Hot From the Dryer!

Hot from the dryer, a baby quilt made trying to use every last smidgen of fabric left over from the last quilt I posted about.  I think.  Too lazy to check back and be sure.    The little pinwheels and hst's are from the clipped off corners of snowball type blocks and I built churn dash blocks around them.  Piecing this was a little difficult for me because the hst's I started with weren't a uniform or commonly used size and I actually had to make some calculations.  With numbers and measurements and everything.  Very basic, simple math, yet a challenge for me.  

Here's kind of a close-up of the quilting.  I really over did it, but I was under the influence of Angela Walters' Craftsy class where she was drawing swirls and pebbles.  Swirls I enjoyed, pebbling, on this small of a scale, not much.  There is a whole lot of thread in this quilt which makes it not particularly soft and cuddly for a baby.   And all that pebbling made the unpebbled blocks a little poofier than I'd intended.  

And, here is the back.  Unused blocks, chunks and strips of left over fabric placed every which way!

I'm going to attemp to link up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for her "Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?" Friday post.

Design Wall Monday Seques into Procrastination

What fun working with spring colors!   I'll start sewing the blocks together today, I hope.  Then there's applique in the border, a first for me, but something I've been wanting to try.

I'll also spend time checking out sewing machines.  I've just about decided what I want and now it's down to price, dealer and location.  If I take the plunge and buy an expensive new machine, I hope it improves my work as much as I think it might.  Right now I'm sewing on an older machine with no needle down, thread cutter, knee lift, or decorative stitches of any kind and only six and half inches of throat space.  Throat space and needle down are tops on my list.  Any sewing machine advice is very welcome!

Decision making is hard and I've been known to just keep putting off purchases because of it.  Like right now, I need a new rug and bedskirt for the bedroom, a new vacuum cleaner,  possibly a new couch, and two chairs that need to be reupholstered or slip covered.  And I've put all these things off till I really need it all done at once, which gets overwhelming and too expensive to contemplate.  Oh, and I've had a prescription for new glasses since October but can't get around to picking out frames so I'm still wearing the old ones with a scratched lens that I stepped on two years ago!

Well, don't procrastinate about going over to Patchwork Times and checking out all the other Design Wall Monday posts.  There's some really gorgeous work this week!

Shield Your Eyes!

It's been such a long time since I posted.  Our move was one of the most difficult we've ever had.  Long story.  No point in rehashing.  Anyway, we're in now and I've actually done a bit of sewing so here goes.

Today's quilt is the result of an experiment with the much maligned Wally World fabric.  Last summer I picked up some charm packs and a fat quarter bundle, all on sale.  The colors were so bright and cheerful and the prices so incredibly cheap that I couldn't resist. 

I decided to try a disappearing nine patch and got started.   I was less than happy with the charm squares.  They weren't necessarily on grain or necessarily square.  A few of them felt a bit like window screen.  I persevered, but I was pretty bummed and really didn't give it my best effort figuring it was doomed to failure anyway.  I was also determined to use just my Wally World fabric, thus the haphazard looking borders.  Leftover charms and the fat quarters made up the pieced backing, which I failed to photograph, and I bound it with strips from my scrap bin.

For quilting, I did loops and daisies.  Since the quilt is a riot of colors, I used the many different colored bobbins left over from previous projects which freed up a lot of bobbins and made me feel thrifty.  Used several colors for the top thread as well.

In the end, I liked it better than expected.  While the charm squares weren't the highest quality, the fat quarters were just fine and every bit as nice as quilt shop fabrics.  I wouldn't hesitate to use them again.

The final test was the wash.  I expected some fading, but there was none.  The quilt is just as obnoxiously bright as before.

So, what do I think about Wally World fabric?  I think it's like any other.  You can find good fabric or not so good fabric.  You just have to shop carefully, which hopefully, we all do anyway.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday.

On the Road......Again

We're moving to Tennessee!  Yippee!  We love Tennessee.  We have friends and family there.  There's no state income tax.  It's beautiful.  We spent last Saturday exploring and came across a place, in north Georgia actually, where people were hang-gliding.  Had to stop & watch.  

These people are obviously insane.   This guy was about to literally take a flying leap off the end of that rock.  It was kind of funny.  A lot of folks appeared to be old hands at this.  They'd just walk up, get set, run and jump.  Others, you could tell were scared.  If it were me, my little toes would be digging into that rock!  Next are a few shots of someone jumping.

I will never, never, never do this.  

So anyway,  I spent last week in Chattanooga looking for a place to live.  Rental houses are sky-high and in short supply so when I found something that would mostly work, I jumped on it.  The neighborhood is nice and large so there's plenty of space for my husband to run and me to walk.  The house itself is smaller than we're used to so I won't have a dedicated sewing space.  I'll have to squeeze my machine and fabric and supplies in one of the guest bedrooms.  But that's okay.  I'll finally live close enough to some of the people I love to have visitors!

We don't move till December 1, so I'm back in South Carolina for a few days, supposedly getting ready for the movers, but really, trying to get a hand project together to fill my homeless, sewing machine-less time.  I had most of the blocks pieced for Spaghetti Junction and thought I'd take that with me to sew the blocks together by hand.  Now I've discovered to my anguish and chagrin, that I messed up the seam allowance on a good many blocks.  Much measuring, ripping and resewing is being done.

Guess this picture says a lot about how neat and tidy I am.

On one last sad note, my sweet and terrible little Jack Russell passed away two weeks ago.  I posted about her here back in August for SewCalGal's Pets on Quilts show.  She was so old and tired and just worn out.  I miss her something fierce.  It's like she's all over the house but she's just not here. 

Today, I'm happy to be sharing my entry in the .......

This quilt was the topic of my very first blog post back in May.  Seems like forever ago!

Chain Link is a pattern from the book, Link to the '30's  by Kay Connors and Karen Earlywine.  I loved working with the bright colors and learning the partial seam technique, even making the prairie points, although ironing them all was a bit tedious.  Most of all, I enjoyed free-motion quilting all those feathers.  They aren't the greatest, but all washed and crinkled they look just fine and I've spent more than a few afternoon naps under this puppy!  This was my second quilt with thirties repro fabrics so I think I've got them out of my system now, just not out of my stash!

Hope you enjoy this and all the lovely entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  Thanks, Amy!

A Little Progress

I've completed just a few blocks so far of the Spaghetti Junction quilt.  I may wind up regretting my fabric choices but have to admit I love the magenta and red combination.  Crossing my fingers that the thin red strips will bring it all together. 

 The pattern is made up of two alternating blocks and the other ones look like this.

Next, is a little progress on my hexagon star quilt that I've named the Hexabomination quilt.  Two of the diamonds are sewn together and I'm working on the third.  This would be over quickly if I did it on the machine but it's reserved for mindless TV sewing.

Please note the small dog snoot on the floor to the left.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.  Enjoy!

Design "Wall" Monday

Today I have two things to share.  The first is my hexagon star:

Yes, the hexagon project has grown to such proportions that it requires a design lawn.  It's also the only place I could get enough light.  I'm aware this has become something of an abomination, but I just couldn't stop sewing those little boogers together.  Planning, must remember planning!  I guess the next step is to add a solid fabric between the star points.  I have no idea how to measure for that or how to go about it or what color to use.  Any ideas, insights, suggestions would be appreciated.  Please be gentle.

Next up are the practice blocks for Heather Mulder Peterson's "Spaghetti Junction" from her book, Living Large 2.

Click here  to see how the finished quilt is supposed to look.  The patterns in the book are for large scale prints and it seems that I've accumulated quite a few that I'll be combining with a fat quarter bundle of Sandi Henderson's Secret Garden fabric in the Sunset Garden colorway.  I hope it works.  I'm using the rust colored chicken wire print where the pattern uses brown dot fabric. I plan to add a narrow inner border of that fabric as well.  The block on the right finished out pretty much perfectly at ten inches.  The one on the left is off in places almost a quarter inch.  Back to the machine with that one.  Accuracy is the absolute bane of my existence!

Check out what others are working on at Patchwork Times.  Have a great week with lots of quilting!