2016-05 Paducha

I've been a bit busy the last couple weeks and forgot to post!   shocking!  I know.

  

It has now been quilted and is waiting to be bound.  I pieced the backing for the Trip Around the World wedding quilt for my husband's niece.

I took some time off and went to Paducha for several days to see the AQS Quilt show.

I arrived in Paducha Tuesday afternoon and spent several hours drooling over fabrics at Hancocks... and burning up the credit card!

I bunked with Wanda (from Alaska) and her friend Terry.  We went to TGIFridays for dinner and a "rousing" game of trivia!  LOL!


Wednesday through Saturday I rented a cottage with Barbara, a friend from church.   It was a very relaxing place to be after a busy show and classes.


We set up tables and featherweights in the living room and enjoyed the view of the Grand River, watching tugboats go by... pushing barges of coal .

  

Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday I signed up for classes (more on that later) and spent time at the show.   But Friday we spent all day relaxing in the cottage sewing and chatting.... except for an afternoon exercise break when we walked down the hill and out to the end of that jetty and back.

There was the mandatory "Sloanie" meet-up on Thursday with Pat Sloan

Pat laid out her blocks for the Splendid Sampler... an online sew-along that she is hosting.  There will be 100 six inch blocks made when this is done!

And no trip to Paducha would be complete without a dinner at Patti's 1880 Settlement.  Great restaurant... great food... great friends... old and new.

2016-04 part 3 wedding quilt

I've finally gotten this 100x100 Trip Around the World top pieced for my husband's niece and her fiance.

(sorry about the fuzzy picture)

I personalized it for them by embroidering their names on the center block.

Next up will be to piece the backing..  I'm going to have to add left-over strips from the front to the backing fabric to make it fit.

2016-03 part 2

My treadle is now repaired.... Ted came by to service it.  Turns out that because I have been sewing with the bobbin cover loose... I did not know how to lock it in place... the bobbin case and other inner parts have been moving around a bit. With all the sewing I've been doing on it, the innards moved around enough that correct stitching was impossible.  Ted fiddled with it, cleaned out some lint that I missed and put all parts in their proper place.  He showed me how to lock on the bobbin cover and now she sews better than ever! 

I spent my birthday finishing up a customer quilt, but mostly sewing away on the Trip Around the World wedding quilt for my niece.  I am now 3/4 done and very happy with the color pallet.  

I laid the quarters out on the floor twisting and turning to find the most pleasing layout.  I quickly discovered that the white print I had planned on being the center of the quilt.. isn't going to happen.  I apparently stitched the rows together in the wrong order.  I can have a pink center  (above) or a black center (below).

If I do put the the white print in the center, I get a totally different look! Definitely NOT a trip around the world... more like "X" marks the spot!  It actually isn't a bad option as I want to put a red block with their names embroidered in the middle.  Once I get the remaining quarter and connecting strips made I'll lay it all out again and ask her which option she prefers.

2016-03

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2016/02/great-minds-great-solutions.html


Recently, Bonnie Hunter blogged about a solution to a common problem quilters have with the pedals on their featherweight sewing machines.  You can read about it here:



I too dislike the tiny button pedal as it makes my toe cramp after a while. So I showed the picture to hubby.... 

and voila!  I too have a new, easier to use foot pedal.

I've made a little progress on my Trip Around the World Quilt for my niece.  

I've completed the first quarter of the quilt and was working on the second when my treadle decided to hiccup.  For some unknown reason it decided not to stitch correctly.  I tried suggestions from my online treadle group to no avail.  I am now waiting for Ted, my Singer "doctor" to make a house call and diagnose the problem later this week.

The parish annual yardsale was last weekend and I worked all last week with the ladies of the parish getting everything set up.  The room was full, the tables groaning and when we opened the door at 4pm on friday we had 137 people (yes we counted) stream in the door.  By the time all was done saturday afternoon the tables were quite bare and our coffers were almost $4000 richer.  And we still had to haul off 3 pick-up trucks and a trailer full of boxes and bags to the local thrift shops.

I even came home with a few lucky purchases!   

another sewing table (although
I have no idea which or what
machine I will put in it.  I just
couldn't let it sit there or be hauled
off to the thrift shop
Also, a Jim Shore nick-nak... a cute
singing dog

While I was busy with the church yardsale my husband got busy working on that backyard tree stump/root again....  He has been cutting away at it since last July and finally removed the last remaining bit!  Once we get the piles of dirt back in the hole, I will plant myself a flower garden this Spring.   And hubby will begin work on the second stump (it's burried under the pile of dirt at the top of the picture!

   

2016-02

Globetrotting is now bound and hanging on my living room wall.

This was a 2014 BOM designed by Pat Sloan that had been pieced and waiting its turn to be quilted.  Snowmagedden enabled me to catch up on customer work and gave me an opportunity to complete some of my projects.  :)

Earlier in the year I joined a postage stamp swap... unfortunately I didn't understand all the details until the last minute. We were to cut sets of 25 different 1.5in squares.  No problem!  right!? I cut up some left-over chunks of fabric from two recent projects and packaged 12 identical sets (one set for each registered member) then emailed to confirm. Well it turns out that a set consists of 25 identical pkgs of 25 different squares! Ooops.  I had to go digging into the smaller scraps to complete all the sets, but I made it!  Here's a picture of the first 12 when I thought I was done... I neglected to take a picture of the whole set of 25 packages as I was in a hurry to make it to the post office.

I've begun work on a wedding quilt for my husband's niece who will be getting married in August.  She chose Trip Around the World for a pattern and I chose these fabrics based upon her color preference.  (Yes, some of these fabrics were used for the swap above... I bought lots of extra for another project I want to do later.)  The pattern is for a twin bed calling for 8 fabrics.  I'm guessing and hoping that these 12 fabrics will enlarge it enough to work for the queen size bed they will be sharing.

We haven't had a lot of snow since Snowmagedden last month, but several smaller storms bringing from a dusting to 3inches of snow have kept schools closed for the past week... and I have been entertaining my grandson all week.  We colored, we played with cars and lincoln logs, we read books and worked a reading program online.  But I also needed to sew... so I convinced him to try making a pillow cover from some FQs he chose on our last shopping trip while I treadled away on a project.  I drew a line on the fabric and sat him down with a needle and thread... putting it in an embroidery hoop for easier handling.  He worked for about 2 hours!  But then he wanted to sew faster on my treadle.  He couldn't reach the peddle and sew too so he stood there and guided the fabric and I treadled for him.  Success!



I walked out to the mailbox Thursday to find a package from Quiltville!!!???  I didn't remember ordering anything from her recently.  Looking closer I realized it was addressed to hubby.  He doesn't quilt so I knew it was for me.  I waited VERY patiently until he arrived home from work and handed it to him.   Happy Valentine's Day he says :)  I apparently had talked about it and he went searching and ordered it for me!  :)  And yesterday he came home with a dozen red roses!  He's a keeper!