February 13, 2009

Denny took the day off work to clean out his shop, repair the back wall and install the windows we pulled out of the living room when we built my sewing room. So I was outside working all afternoon. A few years ago someone gave him a huge industrial lathe...built on a cast iron base, it must weigh at least half a ton. He decided to get rid of it. Problem is when the shop roof started sagging a bit he added an upright support which we had to manuever the lathe around. The only way to move it was to attach a tow strap to the van and pull it. we had to remove many parts that were sticking out, but we finally got it out of the garage. Now it's sitting next to the driveway waiting for a call to the junkman. I did do a bit of sewing after dinner. I sewed a label on the QAYG string quilt, as I will be sending it tomy Aunt next week. Tomorrow I will be home alone all morning and I think Denny and the kids can handle the rest of the shop clean-up without my help, so i intend to get in some serious sewing time. Hopefully I won't be too sore from the heavy lifting I did today!

February 12, 2009

No sewing today. No quilt stuff. Kid stuff today. My baby lost her first tooth! Ginger will be 6 on May 31, 2009 and today she lost her first tooth. JoeE pulled it for her. And I got a little teary-eyed. My baby is growing up so fast!
Also today I bought a ticket to fly to Norfolk on April 22nd come home April 28. Gonna see that beautiful little 1 year old granddaughter (and her parents!)

February 11, 2009

Another day, another quilt top done. And another one started. I finished the second baskets with 9-patches and rails top, that I laid out yesterday.


Then I went over to Mom's for a bit and helped her decide on and cut borders, sashings, and backs for 7 or 8 quilts. Someone donated a bag with 148 quilt blocks in it to the Ladies Auxiliary and Mom brought them home Saturday...these will be utility type quilts. The blocks are colorful, but wonky and mostly made with poly/cotton blend (looks to me like Palencia Broadcloth form Wal-mart). I'll try to remember to get some pictures when she gets these done.

I was gone most of the evening, but I did work on the single basket block I had leftover. It will finish out as a 45" square quilt. Here's the start:




Tomorrow I hope to work some more on this. I actually have already added the triangles needed to make this a square and cut 6.5" borders of the floral strip fabric. I just need to attach them and miter the corners, and decided not to attempt that late at night. But tomorrow will be a busy day, as I have to bake a fudge filled cheesecake and take it up to church for the Knights of Columbus' Outback Steak Dinner (Ladies Auxiliary provides desserts, Outback provides the dinner food). And then we will be out all evening for the dinner and other plans. And I just looked at the time! Yikes as busy as tomorrow is, I better head to bed now (12:50 a.m.)

February 10, 2009

So, did I work on my "ugly" today? No! I let myself get sidetracked on the computer today...didn't have breakfast until lunchtime. But we did do schoolwork. And some laundry. And the house is a little neater. I put teh Amish Diamond blocks I won up on the design wall and settled on placement and will sash them in black...but I didn't take a picture. Ginger was terrified by tornado warnings this afternoon and we had to keep an eye on the TV to make sure we were not in the warning area. The storms were north and west of us. Then we did get some thunder, lightning and rain early evening, but no tornadoes here. When I put the Amish Diamond blocks away, I decided to pull some blocks out of my swapped blocks drawer. I thought I had twelve 15" basket blocks, with the baskets on the diagonal. I put them up on the design wall, but for my symmetrical mind it would take 16 blocks to use them all together, so I decideed I could sew 4 together to use as a center medallion for the Nesting robin on tyhe scrap quilting forum. Here it is...the start of a scrappy nesting robin.



















Then I thought "Well, why not make two more 4 block quilt centers?"So I did. Then I looked in the drawer and found 9-patch blocks and rail blocks.
I used those with a basket center and a couple of hours later I have one top done for Sunshine, and another on the design wall, same layout. And I found a 13th basket block that fell on the floor and I've started another top with that i the center on point, borderd so far with a floral stripe. SO tomorrow may net 2 finished tops.....

I also decided that after I show it at guild Monday, I'm going to send that QAYG String quilt to Aunt Gerry, my godmother, who just had a birthday.

February 9, 2009

Well, I haven't started piling up things on the cutting table again, or the sewing table, but the reorganization/decluttering of the sewing room has stalled out. It got clean enough to work in and so I've been sewing. Sunday was 2nd Sunday of the month, so I sewed some red and white blocks for Sunshine Lotto...but I think I'll just donate them all...I sure don't need to win any blocks!



















Today I finished my Quilt-As-You-Go (QAYG) string quilt. My first finish for the Stashbuster's UFO Challenge. Blocks are Quilted as the strings are sewn to backing and batting, then joined together with sashing strips front and back. I did this one totally by machine.



















I also decided on a fabric for the Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine Sampler. Challenge was to pick a Not necessarily ugly fabric (2 yds) to be used with some yellow or orange in the blocks. I've had my fabric (5yds. of it!) for maybe 5 years...about time I use it!

Babysteps...walking!

I have definitely made some progress in the sewing room reorganization. The cutting table has been cleared and is usable. all that is on it now are cutting mat, tools, pen basket, and small sizes of patches being cut for scrap user system...just small piles now but as they grow I'll find some small storage bins to keep them in. And the sewing table has been cleared and is oh so easy to use with the modification to fit the new machine done. The stuff on the table is what I am working on right now and will easily be put away when I am done or need to work on something else. I will spend at least 15 minutes today on further scrap cutting/purging, and another 15 sewing.

Super Bowl Sunday...part 1

I didn't get as early a start on my SuperBowl Sunshine sewing as I had hoped, but for good reason. I asked when Denny could get the sewing desk modified to fit the new machine and he started it right away, before church this morning. Then when we got home he managed to finish it just about in time for the kick off. It fits great and what a difference on my back. I finished sewing together a crumb quilt top. I really do see a difference in the speed of sewing on the new machine...it will do 1600 spm....Fast!!! Now I need to eat something and then back to sewing....quilt as you go string blocks to use up some of the strips and strings I cut from scraps yesterday and a pile of batting squares that were taking up space in the closet.

So, Do Something About It!

I woke up today resolved to do something about my sewing room. It is just totally out of control. Every time I start to clean up , I get sidetracked by a project as soon as I have just enough room to work. So I'm going public with the mess and my intention to clean it up. I have recently rejoined Flylady and am going to try to apply her principles to this situation. #1 Baby steps. In place of the shiny sink I need a clear cutting table. Today I will be focusing on that. And I will also use a timer to keep me on track and take breaks. Everyday I will end with a clear cutting table before going to bed. SO between now and 3:00 this afternoon am going to work on this, then I get to sew. I have a table set up in the living room and will take all the stuff from the sewing table in there and then set the table up to start cutting those scraps into usable sizes also Bonnie Hunter's scrap user's system. I have bins in the closet that I intended for that, and even started with some already. Babysteps...15 minutes a day after the big push today. Here are pictures of my starting point.

Enough is Enough!

Yikes! I was ready to leave today...just pack up and go live somewhere else. No one was cooperating. I want to get laundry done without the dryer and asked the kids yesterday to be sure and get their laundry into the laundry room and sorted so I could easily get it going and hung out in plenty of time to dry. Did they? NO!! And then when I do get in there to get a load going, I find clean folded clothes they were too lazy to put away thrown in with the dirty stuff! ARGHH!!! The house is a disaster after 3 days of non-stop playing in the snow. And we've used up all the firewood I cut last week for Denny's birthday present. And I had to pay bills. And I started doing taxes and unless Mimi's tuition costs help we will owe a few hundred to the IRS. At least Oklahoma will be refunding some to us. And how am I ever going to get to sew if I'm having to do things the kids were supposed to have done? By golly I spent all that money on a new machine, I better get to use it!!!

SO when Denny got home from work and headed out with the kids to cut some wood, I headed into the sewing room. I needed to just get something done....fast! SO I pulled out the remainder of my blocks from the Tipsy Drunkards Path swap I did, and started putting them up on the design wall. I grouped them with same color backgrounds in 4's to form blocks and alternated blue and yellow background blocks....it was okay I guess, but not good enough. When Denny came in he I asked and he really didn't care for it. RoseE said have both color of background in each block. I tried that and was pleasantly surprised...not half bad. SO I got the blocks all sewn together while Deny fixed salmon for dinner. After dinner I went to find border fabric. Dark blue check with gold stars looked okay next to the blocks, but again, it could be better. Denny suggested put another color between blocks and border. RoseE suggested red. I tried a small strip of red I ad laying on the table and it did look better that way. But I didn't have enough of that red. So I ended up with a red backgroung plaid with yellow and dark blue in it...fussy cut down the lines of the plaid. It went together without a problem. And it turned out a good ending to an awful day.

Going Around in Circles

I feel like I'm stuck in a vicious circle. I need to get projects done, but it's too messy in the sewing room to work efficiently, so I start cleaning up and get just far enough to work on something, which creates more mess, so I'm paralyzed again and the cycle repeats....but I just can't make myself stop working on things until the sewing room is all done. Having just spent all that money on the sewing machine and fabric mover, I ought to be producing some finished products.

So yesterday I cleaned up a bit and decided to get a block done for the Birthday Block Swap. Amy requested circles in green, blue, purple,white and black color scheme...COOL! I wanted to try something new, so I pulled out the Jan Mullen's Magic Ballz book I bought last year and gave it a try. I pieced the circles on paper foundations, backed them with fusible interfacing, turned them, fused to the background and satin stitched in place. Then I cut away the background fabric to reduce bulk. The background was a 10" squarefrom a swap and of course the applique process shrank it slightly. Amy can trim to the size that works best for her (could be 9" finished, could be 8").

I rejoined the Stashbuster's list in hopes of motivating myself to use up stash and get things finished. Hopefully, now having DSL, I can keep up.