Caught It!

 I started out so good this morning.  Using up leftover 2" squares from the Scalloped Potato quilt class, I've been making blocks for another quilt ( I think I mentioned it yesterday).  Stitched up one this morning and laid out pieces for another one.

Then I decided that I'd work on my blocks for my Judi Madsen Iquilt class using the backing fabric leftover from the I Love My All Stars quilt since it's still on the frame (Mo'e).  Found some 'scrap batting and laid it out... laid out the traditional block, basted it along the top and proceeded to stitch in the ditch like Judi instructed.  Got half way around when I noticed this...

my finger is on the lower corner of the top

and here's where the backing ends

I'm so glad that I caught it in time.  Yes, I had already stitched in the ditch half way around, but it was easy enough to take the stitches out - took less than 10 minutes. 

So now, the backing still sits on Mo'e.  I'm going to call Ethel to see if I can put her embroidered snowmen on with the backing 'scrap'.  As long as it's already loaded, I want to use it.

TTYL

Eight days a week

That popped into my head as I was checking to see when I posted last.  Now, to remember what all I've done in those eight days.
First, I finished my I Love My All Stars quilt!!  YAY!!  It's not perfect, but darned close to it.

This was my first time trying So-Fine thread and also the cotton/wool blend batting from Connecting Threads.  I LOVE the So-Fine - it gave me a couple of issues, but I worked them out.  I really couldn't tell any difference in the cotton/wool versus the cotton/poly that I usually use.  I have two more pieces that I'll use for one of my 'garden' quilts - don't know if I'll buy again or not.

The borders, in my mind, were going to be piano key stitched... well, I wasn't concentrating on what I was doing when I started stitching them and I ended up with 'corrugated' borders - that's ok, I like them.

I finished that quilt at 5:30 on Thurs. night - just in time to take to guild meeting - with only two sides of the label still needing to be hand stitched on. 

Friday, I pretty much putzed around... spent an hour in E.R. with a quilting friend and took my 'stuff' for Saturday's class to the library, but didn't even set up.  I did talk with Gloria about doing quilt blocks for Linda G. as a departure gift ( she's moving to Arizona within the next few months).  Gloria wanted to do something with a cruise ship - we looked online but didn't see anything exactly cruise ship, but did find a paper pieced ship that she liked.  This pattern had other transportation blocks so we decided that's what we'd offer up for others to do for Linda.  I printed up two of each when I got home... brought them in Saturday and told the gals there about them and our plan - the patterns went like hotcakes, even after I requested a dollar for each copy to help cover my costs ( I paid $10 for the patterns and then there was my ink and paper used).

Saturday was spent in class with Toni, who was our guest 'teacher'.  Such a nice lady... she brought a bunch of her quilts to show and she made copies of some of the patterns to give to us.  It was also Ruth's birthday and we had cake after enjoying the potluck lunch we had.  I didn't get as much done as I had hoped to, but I got the scallops sewn onto a few blocks.  I THOUGHT I needed more scallops, but now that I look at the quilt, I realize that I probably didn't.  I had wanted to make the blocks look like they were floating on the background.  If I had put them up on my design wall, I probably would have realized that I was right in the first place.  Oh well, I still like it.

Yesterday, I finished making the 'needed' scallops and got them stitched down. Then it was on to stitching the blocks into a quilt top before adding a small inner border and the larger outer border.  I finished about 10 last night.

 I even have a good idea of how I want to quilt it... it just has to wait in line.

Saturday, I got a small 9 block quilt top plus 2 'orphan' blocks from Gloria.  They were made by guild members in 2003 ( before I joined the guild); I only recognized four names - and only one of them is still a member.
Here's one of the blocks....

 I printed this up in black and white and proceeded to design a quilting pattern for it.  Since there are only the nine blocks in the piece and then the two orphans, I'm just going to do the same thing in each - I THINK.  Going to try it on one of the orphans first.  As I got to looking at the top this morning, I noticed that the blocks did not all meet up around the edge like they should have.  I took the parts of the seams out and redid them.  I'd really like to add a small border before loading this onto Mo'e... called Gloria to ask her if it would be ok with her, but she didn't answer ( either she wasn't home or her phone wasn't working again).  I don't think she'll have a problem with it, but I want to ask her to be sure.

Back to the blocks for Linda G., I realized this morning that the patterns DID NOT print at 100%... more like 75%.  I posted a message on our FB page letting the gals know... and that I would test a pattern and let them know.

It worked, just came out at 8" instead of 10.5".  I don't have a problem with that - hope no one else does.

OOPS!  The wheels go UNDER the car, not up in the air hovering over the car. LOL

Here's the first block completed.

I'm not thrilled with the satin stitching around the headlights, but it is what it is.  I should have switched machines... "Marie" does not do satin stitching as nicely as "Jan" ( my older Janome) does.

Since I still have LOTS of 2" squares left from the "Scalloped Potato" scrap quilt, I started making more blocks.  I'll use them to make another quilt like "S.P." - just without the scallops.

Guess that's all ... think we're all caught up.  Hopefully, I won't wait another eight days before posting again.  :)

TTYL

Productive Morning

Woo Hoo!  It's not even noon yet and I've already found a missing Ricky Tims DVD AND a kid's quilt pattern that I've been looking for for a couple of years... and I stitched up about 10 of the scallops for the upcoming Scalloped Potato class AND stitched sashing onto rows 4-7 of the I Love My All Stars quilt top.

Unfortunately, it's time for a nap... I'll set the alarm on my phone this time so that I don't take a four hour nap like I did yesterday.

After the nap, I want to get the rest of the sashing sewn on along with the outer borders; then I can call the top done.  If my body co-operates, I'm hoping to do some practicing on Mo'e this afternoon and then load the All Star quilt onto it.  Since I already know what I want to do in the background, it makes sense to do this one now instead of putting it at the bottom of the list of Waiting To Be Quilted.  I'm not sure what I want to do in the borders yet, but thought I'd do just straight stitching next to the ditches for the sashing.

This is what I'm thinking about doing with the borders... I know it's not a good pic, but it's the best of the four or so that I took.   Maybe I'll do something else - will have to look through my 'stuff' to see if I can come up with another idea.

Ok  nap time

TTYL

SIGH

I finally finished the I Love My All Stars blocks last night.  Wouldn't you know that the next to last one would give me such a hard time that it took almost two hours to do - bad enough that each block took an average of one hour EACH.  I'm not sure what happened to this ornery block but I finally got it to fit.
This morning, I stitched the blocks together... now they're waiting for the sashing.

 The pattern calls for gray sashing and I have some in my stash - but it was supposed to be used on another quilt... sigh, guess I'll go ahead and 'rob from Peter to pay Paul" and I'll get some for the other quilt at another date.

Yesterday morning, I finally convinced myself that I HAD to go to Walmart to buy a new iron ( and ironing board cover since I needed one of those, too).  Just another cheap set... $9 and change for the iron and $4 and change for the cover.  I also bought the backing fabric for the All Stars quilt .. a nice white polka dot on a gray background ( kind of like a Swiss dot?).

Came back home and tried to put the new cover onto the ironing board ( after taking old one off, of course) and it didn't quite fit.  There was this  'nasty' white foam padding on the back which proceeded to tear as I was trying to get the cover on.  Once I succeeded in getting the cover on, that white foam made big lumps in it, so I took it back off and tore it all out... now the cover fits like it's supposed to.  I still had the padding on the board itself so that cheap foamy stuff wasn't needed anyway.  I can't remember how long ago I bought that padding, at least two or three covers ago... but it still works, so it can stay until I need to replace the cover again - and when that happens, I'm going to buy a new board.  I got this one -used- almost 30 years ago and it's annoyed me for years; I've just been too cheap/frugal/thrifty to replace it - I'm one of those who believe that if it still works, there's no reason to get rid of it.  :(

I just looked at the pic... it looks like the top row is longer than the ones below it - NOT GOOD.  I went and looked at the actual rows... no, the top row is not lined up correctly on the wall... the other rows are more to the left than the top row is.  Whew!!

I've got to do a quick clean up of the sewing area ( and freezer top) before I can lay out the fabric to cut the sashing.. The bin that this quilt has been in can be cleaned out - will I fill it with another 'quilt in the works', with my fat quarter collection or just leave it empty?  We'll have to wait and see.

TTYL

Short and semi sweet

After practically living in my sewing room over the weekend, I decided I needed to get out of the house... I called Colette and arranged to go play at her house in the afternoon.

We watched bits & pieces of the iquilt.com classes that I'm taking but she isn't.  And then we got into playing with sharpie markers and alcohol - that could be a dangerous combination  lol.  Actually, what we did was draw onto cardstock with the markers, then turned the pictures face side down onto pieces of Kona cotton and then covered the back of the drawing with the alcohol and rubbed/spread it around.  They didn't turn out all that great - apparently, we did something wrong or we didn't do something as well as we should have.  Before we tried this, I had Colette help me fasten a piece of Kona cotton over a juice glass with a rubber band - that was almost dangerous because the rubber band kept flying off.  After we finally got the rubber band to stay on, I told C to draw something on the fabric - like a flower.  Then she took an eyedropper filled with alcohol and applied it to the drawing.... the colors ran as expected and turned out really pretty.

Ok  that was the sweet.... now for the sour

I stopped at Walmart on the way home from C's and bought about $18 worth of this & that.. got to the register to pay with my debit card - and it was refused TWICE.  Luckily I had enough cash on me.  Came home with the 'this & that', got onto my computer to check out our bank account.. sure enough, I was overdrawn... BECAUSE SOME IDIOT HACKED MY ACCOUNT!!!  to the tune of a little over $300!!!.  I printed out a copy of the statement and headed right over to our credit union.  Got it taken care of within a very few minutes, but it cost me my debit card - she cut it up right in front of me while telling me it will take a week for the new/replacement card to arrive.  This is getting to be beyond ridiculous... It's basically become an annual thing... I think it was two years ago just about this time that I was hacked for the first time - then last year, it happened twice within less than two months ( again in the late winter/early spring time of year).  I am TRYING to be careful when using my card, but like the woman at the credit union said - it can happen no matter how careful you are.

and.... last night while rummaging around my sewing room and a few other places trying to find my Ricky Tims Kool Kaleidoscopes  dvd, I noticed that I felt heat when my arm reached over my iron.. I thought "Oh Chit!  I've forgotten and left it turned on again (since the day before)" but when I looked, the dial was turned to off.. so I unplugged it.... this morning, I plugged it back in and it heated right up before I even turned the dial on... then, when I did turn it on, it started to cool down.. and eventually it started 'vomiting' on my freshly sewn quilt block!!  That was the final straw!!!!  I unplugged it, set it aside to cool and went to retrieve my little 'back up' iron from my sew-in weekend bag.

Despite the issue with the iron, I managed to finish another All star block... I don't have that many left to do; going to keep going - would like to be able to call the top done by the end of this week.

And on that note...

TTYL

Productive Weekend

YES it was...  yesterday morning I finished making the top for my DIVIDE, DESIGN & FILL FOR BEAUTIFUL QUILTING class with Lisa Calle and I made the second top for the Quilting Makes a Difference class with Judi Madsen.  Finished those about noon if I remember right.  Then I went back to working on my I Love My All Stars blocks; I made three pairs of those.  I needed one more pair to finish the row so that's what I did this morning.

In my head I was singing "I've got a tiger by the tail" by Buck Owens while making this pair - wonder why... lol.  I now have FIVE of the required seven rows done... I'm beginning to see the light at the end of this tunnel; still need to pick out fabric for the sashing and borders, but that will happen after I finish the last row.

I still have two iquilt classes that I need to prep for, but they can wait for a bit; I want to get the tops I've already made loaded onto Mo'e so that I can finish them.  Since I'm not in the mood to start Mo'e they will just have to wait a little longer.

In the meantime, I still need to cut the scallops required for the Toni Ivey class coming up later this month and I want to do some re-organizing of my quilting 'stuff'... and hopefully downsize a bit -  I have way too many patterns - and I need to figure out what to do with the table full of 'stuff' sitting in our family room.  I had to look for something the day before yesterday and the one table became two tables AGAIN!

TTYL

Catching up (again)

After taking a break for a few days, I'm 'back in the saddle' again.  Yesterday, I stopped down at The Hen House to pick up my April Almost Amish BOM.  I had to chuckle because Carolyn already had my kit up front - she said that Colette had been in earlier to pick hers up and she had a feeling that I wouldn't be far behind.  I normally don't pick up my kit until I get my SS check which is later in the month, but since the check doesn't come until the middle of this month, I decided to get my kit early.

Before heading out to do errands yesterday morning, I stitched up two more All Star blocks... the first time I've worked on them since our Feb. sew in.  After doing the errands and taking a nap, I fixed dinner and then got started on the AA BOM... finished it about 11:30 last night.  YAY!!

Another All Star block made this morning and I'm all set to start on the next pair... these will complete another row and means that I'll be half done with the rows needed.  I think this will give me the incentive to keep at it and get this quilt top done.

I still need to make a couple more 'mini' tops... for classes I've been taking online at iquilt.com.  Once I get them done, I'll put them onto Mo'e using the same piece of backing and batting.  My goal will be to complete them in the next two weeks so that Colette and I can show each of ours at the guild meeting.

I need to go into JoAnn's to get a couple things for another of my iquilt.com classes, but I just don't feel like driving to Lansing.

Ok  time to get back to work....

TTYL