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.

now it's time to get back to normal

We've been on the road again. This time, we drove from Oregon to Mount Rushmore and back in five days. Amazingly fun, but even after a day at home to catch my breath, I'm so exhausted I can't even begin to describe it.



See that animatronic dinosaur? Even when it was just moving its head from side to side and blinking, Leif was backing away and hiding behind me and his big sister. When it started to actually roar and lean forward a bit, he didn't want anything more to do with it. I can't quite decide whether he's really scared or enjoys playing at being scared. Either way, it's cute to watch.

We didn't get to walk around the base of the Devil's Tower. Or do more than one short trail at Yellowstone (no great tragedy because we've been there at least ten and probably more like fifteen times and I'm sure we'll be there again soon.) And I kept having to remind my husband that if I walk fast to keep up with him, I won't be walking the next day. Have I mentioned how frustrating this is?

I kept waiting for my cell phone to ring so I could find out what was wrong with the Janome and what it would cost to have it fixed. It never rang.

When we got home, there was a message on the machine that it was ready for me to pick up and there hadn't been anything wrong with it. Supposedly, the noise was in the free motion foot, which just needed to be oiled, but I've got a bad feeling about this. If my foot was the only problem, why didn't Mom's Janome foot make it work?

They checked the timing and needle position and a whole laundry list of other things, so I'm hoping that it really will work now. If it doesn't, I'm going to throw a fit. Or sob in the corner.

I think I'm going to dig out scome scungy fabric and try the practice stitching from the Free Motion Quilt Along just to see if things are okay. Or thread the machine with a wild color and just sew over the quilt sandwich that came home in the machine. Because even though I know practice sandwiches are important, I hate wasting the batting.

it's been ten days

When I decided to take drastic measures and set difficult goals for myself, I should've known that the sewing machine wasn't going to hold out. But even though my machine didn't make it to the end of my personal challenge, I'm happy with my results.

Yesterday, the last day I had to work on it, I got Alex's Janome working and added the borders to my scrappy sawtooth star --



And then, because I was soooo close to what I could manage of my goal, and I'd had scrappy Bento Box sort of blocks dancing around in my head all week, I pieced this little top. Which no longer looks anything like the Bento Box I had in my head, because I got derailed by the possibilities. I'll make the other one later.



Halfway through, I lost my momentum and decided that I was wasting fabric, but I like it better by the light of day. And I always like them better once they're quilted.

That brings my total to six finished quilts and four new tops in ten days. Not quite the ten finishes in ten days I was aiming for, but more than I expected after I lost my good machine on day four and then lost a couple of days sulking about it.

And my real goal was to get back into the quilting habit after two months of not being able to. I've done that!

This is the one with the spirals that was left half quilted and gathering dust in my machine for so long after the accident. Between my sore shoulders and the machine's tantrums, the quilting is sort of a train wreck, but done is better than perfect - or something like that.



When I first started working on the Scrap Savers System from Quiltville, I cut a bunch of novelty prints into six inch squares for I Spy quilts. There was a plan, I just can't remember exactly what it was, and then the squares got lost in a safe place.

Whatever I originally intended, I like the way this came out and have enough squares left for a couple more little I Spies.



I'd been wanting to try this zig zag tutorial, but I don't have a lot of yardage, and I really don't have a lot of yardage in coordinating colors (not that I'm willing to gamble on on experiment at least.)

So when I found yards and yards of this blue floral in an estate sale box, I decided it was time to give it a try. It really needs a design wall to lay it out right, but other than that, it's an easy project.



And this one was a pattern from Quiltville that just needed binding.



The other quilts and tops I've finished over the past ten days are here and here.

that didn't work

I tried piecing with the Featherweight last night. It didn't go entirely well. My tension went from fine to completely off and then back to decent, seemingly at random. And some someone at some point had put a bobbin in with its stuff that looks almost exactly like a featherweight bobbin but definitely isn't. Took me a while to figure out that that was part of my problem and then I couldn't manage to wind a new bobbin and the book is out in the sewing room...

Edith Mae is too small to sit nicely on my sewing machine table, and her cord isn't long enough to stretch over to the kitchen table, and I don't know enough about her quirks to help her do what she should. But I don't have the urge to scream obscenities at her because she's sixty two years old and deserving of some TLC and nice treatment.

Before throwing in the towel for the night, I finished the last few seams on this little top (which wound up being a smaller version of this tutorial) --



And I pieced this, which I've been thinking about all week. I thought I knew how to do what I wanted without measuring and cutting extra triangles, but wasn't sure the seam allowances would work for me to do a quick corner triangle with only three squares in the pieced part. It worked just fine and I'm going to add some borders as soon as I get my hands on a machine that will let me do it.

day six

I really hope I get my sewing machine back in time for this --



Doesn't that look like fun?

I'm on the sixth day of my ten day baby quilt challenge, the third day without my sewing machine. Five of the baby quilts are done, another is ready to be pin basted, and another just needs the binding handstitched into place. I've got a slim hope that I'll manage to finish another top on my Featherweight or one of my daughter's machines (which she can't get to work, so that's a very slim hope), but even if I don't, six quilts isn't bad.

I absolutely could've finished ten quilts if the Janome wasn't at the repair shop. I've written deleted a couple of entries about how unhappy I am that it's there again when I just spent a small fortune having it cleaned and serviced in March, and haven't been able to use it for two of the months since then. And then the woman tried to convince me I needed to have it cleaned again...

Luckily, I've been able to find some ways to distract myself. Yard Sale Treasure Map has got to be one of the neatest websites I've found. You put in your starting point and how many miles you're willing to drive and it spits out a list of yard sales with driving directions. It's great for me, because I still don't know these little towns well enough to plot a route on my own.

AND you can search the ads for things like baby clothes, or tools, or....fabric. Yippee!

I stopped at one sale on the way to the grocery store this afternoon and for $15.40 I got twenty eight new packages of jumbo ric rac, and almost thirty yards of fabric. Most of it is Joann's Snuggle Flannel in prints that'll be perfect for backing the baby quilts. Some was far quarters still with the carboard and stickers. None of it looks very old at all.

I think I'm most excited about the ric rack. Just to go out and buy that much would cost fifty bucks (yup, I stopped and priced it while we were grocery shopping!) Now I'm trying to remember all of the neat ric rac ideas I've seen and been too cheap to try...

last night

I assembled some I Spy blocks that have been gathering dust into a little top.

I pin basted the new top and a two color zig zag quilt I'd pieced a week or so ago.

I finished quilting the spirals on that baby quilt that got derailed two months ago and machine stitched the binding.

I used (and broke) the walking foot to quilt the zig zag quilt.

I started meandering the new little I Spy, which was coming out absolutely gorgeously...

And, about halfway through that, I finally had to accept that that my machine is definitely having some new issues and needs to seek professional help.

drastic measures

I did it. I emptied my quilt ladder and took every single baby quilt (except for the cat quilt) up to the gal who does the newborn layettes. Yesterday, I started refilling it.

My somewhat crazed goal is to finish ten quilts in ten days. I've got at least five or six sitting here waiting for bindings or quilting, so it's possible. Or would be if I didn't have the factor in my knee or the Janome's moods.

The quilt at the top of the post had been sitting on my ironing board for a couple of months and just needed binding.



This one was a finished top, but the boys bumped into the table and sloshed diet Coke onto the white blocks. I hand washed it at the time, but never got back to it, and then was my unplanned two month break from quilting....

The backing is a hunk of knit fabric I picked up at the thrift store earlier this week for fifty cents. I really like the way these knits work on baby quilts, and they seem to go for less than cotton -- probably because they don't have value to quilters. I've got enough left for a second quilt.



And I assembled a bunch of those 4 patch units I was working on into a new little top.



Now I'm going to have to see if I can get the Janome to cooperate so I can do some meandering. Wish me luck!

forcing myself to get it done

I've got two baby quilts quilted and waiting for binding. I've got another 3/4 quilted (that one's stalled due to Nellie the Janome's latest hissy fit, but I need to either figure out how to finish it or haul the machine up to town and get it fixed.) I've got at least two more tops done and waiting to be basted. And two more tops that I could get assembled in a normal afternoon of quilting, if I ever have one of those again.

In an effort to motivate myself, I've decided to do something drastic and almost completely emptied the quilt ladder next to the television. I usually hold a few back just in cast I need a baby quilt in a hurry. This time, they're all going, except for the applique cat. I'm not ready to let it go quite yet.

Hopefully, this will motivate me to start making some baby steps towards finishing some new ones.

instant thread stash

Although I've got a decent thread stash, I've always envied the quilters who show off their hat boxes and thread organizers overflowing with random spools.

So when we were at a yard sale yesterday I jumped at the chance to get my own exciting thread stash for two bucks. It's pretty, a lot of it is on old wooden spools, and I can't tell you how tempted I am to use it for piecing.

I know....I've read the warnings.... and I'm still planning to experiment. (After all, I'm using fabric that's probably just as old!) The only thing that's really holding me back is how pretty the colors look wound around those wooden spools. I know I've got at least one more old jar that matches this one, and a few of the bluish ones with the glass dome tops. So I may just use the newest stuff and keep the pretty ones for decoration until I find a perfect project for the wooden spools. In case you haven't noticed, I'm easily entertained by vintage stuff.

(And while I was writing this, my thirteen year old daughter came in and asked me if I'd like Grandma M's old thread, which she's had in her room since my mom gave it to her. How did she get that?)

It was a good day for yard sale browsing. I got a new-to-me cutting mat (30x36, which is twice the size of the one I've had until now) for four dollars from a lady who made one quilt and didn't like it. And a nice box of cotton scraps and two quilts (which will get their own post later) from the same sale where I found the thread. And some odds and ends of old stuff that were too neat and too inexpensive to leave behind.

post office surprises

A couple of weeks ago, I closed the post office box that I've had for the past twenty years. I've hung onto it for the past five years, even though it's too far from the house and I could only pick up my mail once a week. This time, when the box came up for renewal, we decided to get a box closer to home. Mostly so we could have a Netflix subscription and not wait so long for the DVDs.

I filled out all of the forms to get our mail forwarded, which was a lot more complicated than it should have been and after two weeks, nothing had been forwarded to me. Bill and the kids get mail with yellow stickers, but I don't. I've call, I called again, I went in to the old post office and begged... My mail had been sent to the place that does the forwarding, but hadn't gone on to me.

Maybe it's so many years of sending submissions to publishers and waiting anxiously for replies (even though it's been years since I did either) but not getting my mail stresses me out. The nice lady at the post office, the same one I've talked to six or eight times, assured me that my mail wasn't being thrown away or returned to sender.

I finally almost convinced myself that I wasn't expecting anything but bills and bank statements and that those were easy enough to replace. The one thing I was expecting probably wasn't on its way yet.

So I was surprised to find a squishy envelope when I checked the mail at the new post office. No yellow sticker -- someone had written my new address in black marker. It must've been a long day, because it never occurred to me that the package in my hands could be that one thing I was expecting.

Angela from Country Scrap Quilts had sent my Pay it Forward gift, the sweetest little table topper in 30s prints.



I'm absolutely in love with this sweet little thing. And now it's my turn to Pay it Forward, so I need three people to send gifts to.

Here are the rules, borrowed from Angela's blog --

1. The first 3 people to visit my blog and leave a comment saying they want to participate will receive a handmade gift from me, within the next year... (Probably much sooner than that, but you are suppose give everyone a year, because sometimes life gets in the way!)

2. You MUST have a blog of your own to to participate in the PIF.

3. You must post about the PIF on your blog & offer the PIF challenge on your blog.

By accepting the Pay It Forward challenge, YOU agree to host a Pay It Forward to the first 3 people who sign up on your blog...you will then carry on the PIF by sending them a homemade gift within a year's time, and so it goes :)

Let me know if you could use a baby quilt, or if I need to dream up something different to send! And please make sure there's a way for me to contact you for your address. If I can't find you, I won't be able to send your gift!

process

I haven't posted anything about my process lately because there hasn't been any for almost two months. Mostly, it's been me limping around the house whining that my knee hurts, or doing things that have to get done (while whining that my knee hurts) or sitting and looking at other people's neat projects online, because that doesn't make my knee hurt any more than it already does.

Last night I cut some white squares and did some piecing. It made me feel a lot happier. And also made my knee hurt -- a lot. I can start using my left foot to operate the foot pedal, but I really resent having to do that.

I've got a lot of ideas that will use these little four patch units and what usually happens is that I make a bunch, lay them out to see how idea #1 will work, then like it so much I sew them together and have to start all over before I can try idea #2.

This time, I'm going to make enough for patch units for several baby quilts before I start laying them out. I've got the squares cut. If I pace myself and only work on it in short spurts, I can get this done.

I have changed

I come from a family that thinks things like Doritos and pepperoni are spicy. I married a man who has swigged Tabasco from the bottle to see if its lost its kick or not.

Ask anyone in my house if Mommy likes spicy things and the answer will be no. Compared to my husband and my daughter (who is someday going to melt through the bottom of my frying pan with one of her stir fry experiments) I don't.

So why, when Bill told me that the hot sauce he picked up on vacation was a disappointment, did I stick my fingertip onto his chip and try it for myself?! He didn't ask me to try it, I volunteered.



The stuff has a seriously nasty flavor, but it really isn't that hot. Proof that I now live in a household where we use seranos because they're hotter than jalapenos and taste better.



We're just back from a four day road trip. I've figured out that the problem with tent camping isn't really being wedged in so tightly with my children. It's whatever the people in the next site are doing. Night #1, we had the loud drunk laughter. Night #2 was the hundred dollar tent site at a "destination" KOA -- I'm no longer afraid that my kids are making too much noise while we set up the tent. And night #3 we had more drunks, this time playing loud music that I probably would've liked under any other circumstances.

We did have a blast, and at one of the museums we visited, I had to take a picture of this old book.



From the card:

"Bessie Prehn complimented this field guide with watercolor paintings, dried flowers, and concise notes of what she had observed."

Today's inspiration --

I want a chalkboard globe and now I'm afraid that we threw out the one the kids kept disassembling because I was so sick of trying to make the countries line up again. It didn't seem like a big loss at the time because it was so outdated, but now I'm hoping it's somewhere and I can patch it back together because this is just SO neat.

I'm sure my kiddos would love some cereal box notebooks. Although I may just glue the boxes onto the existing cover instead of redoing the wire if they're for the little guys. For myself, I might tackle the wire.

The drafting series has started over at ikatbag. Am I the only one who had to resort to Wikipedia to find out what on earth a sloper is?

I could seriously use a double framed clock for my dining room.

Now I need to get the sleeping bags and tent back up to the attic and make some time to sew!

Get the camera!

"Mom, come outside quick! Dad wants the camera and both boys...."

There's a certain tone of voice that means whatever it is is alive and going to get away if I'm not quick. And it's not the hushed urgency that means it's a bunch of deer up on the hill...




Honestly, I was expecting something bigger. This guy isn't nearly the size of the last one. (The one I almost stepped on one afternoon when I walked around the back of the van to get the groceries out, that Bill keeps a picture of in his toolbox at work because it was a good six feet long and very scary looking.)

Would it be too mean to send some pictures to the grandmas without mentioning that it's our own backyard?

Today's inspiration --

mamacjt is making darling little quilts for DQS8 and has some great posts showing her original sketches and how they transformed into finish quilts.

I've finally managed to change from my darning foot to my 1/4 inch foo and raise the feed dogs, and pieced about a dozen 2 1/2" squares together. Doesn't sound like much, but it's more than I've done in weeks. And the quilters over at 15 minutes play are getting all sorts of stuff done in little snippets of time. (Don't tell me if they're actually spending longer, I don't want to know!)

drooling over play kitchens

I have little boys. I have little boys who like to play with big boy toys. I do not need a play kitchen.

When I had a littl(er) girl, we went through two of the mass produced plastic play kitchens and a ton of plastic play food and no one ever really embraced any of it.

I do not need a play kitchen...

But I seriously wantone, now that I've seen what people are doing with old furniture from garage sales. Like the first one I saw and fell in love with. Or this little sink that used to be a night stand. Or this one.

Like soooo many other things, I wish I'd seen things like this when my little ones were littler....when I had more room to justify things like this....when I had more energy to attempt things like this (but less money to spend on the supplies, so I suppose that part evens out)...

But, while lusting after all of these fabulous play kitchens (I'm too old to make one for myself, right?), an idea started to form. An idea that would be perfect for my little guys if I can work out the logistics.

still not quilting

If anyone wants proof that all is not right in my house, they can look at my sewing machine where the same quilt has been pinned down by the needle for ten days.

Ten days ago, I spent a whole twenty minutes trying to finish quilting the spirals. Before that, the little quilt sat untouched for a month.

The pile of unfolded laundry and the floor that need vacuuming, those aren't that unusual. It's not even unusual for me to leave a quilt neglected for that long.

What is wrong, and is slowly driving me toward madness, is that I haven't been working on anything else. I'm not sure how long that green lace baby hat has been on my size eight circulars waiting to be cast off. I don't want to know.

I keep thinking I'll be able to piece some nine patches or cut a binding, or do just a little bit of something, but my knee hurts and my shoulder hurts and by the time I've got the kids fed and the dishes done, I haven't got enough oomph left to even think about taking that quilt out of the sewing machine or raising the feed dogs and changing the presser foot.

Which takes two minutes. And isn't that physically strenuous. But considering how many typos I've had to fix so far while typing this, maybe I shouldn't play with sharp things. I cut through the back of my fingernail with a paring knife while slicing tomatoes the other day. And then slammed the same bandaged finger in the porch door an hour later.

And no, that wasn't when I was taking any of the painkillers. I'm apparantly that rattled and klutzy all on my own.

While I'm resting my knee and shoulder between doing things that have to be done, I've been following rabbit trails from blog to blog. Not quilting or knitting blogs, because seeing quilts I want to make and knowing I can't start them is just depressing.... but I can read neat vintage and craft blogs and get excited about "someday" projects.

Jan at Bobbypins Boardwalk has a great idea for organizing fabric on a slatted folding door. Now I really want a door to play with.

I'm really looking forward to a series of drafting that's coming up over at ikat bag

And look at the felt doctor's kit over here. Isn't that just the coolest thing ever?! My two little guys would definitely play with the xray and cast. I'm thinking one of the felt playhouses with a doctor's office would be fun. Not that I'd be that ambitious even if I was at my best...

Happy Hour!

Happy Hour has got to be one of the best ideas Craft Warehouse has ever come up with, even better than Black Friday sales because you don't have to decide between cheap toys for the kids and cheap toys for Mom. Every Wednesday night, from six to eight, they've got coupons for 40% off one item and 20% off the rest of your purchase.

I'm sure those hours work for lots of other people, but last night was one of the very few times I've actually been up in town at the right time and haven't had to rush straight home after running errands. So I stopped early in the day to make sure they had coupons and see if they had anything I wanted to come back for.

They had quilting fabric on clearance for $1.99 a yard. Bright colors for the baby quilts.... Dark civil war colors for my quilts.... Moda... I spent the next three hours trying to figure out how I was going to wrangle two preschoolers and a ten year old, because the last time I made it to Happy Hour the place was really busy.

Last night, there was only one other woman buying fabric. A couple of others were looking, but seemed immune to the cheap prices and pretty colors. Everything I'd seen earlier in the day was still right there waiting for me, so I filled the cart with bolts and left my thirteen year old to get it cut and took the boys outside.

How can it take an hour to cut fabric? I can understand a long wait in line, but that was just to cut what I was buying and write down the numbers from the ends of the bolts and get out the White Out and re-write the numbers again.... And then it was another half hour or so to pay for it.

Have I mentioned how much I appreciate my thirteen year old? She decided that standing in line by herself would be much more pleasant than standing in line with me and three boys, so I took them out to the van and put on a movie and rested my knee while she spent my money for me.

Fourteen yards of yummy fabric and two nice tote bags for for twenty-six bucks. I'm SO happy to have stumbled across that sale rack! There are a couple of pink prints I didn't pick up that are still haunting me (in hindsight, I really really really wish I'd bought the whole bolt to use as a backing!), but there aren't any "why did I buy that's" that made it home, so I did good.

AND, as if that wasn't enough quilty goodness to bring home, I picked up two huge bags of cotton fabric that I'd seen on Craig's List and had Grandma swing by and check out for me. For twenty bucks, I got a whole ton of backs and bindings to be.

What I need now is the ability to quilt.

My old farmhouse kitchen needs a Mason Jar soap dispenser. I've even got the jars for it.

flashing the thread stash

Inspired by the Show Us Your Stash thread over at Sew Mama Sew, here's my thread stash --



This is all of it. I was trying to hold off on placing another Connecting Threads order until I hit my last spool of off-white. Not counting the one in the machine now, I've got two left, so I guess I'm about due.

How did you select colors for your personal thread collection?

Most are neutrals -- or would be if I wasn't running so low. Some came in a sampler with the Janome. Some I bought because I thought I'd use them in a future project. And some I just loved the colors.

Do you always match the color perfectly to your project?

No. I usually piece with a neutral color, either cream or beige depending on my mood. Lately, I've been trying to use up the thread that came as a bonus with my sewing machine and I'm using whatever color I think I can possibly get away with.

Do you ever use contrasting thread?

Now and then.

Do you use the same color in the bobbin as the upper thread?

Usually, unless I'm trying to use up some extra bobbins.

What if a fabric has big areas of very different colors?

I'd probably use a neutral color and not worry about it. But most of my quilts are lots of itty bitty scrappy pieces, so I haven't had to make that decision often.

Do you ever buy thread because you fall in love with the color (without a particular project in mind)?

Yes, especially if it's on sale. I try to control myself, because I can only spend so much on thread at one time (because it's never just thread that I need!)

Do you “invest” in thread?

I stockpile thread because we live here in the middle of nowhere and I like knowing that I have plenty and won't use up my last bit of something important when my husband is at work with all of the car seats or it's three in the morning or I won't be making the trip to town for another week.

I'm trying to use up some of the oddball thread and replace it with colors from Connecting Threads. Because I love their thread and it fits so nicely in my old treadle sewing machine drawers.

What types of thread do you have? (elastic, quilting, all-purpose, wool, etc.)

Most of my thread is 50 weight cotton, except for a couple of spools of hand quilting thread that I bought when it was on sale and I thought I'd use it. Now I'm thinking maybe I could use it up sewing down bindings.

fabulous accomodations

Bonnie posted a gorgeous picture of where she was staying in Sisters. So did Lori and Spicewood Quilting Diva, and I'm sure there must be lots of others. With every hotel room and campsite in that part of the state booked months and months in advance, there just have to be!

So I decided to share a picture of my own fabulous accommodations from Friday night, carefully staged not to include the two inflatable mattresses and four sleeping bags my children were using.



I called dibs on that concrete floor last year right after my parents told us they'd bought property in La Pine. (The cot was an unexpected bonus and meant I didn't have to share an inflatable mattress with my two preschoolers.) Dad offered to take all three of the boys with him for the day.

Which made it my first quilt show without the kids, about a decade before I expected it to happen. I was not staying home.

The quilt show was a totally different experience from my rented wheelchair. (It probably also helped that I wasn't chasing three little boys in three different directions.)



I couldn't read the tags without getting up and walking over to them, so I missed out on the "read the tags on every quilt that caught my fancy" chunk of the kidless quilt show fantasy. To my surprise, I was able to see the quilting on most of the quilts.

This is the one that's haunting me today --



I want it! Or my own version of it, which would be more of a throw size, with 1" finished squares and slightly different log cabins... I'd be cutting pieces today if it wasn't so hot and if I was able to quilt.

What's this one? I thought it was fifty-four forty or fight, but I looked up that block when we got home and this is something else.Whatever it was, there were a bunch of them this year.



I'm glad I went and I'm brimming with ideas, but today I'm exhausted.

I need a clothesline.

I've been saying that for about twelve years now, but at times like this, I really wish I had a clothesline so I show off my new fabric in style. Fourteen men's shirts that I think I spent a grand total of four bucks on. Three or four came from a free box at what was otherwise the lamest yard sale ever, and the rest came from a sale at the local thrift shop's storage unit where they sell clothes three for a dollar.

They'll be an absolutely great start for a quilt I've been wanting to make. I just don't know when.

At my last appointment, the doctor said to stop trying to quilt for a while. Not what I wanted to hear, especially since it's been a couple of weeks since I even tried to quilt. I've been patient -- now I want my life back!

I thought I'd take the boys to McDonald's this afternoon to burn off some energy in their playland. How mobile do you have to be to sit on a chair and sip diet Coke and keep two preschoolers from escaping through the one door? More than I am, apparently.

Halfway Through the Year

Because I saw someone else post June totals and thought it would be a neat idea, and because I fear I'm at an actual stopping point here, I decided to scan through my blog posts and figure out my own progress for the year.

In 2009, I made twenty quilts. I gave seven of them away, but that still leaves thirteen quilts and since I hope to be quilting for many many more years...

The math concerned me a bit. Especially since I've got this bad habit of looking at a pattern in a magazine and thinking "That might be fun!" closely followed by "I think I've got scraps that would work for that." Which left me with tops I wasn't that wild about.

This year I'm saving those blocks that might be fun for the baby quilts. I've made (I think) thirty so far. They're fun, there's no pressure because I'm not going to have to live with them for the rest of my life, and because I know they're not staying here, I don't use up my last bits of some precious print in them and then decide I don't like the quilt but I can't part with the fabric.



I've made three quilts for myself so far and I'm attached to them all. Madder Snowballs used a fabric line from Connecting Threads that I absolutely loved. Sawtooth Chain was my birthday present to myself. And Courthouse Steps was a pattern I'd wanted to try ever since I finished the log cabin twins.



I worked up my courage and started quilting bigger quilts on my own machine. Sparkling Gems, Fun With Bricks, and my log cabin twin all got finished without a trip up to use the long arm.



Not sure what's next -- I think I'll try to finish the blocks for Grandma's Donuts and the nine patches for By the Lake. And there are those Jelly Roll wanna-bes and Quinn's green quilt, but I've got to work up a lot more energy before I tackle anything new.