Welcome Changes...and Quilting Update

It's been an interesting couple of weeks around here. In an attempt to cut some expenses, or at least get more for the money we're spending, we're making some changes to our wireless services and launching ourselves into the 21st century...well at least taking some baby steps in.

The biggest changes for me are a cellphone plan that allows me to actually talk on it, LOL, (I had one that I only used when absolutely needed) and a wireless internet connection rather than the archaic dialup. Don't get me wrong, I was content with the dialup service, but being able to shift expenses to include wireless internet is wonderful.


With the change to wireless, my computer desk became movable. I was limited to where I could put it when it needed to be near a phone line, but now that it doesn't, I did some furniture moving as well. The computer desk used to be where the bookshelf is and vice versa. I also swapped the tables, putting my sewing table in our dining room and bringing the dining room table into my sewing room. This opened up quite a bit of floor space and, so far, seems like a really good change. I took the leaves out of the table to fit it nicely in my sewing room and can put them in when needed, for now, I'm adjusting to less table space and hoping this makes it easier to keep it cleared off.


I took a short break from my challenge to make this baby quilt, which Bren's mom bought from me and gave to a neighbor. These are so fun much to make, I've done a few of them now in various sizes. Tone on tone fabrics with quilting motifs done in colored thread, they are easy to get to the quilting stage and quilt up quite quickly in spite of the amount of hand quilting on them.



I'm getting anxious to get back to the posies and celtic quilt. I haven't done anything on it in quite a while, and the plan is for it to be the next one in the hoop. I'm appliquing on the border, have the posy sets chosen and ready to applique along with more bias made and ready to sew on.

The Oriental Roads quilt is moving along well. I'm on the outer row of blocks and hope to be quilting on the borders by Easter weekend. I don't know how realistic that is with all else that is going on here this week, but that is the plan.

Ruthie loves to have her picture taken and this one was taken just after her bath. Her hair is still wet and she's all snuggly and quite mellow.

I have mixed feelings about the warm weather coming, I do love when the windows can be opened, we can take walks, and sit outside. I'm not a warm weather person, though. The hand quilting may have to take a back seat on the warmest days, but I have plenty of hand piecing waiting to keep me busy! I'm already starting my list for next year, which will start off with whatever doesn't get done this year (I really think I've bitten off more than I can chew this time.)

Nothing will get finished if I don't get to it, so it's time to go!

Happy quilting!

Sue

Olympic Quilting Wrapup

I never know what to expect when I plan these heavy quilting times. All kinds of things can come up to thwart them, and that first week of the Olympics I ended up having a bunch of things to do that I didn't expect. In spite of that, I was able to get quite a bit of quilting done. Thankfully the second week was not as busy and that was a good way to end, had the busy week been second, I would have definitely felt that my Olympic quilting experience was tainted some.

I finished the shade on Thursday of the second week, which means I spent most of the Olympic days working on it. I'm really pleased with how it came out and, though I had hoped to finish it during the Olympics, I wasn't sure if it was really possible. Here is a closeup view.

Here is a view from a little further back. The next step is to turn it into a Roman Shade, something I'm still trying to figure out. I found what looks to be some good directions online and hope to get it strung and hung before too long. It will replace the blue checked curtains you can sit a bit of in this picture. I'm hoping that I can figure this out without too much trouble as I have one to make for our bedroom, too!

When I was nearing the end of the shade, I took some time out to baste the baby quilt that I made on my sewing night and I also basted the Oriental Roads. I started quilting on the baby quilt on Thursday and finished the quilting on Sunday. I don't think I've ever quilted a baby quilt that quickly. I put binding on both the shade and baby quilt a couple of days later.

I was still watching Olympic coverage when the quilting was finished on the baby quilt so I picked up the Oriental Roads and started quilting on that one. Here it is in the hoop, with a view of part of one of the Jacob's Ladder blocks.
Here is the center block. The middle and squaring up triangles have this feather motif, in red, with off white crosshatching. The rest of the quilting is in red.

This one will take at least a few weeks to quilt, and I will probably take days off to work on the Posies and Celtic so it is ready for the hoop when the Oriental Roads is finished.

Looking over my challenge list, I realized everything left (except for the sewing together of blocks) is hand work....hand piecing, hand applique and hand quilting. Though I prefer handwork, I actually do enjoy machine piecing when I'm in the mood for it and am thinking ahead for when my challenge year is over. I printed paper for the next strip quilt. I did one where the whole block was strips, one where half the block was strips and the other half background (the shade) so this one will have strips on both sides of the center line with a background triangle at each corner. The pages are printed and I played with the lines, now all 256 have to be marked like this one.

I'll be working on this project when I have a hankering for machine piecing, and on my late night sewing nights, which lend themselves better to machine work than handwork most of the time.

And finally, Ruthie. Here she is, bed head and all. It was around Christmas time and our oldest had just come back from the youth Christmas party (he is a leader) where they all brought white elephant gifts. He received a Barney video, which he gave to Ruthie when he got home. She had just woke up from a short nap and was THRILLED to get this video. She has since "bought" a couple more of them in the Awana store (where they trade earned shares for various trinkets.)

Hopefully this is a big quilting day for me. I have nowhere to go, a few daily household chores to do, but mostly a day that is wide open. I'll quilt on the Oriental Roads and if I need a break will work on drawing more lines on the strip quilt and/or cutting some more strips for scraps. With the successful mastering of the curved piecing foot, some Drunkard's Path pieces will also be cut from scrap and a new "when I feel like sewing" box will be started.

But nothing will happen if I don't scoot!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Friday Night Sew-In Wrap Up

My Friday Night Sew-In was actually a Friday and Saturday Night Sew-In. Because of a committment on Saturday, I couldn't stay up as late as I normally would for something like this and at the end of my sewing time on Friday night I still had work to do.

I spent Friday afternoon with a friend, but before I left I set up my room for sewing. My sewing room has other functions, in addition to serving as a sewing studio/office for me, my family tends to hang out in there with me and we also use the room for a second dining area when there are more people to feed than our table holds.

I cleared the table and set up my sewing machine, a cutting mat and a design area.

I also set up my ironing board. I usually use a small table top one, but when I know I'll be doing more sewing I prefer a regular board. I also cleared off my design board so I had somewhere to put the finished blocks.

I spent the day Thursday choosing fabric, rotary cutting squares and using templates to mark curves and cut the pie shaped piece.

Several years back I started cutting binding when I cut the pieces for a quilt top so that later on I didn't accidentally use the fabric for something else. Once the cutting is finished, I sew the binding strips together and press them so it is ready when the quilting is done.

You can see a hanger full of binding behind the pink one I just made, that visible binding reminds me how much quilting I have yet to do!

The reason I was making the Drunkard's Path block is so that I could make friends with my curved piecing foot. I bought it several years back and tried it out, but never took the time to get proficient with it. When I found out a friend was having a baby, it gave me a deadline more pressing than the challenge deadline.

I sewed a couple of practice pieces without a hitch, then picked up the first pieces of the baby quilt. I was pretty happy! While the one side didn't match perfectly, it was close enough to go together well. It looked funny to me. There wasn't the contrast I expected when I picked the fabrics.

That was because one piece was facing the wrong way. OOPS. Thankfully I just had to see what the blocks looked like before sewing all 64 of them! I ripped those two out, and proceeded on.

I alternated sewing and pressing and pinned the finished blocks on my design board. The curved sewing foot meant sewing curves with NO PINNING. Really. No pinning at all. Those little Drunkard Path blocks went together in no time and will be a new addition to my scrap quilting projects.

I admired the blocks and tried a couple different placements of the green ones, but this is what I landed on.

By the end of the evening I had sewn together the top half of the quilt and by Saturday night, the top was together, borders and all. I was quite pleased with the result and and looking forward to basting in the next couple of days.

I continued marking on the Oriental Roads quilt once the baby top was done and am still working on that today, though I think I'm finally nearing the end. I have the backing sewn together and will baste both the Oriental Roads and the baby quilt as soon as the marking is finished. The shade is nearly done, it should be finished by the end of the week.

And, of course, Ruthie. A friend gave us some dress up clothing that her daughter had outgrown and Ruthie found this in the bag. Our little princess has her own crown now. She spent quite a bit of time admiring herself in the mirror.

My next several days of sewing are planned out and I'm very excited. We're enjoying the Olympics and it seems a lot has gotten done in the first week of them, I hope that I can be just as productive during the second!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Settling In and Gearing Up

We haven't had much in the way of snowfall since early December, though until recently there has been snow on the ground. A couple of warmish days and the grass was peeking through again, but no more. We didn't get as much as predicted, but probably got about 8 inches. I loved it. It's the first good snow that came down during the daylight hours in a long time. One of my favorite things is to sit with some handwork and watch the snow fall. All this snow got me even more in the mood for the winter Olympics. We've been practically counting the days since the new year began and they are finally here. I will be watching as much as possible during the 17 days of Olympic coverage, starting with the opening ceremonies tonight. Our Olympic tradition includes popcorn. We call them the running bowls of popcorn because they always have something in them. Yesterday, I made the caramel corn as it will keep without getting stale. The picture doesn't do it justice.
I also make plain, cinnamon sugar, and parmesan pepper and at least two flavors will be out each evening. I'm hoping my plan to quilt through them keeps me from eating TOO much because I'll need to keep my fingers clean!

The main project for during the Olympics is to finish quilting the shade. I'm getting close to only the outer blocks needing to be quilted, still a lot of work, but quite doable. Each square of strips is a four block unit (with the attached background pieces, which have a motif in them) and I can quilt a 4 block unit in an afternoon (or evening) if I'm mostly quilting. The binding for this one is made, so I should easily be able to do the machine sewing part during an Olympic break should I get that far.

Next Friday night, I'll be participating in the Friday Night Sew-In over at "Handmade by Heidi" . I have a committment Saturday morning, so can't stay up as late as I'd like, but I like those kinds of evenings for machine work. Part of my Over the Tops challenge is to learn to use my curved piecing foot and making a baby quilt top with Drunkard's Path blocks. I'll have the pieces cut before then and hope to finish the night with the top well under way. I would SO love to stay up until the wee hours that night, but can't this time. To join in the fun, click the link and sign up!

Also during the course of the next week or so I plan to mark the Oriental Roads quilt. I ordered some red thread for the quilting and plan to pick up the batting next week so this one will be ready to quilt as soon as the shade is done. I've realized that my challenge probably is more than I can really do, but I'm going to give it a good go!

Ruthie can still be found sleeping in the afternoon on occasion.

More often, the picture below is what we find. She's rarely upset or angry and when she is, it's pretty short lived. She usually looks a little disheveled, but is almost always sporting a smile.

Her speech continues to improve both in clarity and functionality. She's stringing words more often and can most definitely let you know what she wants! We're hoping she gets into the Olympics. I watched some tapes of the 2008 summer games this week, to get in the mood (and there was NOTHING else on TV that I wanted to see) and she would come running when she heard the theme.

I still have a few things to do before the "big night" tonight. We're meeting with friends tomorrow so I have a couple of cakes to make along with a few odds and ends to finish today so I can park myself tonight to quilt...and watch the world come together.

While the athletes are competing at sports, I hope to get an Olympic amount of quilting done in the next 16 days!

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Over the Tops - First Finish!

The flying geese quilt is done! The first on my challenge list to be completed all the way to the binding. I'm so excited to see this long term project finished. I started this about 10 years ago with an internet friend. I don't know that she ever finished hers, but we spent hours and hours talking about them and planning them, trading fabrics and she designed and printed the foundation paper pattern we made them on. This is a close up picture of the some of the quilting. Here is a view of the whole thing. It's funny, this was one that I thought I would love, but along the way I thought "eh, it's ok" but I absolutely love how it came out and am so glad that it's finished and didn't remain a UFO forever.

My plan was to have something in the quilting stage all of the time, with so many big projects to quilt, I needed to keep the hand quilting train on the tracks. Since the cornice box cover top was done, I quickly basted it and put it in the hoop. This one quilted up so quickly, I couldn't believe it. Here is a closeup view.

Here is a picture of a little more of it, this is just over half, there are 7 full diamond shapes across this cornice cover. The bottom is bound with the same fabric as the background, but the other 3 sides are bound with a print. The reason for this is so that a colored bottom binding doesn't "draw a line" across the shade when the shade is down.

With that one quilting up so quickly, I was again left with nothing in the hoop. A 10% off coupon for the grocery store in addition to some careful planning meant I could buy a package of batting today. I already had the backing, so the shade is now on the table for basting. I'm nearly done and it should be ready quilt in less than an hour. I'll spend the rest of the evening hand quilting.

My plan for the next few days is to applique during the day and hand quilt at night. I'm really anxious to be done with the celtic and posies top and it's getting close now.

We're also counting down the days until the start of the winter Olympics. I should be able to get a huge amount of hand work done during that 16 days. My girls and I will be total couch potatoes as much of that time as possible. I'm not sure which project(s) will get a lot of attention during those days, but I'm gearing up for many happy hours of handwork.

Until next time,

Happy Quilting!

Sue

Unexpected Blessing

It's been a busy few days! I've made some progress on the flying geese quilt though I doubt it will really be done by the end of the weekend. I plan to spend this evening quilting on it, as well as a good part of the next several days.

A couple of my kids were gone for the weekend and met up with an email friend of mine, who said she had fabric for me if the kids would swing by her way. They did, and I received 2 shopping bags full of fabric that already have my mind a-whirling. Thanks, Kimberly! Among the pieces was 9 yards of 60" wide home fashions fabric.

My little couch has been in dire need of re-covering for a long time. It's been well used and just wouldn't come clean anymore. Some of the fabric was even tearing (in it's defense, it really wasn't made to be upholstery fabric!)

Part of me SO wanted to do it right away last night, but that meant moving a lot of stuff around, making a huge mess and needing to finish because we had friends coming in the morning to meet up with us for breakfast out. But that little couch kept calling to me. So at about 8:00, I decided to go for it and get it done.

I'm so glad I did! Really, I should probably pull some of it off, when I did the bottom part some things didn't really line up right and I just stapled the heck out of it, but, for now, it's done and looks ok. It will mostly be covered with a sheet or blanket, at least for a while, to keep it as nice as possible for as long as possible. The covers will come off when we have friends come over.

I finally finished around midnight and it took a while to clean up and wind down, but it was very worth it.

Our friends came today and we had a lovely visit. Tonight I'll be quilting and cleaning up the bit of kitchen mess still left to care for.

I got the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas and I'm having a ball with it. I've actually made a few things from it already and have plans to try many more. A lot of them are a bit pricey for my budget, but I will collect the ingredients that are not perishable and those that I can freeze and will buy the perishables when I plan to cook.

I made a chocolate cake from the book that was fabulous. My friend, who LOVES chocolate, said she thinks it is the best chocolate dessert I've made for her, which is high praise because I've made a lot of them and many were really, really good.

Hopefully I'll be spending the rest of the winter doing a lot of quilting...and cooking!

Keep Warm!

Sue

Over the Tops - This is the Year

My biggest quilting year ever has begun. What I'm hoping is that this is the beginning of a few more years like it. I really want to get some old projects done and looking through my storage compartment I saw how many tops there are under there to quilt. The plan will be to quilt most of them simply but often once I get them out and start to really look at them the quilting plan gets bigger.

I'm excited to have made quite a bit of progress on the flying geese quilt. It's over half quilted now, and I have one more double row of geese like the one below, a sashing piece (not too wide, it's the size of the border shown at the left in the photo), a single row of geese and then the outer border. The binding is already made and ready to sew on to the quilt. I really hope to be binding by next weekend.
This morning I basted the cornice cover for the roman shade in my sewing room. It will go into the hoop as soon as the geese are done, and buys me a bit of time to get the batting for the shade. I had planned to quilt Oriental Roads next, but I'm on a roll with this shade so that one will get bumped. The plan is to get the batting and backing for that one as soon as possible so that I can have it marked and ready to quilt as soon as the shade is finished.

I finished the top for the shade last night and am really happy with how it came out. Rebekah and I played with it several weeks back to find the best way to place the blocks. I will be making another strip block quilt for the couch by the window, that one will have smaller blocks, but it probably won't get any attention until next year.

Ruthie continues to do very well. When she's tired she'll settle herself wherever she is and nod off. The older kids laugh at how little space she still takes up a lot of the time (though when she snuggles down with us at night for a bit before moving to her own bed, she sure can manage to take a lot of space in our queen sized bed!)

Below she is showing off her Christmas pajamas. She LOVES pajamas and I brought these out for her on Christmas Eve, she was thrilled.

I have big quilting plans for today, hoping to make a serious dent in what is left on the flying geese quilt. It's quiet here today, two of the older kids are out of town, the other two have plans starting about 4:00 and I've been keeping up around here so a quick run of the vacuum and putting away some dishes leaves the house in pretty good stead. That leaves this afternoon and evening wide open for quilting, I plan to take advantage of it!

Happy Quilting, keep warm!

Sue