Archive for the 'Quilting' Category
August 26th, 2010 - Falling Behind
Yup, that’s me. Falling behind with all these block of the month kits. Never again! Oh you’ve heard that before.
I made these 5 already this week. This is a series of wallhangings from Patchabilities. Once again, I like the pictures on the patterns but not all the fabric in the kits put together from the lqs. I know that’s the way it is with these things but I must say they look great in the photo. Two more to go and I’m caught up on this BOM.
When I’m done the wall hangings, I can start on this BOM. It’s all applique and I need to figure out which method I’m going to do, hand or machine? Hmmmm….. big decision. I love the look of hand applique but I love the speed of machine applique. Maybe I’ll wait another month, it’s been 7 already. What made me get this BOM was the quilting on the sample in the lqs. It is stunning! The cost of the quilting will be another story.
Or maybe I can work on a few of these. I started them a couple of weeks ago. I’ve only had this BOM for 8 years so once again what’s another few days, weeks or months or years. This quilt is just beautiful. it’s made to be a wall hanging and I really don’t have the wall for it. Maybe this is why I haven’t worked on it.
And then when I get that all done, I can work on this BOM. This is the giant Civil War quilt. Some of the monthly kits have 4 blocks in them or more. Yikes! Who has that kind of time? And besides I don’t even like this kind of stuff. What ever got in to me? I think I need to get my head examined! Oh well, someone is going to get a really old looking quilt, not because it’s supposed to be old but because it will take me that long to do it. This is not the colours I like so it will be a challenge to get it done.
More later.
Mary-Kay
August 25th, 2010 - Another Give Away
….but not from me. It seems that there are a lot of Go Cutters to be given away. Here’s the link to another one.
http://alamodefabric.blogspot.com/2010/08/give-way-time.html
Good luck but you’re not going to win. I am!
Mary-Kay
August 24th, 2010 -
Check out this blog http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.com/2010/08/its-go-time-good-luck.html and you could win a Go Cutter. I’d love to own one. Someday…….
August 5th, 2010 - And The Winner Is….
I drew a name today for the Selvage Edges.
There were only 3 entries which was okay by me.
And the winner was Melinda of melinful.blogspot.com. Send me your address and I’ll mail you out some selvages. I hope you enjoy the edges and make something really fantastic.
Have a great day
Mary-Kay
August 2nd, 2010 - Just Another Monday
That I have off. Yeah, holidays are great. Stay up and sew all night long. Or at least until 4am. And then I got up at 10am for breakfast with some of my family and then I sewed some more.
I made this Crumb quilt from the leftovers from a Strips and Curves quilt. Actually I made 2 quilts from the fabric required for one quilt. And then I made this from the scraps. I sewed the scraps from the stratas together and cut 5.5″ squares from it. In this photo, it looks pretty wrinkly but it isn’t. Don’t know how that happened.
All the other strips were used in the borders. I added 5 borders to make it big enough to be useful. I still love this colour combination. And I still have fabric for the binding and more leftovers too. When I was adding the 3rd or 4th border, I thought that I should have made a piano key border but I wasn’t reverse sewing what I had alreadysewn on.
I was just outside spraying the weeds on the patio. I had some weed killer and when that was done, I used straight up vinegar. Time to experiment. I’ll have to see what works the fastest and I hope it’s the vinegar. It’s so much cheaper than weed killer and less toxic to the environment and me.
Have a great day. Don’t let the heat and humidity get you down. Stay hydrated too! Especially Liz. Hi!
Mary-Kay
PS Remember the “Selvage Edge” draw on Wed. Check here http://mk.luckydot.org/2010/08/02/1061/ and leave a comment to be entered in the draw. My friend added to the selvage pile so now there’s even more.
July 30th, 2010 - Selvage Edges
Hey, leave me a comment by midnight Wed Aug 4 2010 and you could win this basket of selvage edges. I was going to make something but I’d much rather give it away. The next giveaway will be half-square triangles and lots of them. Check back soon!
Mary-Kay
July 29th, 2010 - How Long Does Fabric Need To Age?
I always complain about Brett buying stuff to complete a project and then never completing the project. In fact, never even starting the project. For example, he bought some paint for touching up something last summer. He left the paint in the garage over the winter and now it’s not usable so he has to go buy more. At least with fabric, we can leave it a few years and as long as it’s in a somewhat controlled environment, we can go back and use this fabric. I bought this row of the month kit, starting Aug 7 2002. I still had the bill in the bag. This fabric has been aged to perfection. Lucky for me, it’s not really a trendy fabric quilt. 
Here’s 2 rows I sewed up so far this week. They were the easiest parts. My friend, Betty, bought the same kit. We decided a few months ago that we should start working on this and start with the checkered row. She’s had hers done for a while and I just decided to do mine Monday night. And then I just went on to the hst row. I think the next row could be log cabins or maybe the dreaded flying geese. I don’t know if I have the right cuts of fabric to use a better method for the geese. I’ll have to check out the instructions …. more like I need to find the instructions. I’ll go do that right now.
See you all later.
July 25th, 2010 - The Stash
Yep, it’s growing again. But I did make a dent in it. I finished 3 quilt tops and have the backing cut for 2 of them. I sewed last night or should I say this morning until 4 AM. I was on a mission.
First I cleaned my sewing room and then finished up a BOM that’s been sitting around here for awhile. The outside border was a pain in the *%# to make. The instructions stated that there was a 22″ piece for the side borders, I think it was about 86″ long. It’s a directional print. And there’s a meter of fabric(39″) for the top and bottom borders. Nowhere does it say how wide to cut the fabric but that there was enough fabric for mitered corners. You think with the 22″, you could get a 10″ border. Lucky for me, I did the math first before I started cutting. So instead of the 10″ border thought I was going to get, I ended up with a 9.5″ one. With 39″ of fabric you can’t cut 4-10″ pieces to fit the width of this quilt. I think I was supposed to know all this by osmosis or something llike that. Very poor finishing instructions.
I made this little quilt up this week. I was at my niece’s 2nd birthday party last weekend and she had a ladybug theme. It was really cute and I forgot my camera, so no pictures. Anyway she has some motor skill issues due to birthing complications and I thought she needs a red, black and white ladybug quilt for on the floor. The white with black dots reads yellow outside. Oh well, I’m not taking it apart for that and if it’s never outside, no one will notice. All that’s left to do is the quilting. I’m hoping to quilt it on my new machine which I need to pick up soon.
I also finished up this quilt. The wonderful X-block quilt. I’m sick of it already. Matching those angled pieces is a real pain. Nowhere in the instructions does it say to match them up but I did it and it looks great. The border is the leftover pieces from when you cut the 9-patch blocks. Seeing this quilt all spread out, the rust fabric sticks out the most. Once again, all it needs is quilting.
And now for my stash report.
Fabric added this week: 19.47 yds…….big sale on some batiks 30% off so I had to buy some and I already cut up 4.5 yds of it for a project.
Fabric added YTD: 125.65 yds
Fabric used this week: 16.97 yds
Fabric used YTD: 135.35 yds
Net fabric busted: 9.7 yds
I hope to still have the sewing bug this week. My vacation is over, I did a lot of things and now it’s time to return to work. Hopefully the weather doesn’t suck as much as it did this week. No humidity is what I would like and maybe 80 degrees at the most with a nice breeze. Whoever’s in control of the weather, are you listening?
Have a great week!
Mary-Kay
July 18th, 2010 - Stash Report Week #29
Listen up, surprising news! I actually sewed something this week. Wonders never cease. I put together the X block main blocks and added 2 borders. Not that much fabric used as the outside border was parts from the main blocks. It’s ready to be quilted. Then last night I sewed the binding on a string quilt but have yet to do the hand sewing part. That will be one of this week’s jobs. I also cut out a new quilt for my great-niece. I went to her 2nd birthday party and it had a lady bug theme and I thought why not make her a lady bug quilt. So when I got home from the party I started cutting it out but haven’t managed to get any of it sewn together. I’ll be working on that this week too. Now if I could only stay out of the fabric stores I’d be making some progress on busting this stash. I bought a few yards of batiks for a project my sister and I want to do together. Too bad that she has my book where all the fabric requirements are listed. I think we finally have enough different batiks to get the variety needed to do this quilt. All I need is the background fabric and I’m all set to go. And now for some stash news.
Fabric added this week: 6.5 yds
Fabric added YTD: 106.18 yds
Fabric used this week: 3.75 yds
Fabric used YTD: 118.38 yds
Net fabric busted: 12.2 yds
Well I’m off. I hope everyone has a great week.
Mary-Kay
June 20th, 2010 - Stash Report Week #25
Did you know that next week is the halfway point for our stash busting? Where did these last 6 months go? Holy mackerel!! Gone!!! Well at least I finally did some quilting this past week. I made an entire comfort quilt, front and back. It’s ready to be sandwiched together and quilted. Hard to believe I go from doing nothing in several weeks and then make a whole quilt in a matter of days. Must be hormonal or something! Anyway, here’s my report and it’s looking good.
Fabric added this week: 0 yds
Fabric added YTD:85.35 yds
Fabric used this week: 7.88 yds
Fabric used YTD: 114.63 yds
Net fabric busted: 29.28 yds
I almost bought some fabric on-line. Well actually I did buy some but then I went back over what I was planning on doing and had enough fabric (3″ to spare) so I cancelled my order. Lucky for me, the store hadn’t cut it yet. Whew, that was close! I plan on doing a bit more sewing this week. I have a few BOM’s that need to be completed and a few that I haven’t even started. If I did one block a week, that would be a start. At least I have some kind of plan but you never know when life gets in the way. This week I have to go for the dreaded colonoscopy, so I know I won’t be sewing for at least one day, but I can sew the day before the prep. I hope! I’ll be really hungry and I had better keep busy until I have to take that awful stuff. Yuck! The one good thing is, I’ll be a few pounds lighter. I’m so full of it you know!
Have a great day!
Mary-Kay