Sewful Saturday

Saturday I was up early, dressed and showered and hit my sewing room. Maureen came over to spend the day sewing and Jen and my Mom came over after work. I started out making place mats for my kitchen table; something I've wanted to do since last summer but never took the time to make. At Scrap Fest I found a 15 yard cut of a single border print. It was perfect for what I wanted to do. I used the border on each side of my place mats, a single blue strip on each side of my focus fabric and then the focus fabric in the middle. I threw them on the frame and got them quilted right away and then sewed on the binding. Now I'll have small items to bind during lunch for a while. I still want to make a table runner and possibly a mat for under Holly's food bowl.

After that, I decided it was high time to finish up my paper pieced Christmas ornaments. The pictures are a tad fuzzy but I had to use Mike's old digital camera because I forgot where I put mine. Although Mom turned them for me, I still need to do a little extra poking and prodding and then iron them so that it doesn't look like their points are all cut off.

Here's the whole set. Aren't they just adorable??

While I was waiting for Maureen to get her back pieced for a quilt of hers to put on the frame I decided to quick quilt this mini table topper that's been hanging out with my Christmas Fabrics for quite some time. It's supposed to have another round of stuff on it and it just didn't thrill me so it got quilted just the way it was. It's another small project that I can carry around to sew down the binding.

My final project of the night was a wall hanging for our bedroom. Our quilt is a Turning Twenty Again in Moda Chocolat fabric. The wall hanging is from the Sew One and You're Done book. It's meant to be a baby quilt but I'm using it as a simple wall hanging. It's supposed to have an additional border on it but putting it on would have made it too large for the space I have to hang it in.

I have a pattern for a smaller carpenter's wheels that I will make up for our pillow shams. I'd like to have the wall hanging, pillow shams and curtains finished and in place by the end of next weekend. Finishing this project is very long over due!!

All in all it was a productive day. It was also a great end to our Waun-a-quilt challenge. Jill and I ended with the same amount of points in our "Tweaked" version of the competition. She's way ahead of me in our original version.

Watch in the next couple days for the February version of Waun-a-quilt. We've refined some of the point values and hopefully made it a little easier. The bottom line is, there can't be points or bonuses for everything. Some aspects of quilting are just another task that needs to be done; not necssarily something we can put a point value on. Either way, at the end of the day, it's just meant to get everyone quilting more often and wanting to quilt!!

Friday Night

Friday night I came home from work and needed a nap, a LONG nap. I love naps. Especially after a long, cold week at work. My body just gets so stiff. But, we're not here to whine...

After my super awesome nap I hit the sewing room. I was ready to roll. I squared up 'Good and Plenty' and put the binding on. I pieced the backing for my scrollwork applique art piece for the living room. Two things off my To Do list so it was time to move on to my new apron for work.

For Halloween I had made an apron using charm squares but after it was worn for a while, washed and dried, it shrunk. It looks silly on a fluffy quilter. For this version I added an additional row of charm squares and squared off some of the corners that weren't in my original. I also made some cute little pockets.

The fabric line is Candy Kisses from Sandy Gervais. The pockets are made out of last years fabric line from the same artist. I thought the apron could use a little punch! I'm really happy with this version of the apron.

I wasn't ready to start a new project so I headed downstairs to watch a little TV and I did a little hand sewing on my Good and Plenty binding.

Weekend Goals

May or may not get to all...it's a pretty lofty list, with a few things that have been on my list for months!!

Priority
- square up good & plenty, attach binding, hand sew binding as time permits.
- sew backing for scrollwork applique
- make new apron for work

Non priority
-hem bedroom curtains and hang
-finish cutting bistro & match up blocks
-decide if one or two more pp blocks are needed for valance, make, assemble valance and backing, quilt, bind, etc.
-cut out and start carpenter star blocks for wallhanging and pillow shams
-dive into moda u blocks

Good and Plenty

I'll start out with getting our Thursday Waun-a-quilt update out of the way. Thursday ended with Jill in the lead....it's because of her Snow Day and I'm sticking to that!! =)

With our Tweaked Points:
Jill: 8098.32
Jen: 7904.92

With our points the 'old fashioned' way, Jill is ahead by: 1157.86 points. Darn her!! It's a good thing I don't work on Saturday!!

I quilted my "Gift Boxes" quilt that I have named Good and Plenty because it's the same color as the candy. Jill challenged me to do a really dense loop de loop. OMG, I realized I don't breathe when I do dense loop de loops!! Three hours and five bottom line bobbins wound to the gills later on a 72 x 84" quilt, here's the awesome results!!

I can't wait to get this bound. I think it will hang for a while in my sewing studio since I've got the whole pink theme going. I think I bought the fabrics in January 2008. I had the kit cut and ready to go for retreat in April. I didn't actually start sewing on it until September and it became the project that kept getting put to the side in lieu of more important and time sensitive projects. I never really intended for it to become a UFO!

Oh wait...does that mean I get UFO points? And how many?? Jill, a ruling please!!

To Quote my Mom...

"What the heck did I ever buy this for? I don't even know what it is!!"

Last week at ETPWP my mom pulled a notion out of her bag and asked the ladies what the heck it was. She had no idea why she bought it but knew she had gotten it at the quilt show in September. It was another one of those, "We've gotta own one of these," suggestions from her daughter the self proclaimed gadget girl.

I tried to explain it's function but they all looked at me like I was from another planet. I hadn't actually gotten to use mine yet but now I have and thought I'd explain.

It's main function is to take a vertical spool pin and turn it into a horizontal spool pin. It was at this point that I lost my audience because I started talking about stacked wound spools and figure eight wound spools. Sometimes thread just comes off the spool easier if it's horizontal versus vertical and vice versa. I however found a second reason to flip my spool.

I had a spool of Gutterman thread that was getting down low. The way it was pulling up through the telescope it kept getting stuck on the end of itself because it was in so far. It was pulling on the bobbin thread and everything was getting scrunched up. I had to rip about a foot of loop de loops.

Enter the spool pin adapter.

In changing my spool to horizontal I was able to continue using the thread and had no further tension problems.

Sidewinder - A Public Service Announcement brought to you by the letter I

I is for Idiot...


Did you know the Sidewinder has a tension knob? I didn't. Yeah that knob that the thread winds around before heading to the bobbin?? It TWISTS....





I was winding a few bobbins over the weekend and the thing just sounded like it was dying. Finally it stopped completely. The first words out of Sherry's mouth were...well at least when you buy a new one you can get a pink one! I don't know, then I bumped it and it went crazy fast. Of course then I had a super loose bobbin that I had to get the thread back off of. Hopefully this saves someone else the trouble now that I figured it out. If there were directions, I surely didn't read them...



I didn't do much last night. Or at least it didn't seem that way. I did finish the hand sewing the binding on two Christmas Table Runners that I've been working on all month. I don't know how it happened but I had two different table runners going at the same time. I did a total of 7-1/2 feet last night and finally they're out of my tote bag!!

Scrollwork Applique

Wahooo, my quilt top is done!! I decided today that I'm going to have it quilted at the shop because we have a pantograph that is a very similar scroll. Between that and the fact that if I were to quilt it myself I'd still need to buy the thread - a color which I've only found comes in a cone not a spool plus shipping, I really won't be spending that much more to have it quilted. It will be very worth it since it will be hanging in our living room as the main art piece. I'll be taking it in on Monday. I'm pretty excited to get it back and hung.

Here's a close up. Keep in mind the colors seem kind of off in this picture.



Here's a further away shot showing the wall above the couch where it will hang. The colors are more "true" in this picture.

Halloween Quilt

I don't think I ever mentioned that I had my Halloween Quilt quilted at the shop. I got it back just before Christmas. It's taken me this long to get the binding sewn by hand. Ijust worked on it little by little as I watched TV at night. I'm sooo glad it's finally done!! It's a HUGE quilt!!

Jill helped me pick out the thread for this quilt. It was a Superior brand Rainbows thread. Yes it was pretty but I should have known better because I've hand problems with that thread quilting in the past. It's more meant to thread paint than anything else. It's my fault for using it for the wrong application. I put the thread with my quilt when I dropped it off and Diane had horrible problems with it breaking constantly. I feel soooo bad. At least though I now know that it's not just me!! I won't be buying any more of that style!

April came over for dinner and we watched Maid of Honor (I think that's it's name with Patrick Dempsy) and Saw 5. I worked on my binding during the movies.

Afterwards I wanted to work on my Scrollwork applique but for the life of me I could not remember where I put it. Duh, right on my cutting table!! Oh well, I started working on my Pie Pin Cushion.

I got as far as ironing my strips in half and topstitching them. Then I wove them. Now I'm going to need to remove it from my ironing pad, stitch around the edges and straighten it out before going any further. So far I'm having fun with it. Will I be making one for everyone I know? Probably not but I can see myself going through my golds and cutting those up and then buying pie filling fabrics and giving the kit as a gift!!

Learning to use a Gracie Frame

On Saturday Jen, Sherry and Linda came over to sew. Jen had 2 quilts she wanted to quilt and Sherry and Linda wanted to learn how to load quilts since they each have Gracie Frames but have never used them. Sometimes it's just easier to learn something in person than from a video or written instructions. They loaded both of Jen's quilts for her. Jen I think overcame her fear of loading the bobbin and threading the machine because she rarely asked me for help!

Once they left, it was my turn to hit the frame. I had offered to quilt a charity quilt for Sherry. I did the same thing last year and in the end that quilt auctioned for about $350 at the heart ball for the American Heart Association. Hopefully this years will do even better. I quilted Loop De Loops with hearts.

Then I moved along and got the Star Wars quilt quilted for my co-workers neighbor who lost everthing in a fire right before Christmas.

I put the binding on by machine but I did hand sew the label on. I also whipped up a matchining pillow case for him. I thought I had that picture uploaded but I can't find it. I might have to come back later and add it. Regardless, I'm really happy with how everything turned out.

Evil Twins Patched Works Party

Friday night was the first ETPWP and it was a success with 12 people!

I tried to cut some blocks for Julie's Moda U quilt but I had the attention span of a flea for that. Too many different sized pieces to cut in a group like that so I re-packed that project.

I pulled out my scroll work applique art piece. I got the background cut and the scrolls ironed down. The placement of the scrolls took longer than one would imagine! The ladies talked me out of appliquing around each scroll and into just quilting over the entire thing. We'll have to see how that begins to shape up once I get the borders on it.

Once that was done I worked on cutting out my In and Out quilt. I feel like I've been at that one FOREVER but its really just that I haven't spent much time on it when - do work on it. Just as I was getting in the groove it was time to pack up and head home.

Next ETPWP will be on February 27th!! Mark your calendars ladies!!!

Thursday Waun-a-Quilt Update

Waun-a-quilt is really turning into a fun event. The competition doesn't appear to be out for blood, it' more of a motivational event and that seem to be the way it's beeing used which is awesome!

As of end of day Thursday, Jill has 5480 tweaked points and I have 5213 tweaked points. Yes, you're seeing that right, Jill is currently ahead of me. I'll let her relish in it until the weekend.

On a hilariously funny note, Mike found this ad for an event our local humane society is putting on. On February 15th, there is an Milwaukee Admirals Hockey Game that you can BRING YORU DOG ALONG TO!! OMG, I want to take Holly just to see the look on her cute fuzzy little face! I'm soooo going! I invited Mom and April to go with Holly and I. We'll have to see if Mike wants to come along...he thinks the whole idea is a little on the ridiculous side. Of course it's ridiculous, but so was swimming with Holly at the local pool. Everytime I think about it I laugh. Laughing is good. See, now that got me onto a memory about Murphy and he made me smile.

National Pie Day

Friday is National Pie Day. Did you know that? It's also the first ETPWP.

What the heck is a ETPWP you ask?? Evil Twins Patched Works Party. It's a monthly sew on your own group Jen and I are hosting at Patched Works. It's going to be tons of fun.

Anyway, back to my reason for the post...National Pie Day. Julie came up with an adorable pie pin cushion pattern and a bunch of kits were made. But they were lacking something...

There is a local farm and specialty store/bakery in Wisconsin called the Elegant Farmer. They are famous for their apple pie that is baked in a paper bag. They've also done a Food Network Bobby Flay Show Down and won!

So these pin cushion kits, they were lacking something...PAPER BAGS like the famous apple pie in a bag.

Aren't they cute all stacked up?? Personally I can't wait to make one myself.

Need your own pie pin cushion kit? Call or stop into the Patched Works!

2008 in Review

I had been thinking about doing this for the last few weeks but after reading Moneik's post I decided that sealed the deal and I decided I wanted to play too!!

Then I got the post together and thought that the post was a little too "showy."

But now I've decided...I didn't do all that HTML code for nothing...and it took two full nights.

So here it is, my 2008 in review:

Purses, Bags, Totes, Pouches:



Quilts; Lap and Larger:




Baby Quilts:





Wallhangings and such:




Quilts I quilted for my peeps:





Small but not forgotten projects:



Group Initiatives I took part in:



Not Pictured:
Bound 10 Project Linus Quilts
Fleece Pants for Mike
2 Bandanas for Holly
Quilted Mom's Shower Curtain
5 pillow cases

I've come to the conclusion that I truly am a Insane Rambling Cre8tive Quilter!!