Content?

Followers, readers, and passersby, what kind of content would you like to see this blog give? Is my content satisfactory? Is there anything I can improve? I think I need to be graded. My email followers have all dropped off. I am having meager views. I am really hoping you can help me out. If you like what you see and read, please click the like star button. Better yet, share it on pinterest, or facebook and instagram. Those shares would be magnificent traffic. Since pandemic restrictions have eased, so have my readers. I completely understand. I mean, run like you are a hamster let out of your cage!!!

I had a major squirrel this week. My sewing tables are a little too full, it is it some what paralyzing. If I tackle one job, it means, disruption of two other projects, one of which has a deadline. My hobby almost feels like a JOB. When it starts feeling like that for me, I welcome change to set things straight. So this week, I steered off course a bit.

I went to my pinterest account and decided to print off all my free tatting books out in the world wide web. Over Christmas, I got a binding machine that installs the coils too, so I used up a ream of paper and put it all to good use. I will have these patterns to fall back on. And when I tat, it is very difficult for me to follow along on a pattern when the device goes to sleep, and then I lose my place and count. These booklets will allow me to also take notes and highlight.

And then Frivole, posted a wonderful video on the making of a collar which was a freebie. If you are interested in reading about her tatting adventures, be sure to check her out. She is AMAZING! I have learned a thing or to from her!

So with this video, I made this!

This green lace trim will adorn the edge of a pillowcase nicely. I have a perfect matched green solid and cannot wait to get at it. I find I can do one motif a night. And I probably need to tat during the week and leave my quilting for the weekends when my freedom and energy is greater than during the week. This pattern is EASY because Frivole showed the short cuts (which I did not know existed).

And I managed to finish quilting on the 365 quilt. I still have some stitches to rip out. Here is a picture of the last row to quilt.

Be looking for a video of me applying binding at the longarm. I have failed to edit the video in time for this post. But within about 20 minutes the binding was sewn on by the longarm. Those of you who offer longarm services, this is the easy (good money) part of the job. This is the prefered method for me on large quilts. The 365 quilt is HEAVY. I weighed it. It weights 10 lbs. It is quite a work out to lug this around for photos and to fold it up for a carry. The reason I do not like stitching heavy/large quilts on my featherweight for the binding process? I fear the quilt will accidentally pull the sewing machine off the counter. Yeah, not sure how much the featherweight weighs, but it will probably be close to what this weighs. I do not want to take that chance.

Here she is in all her glory. When I went to snap the photo, I was amazed at how tan she looked in the sun LOL. Each time I look at this quilt, I see it a bit differently than the last time.

I had to make sure when I put this down on the lawn I was not putting it in a fire ant pile. Those buggers I am allergic too, and definitely do not want them soiling my hard work.

I have loaded the mystery quilt and am just meandering a dog bone pattern on it. I also have a video of that and will get that edited and uploaded to youtube in the coming week. I really want to go live on the channel, but am so scared to do it. If I do it, it will probably be very early on a sat or sun morning when the rest of the house is sleeping. I would appreciate all to come to my channel and chat with me while I am live. Stranger things have happened.

In the coming week, I aim to hand sew the binding to the 365 as well as rip out any stitches that don’t belong. I also need to work on the memory quilt. The shirt to add, I am not looking forward to. But at least it is cotton/flannel. And I was passed a piece of 100% polyester plaid for the backing. I informed the dad to be, that he needs to realize, with 90% of this quilt being polyester, it is advised NOT to use it when baby sleeps. Probably best used for tummy time. Do any of my readers know why? If a fire were to break out, the polyester melting point is less than 300 degrees. (It says the exact degrees on my iron). But if there were a fire, the polyester would melt to the babies skin, compounding a burn without coming in contact with fire. And because it is polyester, it would be a chemical burn as well. As soon as my table clears of the 365, I will start back to work on the memory quilt. Everything is in the way of one another now. So I probably will not make the deadline of this as a finish until after the father leaves the company. And he insists someone will bring it to him. I think he is over estimating people’s kindness. Worse comes to worse I will deliver it. Not ideal, but I now understand why he rather rushed me. He wanted to get this done for his wife before he left the company. And even though I am making it for “baby”, I know deep down it is for his wife.

*sigh* Well played….

I recall making some key fobs, and thought I took a picture. Hmmmm….this post is incomplete. I will try to catch that part up mid week. There is a free pattern out there that you may like. I will share then

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog!

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Switching Projects – Happy International Quilting day!

For those of you who stick to one project and complete it before moving onto another, congratulations! You are smarter than me! Much has been accomplished this week, but because I changed gears, to change them back again, it left my work space unusable!

Yup that’s me…the mess maker. And the sad thing? My table is back to being messed up because a couple things happened.

I managed to get all the circles applique stitched down on the memory quilt. This requires a different machine than my daily machine. The swap out profile of one machine vs the other is vastly different, so that adds to the mess! (And for those of you who know me, this is a lot like work. I have to change gears a lot at my job which leaves everything half finished and not done efficiently! (I loathe that aspect of my job and this hobby sometimes. It is quite paralyzing!)

I was able to set it a side to wait for the parents to bring me a backing. So, I hopped back to the scrappy quilt.

I figured out why my triangles are not working. That will probably be another post all by itself. Additionally, I got a ton of free fabric, so guess where it is? If you guessed on my work table you guessed right.

And then on Thursday the people I am making the memory quilt for, said ”oh, here you go, we have a shirt to add. Just add more circles on the front. (P.S. the shirt owner is not dead????) And, so I will be adding to it. This memory quilt has frustrated me so much. Perhaps I am just spoiled to making things the way I want. The no freedom aspect of picking ANY fabrics, is quite a downer. The couple that I am dealing with are NOT the best communicators. And I suspect I will now have to provide the backing. To add to this, the ease of contact I have now is changing because my coworker leg of this relationship is changing. In three weeks he will no longer work where I work. So now there is a little more stress because the deadline of baby being born in May, to now just 3 weeks away, has me a little anxious!

In the meantime I will continue to enjoy quilting! I lack ripping some stitches and about three more passes and I will have the 365 quilted! This weeks weather was wonderful. My schedule permitted about an hour a day. I am getting excited to see this one at the binding step soon!

Because of the mess at my worktable, I am not even sure which direction I should go. Madness!

How are you handling the time change? I find the older I get, the less it affects my biological clock. Or perhaps my biological clock is now in tune with the change. I mean, you do something more than 50 times it does become routine eh?

Happy International Quilting Day! Piece and Quilt up a storm!!!!!

There has been progress behind the scenes. I suspect I will have a couple things to show next week. Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog!

Scrappy Round March

Ding Ding Ding! This bout is scheduled for one fall. LOL! Sometimes it feels like you get beat up by the amount of scraps!

I am back to work on my baskets and hearts, that part being completed. I rounded with some 16 patches and friendship stars. I have started sewing the stars together in their respective strips and have decided to go with some triangles around that last round. And something is off. The finished block size is 4 inches so I cut them in 2 1/2 inch strips and this “math” should come out right but it is not. So my mind will be figuring this out in the coming week.

Those triangles are the same size as the baskets…WTH? The great news is, if it is not right, I have plenty of scraps to “figure” the math.

And a share of a different kind. I stumbled upon Six Know it Alls. Have you heard of this? It is amazing quilters disecting history, to figure out the quilt’s story. Incredibly exciting. And I think I figured out a clue in this. Count the stars in the coverlet ladies. I think that has significance not necessarily for location of the quilt, but as a patriotic idea of a state coming to statehood. And that even though the quilts are far apart, they were made by the same person.

Watch and see if anything jumps out at you. The knowledge these ladies has….wowsa! Geneology, holy cow, who knew you could track a quilt maker by that database!? There are currently only a few episodes of this out. You can buy the other episodes. I am cheap skate and will wait for their free release.

Don’t forget to visit all of our other Scrap Happy participants! A big thank you to Gun and Kate for hosting this wonderful thing for quilters!

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, Jill,
Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Jon, Dawn, Jule, Gwen,
Bekki, Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera,
Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Bear, Carol,
Preeti, Edith, Debbierose and Esther

Stitch those scraps and Scrap Happy! Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog!

The Memory Quilt Start

Last week I posted about the less than optimal garments I had to start a crib sized memory quilt. I must admit that sometimes my mind just gets in the way of my own progress. It is off to a great start and I should have never doubted myself!

These circles are drawn on the back of these fabrics that I applied interfacing. I pin them to my design wall and if I like it I take my school glue and glue them to the black fabric (which by the way is one of the garments). Pleased as punch! I have gotten out my many-stitches machine and found the applique stitch and am stitching around all these circles, which will take me a while. The rest of the black background I will populate with random black/red pieces. The baby this is going to will not even care, but the mom and dad will love it!

And while I have black thread loaded I decided to stitch up a small project from the Open Gates Quilt Subscription box. It had a small piece of cork, a key chain device, a zipper, and pattern to make this!

This project took about 15 minutes from start to finish and I love how it turned out! This cork came from Sallie Tomato so I went and looked this up, it is a free pattern! I love how chic it looks (and it beats my old keychain which was some pony beads, a moda fabrics tie from a fat quart bundle, and some perler beads. This keyfob’s actual purpose is to keep your phone charger in. Each side of the charger sticks out the side slant at the top and all of the cord in maintained nice and neatly behind the zipper. So you can carry it with you and it won’t tangle all up in your purse.

March 2022 Open Gates Quilts Mystery box hit it out of the park. I got some fabric and thread to make a table runner. The fabrics are gorgeous. Also included was a large bargello quilt pattern. It takes two jelly rolls, which I don’t have two matching at this time. But that will make a beautiful quilt one day.

And this week had some fair quilting weather. I managed to get more than halfway on my 365 Quilt block challenge quilt. Watch my video below for a chit chat about quilt related stuff. Please share and subscribe too!

The weather is cold and foul today and we are supposed to get snow again. But next week will be very nice, I aim to get this beauty done!

Well, I am off. I have many circles to stitch around. Wish me luck on getting that finished!

Ta Ta for now and thanks for reading my blog!

Another Round!

When I hear the words “another round”, I think of an old western where drinks in a saloon are being purchased! This title has two meanings for me this week.

First, progress on my latest scrap project. I have made another round to show you LOL! This round is made of friendship stars.

And last weeks post, I tallied up the current blocks thinking one measurement, but my math is a tad rusty! (Do most quilters hate math like moi?). I will let you know what it finishes when I get there. Not sure what the next border will be, as I have a baby quilt to make. This one will have to be taken down and finished later (dang I had good momentum too)!

So, at work, everyone who I know, who is expecting a child, receives a baby quilt from me. Most coworkers I surprise with the gift when ever I get it done. And some have seen me gift so it is no surprise, especially after baby 4 LOL. And this particular baby quilt in question, I have had many asks. First ask was if I could make it a memory quilt. My answer was yes, but the fabrics will need to be woven fabric, are they woven. Their answer, yes some are. The clothing took several months to make it to me. When I gazed upon the bag I see the following: “GULP”

Not pictured are the commercial knit acrylic sweater or the terry cloth robe. I said I would not put those in the quilt. You see I had decided on a pattern to ease the nervous new mother to be’s woes (keep in mind I work with the new father to be and have never even met or talked with mom). I usually don’t take the time to discuss pattern options, I just make it, and they accept the gift.

Because I thought these would be wovens I thought I could just misty fuse a gob of these to some fabric. Now I will have to figure this out. The black is woven and might be enough for the background fabric. But the rest of these fabrics are satins, sateens, microfiber polyester, and polyester. I am very worried the satin/sateens will fray terribly. I am uncertain if I want to use those for the dots. I was told I could stabilize them with interfacing. But, gosh, I think that will take the softness right out of it. I am thinking I will still do the dots but do those with my fabrics, and then make a nice border of squares around the perimeter.

Today as I was about to leave work, I received an email from Dad to be if I could use one of his dads 2XL flannel shirts for the backing. Traditionally, I could, but it would not be enough for the whole backing so I said NO. And then it was posed if they found a piece of wool (Wallace tartan plaid as the mothers maiden name is Wallace) for the backing. I said I could do wool, but to keep in mind they would have to hand wash the quilt, as wool has special launder instructions. Lots of asks, and it is making me nervous. They are expecting something I just don’t think I can deliver. As much as I want to do this, I think whatever they are seeing will be a disappointment because I cannot work miracles with 1 dress, 1 moomoo, 1 skirt, and three blouses. And the baby coming is a boy. And I asked yesterday what the colors will be in baby’s room dark blue and dark green.

I suggested they could have their exact fabric printed for the backing at spoonflower. So she ordered samples and was not liking the rough texture of the fabric. I agree it is stiff and rough. This is Texas and if you place wool on the back of a quilt for a child due in May, temperatures usually reach 90 degrees by the second week in May. That might be way too warm for even a Texas winter. And wool is scratch rough, eh?

Do you think I am worrying too much? Do you think if I cut out this fabric that frays easily that I will be able to stitch them into circles before that happens? May the odds ever be in my favor!!! (whistle cue)

Another round bartender, this quilter needs some magic quilting juice!!! Wish me luck as I dive into this project.

I am beggin for comments, please leave your input on what I should do about these fabrics. And thanks for reading my blog!