Back Home!

Aren't airplanes amazing?  Besides all of the engineering and technology, I mean.  You can be in one place in the morning, and then far away 4 or 6 hours later, going about daily tasks as if you hadn't missed a beat.  Well, that's what it seems like, anyway.

Sort of a weird feeling, having been away for 2 1/2 weeks, and then resume my life as if I hadn't been gone at all.  Gizmo really missed me, I could tell that when he went from picking a fight with Rosie for no reason, completely out of the blue (she wasn't even near him) to melting into a puddle in my lap when I brushed him later.

I started working on my pass-the-bag star blocks for my quilt sub-group on Monday night.  I chose batiks for my colors, I think it will look really awesome when I'm finished.  The pattern is sort of a stack n whack star pattern.  Cut 2 stars at the same time from the freezer paper template, then mix the colors so that the star comes forward and sits on a different background.  Two blocks at once, really easy.  I'll post some pictures soon

The seam allowance is NOT built into the template, so the blocks come out wonky, but that will also be part of the fun.  I still have the smaller ones to make and I'll be ready to pass the bag to the next person.

Of course, I am making more than the required 2 fat quarters, because I will want a larger quilt, but that's nothing new.  I've already got some material ready and I think I'll just make 4 each time I make them throughout the year, and that way I'll have double the blocks at the end of the year to work with.

Still have to finish the binding on my wall hangings, then get the Turning Twenty Again blocks squared up and onto the design wall.  I'm hoping to finish that by the end of the weekend, but we'll see how that goes.

For now, it's back to work, as usual.

Tennis elbow

I over did it Tuesday.

I used up Mom's 2 gallons of latex waterproofing masonry paint on her basement walls that she's had sitting around for who-knows-how-long, and it took me 3 hours, instead of the 2 hours I had planned.

Oh, that was just the painting part, that didn't count the time it took to take the cans back to the paint store to get shaken up again.  And even then, when I opened the cans a couple hours later (I had to get lunch first) the latex had settled into goop at the bottom again and I still had to re-integrate it into the soup at the top.

I just couldn't see her doing this, she has arthritis in her wrists and hands, and that's part of why it has been a project sitting there waiting for so long.

Now, MY wrist, forearm, elbow, and even my tricep are hurting!  Iced right away, of course, took some Aleve and rested it for most of yesterday.  More Aleve, more ice, more rest and it's feeling better.

So, I got half of my Turning Twenty Again blocks sewn together last night after we went out for dinner.  I'll get the rest of them together today and square them up.  I'm trying to get them all done while I'm still here at Mom's, using her sewing machine and quarter inch foot so I can keep my seams consistent.  Even if I don't get the top together, getting the blocks done will make me (somewhat) happy.  Although, I'd much rather have a quilt to put on the frame when I get back home.

Tomorrow we'll be at a couple of doctor's appointments, she'll be glad to get the bandage on her foot replaced.  And I'll take along my wall hanging projects and finish putting the binding in place while she gets worked on.  A win-win situation, if I ever saw one.

Buddy the Cat

I have been making friends with Buddy the Cat. 

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most cat people, but let me tell you more about Buddy.  He is my mom's gray and white, long haired, semi-feral cat.  He is 16 years old and was born on her property.  For most of his life, he wouldn't let anyone touch him, except for Mom, the ultimate Cat Lady, and even that took some doing.  Of course, I've seen him over the course of time, but he always would run under the bed, or go outside to escape anyone who came into the house.  Mom always keeps him in her bedroom, which has a slider door to the yard, so it's nice and bright and comfy.

At one point, she was coordinating cat schedules between Buddy and the other black, short haired cat, also named Buddy.  Mom names every cat "Buddy".

When I say "coordinating schedules", I mean exactly that.  They did not get along and it seemed to me that all Mom ever did was shuffle the cats around the house.  When the black cat came in, the gray cat would have to go out, and vice versa.  Dinner was timed so that they did not have to eat together.  This is what started the bedroom confinement scenario.  Now that he black cat has passed on, the gray cat is still confined to the bedroom; he gets scared when Mom tries to bring him into another room.

Since I've been staying with her during her foot surgery recuperation, he has decided that I might be all right.  He has "kissed" me on the face in the middle of the night so that I could get up to let him out, he has let me pet him, he laid on my shoulder so I could better cuddle with him, let me cut matts out of his fur (and there are MANY!) while Mom held him, he's let me hold him, and the other day Mom said he even was looking for me when I was not in the bedroom with her.

I hate to think that he is getting too attached, as I will be leaving next Saturday.  I will miss him.

Mom’s foot surgery

Mom had surgery to repair/remove a bunion on her left foot last Friday, so I flew from Boise, ID to Helena, MT to help her for a couple of weeks.  The surgery went well, we’ve kept her off her feet, iced and elevated, and only required a minimum of pain meds.

The follow up appointment yesterday showed no signs of infection, had a change of bandage and she says today that her foot feels entirely fine.  She is supposed to work up to being on it for 30 minutes at a time by next Friday.  So, things are going well!

I’ve been cooking (yes, me!) and have probably have a good enough stash of food ready to consume that I can happily continue with my sewing projects.

I brought a couple of wall hangings with me to put the binding and hanging sleeve on (had to start over on the binding because it was too small to cover the back, I was too smart for my own good!).  Once I get that finished I can start on the quilt I had cut out specifically to bring along for this time, another Turning Twenty…Again! pattern that should go together pretty fast.

This time has been going by nicely, but I’d better start scheduling my tasks or I’m going to run out of time before I have to go back to work.  First on the list is to bake Mom’s birthday cake.  Today is her birthday!

Sampler Quilt

I finished quilting my sampler quilt on Sunday night!  As promised, I am posting pictures of samples.

I bought the ABM Innova in October, from the Fabric Patch in Ephrata, WA.  I went back to the store in early December, 2008 to take my 2 day training class.  We covered all kinds of techniques on the first day, such as loops and swirls, figuring the pathways, making water or woodgrain, and sizes of stippling.  The second day I was able to load my sampler and practice.  I mean, REALLY practice!  I was able to use everything we covered, and then some, in this quilt, and I am more than pleased!  I was so excited, I even got the binding on the same night!

Here are some close ups of the actual blocks and quilting:

This is Sally Terry's Hooked on Feathers technique.  It is really fun and so easy to do!

And I created woodgrain texture in the window pane:

And then, of course, is the house, where we have flowers in the front yard and a sunshiny day!

This is my first attempt at cross hatching:

And I definitely need more practice with echo quilting!!  I got frustrated with not being able to do it properly, so I made it imperfect on purpose, with the intent to practice, practice, practice!

These are free form swirls.  I quite like them!

This star seemed to take on a life of its own, and it turned out wonderful!

The Rosebud block was very different after I quilted the background.  I'm still trying to decide if I like the result.

Catching up

Hello Everyone!

I don’t know about you guys, but I have been swamped since I came back from Innovations.

I finally got my Innova frame together and the leaders on the poles. I taped them down and have been pinning backs to the leaders and floating the tops; I’ve always pinned the bottom of the quilt top down, after sewing the top to the batting.  I have completed 2 charity baby quilts and learned a lot.

I did free motion on the first one, using some of the techniques I learned at Innovations, especially the Hooked on Feathers technique from Sally Terry.  From the back, it doesn’t look too bad, not great, but not too bad. It is made up of 14” pinwheel star blocks, with the middle block being a 14” print which doesn’t match any of the other colors at all (red, yellow black print on white background).

I used a connecting curve from corner to corner on the blocks, which I’ve never done before, and I wobbled a lot. I used a light pink for the quilting, and if I would have been thinking of it, and if I would have had red on hand, I would have used that for the large Hooked on Feathers design in the middle, so it would have actually shown up on the front.  You can see the photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/cjloves2quilt and it is the First Charity Quilt album.

I figured out that I do not like pinning and want to switch out to a Velcro system.  Someone in one of the Yahoo groups mentioned attaching the leaders to the poles using industrial Velcro straight to the pole, and I can see where that would work out REALLY well! The leaders aren’t as straight as I would like, and the back one could be longer, too, so I might just make a set of them up myself…or not! That’s part of what got me into the pinning anyway, is that I couldn’t decide what to do, or how long to make anything and I was anxious to get going. Besides, I have to order that stuff and it will take some time to get it, then make it, and I want to quilt in the meantime.

It has been getting colder and rainy here, which is perfect quilting weather.  I hope you are all making progress on lots of projects!

Take care!
Connie

It's here!

What a busy two weeks! I went to Innovations, the machine quilting conference and quilt show in Tacoma, WA and had a blast! I met some really wonderful ladies and learned a lot. And, since the Innova arrived the day before I left, there has been no chance to set it up until now.

Yesterday was the day, and it was a long one. Well, I'm still not done, either. We put in 9 hours together and then my DH went downstairs to start grilling and I worked on getting the dragging sound out of the wheels as it rides on the carriage. Took some doing, as it seems that it would do it where the bolts were inserted so there was the back and forth of "is this too tight, maybe loosen that one, no, tighten it back up".

Space is another issue, as it always is when you are talking about a substantial piece of furniture. My sewing room is a 10' x 20' bonus room over the garage. I started out sparingly with my sewing table, fabric, and cutting table. Eventually I started filling the space as I started fabric dyeing, put up a design wall, put in a wall mounted TV , and eventually added a loveseat .

I bought the 12' frame so I can do large quilts. I mean really large, as the first quilt I made was 109" x 129". Some people say that you need a 14' table for something that large, but this one was quilted on a 12' frame so I'm pretty comfortable with this decision. It is essentially a bedspread for a king size bed, and I love it. Someone else quilted it for me, and she did a great job, but I wanted to do it myself. Thus, the journey began.

So, this morning we are going to finish up, but I just couldn't resist putting up a picture of the results of yesterday's work. Now, I'm going to have to figure out where to put the rest of my sewing room!