the notebook prongs though.  It is also made so a regular store bought notebook can slide into it.

Blow Out !!!

This afternoon when I was driving on Hwy 75, doing 75 (MPH!), passing a car (bet it scared the tarnation out of them too) and oh, yeah eating a hamburger from Spangles my tire decided to give a huge pop and blow out on me.  That was fun. NOT.  Wow, I'm not sure when I have been that scared and yes, it all happened so fast.  I did see as I was fish tailing to the center of the road that my car so nicely informed me that my tire was low.  I didn't even know it would tell me that.  Hopefully, I never see that again.

Here is what the highway looked like as all the cars kept driving by.  I was surprised that some of them didn't give a little wave.  Seriously, it was probably safer that no one did stop.  That highway was busy.  In my boredom I decided to count vehicles.  In 5, yes, five minutes fifty vehicles passed by my car.  So that means that in the 45 minutes I sat there hundreds of cars went by.  I just hope that one or two of them called in a disabled vehicle.  I would have and have done so in the past.

I can say that I was one happy girl to see this truck pull up in my rear view mirror.  And his lights sure did the trick of moving people out of the lane next to me.

It took him less time to change that tire than it did for me to get pulled back out on the highway.  I didn't tell him I was taking pictures so I didn't show his face for that reason.  What a brave person to do what he does everyday.  Guess I'm feeling a little sappy right now. 

This is not a very good picture of the culprit. But I am certain that a football would have fit right through that hole with room to spare.
I'm just grateful to the Kansas Highway Patrol and the state for having people that drive up and down the highway answering calls to do stuff like fix tires.
All that and I didn't drop my hamburger.  I didn't finish eating it either.

Progress

Finally a little progress on the red/white/blue 4 patch quilt.  Here is what was laid out as of 4:00 today.  This WAS my dining room.  I tried laying this out in the living room and it was a no go.  With the blocks laid side by side it measures right at 106" and that was not going to leave me any room to get around.  Therefore, the move to the the dining room.  However, most of the chairs are in the living room, so at least I get more choices of where to sit and rest between bending over to lay out blocks.

Here it is as of 6:30.  Half of the blocks are laid out and I have started sewing two of the rows together.  I decided to sew them in blocks of four to make it more manageable.  If you click on the picture you can get a better idea of my plan.  You can also see how I made use of the table feet to  gain some more room.  There is absolutely no way I can lay this whole thing out with the area I have.  So with a lot of hope and some prayer this will go together the way it's supposed to.

I am excited to be getting something done on this instead of just making four patches.  I love the way it looks laid out even with only half of it down.  The yellow room dulls the colors, but trust me, it is bright.

Design Wall Monday May 23, 2011

                          

   New Monday same old quilt.  But as of last night the blocks are all done.  Yippee!  I finally took the time to draw out my plan on a piece of graph paper which then let me know how many of each color I was actually going to need.  I was not even close.  Last week I had 364 blocks made.  After drawing it out I knew I needed 529.  Yes, really, that odd number of 529.  That will make it a 92" x92" top.  You can see the drawing above the blocks.  I am planning to use the upper of the two drawing plans. 
   On the back left are the few pieces I have cut out for the border blocks on Road to Brownville.  The center of the top is sewn together.  But doesn't look any different than it did last week so no new picture.

Please remember those people that were killed and injured in this weekends tornados.  The pictures above and below are what we saw when we tried to do a drive by of the damage in Reading, Kansas.  A road block turning people away while they tried to assess the damage and restore power.

The tornado all but destroyed the town of 250 people.  Here is a link to one of the local Topeka news items about the town. www.wibw.com/home/headlines/Reading_Target_Of_Serious_Storm_122400579.html Reading is about 20 miles south of where I live.  I work with several people that live there and several years ago had worked with the man that died as a result of the storm.  So you never know. 

There were numerous tornadoes on Sunday.  Especially hard hit was Joplin, Missouri where many people were killed.  Just keep all of the victims in your prayers.

Design Wall May 16, 2011

Here is what I have done on my Road to Brownwood. You can probably tell that not all of my rows are sewn together.  And no, I have not even started on my border blocks.  There is still a lot of work to do.

                                Click on the picture to enlarge.  It removes some of the camera distortion.

This is what the livingroom floor looked like Saturday morning. Still needed to set the corners.  However, it is not there this morning.  Invited over the family for dinner and I didn't think a few hundred 4" squares and a three year old would mix well.  So now I have to start laying it out all over again.  Since the corners weren't laid out I couldn't pick it up in rows.  Oh, well it is good excercise.

Have a great Monday!

I'm sure that I am not the only one who does not know how to respond to viewers comments.  There must be some directions out there that I can read. 

What keeps turning up is that I can select Google e-mail to be my first/primary source and then I can respond to comments.  I DON'T WANT TO CHANGE where and how I view my e-mail.  And I am not sure that if I select Google that I can unselect it to change it back.  ( Can you imagine, I had to add the word "unselect" to my dictionary. I'm just sure it's a word. OK, maybe not.)

Anyway, trust me.  I want to respond.  I really do.  So far I just don't know how.  But I'll learn.  EVENTUALLY.  Where is someone under the age of 30 when you need one.  Guess I'll have to get one of my kids to show me yet something else on the computer.

By the way the picture is of Granddaughter Grace she was a little over a year old at the time.  She picked up a little booklet/trash at a ball game and was reading me a story. 

Design Wall May 9, 2011

Here is what I have done for Road to Brownwood.  I have enjoyed putting together these blocks.  It seems to be going very fast.  Thanks to Judy at patchworktimes.com for a great pattern. Just need to get busy on that sashing.

The red/white/blue hasn't made it any farther than this on the wall.  However I have made more of the 4" blocks.  Almost ready to take it to the floor to decide on the final layout.

Also I found as I checked my e-mail this morning that I was a lucky winner of one of the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazines.  Mine will be coming courtesy of  Robin Gallagher at robingallagher.blogspot.com.  Thanks so much to Robin for the magazine.  She did a terrific block.

Impatiently Waiting

                                                                                
Days like today just drive me crazy.  I just can't wait to be home sitting at my sewing machine.  When I walked out the door this morning I said "OK, eight hours".  And now looking at the clock it seems that time is at a stand still and there are still over six hours to go.

Not only that, but Judy at Patchwork Times http://www.patchworktimes.com/ has not yet posted the second part of her Road to Brownwood quilt. I AM READY and impatiently waiting.  It's not often that I am caught up and ready for the next stage of construction.  But this time I am. Wish I had a picture of the fabrics I'm using but since I'm at work and not home at my sewing machine, I don't.  So I will just keep looking forward to the end of my work day which will get me home to my sewing machine. 

                                                                                    

What is really note worthy about this post is that I was able to make a link to Patchwork Times.  My wonderful daughter Jennifer showed me how to do that.  Some things so simple completely stump me for so long.  Now I just wish I could remember the rest of what she showed me.

Monday April 25, 2011

My design wall actually has much more on it this morning than this.  But due to a very busy Easter weekend my camera battery is dead and I cannot take pictures right now to show the progress.

I "think" I've decided that I like it having the blue center. Right now that is the layout.  I have also removed most of the lighter colors in the blue and red.  They muddy up the breaks between the lights and darks. 

Since my scraps have been getting out of control I thought 2 1/2" squares would be a good way to make this quilt and use up some of those piles.  However, I am sure it is not going to make much of a dent.

This is part of my scrap disaster.  I can say that as of right now the scraps are out of the brown paper bags (there were five bags) but the large tote hasn't changed much.  I just have not added to it.  It's just a good thing that I have a sewing room because I could see my whole house being consumed by scraps.  Hard to believe that I love scrap quilts so much but have so little control over the mess.
Enjoy your Monday.  Hope you are able to get to your sewing projects often this week.  And don't forget to check out the design walls at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday April 4, 2011

WaaLaa - Drum roll please........  I finally got my Double Churn Dash top done.  This was made using recycled plaid shirts.  I'll take this opportunity to thank my sister Cathy for sending me some shirts from Wisconsin.  It was a Bonnie Hunter idea to use 100 % cotton shirts bought from local thrift stores.  And now I can't wait for yard sales to start so I can get some more shirts/material.  My camera doesn't like plaids. It tends to distort them. So sorry my picture is blurry.

Thanks to Patchwork Times for a place to share our design walls on Mondays.

I also want to share how to make the block.  This was a block that I did not have a pattern for but wanted to make.  I don't have a computer to program to help with the math so that is why it is a odd size.  If I knew then what I know now......anyway here are the measurements I used for the blocks.

The small/inner block finishes at 4 1/2"

Cut from the fabrics

Light Fabric   (small block)                                               Dark Fabric   (small block)
1  @    2" x 2" sq                                                             4  @    2" x 1 1/4"
4  @    2" x 1 1/4"                                                            2  @    2 3/8" x 2 3/8"
2  @    2 3/8" x 2 3/8"

Using the 2 3/8" light squares mark a diagonal  line from corner to corner. 

Lay a light piece on the top of the dark piece right sides together.  Sew a scant 1/4" on each side of the diagonal line.  You will then cut it apart on the line. Press the seam line open toward the darker of the two fabrics.  Trim off the dog ears.  These will be your corner units.  This will make four units.
Using the light and dark pieces that are 2" x 1 1/4"  lay a light on top of the dark and sew down the 2" side press open toward the dark side.  This will make 4 units.

Lay the pieces out as shown in the picture above using the 2" x 2" light square in the center. Sew together in rows as shown below. 

 I have shown you the back so you can see how I pressed the seams in opposite directions.  Then sew the rows together and tada a 5" block.  (Which I did not take a picture of.)

For the large block cut from the fabrics:

Light Fabric  (large block)                                                            Dark Fabric  (large block)

4  @    5" x 1 3/4"                                                                        4  @    5" x 1 3/4"
2  @    3 3/8" x 3 3/8"                                                                  2  @    3 3/8" x 3 3/8"

Alternate center cut:

Light Fabric

1  @    5" x 5"

Follow the directions given above for the smaller block.  However, this time your center block will be the small churn dash you already made.  You could also use the alternate 5" center to make a single large churn dash block.

I suggest sewing the block with the center facing up.  You will be able to see the points on the center block which will help make sure that the points don't get cut off in the seam line.

  

  Block size is now 10" and will finish at 9 1/2".