Thursday, October 29, 2015

Cutting

Not much happening here today.  I did manage to put the church bulletin into the program for projecting to the screens on Sunday morning -- took most of the morning!

But I also spent 30 minutes cutting fabric for our kids quilts we'll be sewing on tomorrow at our monthly sew-in.


 All ready to go out the door in the morning!

Until next time....blessings.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Some Progress

I finished piecing the 9 patches - only because I was tired of doing them!  I still have strips of fabric that I will sew together to make more 9 patches and maybe 4 patches, but I decided to stop putting the borders around them now, and go ahead and start piecing another homeless quilt.  These quilts need to be 60" x 80" or thereabouts, so, I cut some black prints to fill in between the 9 patches. And of course I didn't have enough of one to do the whole quilt, so pulled and cut two.

I sewed the top two rows and placed the third row on my design board.  The busier black print will be in the center and the less-busy one will be alternating in the outer rows only.
All of the 9 patches need to be squared up, so they are now on the cutting table waiting for me tomorrow!  I found cutting is a little easier with this splint than the cast, but still not great, so it's slow going, but that's ok - no hurry, right?!

Until next time...blessings.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Cast is off

And now I have a hard splint to wear for 4 weeks.
They did take the stitches out. And I am scheduled for therapy starting Wednesday.
But, I'm a bit disappointed in that I still can't load a quilt on the longarm, I still can't move my thumb much and there will be no lifting whatsoever for the next 4 weeks - it is still healing.  I was hoping to be able to cut fabric better and I won't be able to do that either and definitely no hand work.  I can still piece on the machine though, so guess I'll have to settle for that.  And, wonder of wonders, I can at least take a shower and wash my hands without the splint on and no bag over my hand!

Until next time.....blessings.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

More Sewing and Planning!

Of all the steps in quilting, my second least favorite is cutting fabric!  This is my cutting table -- I have to shove things around in order to cut anything, of course.  The fabric on the front corner is yardage I'm using from stash to make the hexagons for the background on the Lucy Boston quilt.  I cut some today, but I can't do a lot of cutting with the cast on.  The fabric piled under the square cutting mat is for kids quilts that we're doing this year with the church group.  And under the table is another huge stack of donated fabrics that I need to cut into squares for more homeless quilts.  In other words, I have a ton of cutting to do.  So, every day that I go downstairs to sew, I plan to spend at least 15 minutes cutting - something!

I did cut some hexagons today and glued some of the background ones together -- I'm using at least 3 different background fabrics for these from stash!
I mentioned my second least favorite thing to do, but my very least favorite thing is piecing batting!  Batting is expensive - I buy Warm & Natural at JoAnn's during their half price sales and the last two times actually got free shipping too, but it's still expensive.  The last time I pieced batting, I spent days at it and actually came out with a dozen batts for homeless quilts (which are 60"x80").  Today I pieced batts and got two more for the big homeless quilts and 3 for kids quilts, and one piece that's 36" x 42".  I'm going to try to stitch up the leftover batting once a week, so it doesn't take a day or longer to do it!  All part of the Plan!

Until next time....blessings.

The Plan

I think for the past few years I've been overwhelmed - not just by life, but by the sheer magnitude of fabric and projects I have started, or planned to start, etc.  You all know how it is - so much fabric and still you buy more- enough that we all say we'll never use it all.  For awhile I quit buying fabric except for specific quilts or projects.  I also stopped buying books and patterns and kits.  I had so much of everything, I couldn't make a decision what to work on.  And then my friend Kris thinks its fun to challenge everyone to do a certain block, or quilt or whatever.  And that's all well and good, but I never got the chance to work on my own projects.  So I finally started ignoring her challenges, but I also got involved with my church group making homeless quilts, so my own things stayed hidden away!

Fast forward to this past weekend:  A couple of friends from the homeless quilt group dropped off the latest bunch of quilts (49 - for a total of 62) we made this year for the homeless.  And then we went to a little quilt show put on by the local quilt guild.  Vendor mall was fun, even though, as usual, I didn't need anything!  And one of my favorite quilt stores, Quilters General Store, which is only about 2 minutes from my house, was vending.  My friend, Nancy has been talking about doing the Lucy Boston quilt for awhile and I listened, but didn't get caught up by it, until QGS had a few little kits for this quilt.  Nancy suckered me right in!  This is a completely hand made elongated hexagon quilt.  And no, I don't need another hand project, especially since I'm still in a cast!  But QGS showed us a new technique using a glue stick instead of English Paper Piecing:

It actually hurts my hand because I have to turn it to hold the pieces while I glue, and it rubs the cast which doesn't turn, but I have managed to glue a couple of these blocks.  I'll stitch them together when I finally get the cast off.  There are 24 pieces to each block, and 24 background hexes around each block and there are 56 blocks, not counting the pieced squares of cornerstones!  I think I'm crazy, but I'm going to attempt to work on one of these blocks every chance I get.

Until next time...blessings.  

Friday, October 23, 2015

It's Back!

It's Back!  It's Back!  My Quilting MoJo is back!

Yes, my hand is still in a cast, and I'm typing this with one hand, but for the first time in years (really), I feel like sewing/quilting.  I feel like I've been going thru the motions for years and as I think back on it, I think the trauma of losing Bill and Steve and then spending 3 years trying to sell the house, buying another, moving and remodeling took away my desire to sew/quilt.  I even bought the Statler for my longarm trying to get back the urge to spend all my waking hours quilting!
With my hand in a cast and unable to do much, I have done a lot of thinking and planning.  The cast comes off Monday along with the stitches being removed.  But for the past few days, I've actually been doing a little sewing.  I've had this pile of 1-1/2" strips piled on the table for at least 2 years.  They were donated by a former shop owner for the homeless quilts.  I made one quilt from the partially finished blocks she gave and this was what was leftover.  I made a bunch more 9-patches and still didn't make a dent.

 So now I'm taking the 9-patches and adding borders to them.  The goal is to use up all the fabric strips and make at least one more quilt for the homeless.
I'm going to clean off the table this year!  

Until next time...blessings.