One more

Well, here is the last one before Christmas. I don't know why I can't finish anything in the daylight. The colors aren't great, but I'll see if I can get a picture during the day before I give it away. We leave early tomorrow for LA. We're taking the southern route because it's been snowing for the past week through the I-70 corridor. There is some snow between here and Albuquerque, but the reports don't look too bad.

The blocks are a 4-patch. I'll see about getting a picture of the original fabric. I might use it for the binding. I'm using a pale spring green fleece for the batting/backing.

Quilted!

Done--just the binding waiting to be finished and I should get to that this afternoon--then I'm going to try to finish a baby quilt before we leave on Monday for California. The backing is fleece, and feels very nice, I hope it doesn't pill and get yucky.

The quilting holds the parts together, and not much more. I guess it adds a bit to the design, but it's meant to make the two layers into a blanket, and I think it succeeds.

Now on to the next one.

I'm quilting...

the artisan's palette. It's nothing to write home about, but then I'm not an heirloom quilter. I stitch so the layers don't come apart. I have most of the inside done--just lines on the diagonals and then around the center colored blocks. I think it will do just fine. Maybe I'll get a picture tomorrow.

Its supposed to be about 9 degrees tonight, luckily hubby built a fire downstairs so we won't freeze in bed tonight. The back part of the house can get might chilly--just passive solar and wood burning stove. There have been a couple to time when we went to bed and the room was only 40 degrees. That's cold!

Artisan's Palette top done

Here us the top done. I may yet get it done before we leave for California on the 22nd. I'm backing it with cream fleece and it's going to have simple quilting--don't know what yet, but something.

No quilting today...box making!

From this....Comes this....

Aren't they just cute. Well maybe you can't tell in the picture, but trust me, they're cute. I made some truffles for gifts for Christmas and needed boxes to put them in. I found some in craft stores, but they were either too small or too expensive. I decided to look online today and found a video on etsy lab. They are very easy and I just made a couple of changes. To start off, you are supposed to fold a square of paper diagonally both ways. When you do that, though, the tops (and bottoms) of the boxes have folds through them. That's not awful, but if you just make the diagonals with light pencil lines instead, you don't get any folds across the top. I also didn't have any fun paper, just boring old white. So, I decided to print something on it to make it more interesting. I did a search for free clip art and found a couple I liked. I manipulated them a bit so they would fall in the right place on the paper and, voila! decorated boxes.

See how well the truffles fit in!
They even taste pretty good, mint rolled in candy cane bits, orange, choclate rolled in pecans, and the last was just a plain chocolate truffle. The one on the bottom right had the chocolate correctly tempered, the one othe the bottom left was not correctly tempered--see how it's not shiny, but it still tastes good.

My magic pressing stick

I was pressing open seams this morning (there's a two hour delay at work, so I have a bit of time) and thinking how much I like the stick I use. A stick you say, for ironing, don't most people use an, well, iron?

I was in a class for learning how to make strips and curves, and a woman in the class had this pressing stick--it was laid under the seam and the seam was pressed open without interfering with other seams.

I went home and promptly bought a 1" dowel and had my hubby cut it in half so I could have my own pressing stick. I press all of my seams open, and before my magic stick I would often have trouble (especially with smaller pieces) of pressing one seam closed while I was pressing the one next to it open. This allows me to press easily and because I'm pressing on a hard surface it presses well.

Oh, here's a picture.

Bit by bit

Another border. Each corner will have the dark fabric. I had to cut more of the 2 1/2" strips, didn't have quite enough. If I keep going at this rate, I should be done sometime soon!

Artisan's Palette--border

Here is the first border, and the piano keys on one side. I have to count to be sure I have enough 2 1/2" strips for the piano keys all the say around. If not, maybe I'll leave it off of one of the short side.

Artisan's Palette-mostly together

Here is the largest part of the top--now a 2 1/2" dark border then a piano keys border. I haven't finished this nearly as fast as I was hoping. I already have the fleece for the backing, so once I have the top completely together I'll be able to quilt it. I'm going to do a walking foot quilt pattern, just something to hold it together, so that bit shouldn't take too long. I was working on the built-in in the bedroom yesterday--no, it's not finished yet. We did get the wood around the window installed, so what's left is all the molding then painting. I don't know if we'll get it done before we go to California for Christmas, but we might.

We've also been bringing boxes up from under the house. It's kind of funny--we have a whole box (about 20-25 different boxes) of Christmas cards. When did we buy all those? And a bunch of stuff for the kitchen that I have to figure out how to part with. I don't want to fill up every nook and cranny, so we've already taken about 6 boxes to Goodwill, I think I'm going to figure out how to ebay stuff and then put that money aside. I also have to figure out what folks will buy and what they won't.

Back to sewing--if I get more done that is picture worthy I'll post again later today.

Fixed!

Whew! It wasn't as difficult as I thought it was. I woke up early this morning and was able to rip out and sew back the bit that was wrong.

Now onward to continue and finish before Christmas.

OOPS!

Doesn't that just bite it! Notice a problem with the top bit that I have finished? I didn't either until it was all sewed together and I had it on the design wall. Let's see, I think I have to take out about 5 feet of stitching to make it right, and that's only if I don't take the whole line of stitching out, just the parts that are wrong. Do you think anyone will notice if I don't? :^)

I guess I'll get to it so I can get back to sewing again--I hate the unsewing part!

Artisan's Palette Layout

Here is the layout (for the moment) for this quilt. The yellow on the left side of the picture is the wall behind the design wall. I should have started a bit more to the right, I have about 4 inches of unused space there, so it would have all fit.

I wonder if I'll have enough strips for the piano keys border. I was 7 short of the small colored squares. I'll have to see about the border. It calls for a dark inner border, then the piano keys border. Perhaps I can save some strips by putting blocks in the corners instead of going all the way around with the piano keys.

I like this one, and so does hubby--he asked earlier this evening if it really had to go to someone else. Hmmmm, I've never made him a quilt...perhaps??

Work on Artisan's Palette

Here is the beginning of the new quilt. All the center blocks of color are cut, as are the smaller corner blocks. I just have to finish all the flying geese blocks and it will be ready to be sewn together. It's not a difficult pattern, just the flying geese, but using the quilt in a day method makes them all exactly the same, which is good for me. The other blocks aren't pieced, so it should go together easily. I might even have it done tomorrow, then it's figuring out how to quilt it. I will probably end up using the walking foot and doing something fairly simple just to get it together. I was thinking this one might need fleece on the back, after all it is meant for snuggling. We'll see.

Next Quilt- Artisan's Palette

I futzed around today, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I fooled around a bit with the idea of doing a stained glass wall hanging, but I don't think that is going to get done, just not my thing. While I was looking for batiks to use in it, I was looking through fabric and turned and noticed a plastic box under the table. It had lots of batiks in it, because I had pulled them out to make a quilt for my brother. So I started looking at the fabric and the pattern, and decided I would try to find it on my computer. It was a pattern I downloaded from the Northcott web site. I didn't find it, but I did find another one from the same site. It looked easier and more fun to me, so I decided to make it. It is called "Artisan's Palette" and they don't have it on their site anymore, but it looks like this.

It has lots of flying geese in the sashings, so I played around some more trying to figure out the quickest way to make them accurately. I have this problem with triangle blocks not being exactly right. So I tried the "no waste" method, the "Marti Mitchell" template method, and the "Eleanor Burns" method. I did OK with all the methods (but they geese weren't exactly right) but because you trim to size after you sew, I'm going with Eleanor.

I made 16 flying geese in about 65 minutes, and I need 82, so it shouldn't be too bad. Of course I took 5 hours to figure out which method I would use, so the day is mostly gone now!

Emily's is done

Emily's "suitable for framing" is done and already gone. I didn't have a chance to take a photo, but I finished tying it and used a darker teal for the binding. The family is going to visit her this week and I wanted them to be able to take it to her when they go.

Next is Christmas stuff--a baby quilt, a couple of wall hangings and maybe even quilt a top that has been waiting quite a long time will get quilted.

Not much time, so I'll have to see what gets done.

Christmas in November

Remember that I mentioned we had bunches of boxes under the house in storage, and that they've been there since 2003? Most of the upstairs is now in a livable condition, so we've started bringing them up and unpacking and putting or giving the stuff away. Well... today's boxes included another box of fabric!

It was labeled "Amish and Stack 'n Whack" and guess what? That's what it was. See...

And here is the some of the Stack n Whack fabric that was in the box...now I really have to get moving and make some quilts. I wonder if all of this will fit in the spaces left in the closet? We'll see soon enough.

More pics to come~after the folding a putting away :^)

Nearest Book

Jovaliquilts had this posted on her blog. I found it interesting, so decided to join in.

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"Initially it seemed inconsistent with the messages we'd been hearing about strong organizational cultures."

The book is "The Leadership Challenge" which I am reading for work. The other book that was near to hand had this for the 5th sentence on pg 56.

"So how does it know that any food item can be a correct answer?"

That one is from "Intellitools Extreme!", also a work book.

I think this is interesting because it give a glimpse into people's lives.

Have fun!

Tying Emily's quilt

After pinning almost the whole sandwich, and then realizing that the backing wasn't quite straight, so didn't reach the edges, then unpinning, I realized it would be much easier to just tie this quilt. The "batting" is the backing so I don't have to worry about the layers shifting. I'm tying about every 3 inches and I think that will be enough. I'm using 3 strands of embroidery floss for the ties. I think it will work OK. When I'm done I'll just sew around the outside then put some binding on and call it good. It doesn't take too terribly long to do the tying, and I found an explanation of how to do continuous ties so I don't have to stitch-cut-tie every single one. I can stitch-tie-stitch-tie etc, then cut. It goes faster and it's easier to do the tying with shorter strands so I don't have to waste so much floss.

Emily's Work in Progress

I'm still working on Emily's quilt. I found some soft fabric (not really Minky) to use for the batting and the back. Here is the whole quilt. I was going to put a darker teal around the spring green, but decided I liked it better without.
The quilt is being pin basted, and then I'm going to figure out how I'm going to quilt it. I have to see if I am going to use a walking foot, or if I'm going to tie it--I just don't know.

The backing is very soft. I think the finished quilt will be very cuddly.

Emily's Quilt

Here's a bit more of the quilt. I have to larger rectangles to finish, then the border and I'm done. The colors here are closer to reality. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. I think I should be able to finish the top today, then I'll see about getting some cozy backing, I may use a minkee type fabric again. The last one I made was very cozy, and I think cozy is called for here.

My hubby brought up a box from under the house last week. It's been there since August of 2003, when we moved stuff under there before we went to Germany. The fabric in it was some rayons for clothing--maybe I'll get to using that; some solid fabrics I bought before we moved to Colorado in 1993 (I was really liking Amish quilts then--still do so I think I might make the "Suitable for Framing" in cool solids and black) and some white, gray and black cotton. I think that might have been from the neutral quilt I made when I was taking the color class. That quilt is now hanging in my office at work. I really like looking at it.

Suitable for Framing

I've stopped working on the Quilt for an Hour for a while. A friend's daughter is sick and in the hospital so I decided she needed a quilt. It's based on Suitable for Framing. Here is a picture of what I've completed so far. The young lady I'm making it for is in her mid-teens and has a bedroom that features lime green, purple, pink and blue. The colors aren't exactly true here, but you get the idea. The white looking fabric in the upper right is actually a light teal. When it's daylight, I'll take a picture that hopefully has more accurate color.

Here's what the whole quilt will look like--though obviously in other colors.


By the way, on the Quilt for and Hour, I've decided to leave the peach squares in the middle and the blue on the outside. With the blue outside, I don't even see the weird square anymore. Thanks to all of you who shared your opinion

Quilt for an Hour

All the blocks are done. Now I have to live with them for a bit to see if I want to move any of them. I'm going to live with the one block for a while, but just glancing at the picture above has me thinking I'm going to be changing that dang block out. I like the colors--I have to try the diamonds reversed though--making the peachy ones the main ones in each block and see if I like that better--of if it's just different.

Couldn't wait--which one is better?