I'm ready to spool around!

Lookie, lookie! I have been having a bit of fun as I fold and organize my stash and cut up old shirts for fabric. I've been cutting little 3-1/2" x 1-1/2" rectangles and 1-1/2" squares to keep next to my sewing machine as leaders and enders. I didn't count them, and I think I have more backgrounds than spool parts, but I can always cut more of either one.

Leaders and enders are a very smart thing/tip/habit that Bonnie Hunter figured out, and I'm looking forward to getting bonus blocks, maybe even quilts, just by being prepared whenever I sit down to sew, AND actually using all the thread that runs off my spools instead of tossing several inches every time I stop or start stitching.

Check out Bonnie's blog. She's so smart and has all sorts of good ideas to make your quilting time more productive, more efficient, more FUN.

Long time no talk to. That's because there has not been much to tell, just daily life and little bit of fabric folding and scrap cutting. Since finishing my DD and SIL's king sized quilt top, I have been contemplating whether to machine quilt it myself (too little experience and probably too small machines) or to send it to a long-armer (too much money right now, though I do believe they are worth the price), or rent time on a long arm and take the lesson and do it myself (same $$ as having it done, so better to go with a pro) or hand quilt it. I would love to do that, but figured there is no way it will be finished for Christmas.

And just for a chuckle, this pic shows you exactly how much thread was left on my top spool when I stitched the last stitch on the quilt top. As a matter of fact, it was no longer on the spool--it was ready to go through the first little eye hole guide on top of the machine!!

On with my tale... DD asked for the quilt based on a picture she saw on a blog a couple years ago. So, though she doesn't want to see the quilt in progress, she and I can talk about it. She says she doesn't care if it is not finished in time for Christmas, but really would like it to be hand quilted. We agreed upon a quilting design. She also measured their bed to let me know the desired measurements, so now I know how wide the borders need to be. They will get added before I can go any further.

In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out how I am going to wangle a big ol' quilt around to get it sandwiched and basted. I do not see how I could do a really good job of it if I were going to have to crawl around on it laid out on the floor. I know people do it, but it just doesn't sound like something I want to do if I can avoid it. I just know I'd end up with bubbles to work out and wonky edges, and I do not want to crawl around on the floor that long!

I discovered this video on YouTube showing a terrific method of hand basting a quilt on top of a table! It's by Sharon Schamber. It makes sense to me, and I feel like I have a better chance to get a good result.

My dining room table with both leaves in it and card table raised a couple inches by standing it on tuna cans will be just long enough for this project. Woo hoo! I have a workable plan for finishing this quilt. So I'll just keep rolling along, taking one step at a time instead of thinking and planning myself into oblivion.

Until next time!

Checking In

Hello! Checking in for Bonnie Hunter's 1 hour of needle and thread challenge for National Sewing month, which ended yesterday.

My last two posts tell it all. No hand stitching going on, but lots of sewing related stuff--completed piecing a king sized quilt (that I cannot show because it is a surprise for my daughter and son-in-law), cutting fabric strips and scraps with my new Accuquilt GO cutter, sorting and folding fabric stash, and this weekend I fixed whatever was wrong with my 1956 Singer 99K, took it apart, cleaned, oiled, and lubed so it's running like a champ, and cleaned and oiled my vintage Bernette 330. So now my entire "stable" of machines is in top running shape.

Apologies for boring post, but I'm on the run today. Can't wait to see what everyone else has to post today.

BIG Progress

I cannot show pictures because it is a gift, but I just have to mention that I just finished piecing my first king-sized quilt! I have made baby quilts and throws that might have fit a twin bed, but never one this big. I don't think I'm going to try and quilt it myself, so have to find a long-arm quilter. I cannot wait to see it quilted.

There was 14 inches of thread left on the spool when I stitched the last stitch!

Progress

Fifty minutes of hand stitching last week and zero this week, so my total for the month so far—there are still a couple days left!—is about 12.25 hours. Guess I’m not the best participant in Bonnie Hunter's hand-stitching challenge for National Sewing month—but at least I DID participate. And I am late in posting my progress, but I AM posting.

Okay--I fell off the wagon for hand stitching, but I have been sewing. And cutting. And folding. My fabric has not been neglected.

I worked on my ongoing project of organizing my fabric stash. In my old condo I had a room dedicated to craft crap where fabric piles grew, teetered, got moved and re-piled, and I could just shut the door and leave things as they were. Although I also have a dedicated room here in our new home, I don’t want to close the door. The room  has a nice, big window, and the room is at the end of the hall; if I close the door, the hallway will be pretty dark.

So I have been washing, folding, and organizing fabric. I’ve accomplished a good bit in the last couple weeks. I love being able to see what I’ve really got, and that will make planning quilts a bit easier.

The best thing I did this week was to start assembling the blocks for my daughter and son-in-law’s king-sized bed quilt, based on a picture of a quilt DD saw online that she really liked. Of course, the focus fabric was discontinued a while ago, so I kept my eye out for something similar and began collecting fabrics to coordinate with it. I've finally got it all together and decided on a pattern. It won’t take long to get the top assembled, then I think I will send it out for quilting. They should have it by Christmastime.

I’ve also started using Bonnie Hunter's scrap users' system. I sound a little like a Bonnie groupie, but really, she gets so much done in the course of a day, and you can see how much fun she’s having all the while. She makes me feel like I really could finish something, too, if I just do a little each day. I know her leaders and enders method will be fun to do and help me get quilts built more often than I thought I could.

Due to very lucky timing, I got a very good deal on a new Accuquilt GO cutter on Craigslist last weekend. So fabric is getting cut for future scrap quilts.

Okay, got to get busy doing something—lots of things on my list!

I Am the Journey

Today Bonnie Hunter shared a phrase she kept seeing on the bottom of a travel poster in her hotel on a recent trip to Bali--You Are the Journey. As she said, the journey doesn't happen without you, so really, you are the journey.

It reminds me of a similar quote that I read back in high school--something like, "It's the journey that counts, not the destination." You know, take time to smell the roses, go with the flow.

When I took knitting lessons a couple years ago, when I had to "un-knit" mistakes, my teacher would always volunteer to remove the offending stitches for me. Mistakes were usually discovered many rows after they happened, and most students were dismayed at the thought of all the time lost undoing and redoing the stitches. They were always surprised when I happily did the "un-knitting" and re-knitting myself.To me, it was all part of the fun of handling the yarn and manipulating it and watching what it would do--all part of the journey I was enjoying.

The same applies to my quilting. Who likes to rip seams, remove stitches to separate parts painstakingly stitched together. It seems like you are not moving forward at the point, just losing time, but really it's a chance to let your mind wander a bit while you do something a bit less technical, a chance for your subconscious to review the plan for the quilt or mentally practice how to make it go right the next time you stitch, imagine the colors you chose all together. And really, it's all fun with yarn and needles, or fabric, thread, needle and machine.

It's too bad we usually seem to have deadlines so that we cannot just let it be about the journey/process. If I just had a succession of finished quilts, well I don't see that as fun--why not just buy them? I like thinking about the possibilities with this one fabric or color. I like thinking about the possibilities with this one block or layout. I like the actual measuring, cutting, aligning and stitching and watching it evolve. That I end up with a beautiful, useful quilt at the end is a bonus. All the time that brought me to that finished quilt--that's the part I like, the entire journey.

I AM THE JOURNEY.

Now if I could just apply more of that zen coolness into the rest of my life......

More Hand Stitching

Here we are in week 2 of Bonnie Hunter's challenge to us to do one hour a day of hand stitching on something, anything, as long as it involves a needle and thread in your hands, in honor of September being National Sewing month, and just in general her tendency to kind of kick us all into gear. Although I didn't do one hour each day this week, I did do enough when I stitched to get in 7.25 hours, so goal met!! Woo Hoo!! Here is the section of the little Christmas table runner I'm working on.

I started this table runner about seven years ago, I think, shortly after I started quilting. I had taken a three or four evening class during which I hand pieced an Ohio star, but I never quilted it--it languishes in my orphan block stash. But it did give me confidence to tackle more quilting. I found a pattern for a Friendship Star block and designed my little table runner.

In pulling together fabric for this project, I quickly discovered that a bit of yellow really sparks up a quilt no matter what other colors are in it. I used a golden shade in this block, you might even call it brown, but it is more yellow than red, so it works.

Thank you, Bonnie, for making me think about my quilting more often, so I will pick it up even if it's just for a few minutes instead leaving so much in the UFO piles. This little runner might even get to grace somebody's table this year!

Check out Bonnie's blog post for this week and scroll to the bottom to check out the links to other people who are meeting this hand quilting challenge. There are some wonderful projects being worked on, and it's fun.