Ready, set, cut!

I stayed up WAAAY too late last night cutting fabric. I couldn't resist seeing what was in the scrap bag I was given yesterday, and I found quite a few scraps big enough to cut additional pieces for my Pick and Choose quilt. While cutting those out, I also did some "scrap management" cutting. You can see here the scraps I cut for my project in the back, and my scrap management piles in the front, with sizes ranging from 1.5" to 5" squares. I have tins of all different sizes that I collect to keep my scraps in. Then when I need some, they are already pre-cut. Of course, that only works because most of what I make is so scrappy.
In the photo, it doesn't look like much, but believe me, that is hours of ironing and cutting you see before you. Well, hours interrupted by kids and husband and pets and calls of nature, but you get the picture.

Another thing I found in the scrap bag was bias tape. What is this for? Anyone? Do I keep it or pass it along? I don't know how it is used.


It just ocurred to me last night that I will see my twin sister in a mere week and a half, and the plan was to have my Crumb Cake Stand quilt finished for her.
I haven't quilted on it in quite some time. Gotta hop to it. I am stippling (by hand) the background in the center CakeStand block, and it is slow going.

Oh well, I work better with looming deadlines anyway.

And once that is done, I need to start hand quilting something else. My kids, my mom, my younger sister, my niece and nephew, even some strangers who received my comfort quilts - they all get to sleep under a quilt. Me, I have an ancient comforter from a department store with the stitching coming out. It is time to put one on MY bed! I started quilting this one for my bed a couple years ago when I held an old fashioned quilting bee at my house - what fun!

(Sorry, I guess I never took a picture of the whole quilt) But in the meantime, I've pieced others that I also wouldn't mind having on my bed, particularly this one

I wouldn't mind this cozy flannel one on my bed, either, but I think my husband might protest.

This one would be welcome on my bed, but it is SO LARGE it would take me forever to quilt it.


By the way, someone asked about the pattern for the Pick and Choose quilt that I am making. I got it from the June 2009 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. If you want a copy of the pattern, I'd be happy to photocopy it for you and pop it in the mail - send me an email with your mailing address. Here's what it is supposed to look like when finished (draped over an antique bench that you just happen to have in your home).


And finally, I apologize to those of you trying to view this with dial-up if all the pictures are slowing you down; I just love posts with lots to look at! Happy Wednesday!

Home away from home

I'm at work. It is raining (AGAIN!). I have to work all weekend. By all indications, I should be down in the dumps, but I'm not. First of all, I like my office. I've worked hard to make it my home away from home. There are quilts, plants and table lamps, and the big windows and fireplace don't hurt. Take a peek.

Here's the view when you walk in the door. I made scrappy pillow from a pattern I found in a magazine about 4 years ago. The quilt on the back of the chair was my grandmother's. She kept it on the rocking chair in her bedroom. It has a label that says "The Comfort Project from the Lighthouse Network." I imagine it was given to her when my aunt passed away, but I can't be sure. I tried googling it some time ago, but nothing came up. I use the quilt quite often because my building was built in the 1840s and it is pretty drafty - charming, but drafty. The painting over the fireplace is one that my younger sister did of herself - she is so talented. The hands in the frame on the mantel are the first project that my oldest son did in preschool. The little painting on the wall next to the window is one my mother brought me back from her trip on the Amazon a couple years ago, our (her kids) Christmas or birthday present to her one year.

Here's the view from my desk over to the other side of the room. I made this quilt out of leftover blocks from the Delectable Mountains quilt I made for my mother.

Here's the little quilt I won a ribbon with at the county fair last year (or the year before). It was just green, Honorable Mention, but a ribbon nonetheless. I hung it with a beaded necklace from WalMart. Here's a closer look...

It isn't home, but when I can't be at home, at least I am comfortable here.

Now, another reason I am not down today is that I received a bag full of scraps from my Guild, delivered to my office this morning. Woo hoo! I closed the door and dumped them out on the floor to take a look. Lots of different sized scraps,

plus some orphan blocks. I can't wait to start using this stuff in my current projects.

Speaking of current projects, I fired up the sewing machine last night and made a couple more blocks for my Pick and Choose quilt - I have 18 of the 25 blocks done at this point. Here they are on my design wall along with some of the sashing and pieced border - none of it is sewn together yet.

And here's a closer view - I am loving this quilt so far!

Feeling pretty good for a Tuesday!

No time for actual sewing

I had company over the weekend, and while we had a fantastic time, that means not much happened on the quilting front. I managed to do a bit more seam ripping on my grandmother's quilt while sitting and talking on the front porch, and a bit more squaring up after everyone left on Sunday evening, but that is it. I need to start sewing so I feel like I have made some progress. Especially since I was traveling the weekend before, and I haven't used my sewing machine in several weeks.

While I was traveling, however, I stopped by a quilt shop to try to find some brown fabric to finish the binding on a quilt that I am finishing for a woman who started quilting about 10 years ago but then got distracted, decided she wasn't going to do it anymore, and sent me all of her books and notions to clear space in her house. As payment, I finished the hand quilting on her tablerunner, and put on the binding. I am binding with the leftover backing fabric, but I was just a bit shy of enough. I have been stopping in every quilt shop I pass to find matching fabric, and I finally got lucky. Jason was with me, so he picked out some backing fabric for his Halloween quilt that he is entering in the fair this year.

And I couldn't resist picking up a few fabrics for myself - I did a great job of not buying any fabric last year, but I have fallen off the "no-buy" wagon. I need some new stuff in the stash because I am getting tired of making quilts out of the same old fabrics. (At least, that is how I am justifying my last couple of purchases to myself.)


I also stopped by my mother-in-law's, the one who introduced me to quilting in the first place. She does everything by hand, including the piecing. She showed me the quilt she is currently hand quilting, and then gave me an extra block from that quilt. (It is square, really. It was just kinda balled up and I didn't press it before taking the picture.)
Cool! I plan to make an orphan block quilt one day, and this will definitely make it in there.

And then, I just stopped by the library during late lunch to find something to read. One of the employees there saw me and said, "Hey, I've got something for you! Well, not here with me at work, but I've got something for you!" I missed the Guild meeting this weekend, but it turns out that some scraps were collected and earmaked for ME! Gotta love being known as the scrap gal!

Torn!

I worked some more on my grandmom's quilt last night, ripping seams, squaring up the squares, and playing around a bit with placement. (I should have been CLEANING since I have company coming for the weekend, but it is my sister/friend and her kids, and she is the kind of friend who loves me for me, dirty house and all, so I didn't bother with the panicky last-minute house cleaning that I usually do when I have company. Besides, with 4 kids, ages 7 and under, the house is going to be be a sticky mess by the end of the visit.)

Anyway, back on topic. As I was playing around with placement, I was thinking that what I'd really like to do is add some color. Since the fabric is old (at least 70-75 years, by my guess), and since the quilt was very well worn, all the fabrics are washed out. No matter how I arrange them, they are still going to look washed out. Therefore, any designs that I might make with the half-square triangles are going to be very hard to distinguish from the muddled background squares. HOWEVER, this is not MY quilt. It seems almost sacriligeous to add too much to this quilt - I want to honor and celebrate the original quilter, not drown her out with my own ideas and preferences. New border fabric seems the least intrusive - basically a frame for the "old quilt". But somehow, I just don't think that is going to satisfy me. Oh, what to do...

Kid update - I was listening in on a conversation between the boys this morning. Apparently, there is a bully in the Pre-K classroom who not only pushes, scratches, kicks and throws dirt at Donald, but also calls him "Donald Duck". I knew that was coming, I just didn't realize that it would happen this young. Anyway, Jason, the big (6 year old) brother, was telling Donald that he needed to tell this bully that if he didn't leave him alone, he was going to have to deal with his big brother. Donald's eyes got round and he asked breathlessly, "What are you going to do to him? Are you going to GET HIM?" Jason said, "No, I am going to have a serious talk with him in a FIRM VOICE!" I nearly drove off the road, laughing! I've been telling him that he needs to be firm with our puppy to make him behave. Apparently, that works for bullies, too! (I'm just relieved that he wasn't planning to "get him!")

I sure do love my kids!

Three strikes - you're OUT!

I've been maintaining a quilting blog at www.myquiltblog.com for nearly 3 years now. I loved it there. It was easy to manage, it was a small, close community of bloggers with similar interests, and I made some great online friends that I hope to continue to know. But for the third time, the site has crashed and I have lost everything. I hate to be a rat, abandoning a sinking ship, but I started blogging to chronicle my quilting adventures, and I tire of starting over again and again. I know that I should backup my work somehow, perhaps even print it out, but I really thought that the blog host would be backing everything up. Oh well.

So, a fresh start - that can be fun! I've moved nearly 40 times in my nearly 38 years, and I like change. I am a restless sort, which is glaringly obvious when you follow my quilting pursuits - starts and stops, bursts of activity on one project, and then it languishes forgotten on a shelf for months while I work on my next "must-do". Somehow, there are many projects in the "must-do" category, but not many projects make it into the "must-finish" category.

Here's one that tops the "must-finish" pile, though. While visiting my mother on Mother's Day, she pulled out some quilts that had been her mother's, made by her grandmother. They're beyond well worn, falling to pieces with gaping holes that you can put your torso through. My mom is not a quilter (I was introduced to quilting by my mother-in-law; that's a story for another day), but she really wants to be able to display, if not use, these pieces of her family's history. Being the dutiful daughter and adventuresome quilter that I am, I volunteered to try to salvage one. Note that I have absolutely no experience with quilt restoration, and am, in truth, still a novice quilter myself. However, I can't resist a good challenge!
As soon as I brought this quilt home, thoughts of it pushed all the other quilts-in-progress aside and demanded attention. After mulling over my options, I decided that it would have to be taken apart and put back together again in order to be saved. And since so much of the fabric is no longer useable, new fabric will need to be added.

Taking apart the layers was a cinch - it had been tied, and I had the top separated from the batting and backing within a day. Then, I started taking apart the blocks themselves. At first, I thought I could just separate them into useable sections to put back together, but I soon realized that I would have to actually take it apart piece by piece. The original fabric squares were 2 3/4" each, but because of wear on the seams, most of them only have about 2 1/4" of useable fabric in them. So, I am now in the process of completely disassembling the top and cutting each square down to 2". The half-square triangles I am leaving intact and cutting down to 2" also. When I put it all back together, I think I am going to have fun with the layout, maybe adding a pinwheel here and a star there whereas before the layout seemed completely random.

When finished, I would also like to quilt it, rather than tie it, so that it will hold up better over time. It is an ambitious project, I know, but I'm feeling really energized by it. And since I work best with deadlines, let me just put this out there - wouldn't it be great if I could have this ready for my mother at Christmas? Even with the job, the kids, the house renovations, the cub scout den leader responsibilities, and the things that come up every day that cut into my quilting time, I think I can do this. And I think I can do this without sacrificing spending some time on my other quilting projects. Being able to post my progress will help keep me motivated. Let's see if Blogger is better to me that MyQuiltBlog.com.