Missed Sewing today

Tuesdays are always set aside for my weekly sewing group.  We meet at a local church fellowship hall with wonderful lighting and a massive amount of space with tables and chairs.  I love the location and all of the delightful ladies that come each week for cutting, sewing, and of course, fellowship.

My cousin is coming this week for a couple days visit before she heads back home.  She's been on a six-month adventure in her motor home traveling all over the United States and into Canada.

I have been complaining about my sewing room for months.  Too many piles of fabric, paper, and knick-knacks that have no place to belong.  My cousin has gotten me in gear and I'm hoping to have some order in the next couple of days.

Stopping by our local Jo-Ann's was on my list of places to stop.  I found some cool fabrics to put on the back of my flannel Lake & Cabins quilt top.  When I found them on-line, I did not write down the item numbers. So when I arrived at Jo-Ann's this morning, I could not find them.  Instead, I purchased over 4 yards of blue mottled fleece that should work just fine for the Lake & Cabins quilt and I should have enough  for another quilt back.

When I went to my Dental Hygienist last month for a cleaning, she was telling me about how she wanted to learn to quilt.  Bells went off in my head and when I got home, I made up a little kit of 5 inch charm squares in blue and white (enough for a small quilt).  I thought a 4-Patch block, would be a good pattern to use and included a sample block for her to see how to begin.  Included in her tote bag, was a stack of different quilt magazines for her to read and enjoy, along with the names & addresses of a few local quilt shops.  I'm always inspired to encourage others to hop on the Band Wagon of Quilting.   

Design Wall Monday

It's been almost a month since I last posted.  In my never ending attempt to clean up my sewing room, I decided to sort through my bin of donated fabric to see what kind of dent I could make in the endless supply. I chose some flannels and in order to make the best use of the pieces I had, I cut squares measuring 8.25" each.  I was able to cut 42 squares for the quilt.  I found some neat fleece fabrics on-line at JoAnn's, which had Fish and Campsites, so I hope to go buy a backing piece sometime this week.  Here's what I designed...

Design Wall Monday  Flannel Top

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Design Wall Monday

This morning, I finished sewing the binding on my 4th purple tumbler quilt.  I love how easy it is to complete a quilt using this method.  One of the ladies in our Quilt Guild taught us how to do the machine binding.  What a delight.

Of course, I still have way too many tumblers pre-cut (with my Accu-Quilt Die Cutter) that need to be used.
So, I found a pattern on-line that placed the tumblers across the quilt end to end, which gave a different look so, here is the beginning of my design.  I still have more tumblers to use, which I need to put away for now, so I can go on to another project (s). 

1)  Quilt of Valor, half-done, that needs to be completed prior to the end of the year.
2)  Mug Rugs promised to over 10 people when I was in California in June.
3)  An "I Spy" quilt for a friend's new baby.
4) and many more items too numerous to note at the moment..... 
 

Another Tumbler Design

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New Ironing Board has been ordered

For over 20 years, I had an ironing board attached to the wall in my sewing room.  It always creaked a little as I ironed but I didn't think much about it.  Well, today the ironing board broke.  My husband was in gear within 15 minutes, on the web and ordering a new ironing board for me.  Can I make it 5-10 days without ironing my fabric and my quilt blocks??  We shall see.....

I'm looking at the situation as an opportunity to clean up and organize my sewing room before the ironing board arrives!!

Design Wall Monday

Yesterday, I was able to die cut 20 light lavender tumblers that were needed for one more Tumbler Quilt.  Several months ago, I had purchased (4) purple/lavender fleece backs for these quilts that I chose to make.
Here is the lay-out for the final quilt top.  I still have more pre-cut tumblers, which hopefully I can use to create a scrappy quilt down the road.

I spent many hours last week, trying to make friends with my EQ7 Quilt program.  My friend, Denni wrote step by step instructions which led me to the section where I could find the Tumbler pattern, which helped me on my way.  Then my husband helped me scan (7) fabrics into the computer for using in my tumbler quilt but the scanned fabrics did not want to move from the fabric section to my tumbler quilt layout.  Frustration was setting in.... We (the computer and I) are barely on speaking terms at the moment. I see so many beautiful quilts that have been designed with this program but my patience level.....Enough said.

Here is what I designed on my design wall, the old fashioned way......

Tumbler Quilt 08312015

 Even after making all these tumbler quilts, I still have tumblers left over.  What I have left over needs to be put together into a kit for a scrappy quilt.  I'm now ready to move on to another pattern.
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Design Wall Monday

Hooray!!   I am actually posting on Monday.  I love this Tumbler pattern.  I had enough white to create some good contrast with the lavender, purples and few pinks.  It was fun to make the flower pot with another tumbler.  All the tumblers and the flower blossoms were cut with the AccuQuilt Studio Die Cutter.  I'm sure I have enough tumblers left over to make another top.  My goal was to sandwich the top with a purple fleece back, machine quilt it and machine sew the binding on before tomorrow.  Something is telling me that is not going to happen--so I will be extending the goal until next Tuesday's sewing group meets.  In the meantime,
I can work on cleaning up my sewing room.

Design Wall Monday  08242015

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Design Wall Monday

I'm almost done with last week's "Island Star Quilt".  It has been sandwiched with purple fleece on the back and no batting.  I found some acrylic thread for sewing with the fleece which worked well until I was sewing around the final corner and I happened to look on the back and the thread had massive loops all the way around the corner.  So after removing the loose thread and hand stitching the opening closed, I chose to quit for the night.  With a fresh start this morning, I switched to a purple polyester thread, which is probably the only polyester thread I have and it just happened to be purple.  The quilt is now ready for some limited machine quilting via the walking foot.

This week's quilt uses the same die cut pattern pieces but I found a different setting, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I found a picture in "The Quilter" magazine dated July 2003 on page 45.  The pattern can be found in the book, Dresden Flower Garden by Blanche Young (C & T Publishing).  Blanche named it; Strip Heaven in 2001.

I have just one row to add to the right but here is what I have so far.

DWM08032015

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