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Two full sized quilts are back from the long arm quilter and they are looking good. Now I have to finish the binding on them and they will be done. I've been working on both off and on for two or three years. I'll have photos of them soon.
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I went to my quilt group's Christmas party yesterday. It was great. We had a pot luck lunch and several quilty activities:
- a quilting magazine exchange - bring in those you don't want any more, and get some new to you ones.
- a quilting history quiz with multiple choice and true or false questions. Some of the answers were surprising.
- show and tell - bring in projects you made in the last year and projects you are working on. This was because if you weren't at the meeting where someone brought in their project you didn't get to see it. This was a second chance.
- ugliest and nicest fabrics to show. It's funny that some of the ugly fabrics were taken home by others who were glad to have them.
-a handmade gift exchange. We played a little game. Your name was drawn and you picked a gift from under the tree, or else took an unopened gift from someone who already had one. If your gift was taken you got to choose from under the tree or from someone else. It was all a lot of fun. My question is, what did you do at your quilt guild's Christmas party? Leave a comment on this blog, or click on forum in the menu above and leave your answer in the "General Quilting" section.
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Words to put on a Quilter’s tombstone:
"I didn't win but died trying....and Yes I'm taking it with me"
"Sew long."
"Watchin' flying geese and sittin' in my Grandmother's Flower Garden"
"Born 1954. Died 3054. And She STILL Left A Pile of UFOs In Her Sewing Room..."
Being a true believer in that saying...."she who dies with the most fabric wins", I want my tombstone to state, very simply and concisely,
"SHE WON!!"
"she warmed our bodies with quilts, and our hearts with her love"
“R.I.P (rip in peace of course!!!)”
”So many patterns so little time....”
"I followed the Drunkard's Path."
"She fought the good fight, but the drunkard's path got her in the end....."
"She stitched....then was put in a ditch" with all her UFO's to keep her busy where ever she goes!
“Which way to the fabric department?”
"Bury me in Roswell, I already have the UFO's."
“Quilting in Heaven, Where the sewing machine always runs smooth, Where there's always endless bolts of fabric, And where my bobbin never runs out.”
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I thought I would have to take my sewing machine in for repairs, something that involves driving for three hours each way, and leaving the sewing machine behind for the repair man to look at and driving back another time to pick it up. No wonder I never took it in before. I have had this machine for at least 15 years with no more maintenance than I can give it at home. I guess I can't complain. But the sewing machine was skipping stitches on the zig-zag stitch, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. I am just starting a large iron-on applique project, and I want the stitching to be perfect, so I was considering arranging a ride for my sewing machine to the repair man. Then, I happened to think of changing my needle. The needle had been changed about a week ago, and didn't look bent or broken in any way, but I changed it anyway. Lo an behold, no more skipped stitches. I'm so pleased. I don't think I could have done without my sewing machine for a week or more.
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I have started a new block of the month, a Baltimore Album quilt. This is a free block available online in the clubs section of this website. I am making the blocks as I go along, trying to keep ahead of the rest of the club. I wish I had the time to do it by hand applique, but there's too much else to do.
Besides this block of the month I have a patchwork block of the month planned. I also want to do some new applique wall hanging patterns. I am also working on my leaf quilt, although it isn't going ahead very quickly.
If I didn't have to work for a living I'd have so much more time for sewing.
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As I wrote before, I tend to make scant quarter inch seams, and my blocks come out a bit larger than they should. When this error is taken over a whole quilt, the quilt comes out larger than wanted.
I have discovered now that you should not change the size of your seam in the middle of a project. Now I have two different sizes of blocks. Luckily, the blocks are trimmable. There are no sharp triangles on the edges.
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I finished my nine patch quilt, and it looks great. A photo is coming soon. I'm waiting for a visitor to help my husband hold up the quilt while I take the picture. It's a large quilt. I will get it professionally quilted, but I want to wait until I have my next quilt finished to do at the same time.
Next I want to work on another partly finished quilt. I started it quite a while ago for my daughter. I made a bunch of applique leaves for this quilt, but after making over sixty of them I grew tired of them, especially after I saw several examples of the quilt at different quilt shows. I like to make my quilts unique.
I am going to use these in the quilt. After revisiting them about a year after making them I remembered how much I liked them when I first started. They do look good. Unfortunately, I had misread the instructions and my blocks came out 7 1/2" finished size. This is okay, I just have to adjust the rest of the quilt to fit.
I also had started on some applique leaves of different sizes, colors and shapes to put in the center of the quilt. This part of the project disappeared somewhere in my house. I searched for it off and on for weeks, but was unable to find it, so I decided on making a watercolor section for the center, perhaps with tree trunks appliqued on.
I have cut out enough fabric for the center section, and have sewn about a third of it together. Today I came across the applique leaves that had been missing. They weren't in the container I expected them to be in, which is why I hadn't found them earlier, but they were on the same table in my workroom that the sewing machine is on. Such an obvious place; how did I miss them?
Now I am unsure about what to do in the quilt center. Watercolor or applique leaves or both? I have to think about it.
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I have a very large stash that fills up three dressers. In addition, I still have a lot of fabric on bolts from when I used to sell it. But it seems it doesn't matter how much you have, you almost always have to buy more when when you get an idea for a quilt. I ran downtown today to buy some fabric with leaves on it. I have lots of greens, browns and golds, but not enough with leaves for a watercolor forest I want to make.
This is why I no longer buy fabric when I see some I really like. The other reason is that I have enough now to last the rest of my life. Some of the fabric I bought years ago I am really tired of. My taste changes over the years. It's silly to buy fabric that you will have no use for.
However, I still can't resist a good bargain, so my stash grows at about the same rate as I use it, filling me with guilt. I hope to use up my stash someday, so I can once again enjoy shopping for fabric.
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I tend to do a scant quarter inch seam, sewing one or two threads less than 1/4 inch. This inaccuracy isn't a good thing when multiplied over a whole quilt. I have finished sewing my nine patch blocks together and today I measured the edges for borders. On an quilt that should have been 78 1/2 inches I have one side measuring 79 1/2 inches and the other side at 80 inches! I guess I had better adjust my seams so the pieced border I have made will fit.
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 I have gone from having to force myself to quilt to not wanting to do anything else, like the cooking, cleaning and going to work. I've sewn most of my nine patches blocks into rows. I have two more small appliques to finish up, something that I do while watching tv. I hope there's something interesting on tv soon.
The quilt has gone from a disorganized looking mess to a nice arrangement of nine patches mixed with applique blocks. It's a nice feeling to have produced something beautiful.
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 I just came back from a trip to Vancouver. I met my mother there, and we went sightseeing. We returned to one of my mother's favorite spots, English Bay, several times. My mom likes to sit and draw the scenery around her, and English Bay is a great place for this. Not being a sketcher, I brought some hand quilting to do.
I prepared ahead of time by tracing the pattern pieces onto freezer paper and ironing them to the back of appropriate fabrics. Then while we were sitting by the beach, watching the birds and people go by, I cut out the fabric, basted to the freezer paper, and then appliqued to the background piece. I will have to cut away the background fabric to remove the freezer paper, since I skipped the spray starch step. This was a fun and relaxing vacation. I recommend taking a project to work on during quiet moments when away from home. Rebecca
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 The Stony Plain Quilt Show was lots of fun. Spread out over the town in 16 delightful shops, it took us three afternoons to see it all. I found out that Stony Plain has two well equipped quilt shops plus a knitting shop! Nakusp doesn't even have one shop dedicated solely to quilting. The County Quilters are very lucky.
I talked with a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She has used her quilting hobby to get her through this difficult time. Her quilts are beautiful and plentiful. Besides her own quilting she makes shop samples for a local quilt shop, does scrapbooking, is a network marketing salesperson, and raises two teenaged children. I don't do as much as she does, and I'm not dealing with chemo and severe hot flashes.
I am home again. When I finish my household and online chores I will have time to work on the fairy wall hanging I am making.
The photo is my daughter, granddaughter and myself at the quilt show. My granddaughter is already good at picking out coordinating fabrics.
Rebecca
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I am visiting my daughter and her family near Stony Plains, Alberta this week. There is a quilt show going on in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the town, and there are quilts in many of the shops downtown, plus a great display and merchant mall at the museum. We haven't seen all of it yet, but we've been having a great time looking. I was never in the downtown area of Stony Plains before. It is quite charming, with well kept, attractive shops, lots of hanging baskets, and murals outside. The shop keepers are friendly, and seemed to be having as much fun as we were. The quilts are fantastic, with fine examples of the skill of the quilt guild members. The County Quilters have 70 - 80 very friendly members.
The show is on until July 26th, so if you're in the area, be sure to stop in.
Rebecca
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 This wall hanging is for sale in the classified section. I made the white dots in the wing by stiffening the wing with double sided stabilizer, cutting holes with a leather punch, and fusing the white fabric behind. The black lines on the wings are sewn on with black thread. It was fun to make. Do you like it? You can add a comment about it here if you like. Rebecca
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I have been working on this website for the last two months, almost every waking moment when I wasn't at work. This left little time for other pursuits, like quilting. I haven't had any time for sewing even longer than that. Even when I had some spare time, I would find something else to do, like (shudder) exercise, housework and cooking.
Then I decided that if I was making a website about quilting, I had better start quilting again. I didn't know what to do, so I looked to my fabric for inspiration. My fabric was scattered all over the house in baskets and bins, with very little of it in the drawers where it belongs, and what was in the drawers was totally disorganized.
I was at an impasse with my website, waiting for other people to get their parts done, so I decided to organize my stash. Two days later, with the fabric organized and mostly in drawers, I had found some 2 1/2" squares that I had been cutting from leftover strips of fabric. I also had a bunch of 6" nine patch blocks, but not enough for a quilt. I decided to make more nine patch blocks with my squares.
I started sewing for a short period each day, and after a week had sewn most of my squares into blocks, and had started sewing the blocks together. Then I decided I'd like to have some new patterns to sell on my almost finished website.
I have had some patterns roughed out, waiting to be put together for some time now. I started cutting out fabric for a cute little fairy.
Suddenly quilting isn't something I have to force myself to do any more. I'm enjoying it again. The website is ready to launch, and I'm back to sewing. What could be better?
Rebecca
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I have about $200 worth of double sided interfacing, Steam a Seam 2 Lite, left over from when I had a quilt shop, that appears to be past its prime. It doesn't separate nicely from the paper lining any more, and is worthless. It breaks apart when you try to pull the paper from the fabric. Luckily I have some Stitch Witchery left over from many years ago. It still works well.
It's a different technique using the Stitch Witchery. You attach it to the back of the fabric using your iron and a teflon ironing sheet. Cut the interfacing a bit smaller than the fabric. The ironing sheet goes on the ironing board, then the interfacing, then the fabric. Iron until the interfacing sticks to the fabric. Don't get any interfacing on your iron.
You cut out pattern pieces and trace them directly to the back of the fabric. You don't have to worry about the interfacing shifting before it's in its final position. If you iron the fabric pieces onto the background with the teflon sheet between the fabric and the iron you can still reposition until you get them just right.
Does anyone know what to do with an enormous roll of Steam a Seam 2 Lite? Any ideas on fixing it? Rebecca
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I'm very excited to be working on some new patterns to sell. Before I sold only beginner's patterns, which definitely have a market, but didn't really inspire me. My love is applique, art quilts, quilts with curves, and other more difficult things. I love embellishment, and I love the challenge of something new. I didn't make up any new patterns for quite a while, as I could only think of more difficult things that didn't fit in with the beginner's theme.
Now you can expect to see fairies, mermaids, insects, flowers, frogs, and other things that I enjoy doing. I hope you like them too. These will be downloadable patterns, so I won't have the work of sending them out by snail mail. I will only have to send a link to the pattern. This will make it quicker for the buyer to have the patterns in her hands, and it will give me much more time for sewing. The patterns will be cheaper too. I'm looking forward to it so much. So stay tuned. I will be posting my newest quilts here for you to see, and there will also be new patterns to buy - frequently I hope. Rebecca
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