Shopping Day

I finished my recent knitting project -- socks. I love these self designing yarns. I made a big point of starting in the same place with the yarn and did really well matching until I got to the toe. See that extra dark spot on the left side? That is how much I was off. And, does it matter at all? Of course not! Next on the needles will be something for a baby. I realized I don't have much in the way of baby designs. I'm going to keep my eyes open to see if I can find a pattern book with some cute designs. I have yarn for one more pair of socks... this pair is knit with both socks at the same time on two circular needles... something new to learn!

No quilting yesterday -- well almost none. I did turn under the backing on a charity quilt to sew as a binding. Hum, I wonder if I can get that done today with everything else I need to do.

Yesterday was a shopping in Scranton day. I had coupons to Borders and Joannes and did some shopping there. Darn Borders! Yesterday's coupon was 20% off one item. Today's is 25% entire purchase. GIVE ME A BREAK here. I could have saved enough to buy another book. Of course, nearly everything was paid with a gift card so...

I bought this pen while I was at Joannes. It's from the scrapbooking dept. Several of my quilting friends use something like this to prepare applique. When I prepared the Bunny Hill boms I used starch -- which was a pain doing it and a glue stick -- which was a pain when trying to sew -- evidently I got too much on and could barely get fabric off the paper pieces. So, on to something different! Either that or I am going to hand stitch to turn under the edge. I need to prep some more so I have something to do in the evenings.

Jen and Brian are coming up today. Happy Birthday, Brian! I need to finish vacuuming upstairs, check the beds and bathroom. Sharon, my quilting buddy, is coming up on Saturday for a few days of quilt time together. Maybe I can get a little quilting done today, but I'm not holding my breath.

Happy Quilting All

Jessica Sprague's Class

Last month JessicaSprague.com offered a free class on Frame Ups and Special Effects. It started yesterday and I didn't think to do it last night. So, while I am dithering away on what to do next on the hanky challenge I decided to follow the directions for day 1. Here's the resulting photo with frame and word art. Notice the gold frame and the word sassy in the bottom right corner? Getting those two items on to the photograph was the first lesson. Tonight I may try to do lesson 2. I work on a Mac and not all the directions are the same so it took a little playing around to get it right. I would say that Cassie, on the leftt, and Raggs on the right are definitely Sassy!

I have photos of several different ways to continue the hanky challenge. I realized after I made the hanky into a frame that putting a white underlay really didn't substantially change the look of the hanky.

Here's the hanky with the frame in place. Nope, you really can't see that I put in a frame. Oh well. I enjoyed learning the new technique anyway. I had planned to applique the rose into the center.

Here's sample 1: green mini border, deep purple triangles to put on point. I'd have to applique something in the borders. The rose looks nice there... but four more? I was also thinking of doing some celtic work out there.... hum.

And, sample 2: Green miniborder, red, wider border. Rose applique in the middle where I originally expected to put it. (on the left.) Ho hum.

Sample 3. Same deep purple on point, red mini border, rose back in the center. (on left.)Still need something in triangles....

Sample 4. Back to the red on point, green mini border... (on right.) ditto on something in the triangles...

Ok, that's enough of these.

You can see my dilemma. Let me know what you think. I had also thought of doing a pieced border but I didn't want to detract too much from the hanky. And, it is really busy. Sound off folks and let me know what you think.

Happy Quilting.

More Pantos

These are the other three pantos I received yesterday. All of them are distributed by Willow Leaf Studio. The first three were designed by Jodi Beamish

All were bought through Kings Men Quilting Supply. And, wow!, talk about great turn around time. I received them 4 days after placing the order. Amazing.

This one is Starburst. It is a 6" panto.

Here's Wildflower. Another 6" one.

And this one is a mini design with two 5" designs on one roll. (sounds very economical to me.) It was designed by Hermione Agee of Lorien Quilting, and distributed by Willow Leaf Studio.

The top one is Frisky, the bottom in Yoyo.

I now have a decent variety of pantos to practice with. I certainly have several tops ready to quilt. I may throw on a charity quilt to practice with Popcorn before I put on my next quilt.

Last night I finished the second sock except sewing the toe together. And, I only have one little piece and the embroidery on the Bunny Hill Designs Basket block of the month. I'm feeling like I am getting things done.

Keeping with the getting things done thoughts, I'm off to do just that!

Happy Quilting!

Check Off Another Item on the List

Back to Ruthie... I spent part of today quilting with Ruthie. I made little melon shapes around the 4 patches of the purple quilt . The beginning was pretty sketchy... how do people get those nice smooth circles? The cirlce shown was done close to the end... and it looks fairly decent. You can see the wobbles in the dark purple. I used a varigated purple thread from Robison-Anton for top and bottom thread. No tension issues at all! YEAH. This was a 100% cotton. And, I'm fairly pleased with the results considering I haven't used Ruthie for at least a week. I used up a piece of batting I had hanging around -- it was a puffy polyester batt. Not my favorite but it was the right size for this one.

Here is the center of the quilt. I'd just decided it was time for lunch and snapped a picture before I left.

And on the right -- the quilt draped over Ruthie. (I love it when I see photos like this on other blogs. Unfortunate

ly, my room is red which really changes the quilt colors and it doesn't have much room to get a long picture!) You can't see the machine in this photo... it was at the other end of the rails!

The 4 pantos I bought arrived today. Hum, I wonder if I can get another quilt on the frame tomorrow?

This is called Popcorn and is designed by Willow Leaf Studio, Jodi Beamish. This is a Canadian company so I was happy I could buy it through Kings Men Quilting Supply. I could have bought way more than 4 pantos but there is a limit to how much I can spend at a time. You can get thread there too. I'll share the other pantos in a later post.

It's time to figure out dinner because the casserole I thought was in the freezer -- wasn't. Hum, perhaps it is time for pizza again.

Happy Quilting All!

Progress on Hanky Challenge

I've spent most of the day working on the hanky challenge. The frame is ready, sized correctly for the hanky. The inset part will have an applique in the center. That is ready to be sewn down. I used a combination of glue, (yep Elmer's School Glue), starch and thread basting to get the pieces ready. Here is the rose pinned on to wax paper -- to keep the glue from adhering it to the pattern -- glued and pinned together. I used some hand dyes and batiks to create the rose.

Here it is in a close up. Phew, it does look like a rose. I've been looking at it too closely recently. After dinner I plan to start sewing it together. I guess I will cut the backing away to get the papers out from the different pieces. I usually don't like to do that but it makes sense this time. If I get this rose sewn today I can proceed with the frame tomorrow. Then it would just be a matter of piecing some additional rows to bring it up to at least 18". I was surprised that the hanky wasn't quite square. But, it won't make any difference in the end results.

Some time this past week I finished two tops. This purple one will be loaded on Ruthie some time this week. I will be pinning it on the zippers -- maybe tonight.(That's the white mess at the bottom of the table.) I am going to try an oval ruler on this one. I still have to figure out how to get the most stitching done before I end off each time. This will have little melon shapes on the patches. Cool part is I didn't buy the backing nor the fabrics for the front. Wahoo!! And I have enough of the backing to use for binding if I want to also. I'm thinking purple varigated thread for it.

And, right behind this quilt, I have another one ready. I did break down and buy one piece of green for this next one. The rest came from my stash, including the backing. I hope to use a new pantograph that should come in this week. I'm not sure what I will use for the binding on it.

Yesterday Pat and I reorganized my studio a little bit. I had two tables back to back in the center of the room. Sewing machines were on each table so I could have two people sewing at a time. And, I had an overstuffed chair in the alcove next to my book cases. The chair was so big I really couldn't get to the books very easily. Here's the new alcove space. Sewing table and chair with the bookcases behind the chair. Much easier to get to. Then we moved the other sewing table up and put the chair back in a little corner. The new floor plan seems to be working just fine. I also went through a big square box of "stuff" from before the move. Surprisingly there really wasn't all that much in the box. I was able to put things away, throw away and I ended up with a box top (from a box of reams of paper for a copier) of things left. Needless to say I feel great about that! KEVIN -- that means there is more floor space in there if you want to come up too.

Happy Quilting All!

Happy Fourth of July

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. Pat and I decided to have dinner at the lodge of a local ski resort and then go out on the mountain to watch fire works. Which we did. Except for being in airplanes, this is the first time we've been above the fireworks. We'd see the display and hear the boom 3 to 5 seconds later. What a hoot. But, what is wrong with this picture? We were freezing. I had long pants, t shirt and sweatshirt with hood up on and still I was cold. We thought it might be 65 degrees or so. No, when we were in the car off the mountain it was 60! No wonder I was cold!

I tried a new technique today for curved piecing or making framed pictures. It was really easy to do following the directions in Stitch, Spritz and Sew: Curved Piecing as Easy as 1 - 2 - 3 by Kathy Bowers. I've had the book since last year and thought

the technique looked intriguing. It took me a while to find the YLI dissolvable thread which the book suggests to use. My practice block used the frame technique -- I put a red frame over a fussy cut conversation print. Wow! It was easy and I love the look -- maybe I'm in love with the flying pig, who knows. My bottom point on the heart isn't very sharp so in the future I may try for that. I am hoping to use this technique in my hanky challenge quilt. I have got to get going on that quilt. It won't be big but it may take a few days to get it all done.

A Tale of Two Irons

If you remember the last time I was blogging I was complaining about my iron breaking. So I went out Tuesday and bought a semi-expensive Hamilton Beach.($35 -40) It looked like it might be nice for me... until I took it out of the box. It was fairly heavy and sat up rather high on it's heel. I could see me knocking it off the ironing board without meaning too. But the kick in the pants, so to speak was when I plugged it in and used it the way I would be using it: iron a bit, sew for 10 to 20 minutes, iron, pin, cut, sew, iron... you know, the way a quilter would use it. After 15 minutes it turned itself off. According to the directions, all I needed to do was start using it again. It would heat up within 2 minutes. Um, no, it didn't heat up. I turned it off and turned it back on. Um, no, it didn't heat up. I had to unplug and plug in the friggin iron to get it to work again. NO NO NO! That just doesn't cut it for me.

So, Thursday we were heading into Scranton to a Mexican restaurant and decided to check Sears for irons. (Hey, the restaurant was in the mall parking lot... it was the closest store that carried irons.) We bought a Sunbeam ($22 or so). I tried it to make sure it worked. AH, it shuts off after 30 minutes. You hit the button to turn it on and voila~! it turned back on. Both irons say to unplug them before adding water. Pain in the ... Both said to turn off before unpluggin and unplug when finished ironing. Gosh, amazing what you can learn if you read the directions!

Pennsylvania does not ban fireworks so at 11 pm we are still hearing booms from the fireworks. As Pat says the 4th starts two weeks before and last two weeks after today. Yep. Luckily Raggs isn't that upset about the noise. He's noisily chewing on a rawhide bone.

Tomorrow I plan to start on the frame for the hanky challenge. And, I've got two quilts ready to load on Ruthie. I'm waiting for some new pantographs to come in. Time for bed now!

Happy quilting!

June Stashbusting Report

Stashbusting Report

MONTH

Fabric used: 8.75 yards

Fabric purchased: 17.375 yards*

Net fabric USED from stash: (8.625) yards

YEAR

Year to date fabric used: 40.375 yards

Year to date fabric purchased: 60 yards

Net Year to date USED from stash :(19.625) yards

* remember I got nearly 9 yards free and at least one piece I cut into and used... ok it was only 13" of 2.5" wide piece but it is in a quilt that isn't finished.

I was buying for a specific couple of quilts. And, all that free fabric... I couldn't turn that down, could I? I'm not sure this month will be any better as I am going on a road trip with Jenny and we may be going to Mary Jo's in Gastonia, NC. That will put a nice bulge in the stash. And, I really don't NEED this stuff -- well, except for the stuff for a specific quilt.

Off to use some of this stash!

Happy Quilting ALL!