Sewing Expo

This week, I went to the Sewing Expo for the first time.  Really enjoyed myself.  I attended a class on Easy Peasy Pineapple quilts and yes, it is easy peasy.  I hoped to put up some photos, but am having trouble getting photos to any of my photo accounts to upload. Technology. Always changing, sometimes for the better, always with some difficulty.

I've finished all the blocks for my current swap at QATW.  Just have to press and add sashing tonight.  I really wanted to participate in another swap, but it's not wise for me to sign up for anything just now since I don't know that I can complete it.

I'm almost done with a sock from the Scarefest Socks at Ravelry.  I'm currently on the heel and plan to finish that this week.  Then to start the next one. I'm not a fast knitter, but I am determined not to have 8 projects around with just one sock completed.

Oh, To Be Home Again!!

Finally, I am back home!  Brought a lot of produce from my sister's garden/orchard, so will be doing some canning tomorrow. At the very least, will be making a couple of apple pies.

On the knitting front, I am working on a sock from Ravelry's annual SuperSock Scarefest.  I'm still working on the first sock.  I've finished the leg and have just started the heel, but had to rip back because something was going awry.  I think I miscounted somewhere as the K1 Sl1 was not resulting in any kind of ribbed look. 

I have sewn half of the binding to the back on my BIL's quilt.  If I can find the thread, I am going to work on it tonight while listening to an audiobook.  I really SHOULD be going through my junk mail and tossing, but I just don't have the attention span for that today.  Besides, my kitty has been missing me and she will plop herself either next to me or on the quilt.

I noticed that my brother's cats sat weirdly due to many hours of watching birds on a hard surface.  So, I placed a quilt there and that awkward stance mostly vanished after a few weeks.  Clearly, something was needed here.   Since I wanted the quilt back, the cats needed new padding. 

Gus and Walter (both a tad over a year old) on my quilt.

 
I needed 2 pads and a bolster.  The first pad was a wide one to give room for 2 cats.  I also needed a bolster because the window ledge was 3 inches below the table.  The pads were constructed of leftover flannel from quilts and some ugly camo fabric my sister had acquired as part of an auction.  I made a square pillow for the bolster, but sadly, one end is quite wonky.  The cats don't care as you can see in the photo below with Walter lounging.


In addition, I made a cat pad for Ashley, who is about 16 years old. She was recently diagnosed with arthritis and even a favorite chair sort of cripples her up when she naps.  She loved this pad the moment I put her on it. The side she is currently sleeping on is flannel. The other side is fleece (Univ. of MN) which she may prefer when it gets colder. I hope it makes up for the fact that she no longer has my sewing machine rolling cart to sleep on. 

A Little Quilting

I have continued to work on my BIL's quilt.  I am currently quilting feathers in the outer border. I still have to finish the 'rocks' in the border areas.  I plan to complete the quilting over the weekend, cut out and attach the binding.

I've put the quilting of the Asian quilt on hold for a bit.  Instead, I will be focusing on cutting out and assembling 3 tops.  One is a butterfly wallhanging that I want to quilt using the McTavish style featured in the book "Mastering the Art of Mctavishing" by Karen McTavish.  Karen McTavish is a Duluth, MN quilter.  The other is the Asian Recliner quilt and finally, a Minnesota quilt using Quilt MN fabrics from 2012.  I should get more for a pillowcase.  Hmm. 

A Couple of Finishes

I am out of town all the time and it's very frustrating to blog and add photos when they keep insisting that you change passwords!  Anyway, here are two finishes.  This is a wallhanging for my sister.  It is about 23x22 inches, just the right size for a door. For both projects, I did grass hillocks in the border areas and random quilting in the other borders. The feature fabric starts off with a sun in the center and rays going out to the borders. Came out very nice.



This one is a miniature for me.  It's about 12x11 inches.  Very cute.


I also made a mug rug, but I'll show it when I finish the other one.

Lots of progress!

In the last week, I completed both the wallhanging and mini-quilt.  If I have time, I will upload some photos.  Otherwise, I will be back home for 2 days in a couple of weeks and can get all the photos up.

In addition, I pinbasted the lap quilt, so it is ready to go. I'm looking for some batting tonight so that I can maybe pinbaste the Asian fabric quilt next week.  A lot is in the air as my relative is being released from the hospital this week and I won't know how much time I have available. 

Given that the kitties cause a lot of interruptions, I plan to spend some time working on a simple machine applique project. Quilt World had a lovely 1930s quilt which outlines a butterfly.  That should give me plenty of practice. In view of that, I bought some clearance background fabric and will have to quickly go through some fat quarters in my stash to have some stuff to work on.  I can only machine quilt an hour or two a day, so having another project helps.

Of course, I could read.  Love my Nook HD+.  I didn't NEED it since I already owned 2 Kindles and a Simple Touch Nook, but I needed a lighted display.  I HIGHLY recommend a tablet of some kind if you need to read craft pdf files and want something portable.  I'll let you know how easy it is to actually work from these units.  One thing to remember is to turn OFF the automatic screen saver.  It is set to 2 minutes which barely gives you time to follow a direction. 

Finally Quilting!

Yes, after long last, I'm finally quilting again.  Here are 3 small quilt tops.  Just the beginning!!

Lap quilt

Wall quilt

Mini quilt

I'm Still Breathing!

Hi all. It's been an age since I have posted. I will soon post some photos.  Remodeling is keeping me from quilting, but I have been steadily, but slowly, cross stitching on a simple fairy pattern.  On the next rainy day, I'll be working on redoing squares on a crochet afghan that stalled.  Otherwise, now that the snow is nearly gone, yardwork will be taking over for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, if you cross-stitch, you might want to visit this site. Lots of patterns, but if you are particular about copyright, don't go there. That said, many of the patterns there have been out of print for ages.
CatDragon invite you to Cross Stitch
Ch Crossstitch

That's it for now! Oh.. what do you think about using these for my summer curtains?  I made two sets. One was slightly too small. The second set went astray in the mail so never arrived for the swap.  They arrived about a month ago having been sitting in a Missouri post office (they were supposed to be in Tennessee, I think). Anyway, I've already completed the quilt top that they were to be used in, so I thought..huh...curtains for my bedroom. What do you think? They are 6x8 inch finished.

Housesitting and Crochet Progress

Housesitting for my sister and BIL while they visit BIL's son. It's been pleasant and then a front came through. Got about 1.5 inches of snow and the temp dropped to the teens during the day and about zero at night.

So, what have I been doing?  I decided to focus on finishing a friendship afghan that has been waiting for awhile.  I got my last friendship square about 3 months ago.  So, I spent a few days enlarging some squares so that they went together well.  Kitties wanted to be on my lap, but not crocheting, so I did a lot of reading too (love my ebooks).  Today though, I spread out all my squares.  NOW they are interested in the crocheting. Now that I have my project all laid out, Huff came along to make sure that it didn't move.

Huff keeping everything straight....sortof

Spitty came along to help too.

Her Highness, Miss Spitty assists.

Enjoy your turkey at Thanksgiving?  Here's some wild ones that showed up in my sister's backyard looking for any spilled seed from the birdfeeder.

Not exactly the birds we intended to feed sunflower seeds.

Ravelympics Day 2

Working on ladybugs. Here's the one that I finished last night.


How tired is that kitty in the window? This is her favorite spot and she is currently baking in the sun.

Ravelympics Begins!

I am grateful that Blogger heard my crankiness and has now added a light gray to the background where you do all the workings of your blog. SO much more readable. Thanks Blogger.  However, I must point out that I am NOT RESPONSIBLE for any of the ADVERTISEMENTS that you see.  I knew eventually Blogger would need to generate money somehow.  Maybe I can get crafting ads, you think?



Again, it is the Ravelympics and I of course will be participating.  My plans include completing the crocheted ladybug afghan, making a toy and a tea cozy.  Not huge things, but getting that afghan done finally will be PROGRESS!! I had planned to include a pair of socks in there somewhere, but couldn't find the yarn - it's in a box safe from the cat, but alas, I don't know which box.

Why join one thing when you can do two? I am also participating in the crochetville.org celebration by working on the afghan. 

All that is left for the afghan is the sewing and final rounds. But, as we all know, finishing takes a long time.  Therefore, I have several audiobooks to listen to while doing so. What? Not watching the Olympics? Can't.  140 countries can stream the Olympics for free, but not the US. We gotta pay.  I'm not going to.  I don't have an antennae hookup for the TV that I use to work on my projects, so I'm out of luck. I hope that eventually, I will be able to see the Opening Ceremonies on YouTube or something.  If I can remember how to change my IP address, I can confuse my computer enough to watch volleyball from British Television.

I haven't posted because I haven't been doing any crafting. My hands are finally not giving me too much trouble and I just started sewing a project yesterday. It's a repeat of the Triple Irish Chain and it will be once again in white and scraps.

That's about it. Progress photos in a day or so! Oh, and btw, buying an Itouch can seriously cut into your knitting/quilting/crocheting time.  You get sucked into a game and boom, you've run out of time.

I Detest The New Blogger 'Look'

I plan to complain to Blogger about their 'new look'. It is SO unfriendly to those of us with vision problems. Seriously, did these folks even bother to look at this and think 'huh, this is an awful lot of white space.  I like the features in Blogger, but if they don't change, I will be going elsewhere. 

Anyway, haven't been posting much because I haven't been doing much.  I think the allergies are beating me down, but I'm trying to make myself overcome the tiredness and get stuff done. At the very least, I have to get ready for a garage sale.   I finished a swap and sent it out into the mail before remembering to take a photo. Darn it.  Hopefully more to post this weekend.

Catching Up

As soon as I get done with my swap and the QATW BOM, I'll be working on an old, old BOM. Back around 2002, I bought a bunch of Joann's Holiday Tidings quilt blocks from the clearance box. This was a BOM from 2000. Over time, I've acquired other packages of this project so that I now have enough fabric to do all the blocks. Joanne's QuiltBlocks Dept. (1-866-784-5825) will send you copies of any missing instructions, which is great. While I know I will have to substitute a little fabric for the bottom quadrant, I think the result will be great!

Apps and crafts

I am a gadget person by nature, but not with a lot of money. I have been perfectly happy with my Nano to listen to music and audiobooks while quilting, knitting, crocheting or cross stitching. But, the temptation of apps finally suckered me. I didn't need an iPhone so bought an ITouch. Love it. Love my gadget devices. Will your world be less if you don't have these apps? Nope. Stick with your Nano. But, if you already have the gadget, here are some apps you may find useful.

Block Tool is perfect for a quilter. Has 102 common blocks in 5 sizes. Worth the $5 if you commonly struggle with figuring out what to do in a hurry for that next baby blanket or gifted lap quilt. If you already have Electric Quilt, the app is redundant. Quilt Block is by C&T Publishing.

Sewing kit is an app created for sewers. You can store your inventory of patterns to take with you. Each pattern has a place to keep yardages. While it can be used for quilting, it is clearly designed for garment sewing. You can create projects linked to pattern and fabric as well. I loaded it with 42 garment, accessory and household patterns. If you load the manufacturer and pattern number, the app searches a database for current patterns, and adds photos if there are any. If not, you can take a photo to add to the pattern.. I had a few crashes when taking photos of patterns not in the manufacturer's database, but it was still fast. I did it while watching 2 episodes of a Brit crime drama on Netflix.

Finally, many cross stitchers and other crafters like to keep track of the time worked on a project. If you charge $$, then you certainly need to do that. Hours tracker is intended to be used by jobbers. At $5, it's a good choice for cross stitchers as well. It runs in the background, so uses less power. It will also keep a history of your job. Do you need it? Nope. There's a free stopwatch as part of the programming even on a nano. Gadgets. I love them.

As I find other apps that are useful, I will tag them. Ok, well Polly is knocking over everything so that I will go to the quilting sewing area, so I will post another time. But, not by ITouch. This took forever to type.

Stuff

It's been a really slow week. Hurt my back and sitting has been difficult. Hopefully I will still get something done yet this week. I have a new ITouch. If you have any app recommendations, please let me know.

FMQ with Diane Gaudynski

Here's a photo of my square using Diane Gaudynski's instructions to make a feather. This takes a good deal more practice than I thought. I did 10 pages of feathers with a sharpie and they were looking pretty good. When I get to the machine, they tend to look like leaf fronds. They are the nicest leaf fronds I have ever made, so I'm still proud of the progress. I also didn't turn my square (you aren't going to do that when you have a queen sized quilt), which was very helpful since practicing on small stuff doesn't always work take it to your larger project. All in all, I'm very happy with my progress, but I need to really practice that teardrop shape.

I tossed the other 3 squares that I did, but this one came out nice enough to make it into a mug rug. What I'm thinking of doing is taking the thread out of the machine and practice making tear drops with just the needle and paper. In the meantime, leaf fronds.

Blocks and Small Bag

More blocks done on the 2012 QATW Mystery quilt. Here are blocks 11 through 14.

Yankee Puzzle and Bear Paw


QATW Block (modified churn dash) and Whirlpool


Also, I had a 9 by 18 piece of quilted leaves left from last months freeform quilting project. I decided to make a little bag. It looks great if you don't look too closely. I definitely have to learn a little more about bag assembly. I was trying to make a box bottom - at least you won't get lint caught in the corners! Note that I used the side that FEATURES the quilting instead of trying to hide it. My leaves are so much better after last month's class. Tomorrow, you will see the results of this month's class - feathers. The finished bag is about 8.5 inches wide by 9.75 inches long.

Another BOW Block done!

I'm changing this to the BOW for Block of the Week since it has way more than 12 blocks and we are getting a new one weekly. So, Block number 9 is Card Trick. I added yet another new holiday fabric in this one. Now I think I have a good 5 yards of holiday fabric choices, so should be able to handle even a scrappy border. I also continue to alter between 2 white-on-white fabrics. I'll have another to add to the mix. I need to cut out background blocks for a chicken BOM.

Block #8 of the QATW 2012 BOM

Here's another one. Lady of the Lake!! I might make this a second time with the light/dark center instead of the solid/patterned center and see which I like. The holiday fabrics all kind of read the same and using gold had too much punch, IMHO. I don't expect to do any sewing tomorrow - if I can at least get the Apple Core quilt laid out and reading to pinbaste, I will be happy. Lots of other stuff I need to work on. Sis is coming next week to help me with more house projects (such as putting up hardware for new curtains).

Promises, Promises The Apple Core Quilt Top

Finally, photos!! These, even despite the darned wind. I hope to start pin basting tomorrow. Yep. That is NO SNOW. Still. We do have some little piles here and there, but for the most part, still a poor snowing here in MN.


Pinned on clothesline sideways. It is 24 x 28 rows.


Closeup of some of the fabrics.

In addition, if you look at the post a day or two ago, I have added a page from the Linda Causee book so that you can see why it's such a great book for me.

More BOM Blocks

Here's blocks 6 and 7 for the QuiltingAroundTheWorld.com (QATW) 2012 BOM. I'm doing mine in a selection of holiday fabrics. I have a couple of white on whites to use up from other projects for my background and most of the holiday fabrics have quilter's gold in them.

I used the book 400 Quilt Blocks to sew in 20 Minutes or Less by Linda Causee. This book is fabulous if you can find it. It has about 300 (plus color variations) different blocks and includes instructions for cutting them in 3 different sizes. I was a bit floored that it sells on Amazon.com and elsewhere for more than $80. I bought mine at a used book store for $9.98.



For the Dresden Plate, I finally used my Darlene Zimmerman template. Wasn't quite as easy as I'd hoped to sew it right the first time. The blades go together very swiftly, but it is very fussy with all those bias edges. Still, I plan to make a couple of gift quilts using this.



Finally, yes, yes, yes, the Apple Core quilt top is done. I finished it Monday, but I've been sick all week. I've had a lot of improvement today, so if it sunny, you will see a photo tomorrow! That final row and the Dresden Plate is all the quilting I've done this week. Anyway, the other good news is that my sister came over last weekend and I have a new closet, all freshly painted! Sis actually did most of the work, but she will benefit since I now can find batting for those wallhangings I've planned. Now, all the leftover batting is stored on the top shelf, and project containers on the next. I also have 2 large heavy duty shelves covering one side of the closet. Right now, quilts and afghans are just folded there. Old sewing machine is underneath. Not sure what to store in the rest, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. That's about it for today.

[edited to add] Here's a photo of a page from Linda Causee's book. As you can see, it gives instructions in 3 different sizes as well as piecing instructions intended for an experienced beginner.