Where have I been?

Well, I have been lost in one of my favourite places -- my scrap bin. And after this foray it even closes!!! You do believe me, don't you? It's actually kind of amazing to me that when I work on scrap quilts I work pretty much randomly and just pull pieces that are big enough out and use them. Just about the opposite technique from when I am working on a non scrap quilt. Then virtually every piece of fabric is planned and matched. So maybe I like to make scrap quilts because they are a break from my normal control freakiness? Dime store psychology -- what do you think!??

So what is this pile you ask? It is sort of Chunky Churndash from Bonnie at Quiltville.

I mostly considered these blocks 2 colour blocks. Background and churndash. Well, except for the center square. I just cut a bunch of those out of light fabrics and pretty much chose them at random. In general, unlike many of the blocks on Bonnie's quilt my corners and sides of each churndash are the same fabric. Except for the occasions when I was short a piece and just subbed something similar -- more like old timey quilts, right? Making do.

Anyway, I cut away for while and then sewed for a while and ended up with 59 blocks. In her quilt Bonnie used 61 plus hourglass blocks in between. I was thinking of not using the hourglass blocks so I made 5 more blocks thinking I could make the quilt 8 blocks x 8 blocks. They are 6" finished blocks so with borders that would make a nice sized lap quilt. I am still rethinking the hourglass blocks, though, because I really like the way they make the churndash blocks look like they are set on point.

The other place I have been is shopping. I recently turned 60 and Mr THQ gave me 3 gift cards worth $60 each to my favourite places -- the local quilt shop, Joann's, and Craft Warehouse. Then my group at work threw a surprise '60's themed bday party for me that included a $100 Joann's gift card. I need to take my camera to work and take a picture of my office now. They all wore tie dye shirts (and there was one for me), wigs, bandanas, John Lennon tiny coloured glasses, and were carrying colourful picket signs. I hung them all on over my office. Wait until you see them! It was a fantastic surprise and lot's of fun. Makes it almost okay to get this old. Almost.

Anyway, I had to start using those gift cards, now didn't I? I have been kind of looking for stencils or letter patterns that I liked and I found these punch outs. I think if I reverse them on my light box I can get a good tracing.

What do I need them for? Well, for the letters for this tabletopper that Kim shared instructions for last fall. I finished the top except for the words. I want kind of funky mismatched letters and I think this method will work. We will see. First there is lots of punching out ahead of me. Kim has been away from blogging for a bit due to an injury. I really miss her and hope she can return soon. At the rate I am going she will be all well and back before I ever get this top done.

What else have I bought? Well, thinking of the churndash quilt I was looking around for borders, or maybe hourglasses and this caught my eye. On sale for only $2.99 a yard. It just had to come home with me. Isn't it cute?!! It will be just right for something, I know it will. So much for trying not to add to stash. Well, I had encoragement to shop don't you know?

Oh, and here is another purchase. I don't see this magazine too often. Once I thumbed through this issue though I had to have it.

Why do you ask, well,look at this house quilt! One look and I just had to make it. I have already pulled browns and blacks from the scrap bin. I love houses and buttons, and this has both. Does that ever happen to you? You look at something, and it is love at first sight. Just. have. to. make.it. I love it when this happens, get kind of glum when it doesn't for a while, and guess this is how I end up with so many things in so many stages.

And last but not least, look at how cute this wool runner is. I love how colourful and graphic it is. Even though I don't do alot of wool things, this is one I need to do for sure.

Well, thanks for bearing with my radio silence. I promise to return sooner rather than later!

I can hear you asking,

just what is March on the military channel. You are anxious to know, now aren't you? Well, it is World War II War in the Pacific month. Now you know!! That's my dad's war so it is always interesting to me and Pacific battles are less frequently shown.

As you may remember, when last we met, my sewing maching had to go visit the shop. Look at how empty it's space is. And was for 12 whole days! Yes, those are mouse pads. Freebie ones. I keep them under the machine to tamp down vibration. I think it works really well, especially when machine quilting. So what did I do with myself for those 12 days? Well, Mr THQ finished making a cabinet from found drawers and other found pieces of wood. So I re-arranged the dining room a bit to find a new home for it. Didn't he do a great job? Everything is found and the paint is all original. It doesn't all match but we didn't want to decide if it needed to be painted until we saw what it looked like just as it was. What do you think? Kind of shabby chic prim.

I did lots of sorting of recipes. That project is ongoing so I don't have any organized anything to show you yet. I had cut out recipes stashed just everywhere. Now they are all in one place but I am still culling duplicates and trying to make myself throw away recipes for things I know I will NEVER make. Do you do that -- save recipes for things you know you won't make? I come by this habit naturally -- my mom did the same thing. In fact, lots of the recipes are ones from newspapers where she lived and I did not. And lots and lots in her handwriting. Written on just anything that was handy.

I also did quite a bit of cutting. Here are 3 quilts all cut out ready to be sewn. Two of them are from the fat quarter quilt book series since I have been really working those. I still have quite a few fat quarters left to use up though. And I remembered to make myself notes as to what quilt the fabrics are for. I have one plastic box with cut pieces that I have no idea what they are supposed to make. All darks so I must not have finished cutting all the pieces. Maybe someday I will figure it out. It's kind of like putting something away in a "special" place. That's for sure a way to never find it again!

Finally the call came that she was all fixed and ready to go. Isn't this a happy sight? It sure is to me. I had been trying to sew and quilt on the weekends less obsessively so I suppose it is a good thing that I managed to occupy myself so well while she was gone. But, boy, oh, boy am I happy to be able to sew again. Sewed a few blocks, then had to test on the machine quilting. You might recall I pin basted until there were no pins left so I had plenty available to practice on.

And here is my first finish for 2010. Not very big, but an original, and finished in February. I think it came out kind of cute. My intention was for a summery table top quilt and I think that goal was met. Not my usual colours, but it is good to get out of the rut occasionally. And it used up that lemon fabric that I have had for YEARS and YEARS.

You will notice a recurring theme and that is using things up. I really want to use up stash this year. Don't want to get crazy about it but it really is time for some of this fabric to become quilts. Really, it is.

February is sniper month

and you would know that if you watch the military channel while you sew like I do because they tell me all about it on every single commercial break I am sure!


It's been so long since I blogged I forgot to load my pictures in the right order so the post will be a bit inside out. If you remember my last post things had not been going so well around here.


Well, they still are not, but here is a bright spot. Found these books for a buck each at the thrift store recently. They are actually from the 2000's which is remarkably new for TS books and fun to look at. And another bright spot, albeit one forced upon me. This morning this is what my laundry rack of finished tops looked like. As you can see, it is about to collapse from the weight of all of them. I have not finished a single thing this year. Which actually has a bright side, too. Last year I felt somewhat pressured by trying to finish at least one thing a month. Not that I don't finish things -- I do -- but I tend to go on finishing binges so some months, nothing and others, bunches. So today became a pinning binge day for reasons which will become clear when you get to the end of the post. 8 small to medium quilts all pinned and ready to be quilted.

Anyway, I digress. President's day is not a holiday for work but I took it off and Tuesday, too, so that I could work on getting some quilting finished. I had 3 tops already pinned and ready to go.

And had just been on a binding binge making binding and backs for most of those finished tops. See, here is the binding for those gingerbread people who didn't quite make it to the finish line by Christmas.

And you remember this one? The striped fabric is a much better binding than border I think. I actually made the borders from a SOLID colour. Yes, I bought some solid colour Kona cotton at JoAnn's for this quilt. The only time I have used solids is for that dotty quilt and that was because it was a kit and the solids came as part of the kit. Lot's of folks in blogland use solids quite a bit though, so I thought I would put my toe in the solid water as it were and I am glad I did. Don't you think the borders are perfect?

Speaking of borders, after much frustration the Primrose Inn quilt top is also completed. Had a hard time deciding on borders. I finally made one from the dark rose fabric. I made it about 3" wide but after I had it sewn on decided it was too bright. So it will become about a 1-1 1/2" inch strip with the basic background fabric as the final border. I have lots of that background fabric. I am not sure why...

It needs a back and I decided to use lots of leftover strips for the binding I like multiple fabric bindings. Wonder how I missed taking a picture of it? Oh, well. You probably have seen enough binding today anyway.

I also got this top all sewn together. I tried and tried to have all different fabrics but finally gave up. Then I looked carefully at the picture in the Fat Quarter book and realized the display quilt had used more than the minimum number of fat quarters. Oh, well, real life is never the way it is pictured, now is it? Anyway I like it, I think. I auditioned some borders but didn't really see anything I liked and since I am trying to use stash and not buy new fabric (heh, heh), it will be borderless. But it still needs a back and binding. The binding binge didn't quite extend this far.

Back to the Primrose Inn quilt. Like I said, pictures and proper order are strangers today. I think I have said before that I usually don't buy fabric lines. I have never bought one of those fat quarter bundles of all of the fabrics in a line. Mostly because they are so expensive that they scare me, but also because I don't usually like all the fabrics in a line. So the ones I don't like hang around a long time looking for a home. And because I think that one of the most fun things about quilting is deciding what fabrics go with which other fabrics. I like to do that on my own. Anyway, the fabrics for this quilt came totally from stash. The pattern happens to be from Blackbird Designs, and as I was putting leftovers away I happened to notice that several of the fabrics I had chosen were also from Blackird Designs. Different lines, but same designer! Just look. How about that?

My difficulties from last time continued on while I was working on this top. That wrong size triangle thing kept haunting me. Again, I read the directions, but did I follow them? Well, not exactly...

See where it says to trim the setting triangles? It really says that and I read it. I just didn't think I should actually cut into the nine patches. Because once you cut, you can't put it back, so in an overabundance of caution I ignored this part of the directions.

But, lo and behold, the directions were correct. Once they were trimmed up the triangles fit perfectly! How 'bout that?Remember I was saying I took Monday and Tuesday off so that I could go on a quilting binge? Head up to the sewing room early Saturday morning, turn on "World at Wa"r, clear off the sewing tables, don the gloves, drop the feed dogs, and....

my machine won't hold it's speed properly. Foot pedal all the way to the floor and machine s e w i n g s o s l o w l y...

Rethreaded, rebobbined, turned off, unplugged. All to no avail. Machine will have to go in for repairs. Load it up in the car, wait for quilt shop to open, drive it over, and, NO power cord. It is still at home, on the floor. Back home, get the power cord, back to the quilt shop, and, now I have to wait for my baby machine to be returned to me. I only hope it will not be something major and expensive.

Oh, well, best laid plans... you know how that goes...

Aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhh

This past weekend was not the greatest sewing weekend I've ever had. It certainly seems that I spent a lot more time with this: which surely is the BESTEST seam ripper on the face of the earth....

than this:

Everything I did was wrong. Ever have those kinds of days? No matter what I did it was wrong, and sometimes wrong twice. Don't you hate it when you sew something, unsew it, and then do it wrong EXACTLY THE SAME WRONG WAY AGAIN!!!!!

I finished assembling the blocks for the Primrose Inn quilt. Look at all the squares -- and lots of opportunity to put them together i n c o r r e c t l y. Need I say more? Amazingly I managed to get them all together by the end of the weekend. Phew.

And actually the squares were a breeze compared to the triangles for this little baby. Look how innocently it is sitting there auditioning border fabrics. Don't let it fool you. I am actually shocked that one of those corner yellow blocks still exists as it was resewn so many times. I decided I wanted to put these blocks on point. No problem, I thought, I have a chart with the measurements for the setting and corner triangles. But somehow I managed to miss the sentence that said to cut the side triangles in half diagonally TWICE.

So, sew, sew, sew. Hmmm. Corner blocks seem to be too small. The chart must be wrong. (Isn't it amazing how easily we can fool ourselves into just KNOWING that the mistake is someone else's???) So I made a guestimate and cut bigger ones. Hmmm. Way too much triangle -- out of proportion to the blocks. So, read the directions again, and there it is, big as life, cut twice. So unsew all that is together and cut those suckers in half again, and, at last, here we go. And I thought I had too much of that border fabric. Hah!!

So, anyway, I really liked the light peach check on the right of this picture. I thought it might "countrify" the bright colours. And, it was not really as washed out as it appears. Mr THQ vehemently voted for the brighter orange. So I went with it and, what do you know? He was right!

I used to not show tops and wait until things were quilted but the way things have been going lately I better show what I can when I can.

A success, so it was time to go for more. Set out all the blocks for this quilt. After more than 30 minutes I still could NOT find any lay out that would prevent like fabrics from touching. I finally gave up and just started sewing them together.

So, how does it happen that between the floor and the sewing machine the blocks get all mixed up? Does that happen to you? I figure it's like the law of coils. You know that one, don't you? You carefully coil up a garden hose, or a long extension cord, put it away carefully, and the next time you go to use it the whole thing is all tangled up in knots. And it does this all.by.itself! There must be a law of quilt blocks that works the same way.

Anyway, since I couldn't find the perfect layout, I just went for it and finished putting the blocks together. Now the question is, border or no border, and if so, what shall it be?

Oh, well, enough of my tale of woe. It's almost enough to make me glad to go back to work on Monday. Well, not quite.....

Quilters ADD and a winner!

Well, as fitting for a post with this title, expect to jump all over the place! But I won't make you hang on until the end just to find out the winne of my blogiversary giveaway. Let's get that out of the way up front. Easy to make little paper numbers to draw when there arre only six entries, and despite her assumption that number one is never the winner, this time number one is indeed the winner! Paulette, if you will email me your address I will get those patterns off to you right away. I hope you enjoy them!

So, what have I been up to you might ask? Everything. Ever since I got into the fat quarters I keep getting in deeper and deeper. First I was searching through the fat quarters to find the right ones for patterns in the "Laps From Fats" book series; now I am just playing with fat quarters for their own sake I think. Just look at some of the combinations I have come up with. So I have come full circle. Now I am looking for patterns to go with my fat quarter combinations.

Love this navy with rust flowers. I think it is an old Thimbleberries fabric. Here are some nice rusts to go with it. Now I just need to pull some browns and greens and figure out what nice fallish thing to make. At least there is plenty of time before fall comes around again! How about this? At least it is more seasonal. I have had that little pink bunny toile fat quarter for years and years. I was always going to use it with pink solids but just look at that stripe with it! That came in a citrus-y fat quarter stack I acquired fairly recently that you will see further down in this post. This stripe looks really good with the bunnies and will let me add in some chartreuse (my current favourite colour) and purple to my bunnies. Cool. Now, what should it be?

Ahh, isn't this a nice combination? That bottom one on the far right is the background for a "Laps From Fats" pattern and all these will go with it. It's kind of a churn dash/through the barn door pattern, a favourite of mine. Love that dark rosey gingham. Looks like there's some Pat Sloan and Fig Tree in there, too.

Okay, how about this one? Again, I have been aging that lemon black and white stripe fabric for-ever. I have actually had it paired with the yellow and black dotted fabric for awhile. Time to add a little more to it. I think this will make some nice Ohio stars with the lemon fabric as the centers and the black, yellow, and greens as the star points.

These just kind of got plopped together and I love the white with aqua and red with aqua together. Not quite so sure about the roses in the foreground. I have quite a bit of the first two fabrics so I should be able to come up with something good for it. I've been seeing lots of aqua and red around in blogland recently.

I subscribe to this magazine. And it still exists. Unlike "Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion" and "Country Home". Sad. Oh, and Gourmet. Not quite so sad as I only read Gourmet in the dentist's office, on airplanes, and such, as it was a bit, well, gourmet, for me. Anyway, seems like so many magazines have ceased to exist recently. Although, have you noticed that the survivors are offering great deals for subscriptions? Desperate to get their circulation numbers up I guess. Cheap enough that you would only have to buy one or two issues a year to cover the entire year or more. I got offers too good to refuse for "Martha Stewart Living" with "Everyday Food" thrown in, and for "Country Living".

Oh, well, I digress. Again. I loved this cover quilt, and wouldn't you know, there's lots of red and white and red and cream in the fat quarter bins. Can hardly wait to do this one. Glad it's not too Valentine's Day-ish as it probably will barely be started by Valentine's Day.

Recently I was in one of the LQS I don't visit too often and they had a display quilt I fell in love with. It was a free pattern from Moda. So I went to the Moda site and printed it out along with this one from Blackbird Designs. Guess which one I have already cut and started? Not the one I fell in love with, no, not me. This other one. I had just the right background to go with just the right fat quarters in the stack. Kind of bright pastels. I already have a few blocks of this one finished.

As promised, the citrus-y ones. I found the other colourway yardage just about the time Kim showed her Valentine's table topper, and somehow everything got smooshed together in my mind, with these blocks as the result. They haven't been trimmed down yet and I haven't decided if I will use Kim's layout or do some sashing with the yardage, but the blocks are finished.

And, yes, my sewing table and sewing room are a capital M mess right now, how did you guess? I have just been working a bit on all of these things. Progress has been made, though. Remember the 9 patches from the last post? Here is the next step -- bigger 9 patches. Just need to sew them all together. I like these colours, too.

It's funny, the 9 patches will end up being 12 of the smaller blocks across and 12 down. But sewing them into the bigger 9 patches seemed to go really fast. On the other hand, sewing all the blocks together for the floral quilt seemed really tedious. It's really only 13 blocks by 13 blocks, so it shouldn't have seemed such slow going but it sure did.

And really and truly the reason I am in the middle of so many things is that I like to chain sew and I want every item to be meaningful. I started out sewing the floral blocks together from both ends to the middle but that gets all tangled up really quickly, so I started alternating between it's blocks and putting together blocks for other projects. See, makes perfect sense, now doesn't it? And makes the quilters ADD look a little less serious. Maybe...

I am truly amazed at how much I like this quilt now that it is all together. It is pretty big -- I finally looked at the pattern and it says 65 X 65. So, another top onto the "ready to be layered and quilted" rack. I really need to get busy on that rack as I am not sure it will hold too much more. Soon, soon...

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date...

Yes indeedy, I am late for my very own blogiversary! What do you make of that? My first post was January 5, 2009. And here it is already the tenth. But it is a very binary day -- 011010. October 10 will be even better -- 101010. But I digress. Every blogiversary deserves a giveaway now, doesn't it? So in keeping with the custom, let's have a giveaway!

Since I am 5 days late to the party, how about 5 patterns? It's a bit of an electic collection cuz I am an eclectic kind of quilter. We have 2 primitive items, one is the wool bunny runner that I finished a while back. Well, finished is a relative term. It still needs to become a pillow. Then a little cottage-y baby quilt, a Christmasy one, and a scrap user-upper.

But wait, there's more. A couple of years ago a friend gave me a quilt a day calendar. Alot of those days were A for applique days, let me tell you. I couldn't bear to toss any of them though, so I will throw them in. Then it will be up to the winner to toss them. Or maybe the winner will be an applique fan so they will be put to good use!

So, we need giveaway details now, don't we? I notice that alot of giveaways now are being used as traffic builders -- become a follower, link to me on your blog, stand on one foot, etc. For me blogging is not a popularity contest. I blog because I love to read other people's blogs and want to contribute. And because I have enjoyed the back and forth with some of my commenters. So let's keep it nice and simple. Leave a comment and I will draw a name next Sunday, January 17th. Be sure to leave your email address if you don't have a blog link so I can find you if you win. How bad would it be to win and not be able to get your prize because you can't be found?!
So, here we are in a new year. I have a few little, ahem, quirks, and one of them is counting the spools I use during the year. 2008 was a 55 spool year. 2009 was only a 34 spool year. But 2010 is off to a great start, it's already a 1 spool year!

So what have I been up to that has used a spool up already? Remember the red and green blocks I was working on? Well, I finished a LOT of them. In fact, all sewn together they are too big for my design floor. Here's a look:

More of it:

I had a bit of a time deciding on the sashing. Since many of these scraps are really OLD I considered choosing the sashing by fabric date. Here is a contender from 2005. A litte too cutesy I think.

Here is another contender, and well, the ultimate winner. 2002!!! Wouldn't want to use any fabric before it's time, now would we? And I think it turned out to be about as perfect as can be. Maybe I'm on to something with this date thing....

I like to cut my binding when I finish a top. That way I know it's done. Of course, then when the quilt is quilted I have to find it, but that's a problem for another day. I use this little red check from Joann's alot for backings and bindings. It nearly always seems appropriate. Could be since I use so much red.

So, what else have I been up to, you ask, during this long hiatus? If you remember, I decided a few months back to separate my fat quarters out from my fabric colour stacks. Many of my fat quarters are fabrics that I just don't like a whole lot. Why did I buy them you might ask. Well, mostly because they were in adorable little fat quarter bundles that just couldn't be resisted. So I decided to make a couple of quilts out of just my fat quarter collection.

I am certainly prepared as I already own these books. I have made a couple of quilts from them already (not necessarily from fat quarters) and there are many more tempting ones.

For one of them I decided to use up all the large florals. You might have noticed I don't do much with florals. The blocks are finished and a few rows are already sewn together. Again, a little big for my design floor but I think you get the idea. This one has been quick and fun, and amazingly, I think I am really going to like it!

Here are blocks already made for another. You can't see them very well the way they are stacked up, but these 9 patches are all ready to make into bigger 9 patches. If you have really good eyes you will see the stack of kind of repro -- old fashioned fat quarters underneath. They were going to be the next one from the fat quarter books but I have reconsidered and decided to make a quilt from one of the Kim Diehl books that uses at least 50 different fabrics. It calls for chubby 16ths. So that's next up after these tops are completed. Unless of course, I change my mind again.

So, just to recap, be sure to leave a comment by Sunday, January 17th, and those patterns and A for applique days can be yours. Talk to you soon.....