Quilt Block on the Shed, and a Wall Hanging with MQ

 Carol is a local quilter and friend -- she was so thrilled to paint these Friendship Stars on her garden shed.  I drive by to view it, so does DH, and others do as well - the blocks just make a person happy don't they? She's given me some ideas for my own blocks on our "barn" (which is really a garage).  A fall project, this year for SURE!

And, she is one heck of a gardener!  I drove by her house today for this photo and was the lucky recipient of veggies galore, which I took home.  One new potato, onions, zucchini, all stirred up with a bit of bacon - best lunch I've had for years!  Yummy, thank YOU Carol, for these special moments today.  

Different subject - following the organizing and making a quilt for a quilt raffle, I was left with 4 leftover well-made blocks, and totally forgot about them.  Tidying up recently, they reappeared.  It seemed unkind not to make them into "something" so here is what I made of them.  

(It just looks crooked.)  Below is the scroll design I put in the large HSTs.  I didn't want anything too fussy.  This time, I needed some chalk guidelines to get "the feel".  Look at the perfect points!

Below is a back and forth scroll on the border.  This is free hand, using the HSTs as guidelines.  I've not done this previously and practiced 15 minutes to get it in my brain memory.  I had brain and hand issues quilting from side to side, but up and down, no problem!  I'll give this back to the original block maker of 2 years ago -- I KNOW she will be surprised.  

Backing too wide, not long enough, a Solution

I've been quilting for umpteen years and this is the first time this "trick" was useful.

My finished wall hanging is on the right, backing is on the left.  You can see that the backing is too wide, but not long enough.  I am aware I could take the extra side fabric and sew it along the bottom, but I wanted to try this trick.  The ruler is just sitting there - I'm trying to visualize the solution, but this first photo is NOT correct.  John Flynn  http://www.flynnquilt.com, has a solution but I'm ashamed to admit when I see his formulas, my eyes glaze over.  DH tried to "help" me, but I'm still not sure if he is pulling my leg, trying to buffalo me, or perhaps he really knows the solution.

My solution was to calculate square inches.  The wall hanging was a bit over 504.  The backing was 610 - waaay more than I needed.  Here goes.  I drew a line from corner to corner, slid one side down, the other side up, and sewed it together with a diagonal seam.  Voila!  It's tight, but it works. The points will be trimmed off.

I've heard that long-arm machine quilters LOVE this diagonal seam trick as it spreads out that "lump" on the backing as it is rolled.

If you are interested in the formula, it's on John Flynn's page, under Instructions.  Perhaps you are better at algebra than I.  (Should I admit that the ONLY time I was sent to the High School Principal's office was in my Algebra class?  I still have nightmares!)

DAR Hanging Quilts at local Bank

 

Every year our town has a celebration called Heritage Days.  The local DAR has permission from one of the larger banks to hang quilts over their second story railing.  It ALWAYS makes a lovely display. I've hung mine previously, so someone usually calls me and asks me to bring a few of mine, AND I brought a few belonging to my friend Jody (Goddess).  As I stood there, taking photos, dawdling, I was wondering what kind of security system was in place - no one seemed unduly concerned with my taking photos.

First is a BOM, then a wonderful crossword quilt - kewllll!  That blue rosette quilt is intriguing.  And I can't remember what that one was to the right of the blue rosette quilt.  I think they were make of 5 petals, and machine embroidered.

Below is an interesting Log Cabin, then Jody's "Goldenrod".

   This jacket was this detailed all 'round!

Below is my star quilt, Making Do, and then an antique Dresden Plate.  There were others - I just missed them.  They hang for one week - no prizes or ribbons, just for pleasure.

Thanks for calling me Wilma, and asking for a few of my quilts - I always enjoy folks seeing them.

Happy Quilting!

The END of Whining

Today/tonight I spend 3 hours fiddling with Feedly (sometimes I forget and called it Findly!) and hooray, thanks to my own determination and YOUR suggestions and hints, I actually made progress.  I found the list of blogs far on the right, found the 3 bars on the left, which, when clicked, opened up a bunch of other options, found the list of blogs, etc.  I think I marked all the blog posts "read" so I can kinda starts off new and fresh.  And wonder of wonders, when blogpost titles were printed in gray, that meant I'd read them.... Who knew?????

The best part is that amazingly, tonight I don't feel like an inept dufous, that is how I I HAVE felt for the last several weeks.  It's truly amazing what a little bit of success will do to one's self-esteem.

Thank you all for your invaluable help!  YOU ALL are the reason I didn't want to give up.  8-)))

Tomorrow I'll start the day feeling positive again.

Whine, whine, whine (cont'd)

Thank you all for your suggestions for an alternate reader after Google Reader shut us down!!!  I have migrated to Feedly.com, but am hopelessly lost.  I feel stupid, ignorant, perhaps I've had some brain damage???   I can't get anything organized, systemized, understood.  Yes, there are some attractive layouts, I'll admit.  I delete, mark as read, and it seems like it all "comes back" ... I don't know how to add names or ...  Fortunately I managed to import some of your blogs from Blogger, but don't know how I did it. 

Frankly, I'm afraid all my YEARS of making contact with so many of you, is LOST!  I've been taken down that nice Google Road, only to find I've been abandoned. 8-(((  I'll keep trying to "find" you again, --- my own ignorance is exasperating.

On Feedly, I accidentally "found" the list of unread blogposts waaaay over to the right of my screen, normally hidden.  "One small step for progress ... "  But only about 10 blogs are listed at a time.  They are not in alphabetical order, making it hard to find what I'm looking for.  I presume that's another option I still haven't found.

I HATE feeling so inadequate. 

Missing Google Reader

For a few weeks, I've floundered around with feedly.com as my "reader" - holy smokes, sooooo cumbersome!  I've had it good with Google Reader - why oh why did they go away???   Frankly, I'm on overload messing about with feedly.com and don't even want to TRY any more - that's not sounding very positive is it?

The blogs I used to read are available on Blogger.com, but I can't tell whose I've read, whose I've not read ... and now I can't even remember which "reader" I had  before Google Reader, that indicated on all one page, who had new posts and who didn't.  Can I go back to them?  I don't know who that was???  Do I sound confused?  You betcha!

I'm looking for is a list of my blogs, an easy page to indicate if posts are new, photos that are visible without clicking here and there.  Any other suggestions out there?

Has the blog technology gotten beyond me, with the multitude of technical options?  Perhaps I'll get back to sewing and quilting a LOT, instead of playing on the computer.

...whine, whine, whine