change of seasons

Today I took my table runner to work and put it underneath my coffee pot.  It was the 10 minute one which is almost 10 minutes for me to make.  I sew down the ends so it doesn't puff out.  So I took in my fall wall hanging that I had test last year(?) for The Quilt Pattern Magazine and put it up on my wall too.  This is what they all look like together.

Here is what the runner looks like.

The leaves have metallic/sparkle to them which makes it a little bit more holiday-ish.

And last but not certainly least.  Happy National Coffee Day!

Enjoy your day.  :)

Sunday Sewing

Good Day everybody!

I hope you are having a relaxing afternoon.  My afternoon is going ok.  I cut back on one of the borders for the Disappearing Nine Patch  quilt and added a black border.  Now to figure out what what color to use for the backing and binding.  I am thinking of red for the binding. Not sure yet what I want for the backing.

That's about as productive as I've been except to wash out some fabric for another 10 minute runner.  That will probably be finished some time tonight.

Look for pictures of that tomorrow as well as my change of wall hangings in the office.  I have the t-shirt quilt up right now but with October right around the corner and fall upon us, I'll be putting up a different wall hanging.

Saturday Inactivity!

Another weekend and another weekend of no desire to do something productive.  I did manage to sew down the ends of the 10 minute table runner (polar bears and red center) so that I can give it to mom for her birthday or Xmas.  I am still debating about putting a button on the end to dress it up a bit.  If it hangs down then it wouldn't interfere with what she would put on it.

I stitched a little bit on the letters for Happy Birthday table runner/banner but have a lot to go on it yet.  So what *did* I do?

Spent a lot of time on the internet and slept.  Sounds like a good combination doesn't it?  I washed out some clothes and hung them up to dry.  I brought home the left over apples from the Monthly Birthday Brunch at work and turned it into some applesauce.

It was just enough to fill up a small container which is good for me.  I figure I can get one or two servings out of it.  Probably one serving because from my test taste I'm not sure I'll be able to stop.  LOL.   *Then* I decided to make some peanut butter cookies.  I like the 3 ingredient recipe.  It doesn't make much and I only need 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 egg, and 1 cup of sugar.  It's a quick recipe and doesn't taste bad at all.

Tonight I'll probably work more on the Happy Birthday letters but it's all black floss I'm using and it is tiring on the eyes.  Not sure what I'll work on tomorrow.  Maybe crochet some pot holders.

What are you going to be working on?

Happy Fall!

One of my favorite times of the year....Fall!  It is officially Fall and I am so enjoying the weather being in the low to mid 70s.  Of course my body is being bearish and wants me to hibernate since it is now cooling off.  I'll talk to it later.

Not much to report on this end.  Work has been REALLY busy so I haven't had much time to do some stitching.  I am working on the Happy Birthday banner/table runner which has the cupcakes sewn down now and I will be starting to hand stitch the Happy Birthday now.  Might do the standard buttonhole but not sure yet.  i did a chain stitch on a balloon applique and I liked how it showed up.  Buttonhole was done on the cupcakes so I might just stick with that.

The search for a loan for a different vehicle is still on.  One of the bad things about bad credit.  Even though you know you can make the payments it takes forever to get your credit up to convince others of the same thing.  Wish me luck.  My goal is to get a different car before the snow comes.

Time to get to work.  I'll write more later.  This weekend is my quilting weekend so hopefully I'll have some pictures to show by Monday.

Everybody have a great day!

10 minute table runner

I stayed home today because I wasn't feeling that great (and have around 580 sick hours saved up) but then I felt it was unproductive.  With that in mind I dragged myself up to tackle the 10 minute table runner.  I've seen the written directions for this before and it just didn't make sense to me so I found a great video that explained it more and I wrote my own directions.

This will give you a better view of the fabrics.

I think I will sew down the bottom of the corner triangles because it would bug mom so much that it was open and could catch things.  I might also put a button or something at the bottom of the seam of the triangles on the corners to dress it up a little bit.  

Here is the link to the video on YouTube.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfg8BMUakOc

Here are my notes from watching the video.  This is not my pattern but are the notes that I took while watching the video.  If anybody objects to me posting it then let me know and I'll remove it.

10 minute table runner:

1/2 yard of fabric for the backing and border

1/3 yard of fabric for the center

(yep that's it for fabric)

- Place the right sides together of your two fabrics and sew a 1/4" seam down the long side.

- Repeat on other side.

That gives you a tube.  

- Turn the tube inside out.

- When laid flat you'll notice that the backing fabric rolls up to form a border around your center fabric.  Fuss with it until you have the two borders are about even and then iron it for nice clean edges.

- Fold the runner in half LENGTH WISE (backing fabric to backing fabric)

- stitch 1/4 on the short side

- repeat on other short side

- turn your ends inside out so backing fabric forms a triangle on each end.  You might need to have something to poke at the ends to make your triangle ends come out pointy.

- repeat on the other side if you haven't already.

Ta-Da!!

That's it.  Of course you can do more like stitch down the bottom of the triangle ends so they don't flap or put embellishments like tassels on the end or a button to hold down the lose part of the triangle.

Try it out.  It wasn't as hard as it looks.  Notice it doesn't use batting.  Just the two pieces of fabric.  I thought it would be good for mom in the nursing home because things would lay flatter on it.

What do you think?

 

She liked it!

My week has started off right.  Ann liked her lap quilt.  It's a chilly day today so I wonder if she'll use it right away.  I didn't get a picture of her with it since she is still a little sensitive about pix.  That's ok.  It's enough to know that she liked it.  In fact she actually gave me a hug.  Good thing that she was hugging because I would have fallen over from shock.  I wasn't expecting that.

Some of the other co-workers heard us talking and had to come and see what was up.  One of the knew I was working on it so she heard and said "Did you finish it?"  That's all it took to bring two more out from their offices so Ann showed them her lap quilt.

On the way down to give Ann her gift, another co-worker saw me have it over my arm and "had" to see it.  She said if Ann didn't like it that she'd take it.  Too bad...she's out of luck.  LOL.

Guess I'd better get back to work.  Everybody have a great day.

Thermal Thimbles

This is for those of you who had questions about the blue finger cots that I used.  I did a little bit of searching and I've found them in three places online.  Of those three places, two of them also have stores so you could probably get them there.  I can't remember if I went to WalMart or if I went to JoAnne's for mine or got them from Nancy's Notions.

Here is the information that I found and I hope it helps you.

http://www.nancysnotions.com/product/thermal+thimbles.do

http://www.joann.com/thermal-thimbles/10688307.html

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?ic=16_0&Find=Find&search_query=thermal+thimbles&Find=Find&search_constraint=0


I probably got them from WalMart or Joann's.  I LOVE them!  I got a 3 pack and it's just the right number for my left hand.  It leaves two fingers free yet to help spread seams and stuff.  I hope that helps you Kat.  :)

Another Finish!!!!

I am happy with this weekends progress.  I finished Ann's lap quilt.  It's perhaps not as large as some and I'll ask her if she wants it on the wall and if so I'll add a hanging sleeve to it.

Here it is.  I hope she'll like it.

Here is a close up of the rectangles so that you can see the stitch I finally decided upon.

On the black part I just did straight stitching.  It's not perfect but then neither am I but I am pleased with it.  This is the Zipper Quilt pattern that Missouri Star Quilt Company did a video on.  It's on YouTube if you want to see how to do it.  It's quick and easy.  I think the hardest part was figuring out how to quilt it.  I chose the wave stitch because I needed something that would help connect the two rectangles because I ended up being off on some of my 1/4" seams.  I still managed it so I'm going with it for now.  On my other wall hangings of this pattern I might do the stitching differently especially if it will be for a male.

While I was unstitching some of the sewing, I got to thinking on what notions am I thankful for.  These are my favorite things.

I am forever reaching for my magnetic wand.  It's great for keeping all my pins handy as well as giving me that extra little reach when I drop them.

I also like those little red scissors.  Not sure why but I do.  They aren't that sharp any more but the tips are magnetized so they help pick up the pins also and feel pretty good in my hands.

I also like those blue finger cots.  They are insulated to protect the fingers from the steam and heat from the iron.  They work WONDERFULLY!

Now it's bed time.  You have a great evening and better tomorrow.

back to the drawing board

Ahhh, just when things were going to plan I ran into a snag.  When I started to quilt Ann's lap quilt, I found two rectangles that weren't sewed down properly.  An 1/8th of an inch (or less) didn't catch right.  This is, of course, not the optimal time to spot something like this.  I got out some thread and tried my best to tuck that miniscule bit of fabric back under and then sewed it shut by hand.  Mixed results on how it turned out.  Soooo, in my great thinking, I thought "of course you can cover it up when you do your quilting".  All I had to do was to pick out a decorative stitch that would help cover up and keep those two sides of the rectangles together.  It will get washed sooner or later and I didn't want it to tear out.  AH HA!  I found which one to use.  It would look like tiny triangles on both sides of the rectangle and close enough to secure it.  Off I went to the sewing machine.

Sigh....

Big sigh....

I happily sewed down one section and went and sewed another section and happened to look over to see how the stitch designed looked and....it looked terrible.  For whatever happened, not all my points on that stitched worked out so that the triangle points looked more like slash marks against the pink rectangles.  I was using black thread since most of it was dark.

I looked at it and looked at it and then decided I would change the stitch.  Instead I went with a small "wave" design.  That looked better so I will stick to that.  NOW I had to unstitch what I had done before.  Oh yeah, NOW I remember why I had chosen that small triangle stitch.  It would stay in!  Boy does it stay in!  It went back and forth upon itself and was a "you know what" to unstitch.  Here is what the back looked like AFTER I had tried to unstitch the top.  This was one section, I had 7 sections to unstitch.

It's a little hard to see since it was black on black/white so I put my cheap seam ripper next to it.  I'm sure that most of you are familiar with that style of seam ripper.  Each one of those tangled sections was about the length of the seam ripper.  It took me a day and a half to rip it out.

Tonight I hope to start back sewing on the quilt.

On a good note, I did get a couple of charm packs in the mail yesterday.  They were batiks.

Not sure what I'll do with them but I will make something.  Perhaps another zipper quilt but this time larger?  Who knows.  That pattern is a fun one to make.

I have found more charm packs at home and now have a container just for them.  I figure it would help make it more organized and easier to find.

Oh.  Here's another thing that I will try some time.  I saw it on Pinterest and it led me back to Angie's website (see link below).  Take a look.  It's a little thing on how you can use cone thread with your machine when it isn't equipped for it.  It uses one of the spindles from blank CD/DVD containers.  You know the type.  It's how you normally buy the 50 to 100 pack of blanks with.  Check it out.  I think even *I* could do this.

http://blog.ajpadilla.com/2010/09/11/how-to-make-your-own-really-cheap-cone-thread-stand/

Thanks Angie for showing how to do this.

That's it for this lunch hour.  I hope everybody has a great day.

Better Pictures and new project

I took Dan's  t-shirt wall hanging into work and managed to get a better picture.

I will send it out to Dan later this week.

Since I had a finished one UFO I decided to start another one.  This time it would be the Happy Birthday table topper/runner that Rose from Custom Quilt Kits had done for me.  VERY reasonable pricing on it and I let her pick out the fabric.  Today I started to hand buttonhole stitch the letters down.

I will leave it at work so that I can work on it during lunch hours.  

Tonight I also hope to get fused a block that I need to do.  Or at least the pattern found again so that I can print it up tomorrow.

Sunday Sewing

Now that my Saturday gaming is all done with, it's on to Sunday sewing.  I was glad to get to it because I was almost done with Dan's wall hanging.  I finally finished it but am second guessing my sleeve.  Perhaps I should cut a few more spaces in it so that he can hang it up easier.  I couldn't tell because I don't have a space large enough...long enough...to test out hanging it.  Here is a picture of it.  I ended up pinning it to my curtains in order to take the picture.

There two gaps in the sleeve across the top plus a little bit on the two ends.  Should I cut one of the sleeves or two of them to make them smaller and more spaces to "hang" it on?  I think I'll send it to Dan and tell him to call me when he gets it.  We can talk about his options.  He can always do it himself.  :)

I am happy...for now

I was working on the wall hanging for Ann (breast cancer) and had to enlarge it.  I managed to add on two borders and now I'm wondering if I should keep it a wall hanging or just say it's a lap quilt.  It is approximately 36" x 44" inches.  What do you think?

Here is what it will look like.  I cut a thin strip of the material that I'm thinking of using for the binding to give you an idea.  That might end up also being the fabric for the back.

I think that I am happy with how this turned out.  Now I have to figure out how to quilt it.  I just got my basting spray in the mail.  I had run out of my June Tailor spray and now will try 505.  It got it at 50% off on a JoAnne sale so hopefully I'll like it.

Now I can wait to work on this until Sunday.  Saturday is gaming.

What a wonderful day!

Yep, that's right.  I am saying today has been wonderful!!!!!!!

I got 2/3rds of my apartment cleaned up.  I managed to get in a little quilting but also managed to find more UFO's.  Where are they all coming from?

I took off one of the borders Dan's quilt because of the two small holes in it and replaced it with a strip that didn't have any holes.  The more I look at these holes I think they must have been made by a staple.  I'll have to watch when I get fabric to make sure they don't staple the "tag" to the fabric any more.  So I fixed that side and was going to work on the fourth and final side.  Wouldn't you know it?  THAT side also has  "staple" holes!  What the .....?  So now I have to go and replace that side also.

 As I near the end of doing this, I have to think on how I'm going to put on a label.  I have four smallish circles with writing on them that I might use in the corners.  I still need to figure out what to say in the label.  I don't normally do labels.  After that it will be the sleeve.  I'm not sure I have enough of the backing fabric to match it (which is what I like to do).  I'll check that out this week.

I feel wonderful though because I had a surprise phone call from one of my internet friends.  It was a wonderful chat and I can't wait for more opportunities to chat again.

Of course another thing that made it a wonderful day was the fact that it is a holiday.  I do have to go back to work tomorrow though and I'm sure that the 4 day workweek will seem like 6.  It's still a great way to start my week and I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday.