Will Work for Fabric

You know what stinks?

You know what stinks?...

a family of skunks moving in under your deck

two trunks from summer camp filled with filthy socks and wet towels

having to make 4 trips to the mattress store to pick up 2 new beds because only 1 piece at a time will fit in the van, when DH has assured me that all 4 pieces would fit in 1 trip (p.s.  no one else was home to help with the schlepping).

you know what doesn't stink?

2 clean 12 year olds home from camp asleep in their brand new beds.....

And while skunks and beds were moving in, and rooms were re-arranged and kids were off camping, I did actually manage to finish putting together the blue star UFO....one down, too many to count to go....

I was having some angst about the applique in the setting triangles, but now...not so much.

And it lays flat!!!! A big improvement over it's previous volcanic state.

Now I have to figure out what to make with those appliqued triangles I have left over...yikes, I created another UFO!  well, at least it has plenty of company....

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

Christmas in July

Just because I'm working on UFO's doesn't mean I'm going to necessarily work on one at a time....I am WAY to scattered for that!

So in the woods this weekend, under the evergreens, I worked on a little Christmas UFO.  I pieced the top for a class last year and now I am finally getting to the applique border.  So two sides prepped, two to go.....isn't it adorable??

of course the picture had to be taken on the floor cause you know what is on the wall....

This is an Alex Anderson pattern, so easy to piece and easy to applique, once you prep about 100 lights, of course I couldn't get the song "the 12 Pains of Christmas" out of my head  (if you don't know this one, you- tube it near the holidays)

Hope you had a happy holiday....whatever holiday you were celebrating....I'm so confused....

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

P.S.  In case you are looking for this pattern....go right to the source

Taming the Beast

There's a beast in the sewing room.....it's taking over.  It's stored in organized boxed, bags,  baskets, but now they are taking over.  You know it, it's cousin might live at your house.....the beast goes by the name UFO.

I am trying REALLY hard not to start any (big) project until I get this beast under control! (the escape clause is contained in the words trying and big)

In my house there are all degrees of UFO-edness.  There's those that have blocks made but quilt not assembled, there's some cut out and not a block assembled, and then there are there is the monster.  The monster was once fully assembled.  When I laid it on the floor the center section completely errupted up like a volcano.  I didn't really know what all the problems were, but I figured it was a combinations.  So I last weekend, I finished unsewing the entire quilt...

This week I remeasured all the star  blocks and cut new inset triangles
and now I have it patially up on the wall to see how I feel about it with plain inset triangles....these were the orginals, but I suspect they were the volcano culprit.  I think the applique caused the triangle to shrink in a little and it didn't really fit right when I pieced them in.

I'm not opposed to re-doing some applique in the new triangles....and I will definitely use these already done ones in another project....I just have to give it a little think, plan the next the step.

What do you think?

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

Recycling Efforts

I have my very own recycling effort going on in the "studio".  I've been thrifting and buying up old blocks and quilt remnants and yesterday, these little gems arrived. What am I doing....buying someone else's UFOs?  don't I have enough of my own?    But these have a history, someone worked hard on these and they shouldn't just be tossed aside, right? (clearly a little case of rationalizing going on here!)

There's about 30 flowers constructed, these are just a few....

The fabrics are really thin, so I think I might face the flowers so that they have a little more stability.

so now the question of how to join them....funky or traditional?  what do you think?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

Making Do....

About 10 years ago....ok, maybe it was just last year, I took a class on the One Block Wonder.  Spurred on by my upstate neighbor, I decided to actually finish it up this weekend.  So I pulled out the ziploc and rearranged it on the design wall and off I go to start piecing it together.

The inside was done and I approached the borders.  Problem:  I don't have enough of the central fabric to make long enough strips to either miter and "courthouse step" the borders.  What to do?   Glass of wine and staring at the quilt ensued.  I've got it!  Sew them on in a round-about method.  There's probably some official quilt term for this, but it escapes me.  So here's what I did.....

Sew one side on, leaving a extra length on one end as long as the border is wide.  Don't sew all the way to the end of the inside of the quilt.....I left 4" or so unsewn (to be sewn later)then add the 3 borders, then go back and sew the first border to the end of the 4th border.

This way you don't need the full length of fabric for the outside border.

 

Sometimes it's perfectly ok to make do....and fight the urge to run out and buy another piece of fabric.

And now I have one less ziploc in the Not Quite Finished Drawer of Shame.

Hope you have a happy Sunday....

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

Tumbling - Part Duex

Yippee!!  Another quilt moves from Not Quite Finished to Ready for Quilting!

A few months ago, my quilty friends had a cutting party and I cut/received a ton of tumblers, so they called and called (the tumblers, not the friends) and since they were getting to be kind of loud, I finally, just sat down and addressed them.

So about a thousand tumblers later, the new quilt top of Twin #1's bed is done!  When I say thousand I'm not exaggerating.....there are exactly 1080 tumblers in this quilt.  And I still have about 200 left, so I think I'll tumble them forward to someone else who is working on a tumbler quilt (a little birdie told me of just such a person west of the Mississippi).

What fun to have a quilt top with pieces of my friends in it....

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

Little Lost Stars

A while back I showed my little stars without a plan.  So the fabric became the plan.

I had purchased 3 yards on the cream and red toile and 2 yards of the red paisley without any idea what I would do with it and when this quilt top was done, I have about a 1-1/2" strip of each left.....not even enough to do the binding.   So this quilt design is definitely a happy surprise.....I guess sometimes you just have to let the fabric lead the way.

Can't wait to quilt it.....and yipee, a NQF is done!!!!

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

Check!

Do you ever feel like the To Do List is a monster that needs to be tamed?

This weekend, I tossed the To Do List aside....the weather was a crisp 33 degrees when we woke up in the Adirondacks, the leaves are turning, there were no soccer games or volunteer events and the only family commitment was to put food on the table.  So I spent the day in front of the fire working on some Not Quite Finished projects, all hand work so as to not disturb the Indiana Jones Film Festival going on. 

One project now in the Finished column....the Little Tumbler. 

All hand quilted and bound and ready to go to a little friend who just celebrated a birthday.  Since a lady never reveals her age, I will just say, she is safely in the single digits.

Note to self:  add item to the To Do List....get out the thimble and remember the simple pleasure of hand-quilting---Check!

Will need to schedule this again.....

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

How do you work??

I don't know about you, but I can't seem to paper-piece without making a mess.

But for me, part of the reward of finishing the piecing is that I get to sweep up with mess and start anew with a clean slate.

I was asked to demo paper-piecing at my guild meeting, so I did one block there and couldn't leave that poor little thing by itself, so I made 3 more, added some borders and called it Done! 

I can't bear to have another "Not Quite Finished" project.  I want more "Wow, I Did it" projects.  ok, so it's not quilted yet, but that will get done tonite during our Movie Nite. 

I have to tell you,  I was not a big fan of the whole projection system and screen and blah blah blah man things that have to go with it, but I had a moment of weakness (was I sewing at the time?) during a trip to Radio Shack to buy batteries or something and we got the whole sha-bang. 

But now, we make Friday nite Movie Time, and we end the week with time together.  Who knew family time would come in the form of a simple machine and a little red envelope from NetFlix?

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan

I'm Stuck!

I was not entirely successful, this weekend, at convincing some younger members of the household that Saturday was the National Day of Cleaning.  So with a very small twist of the arm, I gave up on having clutter-free bedrooms and headed back to the sewing machine.

I put together some blocks for a BOM, by the lovely ladies at The Quilt Company, that  I am teaching at the LQS, and now I'm stuck.  See, I added the sashing and it just doesn't seem right to me....maybe too wide, maybe too dark, something is not right and I hate to sew anymore til I figure this out.

I'd love to hear what you think....

Hugs and Stitches!

Megan