Linda's Scissors Lanyard

I made a scissors lanyards tonight for my friend Linda with beads that she supplied me with.

I think it turned out pretty nice.

I made a second one but it looks like I forgot to upload the pictures so you'll have to wait a day to see that one.

Moneik's Bridal Quilt Rows 8&9

This quilt is really coming along quite nicely. Tonight I added rows 8 & 9.

Here's rows 1-9. Only 4 rows to go!! Breaking it apart two rows at a time has really helped to keep it from being such a daunting task.

I'm right on schedule with my to-do list too!!

3/23 - Buy Sashing, Corner Stones, Borders & Backing
-Cut Sashing, Cornerstone and binding strips
3/24 - Sew sashing strip sets, iron and cut
-Sew and iron binding (Mom)
-Evenly distribute blocks/signature squares and group together by row
3/25 - Make blocks from rows 1-2 to "size"
3/26 - Assemble rows 1-2 and join together
3/27 - Make blocks from rows 3-5 to "size"
3/28 - Assemble Rows 3-5, join and attach to rows 1-2
3/29 - Make blocks in rows 6-7 to "size"
-Assemble rows 6-7, join and attach to 1-5
3/30 -Make blocks in rows 8-9 to "size"
-Design label, have Jill proof
3/31 -Make rows 8-9, join and attach to 1-7
4/1 -Make rows 10 & 11 to "size"
-Print label onto Printed Treasures, sew to iron on interfacing
4/2 - Assemble rows 10-11, join and attach to 1-9
4/3 -Make rows 12-13 to "size"
4/4 - Assemble rows 12-13, join and attach rows to 1-11
- Cut and assemble borders (Mom) and backing
4/5 - Attach Borders
-Iron label to backing
-cut & seam batting
-load quilt
4/5 - 4/11 Quilt Moneik's Bridal Quilt
4/12 - Square Up, attach binding, Hand Sew four corners.

Bridal Quilt Rows 6 & 7

Well, I made rows 6 & 7 and then when I went to pin them together I managed to sew them together in the wrong order. Looks like rows 8 & 9 will have to be made to work inbetween and below rows 6 & 7...there's no sense to do ripping!

In October when Jill came to Wisconsin (or was it September??) she brought a cone of Masterpiece thread for me. I didn't start using it for a few weeks afterwards. I went to wind a couple bobbins and now it's empty!!

Slippery Snow

Saturday night we got about 4 inches of wet sloppy snow. When I left for work on Sunday morning the roads were fine. I pulled into the gas station to pick up a bottled soda. I got out of my car, walked about 10 feet and fell flat on my back. Lovely. I slipped on one of those big metal discs that they remove to fill up the underground gas tanks. They're about the size of a manhole cover but they are flat steel with no ridges. I don't know how I managed not to hit my head. I got up, walked into the gas station and then realized how wet I was so I walked back out. I called Julie to say I was going to be late cause I needed to go home and change. As I was talking to her I realized my elbow hurt, my neck felt like I had whip lash and I think I was talking a little incoherently because she told me not to come in; to go home. The whole right side of my body feels whiplashed and sore.

After taking Advil and lying on some ice and taking a few naps, I needed to proceed on Moneik's Bridal Quilt. Here's rows 4 & 5:

Rows 1-5 all put together:

Looks like I'll have to find a different place to lay the quilt out for the next group of rows!!

Moneik's Bridal Quilt Rows 1-3

Things are moving a lot quicker now with the bridal quilt. My first two rows are attached to each other, the third is not. I will wait until I have the next two rows done and then attach all at once. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get another 4 or so rows completed. It's looking great so far.

Here's a few pictures of the progress:

I went today to Frank's to drop off my Babylock Quilter's Choice Pro. It was going in to get the tension issues resolved and for general service. And I had a tension knob issue that Brad thought was hilarious. My next stop was Midwest Beads to get crystals for the scissor lanyards I'll be making for Linda, Sherry, Maureen and one for a donation for the St. Jude's quilt retreat. On the way home I stopped off and decided to get a manicure and pedicure. I haven't done that in a looooooong time! I listened to Jennifer Chiaverini's newest book, "The Lost Quilter" during and it's pretty good so far.

On and on a techy note, I FINALLY finished going through itunes and creating my playlists on my new laptop. My ipod is all set and ready for the long drive to and from retreat!!

ETPWP Night

Tonight was our ETPWP night at Patched Works. I took along the blocks from Moneik's Bridal Quilt. I got all of the blocks sized.

Sizing, what do I mean by sizing? Well, I have 60 signature blocks that are square in a square. Those I know measure 6-1/2 x 6-1/2 because I made them. I also have about 64 pieced blocks. I'd bet that maybe 20-25 of those measured 6-1/2 x 6-1/2. The rest measured anywhere between 5-1/2" on any given edge and 6-1/4" on any given edge. Of course, then there was one block that was 10 inches and I needed to creatively cut it down and make it an "interesting design element." So, on most of the blocks I could get away with white borders on 2 sides, some needed it on all 4 sides. I'm hoping this will blend in with the sashing when I start attaching that. HOPE. Keeping fingers crossed. But, one can only do so much with what they've collected!

Now I can start assembling the rows. I hope to get a lot done tomorrow and Sunday.

Here's my schedule. I've crossed out the things that I've completed. I think I'm making great progress.

3/23 - Buy Sashing, Corner Stones, Borders & Backing
-Cut Sashing, Cornerstone and binding strips
3/24 - Sew sashing strip sets, iron and cut
-Sew and iron binding
-Evenly distribute blocks/signature squares and group together by row
3/25 - Make blocks from rows 1-2 to "size"
3/26 - Assemble rows 1-2 and join together
3/27 - Make blocks from rows 3-5 to "size"
3/28 - Assemble Rows 3-5, join and attach to rows 1-2
3/29 - Make blocks in rows 6-7 to "size"
-Assemble rows 6-7, join and attach to 1-5
3/30 -Make blocks in rows 8-9 to "size"
-Design label, have Jill proof
3/31 -Make rows 8-9, join and attach to 1-7
4/1 -Make rows 10 & 11 to "size"
-Print label onto Printed Treasures, sew to iron on interfacing
4/2 - Assemble rows 10-11, join and attach to 1-9
4/3 -Make rows 12-13 to "size"
4/4 - Assemble rows 12-13, join and attach rows to 1-11
- Cut and assemble borders and backing
4/5 - Attach Borders
-Iron label to backing
-cut & seam batting
-load quilt
4/5 - 4/11 Quilt Moneik's Bridal Quilt
4/12 - Square Up, attach binding, Hand Sew four corners.

A hamper or a catch all

I've been trying to come up with creative ways to contain my quilting supplies while at retreat. Last year I took an 18 gallon rubbermaid tub with all of my supplies. That was great, but it sure took up a lot of room in my trunk. This year with three passengers in my truck, storage space will be at a premium. I think I'll make a few bags to take my items in so that everything is very squishable.

Once I get to retreat, this could become a problem! While wandering through Wal-Mart one day Mom and I spied these cheapie pop up kids hampers. PERFECT! It folds down flat and can pop up to hold my junk.

Just another crazy idea from yours truely, gadget girl.

Side-Kick

In preparing to go to quilt retreat in just a few short weeks, I thought I'd share one of my favorite gadgets. It's actually a cup holder that attaches to a table and has a scrap bag attached. I originally purchased this cup holder when I was heavy into scrapbooking. It kept my cup off the table and kept it from getting knocked over. It's an equally great product for quilters. It keeps my soda out of the way, it also helps to corral any power cords that are running through my sewing area.

Over the years I've managed to accuire three of these. I bought one directly from Creative Memories, the others I've just picked up off of ebay.

Bridal Quilt Schedule

Here's my tenative bridal quilt schedule...let's see if I can keep up or even finish early!!


3/23 - Buy Sashing, Corner Stones, Borders & Backing
-Cut Sashing, Cornerstone and binding strips
3/24 - Sew sashing strip sets, iron and cut
-Sew and iron binding
-Evenly distribute blocks/signature squares and group together by row
3/25 - Make blocks from rows 1-2 to "size"
3/26 - Assemble rows 1-2 and join together
3/27 - Make blocks from rows 3-5 to "size"
3/28 - Assemble Rows 3-5, join and attach to rows 1-2
3/29 - Make blocks in rows 6-7 to "size"
-Assemble rows 6-7, join and attach to 1-5
3/30 -Make blocks in rows 8-9 to "size"
-Design label, have Jill proof
3/31 -Make rows 8-9, join and attach to 1-7
4/1 -Make rows 10 & 11 to "size"
-Print label onto Printed Treasures, sew to iron on interfacing
4/2 - Assemble rows 10-11, join and attach to 1-9
4/3 -Make rows 12-13 to "size"
4/4 - Assemble rows 12-13, join and attach rows to 1-11
- Cut and assemble borders and backing
4/5 - Attach Borders
-Iron label to backing
-cut & seam batting
-load quilt
4/5 - 4/11 Quilt Moneik's Bridal Quilt
4/12 - Square Up, attach binding, Hand Sew four corners.

Moneik's Bridal Quilt

About a year and a half ago I got the idea to get blocks from family and friends and make a Bridal Quilt for Moneik out of the Sylvia's Bridal Quilt blocks featured in the Elm Creek series by Jennifer Chiaverini.

Moneik got married LAST JUNE and the blocks are still sitting here unassembled because, well...I'm scared of them. They mean so much to so many people. It's such a LARGE SCALE project that makes me wonder what the heck I was thinking!!

I just realized that there are about 30 days to go before retreat where I'm going to see Moneik...duh, better get her quilt done. DASW?

Here's the design:

The blank spaces is where the pieced blocks will go. The square in a square blocks represent the signature blocks. The quilt will finish around 83 x 104.

Here's a slideshow that represents most (not all) of the pieced blocks. I fell a little behind on the block photography when I was packing to move.

Moneik’s Bridal Album

Quilt Retreat Name Tags Part 2

I printed out my 3 pages of name tags onto Muslin backed with Freezer Paper. I made sure to clean my print heads first to limit the amount of drag they would have on my fabric. I don't usually have that problem with regular paper but because of the thickness of the fabric it sometimes is an issue. Using my built in grid lines I cut them apart. I cut a piece of batting 1/2 inch smaller than each name tag. I didn't want that to be in my seam allowance; I was just using it for body. I then took two rectangles; one larger than the other and ironed them in half; wrong sides together. I arranged them on the nametag so that when I sewed the 1/4 inch seam allowance I could turn the name tag right side out without having to straighten anything out along one of the edges. It's sort of like the criss cross coasters. Once I turned and poked all of their corners and edges out I stuffed the batting in. I'm now in the process of sewing the backs shut and sewing on the pins. The pins...are not an easy task!! I might still be sewing them on right up until retreat. So much for all the other little things I wanted to make for my friends.

I placed mine on my hand so you'd get an idea of just how small they are.

Aren't they adorable? I'm really happy with how they turned out!! I hope my POQ's are too!!

Quilt Retreat Name Tags Part 1

I decided that for our little Prolific Online Quilters group that is going to Quilt Retreat in April; that we needed name tags to set us apart a bit. We're an online group and some of us know each other better than others. Some have never really put a name to a face or a first name to a blog name. Since there is going to be about 50 people at retreat, there are all of those new faces as well. So for our 18 Prolific Online Quilters, I'm making cute little name tags.

I started out with an image of a Peep since we've been using the "Retreat with my Peeps" tagline. I added the year in it's belly.

Then I found a font that I liked in my Creating Keepsakes Font Program.

I typed in everyones name and then copied the names over to Microsoft Publisher. I re-colored all of the names to match the color that I made the peep. I made one nametag as the "template" and then as I went I dragged each name over, re-sized it and in a separate text box I added their blog name and where they are from. You can see Becca's in the template here:

While this was an easy process...it was a very time consuming process. For the first few I didn't realize you could select multiple images to re-color and re-size all at the same time. By the time the computer work was done and everything was nudged into place, some fonts needing to be larger or smaller to fit everything I probably had about 8 hours invested.

Here's the result:

As you can see above; I left the "Becca" template in the document instead of deleting it. This way if we have any last minute additions I can just pop them into the template. Or if I need a similar name tag, I can use that template and save myself a lot of time.

The big picture

Here's the "after" picture of our bedroom from our doorway.

I'm so thrilled that all of the pieces are finally done. Of course, now it has me thinking that I should take my scraps and make a topper for my night stand to cover up where a Glade Plug-In ate the finish off when it spilled. It wouldn't be so bad had that not been right on the corner closest to the bed where I get to look at it every day.

If I had one piece to do over, it would be the Pillow Shams. I wouldn't have taken the time to paper piece the Carpenter's Stars in the middle because you can't even see it. I think I would have taken all of the left over fabric and made 4 of the Turning Twenty Again blocks on a little bit smaller scale to get them to match the quilt better.

Another angle:

Carpenters Wheel Wallhanging

This wasn't even a to-do list hangover item. Last time I showed it, it was without binding. Now the binding is on and it's hung. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

It's not crooked; the photographer is crooked and I didn't feel like taking the time to rotate the photo degree by degree.

Pillow Shams

I had one Pillow Sham finished for the last week or two before I got around to finishing the other one.

The pillow shams have been on my mind for the last two years. Always meaning to work on them; always had another project come up that needed to take priority.

But at least I now had one done. The other was pinned. All I needed to do was sew around the edge, turn it, topstitch the edge and topstitch the inner border and it would be done. Yet, I put it off for another week. Sigh. I always seem to have a few to-do list items that hang around for a bit. Talk about having a "To-Do List Hangover."

Oh well, I'm just glad it's done now!!

Bedroom Curtains

Do you ever have things that are on your to-do list over and over and over again and you just keep ignoring them? For me that was curtains. I had the sides hemmed for MONTHS. Maybe since August. Then I finally cut the yardage apart but only managed to finish the ones for the living room. I FINALLY got around to finishing the curtains for the bedroom and Mike hung them.

Why did I put them off for so long??

I've clearly gone over the edge...

I always swore off of orange fabric and Kaffe fabric. Now recently I've been using orange in projects and it hasn't been bothering me. At our PW Christmas Party, Chelsy was given a cut of a Kaffe Fabric and before I knew that's what it was, I said how much I liked it. I think everyone burst out laughing because they know that I call it Kaffe Krap. It's just not my thing. A few months went by and when I came into work on Saturday there was a 1/2 yard left on the cutting table to be worked into a 1/2 yard pack. I decided since it's the only Kaffe that I've ever shown interest in, that I should adopt it. Chelsy picked out a batik to go with it and originally I was going to make it into a tote bag BUT, I do have the Lazy Girl Mini Miranda pattern and I could really use a new purse so the above will become this:

Hopefully before summer...