What are they?

You would not believe how many people thought they were Stormtroopers when we went trick or treating downtown Friday. I'm not even sure exactly what Stormtroopers look like, but I'm pretty sure they don't look like this!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Grandma's Donuts

Scrappy antique quilts make my heart go pitty pat, especially the ones with circles. Until I started quilting myself, if I heard the word "quilt," my brain went instantly to great grandma's hand pieced double wedding rings.

One of my quilty weaknesses is old quilt magazines with vague patterns. No careful instructions and illustrations for each step, just a template and a brief bit of instruction to piece the circles and then applique them.

I bookmark hundreds of patterns, promising myself I'll make them someday. This would've been one of those probably-never-to-be-made patterns, except the wedge template looked so small I thought it'd be a great way to use up some strings that were a bit wider than I wanted.

Tracing and cutting the six hundred and forty wedges was not a quick and easy project. Neither was turning under the edges of the circles and pinning themselves into place before appliqueing them down. I thoroughly melted the no-melt mylar template I made to keep them round (and singed my fingertips) before deciding to just eyeball it.

If any of my quilts survive to wind up in an antique shop someday, I kinda hope this is one of them!

what I want

I really want to sew. I really don't really want to fight my machine. I definitely don't want to take the machine into the dealer for the third time in seven months.

I don't think I'm going to get what I want, at least not as far as my sewing machine is concerned. Other things, thank goodness, are going much more smoothly.

No quilting yesterday because we had a bunch to get done, but I did finish these two on Tuesday night.




It surprises me how much I love the first one, since it started out as an attempt to use up a couple of star fabrics from one of the scrap bags. Actually it started with the princess print, but that one isn't ready to show off yet.

I adjusted the measurements to make a smaller version of the Quick Strippie and added another star print I'd picked up at that guild sale last weekend. Alex told me the princess top needed some applique and since I had to cut up some yellow fabric for that, the star quilt got a moon. Which was so soft and wonderful I used the same yellow flannel for the binding.

Did I mention that I really like this little quilt?



Finish #6 is actually one of the first baby tops I made. The fabric I wanted to use as a backing was a couple of inches too small, so it sat forever, waiting for me to find some blue fabric and piece the back. I wound up using a different flannel print that was actually big enough.

Blogger's Quilt Festival starts tomorrow and I know exactly which quilt I want to gush about. Picked yours yet?

don't tell my Janome!

I've been thinking of trying the ten baby quilts in ten days thing again -- and I'm actually on day three with four quilts finished already -- but the Janome seems to know that I'm trying to accomplish something and I have to wind four or five bobbins for every one that will give me decent tension. Not to mention that I've only got two spools of white thread left and all of this winding and rewinding and stopping and ripping is wasting a ton of thread.

I'm determined not to let me sewing machine dictate when I can and can't quilt, not when there are so many other things doing that already.

#3 is one of the tops that was left over from my last attempt at ten in ten days.



and #4 is a totally new quilt, made from some pre-cut squares I found in one of the scrap bags. I thought I had a big stack of little two inch squares, but they'd been carefully folded down and pressed into shape from these bigger ones. I still can't figure out what they were supposed to be, but they make a cute little quilt, especially backed with a blue and white flannel I got at a yard sale a few weeks back.

It's not the kind of quilt I usually make, but it'll do the job.



And I've got a start on a couple of new ones --

Oh, I don't know!

All week long, I've been composing posts in my head, then not having the chance to type them out before something else happens and I've got something else to blog about.

The local quilt guild (which I haven't managed to join yet because there's the noisy horde of boys to dump on someone first) had their yard sale on Saturday. I wanted desperately to go, but wasn't sure I'd be able to slip out of the house since it was my husband's day off, or even if it was worth trying to go.

I've read all about these great bargains quilters find at those sales, but it didn't make any sense. If there really was such cheap and wonderful fabric to be had, wouldn't it all be gone the second the first two quilters walked by?

Saturday morning dawned and no one seemed to have any plans, so I whispered to my sleeping husband that I was taking off with the kids and would be back soon.

It was so completely worth taking four kids with me. The oldest boy spent his money on scrap bags for his grandma's Christmas present. The two littlest boys asked if they could sit on a chair by the wall and stayed there while I browsed to my heart's content. And the girl found a bunch of old screw back earrings for twenty-five cents a pair.

There really was great stuff to be had --- I spent ten bucks and got a plastic grocery bag bulging with fabric (and nine pairs of vintage earrings for the girl.) And I think I might understand a bit better how that's possible. Most of what I was drooling over were older prints, and most of it wasn't "quilt shop quality," a phrase which grates on my nerves, but some other people seem to think is really really important.

Some of the fabric is for my current projects and some is for the baby quilts and some is just because it was red or blue and there are never enough red or blue scraps for all of the controlled scrappy quilts I want to make. If there'd been green and yellow, that would've come home with me too.

---- please pretend there's an intelligent sounding transition here ----

There haven't been any new baby quilts since I emptied the ladder a few weeks back and took them all to the group I make the quilts for. Until the last batch, I always kept a couple here at the house in case I had a sudden unexpected need for a baby quilt.

Should've known that as soon as I got rid of them all I'd need one! And then the power would go out so I couldn't get one done quickly enough.

I need a new batch of baby quilts. I'd hoped to finish fifty this year (once I convinced myself that a hundred was a ridiculous goal), but things happened....and the sewing machine broke...and I got frustrated and maybe a bit lazy....

It would only take eighteen more quilts by the end of the year to reach my goal...and some of the tops are already done, left over from my ten baby quilts in ten days attempt.

So yesterday I bound new baby quilts #1 and #2. And tonight I'm hoping to finish quilting and binding #3.

I'm getting tense

A few weeks back, I was consoling myself with promises of how much easier it'd be once I got the Janome back and it was working right. I'd be able to finish my big quilts and catch up on my goals for the baby quilts...

And now I'm having tension problems. Hopefully I can sort them out without sending the machine off for another couple of weeks.



What do you do when the machine starts acting up in the middle of a quilt? I know there are some glitches in Grandma's Donuts due to the stopping and ripping out bad patches and starting again. Just like there are problems with the baby quilt I was doing the last time the machine threw a tantrum.

Let's combine the impossibilities!

Pickle Dish is one of my favorite old quilt patterns. I started out loving Double Wedding Rings, but that was before I'd seen Pickle Dish, which has spikes and points and looks so much more challenging.

It's on my list of quilts to make when I develop the necessary set of skills. So is a clamshell quilt, although what I think what I'm going to need for that one is patience and faith. Both quilts are far in my future.

Then I saw Barbara Brackman's post about Clamshell Pickles, which combine two blocks I'm incapable of piecing but suddenly really desperately want. Check out the scrappy 30's quilt -- that's the one I need in my own life. There's a pattern, but I'm resisting temptation and not buying new things. And I've got enough trouble with the printer without asking it to print on fabric.

I'd already been tempted by the Pickle Dish QAL at Comfort Stitching. The little arcs are cut free hand, so I'm thinking I could use up some strings and little scraps.

Getting closer to reality, this post at Crazy Mom Quilts led me to Scrap Vomit, which is absolutely my next new project. I've been wanting to make a postage stamp quilt, but wanted some kind of neat pattern to go with it. This is my answer to that problem, now the next question is whether to use the 2 1/2" blocks the QAL calls for or the smaller ones, which were my original plan.

She says the original pattern that inspired hers called for 1 3/4" blocks. Not a size I use, so I'm debating between 1 1/2" and 2"...

Stop!

If things could just stop happening for a few minutes, I'd be a very happy lady. I expected to slip happily back into our normal routine after this last trip (yes, another one!)

Not a chance.

It has been one thing, after another, after another. And while none of the things are permanent or as horrible as they could have been, it's enough to keep me constantly on edge.

I was almost afraid to set a goal for last week, since I only had a day and a half to accomplish it in, but I did manage to get a baby top quilted and the binding almost done. Would've had it finished in time for my niece's Christening, but the power went out and I lost my window of opportunity. Not to mention the half cooked dinner I'd been anticipating all day long.

I also got Grandma's Donuts pin basted. This week's goal is to get it quilted. I'm not sure I'll be able to carve out enough time, since my plan is a very tight meander, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

Found it!

I do know where some of my stuff is! Despite my fears that I (or my sometimes over helpful teenager) might've moved it, that Bento Box backing was still exactly where I left it when I brought it home from Joann's last summer. Under a lot of other things that had been deposited in the sewing room since then, but at least I knew exactly where to look.

Now I've just got to find the 30s top and my copy of Scrap Basket Surprises. And I have no clue where either of those has gotten to.



For the past couple of months, I've been curling up in my corner of the couch and knitting baby hats. I started with some partial skeins from my own stash and a bag of partial skeins I picked up at the thrift store for seventy five cents and I've kept at it until most of the softest fuzziest stuff is gone.

Somewhere along the line it occurred to me that instead of whipping through two or three hats an evening, I should maybe work up a gauge swatch and cast on something just slightly more ambitious. So I brought a skein of pretty yarn in from the sewing room and started looking for a pattern.

There aren't a lot of choices for 95 yards of hand wash only worsted weight cotton/wool blend. I don't have an Ipod that needs a cozy, don't drink coffee from a cup that would need a cozy, and I don't want a cozy for my camera.... So I wound up making a pair of Easy Waffle Stitch Fingerless Gloves. I left out a couple of stockinette rows and only had about eighteen inches of yarn left when I finished the pair.

Please excuse the less than wonderful picture -- it's hard to get a good shot of your own hand!

I am going to work on this. All of it. Soon.

Bit by bit, I'm working on my lists.

Five big tops need quilting. I'd like to have them all quilted by the end of the year, which I think works out to one every eighteen days. Do-able. At least until I add the other to-do lists.

There's the Irish Chain, which I had all pin basted before I veered off course.

There's Grandma's Donuts, which I should be able to get pin based once I settle on backing and batting and find some time.

There's the scrappy cat quilt, which needs the long arm and actual scheduling.

And then there are the two problem quilts.

The 30s repro top has been tucked away in a safe place since I finished it and decided that I hated it. Now that I've figured out how to finish the jagged edge, I think I'm ready to meander it. And even though I've looked, I can't figure out where that safe place was.

And there's my Bento Box, which has spent months folded neatly on my quilt ladder, waiting for me to work up the nerve to quilt it. I've finally got the nerve, and I'm hoping the backing is still where I remember leaving it.

I've got baby tops, five I think, that piled up while my Janome and shoulders were out of commission. And I've got a list of eight new baby tops I want to start.

The are three UFOs I'd like to make some progress on -- By the Lake, the scrappy one with 2" squares, and North Pacific. Either I'm forgetting several, or I've really been behaving myself when it comes to starting new quilts!

And I've got quilts I want to start. The green one for Quinn, which I'm thinking will be a Bargello. And a pink and green one for me that I've been collecting fabric for. The spiraly one from Scrap Basket Surprises. And Ric Rac Nines from Bonnie's new book.

I am going to work on this. All of it. Soon.

this week's goals

The weekly goals are still working for me. I got the last of the Courthouse Steps binding sewn down Friday night, but only because I'd posted the goal here and really didn't want to admit that I'd been too lazy to actually do it.

Now my goal is to organize my projects and figure out what I was doing before things fell apart on me. It would be nice if I could actually find the projects, but I'm not making that part of the actual goal.

Among the definitely missing are my 30s quilt top, the backing for my Bento Box, a bag of green scraps, and my copy of Scrap Basket Surprises. Which have been missing since long before the whole car/Janome/knee catastrophe. I don't know what all I've manged to misplace over the past four months.

Together!

The top is together and not a minute too soon! Now that it's more than a stack of uneven blocks, I have more faith that it'll all work out in the end. I've got a couple of backing fabrics to choose between, then it's on to the quilting. On my Janome, because there's no way I'm trying to square this up for the longarm. Thin batting because the top alone is heavy.

This is the type of quilt that makes my heart go pitty-pat. A single page of extremely vague instructions and lots and lots of scraps. I didn't cut more than eight wedges of any single print, so there are more than eighty different fabrics here.

headed for disaster

My own personal train wreck is getting closer and closer.

These donut blocks are not square. Or the same size. They aren't flat either. I've known this for weeks, but now it's time to actually actually get it together and stippled to within an inch of its life.

My goal was to see if I could actually trace and cut 640 little wedges and get them together into a pretty utility quilt. I'm soooo close to pulling it off. I should've had the top together months ago. I'm tired of waiting.

Wish me luck!

What sound does a unicorn make?

My littlest boy was drawing pictures this morning. He'd draw something, show it to me and either proudly tell me what it was or why it had gone wrong and that he needed another sheet of paper. When he got to the unicorn at the end of the rainbow, I asked him what sound unicorns make.

You know that Mom-is-so-stupid look that your children will give you when you ask them something obvious?

"Unicorns go BING when they're fighting with their spiky things."

Silly me, I thought unicorns probably sounded something like horses.

I'm obviously not the creative one around here anymore. It's starting to scare me just a little.

By the skin of my teeth, I managed to accomplish my goal for the week and get the last of the Grandma's Donuts blocks appliqued. I could've had them done much earlier, but I'm still spending my free time curled up in the corner of the couch knitting hats and booties. The only reason I got them finished at all was so that I post that I met my goal instead of posting that I'd spent the week avoiding it.

Next week's goal is to get the blocks squared and assembled into a top. And to get the binding for my courthouse steps quilt sewn down.

I'm jealous!

Today was one of those days that you know well in advance is going to be a total mess. Two doctor's appointments, four hours apart and in two different cities, with four kids in tow. Under the best of circumstances, I dread the doctor's office. Too many bad things tend to happen there, especially when I'm not expecting them.

Because we were going to be out and about anyway, I checked Yardsale Treasure Map for fabric and yarn. I'm always intrigued by the ads that start "Estate of ---- " Is that a new thing, or just something they do down here? Is it advertised that way so that someone who's always envied her china or furniture can swoop in and buy it now that she's dead?

Edna G's estate was a treasure trove and they were trying to sell absolutely everything. I thought I'd seen it all, but today was the first time I've seen home canned peaches and other unidentifiable fruit priced for sale.

My first thought was "Who would be crazy enough to buy food preserved by a complete stranger at some unknown date?" But then I decided that it was soooo cheap and those peaches were so pretty I could see someone buying it to use as decoration on a kitchen shelf.

I bought myself a three dollar apron --



Who could leave those smiling flowers behind? And it's cut wide enough to actually fit me well!

I also found a fantastic overnight bag for a buck.



I've got a strong feeling that my father's mother had one just like it. Now I'm wondering if she actually did have one that I saw as a child, or it's just from her time period.

I also brought home some vintage sheets and slips for a dollar each and I'm sure I walked past quite a few other things that I should've picked up, but that house was soooo crowded with people who had no intention of letting anyone slip past them into other rooms.

I thought I'd done well, until Mom called to see if by any chance I was anywhere near Bend. Because Joann's is going out of business (they've got a new location across town) and all of their Keepsake Calico and quilting fabric was 90% off of already reduced prices.

I'm SO jealous! Not that I don't have fabric of my own, but sixty cents a yard for brand new fabric right off the bolt?! If I didn't have a husband to explain things to, we would've been in the car driving the hundred plus miles to see what was left.

Do you keep spares?

Just in case you haven't tried it yourself, throwing your rotary cutter against the table so hard it ricochets up and across the room will not make the damn thing work any better.

I've got a bit of time to sew, I've got my machine back and working properly, I actually brought new blades for the rotary cutter home with me, and now the cutter won't stay together. And I can't find the other one and I really don't want to use the itty bitty one.

Is there some nasty evil conspiracy to keep me from quilting? I'm not quite desperate enough to drive thirty miles round trip in hopes that Walmart sells them, but it does make me miss living within five miles of Joann's and Hancocks and Michaels and Craft Warehouse and two yarn shops. That's absolutely the only thing I could possibly miss about the old place!

Because everything is so far away, I try to make sure I've always got pins and batting and extra machine needles and thread. And I almost bought another rotary cutter a couple of months back because it was on sale and had pretty vines on the handle. But I convinced myself that I didn't need it.

Stupid no-buy!

Do you make sure to always keep certain notions and supplies in the house?

Because my sewing has gone by the wayside lately, I'm setting a weekly challenge for myself. Nothing as ambitious as the ten baby quilts in ten days plan, just reasonable goals to finish (or start) things I haven't been getting to.

Last week's goal, which I never got around to posting about, was to see how many hats and booties I could knit from my yarn bag by the couch. I haven't counted yet, but I got quite a few done before a headache laid me low for two days.

This week, the plan is to get the last twenty-nine Grandma's Donuts blocks appliqued. I'd like to get the top assembled, but squaring up the blocks is going to require a decent rotary cutter.

Again?!

Last year, when I was waiting for our homeschool curriculum to arrive in the mail, all that was delivered was a paper label with my address on it. The books themselves never did show up, but we finally got a refund (thanks to ebay's resolution center) and found another set to buy a couple of months later.

The year before that, we splurged on new books direct from the publisher. Which Fed Ex couldn't quite manage to deliver, so I had to drive a hundred miles round trip to pick them up from Fed Ex myself.

This year's package was sent insured and with tracking and I've been obsessively checking the USPS site to because I'm getting a bit paranoid about this whole thing. Yarn....fabric... nothing else I order through the mail goes missing. Just our schoolbooks.

I shouldn't have been at all surprised when I checked the tracking page and saw that that this year's books were delivered to the post office box we closed three months ago. (But I would like to know how that happened when I changed my address with paypal and ebay before even bidding on the items.) After a frantic call to the old post office, we were in the car and on the way to get our books.

They would've saved them until our regular errand day, or forwarded them down here for another twenty dollar charge, but I wasn't giving that box any chances to go farther astray than it already had.

Now they're safely in my living room and I can breathe again. Alex has sorted through them, read the descriptions, and decided that this is the best core so far. I haven't even looked except for making sure that they're in decent enough shape.

The cute little bookmarks are at the top of the post are free printables from Wild Olive, available here and here. Because who can resist smiling bacon or a smiling pickle? I didn't have any magnetic tape (and this whole working-from-my-stash thing keeps me from buying any), so I cut them out and ran them through the laminator I got at Costco a few weeks ago. The boys love them, so I think I'm going to need to make a second batch of these!

things that make my heart go pitty-pat

Someday, I would love to tackle the applique patterns at Bee in my Bonnet. I just need to learn to do better applique and save my pennies. And make up my mind which of her patterns I love the most. I thought I had the decision down to either Grandma's Kitchen or Woman's Work, but now she's got a new one, Paper Dolls, that I might love just as much --



Aren't all of those little details fantastic? The mixer...and the suitcase...and the marshmallow roasting stick...and the umbrella...

To celebrate the release of the pattern, she's having a giveaway. Which I've entered, because I really would love to have one of those patterns, even if it's just to look at and dream about until I'm ready to actually tackle it.

More realistically (slightly), I'd like to find some small pumpkins and paint houses on them to do something like this for our fireplace mantel. Because if I had a tall skinny bookshelf it would be too full of schoolbooks to make the tree.

And I'd like to get a Skillbuilder Quilt Panel like the one that Angie at Timber Hill Threads just finished. I almost bought one last summer, but the shop only had one left and my mother got to it first.

Now that I'm actually doing more machine quilting, I think I could learn a lot from one of those. Or something like it. I know there's a sampler pattern in one of the quilting books I keep checking out from the library.

There's a great post over on Indietutes about doing it all at once, five minutes at a time. That's exactly how I need to be doing things this week.

I Hate Math

Can't say it within earshot of my kids, so I'm gonna say it here. I hate math!

Not so much that I won't draft a quilt block or calculate how to change a sweater pattern enough to match whatever gauge I'm getting, but teaching my four kids may be the end of me. Especially when the only answers to "When am I going to need this?" are "To pass a standardized test" or "When you're homeschooling your own kids and teaching them so they can pass a standardized test."

The back-to-school thing has hit me like a ton of bricks this year. Usually, we do school all year and, except for great sales on paper and crayons, September isn't anything special. But with my knee and the related chaos, we took the summer off this year -- and then didn't even get to enjoy the long vacation.

I will not do that again.

I've almost, but not quite, convinced myself that getting the two older kids through their schoolwork every day counts as enough of an accomplishment and I don't need to feel any not-quilting guilt.

But I really want to sit down at the sewing machine. Just as soon as my headache fades a little more and I get a few more minutes of sleep.

This quilt, which we saw at an Oregon Trail information center on the way back from the trip, has me all inspired --



Part of me wants to make a big reproduction to snuggle up in, and part of me wants to use those hollow sawtooth stars to make another scrappy little sawtooth chain.

And part of me wants to start another Bullseye quilt because I can't have this one --



I don't buy a lot of quilts, because I always convince myself that it's like buying a puzzle someone else has already finished and then sealed with that protective glue stuff. I'd rather buy the fabric and have the fun myself.

But this quilt screamed at me to snuggle up in it. I think I might've wrapped it around my shoulders for just a moment even though Grandma had bought it in a box at the auction and I wasn't sure where it had been. The backing was a soft yellow floral, and the quilting was this fantastic micro-stipple with a spiral inside the circles... The only thing I would've done differently was to leave off those borders. I don't do borders.

Grandma wasn't home (but I had specific permission to go dig out those quilts and take a look while Bill and the kids were visiting Grandpa), so I didn't get a chance to ask her what she planned to do with the quilt until after our trip.

And by then Mom had seen it and now it's Mom's quilt.

It's not like I can't make my own. Or like I hadn't already actually started my own two years ago. Wonder what the odds of finding those blocks are...

Probably better to start a new one. And I've even found a pattern.

and I still haven't quilted

The sewing machine is back in its spot, the table is clear except for a stack of school books at the far end, most of the things on my to-do list that could be done today are done....

And I'm not quilting because I'm suddenly annoyed by the mess that piled up while my sewing machine was gone. And in the two months before that when I wasn't sewing.

The big mystery is why I'm suddenly so unable to work in my usual clutter. I blame the cold I've been fighting and lingering exhaustion from the trip. Seriously, how many full nights of sleep does it take to catch up?

I did try out the machine for a few minutes yesterday, just long enough to verify that I could've quilted something real today. I did some of the practice work from the Free Motion Quilt Along. And then tried one of the loopy flowers from Oh Fransson that I found and fell in love with while the machine was gone.



I did get all of my baby hat yarn together in the pomegranate bag I finally bought with the groceries after months of wanting one. Two new little projects are cast on so I won't have to count before I knit, and the three patterns I'm using are laminated on one big sheet so maybe they'll be a bit harder to lose.



On the way home from the trip, we stopped at a junk store to window shop and stretch our legs. Before we even got out of the car, DH pointed out that we didn't have room in the car to bring anything home. Not a problem, since we rarely buy anything at those places anyway.

But then he found me a sewing machine, an old singer with a neat case and fancy decals buried under a heavy layer of dirt. I couldn't tell how much TLC it would take to get it sewing again, but now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't have resisted so hard. He's never bought me a sewing machine before.

He did buy me this thing, which I found and fell in love with.



The original price tag on the bottom confirms that it's definitely not old, but I like the way it looks and think it'll be good for stuffing notions into. One drawer is already stuffed with my new stash of rick rack and another is crammed tight with the fifty-one zippers I brought home from a yard sale before the trip.

The woman seemed absolutely shocked that I wanted all of them, but at five for a quarter, I wasn't going to stand there and carefully pick and choose. She didn't want to count them either, so I got all fifty-one for two dollars.

Will I ever use them all? Maybe, maybe not. I've wanted zippers for some of my bags but been too cheap to buy them. Odds are good that something in this tangle will work for the next project that screams "I need a zipper!" Unless I really want to invest in the perfect length and color.