It's not Tuesday?

My brain is all fuddled up. I kept thinking today was Tuesday. So I sat down in front of the TV at 7pm to watch House... and Prison Break comes on! I started whining to my husband... and then he pointed out my error. :P

Another reason why I feel like it's Tuesday is because I'm thinking that Judy posted the instructions to November's "Quilt for an Hour" a day early, not TWO days early. So I'm guilty of an early start again. :)

I decided to start with the center of the blocks. I'm not sure if I put an hour into it or not, I worked on it 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. Short attention span today, I guess. But I have all the strips and I'm sewing them together to make the center part. I sped up the production on 2 blocks so I'd have something to show (off). ;)

And yes, I'm cheating again, using up my (seemingly) endless supply of Leaders and Enders - or LeANDers... I can't remember who came up with that term, but I remember she named her quilt Abigail Leander, because it was made from Leaders and Enders. (Edit to add: I found her!)

Hopefully I'll have my head on straight tomorrow and not try to go to my quilt guild meeting a day early, or wonder why the Halloween candy isn't 50% off yet. :P

Leah

Christmas Blues

I'm finally putting my other Christmas blocks to use. This time I'm sashing it and using blue cornerstones. Hence the name "Christmas Blues". :)

I'll probably even quilt it with blue thread. I still have some leftover bobbins filled from quilting my aunt's quilt

Do you ever have days where you don't turn on your machine in a while? I haven't turned mine on in over a good week. I still do quilty stuff - like ironing, cutting, washing fabric and dreaming. ;) But haven't touched my machine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I have plenty of nice thread and needles on hand. I cleaned it out recently. It's not the machine. It's me.

Oh well, I'm going to HAVE to turn it on soon, cuz Wednesday is my guild meeting and I have my blotto block due. On the bright side, it's also the annual "Garage Sale" - quilters can bring their pieces of fabric and other quilty stuff and sell it. Whoever owned it gets to keep the profit. I don't think I'll try to sell anything, but probably will be buying! :P Hey, my birthday is coming up in two weeks, perfect excuse. ;)

Leah

Quickie

Quickie... post! ;)

I spent most of this weekend ironing open these HSTs. They are 2" unfinished.

I'm thinking about making Bonnie's Ocean Waves... yeah, not a fast and easy project there! :P She said she used over 2,000 HSTs... I'm 25% there, 526 half-square triangles. I keep count by pinning them into groups of 10. They are all "leftovers" from double sewing 2.5" squares onto my Star Struck and Snowball blocks. The good news is that I need to make a lot more Star Struck blocks, so I'm sure I'll accumulate more. :)

Must... get... my... brain... into... Christmas!! I found out the other day that I'll be going to San Diego for Christmas and we'll be celebrating my grandfather's 75th birthday, his retirement and Christmas. It'll be pretty special for him, since he'll have all three sons, their wives and kids and my husband. :P Yeah, I'm the only "grandkid" that's married. But gotta start getting some creative ideas for gifts! I'd love to give everybody a quilt, but I'm not superwoman. ;)

Leah

9-patch Snowball

At the beginning of this year I was in a 9-patch swap. The requirements were batiks or hand dyed fabrics, using Kona Black. I think I sent in 35 blocks.

There was also another swap going on at the same time, snowball blocks with hand dyed or batik centers. I wanted it to be the other way around, black in the middle and the corners to be batiks/hand dyed. So I bowed out of that swap.

Last week I started to work on my own snowball blocks, using the fabric my mom and I had dyed. I adore the combinations my mom came up with! I just can't get past the secondary colors, I guess tertiary colors are just beyond my grasp. But Mom is more than happy to play around... and I'm more than happy to use it up in a quilt! ;)

I'm 4 snowball blocks short. Phooey. And I might have to redo a few of the 9-patches, cuz a few look like they're 6.25 instead of 6.5" and I don't think I can stretch them out enough to make it work. Too bad we all can't have the perfect quarter-inch every time we sew... life would be so much easier! :P

Leah

Finished Love Quilt

Yay! I'm officially done with the love quilt I was quilting.

It's all safely off in the mail... hope to hear about her reaction soon!

A lone orphan block accidently got misplaced and didn't make it to the top. So I stitched it to the back.


And of course, no quilt is completed without a label. :)

I like using the sunflower block for my labels... I should make more. I guess after my sunflower themed wedding, I'm claiming that flower as mine. ;)

I also pieced the last green block I needed for my husband's quilt. I hope he has no clue at all! :D But poor guy... he hurt his back, on the side. Not sure what he did, but he's been limping around yesterday. Then he comes home today and his foot his hurting him - it looked a little swollen. So he's been limping and gimping around today. At least he doesn't turn into a big baby and expects to be waited on by hand and foot... erg, foot and back. ;)

Leah

Cold weather ahead!

It is 49 degrees right now... and I have my window wide open! I looooooooooooooooove being cold. But all this coldness reminded me that I need to work on my husband's quilt and get it done in time for Christmas.

I got all the blocks put together - well, I'm one green block short. And have 3 extra blue ones... but that'd sure explain why I have a bunch of green HSTs leftover! :P The quilt should measure 60x84 inches when it's quilted.

I also need to hurry up and get it done so that way he won't be so cold at night. We don't turn on the heater, ever. If we want to warm up, we can take a shower; cook and hang around in the kitchen; and best of all, ironing fabric is a great way for me to warm up! :)

I figured it's time that I update my sidebar picture - no more bathing suits or fishing for me! ;)

I'm happily bundled up in a green sweater that my parents gave me for my birthday last year - it was hard to find weather cold enough to wear it here last year. Looks like this year is gonna be colder! :D Maybe we'll even get snow again... I can hope! ;)

Leah

Chaos of Christmas

And we have the top! Definately screams "Christmas!" :)

There's a total of seven 16-patches in the quilt. Yeah, the top got a little cropped. :P And I have enough blocks to make another top! But I think I'll sash it to gives the eyes a break. :)

My other good news is that we got the electricity bill today and it was $67! I'm really happy cuz before we were paying $125 or so a month. What did we do differently? We turned off the A/C. That's it, that's all. :P Who knew that it could be so darn expensive!

Leah

Strips and Squares

More progress has been made on the Christmas quilt! I have all the strips sewn together...


...and cross cut into more strips and squares.

It's definately gonna be one BUSY looking quilt! :P Maybe I'll call it "The Chaos of Christmas". ;)

My mom wrote me the other day and said that my cousin got her quilt for her daughter and that she loves it. I'm glad. She also had the baby on Wednesday the 4th, a 8 pound 2oz gal! :D

Leah

Getting my brain into gear

I've been having trouble getting my brain back into gear. Fall break week has thrown me off with my husband home all day - but I'm not complaining! :D

I also spent 2 days tearing apart my room, looking for this quilt. I wanted to give it to my mom with her birthday package. I looked in all the spots I could think of... and it wasn't there. I kept tearing my room apart - it got so bad that my husband commented on it! So I decided to do the opposite - clean up my room, then I'll find it, right? More than an hour later and lots of fabric folded... I still couldn't find the quilt. Well! It's easy to lose something that's less than 17" sqaure. ;)

I ended up giving up. Then I had a great idea for my Christmas fabrics, so I started to dig through my stash for all my Christmas fabric. And well, what do you know! I found the quilt. :P So it should be on the way to my mom... maybe she'll get it tomorrow. :)

As for the Christmas fabric, I cut them into a bunch of 2.5" strips.

Then I paired a greenish piece with a non-greenish piece.

And now I have a bunch of pair strips! But I ain't gonna tell you what I'm doing yet. Check back another day. ;)

Today is day 10 of planting my sugar peas - they're coming along nicely!

I regularly "torture" my husband to check them out every few days. I definately check on them every day! :D No weeds yet, but I have had to remove dead pine needles. It's sure easy to baby something so small and contained. :)

Leah

Slow Poke

Well, this time I'm not gonna be the horse crossing the finish line long before everybody else... I'm having a pretty slow start with Judy's Hour a Day project. All I've accomplished today was to handwash these batik FQs that I'll be using. Ain't they purdy? ;)


In other news I got a little potted garden going on my deck. It's just sugar peas right now.

The directions said to plant them in September or Jan-Mar... oops, planted them on Oct 1st. :P But I'm willing to baby them. I'll be thrilled if some green even manages to sprout! If not, I can always try again next year.

This is gonna be such a busy week... I'm already wanting to crash into bed thinking about it.

Tuesday: Sew-In, they're gonna do a block exchange (which I declined to be a part of) and the hostess just had surgery on her arm, so they're asking everybody that's coming over to help out, food-wise. Gonna bake spicy apple bars. Maybe I'll get more progress on the Leaf Season quilt - especially since House or Standoff won't be showing tomorrow night.

Wednesday: Guild meeting - they're gonna reveal the 2006 Quilt Challenge (again, not a part of it) and we get to vote who's the best. The other news is that they dropped the Biggest Loser from 2 hours to 1 hour... so let's claim that "extra" hour for Leaf Season!

Thursday: check the tires on the car, find all the vacuum parts to return to Costco and drive to Tucson for my husband's concert. I won't even think about trying to do Leaf Season.

Friday: last day of school before fall break begins. I think Battlestar Galatica starts too. Might get an hour of sewing in, if I'm not wiped out from the concert.

Saturday: is the local Art-in-the-Park festival and I always like to check it out for Christmas ideas.

Today was hetic enough - I spent over 2.5 hours grading articles for my husband. At least he helped out by cooking most of dinner. :)

And I'm really glad that he gets next week off... all the school shootings in the past week make me a little nervous. I imagine he's at a much higher risk that an elementary teacher is. It would be hard to imagine such happening at the local high school here, but if it could happen in an Amish school... it can happen anywhere. :(

But maybe I'll have little green shoots poking in the pots by the end of the week. I can hope! ;)

Leah

When all else fails...

...post an old quilty picture. ;)

This is a quilt that my aunt (a different one - I have 11 aunts) asked me to make for a baby that was due March 2005. She gave me a pattern size for the quilt - it called for 2 pieces of fabric with the ruffle, but she wanted me to "spice it up" with actual quilt blocks in it.

The top itself went pretty well. The problems started with the ruffle. I had never made one (not even when I would try to sew clothes) and I had oh-so-fond memories of my sister ripping out a mile long worth of ruffle because she goofed and it broke when she was gathering... Anyhow, I sewed the two strips together, start to gather and pull the thread, and of course it breaks. I went through the process 2 or three times and finally ended up buying upholstry thread. I didn't care about damaging my sewing machine because I was using my el cheapo WalMart machine at the time and I was just a few weeks away from getting my Bernina.

The upholstry thread did the trick. I gathered it, sewed it down and attached it to the top. Then cutting the backing and batting to the size of the top, I sewed all the layers, wrong sides together and left a gap so I could flip it. I flipped it and set it aside for a week or so - it was a source of frustration at the time.

Then my Bernina came - with a walking foot - and I put it to use by stitching in the ditch and around the borders. That was the first and last time I used my walking foot; I got a surprising amount of puckers on the back, especially where I pinned. Wasn't impressed with the walking foot - I am much more pleased with my free-motioning foot. Could have you guessed? ;)

The end results of the quilt is beautiful. The ruffle looks fun and playful. The blocks look entertaining - I'm pleased with it. But I stay away from ruffles. :P The quilt arrived to the new mom in time - they had a boy, named Sam. Haven't heard anything more since, but I sure hope that kid enjoys the quilt and drags it around every now and then. :)

Not much has been going on. I'm drawing blank at what I've accomplished in the past week. I *know* I've been keeping busy though. I did get a bunch of library books - financial, quilting and some Prevention magazines. What do they all have in common? They use numbers. :D Although after reading some of the financial books, I went whining to my husband "I need more money!" cuz the book was giving me great ideas what to do (pay off debt, save up for a house, build a retirement fund)... but I don't have enough to do it all! :P

A little sewing has been done, but nothing impressive. I've noticed all over quilty-blogland there seems to be either big distractions/problems or no quilting energy for the past week or so. So let me raise my bottle of water to a toast for us quilters to get more needle time! :)

Leah

Fire Scare and Leaf Season

Last night my dad called and said that there was a fire. At first I thought they meant IN their house, but no, more like 1/5th mile away. I went online to read about it - said 30 acres burned, but no houses. From my understanding, my dad said that the phone and cable lines are down - damaged from the flame retardent stuff.

I found this picture online and I'm *pretty sure* that the tiny little white blip that I've circled in yellow is my parents house.

Scarily enough... this is the third big fire in the 6 years they've been living there. The first happened like 5 months after we moved in, during November 2000. I was online, chatting with my would-be husband and the power went out around 1:30am. (A transformer blew out). Around 3am my mom woke me up - the power was still out, but she said there was a fire coming towards us. We began to pack all the important stuff - legal papers, photos, near and dear stuff that couldn't be easily replaced. Everything was loaded into the cars. Then we began to hose down around the house (they have firehoses and hook-ups), and I think my dad even tried to trim some tree branches away from the house. We knew once we left the house, we wouldn't be allowed back up (they live in an area that has only 1 pavement road access). So we kept putting it off, chatting with the neighbors, hosing some more. And then finally the firemen got it under control. It did burn down a few houses though, including one that had a restored Ford Model A 1930's car that was insured for $1,000,000. The things you remember... :P

The next fire was last year - my brother was leaving for a college class and notice that a neighbor's house was on fire. His cell phone wasn't receiving reception, so he went next door and had them call the fire department. Turns out the lady left a fire in the fireplace unattended and it got out of hand. Nobody hurt, but a year later, they still haven't fixed their house. My brother took some interesting photos with his cell phone camera. My sister watched from our property and reported that a helicopter dumped extra buckets of water onto our land. An odd patch of greenery there for a while. :)

But I'm glad to hear everything is ok... they get too many fire scares!

I also have my fabric for Judy's Leaf Season quilt. I'm still a little hesitant on some colors I have in the batch, but I'm gonna go ahead and make at least one leaf out of it... who knows if I'll like it or not.

The green/tan/brown is going to be for the non-leaf blocks. The fabric with purple and blue stripes didn't come out right - but it's definately one that I'm going to use.

I'm mostly hesitant about the red, it seems so vibrant! I have been aiming for a blues-greens-purples type of quilt, with a little orangish and reddish in there.

We'll just have to see how it flows together when it's in blocks. Oh, the background is white - the same stuff I used in my other quilt-for-a-hour-a-day. I know, I'm so boring. ;)

Leah

Aunt's quilt finished

Thursday afternoon I finished the binding on the love quilt. Then I felt an urge to call up my mom and get the details for making the label for my aunt's granddaughter's quilt. (Yeah, I do realize it's my cousin's baby). I got the details I need and an address to mail off the quilt. The baby is due "any day" now.

I spiced up the label a little bit by using one of my 6.5" unfinished sea-themed acrylic blocks. The first time I sewed out the name, the S was just a smidgen too far on the right side, and would get cut off with the seam allowance... rip it, rip it and rip it! At least I didn't have to reprogram my machine's letters to sew it again.

Then when I was doing the Love Nana part... somehow the E didn't make it into the programming... yeah, Lov Nana doesn't have the same ring to it. :P So more ripping. I think in the future I'll "dry stitch" (no thread) all my words, so that way I can get an idea of what I need to fix without having to rip it all out.

I also choosed this sea theme block because if I recall correctly, my aunt's favorite color is purple. Also my aunt lives about an hour or so from the ocean, meanwhile her granddaughter lives in Nevada, so I'm guess she'll someday associate her Nana as somebody who lives near the beach.

Don't worry, I also penned in my name, location and date on a little spot on the quilt. Just didn't want to mar the real label. :)

Here's the completed quilt, just before mailing it off.


And here's the backing, with the label sewn on.


Now I just need to put a label on the love quilt, wash some fabrics I bought for Judy's Leaf Season - no way did I have enough of the brown or even enough to make a scrappy brown alternative block.

And I also want to make Dawn's Canister - I think they'd be great for girly stuff/bath products, etc. As much as I want to continue to live in denial... Christmas is coming up. :P

Leah

Leah? Who?

Uh yeah... haven't been around much, have I? I've been working on a secret project. Well, it's not really a secret... but just in case the gal who's getting the quilt reads my blog... I don't wanna reveal too much. :)

Anyhow, I'm working on a "love quilt" - where a bunch of ladies donate quilt blocks (usually 12.5" or 6.5" unfinished) and somebody puts them together, and usually somebody else quilts it. This time I'm the somebody who's quilting it... and it hasn't been the smoothest ride. :P

Quite a few complications have come up - I was supposed to get the top in June, got it in July, right before my trip to my parents, then I when I got back I was fighting with my hearing aid, on top of it the lady who made the top found a block she forgot, so I need to wait for it to be mailed and patch it to the backing and so on it goes. Well, when I was pinning it I came across another bump, litterally.

Partly my fault, partly a wonky quilt top. So with lots of spreading and tugging and a little easing and "make it fit", I got the top to lay flat enough to sew.

There's a few minor bumps and folds... but that's just beyond my control. Believe me, I'm having a lot more sympathy for long arm quilters now!! I can't even begin to imagine the patience some quilt tops demand of you.

After I finished quilting the top (less than a bobbin and a half), I popped off my stitching plate and dropped my jaw. Yikes!

Makes me wonder why people claim that Aurifil thread is less linty... doesn't look like it in the picture. ;) But I truly enjoy how much fits on a bobbin - I'm changing them out less often. Pros and cons everywhere. :)

I'm near the end of the binding, need to put a label on and I should get it in the mail Friday. Off to do some more binding! :)

Leah

Happenings

I need a picture... and I don't have any. So I'm posting one that's 4 years old. It was right after my dad bought my mom a digital camera in 2002. I practiced using the timer and sent one to my husband.

Of course this was back in the days of dial up... 10 minutes for me to send it, and 10 minutes for him to download it. I didn't send too many pictures! :) But everything is pretty much the same. My hair is still that long and I haven't dyed it or anything. I still have that shirt. I did gain about 20 pounds since... but that's it. :)

Hey... I can make it quilty after all. I just noticed on the right side of the photo is the pillowcase I made to match the quilt that my mom started and I finished.

I wanna say that she started it in 95 or 96... She completed a dozen log cabin blocks and then somehow it got buried with other needs and building their house. In 2001 both of my grandmas died. My mom's mom was at my parents house for her final days and a close friend of hers gave her this quilt:

I spent hours studying it and felt compelled to try to make one myself. I had to hunt pretty hard to find Eleanor Burn's Log Cabin In a Day, but I easily found the unfinished blocks. I proceeded to complete the quilt in the beginning of 2002 and that was the start of my quilting hobby.

The last 2 years I've been sleeping under that log cabin quilt. Well, it does get kicked off a lot during the hot summer nights. :P Definately one of those "comfort" quilts that have a lot of handling and love. No holes, yet! :)

My trip to Tucson was pretty successful. I got to see that Wild Oats is a lot like Whole Food stores. I had a little sticker shock as I went through the store though. :P Then I realized EVERYTHING was organic or natural, and that's not quite up my alley. I'm more interested in non-processed foods, rather than organic itself. But I had much better luck at Trader Joe's... wish one would be built closer to here!

I spent about $40 less than I expect at Costco... so of course I went to JoAnn's! ;) I got 2 yards of Kona Black at 50% off and a bolt of white on white circles. Great backgrounds... but they don't photograph well. I also bought extra high loft batting for my husband's quilt... that I hope to have done for Christmas. And I hope he doesn't read my blog! :P

On Friday I was going to vacuum the living room floor so I could pin a quilt (or at least start to think about it) and the vacuum made a horribly loud sound! Closer inspection showed that the beater bar is stuck. It will absolutely not budge, no matter how much I poked and prodded at it. I did test the hose attachment to see if the vacuum was still sucking in general. Told my husband "well, it still sucks, so that's good... uh, wait... duh, this sucks!" So looks like I'm stuck without a vacuum until we can go to Costco and replace it... beginning of October. Dang. And I was finally starting to vacuum more than once a month. :P

Leah