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

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"....a quilting challenge

I've been able to think of little else but my quilting challenge since my last post and have spent much of that time planning it out.

I decided that it needed several facets. Part of the challenge is the amount of projects I'd like to see completed by the end. My official start date is today, September 8, 2009, and the official ending date is December 31, 2010.

I guess the easiest way to do this is to just list off the projects and include any "why they are included" information in their description. The projects aren't listed in any particular order, and won't be completed in any particular order.

1. This is a very old project. Started for my husband's 40th birthday, this got side-lined for many different reasons. I started thinking about it again when two different things happened. The first was that I found the poem I wrote to go on the back of the quilt. The other was my husband's innocent "you don't have a need for an overhead projector, do you?" Many times over the years, I had wished I had one, when I had a pattern that needed to be enlarged. I told him that most definitely yes, I could use one and he's watching out for one (he works at the local high school and they often throw out equipment when it's been replaced with something better, even if it's still in working order.) This is a hand pieced project, it's a castle with a moat and surrounding grounds. Hanging out one of the "windows" will be the damsel (me) and coming up on a white horse will be a knight in armor (my dh). The plan will be to get this top done, quilted, and bound.

2. Posies and Celtic Quilt.
This is one that I really didn't want to end up as a "UFO." I need to finish the applique in the sashings (this is nearly finished), design and add the borders, and quilt it.

3. This project has two pieces. It's a roman shade and cornice cover. The top of the cornice cover is done, it needs to be quilted.

The shade has these same blocks, in a similar configuration but offset, hard to explain, but you'll see as I go! The individual blocks are all finished, the top needs to be assembled and quilted and then I have to learn how to string it and hang it so it is a working shade.

4. Another roman shade and cornice cover, this one is for our bedroom. The center pattern has been drawn but that is all that is done on this one so far.

I need to finish designing the shade itself (it needs a vine up the sides or something) and the cornice cover, applique them and quilt them, along with hanging them. This is one of the scarier things on my list.

5. I'm really feeling the need to quilt some of the tops that I've made that haven't had a particular reason for their creation.

Even though this top was finished just recently, the blocks were several years in the making. I'm really looking forward to this quilt, and it will be the first in the hoop once Debbie's Christmas quilt is finished.

6. Another I'm feeling the need to finish I call Oriental Roads. This is my version of Bren's Pink and Brown.

We made several tops one year where we used the same pattern, with our fabrics of choice. I couldn't figure out how to quilt this one, but an idea came to me and now I'm ready to get this one finished.

7. Drunkard's Path. This project has no real purpose but to force me to learn to use my curved piecing foot. A few years ago I spent $30 to get this little doodad, but never really took the time to get proficient with it. I've wanted to be able to do patterns with curves for a long time, now is the time to learn. This will probably be set in the traditional way, and I've not made any plans for it, yet, other than it will exist.

8. This is probably the most daunting of the projects for me. It will be called Radiating Rainbows. I haven't hand pieced in a long time and this one will have a lot of small pieces that will need to be carefully pieced. It will be made from Marti Mitchell's templates and will have 110 six inch hand pieced blocks.

The blocks will be 1/4 of a sunburst block, so 1/4 of a circle and will be set to radiate out from the center and then frame the outer edge. I'll be using the fabric I got for my birthday, to which I added a pink and a purple.

I've been looking at this pretty basket full of fabric for a few weeks now, and part of me hates to cut into it...part of me can't wait.

So there it is. Eight projects officially in my challenge, though I know that I also have to finish the purple quilt, quilt Debbie's quilt, make a few other small Christmas gifts, and of course there will be at least one Christmas gift quilt for next year and possibly a wedding quilt. Yikes.

For now, I'm focusing on what's in front of me. The purple one is a big priority, as nothing else will go into the hoop until it's finished. I'm not quite sure how I'll "schedule" the others, at first I'll be picking what I feel like doing each day. At some point, I'll likely settle into a couple at a time to focus on.

It's already late today and after a busy weekend and a much busier day today than I had planned, I still have dishes to do. Once they are done, though, I will have actually accomplished just about everything I needed to in order to make tomorrow a mostly sewing day. I'm looking forward to spending some time on at least a couple of these projects!

Happy Quilting!

Wish me luck!

Sue