Just One Star

On Monday, I came across this "Just One Star" post on Rachel Griffith's P.S. I Quilt blog. I *immediately* recognized the ring in the photo because my Marine son has one just like it, from Parris Island for boot camp graduation. So, of course, I read on — and learned about the Moda challenge in connection with the Semper Fi Fund. I decided then and there that today, March 16th, my Marine son's 22nd birthday and his first that we're apart (sob!), I would spend some time in his honor making a block (or two) to send in for the project. I'm happy to say that I accomplished that goal. Happy Birthday Tyler, I miss you!

If you'd like to make a block for the Just One Star challenge, the fabric requirements, block directions and mailing info are in the PDF here. Don't forget to sign your block(s) before mailing!

In other quilting news, I'm making progress on the placemats. Everything has been cut out and now I'm piecing the squares together and attaching them to the placemat middles. With my Featherweight on my cutting table, I can face the TV and piece at the same time, which seems to make it all go faster. It's very relaxing. I do have to get up every once in a while to press seam allowances, but the movement is a good thing or else I'd just spread even wider. ;-)

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By the way, if you've been frustrated by Blogger's handling of uploading photos, I'm happy to report that improvements have finally been made. First, photos are again uploading in the order you select them. And, you can now plant your cursor where you want a photo, upload it, and it will land there instead of at the top of the post. Yay Blogger! Ahem … it's about time. ;-)

Feeling Quilty Again

As I said yesterday, I'm feeling quilty again. Which means it's time for a little mindless sewing. And by "little," I mean a lot, and not that you don't need a brain for this, just that sewing straight lines can be hypnotic and relaxing.

I bought two placemat & napkin kits from Connecting Threads last year (now sold out), which means eight placemats and coordinating napkins. That's a lot of little squares to cut apart and then sew back together, and a good number of big squares and rectangles.

This is what the finished items are supposed to look like, and they will be for ME:

Because I bought two kits, I will have a lot of leftovers. I'm thinking I'll make some matching strip-y potholders with those. Or something, so I'm not just moving fabric from one pile to another.

Clean Underwear

Yes, clean underwear. Not that I've been wearing anything else, but at least now my washer is fixed, my wet clothes have been rescued and laundered, and I can wear my *favorite* clean underwear again. It was a bad pump, and let me tell you — water sitting in the washer for 3+ days STINKS. A lot. Worse than dirty underwear. Ewwww. ;-) After the repairman left, I ran that load through 3 times and it finally passed the sniff test.



Now that the important news of the day has been relayed, in sewing/quilting news … I finished the second runner for the Ucreate August Create-With-Me Sewalong. This is the runner I'll be giving my sister for Christmas. Let's hope come December, I remember that I made it and where I put it. I might hang the Rainbow Runner in my sewing room instead of using it as a table topper. Still thinking on that though.

The backing is an old Mary Engelbreit bumblebee print from stash. So another length of old stuff out. Yay!



After hand-sewing the binding for my rainbow runner, I didn't feel right about not hand-sewing the binding for the giftie so I sucked it up and got out the hand needle again. (I even bought a pack of new needles today for next time. Yes, I know.) I made better time on this binding because I decided I only needed to pull the thread tight every 4-5 stitches all at once instead of between each stitch. Machine sewing bindings is tons faster, but the handstitched bindings really do look nice. I may end up a convert yet.



I'm still not ready to sew clothes yet, mostly because I have a couple of non-clothing project ideas that have been percolating. But I think I'm almost there because I did start looking at some patterns for tops last night.

End of the Rainbow

The stripe for the binding fabric arrived on Thursday. During Project Runway, I made the binding and attached one side to the quilt by machine. Those are two of my little piggies standing guard. I collect pigs and have a ton of them around.

Yesterday (Friday), I pinned the binding around to the back and started attaching it by machine. I must have ripped out the stitches about 300 times. OK, slight exaggeration, but it just was NOT going well. I gave up and had some dinner. (Here's the back print, by the way. I've had this in the stash for over 8 years and am glad to be using it up!)



After dinner, I ripped stitches again and then threw in the towel, loaded up a movie on the DVR, threaded a hand needle and ladder-stitched the binding to the back by hand. For TWO HOURS. OMG. But it's done, and looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I'm not sure if I have the patience to ever hand-stitch a binding onto a bed-size quilt, or even another table runner. I'd rather perfect my machine binding skills, I think. This quilting stuff is harder than it looks. ;-)



I was planning to throw this into the washer and dryer to crinkle it up, but when I went to move the current load from washer to dryer, the washer was flashing an error code and the door was locked. WITH ALL MY FAVORITE CLOTHES INSIDE. Arghhh. Seriously, I can't get any of my clothes out of the washer. Yes, I've tried everything but the machine is making a grinding noise and is obviously broken, so I made a call into service this morning and an appointment is set for Monday. But in the meantime I have to wear UNfavorite clothes and glare at the washer which is holding all my good stuff hostage.

On a bright note, I'm alone for the weekend. The menfolk headed up to my stepson's in Jacksonville yesterday to send him off on his (SS's) new life adventure in North Carolina. I'm here on dog duty. And it's raining. Good thing I don't have to go anywhere because I don't have ANYTHING to wear. Sigh. Maybe I'll just wear my nightie all day. Hmprf.

Or, maybe I should go make a new top. But then what would happen to this quilting blog? Hahaha.

Rainbow Runner

I finished the straight-line quilting on this tonight and am now waiting on my binding fabric to arrive. I tried to use all stash fabrics but I really wanted a stripe that picks up the color spectrum in the runner and I didn't have anything that worked for that. Which means I was "forced" to buy more fabric. Ahem. But only 1/2 yard. Of course, I had to throw in other stuff into the shopping cart to make it worth the shipping, right? But I think I found the fabrics I want to use for a window topper, so fingers crossed that the colors are what I'm expecting.

I have one more of these easy scrappy runners in mind and I haven't decided yet if this one or the one still to be done is what I'll put away for my sister for Christmas. It depends on if the second one turns out like I see it in my imagination. If it does, then I think that one will go to my sister.

Summer Flowers in the Field

It's done! Now all I have to do is hang it on the wall. I was calling this "my scrappy triangle flowery wallhanging thing," but then I thought I'd go a bit more hoity-toity, so "Summer Flowers in the Field" it is. I crack myself up.



I finished it last night, putting on the binding while watching Top Chef. Gawd, that show makes me want to EAT so I was glad to have something else to keep my hands busy. I'm not a hand sewer of bindings. Gimme my machine all the way, baby! ;-) I tossed it in the washer last night and the dryer this morning so I could have that puckery goodness. I love a puckery quilt. It looks less puckery in these photos than IRL but I think that's because shrinking the pics to more web-friendly size lost some of the contrast/definition. Trust me. It's plenty puckered.

This binding is one of my most successful to date, I think. Usually, I will wuss out and just use a small ZZ on the front so I'm sure the back of the binding is caught. I match thread to binding and you really can't even tell unless you're looking for it. I'm not entering quilt shows or anything.

But I decided I want to master binding a quilt by machine so I forced myself to do it the right way with no shortcuts. My tips: Lots of pins and a walking foot. And this YouTube video. Notice how she's constantly pushing the seam allowance more open as she stitches in the ditch? Do that.

I still had a couple of spots where I missed the back but that's because I joined some of the binding pieces straight instead of using bias seams and they made the binding more lumpy. But I was seriously eeking out the last scraps of these stripes and a bias seam would've eaten up too much of my smaller pieces. I know better, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It wasn't a big deal to do a second pass where I missed. It's going on the wall. Even I'll never see it.

The quilting itself is nothing special. Mostly just in the ditch, but I did echo the flowers and greenery. Also on my list to master is free motion. I'm OK. But I need more practice.



And, speaking of my sewing room … Oh? We weren't? Well, now we are. ;-) Here's yet ANOTHER photo of my IKEA shelves. I found some bins that work for me. They look basket-y but they're really plastic. I'll need to put labels on them or draw myself a map because with all this reorganization, I CAN'T FIND A THING! But I'm slowly getting used to where my stuff is. Oh, and those 4 bins on the bottom? Those are the ones that used to have blue/yellow lids. Krylon Fusion for plastic rocks!



I also got these smaller rattan baskets. There are 4 of them but you can't see the last one since it's blocked by my cutting table. I'm going to make liners for these — first, because the baskets are kind of rough and second, to keep the green thing going for the lower half of this unit.



While I'm still in quilt-mode, I'm going to try to knock out a quick table runner for my sister for Christmas. Yes, I'm in shock too. I usually never even think about Christmas until December. But I still have scraps I'm determined to use up and this will go fast. I might even make one for myself. I'm going to join in the August Create-With-Me sew-along on UCreate, here. UCreate is a great blog, BTW. Lots and LOTS of crafty ideas. Fill up your coffee cup before you click on that link. I'm just sayin'…

We Interrupt This Garment Sewing Blog

… to bring you a quilting-crafty blog. Or so it seems, lately. ;-0



That's OK. That's one of the things I love about sewing — there are SO MANY different things to sew that it's hard even for someone with the attention span of a gnat (me!) to get bored.

So, I didn't get the quilt top finished, but it's nearly so. (Do you know how long it takes to arrange all the blocks so that there are no repeats of prints in the rows or columns and the color depth is evenly distributed? Hah!) I still need to machine appliqué the flowers and leaves and then I'm going to straight-line machine quilt this little wall hanging so the finish shouldn't be that far away. Hopefully, I'll get it done by the weekend since it's a slower work week. Fingers crossed.

If I do say so myself, I like it. It's very cheery and the unexpected pop of orange and yellow in the corner makes me smile. And makes it less matchy-matchy, I think. If I were a "real" quilter, I would have a stash of quilting fabrics and this wallhanging wouldn't have been made with every same fabric I've been using for the last few weeks. But I did manage to dig up a few that haven't been used in the room re-do yet.

Speaking of "real" quilters — it's no wonder quilting is so popular. The finished pieces I've been seeing on quilting blogs are so pleasant to look at, the fabrics are adorable with such a big choice, and the shops know how to do it right.

Case in point, Fat Quarter Shop (NAYY):



Each magazine was packaged in its own protective zippy bag, the charm packs in their own wrapper with cute FQS stickers for closures and decoration. Yes, I bought charm packs. Does this mean I'm starting a quilting stash? Hmmm. Even the pretty invoice (yes, pretty!) came inside a nice Thank You envelope. Contrast this with Fabric.com, Fabric Mart, and others who toss wadded-up fabric in a bag inside a box and throw in advertising. Hmmm. (OK, EOS has better packaging, but even that could be improved at those prices. Sorry, just my 2 cents.)

So, what's with the quilty magazines? Well, I've taken a liking to them and also crafty magazines for eye-candy and entertainment reads since Threads, et al. has been boring me for quite a while. Deep down, I still like the garment sewing magazines (what few there are!), but it seems like everything is a re-hash and there's not much new and fresh within the pages.

Which is completely different from the quilting and crafting magazines. On and in those, the colors are bright, the projects look fun and imaginative, the writing is entertaining, and the whole vibe is just more inviting. Even though I could do most of the crafty projects in my sleep. But I'm an experienced sewer/crafter and not the typical target audience, so I understand that most of the projects are not going to be for advanced skills. But how attractive these magazines and projects must be for new and/or young sewers. (Or … ahem! … "old" sewers like me with the gnat's attention span!) If you were a 20-something beginner sewer/crafter, would you pick up a magazine with a fuddy-duddy boucle Chanel jacket on the cover or would you pick up the one with Fun! Bright! Cheerful! projects with articles that are written the way you talk? I may be nearing mid-century but I'm far from ready to be a Lady Who Lunches. Pfffft. :-)

So where am I going with all of this? I don't really know. LOL! I just know that I like having choices. Vive la différence!

And do stick around. There will be garment sewing again eventually. That gnat thing, remember? ;-)

Last Night

This is what I worked on last night while Project Runway was on. Piecing on my Featherweight means I can face the TV. I used the scraps from the bins and binder covers. You're all probably getting a little sick of seeing these fabrics all the time. I promise — once this is done, these prints will be used up. Well, mostly. I'm not using any pattern. I just measured out a triangle that would fit on the triangle-shaped scraps from the bins. I'm going to add some more blocks from the fabrics you can see at the left for variety — even I'm getting a bit tired of those same ol' fabrics — but I won't make the finished quilt much bigger than what you see here. I'm going to hang it on the wall in the sewing room and hope to get it done this weekend while my garment sewing mojo is on hiatus.

Speaking of sick of looking at, here's yet ANOTHER photo of my shelves and bins, but what I'm really showing is the cool little blue dress form up top. I was out still looking for ready-made bins yesterday afternoon. I didn't find any bins that I wanted but I did find this instead at HomeGoods. Isn't it cute? I wanted something tall and sewing-related for the top of the shelves to off-set the straight row of machines and this is perfect.



Have a great weekend — I'm starting mine NOW! :-)

Banking the Mom Points

Happy 4th to my American readers. It was rainy here all day, which meant I could spend the day in the sewing room guilt-free. For dinner we (the menfolk) grilled steaks, salmon and broccoli. After dinner my sons lit off a few bombs fireworks in the yard in between raindrops. It was just the low-key kind of day I like.

Yesterday, I finished up the string quilting table runner for my mom. A few days late for the official challenge but who's counting. And mom will certainly be surprised when the package arrives at her house in a week or so.

Today I made 6 coordinating double-sided napkins and 6 coasters.





You would think that I would have made a dent in the scraps stash, but I can hardly tell anything is missing. Even worse, I added to it with the purchase of the backing fabric for the runner and the napkins. Sound familar?

These string blocks come together quickly so I'm thinking in the near (and far) future I'll work on additional blocks a little at a time to someday and eventually make into a more random and bigger scrappy quilt. No time limit. Just a casual plan for all those strips and larger scraps I have tucked into a bin.

Next, I've got to work on organizing my newest patterns. Anything I've bought in the last 6 months is still waiting to be added to my database and binders. I was sort of holding off because I needed a third binder and always forgot to get one. But I finally remembered and now I have no more excuses. Plus, the stacks of patterns are driving me NUTS. I'll stay up late doing this while watching TV tonight and then tomorrow the sewing room will be clean and fresh for whatever is next.

Procrastination Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Some of you may have noticed the graphic below in my sidebar:



It's a badge for and link to a relatively easy Challenge/Quilt-A-Long on the Loft Creations blog that I joined in January, thinking I'd have plenty of time to finish *something* before it ended on June 30. Hah! I should have known better.

Well, at least I started, right? I may even finish the piecing before the deadline, but I don't think it's looking very good for me to finish the machine quilting by then. (But maybe if Stephanie at Loft Creations is reading, she'll consider my procrastinator's plea to extend for one more weekend so I can have the holiday weekend to finish it. I wonder if she accepts bribes?)

It's going to be a table runner for my mom, using scraps from various projects I've done for her in the past, plus a few other prints I've had kicking around. I plan to make 4 more blocks, trim all from 7" to 6", find a border/backing print locally, and also buy enough to back more 2-sided napkins I'll cut fronts from using some of the prints in the blocks. Mom keeps raving about the runner and napkins I made/sent her in December which is her way of asking me to make more.

I'm not sure how much I like it so far because these aren't color/print combinations I'd normally choose for something in my house, but I think mom will like it. And I think I'll like it better once a border print is included and I re-arrange the blocks. Right now, it's a little messy — which is the point of string piecing, I suppose. But more than messy, it's looking *too* symmetrical in some places for my eyes so I need to shuffle the blocks.

The piecing itself goes quickly (click on the link above for instructions), and it gave me a chance to dust off the Featherweight, which I just love for piecing (big quilt piecer that I am LOL!). And it is a great way to use up those scraps I've been accumulating. Plus I'll earn "daughter points" when mom receives it totally unexpected. Always good to have those in reserve.

Officially Sick

I'm officially sick of the Stars & Stripes quilt projects again. Here's where I left off yesterday. The wallhanging borders are sewn on, and I've spray- and pin-basted it into the "sandwich" ready to be quilted. I've rolled it up and set it aside and that's where it's going to stay for another 7 years a while.



Life stuff and the Olympics took most of my free time and attention this weekend but I did manage to eek out and almost finish an actual garment sewing project tonight. Yes, you read that correctly - garment sewing!

This is McCall's 5713, a "Quick & Easy" cardigan, and it really is both Quick and Easy.



I made no alterations to the pattern because flat measurements told me it has a lot of ease and I was lazy. Mostly, I was lazy.

I wanted something quick (and easy) that I could finish fast to just throw on around the house and yard while we have our last week or two of winter (below 60s in Fla-speak). I'm so tired of my one sweatshirt and few long-sleeved tops. We never have this much winter during winter. I do not have the clothes for endless weeks of cold.

The photo is horrible and does not show the sweater knit as it looks in real life. It looks shiny in this pic and it's not at all. It's a very soft, matte olive-y green with a pretty vertical stripe knitted in. I turned the stripe sideways for the top yokes, front and back. I started from uncut tissue and (nearly) finished in a couple of hours tonight.



It's quite long in both the overall length and sleeves and I'll be cutting the extra off. I quit tonight before hemming, but I'll do that tomorrow and have already threaded the coverstitch machine with green so it should only take 20 minutes or so to finish it.

Stars & Stripes Update

I finished the two appliqued eagle blocks this weekend and the two paper-pieced Blazing Star blocks, which meant I could put together the wall hanging blocks. I still need to add the borders before I can start quilting it. I'm hoping to do that during the week. We'll see.

Here's the Blazing Star block. It looks nice but I hated the paper piecing. Well, at least for this block because you have to leave the paper in place until it's all sewn together to stop the bias of all the triangle pieces from stretching. By the time you get to the intersection of all the points in the middle, that's a LOT of layers. So I cheated and ripped off the paper at the points before sewing them. And then spent another hour removing the rest of the paper from the finished blocks.



Here's the wallhanging on my cutting table to give you an idea of its size. (And yes, the mending pile is still there. ;-) It's minus DS's jeans but only because he took them back unmended. LOL!)



Here's the original Fons & Porter version, for comparison. You can see I took some liberties in block placement and colors.



Here's a refresher of what the big quilt will one day (sorta) look like.



And here's my progress. Only 4 more (BIG) blocks to go.



This thing is killing me though. I will never, ever, EVER do a sampler quilt that has so many different blocks and techniques. Each block is a major production because you have to totally switch brain gears like you're starting a new project for each block, because … well, you are. It's not the kind of tediousness that I enjoy. Instead of just knocking it out, I found myself wasting far too much time this weekend in the time-suck that is the PR message board. So for the time-waster reason and a few other things about the board that have gotten under my skin, I've decided to take a break from participating on it for an indefinite period.

I just re-read this and I sound pretty grumpy for this Monday morning, don't I? Complaining about a quilt I hate making and message boards that are ticking me off. LOL! I'm not really grumpy, I promise. I am enjoying the process with the quilt. I just never thought it would take so long and I'm impatient by nature. And since I've decided I want it done and off my to-do list forever, I can't move forward with anything else, so OK … maybe that part is making me a leeeeetle grumpy. ;-) But it's nice to see real progress, even if all these quilting posts are probably making your eyes glaze over.

Have a great week!

ETA: Just so it's clear - it's not the PR message board participants who are ticking me off, just some policies and other admin stuff. I enjoy a spirited discussion which includes all opinions and responses and do not become offended if someone is abrupt or disagrees with me. But because I do enjoy these discussions, I find myself losing a lot of time that I didn't necessarily want to spend on the computer. So, while I'm taking a break for a while, I'll be back arguing participating again at some point.

Back to Stars & Stripes

Who is this quilter and what has she done with Debbie's garment sewing? ;-)

I promise, garment sewing will be returning soon but I'm still in quilt-mode. I started the Stars & Stripes quilt (and wallhanging) piecing SEVEN YEARS AGO and it's really been bugging me that it's not done. Besides, I want the finished quilt - which is why I started it in the first place - and there's only one way for that to happen. Not including these eagles, I only have 6 more blocks to go on the quilt and 1 more for the wallhanging. Light at the end of the tunnel.

I've been dragging my heels over these two appliqued eagle blocks for months but I finally got the pattern pieces traced, cut, and fused onto the backgrounds this weekend. Now that they're ready for machine applique stitching, they'll go much faster. I actually like that part. I'll still have one more applique block for the quilt remaining but it's got a lot fewer pieces so hopefully I won't stall on that one as long as I have on these. I just have to remember to get more fusible web.

Once these two eagle blocks are done, I can assemble the wallhanging, add borders and machine quilt it. I'm not going to quilt the actual quilt myself as it will be too big for me so I'll be sending that out whenever I finish it and find a local long-arm quilter. But to get the wallhanging done will feel great and hopefully will be the motivation I need to finally finish the big quilt.

As you can see in the upper left of the photo, I have a few things in the mending pile - three of my tops that need to be re-coverstitched on a hem because I stupidly caught threads on something or other, and one pair of DS's jeans that had a beltloop blow-out. No progress on any of that this weekend though. Mending is only just above cutting out applique quilt pieces in my book and I couldn't possibly do both dreaded tasks so close together. ;-) But I'll get to this pile very soon because two of my favorite tops are in it and I won't want to be without them for long.

I didn't take my D1 to the repair shop yet because I was juggling vehicles with my sons and ended up just giving up mine and staying put all weekend long. Next Sunday it's going in no matter what. I hope.

Time for a Nap

It's bound and done, washed, dried and puckery. Perfect for snuggling up in.



And good timing as our temps are dropping into the 30s again tonight. Brrrr.

Bound and Determined

I have actually finished quilting this thing. Up next, binding the edges. Well, first cutting and piecing the binding strips and then the actual binding. I'm determined to get this done before the weekend. Famous last words ......



It's hard to see any detail in this pic, but I pretty much straight-line quilted it by outlining all the piecing, except for the border strips where I used a curvy built-in stitch from my machine. I don't think my walking foot knew what hit it. Until now, it had never been used much.

I'm going to bind the quilt with the gold fabric in the narrow border. After that, I'm taking my machine back to the repair shop. It's still squeaking. And it's breaking threads way too often - even after needle, thread, and bobbin changes. In short, it's driving me crazy, something it's never done before. It did fine with the walking foot, but once I started the curvy stitching, I was pulling my hair out. Even with the problems that were recently fixed, it always sewed perfectly. Now I'm fighting it. I was going to free-motion quilt the borders but I couldn't go more than a 2 minutes on my practice pieces without the top thread breaking. And while I'm not the best FMQer, I know it's not me - something else is definitely going on. Sigh.

I'm still not completely in the mood to sew clothing, although I would like something new to wear. Which is to say, I have no idea what will be up next. I'm still feeling a bit quilty so I may work on a block or two for Stars & Stripes. It would be really nice to get that off my UFO list before Spring rolls around, and I can piece on my Featherweight while the D1 is at the hospital.

Or I may just curl up in my new quilt and nap all weekend. ;-) I can't wait to see it after it's been washed and dried.

Buried

Work has been BUSY so I haven't had a lot of time or energy left for sewing. We have a conference next weekend so everything will be down to the wire this coming week. Thankfully, I'm not attending the conference so I get my life back next weekend. However, I couldn't wait until then for some sewing therapy so I gave myself permission to start quilting the quilt and I'll do some job-work tomorrow before the football games.

I started laying out the quilt sandwich on my bedroom floor but soon got very tired of crawling around down there. I'm old. I enlisted DS#2 to help me carry the layers into the sewing room and I worked on it in sections on my cutting table. Quilt basting spray is immensely helpful for this, and I also did pin it at regular intervals. I know this is supposedly not the ideal way to do this, but it worked fine for me.

Finally, I was ready. Or so I thought. I originally wanted to do freehand meandering on the blocks and spent a couple of hours practicing that. I have done it before so it wasn't completely new, but I had to play with my machine to find the best settings again. The built-in free-motion stitches are rubbish.



Free-motion practice went well, but once I had the quilt at the machine and started wrestling it, I knew the meandering was not going to be a wise choice for my foray into machine quilting something bigger than a table runner. I decided to opt for straight line, NOT in the ditch, quilting - following the shapes of the block pieces and attached my walking foot to give it a go.



I spent a few hours wrestling it like this …



… but I did finally get into a rhythm.



I first tried rolling up the sides but that was actually harder to manage than just keeping it flat and moving everything around as necessary when pivoting at corners. As you can see, there is actually an extension table under there, which is a curse and a blessing. The curse part is because the quilt gets caught on the back corners of the extension table when I'm turning it. I may have to move this operation to the dining room table where I can have more tabletop behind the machine, but I'm resisting that because I don't want it on my dining room table for the next year. ;-)



I now have a grand total of three quilted blocks. At this rate, I might finish in 2015.



Can you tell which blocks are done? The near blue/white pinwheel, the green/plaid star above it, and the blue/pink basket on the right of the star.

Oh, and while my machine was at the hospital, it developed a squeak that is driving me CRAZY. But I don't want to take it back in and be without it again so I'm hoping it works itself out. You're not supposed to oil Vikings so I don't want to start squirting into it willy-nilly. If it doesn't stop soon, I'll be forced to give it up again because this is something I can't live with, like I did with its previous problems.

I've Been Stripping

Don't you just love those really bad quilt-y puns? Stripping. I slay myself. Ahem.

So, as I was saying … I added sashing and stripping to the quilt blocks. No, I don't know which is which. Anyone?

Things I learned:

1. I'm pretty sure these blocks were the result of a swap or other bee-type exchange because even though they tricked me into believing they were all the same exact size, um … they weren't. Other clues were that the muslin pieces are many different kinds of muslin (or plain white, I don't know), and none of the fabrics are repeated in other blocks.

I had to make the decision to keep the integrity of the blocks (points, etc.) and say to heck with the sashing (stripping?) lining up 100% exactly. It's a practice quilt, after all, and I fully expect and want it to be used as a snuggle quilt while watching TV. Don't ask me why (I don't know!) but my 17-year old son always watches TV under a blanket, even if it's 98 degrees outside. Which, by the way, it is NOT. It is FREEZING. Although less freezing today than yesterday. I think we might have reached 50 today. But it was still officially freezing temps when I took the dogs out this morning so I'm counting it.

2. It's really, REALLY hard to pick fabrics to coordinate with "old lady" colors but which themselves will help the quilt to not look so old lady. Apologies to any old ladies who may be offended. ;-) I went with a dark green, gold, and not-bright red although the red looks brighter in these photos than it is. Maybe because the whole room where it's hanging for this photo is red? I don't know. I'm now thinking it looks Christmas-y instead of old lady, but that's really only in the photos. The red is really not that red. My camera just loves to enhance any speck of red in a shot.

3. Duct tape is handy when you're hanging a quilt top off french doors for a quick photo. Especially when you're home alone.

4. I have NO IDEA where I'm going to lay this out to make my "quilt sandwich" in preparation for actually quilting the thing. The driveway comes to mind, but my grease monkey son has left, well, GREASE in the driveway so I need to figure out a way to not transfer grease onto the quilt. Then again, I may temporarily rearrange some stuff in my bedroom instead so I can lay it out in the "sitting area." Said sitting area is actually dog bed area, which means heavy-duty vacuuming before any quilt is laid down there and probably shooing dogs off the quilt while I'm working on it. It will also be warmer to do it there vs. the driveway, although "they" are telling us it may hit 70 by Friday. Woot!

5. I love LOVE my Featherweight! I won't be able to quilt on it because the harp is way too small, but that little beauty sews 1/4" seams like magic. I love the sound it makes too. It's very hypnotic.

6. I like strip quilting because it's more of a no-brainer. Intricate blocks, though I love them on finished quilts, kill me. My Stars & Stripes may never get done, although I hope I do muster up the motivation because it's going to ROCK whenever it's done. Strip quilting is relaxing. Nothing to fit onto my body. No pattern tissue to wrestle with. Pretty much just cut some straight lines and sew.

Here's a straight-on shot of the quilt top. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you should be able to see where some of the blocks don't quite line up they way they should. But once it's in use, no one will ever know.



D1 Update: Still in the hospital. The $140 quote does include the Reverse, the Fix, my bobbin winder, and the needle threader. I think that's pretty much a bargin. Or bargain, if I could catch typos. Now that they have my OK to fix those things, they will also open it up and test the problem with the lights burning out. If that's an expensive fix like I'm afraid it will be, I'll continue to live without lights. There was a communication gap that seems to have been fixed now and I received at least 4 calls between yesterday and this morning. But I probably won't have it back until next week. We'll see. The repair guy doesn't make a trip to that store every day. I'm in quilt-y mode and I really need the D1 for that since it has a pretty good harp space. But I may just go ahead and start reacquainting myself with free-motion quilting on the Kenmore.

Detour

No, this hasn't turned into a quilting blog. It's just that I'm not in the mood to sew clothes for me. But I don't want to finish up the last scrub top for my sister either. Part of my lost garment mojo is still not having my machine. Part is a need to clear out Stuff Taking Up Space. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of that statement vs. the lone scrub top.

The good news is that my machine should be done early next week and I think it's going to cost a LOT less than I was anticipating. Fingers still crossed on that one because there was also a bit of a misunderstanding as to what they were supposed to look at. How, I don't know, since I had a big list stapled to the work ticket. But I digress … Right now I've been told it has working Reverse and Fix buttons again and supposedly the light problem is fixed, and the price quoted so far is $140. But I'm unclear whether the bobbin winder was even looked at and the saleslady at the store didn't know either, since service is done off-site. I hate that about this dealer, but I have no other good choice. However, if the total bill is going to be under $300 when I was expecting at least double that, I guess I can live with it.

Anyway, back to the photo above. These are quilt blocks I've had kicking around the sewing space for years. I didn't make them. They were part of an Ebay lot of other things and I couldn't just toss them. They are completely not my colors or style. But there's still something about them that I like and the workmanship is excellent.

So, off to Joann's today to buy fabric for borders between the blocks, fabric for sashing, and fabric for the backing and binding. It was so crazy in there that I totally forgot about batting so I'll have to go back for that.

I was also a little crazed myself by the time I got to Joann's since my car battery died and with the men all gone this weekend, I had to deal with it myself. Not that I can't, I just prefer not to. After a couple of tries in the driveway with only clicks, it did let me finally start the car so that I could take it up to the place that sells and installs batteries. Whew! There are 4 other cars here but (1) who knows if they would've started either and (b) they are Guy Cars. 'Nuf said.

And why did the battery die? Because it's FREAKIN' FREEZING here and cold kills batteries. I'm not kidding about the freezing - it was in the 20s overnight and never even reached 36 today. Oh, and guess what I saw last night during the dogs' last piddle of the night? Snow. Yes. S.N.O.W. In Valrico, Florida. WTF. No, it didn't stick, but it was sure coming down from the sky at midnight. And today while driving around, the "rain" was bouncing off my windshield. I'm a northern girl by birth. I know sleet when I see it.

I know many of you have to deal with terrible cold all winter, but you pretty much expect it where you live, right? I live in West Central FLORIDA. I think I'm allowed to whine when it's like this for days on end. I'll be whining again next month when my electric bill hits the mailbox. Whoever's idea this is for a joke? Well, it's just not funny anymore. ;-)

Off to pull the new fabrics from the dryer and start cutting strips while watching the Cowboys beat the Eagles. I'll see how far I get tonight and tomorrow before I decide to go racing back to crazy Joann's for batting. I'm hoping the fabrics I picked will make the whole quilt more Me. But what I'd really like is a quilt that I won't cringe over if we kick it around the TV room and snuggle up in it. That's all I'm hoping to get out of this.

(And yes, Donna H - I know I still have the Stars & Stripes to work on, but I need my D1 for the applique blocks, plus working on making a top/quilt out of the blocks above will help me ease into wanting to work on those applique blocks. Shoot me if I ever pick something with multiple applique blocks again.)

Tablerunner & Napkins & Kvetching

Done! I'm sorely out of practice with the binding but some washable glue and Wonder Tape let me pretend I'm an expert. I had attached the binding to the front of the runner before the D1 died and after the meltdown I seriously contemplated tacking it on the back by hand. That lasted for about 8 stitches. I'm so NOT a good stitcher-by-hand (because I never practice, of course) and it would've taken for-freakin'-EVER.

Here's the back. Or, it could be the front too since theoretically it is reversible.



I'm still debating whether to toss it in the washer/dryer to create the wrinkly quilty goodness or to send it on to mom in its current state.

I made four napkins. If I had been more forward-thinking when I bought the fabric, I would've bought more so I could have made more napkins. But I didn't, so I couldn't. The napkins are double-sided. Each has the same backing so they can be folded as four matching napkins or four coordinating napkins. On the napkin from the "backing" print, I used the wrong side for one side, which is a solid blue.



Sewing with the Kenmore was an … adventure. (I think it's actually a Janome-made machine, since its model number starts with "385.") It's not a total bottom-of-the-line, but it's only one or two up from that. And I felt it. Even my dilapidated D1 sews circles around this machine. But hey, at least I have a backup, right? Trying to think positive. ;-)

Here's the "new" line-up. Look how small that thing is. LOL!



The things I miss most from my D1 are needle up/down, all the needle positions, automatic tension, thread cutting, and just the overall ease of the sewing experience. I had to test and adjust a lot more with the Kenmore. Some of it is because I'm just not used to sewing with it but most of it is because my D1 just does everything so beautifully without adjustment.

Oh, and I miss all my D1 feet! I don't have a stitch-in-the-ditch foot for the Kenmore and I REALLY needed it for the binding. I made do with a generic adjustable edge-stitching foot, but it's not as sturdy as my Viking feet. That plastic guide thing on the right is wobbly.



Another thing I miss — winding a bobbin without unthreading. And ALL MY BOBBINS. I think I have 3 bobbins for the Kenmore. What a pain. I wish I had thought to buy more when I was at Joann's yesterday.

The Kenmore is good as a buttonhole station and it's a decent sewer, but it's not a *great* sewing machine. The stitch quality is acceptable but not outstanding. The Featherweight's straight stitch is much, much nicer. Even my fumbling on the treadle produces a prettier straight stitch. The D1 stitching is easily as nice as either of the vintage machines. I'm beginning to dread the edgestitching I'll need to do for my sister's scrubs. I'm not used to having to work at getting a straight, even stitch. Spoiled, I know.

I did drop off the D1 yesterday at my Viking dealer, which is inside Joann's. It won't even be looked at until Monday at the earliest. Sob. But at least it's there. I'll just have to wait for the bad news.