Stitching in the Barn

I want to participate in Sew Scrappy September just started by the Fat Quarter Shop but don't know if I can. Some of the scraps I have in my modest stash. There's still plenty. I want to do a pillow with Moda Blockheads #33 here . Lets see if I can with my full schedule.

It was February 2016, wow!  I wrote several posts and left them in the draft folder at the end of 2017 but never published them. Life has totally crippled my quilting game for a long time but quilting makes me happy. I'm getting back into quilting and realizing how much joy it brings to my life that I am totally convinced I have to quilt more. I'm going to start with a picture of some fabrics I pulled from my stash for a toddler quilt. I'm going to use these in a quilt inspired by Waves by Missouri Star Quilt Company, info on this page https://quiltingtutorials.com/tutorial/make-a-waves-quilt-with-jenny It's going to have a black background and the multicolored batik as a border. Finished size will be about 50 inches square. If you want a bit of life story you can read it below. I mostly wrote it for self documentation. I've got one baby quilt finished at the end of last year and I'm working on another baby quilt with a QAYG method that I think...

I had planned to post about another project I had started this weekend but then Monday happened.  I love Linky Parties. I love seeing what others are creating or have in the past. You're most likely reading this blog because you found me on one. On one of them I saw a picture of some cute woven hearts and had to click on the link. Vera's post is titled "Mug Rug Detour" and she detoured me from my project.  Her mug rugs were darling so I clicked the link to see how she made the hearts . When I saw how she wove together the hearts she used, I was intrigued. Then she had another link at the bottom to go to a page with different ways to cut the fabric to weave some amazing hearts! The first page was a standard 9-patch and I left. I came back later and noticed there were more pages. On the second page I found a picture of an angel woven from strips! It just blew my mind! There are 27 different patterns you can weave, some of them are incredible. It opened my eyes t...

I'm still working on my potholders.  I used an old friend from high school to help me baste them. Aqua Net is cheap and the fumes are not as toxic as basting spray. I basted them in the bathroom so it wouldn't get on the carpet. I ONLY use it on small projects. It's not the stickiest stuff.

I  saw a mini QR code quilt at the quilt show last weekend and I just saw another on the web. The first went to a page with a message for her husband, we didn't test it however. The second was supposed to have a message concealed but not a URL address. I got curious and googled "can I get a QR code?". After looking at the first few choices, I saw an article from the NY Times . Since that seems more reliable than a service trying to sell you something, I clicked there. It turns out that the Google URL shortener will make one for your site. I copy and pasted in my web address to get my short URL ( http://goo.gl/7RTtk ) then clicked details. On the details page is a QR code for your shortened URL Since I have a mobile template for my blog in addition to a web template, this should bring up my site on a smartphone in a mobile format. I'll have to test it tonight when my husband gets home. It's funny but when I upgraded my phone, I didn't want a smartph...

I went to my mailbox and found my prize waiting for me, to my surprise. I never got an email or anything but I'm not complaining. Connecting Threads sent me the Fauna collection of thread. This collection and several spools from it were on my wishlist. How can you pass up thread with names like Milk Chocolate and Latte. They are scrumptious in person and I'm thinking up coffee or cocoa ideas for a mini quilt to try them out. The light colored ones are needed for piecing. They're the perfect shade to blend in to many colors. I do have a small wallhanging that I wanted to put more quilting on that these colors would go perfectly with so that's probably going to be the first thing I do with these threads. I also need to go pick up a new tackle box to keep them in since the last one I bought was filled immediately from my last order of thread from Connecting Threads . I've also joined their site and Perfect Points Quilt a Long.   The first official Q...

Yesterday I went to the Bear Creek Quilt Guild show. The theme was "Quilts Across America." It was held at a very nice conference center. This is the first show I got to go to without my kids. I got to read every sign and take my time. The quilts were beautiful but I don't know if I should share the pictures, they said personal use only. My pictures were also fairly blurry because of the low lighting. I'll just share my thoughts instead. This year I found myself looking closely at the quilting itself and how it related to the quilt top. I felt very humbled about how far I thought I've come on my free motion skills, but I noticed that most quilting looked too perfect. They looked stitched on the long arm machines with extremely even stitches. I did read that most quilts had credited a different quilter then piecer. Though, there was a pretty modern 1st place winner that credited Lea Day's Free Motion Quiltin g site for the filler patterns. I saw a lot of...

I finally got back to quilting the borders of my quilt this past weekend. I bought some green variegated YLI machine quilting thread to encourage me. I did some warm up quilting with this thread, pulled it out and got ready to put my quilt under the needle when I saw this: I have never gotten a spool of thread with a tie in it. I'm sure it happens but if I had found this on the top of my quilt I think I would have been upset. The thing was, I hadn't done much quilting before the tie so why include it in the spool. I guess it's because it's machines doing the work and people are not even watching them anymore. This knot wouldn't even go through my needle. I could have had a major thread break if I hadn't noticed this. I finally sat down and free motion quilted some swirly loops in a density to match the rest of the quilting. I gave up after 2 of the 4 borders were quilted because it was boring, really, really boring. I started another project instead. I...

It seems I've been on a spending spree on quilt rulers over the past few weeks. I blame my MIL for my recent spending last week but I think it started at Valentines Day when my husband bought me these rulers I had been salivating over. Then my MIL came into town for spring break and decided to buy quilting supplies for her & her sister so they can start quilting at JoAnn's. Shopping with her always makes me want to buy something for myself so I got the Easy Angle because Bonnie Hunter recommended it and a Double Wedding Ring template set that was on clearance from $30 down to $8! I stopped at the checkout to make sure it was complete, the bag was torn on one side. It turned out that one of the small pieces was missing so I got it at 1/2 off so it was only $4 and there was a drawing of the template in the book so I'm not really missing any pieces! I have to tell you I'm glad I started quilting 10 years ago! The prices for equipment seem so hi...

Well this post is going to have quite a few pictures :o) I'll make them thumbnails, some with links to the full size. I finished up the two blocks I needed for blockofthemonth  last week:   These are January and February. I'll make March's block later. While sewing these, I finally remembered my leaders & enders blocks. I got one done but something went wrong with my friendship star. I don't know how this happened but I almost did it on the next one! I left this one alone and fixed the second. It looks funny but not entirely unappealing so I don't think I'm going to fix it.

I'm trying to post/document my sewing more often. Today, all I have is a list of stuff I bought to sew with but haven't done any sewing, yet. Actually, I repaired a car seat cover for my husband this weekend but that doesn't really count because it wasn't for me. I scored some $2/yard flannel solids from Jo Ann's last week when they were on sale, about 5 yards. They're for the backing of my daughter's quilt. I looked at the backing and realized I probably didn't need that much. I wish I had had the money to get more. With the price of cotton ready to go up, who knows what it will cost next year. Also at Jo Ann's, I bought some muslin and Warm & White batting to start the quilting on my BOM blocks. I brought a 40% & 50% coupon with me and told the cashier I specifically wanted the 50% coupon used on the batting. That evening, I looked over my purchases and the receipt and noticed the 40% came off the batting and the 50% came o...

Today I stitched & turned it with the batting & the backing and did the stitch in the ditch to prep it for free-motion quilting. I used Purple thread from Connecting Threads and I love how it looks. I used a tip I picked up recently. I used hairspray as basting spray to stick the two layers that weren't getting turned together. Since it was a small quilt & I had an old can of Aquanet hanging around I thought I'd try it and it worked very well. I didn't even have to go outside for better ventilation to use it. I sprayed it on both sides to be sure it stuck and everything went fine. There were no puckers on the back side of my quilt, just on the top that was only pin basted.

I couldn't get the quilt out of my mind & sketched this up earlier today on Inkscape Then I took a 2 hour nap. The day can be long when you wake up at 2:30 am to go to work. Everyone went to bed around 10 pm because they were feeling sick so I stayed up to sew and got this done Now its after almost 2 am & I'm going to pay for it tomorrow. Its a 6.5 inch 54-40 or Fight block. I decided to start with two extremely bright colors on a mini quilt and couldn't wait to get a block done. Now I'm too tired to continue. Plus, I made a mistake in my math and cut the strips for the 4-patches 2.5 inches instead of 1.5 inches & wasted a bit of fabric, which irks me so I'm off to get some sleep.

I hope y'all are able to spend it with the ones y'all love. Today I'm making a heart shaped brownie for my family and I bought some of their favorite chocolates too. I got my V-day present early, last Thursday. My husband bought me 3 yards of Kona White, the Tri-Recs rulers and a quilt/quilt block a day calendar.

I just finished watching The Quilt Show's latest free episode featuring the gorgeous quilts of Philippa Naylor . She has some amazing bright and colorful quilts! Her quilting and trapunto are exquisite and she shares her techniques and tips in this episode. The best tip I saw was what she uses for gripping the fabric for machine quilting. Here's a screen cap: It's that drawer liner stuff that looks like a puffy web and grips. I'm so excited about this tip! No more hot gloves in the Texas heat for me! She just cuts a piece 4in by 6in and places her left hand on top of it and grasps the fabric with her right hand to move it. I'm going out to get some today! She also shared her experiences of living in Saudi Arabia for 15 years, it was enlightening, to say the least, and took a tour of some of the vendors at the Houston International Quilt Festival after the show. It was a really great episode and has inspired me to try trapunto, someday ^_^ My ...