March is here!

First off... I want to answer Blogless Rosaline's question that was made in my previous post. She asked how the colors blended so well in my rainbow quilt. It's because they're all the same line of fabric - found in WalMart or JoAnn's and the fabric print is kinda tiny, so it doesn't easily reveal a seam line, like a larger print could. Hope that helps! :)

In other news... March is here! I'm committed to blogging every day, so off we go! :D Let's start with the bad news... my sewing room is messy. :P

Really messy! Bad enough that my husband commented on it this evening and nearly lost a shoe when he stepped in. But look! I still can sorta cut. I have my priorities straight, I can see the cutting mat. :D

Kinda looks like a landslide doesn't it? Yeah, the landslide under my ironing board. But hey, all I have to do is pull off the quilt and I still have a decent amount of room to iron! Priorities, after all. :D

It's just when I get towards the end of a quilt, I tend to be... messier. I stop trying to put all the little bits in the trash or making sure I'm not wearing thread snips. Eh, it might be because I keep cutting very close to my deadlines. :P

And honest, I do want things tidy and organized. Look! I even bought some wire shelvings and you can see it says "organize it". ;)

Apparently you're supposed take it out, build the shelves and put things on it, for it to be organized. Not just drop the box on the pile that needs to be organized and wonder 9 months later why nothing's happened. :D

I think I want to move back to my parents... just for a little while. It's because my dad emailed me last week saying that my mom cleaned my old room so clean that it hadn't been that clean since the carpet was installed. Now THAT'S clean. :) She did the same to my sister's room and she's turning both of them into sewing rooms! Whooooooo! Well, I'm guessing my room will be more storage-like (for the boxes of dyeing and bolts of fabric) and my sister's room will be the actual sewing room.

My mom even made my dad take her sewing machine in for a clean up/tune up. So yeah, I wanna go back to my parents for a while. I'll even bring my sewing machine and stash with me. :D

Oh, I'm sure I'll have lots of fun the next time I'm there. Probably summertime. Think my room will be cleaner by then? ;)

Leah

Close up of the rainbow

Deputy's Wife has been wondering how I pieced the rainbow quilt.

If you look closely, you might be able to see a seam line in the middle of each color. All the pieces are the same size as the black diamonds. Correct arrangement gives them stretched rectangle look.

The piecing method is pretty similar to how I did this binding. Or at least the cutting on a 45* angle.

And here's the Simply Quilts episode that sparked this quilt. :)

Leah

I do believe I am back

4 posts in 2 days! That's probably more than the entire month of January. :P

I'm starting up a new scrappy project. I probably won't plunge into this fully until next week though, I have some red fabrics that need to be washed before I use it.


This morning I got my Quilt Guild's newsletter, and I'm in it! :D

Guess which one I am? :D I don't suppose my hearing aid gave it away. ;) Anyhow, the lady on the right made all three vests and she needed two more models. She picked me and another lady who was sitting next to me, just cuz we were the closest to the door! :)

When I was at the store today, I picked up a real estate magazine. Nope, we're not looking for a house (certainly not in this area) but I've been happily watching the downward trend in housing prices. It actually makes me feel like we'll be able to afford a house in a few years! I do insist that we have at least a 10% down payment. I'd love to do 20%, but I'd probably be 30 years old by then! :P

Leah

Local Quilt Show 2007

Here my quilt is, in fully glory, hanging out there where several hundred people saw!

I did put a price tag of $175 on it, but no bites. :P That's ok, my husband really likes it, so I don't mind that I still have it.

I think the highlight of my day was when I saw one couple looking at my quilt, pointing at it, talking about it... yeah! :D In all honesty, they were probably trying to figure out how the quilt was pieced, but I don't care, they looked! Can you tell that this is my first quilt in a show? :)

The two other quilts that I put in the show are my great-great-grandmother's quilts.

The quilt show had a whole section on antiques. I have to say, I was surprised at how white and crisp mine are, compare to some of the others. I'm just glad they're in great condition, I want to enjoy them for many more years. :)

And nope, they didn't have a price tag on them. Or if they did, it'd be something like a million dollars. I ain't giving away these quilts! :P

This quilt at the show really caught my eye - great stashbusting!

But if she's like every other quilter I know of, she probably still has enough scraps to make 10 more just like that one! ;)

And just cuz I like dogs, I had to take a picture of this one. :)

The squares were about 2" each.

And now I think I finally have caught up! February just has been too hectic. My goal for March is to post every day. Think I can do it? ;) I already have another project lined up, so there'll be plenty of quilty material ahead. Oops. Bad pun. :P

Leah

Nothing like waiting til the last minute...

Let's back up... to 2 years ago. About January 2005. I saw a Simply Quilts episode with Rita Hutchins and her Totally Tubular Quilts method. I really enjoyed it and figured, shucks, I can do that! And I did, without buying the book. :P

I created the top you see - I think it only took about 2 weeks. It was when I first got my Bernina. I was so excited to be using my "new" sewing machine! Then the top got put away. I pulled it out long enough to take a picture of it for the quilt show registration deadline in January, and then I tossed it on the back of the couch... and didn't touch it until last Tuesday.

Then the panic starts to hit me, I basically have 3.5 days to get this baby finished and quilted! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh!

Tuesday: put on the borders, after sewing around the top to stabilize the edge. The whole thing is on a bias, so very easy to stretch.

Wednesday: pieced the backing and pinned that poor quilt to death. I used 200 safety pins. The whole bias factor made me kinda nervous.

Thursday: started to quilt it! Loopies and stars were the plan.

About half way through the quilting, I accidentally crossed two loopies on top of each other. I knew I couldn't live with myself if I left it in, so I pulled it off the machine to rip it out... and discovered a bigger problem. :P

I had done it again, I unknowingly folded the backing over and sewed it down. It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last. That took a little while to finish. Definitely started to feel the crunch of time.

Late Thursday night I get the binding sewed on and the excess trimmed off. I started to sew it down, but it was 11pm and my husband wanted to go to bed. I joined him because I knew if I stayed up, I'd just badly disturb his sleep whenever I did go to bed. Not everybody can sleep like the dead... like me. ;)

Friday morning the panic really starts to set it. I thought it'd take me 3 hours to sew down the binding... but it took 4!


Close up of the quilting.


Then I had to put on a sleeve. Something I have never done. *gulp* It took me one hour just to handstitch the sleeve on the rainbow quilt. I still had 2 other quilts to do, and they were bigger and I only had one hour left. I had to resist the urge to cry... then I had a lightbulb moment, I'll just safety pin the other sleeves on! It worked, they were both done in 45 minutes.

And I got all three quilts safely delivered in time. Whew! I'll tell you about the other two quilts in my next post. :)

Leah

Disney quilt finished!

I finished the Disney quilt a week ago. I was going to mail it Monday the 19th, but duh, it was a holiday. So it headed out in the mail on Tuesday. :)

Just a simple medium meander.

I did outline each princess to make them pop.


And since pink is this girl's favorite color, I dug deeply into my pink stash.

The blocks are 6" unfinished and I didn't fret too much when all the corners didn't perfectly match.

But I was absolutely thrilled with how crisp my binding corners were!

It may have been due to slightly stiffer fabric, but it had me in smiles. :)

Leah

Time to panic!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh! Quilt show is tomorrow! Gotta turn in the quilts today! I have one that needs binding and a sleeve. And two others that need a sleeve. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By 4pm this afternoon. :O

Guess who procrasinated, again? :P

Leah

Surfacing for air!

I've had some loving reminders that I need to post! :P Thanks for caring ladies. :)

I've been "hiding" the last 2 days because I was moody, grumpy, clingy, dealing with heartburn and an upset stomach. All from eating out! My husband took me out for dinner on Wednesday night, which was very nice. Thursday I wasn't feeling so good. Just blah. So hungry hubby orders pizza out. Of course I eat it and feel worse.

Friday afternoon, it hit me that all the eating out was basically making me sick. I haven't eaten out in 2 or more weeks before Wednesday. So all the fat, oils, salt and preservatives was whacking me out. I never want to eat out again! :P I told my husband that if he wants to take me out, he can take me straight to the grocery store. :)

Now the fun part, pictures! ;)

I turned in two quilts for Project Linus last week. My name is now entered in twice to win the sewing machine Janome is offering. I am a very hopeful gal! :D

The pinwheels were made from "bonus" HSTs from doing my sister's quilt. If you look at Bonnie's directions you should see what I mean by bonus HSTs.

The other quilt I gave to Project Linus is this one. (Scroll towards the end of the posting, it's the yellow quilt).

Remember this star? I made 8 more, put it into a top, and tada!

This is going to a friend. I'll put it in the mail on Monday.

She also has a 6 month old boy, so I used bright kiddie blocks for the back. Now both mom and son can enjoy the quilt! :)

On top of it all, I'm making a quilt for a customer. She has a 3 year old, pink Disney loving niece. :)

Here's one block, but I'm done with all 16 now. I need to put them together, get a backing and label done, then quilt it! :)

Last Wednesday was also the quilt guild meeting. Every 3 months they do a Blotto - block lotto. They give you a fabric and a block pattern to do. I had three months to make my block... and I did it the morning it was due. :P

The fabric handed out was the dark purple. Last time I did the blotto, my block was picked last! I was saaaaaaaaaaad. So this time I tried very hard to make the most appealing block. My quilt guild's name is "Hummingbird Stitcher's Quilt Guild", so the hummingbird was the perfect way to make my block #1. :D Names are randomly drawn from a baggie... and my name was picked! And so was another lady's, but she wasn't there, so I got first pick for half of the blocks. You better believe that I picked up mine first! :) So now I have 7 blocks and some leftover fabric to make more if I wish.

I joined the local Freecycle. I wasn't taking an active part in it. Seemed like every time I saw something that might be useful, it was taken. Then on Wednesday night, a lady posted that she had "4 tubs of grain". I emailed her asking to clarify - baking grains, for animals, or what? She said that they were baking grains. Apparently a friend of hers had given it to her when the friend moved. Sounds like the lady doesn't have a grinder, so might as well get rid of the buckets. The grains are about 1 years old. With proper storage, whole grains can last up to 30 years!

And wow! 4 buckets of grains. I weighed them and it's about 95 pounds in all. Toss in my 12 pounds from Sprouts, and that's over 100 pounds!

I was able to identify the wheats with the help of the ladies from Prairie Homemaker.

Black bucket: Hard white spring wheat
Yellow bucket: White hard wheat
Blue bucket: Rye
Red Bucket: Hard red winter wheat (same stuff that I have from Sprouts)

Wheeeeeeee! :D I'm doubly thrilled that I got the grinder from my mom. And after that eating out fiasco, you better believe that I'll be baking more. :)

Somebody also pointed out that they have Gamma lids, which sell for about $8 each. Wow! Another lady said that her son used one of those lids on a bucket when he went canoing and his stuff didn't get wet at all.

Now if I win the Project Linus' Janome sewing machine... I'll be on cloud 9 with my blessings! :)

Leah

Exciting days!

It SNOWED last Sunday!! Folks... this is BIG. :D I'm a California raised gal who's never seen snow fall. Then I married at 21 and moved to Arizona. Southern Arizona to be exact. Who'd thunk that I'd actually see more snow in the desert? :P

I must have spent hours staring out the window. Snow makes me so excited!! And phooey to my husband, he's like "snow? Ok, time to play my game." I wanted to bonk him with some of my excitement... but he lovingly reminded me that he was born in Wisconsin and saw snow, and lots of it, every winter for 7 years until they moved to El Paso, Texas. :)

This time there was a GOOD amount of snow - about 3-4 inches. They closed all the schools in surrounding towns but ours. Figures! :P

This is my favorite picture, the pine branch covered with snow. I even made it my desktop photo. Now the snow is all gone. Waaaaah! I want snow. It makes me hyper. :D In fact the morning after the snow, I went on a baking and cleaning spree. My husband didn't mind! ;)

A few weeks ago I won the 4th quarter of the Stashbuster's UFO challenge. Thanks to Bonnie for pointing it out to me! I almost missed my prize. :P

A total of 33 very different FQs. I was feeling discouraged about trying to beat 100+ other people in getting UFOs done and had decided not to join the 2007 Challenge. Then I won! So I had the host hold back some FQs so I could join 2007. Nope, not hoping to win, I'm happy with my current loot. :)

About 5pm today, there was a knock on the door. UPS guy, saying I had a package from "Cupertino Supply" - I quickly figured out it was my parents - and in it was my mom's flour grinder!!

Yup, the grinder that I forgot at Christmas time. They had absolutely perfect timing in mailing it to me - tomorrow I'm going to Tucson and I'll be stopping by Sprouts, a store that carries whole grains and other bulk foods! Fresh bread and other goodies coming up! ;)

My poor husband though... it's been a miserable two weeks for him. He threw up like 6 times in a row on Sunday the 14th. Good thing Monday was a holiday, he had a whopper headache. Then he missed Wednesday at work, cuz he was still feeling miserable. He pulls through the rest of the week, then last Monday he had a pounding headache that started half-way through his workday. Tuesday was a good day, but Wednesday and Thursday have both brought on horrible tummy aches - mild case of food poisoning, I think. I really really hope that next week is much better for him! :P

Leah

Catching up

I'm still playing a bit of catch up on my quilty news!

As usual, I did the annual NYE's Mystery quilt. It's still a top though.

Here is 2006's New Year's Eve mystery fabric selections, all from my stash! :)

I had just enough fabric to make the queen size one. Using the pre-cutting clues, I made a guess at what the finished product would be. I was right about everything except for one little thing... my version's HSTs were "upside down".

Here's what the directions originally called for.

But I found it to be a little "choppy".

And here's what I was envisioning!

In the end, I decided to go with my version. I like it better, it looks like a diamond is framing the nature scene. I haven't finished yet, so no top to show. :P

The other thing I have been working on is a quilting tutorial for a forum. I'm one of the three moderators for the Quilter's Corner, and I want to get others hooked on quilting! :)

The first block I did was the 9-patch. Quilting 102 produced the Basket Weave pattern.

And Quilting 103 will be the Rail Fence - I haven't written up the directions yet.

Next block will be the Friendship Star - gotta show them how to do half-square triangles! :)

Leah

Antique Treasures

In June I blogged about asking Pops for 2 quilts that he had up in his linen closet. Well, when I was at his house, HE reminded me to take the quilts with me! Sure thing! :)

We think the two quilts were made by Pops' grandma, Minnie Old. They were found in Pops' parents house, after they died. Yup, that would make them my great-great-grandma's quilts! What a treasure. :)

They are in very beautiful condition for something that's 70+ years old. I have only found one split seam so far.

And I can't help but wonder... if perhaps these quilts were for Pops and his sister, Jere. The top Double Wedding Ring quilt has boyish colors, the hand quilting is more simple and the binding was machine sewn down. I was pretty surprised by that. Maybe Minnie was in a hurry. :)

The second quilt looks more feminine, the handquilting is more orderly (grid like) and the binding was done by hand. Also the split seam is on the boyish quilt. So I'm thinking it was Jere's quilt, since she was younger than Pops.

And even if they weren't made for her grandchildren, I'm still thrilled to have such a treasure in my possessions.

While Pops was reminding me to take the quilts with me, I decided to ask him if I could have the sewing machine in a cabinet. I remember it being in the room that my parents sleep in when I was younger. I didn't even know for sure if it had a machine in it or not. Pops seemed to be a little surprised by my request, but told me to go ahead. :)

And wow! There was a machine it in, with the plug cord, but no foot pedal. Very heavy, due to being solid metal.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was neither a treadle or pedal machine, but actually uses a knee control to operate. I had heard of them before... but never seen one! The cabinet's legs are also somewhat shaky, probably from living through dozens of California earthquakes. ;)

Pops said that the machine had come from Great-Grandma's house - my grandma's mom. When I got home, I started to do some research. It appears to be a 1951 Centennial Singer 15-91, made in Canada. The more I checked out the machine, the more I realized that it's in pretty good shape! Things are loose and dirty... but with some elbow grease, tightened nuts and bolts and a replaced belt... I'll have it returning to it's former glory. ;)

Some other goodies I got was an office chair - Pops finally retired and we help cleaned out his office and he was offering the chairs. I was happy to upgrade to the cushy chair, compare to the folding chair I was using for the past year! :D

My mom also very generously gave me her powered grain grinder... but in all the confusion, I accidently forgot it! :( I was so upset with myself, I really appreciated her giving me her grinder, as I enjoy making bread... and I had to go and forget it. Hopefully it's back at my parents house and they can just mail it to me. :)

Guess quilting is in my blood after all... and now I have proof. ;)

Leah

Christmas in Southern California

On the 24th of December, my family and Pops went to my uncle and aunt's house, near San Diego. The first thing that greeted us was this lovely waterfall!

You can see a small car in the middle of the "fountain". My dad said it was a fire hydrant, but I thought it was water main. Ahh, what do I know, he's the plumber after all. :) I did have to complain to my sister and husband... isn't the car supposed to be on the TOP of the water? ;) Nope, only in cartoons.

We celebrated Pops' 75th birthday that night - my aunt and uncle remodeled their kitchen and it's great! They have some really cool features, like a pot filler (water spout by the stove) and two dishwashers! I totally want two dishwashers. "The left one is the clean dishes today, please put your dirty ones on the right dishwasher." Yeah. :)


Here is Aunt S opening the quilt I made for their family. I was thrilled with their response and I hope it gets used a lot. :)


The completed quilt, I did loops and stars for the quilting. First time doing stars, but I love the results and probably will do it again some time soon! :)

While we were waiting for dinner, 6 of us and the dog headed to the beach to see the sun set.

I had the middle sister take a picture of us, Sarah had her hands full with the dog. The sad part is that my husband shaved off his beard on New Year's Day. Waaaaaaaaah! I thought he looked good with a beard. :)

I feel like I'm finally back into my usual routine, so I'll be posting more now! I have quite a few more things to share. :)

Leah

All is calm...

Whoo! I survived. I went to California with 4 quilts instead of 5 - one uncle and his family weren't able to make it, due to strep throat.

I gave my dad the Christmas Chaos quilt - he looks pretty happy, doesn't he? :)


For Pops, my grandfather, I made him "There's a Dog on my Quilt!" I was up until 5am Friday morning sewing the binding on - figuring I could do the handsewing part in the car.

My mom actually helped me sew the binding down - while I was sewing the binding on my husband's quilt! :P

The dog is based on Pops' airedale terrier dog that my parents bought him as a birthday/Christmas gift 4 years ago. She's still a pretty hyper thing for somebody who's 4 now. ;)

I made the tongue flappable, I think it's my favorite part of the whole quilt. :)

Pops has opened and is checking out the quilt. Each 9-patch uses a different fabric. I managed to make the entire quilt except for the light brown "fur" part all out of my stash.

My baby sister Sarah and Aunt S are checking out the quilt with Pops.

Sarah also gave me a belated birthday gift, a webcam! Now we'll be able to "see" each other online - we won't be talking, but signing! I'm thilled, I hate how rusty my signing has become. I just need to hook it up now. :P

Leah

Christmas Panic!

Well, blogger invited me to switch... and here I am! :D Yup, I was having trouble commenting on other blogs. Felt like I kinda lost my "voice" in blogland.

I'm also reaching "full blown Christmas panic" levels... We're leaving Friday for my uncle's house, so I don't have 10 days left, I have 7.5 right now! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

One quilt is done ('cept for the label)... 4 more to go! :O


And I got Christmas blues into a top. The backing is sewn too... now need to pin!


Just to give you an idea how much I've been working/sewing/panicking... last night I was ironing the rows of the Christmas blues quilt and the power went out! Turns out we blew a fuse. :P I can't really blame my husband cuz he was doing what he does every night... so it's probably my fault, cuz I had the sewing machine, iron, computer and bright light on.

Speaking of lights... the desk lamp I have behind my sewing machine burned out it's light bulb. Of course I don't have any *40 watt* bulbs on hand. That left me sewing in a pretty dark spot or turning on my big bright room lamp. I'm too busy to go to the store and buy light bulbs! Maybe tomorrow. :)

Leah

It's all about the numbers

Number of...

-days I last posted: 14
-quilts I completed: 1... sorta. Do table runners count? ;)


-colds my husband has gotten: 1
-colds I have gotten: 0 Whoo! :D
-people I need to have Christmas gifts for: 22
-quilts being made for gifts: 5
-and of those 5 that are done: 0
-quilt tops done: 1... sorta. I need to put on one round of borders.

I hope my husband hasn't guessed, since I HAVE worked on the quilt when he was home. :)
-of minds I have lost: 1 out of 1... I want to quilt his quilt with extra high loft batting and polar fleece backing. All on my regular sewing machine. Hello? Hello? Why are you all running away? :P

So yes... little bit hetic this month. And I signed up for World of Warcraft so I can play with my husband. Somehow I've managed to play over 15 hours in a week and a half.

Oh shoot! I just realize that I don't have 19 days to complete the quilts, but only 17. We're likely leaving on the 23rd to meet up with my family. Eh, I can sew binding in the car! :D And do you think I could convince my husband to drive slower?

Is there any question at all why I'm going insane? :P

Leah