Happy Monday Again

The last week was a guild week.  Monday was Quilters Anonymous, where I am working on a block of the month.  This quilt will be a long time in the making.  Pix will come later when there is more to see.  Ditto for the medallion quilt at Suppose Creative Guild.  Its just fun to get together with friends and sew. 

I have been to events with daughter, Jennifer.  We wore witch hats last Friday evening to get a bigger discount at Ghouls Night Out.  Food, make 'n take, halloween  ideas and lots of friends were what made it a fun evening. 

Today Jennifer and I went to a Nancy Halversen trunk show.  She is a delightful lady.  When I asked how she accomplishes so much in the same 24 hours that I have, she replied, "I don't sleep much."  Is that a tip for success in any endeavor?  I think I will stay up late.

This is a nine patch quilt I finished piecing this week.  I pieced a back from scraps, so I won't even need to buy extra fabric.  I will quilt it when its my turn on the midarm machine.  I call it Grandmother's Nine Patch.  It is done in 1930's fabric.  My grandmother would have been in her thirties in 1930.  I see a mistake in this photo, but it was just on the design wall.  I actually pieced it correctly. 

I got out a project a couple of weeks ago that I may be working on for the rest of my life.  Every now and then it gets put away for a while.  This is just a small section of some finished blocks.

These are blocks I have been working on recently and one of my boxes of crazy quilt doo dads.

 This is my alltime favorite block because of the beaded vine on the pink fabric.

This crazy quilt contains everything imaginable--buttons, charms, ribbon embroidery, tatting, crocheting, fabric labels, fabric from ties, beads, ric rac, lace.  Here is where my imaginataion can run free. 

Thats probably enough for now.  I hope you are loving all the projects you do and plan to do.  Have a wonderful quilting week.

Another Monday

Last week it was my turn to use my midarm quilting machine.  I quilted a top that has been waiting for several years.  Its fun to have it done, but I can surely tell that I have improved at piecing.  If you look closely, you will see that several star points are lost.  I hope I wouldn't let that happen now.  The quilt's name is Oh My Stars.
                 

                                                 
Here is a detail of the quilting.

I gave a demonstration on rotary cutting to some brand new quilters (and some not so new) at a brand new quilt guild called Quilters Anonymous today.  It's always good to be reminded of basics.

Line folded fabric up with a horizontal line on your cutting mat.  The folded side should be towards your body with selvedge edges at the top away from your body.

With fabric to the left for right handers, place ruler on a line on your mat, matching top and bottom on the same line and cut with rotary cutter to square the end of the fabric. This insures that your strips will be straight when you unfold them.

Placing your index finger on the grooves on the top of your cutter handle will give you better control of your rotary cutter. Always cut away from your body and never saw back and forth with your cutter.

To control your ruler better, place one or two fingers of your left hand off the ruler and hold ruler in place with fingertips, not the flat of your hand.

With fabric to your right, align a horizontal ruler line on the bottom fold of the fabric and a vertical ruler line (in this case 2 1/2") along left edge of fabric.  Then make a cut from bottom to top through all layers of fabric.
Remember to be safe and always lock your blade when not in use.                                 

Still here

I'm still alive and quilting.  I just need to be more diligent at blogging.  Maybe I will try once a week.  Let's say Monday. 

So, I got the Jason Yenter quilt bound and it is hanging in the window at Suppose.http://www.supposecreatedelight.com/

I have done some work on the Farmer's Wife Quilt and posted photos on their Flicker group. Am I too ambitious because I am trying to make two of them at once?  I love the Kaffe blocks, but the scrappy ones are fun too.

The toothbrush rug and the blue and black reverse applique blocks are coming along, but no pictures this week.

I wish you a lovely fall week and lots of success in all your quilting projects.  I will check in again next Monday.

Protecting my investment

When was the last time you cleaned your sewing machine?  One of my most-used tools is a one-inch paint brush I bought at the variety store.  Everytime I have to fill my bobbin, I brush out all the lint.  Today, I removed the plate and took everything apart to clean more thoroughly.  Its amazing how much lint gets in there.  I put in a new needle too.  They are so inexpensive, we should all change needles more often.  Have you read your machine's manual to see if you need to add a drop of oil anywhere. 

It's just no fun to have your machine not working, so take a little time now to do some routine maintenance.  Keep sewing and keep happy.

What's This Mess?

Its a basket full of torn fabric just waiting for me to start a new toothbrush rug.  Yep, its another thing I love to do with fabric. 

This is a finished one with a diameter of about three feet.  It takes almost ten yards of fabric.

 Let's see if I can finish this one in the next couple of weeks.

Portneuf Valley Quilt Guild

What a delightful group of quilters.  We had a great day Saturday learning to make Cathedral Windows blocks.  Not too many quilters get excited about making a whole quilt by hand, but the sewing machine and the totally fake method get some people hooked.  Thanks for inviting me.

Cathedral Windows Tutorial

OK, here are the instructions I promised.  This is the one most people like because it goes faster than hand sewing. 
1.  Cut four 7 1/2" muslin squares.
2.  Fold each square in half and stitch a 1/4" seam, from the folded to the raw edge on one side of the rectangle and from the raw edge to the folded edge on the other side.


2.  Trim corners of stitched rectangles.

3.  Fold the seamed edge of each rectangle to meet the opposite seamed edge, right sides together.  Place a pin where the seamlines meet.

4.  Stitch the folded-upon-itself rectangle, leaving a 1" opening for turning.

5.  Taking care not to stretch and distort the fabric, turn the square inside out, shaping and sharpening the corners.  Press the square carefully since the straight edges are now on the bias.

6.  Turn one corner to the center and press.  Repeat with remaining corners.

7.  Place 2 squares wrong sides together and sew across pointed flap on the pressed line.

8.  Put 2" colored square on top of diamond formed in the last step.  Turn edges of diamond over square and top stitch.

9.  Continue adding squares until quilt is desired size.