Da-dada-da-da-da!!

YES, the quilting on Heather's quilt is now done. I've been working at squaring up the quilt tonight, and I've pulled the binding fabric out of my stash, so that will be the next thing after I have the quilt square. There definitely is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I don't think it is a train. LOL

I'm just beginning to think of what my next project might be. But listen to me. I have about 4 other things I should finish first!! Well, finish Heather's quilt, and then decide what I really want to do! I just can't wait to show you the feather quilting on the setting triangles, so I just took a picture. Here it is:

Hmm, I cut the corner off a bit in the picture. I do have enough fabric to bind it without covering the quilting. I'm pretty happy with the feathers. On to the next step!!

Saturday Night Progress Report

Well, I now know that marking these triangles for quilting takes as long as actually quilting them!! There are 18 of these triangles that I need to quilt, and I have 9 of them finished! 9 more to go, and I think I'm too tired tonight to do any more. But just think! I can put the binding on tomorrow after quilting - I can feel it Woo Hoo!

And below is a picture of the block I finished for today's Block of the Month class (12 inch finished blocks)! You can see that it is very green. In the class today, they had the finished top, so we could see what it was going to look like. The Focus fabric is a floral of the deep reds and greens on a black background. Way too dark for me. But I also learned that they had a strip fabric that we are not using that matches the fabric line. I got that to use instead of the focus fabric they had picked for the boarders. But I will still have to buy the finishing kit, because it will have the instructions and materials for the center medallion part of the quilt. So my plan? I will not just add the original border fabric to my stash... I will use this fabric for the backing. I will probably have to purchase some more of it, but it will be a good use for what I get in the kit.

So what do you think of the new colors for this year's Block of the Month? If you are a "green" person, I bet you like them!!

And tomorrow - more progress!

Continuing Personal Qulting Retreat

It is now 4:15 on Saturday. I have been to Flagstaff, and done my Block of the Month. Stopped at Michaels for a scrapbooking glue thingy, and at JoAnne's for a pants pattern and some inexpensive material (I'm going to see if I can make pants that fit!!) After getting home, I ran to our local Safeway for my flu shot, and then home to eat a quick lunch (it was almost 2:00 by then).

So after I ate, I created my quilting template for the rest of the quilt. I've marked three of the triangles, and will now try to quilt those. Then on to the rest of the quilt. I'll let you know when I'm finished quilting!!

Last Update of the Night.

OK, on Heather's quilt, I finished quilting the "inside", and played with the feather design for the setting triangles. I decided to make them look half decent, I needed to mark them, and therefore need a template. I drew on some template material, and it looks pretty good, so I'm going with that design. But... How do you cut out the design? I think they make a tool to do it, but I don't have any such tool. I've never made a template for a quilting pattern before. So I'm stuck on making any further progress tonight on the quilting.

At this point, I decided it was time to sew together the next BOM from Odegaards. Yes, I joined again for this next year. And the first block is due tomorrow. So yes, I sewed it up tonight. (I had cut the pieces out last night). And I finally figured out what bothered me about the block. the colors are yellow, red and GREEN. No Blue!! Now those of you who know me, know I'm definitely a blue person. And I like yellow and orange and brown. But, GREEN! Now I will confess that green is starting to grow on me a little, but I'm sure that is what is bothering me about the block. I considered for a minute finding some blue fabrics to replace the greens in all the blocks, but I have convinced myself that I need this experience of working outside my normal colors. It will be good for me.

I've got my stuff ready for the meeting tomorrow morning, and I'm taking Heather's quilt for show and tell - I plan on mailing it to Heather before the next time we have a meeting so it is show and tell tomorrow or not at all.

The other thing I attempted to do tonight was install a pull out basket under my sink counter in the kitchen. It is a two tiered thing, with the top tier only half as wide to go around the plumbing stuff. Well I did pretty good, but my DH took the tools with him this weekend, so I don't have a suitable phillips screwdriver to use. So it is half installed, and I will have to either get another large phillips screwdriver, or wait till he brings the tools back. grrrrr!

Well I need to get to bed. It is almost 1:30, and I will need to be up by 8am and hustle to get to class in the morning. Hope you all have a great day tomorrow. (I'll post a pic of the new block tomorrow)

Update on Progress

OK, The last post was at 3. It took probably 10 minutes to get down to business, and start quilting. I got about 1/2 of the "inside" done, and ran out of bobbin thread. While winding a new bobbin, I realized that I want to quilt the set in triangles in a color to match the fabric (blue). This was about 4:45, so I probably sewed for an hour and a half. Trip to the store, and found not only thread, but allowed myself to buy fabric for a Christmas gift. (even tho I didn't have the exact yardage needed, I guessed, and just bought a little extra. Great job if I do say so myself!!)

When I got home, I decided before getting back to work, I should eat dinner. That has been accomplished, and now making my promised post, and going back to work. Oh, and I didn't tell you that DH is off hunting this weekend, so I intend this weekend to be time for me to accomplish stuff that I want to do. Which is sewing and quilting, and hopefully some gifts along the way. I guess I'm having a sewing retreat all by myself. LOL I promise another post before I go to bed.

OK, back to work

Time to get down to business!

OK, I've been way to busy, or at least way to distracted to get much sewing done, or even blog. Last weekend my husband's hunting buddy was here, and I hoped to get sewing down while they were out and about, but somehow only spent about an hour total sewing. Part of my problem is that I've told myself that I MUST finish the quilt I made for Heather's graduation last May. Between camp, and everything else, I just haven't gotten it done. And I've finally figured out that when I really care about what I'm making, it takes me forever, because I want everything to be perfect. I've got to force myself to get this done, because a not finished "perfect" is not perfect at all!!!! So I'm going to go work on getting the quilting finished. I outlined a french horn in the center of the top, but now need to do "something" around the horn to finish the quilting. and I have feathers on the outside blocks. It is set on point, and the setting triangles will probably be feathers too, but the inside, around the horn is the part that has me going Hmmmm. And to top it off, I don't know why I'm beating myself over the head, because I've found that the top fabrics are hiding most of the quilting anyway.

SO - I will now go quilt the rest of the top - putting a lot of love into the work, and I think that will make it "perfect", no matter how it comes out. I promise to check back in and let you know how I'm doing. I'm going to set a timer for 3 hours so I don't forget! LOL

Help with Old Fabric

A couple months ago, my DH and I stopped by a church rummage sale in town. I found a couple small things, and also some plaid fabric. Not knowing the content of the fabric, I decided I could buy it, and take it to my quilting group that makes charity quilts. It sat in a bag until tonight, when I decided I needed to sew the edges to prevent fraying, and get it washed. As I took a closer look, I found that all but one of the pieces was 2 yards and the others were each 3 yards in length, but each fabric is just 36 inches wide!! It has a very firm hand, almost stiff, but had a funny smell to it. (that's why I thought it needed to be washed.) But look at the tag that I found on the 2 yard piece!!

Yes, the tag says 2 yard remnant, original price 1.38, on sale for 87 cents!! And look how the tag attached... there is a wire on one end that went through the tag, then was pushed through the fabric, then through the small slot in the other end of the tag, then the wire ends were bent over, away from each other. The wire, after all this time is NOT rusty! And the tag says the fabric came from Montgomery Wards! Now Wards disappeared from my area many years ago, and I don't remember them ever selling fabric. And oh, yes, the plaid is woven, not printed. Yes, each thread in the fabric is a color, either white, red, yellow, green, or blue. And if you look close, where the red and green thread cross over each other, you can see both colors in that area.

Also, I did a burn test of one of the fabrics, it burned clean, just leaving ash. And there was no "plastic" smell when I burned it. The first piece (the remnant) is in the wash now. After I get them washed, I will post a picture of the fabrics (I can't stand to be near them right now. Maybe it is the dye? Doesn't smell like smoke to me. Sure hope washing them takes the smell out of them!)

So any experts out there? Any idea of when this fabric was made? Should I go ahead and give it to the group to make quilt backs? Or should I use it for something else?

Catching Up...

Wow, have I been busy or what??? Just over 2 weeks ago, I drove to Albuquerque to pick up my Mom from a conference, and brought her to my house. She stayed for a week, and then I drove her home to Alamogordo NM. That is a very long drive, but most of it is pretty country to drive through. I stayed to visit with her for almost a week, and then came home Thursday Oct 2. Friday morning I did some house cleaning, and then two of my friends from Phoenix came up to visit and quilt. We have been having a great time, tho I must confess we have done more eating, talking, TV watching, etc than we have sewing. They also brought me some cool things... a tote that could be used for anything, but is meant for scrapbooking tools. It is red, and has SO many pockets, that I think it will hold everything! Very cool! They also brought me two boxes, one will hold 12x12 paper for scrapbooking (or what ever I want to put into it, and another box, smaller, with compartments that I can use to sort photos, to use for scrapbooking. Yes, I know I'm a quilter, but there is a close connection between making quilts and making scrapbook pages, and I volunteered to do a scrapbook this year for my service sorority (ESA). LOL


Anyway, I'm thrilled with the gifts, and am planning to go take a scrapbook class to get myself started. Don't know when, but sometime soon, I hope!!


And I have done just a little sewing - I finally finished the August block for last year's BOM. Now I just need to sew it to its row, and then all the rows together, and the border. All in its time!! Now let me show you the block I just finished... It is a real bugger!!

I had trouble with matching a couple of the diagonal lines, between the green kite shapes and the blue triangle shapes. Most of them I could "fudge" into being pretty close together, but you can still see they are a little off. BUT, one of the pieces was off by over a 1/4 inch! UGH. I asked my friends for their thoughts, but there was nothing to do but pick that part out, and sew it again. The major culprit was the rectangle of the blue and the flower print. They were just not put together right to start with, and they threw everything else off. It is much better after re-sewing the seams, just a little off, and I can live with that. Anyway... my friends will be here one more day before heading home. Maybe we will knuckle down and get a little more done tomorrow.... Or maybe we will go sightseeing.... or maybe to Flagstaff to do some shopping!!! LOL We are having a great time!

More later!