Rulers! Rulers! Rulers!

Last weekend, while I was sick, my husband helped me organize the rulers in my sewing room by mounting all of the hardware.  All I had to do was tell him where everything should go!

I bought two wall hangers for my longarm rulers from Simply Renee called Clip it Up.  They were initially designed for scrapbooking, but when I saw a photo on one of my quilting Yahoo chat groups where they had been used to organize the rulers, and immediately when I went to the site and discovered they were 50% off!  So of course I got two!

The first step was to take everything off the wall.  Boy, did I get a reality check on how many rulers I actually own!

Deciding where I want anything hung on the wall, especially when it involves putting a hole in the drywall, is an absolute chore, and it takes me forever to decide!  DH always says “I can fix it if you don’t like it there'” but I never change my mind and pull them out.

Once he mounted the first one, I hung the nested circle set, and it took all of 10 seconds to decide to mount the second one right next to it.

I decided to move another hanging ruler organizer that was mounted over the sewing machine over to the cutting table area, too.  Then he installed several hooks in various places for those miscellaneous items, and now I have a place for everything.  He even suggested that the larger rulers get hung on the wall in the stairwell, since I don’t use them that often and they’d be out of the way.  What a great idea!

I love that I can now see all my rulers!

My goal, besides getting everything off the floor, is to remember to practice with the longarm rulers so I will be more comfortable offering them as an option for my customer quilts.

I can even see all of the specialty cutting rulers for piecing that I have, too, and maybe I won’t keep searching for yet another method to make my half square triangles!  Maybe I’ll even start that spectacular quilt I’ve been planning.

Bonnie Hunter’s Orca Bay Mystery dilemma

Have you all seen the new mystery quilt that Bonnie Hunter is running again this year?  I want to participate, but I’m stuck on my colors!   I love brights, but they don’t go with anything in my house; DH sort of over-ruled that idea! Ha!

So, we have all of the earth colors and I’m still trying to figure out what I can pull together that will work in the living room, and will be a quilt he’ll actually use.  All of this indecision, and the third step is already posted!

…not to mention that I need to make a Bronco quilt for a customer before Christmas, and complete 2 other small customer quilts!

Thanksgiving Vacation 2011

The time since MQX West has just flown by!

While I haven’t decided on a specific design yet for my wholecloth quilt,  I have, completed two customer quilts.

 

I’ll be working on finishing a third one today.

I’ve been on vacation for the past 10 days, and I’ve certainly enjoyed it!  There was a lot of driving involved, which I don’t especially enjoy, but this view sure took my breath away!

My brother flew from New Hampshire to Montana to visit my mother the weekend before Thanksgiving, so I decided to join them.  We made our own Thanksgiving dinner early, each of us choosing something for the menu that we wanted to include that we loved from holidays past.  It was a very nice dinner and I even made turkey noodle soup out of the leftover carcass.

We also went to the Cat-Griz game, where the highly favored Cats got trounced.  This is a big deal since my brother is a Montana State University alum, and my mother is a University of Montana graduate.  I wore my neutral Bronco orange and blue stadium coat and cheered for both teams.  I went to MSU for a year and would have liked to see them win, but it was dang cold and I just needed to keep warm so cheering for both teams was the best way to do that! 

When I got home I spent a lot of time with my husband, including getting the carpets cleaned and going out for breakfast.  Two of the dogs got groomed, and Gizmo got his first dental.  Poor guy, he’s down to 11.5 pounds and needed some pain medication that evening.  I’m happy to report he’s doing much better now and has even submitted to being brushed without too much fuss.  The vet said to start feeding him some wet food to try to get some weight on him and I think it’s already starting to work.

We were also fortunate to have  friends over the day after Thanksgiving who showed me how to make authentic Malaysian curried chicken.  It was delicious and now I’m interested in finding more Malaysian recipes!

Of course, all of this running around means I haven’t been in the quilting room much.  Before I left I started straightening up and working on getting the batting rolls hung under the longarm.  I still need to complete that project to my satisfaction, but at least I was able to start on my customer quilt before I left.

While working on my customer’s quilt yesterday, I realized I am running out of backing, one row away from finishing!  And this is a huge back!  I know I measured and fussed with it a lot beforehand to make sure this wouldn’t happen.  I have a TON of extra backing on the sides, but the back is about square, too, so I think what happened is that I wasn’t skimpy with where I started the quilt at the top.  Of course, it’s a king sized quilt, and I’m not about to unroll it just to find that out, at this point!

I basted down the middle of the border to stabilize it, and  I’m going to have to find some fabric to secure to the rest of the backing so I can attach it to the leader and finish this row.  This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning!

While I’ve gotten a lot done during this time off, there are still items on the list.  I supposed that’s the way it will always be, as long as we are living life.  The trick, I think, is to make the quilts you really want to make a priority, not just the obligatory or “easy” quilts.  It’s in the doing that we achieve that satisfaction and increase our skills.  The love always shows.

MQX West 2011–Summary

Overall, I had a great time at MQX West!

I got to catch up with friends, and made some new ones!  Candi from Washington, who’s been quilting for customers for a year and has done over 200 quilts, and Mari Lee Seei, from Off The Edge Quilting, who sells those wonderful pink long arm rulers!  She was so delightful, informative, and inspiring with the versatility and amazing designs she’s come up with for her rulers!  I bought the new Frill ‘em Up set, which is a  baptist fan variation, the Gimme Frills line ruler,  the 4” Chain O’ Hearts template… and now I want them all!

I took one hands-on class from Judy Woodworth, and had a wonderful time.   Here’s the practice piece I brought home with me:

It was a real confidence booster, especially when Judy told me I was doing a good job!  I’m going to put the piece back on my machine and keep practicing until it’s all filled up.

I took a feather class from Linda McCuean, and while the technique wasn’t new to me, I got inspired to make a whole cloth quilt!  And, of course, it can’t be a small lap quilt, like the sample she showed us in class, it has to be a king sized quilt!  I bought a bolt of 108” wide fabric, batting and thread to go with it, and have been working on a design, mostly in my head at this point.  When I got home, I decided that it should have a flannel back, rather than cotton, which I had originally intended.  So, I need to get some flannel, but I don’t have to hurry at this point, I can keep my eye out for the right piece while I design and practice!

Today, I’ll be working on a comfort quilt with my lunchtime quilter group, and then back to finish my customer quilt.  Oh, what a short weekend!

New Thread!

I got 4 cones of Aurifil longarm thread at MQX West in Portland last week!  I’ve been wanting to try it for a long time, especially since I use it exclusively for piecing.

One of them is a new color, a beautiful autumn, rusty orange!  I got it specifically to do a wholecloth that I was inspired to make while taking a feathering class from Linda McCuen.

I saw the technique she presented about 3 years ago, so the class itself wasn’t new information, and I’m very comfortable with the technique.  She showed a sample in her class, of course, and it’s just beautiful!  It got me to thinking about how I could do the same thing.

While I was visiting a wholesale store in Portland, I purchased a bolt of 108” wide cotton and a couple layers of batting to make a king sized whole cloth!  I’m really excited about it, and I can hardly wait to start!  After I got home, I started thinking I should back it in flannel, so I need to find an appropriate wide backing.

I was lucky enough to come back to have 4 customer quilts to do, so while I’m working on those I’ll be modifying the design we saw in class to work with a king sized quilt.  Since I’ve never done one before, I’m wondering if I should pre-wash the fabric?  I always do on my pieced tops.  And I’m wondering if I should pre-mark before I load?  That seemed to be the consensus in one of my other classes, but they were talking about the chalk marks (I can’t believe chalk wouldn’t come off during the loading process!)

If anyone has experience making a whole cloth, I’d love your input!

MQX West - First Half of Day 1

I've had my first class at MQX West 2011, the first time this machine quilting expo has been held on the west coast.  My class was called Lions and Tigers and Templates, Oh, My! taught by Kimmy Brunner.

First let me say, Kim Brunner is a really good teacher, and I would encourage anyone to take a class from her.  She is patient and clearly repeats her information when she's asked and I liked her very much.  The class is very well organized and the flow of information worked really well.  Kim obviously enjoys teaching.  I've been reading her column in Machine Quilting Unlimited, and she touched on the subject of using templates in that article, so I was familiar with some of what she covered, but it was good to have that reinforced, and then hear new materialo in conjunction with it.

The room, though, was not  setup properly for this presentation.  There were 2 rows of tables for students, holding approximately 12 people, but there were at least 60 people in the class.  That meant that everyone else had to try to work on the drawing handouts on their lap, using the notepad that they were supposed to bring to class.  To say the least, this was not a good first impression for the organization of the show.

The Awards Ceremony and "sneak peak" of the vendor mall will be tonight.  I'm a little disappointed that the vendor mall isn't open during the day because I was planning on using this time to go shopping, especially since my friends are taking classes. 

So, while I was waiting to take my first hands-on class since I first touched a longarm, I went to a local burger place, Burgerville, for lunch.  Blackberry shake was absolutely wonderful, the half salad, while flavorful, was too small, and so I had to order a sandwich to complete my meal.  I got the crispy chicken sandwich and ended up taking off the breading (I didn't realize it came with that) which included a smattering of barbeque sauce....which also needed removing.  I think I've experienced all that Burgerville has to offer me.

I'm really looking forward to the hands on class...Exploding Texture and Background Fill, with Judy Woodworth.  I really want to expand my free motion repertoire and think this class will help.  I'll let you know!

Happy Friday!

Have I mentioned how much I love piecing with Aurifil thread?  It always amazes me how long a spool will last, it's almost shocking when it's finally gone!

I stayed up way too late last night trying to get a block done for a comfort quilt.  Of course, I’m not making just one block, I have to do some production piecing!  Now I’m wondering what I’ll do with the extra blocks!  Hmmm…  Anyway,  I’ve got to pick one more strip of fabric to add to it and then I’ll post the finished block.  It's really cute!

Part of what took so long is that I'm also making this into a tutorial so I can post it on my website as a free download.  I’m inspired by people like Bonnie Hunter and Mary from MaryQuilts.com, they do such wonderful work and are so giving with their patterns, talent, and time.

I took today off work to get some chores done, but the Quilt Guardians need a walk first.  So, on with my day!

Vera’s Family Heirloom

This is the quilt that I was working on last week.  I’m really glad I went with the Variety panto on it, instead of Brocade!  Anne Bright converted the digital patterns for me to paper, since I don’t have a computerized system.  Wasn’t that nice of her?

Now that this one is finished, I still need to quilt the “practice” quilt I made so that I didn’t make a mistake on this one!  Sort of backwards, huh?

I’ve decided, though, to turn it into a showcase quilt and do a few rows of several pantos so I can show customers how they will look stitched out, and then I won’t run into this problem again.  Now I just need to decide if I want to use my Winline bamboo batting that I’m dying to use, or go with a cotton poly, something that would probably be used more often by my customers.  Such dilemmas, eh?

I probably won’t get to it in the next couple of weeks, though, because I am going to MQX West!  I’m lucky to have family in the Portland area, so I’ll be staying with them and it just turns out that my uncle will be turning 70 at the end of that week!  They are going to have a family reunion of sorts, so I need to get a different project done to take with me.  Better get sewing!

Oh, and just for the heck of it…I gotta share a photo of Hunter and Gizmo….they just need to learn how to relax!

Testing a Quilt Pattern

I decided to test the quilting pantograph pattern that my customer picked for her quilt on a quilt top of my own.  I’m just not convinced that it’s right for her quilt, because it is really open and airy.  If I chose the wrong design, I’ll be picking stitches…on someone else’s quilt no less… and I really don’t want to pick stitches!

So, I created a quilt top out of some leftover 10” blocks (I also cut some new ones) that had been used to make a top using the 10 Minute Block method.  Talk about a stash buster!

I have to say, I wasn’t very pleased with it to begin with, but I think it’s OK now.  I am excited to quilt it to see how it turns out!  I’m not sure what color of thread to use, though, so that’s another decision.  I think I may use a leafy green fabric for the backing, and while it doesn’t really go with the design overall, it’s…THE…BACK!  OK, I think I’m all settled now, and the perfectionist in me may let go of it after all..

I’m also thinking I may do 2-3 rows of the initial panto to see how it works, and then switch it to another panto; that way I’ll have a “sampler” of sorts to show my customers so they can see the actual quilting design and have a better idea of what they are choosing.

So, until my customer quilt is finished, the pink and white quilt is on hold.

My Latest Quilt–The Process

I recently saw an article about The Process Pledge, where the author encourages us to write about the decision process that goes into making a quilt.  Well, I’m not going to take the pledge itself, but I’ve been working on a quilt this week while I’ve been on vacation, and now that I’m to the point of adding the borders, I’m not sure what to do.

I’ve had this quilt on my mind since last Christmas, and finally started it this weekend!  I bought a package with a variety of hot pink 2” strips at the quilt guild garage sale table some time previously. The colors just lend themselves to a Rail Fence design, and I bought some white fabric with a butterfly print to go with it.  Really simple, and what a “pop”!  I just LOVE hot pink!

Because I was excited to get started, I got sewing and started cutting without an exact plan, aka a pattern, and wouldn’t you know it, I ended up *one* block short!  When I first started, I trimmed the blocks to one size, realized that I didn’t like how that looked, and cut them to the current size.  Of course, I had used up all of the fabric that would make an identical block, so what do to?  No sweat…I improvised!  Isn’t this a cool block?  The name of the quilt was determined at this very point: “Odd Girl Out”.

So, here’s what I finished today!

Now that I’ve gone through the pain, I’ll be writing up the pattern and posting it on my website;  I don’t want to have to go through all that for nothing!

Now for the border, right?  I had considered simply adding a thin border of hot pink, and then more white fabric to make it bigger.  However, I wanted to see what else I might do with it, so I turned to my, er, trusty EQ7 software program.  OK, I’ve had the program for awhile, but I am just not very comfortable with it.  The more I use it, the more I’ll learn it, right?

So, here are a few variations that I’ve come up with so far:

Diamonds on point, with butterfly applique blocks in the corners.  Now, since I don’t really go after applique projects, this is a stretch for me, but I think it’s really cute!

 

 

 

 

This is an easy square in a square border.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a flying geese border with the butterfly applique blocks in the corner again.

 

 

 

 

I am also interested in a ribbon border, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to get that to work in the program, though, so no picture of that.

Which one do you like best?

My practice piece

Thought I'd share with you my practice freehand piece, which is two pieces of fleece, no batting.  I'm going to use it as a back car seat blanket for when I have the dogs in the car.

It's the first time I've done this background fill on more than a 12" block and it's the first time I've used the non-stitch regulated mode on my machine.  I want to say it’s an Irena Blum design, but I really can’t remember where I saw it first.

I'm practicing it because I'm going to put this design on a baby quilt that is just darling, and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, or how to manage the size and density (that's still a bit of a challenge), but I really like it!

I still need to post photos of the past couple of customer quilts, but have run out of time this weekend.  We got a new-to-us “puppy”, Hunter, a 4 year old Shih Tzu to join the Quilt Guardian team.  So, he is a Quilt-Guardian-in-Training!

Summer Progress

I showed you a sneak peek of Jessica’s quilt in my last post.  I really love how this turned out, and am really happy to share the final quilt!  I used Anne Bright’s pantograph, Variety, in a dark cherry brown thread.  Jessica wanted that “poofy” look, so we used a high loft polyester batting.

Because the top is busy, it’s hard to see until you get up close.

The pattern is much easier to see on the back of the quilt.  When Jessica picked up the quilt, she was about ready to have a baby girl.  I wish their family all the best, and I can’t wait to see the new little one.

I took these photos of my garden this evening.  I don’t know why I’m surprised that the zucchini is ready for picking “already”…it’s been 2 months since I planted it!

Still, I think these are the largest zucchini plants I’ve ever seen!  And I grew them!  I know I tried something different than previous years, but I can’t remember what the variety is.

Here is my first harvest:

…and here are my first “billy clubs”!

I’ve done two more quilts since Jessica’s, but will have to wait to post those pictures until this weekend.  I’ve been way too busy lately, and I’m missing out on my sleep!  That is just bad news all the way around!

My (apparently) Monthly Post

My goal really is to post at least once a week, not once a month!  And yet again, once more I’m saying… can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted anything!….

So, what have I finished while I haven’t been blogging?

Jessica’s quilt!

It’s a super cool modern scrappy quilt that I just love, but I can’t post the photos of the finished quilt until she sees it first…that’s only fair!  But here’s a preview, as I loaded it on the frame... I loved it the moment I saw it, and I can't wait to share it!

While I was working on Jessica’s quilt, I had a lot of trouble with a cone of YLI cotton thread.  It’s the second time I’ve used this cone, and I thought that it was the new batting I was using the first time.  This time was very difficult also, and I was not very happy with the tension on the back.  And then…I was almost finished, only 1 1/2 rows left to go on the panto and the thread kept shredding, every 3 inches or so!  Not only that, when I checked the stitches on the back of the quilt, they were almost railroad tracks in some areas….oh, great….NOT!!!  So, I decided the easiest way to remove almost an entire row of stitching would be to remove the quilt from the frame and work on it while on my lap.  Not only that, I didn’t want to take a chance that something else might happen on this quilt.

Note to Self:  do not remove the quilt from the frame and expect to be able to line it back up properly later.  Yes, Self, even if you have a trick for it.

I ended up retiming the machine, then ran into more trouble, and eventually the machine jammed on me!  I mean HARD!  The needle hit the metal casing and everything!  Of course, it threw it out of time again….so that made me REALLY nervous about putting Jessica’s quilt back on so I decided to test it out on another one instead.

Lynn’s quilt!

This is a quilt that our small group put together when one of our members had been having health challenges.  I made 2 of the 15 blocks, which I’d mistakenly thought I’d posted photos of because I thought they turned out so darn cute!

Once we got the top together, I quilted it using freehand echo quilting around each of the 12" blocks.  There are feathers in the borders and a heart motif in the sashings.  Feathered hearts with cross hatching are in each of the four corners.  Quilted with Wonderfil's Tutti Frutti thread on top, So Fine in the bobbin and Warm and White batting.

Lynn absolutely loved it, as did I!  If you’re interested in getting a closer look, I’ve posted photos of the individual blocks on my website.

Tracey’s quilt!

I was lucky enough to receive another modern design to quilt in a lovely pink, yellow and zebra stripe.  It got a large overall meander, and I used Brytes 30# in hot fuscia pink in the bobbin, which I’d never done before.  This was after all of the jamming and tension problems, so I was nervous that would be a problem, but it wasn’t.

The back was made specifically so that the quilt could be turned down to coordinate with the sheets and other bedding.  The blocks weren’t perfectly centered in the back, but I liked that they could make a coordinating trim at the top, if desired.

Crafting Related

As if I didn’t have enough to do, I joined Dishcloth Mania, which is a knitting forum on Ravelry.  I’ve been hopelessly behind on that challenge ever since!  But talk about some beautiful patterns!  Since I’m not big on applique, I take this with me to work on at lunch or other down times.

On the spinning front, I bought some Corriedale wool roving and started practicing, and think I might have figured out the motion!  This was after one of the great gals at Puffy Mondae’s took a few minutes to show me how to use a drop spindle, and it was very easy to apply the motion to my wheel….enough to fill a bobbin full of a strand of various thicknesses!  Now I’m considering having them tune up my wheel and glue the sides onto two of the bobbins that have come unglued.  They also had a large bobbin on consignment when I went in, and I’ve been wondering if I should snatch that up…hmmm?

Techie Stuff

…and sidetracked, yet again, by another project, which is that my website needs updating…again…

I have an excuse….

I knew time was flying by and that I had been neglecting my blog; it’s been an entire month since I last posted…and it’s been because I just have been so busy that I haven’t had time to write it all down!

I finally finished my 10 Minute Block quilt…the one I call my “practice” quilt because I practiced 6 different quilting techniques on each of the blocks.  I really love how the colors worked so well together, especially since all but the border and backing fabric were from my stash.  I convinced a friend of mine to make more of these blocks, to practice the technique, and I will practice quilting on that one, too.  She’s skittish about making the decision about the borders, so I’ll have to add those when I get it back from her.

This quilt was a challenge for me to quilt, because I practiced all free motion or used rulers I’d purchased but haven’t used.  I really want to get out of the rut of thinking I can only do pantographs;  I really like the consistency of a panto, it’s just that I want to develop more confidence in my custom quilting, and the only way to do that is to practice!

I’m working on making enough, and varied, projects that I can have a table at one of the local Saturday markets.  I picked up a roll of strips I’d started stringing together last year when I’d put together several to make  a lasagna quilt.  Being in a hurry, and relying on my newly formed habit of using straight of grain borders, I thought *maybe* I could get away with just sewing the borders on as I went, then cutting them off at the bottom.  Nope.  See these wavy things??  I recently saw something describing them as “friendly”!…and they sure are!  So, no quick and easy quilt to make available here.

In fact, this is so obvious that I decided I really need to write a tutorial to post for future reference, when someone asks “why shouldn’t I just sew on the border and cut it off at the end?”  Needless to say, it’s still on the design wall!

I even got my garden in two weeks ago!  It was a beautiful day and I took a chance in planting my tomatoes, zucchini and cantaloupe, but they are all doing well.  I added a couple of extra feet on either end of the garden and I still have room to plant at least 2 more mounds of….something!  I haven’t quite decided what it should be yet…maybe cucumbers?…but I need to get it finished before it’s too late!

Earlier in the year I thought I was going to teach a class in the upcoming Boise Basin Quilt Show in June.  I started putting together a project for the class, but we won’t have access to actual sewing machines, and I’m not a hand sewist, so the project stalled.  Well, in an attempt to actually clean up the pile of blocks from my cutting counter and the longarm table, I finally started putting some of the blocks together, and collected the rest of my experiments into a bag for later use.  I found a really great border and I can’t wait to get that on (properly this time) so I can get a photo posted.  It’s really quite feminine and very easy!

I finished working on this customer quilt this weekend.  It’s got a purple flannel back and I used a variegated purple and teal thread on it, which really perked it up.  The panto really was able to pull in some of the fullness and it came out beautiful!

I started another customer quilt on Sunday, which is going quite well, and I’m almost finished with it.  I’m loving how the Anne Bright design is coming out and  I can’t wait for my customer to see this one!  Two more in the queue, so there hasn’t been any time to work on my personal projects or Bronco Quilts, of which I have several ideas!

All that, and I still want to sit down at the spinning wheel again and try drafting fibers again, now that I borrowed a couple of books from the library and got some great ideas.

I need more hours in the day!

I’ve Had an Amazing Day!

Wow…I learned a new skill today!  Spinning!

I am so proud to announce that I bought a 40 year old Ashford spinning wheel on Thursday night!

I’ve oiled it and tightened up the screws, then buffed it out this morning.  It still makes a bit of noise when spinning, even though I oiled every place I can see or think of!  All I can say is ..more oil is needed…somewhere!!

I spent the morning with my friend Diane, of Russet Lodge Knits, who has given selflessly of her skill and passion for knitting and spinning, learning the basics of spinning yarn from a raw fleece! 

Seriously, the woman should write a book! 

She even worked a bit of my raw fleece for me on the carding combs her husband makes, so I could practice spinning!

Of course, being true to my nature, I gave her an opinion on what she should have in the to-be-determined book!  Hee hee!  I would totally pay full price for such a book!

I haven’t gotten the hang of spinning just yet, but getting close…I *might* be a left handed spinner, even though I am right handed….and I seem to want to spin counter-clockwise, to form an S-curve, rather than the Z-angle clock-wise angle.  Maybe that is the machine, maybe that is me….I do seem to do everything backwards!

Now, I am going to ship the fleeces I bought on Craigslist.com to a professional processor, Spinderellas.com,  for cleaning and carding.  I’ve heard that they provide a good service and the product that comes back is very nice.  I spoke with them on Friday; being a newbie, they answered all of my questions and even gave me some idea for blending one of the fleeces I purchased to enhance it, something I hadn’t thought of previously.  They have a lot of great information on their website, so I would highly recommend looking at it if you are interested in processing fleece.

Diane writes knitting patterns, and even has a sock Knit-Along going, using a pattern she wrote herself (she has several for sale on Ravelry)!

I SO want to learn to knit socks…but then, knitting cuts into my quilting time!  Oh, that, and the fact that I keep reversing the sides of my sock, so that I have reversed sides in the outside of the sock …sigh!  I blame the sock affliction all on my friend Christine…

Yes, I could process the wool myself…but as I keep reinforcing to Diane, I am a Quilter who knits, not a Knitter like she is, (yes, with capitals!), and I can have it back in 2-4 weeks and keep quilting!  So, I plan to have my fleece boxed up and in the mail on Monday!

I have been considering bringing my Bronco quilts to several of the summer markets, as well as the spinning wheel, to work on some of the yarn production there, if I don’t have a quilt related project I can bring.  Bown Crossing is a possibility, which is a part of the Indie Works project, or  maybe the Eagle Market, but I haven’t contacted them yet (I’ll post the links later in the week)

Using Up the Stash!

Woo Hoo!  I actually got the borders on two of my own projects…AND took pictures!

I made the tops awhile ago, when I was playing with what I’ve heard described as a Lasagna Quilt, and they’ve been hanging around waiting for me to finish them. 

They are a nice size to use for baby quilts, or lap or stadium quilts, since they don’t drag on the ground, but you can still tuck them around your legs or even your feet if you want them to, like when I’m sitting at the computer.

They are quick and easy to do, too, and I love that the finished quilts can look amazingly different, just by adding borders.  I must confess, though:  I added the borders by simply sewing them onto the existing top.  You know, the sure-fire way to create a wavy border!  And that’s what I got on the pink top, so I will probably have to fix those wavy borders.  I figure that’s a great tutorial to post on my website, because I’ve been asked about this before and why it’s bad practice.

I guess once I fix the border I can move these off the Current Project List…oh, wait, I guess I have to decide if that includes the quilting and binding, or if that only means tops.  Hm….

All of this came from my stash, too, including  the backing I want to use.  It’s a US Post Office print of 37 cent stamps that say I “heart” you .  I’ve had it about a year, I just couldn’t pass it up from the clearance bin at JoAnn’s when I saw it.  It’s really a bit smaller than what I’d normally say is OK to try to use for a project that is going on the long arm frame, but I’m going to make it work, probably by adding a fabric “leader” to the length, because the colors are  just perfect!

I haven’t yet decided what backing to use on the one with the dark purple border yet.  Maybe a pink or yellow flannel….

I think I’m going to use up some of my larger leftover scraps of batting I have accumulated, to continue the theme of “use it up”!  Sure didn’t make any sort of visible dent in my fabric stash, though!