All Day Sew Friends

 

PINK THINK!

A friend showed up at my door saying "I can't look at one more pink fabric!" and from behind her back she pulled out a huge bag of pink "scraps".  I made one quilt from them  (yet to show on Blog) and brought the rest to our All Day Sew where a dozen friends tried out or leaned String Quilting and Quilt as You Go with the rest of the pinks, and we came up with most of this project.  You can guess, I still have a LOT of pink bits left over, but we DO have something almost finished for a donation at next year Quilt Show.

I have been waaaay too overly busy to keep up with my own blog, and Blog has made changes, like always, but I've not kept up with them, making updates tedious. I'll persist and try to keep up a little better.   Several quilts have been made and given away during the last few months with no photos.  This living alone means there is a lot of work that must be done, by just ME!   

All is well in my corner of the world, town.  Spring is beginning to show, life goes on.  I've done a little teaching, some traveling, plenty of sewing.  Below is a small quilt  kit that 2 friends and I are using to teach beginning quilting to new sewists.  Winter was hard this year with several heavy storms, requiring eternal shoveling by ME!  My dear Janome MC6500 is in the shop, actually near Hospice, and I now have a Bernina loaner to keep up with sewing and machine quilting. until my own machine even CAN be  resussitated.     

I have one more home improvement in process - no photo until finished - don't want to JINX the long-delayed process!  

New Challenges

 

Wow - trying to find where my photos got downloaded is a new trial! 

 G'daughter asked me to make her a Hawaiian quilt - a new kind of quilt project, so I found this book of patterns, altho these are not the colors she is wanting, it's a beginning.  She lives 6 hours from me, so that's another challenge and she is not familiar with sewing.   I'm going to start in June when we have a Guild class for this project, and then I'll make simply one block for a pillow. and see how it goes.  The plan calls for needleturn applique but that might tire quickly and I may fall back to fusible applique. 
 
Winter was just plain demanding this year -  SHOVELING was repeated too many times and sometimes it was called XXXX SHOVELING!   I finished this "I Spy" quilt - it looks a lot like previous ones.  This is for a great grandchild, now over 2 years old.  Oh dear.  

You may remember a quarter log cabin quilt I finished about a year ago, that had strips in it that I learned after it was finished, that they would bleed.  Fear kept me from washing it but finally, last weekend I put my big girl panties on and washed it in the washer, gentle, with mild homemade soap, plus a quarter cup of Dawn and 2 color catchers and happily, the quilt washed beautifully, with NO bleeding to be seen.  The Color Catchers were only mildly soft pink.  (I'm at a loss to find the photos now somewhere on this computer. )

All is well with me - just taking care of  everything takes more time and energy than I expected.  Plus, I was gifted membership in a multitude of  wonderful TV and Internet Channels which have been a terrible temptation!   Every quilt video ever made is available!   Plus other subjects I never dreamed wouild be so interesting when you see it on the big screen TV.   I am weak and sitting too much but can't seem to turn it off!!!  

Two quilting friends and I are preparing quilt instruction classes for Adult Ed.  This should redirect me and may help more folks learn some quilting techniques.  

My sewing machine goes to the repair shop Monday - Machine quilting that is just not "doing".  It worked fine on the "I Spy Quilt" that finished 2 days earlier, but today on a Pineapple Quilt, no cooperation at all.  Go figure!  8-(

Latest kid QAYG.  Batting squares aland backings were already cut and counted, kid-like prints were all in one place.  Life is good.   It went together in about one month.  

A little closer.  I made 4 blocks at a time, wanting each group of 4 to look similar to each other.  There was NO effort to "matching" seams perfectly.   This quilt was so much fun to make ... fun for ME!  Each unit of 4 features at least one a cute kid print.   Perfect for games with cousins, siblings, parents, grannies, etc.   And some of the fabrics are from BLOGGERS!  

The back, with 1-inch folded strips - thank you to the bias/tape maker.  

Below ... Best thing since sliced bread.  This gadget is often called a bias tape maker but I used regular SOGrain strips.  There are 5 sizes in this purchase which was very affordable - I remember $8.00 for all.  I LOVE a good tool.  You simply slide the strip into the gadget, pull thru with a pin,  and it comes out folded and you place your iron onto the newly folded strip. Each strip is DONE in a matter of seconds.  I'm trying to invent new ways to use it!  It was close to perfect each time, and even with a seam in the strip, the gadget only complained a bit and was simple to tidy up the seam area, and NO BURNED fingers.  Then I sewed the strips down over the quilt's exposed seams, leaving neat, visible quilting strips on the front. Very quick, neat and tidy.   

I've made a LOT of kid's QAYG quilts, LOVE the process, and am slowly learning which method is better for which reason. A person has to try many and decide for self.   With this project.  I used the same size of batting as  the block and backing, which meant a lot of bulk in those corners on the back.  Next time I will cut the batting smaller which will result in less bulk.  I'm going to wash the quilt today to soften up that bulky joint.  

Happy quilting everyone!

I'm still here!

 

* This QOV was donated, as well as 2 kids quilts 

* I made a LOT of zip pouches until zipper stash was depleted.  

* Made a pleasant drive (2 days) by myself to Indiana to surprise my sister who was making a rest stop in Indiana, on her way from Canada to Florida.  She WAS surprised and due to my weight loss and new, long never-previously-seen curly hair, she didn't reognize me!  It's been a long time since we last had seen each other. 

* Picked up a girlfriend on the way home from Indiana to my home in western Nebraska.

* We also, both picked up SUPAVIRUS from somewhere that was NOT fun, and required one ambulance/hospital trip.

* Friend picked up Covid immediately after flying home to Illinois.

* Lived thru 2 major snow storms.

* Survived 8 days of the first storm, with NO TV, no Wi-fi and sporadic cell phone.  Fortunately I didn't lose power, but I WAS rapidly losing courage!  Perhaps we had 10-12 inches of snow.  

* Started a new quilt during this time named  "-20 Degrees and No WiFi".    It's currently a WIP on my design floor, blocks almost all made.    

* Shoveled  (yes, me, at my age!) 4 separate times during the first storm, temps below zero  and winds that blew it all back.  Obviously, I could not navigate to my usual Wellness Center for needed exercise.

* Replaced a near-dead battery .

* Cancelled my planned Christmas trip to extreme northeast Nebraska due to dangerous cold and snow and numerous road closures into unknown location.  It was a blessing that I had NOT taken that  Christmas trip with a bad battery.  

* Shoveled my walk and sidewalk at least 4 times with second snowfall of 8-10 inches?? , altho a kind "someone" did it several times as well.

* Shoveled my car out twice myself and one time by a kind neighbor with a huge snowblower.  I was sorry I had sold my own snowblower.

* Got stuck only one time in the alley, and was miracously shoveled out within minutes by 2 angels with shovels who suddenly appeared out of nowhere!  8-)))   

The above list of "what did you do all that time?" is pretty boring but I enjoy my own blog posts and might need a reminder!  ...and it's only January.  

Excuses, 3D Puzzles, Smart TV

 

I'm still here - just overactive - am feeling darned wonderful, energetic, going in too any directions at one time.  Above is some playtime after picking up a bunch of strips from the Guild Free table.   I laughed when found that many of the strips had a few inches off the ends.  These Kaleidoscope blocks are surprisingly easy.  Selecting similar values is a bit more fussy.  Corners will have HSTs, medium light or medium dark.  Some blocks, while beautiful, were too bright and bold, so were removed.  My goal is 5 x 5, and each strip makes 2 whole blocks at this size.    

A Log Cabin QOV.  I'm MQ'ing dark threads or light.  It's ending up kinda "fussy" for a QOV but will persevere.  Size is 72" x 76"

At Christmas, a friend gave me this 3D puzzle, (note the curve), thinking I needed something to occupy myself.  8-))  Once I determined a system for sorting the numbered and excellently cut pieces, the  assembly went along fairly quickly.  This is an ingenious project and very well made.   

This was my organizing plan, all set up on my sewing work table, with chalk marks to help sort out over 500 pieces.  

My biggest time waster (??) is the dozens of channels now on my  "Smart TV".  When I bought the Smart TV, I had no idea what that meant.  Canceling cable TV saved me a financial chunk every month.  Grand-daughter who works with electronic gadgetry visited and suggested she include me on her "family plan" at no cost to me, so what could I do? - I said "great!"  and she pushed a bunch of buttons, and voila - there it was, overload, but still great fun to learn it's intricasies.    

Another "I Spy" quilt, ready for gifting

   

Many of these cutsies are from many of YOU!  Thank you Jody, Carol, Candace, Elsie, Alice, Anita, and others!  8-)))  Also, Thank You Janet for the 4.5 in ruler which meant I didn't have any trouble quickly recutting fabric bits to exact measurement needed.   Oops, forgot to photo the back, that I  enlarged a little bit past 42 in. in width.  

This layout is copied from https://mangobeans.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/i-spy-quilt/.   Thank You Wendy!  Her description even included the tricky layout.