Quilting and Other Hobbies

After a great deal of swearing, I was able to finish Lauri's quilt.  The machine was having some issues with tension and speed control.  The stitch regulator is having some issues again.  It broke the thread about a dozen times around the middle of the quilt.  Ugh!  I rethreaded it a couple of times and it started behaving in the last third of the job.  I'm going to work with it a bit longer and see if it continues to have problems before I take it in for repair.

Here's a close up of the quilt that I took in a puddle of sunshine coming in the windows.  It's so sparkley!!

Once I got the last customer's quilt off the racks, I decided I wanted to get one of my quilts done up right away.  I dug around in the bins and came up with this floral fabric to add to the back.  It was absolutely perfect!  I couldn't have found a better quilt back if I had started with it and matched fabrics to it.  Not sure what I'll do with it when I'm done.  I have far too many quilts lying around that aren't getting used, though.  This is a twin size, by the way.  Maybe Emma will want a new one, although I still have to finish her Japanese quilt--it just needs a binding.

I had to piece the back to make it large enough.  One thing that people don't always realize is that you need to sew a generous 1/2" seam and trim the selvages.  The edges of the fabrics are often woven differently and will shrink differently when washed and dried, so trimming that 1/4" off the edge is important.  You don't want your work to end up puckered.

I've been having a long debate about whether or not to continue this quilting & crafting business.  I'm not making any significant income from it and I'm tired.  I could still quilt things for friends, but do it in trade or something.  According to what I could find, if I earn more than $400 in a year, I have to declare it.  But what about someone who does occasional babysitting?  A couple of days a month, you earn $20 per night from a friend who goes out on a date with her husband, and you have to declare that as income?

We have a problem with one of the newer windows that we had installed in Emma's room.  I don't know if it was installed incorrectly or if something broke off, but it's got a massive breeze coming through when the window is closed.  You can see daylight.  It's bad.  I put in a call to the handyman a couple days ago but I haven't heard back from him yet.  Maybe I need to try calling again since I left a message...relying on technology...which can be rather unreliable.  We've got a cold snap moving into the area and may possibly be snowing this weekend, so getting her room weather-tight is important.

I have one more side of Grandma's flower garden quilt to finish up.  No, she's not my Grandma--my grandmothers both died in 1987 and 89--I'm talking about our church's Father's mother.  It's very close to being done, so I need to work a bit more tomorrow and maybe give the owner a call tomorrow afternoon so she can pick it up and enjoy it!

The last couple of days, I have to make a bunch of beads for the Lampworker's Guild as well as a dozen or so I'm making for a commission.  Since I posted pictures, I've gotten a few more people asking to buy beads.  Maybe I need to switch from quilting to bead making?  I also need to make a handout and samples for a class I'm teaching on Saturday.  The class is called "Sewing Limp Parchment Books" using paper and string.  Woo.

Patchwork Pirates INVADE!

I know that I haven't done much writing for some time--it's been busy and I haven't done anything remarkably interesting, but I'll catch you up on some of the basics this last month.  Kelly, Tom and I went to a couple Sounders games.  Tom traveled down from Bellingham to see the games and will be joining us next year in our Gang Green (Gangrena, as Daniel likes to call us--he's fluent in Portugese).  In at least one of these games, he had to buy a separate ticket away from our group, but was lucky enough to find a seat just a few rows behind us.

We often grab dinner at a nearby food court.  Clearly, English is a second language and proofreading is an afterthought.  I think that perhaps it was merely an issue with punctuation:  "All Employees Must Wash; Wash Hands Thou Roughly Before Returning to Work [sayeth the Lord]."


I've continued doing a little Geocaching now and again.  I found this lovely log covered with mushrooms.  It looks like a woodland fairy condominium.

I also found some of these really cool looking mushrooms, which I think are Candy Caps (Lactarius rubidus), which are edible.  Otherwise, they might be Jack o'lanter mushrooms which are poisonous.  Not going to pick them and find out...

Made some beads for a couple different people.  I promised to make 40 of them for a Kingdom gift to the Royals that will be attending the big camping event in the summer.  I've done this a couple times before in years past.  It's not very difficult, it doesn't cost more than a few bucks for my materials, and it's a great way to practice bead-making skills.  Here's me making the bead hot with the torch--you can't see the flame, but you can see the glass glowing.  I have everything I need here:  my computer, a cuppa tea, some chocolate, glass, lighter, mandrils, and a bucket of vermiculite to cool the bead slowly.  I was able to complete 9 of them that night, including these 7:




And these two, which I was trying to create a "dragon scale" pattern on the glass, which mostly worked.  I have to ask Bekah to demonstrate her technique since I suspect it could be done with more ease and consistency.



Then I posted those pictures and got a commission from a lady by the name of Jadwiga.  She said she wanted 3 beads, but I made six, figuring that she could have her choice of her favorite 3 or all of them, should she decide that 3 was not enough. :)



I got a call a couple days ago from a lady who said she had a quilt from her Grandmother that she needed to have quilted, and we made arrangements for her to come by and drop it off.  This gorgeous piece of work arrived at my house!!  It's all pinned together, so I will have my work cut out for me taking it apart and racking it up on my machine, as well as checking it for open seams.  I already found one, so I may whip stitch that one closed and any others that I find.


Early on Saturday, Lauri and Linda arrived together and we began sewing up a storm.  A few hours later, Sharon and her daughter arrived just a few minutes after Jean.  While Jean isn't a quilter, she worked on a knitting project while the rest of us cranked out some quilt blocks.  I was able to finish putting this quilt top together, which is made entirely out of scraps and measures 98" square.  It needs just a few more inches for borders to make it big enough for a king size bed, and then it'll be ready for quilting!  I had two people say that they want the quilt already, and I have tons more scraps to make more of these if I want...and I may just do that.  I may get a commission from them yet...although the cost on it is prohibitive for most.

Terrible picture, but here's Jeanie and I trading places.  Lauri called us Mutt & Jeff.


Went out for dinner at the Mexican place--I was driving, but Lauri and Sharon enjoyed macho margaritas...



Then stopped by the fabric store, only to discover that it was closed, so we went to the 7-11 instead, got a couple scratch tickets and played with the hats.  I am the walrus.  Sharon is a lemur.

After I finished the quilt top, I pulled out the Harry Potter Project of Doom that I've been working on over the last many months and began working on the next couple of blocks, numbers 11 and 12.  This was a difficult one--white owl on a cream background.  I'm going to have to do some kind of outline stitch on the bird to make it stand out.  Also, I goofed on the eye color, so I may carefully pick out the seams and reverse applique some gold fabric into place.

This block is a series of books with a feather quill.  I re-arranged the order of the pieces so I wouldn't have the yellow quill leaning against the yellow book--I didn't think that through entirely.  Later, I thought maybe, in honor of Rita Skeeter, I should have done the quill in acid green.  Heck, I may just print up the pattern again and start over...or not.


The girls got to play together all day and night--they always have such a great time together.  We decided that they are the exact same height now, even though their ages are 19 months apart.  They truly are two of a kind!



Jean didn't stay the night--she left around 11 pm Saturday--but the others had cots and inflatable mattresses set up around downstairs.  I stumbled upstairs around 12:15 a.m. for my 8 hours.

We started up again in the morning after I cooked up some pancakes for everyone--mostly the kids.  We made a trip to the fabric store around 2:30 pm where I got batiks for a swap for the guild meeting next week.  I have to wash and dry them before I can cut--batiks are infamous bleeders!  I feel like I'm way ahead by getting the fabrics organized a week in advance rather than at the last minute like I usually do.

Everyone packed up by 3 pm Sunday to head back home.  We had a great time and got a lot done.  I should have gotten more pictures...maybe I'll be able to post more after I get some sent to me by the others.

Irony

I don't normally allow my Facebook and blog lives overlap (other than sharing pictures) but I found this to be really funny.  A friend (acquaintance) posted one of those text images to her wall:

"If you have a friend who tells you that they are leaving their marriage because they've "fallen out of love" or they're "no longer happy." Being a Real Friend doesn't mean hugging them and helping them pack their bags. Being a Real Friend means telling them that they're about to make a terrible decision and encouraging them to fight to restore their Marriage."

Why is this funny?  Because she is divorced.  She was also sleeping with a married guy who eventually divorced--for the second time--and then married her.  She moved into his house within a couple weeks of the former wife leaving.  That's irony.

...

The weekend was spent sewing a bunch of 4 patches together.  I just got the bug to sew some of the scraps together, so I grabbed the baggie of 3" squares and found that many of them had two or more pieces of each fabric, so I matched lights and darks into 4-patches.

On Monday, I went up to the guild meeting, probably the last one for the next few months. My DH's union is in the midst of negotiating a new contract, although I don't feel that they're really negotiating in good faith--the company offers a crap contract and the union doesn't bother to counter-offer before threatening to strike...they're going to be nice and wait until after the holidays...gee, thanks.... So we won't be able to spend $30-40 a month on gas to and from the guild meetings, and we'll likely have to cut out all entertainments from movies to non-food essentials...maybe even turning off cable.  If it gets really bad, maybe I'll find a job...depends on how long the strike goes, I guess.  In some ways, I think it'll be good to try to focus on local functions & guilds for entertainment, but at the same time, I know I'm going to miss going up there.  I will probably renew the membership and go up from time to time to keep in touch--maybe in the summer when there are fewer issues with getting up early the next day to take the kids to school.  I got home at 1 a.m. after spending a bit of time with my sister.  The visit was nice, but then I realized that it was already 11 pm and I had to stop for gas before hitting the road.

Anyway, the guild meeting was a Christmas party potluck and raffle with the "high end" raffle goodies.  During the other 11 months of the year, the raffle table has small bundles of fabrics, books, sewing tools & trinkets offered at 3 tickets for a dollar.  During December, they have $1 raffle tickets for much larger items.  A few of them were nice, but I got the impression that they were not as amazing as they have been in years past.  The Olfa mat was half the size as previous years; the Ott Light was a table top version, not a floor lamp; the kits were miscellaneous fabrics (some of dubious quality) and had just a couple yards, not a big basket full of new fabrics; the books looked second hand or at least several years old.  They did have $50 gift certificates for several different area stores, but since I don't live up there now, I wasn't that gung-ho about dropping tickets in those containers...I'd have to spend $35 just to drive there.  I entered a ticket to win entry into the spring retreat, but alas, didn't win that.  I dunno...it just wasn't up to par.  

I did buy $10 worth of tickets and was able to bring home one of the prizes:  a bin of weird fabrics.  Upon closer inspection, there were 12 fat quarters of mixed genres, one yard of modern fabric in brown & blue (not my style, but I'm sure someone will get a nice bag out of it), and a fat quarter from a Big Box Fabric Store that shall not be named.  There were also a couple of other things in the box--a membership pin, a fabric glue stick, which should come in handy, and a marking pen.  I really just wanted the bin.  

I also bought one ticket for the Christmas raffle quilt, which was far smaller than previous years.  I'm not sure if they didn't get enough participation, which is possible, but I don't remember hearing more than a mention of it once or twice during the year--then again, I was overwhelmed with the quilt show, so my participation was limited in every other arena.  It's a tree skirt.  I don't recall the exact size, but it's about 55" across; just smaller than a standard round banquet table.  I quilted it (no mention of that at the meeting...thanks for the promo, guys!), but didn't win it.  Didn't even catch who did win it.

So I got home (very late) and slept fast for a super-busy Tuesday.  I sewed a few more 4-patches together and figured out how many I'd need for a twin-size if I alternated the 4-patches with solid squares.  I thought that sewing two 3" squares together into 4-patches, I could pair them with 5" squares, which I have a TON of!  Oh wait...math is wrong.  I need 5 1/2" squares.  Dang.  Gotta cut more scraps into 5 1/2".  Then I almost forgot that it was a Girl Scout day.  Extra caffeine to drag me through the day.  Went to bed early that night.

Then yesterday was the usual church in the morning at school, which Ben and I skipped and went to get a muffin for breakfast--he didn't eat enough that morning--and then it was an early-release day, so scooping up kids, off to karate...fast dinner...skip evening karate for the girls so they can catch up on homework (but Ben went).  Hopefully they're good now.

Finished sewing the 4-patches that I needed for the twin quilt and found a baggie of 5 1/2" squares--not enough of them to actually make the top, but maybe 50 of the 80 that I need, so it's a start.

The dust in the house is starting to get to me.  Mostly it's the old carpets...I can smell it and I want, more than anything, to rip out all the carpet and have a giant bonfire in the street.  I'm waking up with a stuffy nose and we've already put the dust covers on the pillows and mattress, and it's still bothering me.  I'm also really frustrated with my clothing and my dresser.  Maybe I should just pare down to a few outfits and toss out anything I haven't worn in at least two years and make a t-shirt quilt out of the stack.  More projects....

No Rest for the Weary

I starting piecing the 9-patch blocks into big 4-patches--each 9-patch had sashing strips on two sides, then I sewed four of those together to make bigger blocks.  In this picture is the 4-patch blocks and strips of 9-patches that I had to add on the bottom edge and right side to even out the numbers.  Or rather, ODD out the numbers.  There are 9 blocks per row, 9 rows to the quilt...81 blocks.  Part of the plan to assemble this quilt is to alternate 9 patches with dark squares in the corners and center, and light colors in the corners and center.  This, I think, helps make it twinkle.  If quilts can twinkle...I suppose they can...

This morning, I got up, thinking that it was going to be a great Friday...that I could finish assembling the quilt top and get some work done on some other projects.  I got Ben through all his medications, loaded the kids in the car, and dropped Emma off first.  She hustled up to the front doors of the school while I took the little ones to their school.  I was about half-way there and I get a call from Emma.  She fell on the stairs and chipped her tooth.  Oh no!!

Dropped off the little guys and called the dentist.  They said they could fit her in at 10:30, so I went to pick her up and wait for an hour before heading over to the dentist.  They fixed her up and her teeth look like nothing ever happened.  She wouldn't let me take a picture of her broken teeth, but imagine the left front (her left) missing the chunk below the braces...it was about 1/4 to 1/3 of the front tooth. We didn't realize it at the time, but she also chipped the other tooth, too--not as significantly, but he filled that one, too.  Now we have the waiting game to see if there was any nerve damage that would mean a root canal and more work.  We also have to bring her in later, take the wires off to be able to see underneath the brackets to make sure they got it all cleaned up.  We have to coordinate that with the orthodontist...who I'll have to call next week.

So, by NOON, I was back home and ready to get started on some sewing.  Sheesh!

In about 90 minutes, I finished assembling the quilt top...minus a couple of borders, that will be added on soon.  It now measures 98" square, so once I put a couple borders on it, it'll be closer to 108".  As a Hobbit might say, "Bigginses."  I even considered making this two twin size quilts, but decided on one giant one instead.

No worries--I have plenty of squares to make into more 9-patches...3" squares, 4 1/2" squares and gallons of 5" squares.  In fact, I could take the 3" squares and make them into 4-patches.  These will measure 5" and I can alternate them with the 4-patches.  I'm sure I can make a few twin size quilts out of the scraps I still have lying around.

Hopefully we'll have a less adventurous weekend.  I have a 40th birthday party to attend tomorrow, but other than that, I'm not making any plans.

Memorial Days and Making Memories

It's been a week since I posted anything...hard to believe that I have so little to say!  That's not true...I have a lot to say, at least that's what my family would say.

Yeah, yeah...whatever.

I finished a few things recently.  In no particular order...but mostly reverse order...

Avelyn came over Friday to fix the roof on her yurt.  When we originally cut the fabric, we were going by the directions that were given to us by a yurt maker, but some of the numbers were off.  While I don't hold grudges for giving us erroneous information, I am disappointed that we had such a steep learning curve.  There were several times when we said, "wait a sec...that doesn't sound right."  After doing the math, we discovered where things had gone a little sideways and had to make adjustments.  The yurt roof cover was one of those things.  First the rafters were about 8" too long, then we cut them down on site and drilled new holes with a battery-powered drill at September Crown.  Then we put the cover on which was about 18" too short, allowing passers-by to peek in over the edges and see everything going on inside...like people sleeping or changing clothes.  How in the world we managed that, I have no idea.  So, long story short, we had to cut 18" wide curves to add to the edge of the yurt cover.  Hopefully we got it right...  First we sewed the curves end-to-end, and flat-felled the seams.  Then we sewed the length to the cover and began to flat-fell the seams, only to have the sewing machine give out.  The strap that runs the wheel is frayed and needs to be replaced.  The bobbin winder wasn't working, either, so I was hand-winding all the bobbins.  Let me tell you what a fun task that is....

When it's all done and the numbers are set, we're going to write a How to Make a Yurt book using hard numbers and step-by-step directions.  We won't make a million on it, but we might be able to get people to make a good, sturdy weekend home without breaking the bank or suffering the grey hairs that we did.

I haven't mentioned to Kelly that I'd like to try to make another bigger yurt...but I'd have to sell the square Regency tent to fund it, I think.  The other option is to make modifications to make ours 18' across by making longer rafters and adding a length to the khana.  I'm hoping that this will not require making a new tono.  However, it will require a new roof cover and another panel to go the rest of the way around the outside.  Experimentation may be afoot this summer....

I finally finished the weaving project that has been on the loom for the last few weeks that will probably go up for sale at July Coronation.  I didn't have a particular plan for this one, so I'm happy to let this one go.  I wanted to repeat the Baronial and Kingdom colors but on a narrower band, so I omitted a few cards on the ends.  It ended up being about 2 cm wide, and just over 4 yards long.  On Thursday, while Miss Bekah was visiting, I warped up another weave with yellow, red and white to make a weave in Ithra colors.

A quilt job for Judy that has been delivered back to its owner.  This was a fun little project and I did my favorite swirly "Dr. Seuss Feather" stitching on it.  She gave me the thread to work with, a blue King Tut spool.  It worked pretty well, but it's much heavier than I'm used to.  The yellow pieces up in the corner was the test area to get the tension set correctly.  I removed it after taking this picture.  I just couldn't find my seam ripper at the moment.

The kids had a track meet a week ago.  The younger grades, 1-3, had theirs at the school being host to three other schools for 50- and 75-yard dash, relays, and potato sack races.  Ben participated in five different races, receiving five purple "participant" ribbons.  Winning isn't everything...but at least the ribbons were purple...his favorite color.  OK, second favorite.  He had a pretty good day and was a good sport about not placing in any of the races.  He was treated with a grape shave ice afterwards.  It was a purple themed day.

The 8th grade students helped as sitters for the younger ones between races so that teachers could focus on organizing their brood for the various heats.  Mostly I think the 8th graders ate candy and snacks from the sale table.  Ben stopped to cuddle with his big sister after every race, which was good--I knew where to find him.  I was asked to keep an eye on him and help make sure he made it to his events.  I actually ended up losing him for a while when I turned my back for two minutes to talk to another parent, which resulted in 10 minutes of searching before I found him rolling down the small hill from the basketball court to the field.

Memorial Day weekend has arrived and our long weekend is sliding by too quickly.  We are mid-way through and have yet to do anything of significance.  Other than Spring cleaning my bedroom--tossing out a ton of paperwork, changing sheets, and vacuuming under and behind furniture.  There is still a bit more to do, like packing away the extra winter quilts and bagging up the donation stuff behind the door, but it looks a LOT better.

My sewing room needs the same kind of treatment and I've been pecking away at the bins of scraps, cutting them into squares of 2" up to 6" (in 1/2" increments) and bagging them up for scrap quilts.  The baggie of 2" squares is in my car along with a needle, thread and scissors and I have been piecing them while I'm waiting to pick up kids, sitting at the coffee shop before a meeting with a client, or at functions that are not for me (like the cast party for the play).

The other thing I've been working on for the past couple of weeks is scanning old photos, like this one from 2002, into the computer for a photo album for Emma.  I finished one on Shutterfly and will be giving it to her as her graduation gift, but I have many more photos than would fit into one album, and have thousands of photos from the pre-digital age that I am trying to put into a birth-to-five book.  There may be some overlap and I know I'll have to do at least one more album for high school years, which can also include all the grade school photos that won't fit into these first two albums.  I will have to do albums for Cammie and Ben in future years, also.

Getting Prepared for Celebration

Happy 4th of July!

Two days ago, I made a big haul to the grocery store (scoring a cool 39% savings at Safeway, although, admittedly, it was for Gatorade, snacks, chips, and candy for the party), then to another store to get meat for the grill, milk, frozen foods and other necessities.  Kelly sent out invites to his group of soccer fiends to join us for a July 4th BBQ and soccer night--the Sounders are playing the Galaxy in LA and it'll be televised.  I thought it would be a great pre-fireworks show!

Unfortunately, all the invitees have declined due to other plans, so I don't think anyone's coming over, so we'll be having a quiet night at home watching the game, then lighting off fireworks.  We were invited to visit friends further south, who are wonderful hosts and delightful friends, but having done it the last couple of years, we decided we didn't want to stay out that late with the kids again and fight traffic all the way home.  We'll light off the 'works that we have, eat some good tenderloin, maybe I'll pick up some 'tater salad (I've got a coupon!!  Although I'm the only one who'd eat it, so maybe not...), some lettuce salad, fruit (can't seem to keep it stocked in the house), and s'more fixins.

I got the newsletter finished for the quilt guild...yep, Helium Hands strikes again!  Actually, I was volun-told to do it.  Since I offered the services of the Pirates for the Quilt Show, they decided to return the favor and volunteer me for the newly-opened secretary position.  Not sure why, but the secretary suddenly resigned her office last month, so I was asked by my "friends" to finish out the year.  I figured it would be fine to squeeze it in among the other things I'm doing...I think...  I got the July edition done yesterday and sent it out to the membership yesterday, with the exception of two people who don't have computers.  I find that remarkable in this day and age, but one of them I spoke to about it--she said "I'm 75 years old.  I'm not going to try to learn how to use one now."  Besides a steep learning curve, there's a lot of expense with owning and managing a computer--it's almost like owning a car.  Another reason why I think it's silly to have a bank of computers at elementary schools that need constant upgrades, maintenance, virus protection, and replacing abused/broken parts (mice & keyboards).  High school...yes...but only in the library and teachers.  Elementary...no.  Most of us didn't touch a computer until high school or later and turned out just fine.  Anyway, I have Rose's address, but I don't have Carol's.  Not that I can mail it out today anyway...but tomorrow!

I've been picking away at the pile of scraps, bagging them up, and trying to clear the decks in my creative space.  Unfortunately, it seems that the more I work at it, the less clear it gets.  WTF?  I've emptied two boxes and a grocery sack full of scraps, and the stacks just keep getting higher.  I think I have to just move some stuff out of the way so I stop bruising my shins.  Probably the yarns--I'll have to figure out a storage system for that.

I also have a quilt still on the frame that needs to get finished.  I started it more than a week ago, but the organization project put a damper on the progress...but now it needs to get done.  I have about two weeks to get this one and another one or two done before the next guild meeting so I can hand these American Heroes quilts off to Susan.  I've lost count how many of these things I've done...somewhere in the teens, I think.

In the meantime, I have a couple hours to myself--Kelly took the kids to the theatre.  Emma went with two friends *alone*, but since he didn't want her to be alone in the building, he took the younger two to another movie at the same time.  Sadly, it's a 3D movie, which bugs my eyes to watch (it's an amblyopia thing), so I'm trying to get some stuff done around here.

I mean besides shootin' the schmit with Facebook friends...

K

Cut Up

As part of the sewing room reorganization project, I've been going through bins and boxes trying to consolidate and sort.  First it was folding fat quarters.  Lots of folding.  I got 12 small bins (drawers, really) folded, sorted by color or style (Civil War, 1930s, Juvenile, Christmas, R., O., Y., G., B., I., V., etc.). 

The last few days I've spent cutting all my scraps into squares.  I have something like four bins of scraps leftover from previous projects--some are just 2" strips, some are partially-used fat quarters.  Due to limited space in the Creative Space, it was just time to cut them into squares to ready them for scrap quilts.  

I've been trimming into half-inch increments from 2" to 6" and putting them into gallon ziplocks.  Anything smaller than 2" square is going into the garbage--I don't want to mess with little schnibbles.  I'm debating about squares that are bigger than 14" square--they could be good applique backgrounds, but then again...where am I going to store them?  I'm thinking anything smaller than a fat quarter will be cut into 6" squares.  

I also have a few other quilty projects to do, like some friendship blocks, a couple charity quilts, American Heroes quilts, and a Pirate round robin.  The theme for that one is "Space Pirates".  Yeah...I don't know what I'm going to do with that.  Maybe something to do with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, like applique the spaceship Heart of Gold (stolen by Zaphod Beeblebrox).  

We invited some friends over for Monday to watch the Sounders-Galaxy game and celebrate the 4th.  What are you doing?

K