What's sewing

I have been wanting to take a class from Quilt University for a long time.  I finally took the plunge and signed up for "Jane Was Nuts."  It's a take on the Dear Jane quilt only all the blocks finish to a logical 4" size.  So far, after one lesson, I am in love with the blocks. I've wanted to make small blocks for a long time and this was just the nudge I needed.

Here is my first block. I love the low contrast of the pinwheels.

I followed all the instructions.  Mind you, the lesson was not what I expected (although I don't really know what I expected), but I followed the "draw a line, sew and cut" instructions to the letter! (I realllly don't like making half squares by this method but I was trying to be dutiful).  After finishing the block while admiring my handiwork and bemoaning the fact that there were going to be many more "draw the line" type 1/2 sq.s in my future, I had a DUH moment! I have hundreds, really, hundreds of finished 1 1/2" half square triangles HST's! I've been working on these thing for YEARS !!! I wrote about it here.  That was then....now I have these

And these that are all counted and stacked neatly.  There are leftovers from a friends sew on the line, flip and pitch what's left, method of attaching a triangle to a square.

And these that are 2"

And these that are also leftovers from a sew on the line, flip and pitch what's left, method of attaching a triangle to a square....this time from a quilt I am making.

Sheesh! Just use the ones I have already made! Simplification and viola'! I buzzed through the lesson.

I am totally in love! I have been trying to figure out what to do with all of these cuties and this never occurred to me! I cannot wait for the next lessons... or maybe, now that my brain is turned on, I'll just go with the concept!

Hope over to Juday and see what else is going on in the quilt world!

Design Wall

Finally, finally finsished!!! Yippee, Yappee, Yahoooeee!!!! This has been languishing in my UFO box for almost 2 years. DH COULD. NOT. start the new football season with a golf quilt on the back of his chair now could he?? Now he has a Cleveland Cavs quilt and a Cleveland Browns and a generic golf quilt ready to adorn the back of his chair during the appropriate season! Perhaps this will help the final score for our Ohio teams????

This will have to qualify as my design wall as I finished it last night and my wall is now empty!!!

What's that strip at the top of the quilt you ask? Why it's the only piece of paw print fabric I own....hence, it's the dog pound....or if you are a Browns fan and get the reference, it's the dawg pound!!!! It cracks me up!!! (in case you are not a football fan, the dog pound is the area under the end zone at the stadium.)





Some poor color shots but you can kinda see the quilting. I used a panto called popcorn and I love it!





Click on over to Judy's blog and see what the rest of the quilters are working on this week!

Design Wall...YIKES

Working on a million things here...none on a wall though!
Not a lot of time for explainations but here are pics

I am making a sign for school....more on this later as I made a HUGE mistake!!!

Our guild is having a block exchange. I've had months to work on these and naturally I am doing it at the last minute.....they will eventually be butterflys.

See this hoop stylishly being modeled on my knee. I scoured the city for this style so I could continue my work on this

My UFO for July. I have been working on this for years now. I am making real progress and it is so exciting.

Design wall Monday

edit********I always forget(URGHHH!) to tell everyone to hop on over to Judy's blog and check out all of the other design walls!!!!!

A little late but I'm here...

So my machine is going to the spa....for a minimum of one week. The tech said that they are running at 10 days however, I send my machine to Austin. I live almost 4 hours away. After Friday, I won't be able to pick it up for at least 3 weeks.....sigh....... Let's keep our fingers crossed he is able to finish it before I get there on Friday!


On the plus side of no machine, I have to work on other things. So...my goal of the summer is to get my fabric scraps

and drawers under control. No machine will allow me to do just that. I am working on the chuppah scraps I didn't finish. Next I'm going to attack the drawers of strips in sizes I'll never use. I'm going to take them down to the sizes I will use and then....USE them!

On a TOTALLY unrelated note....I think my heart rate monitor needs a new battery.....



or maybe I DO! LOL!!

Design Wall

I've really been working on ...well, everything! I have this locker hooking rug that is over a year old. I began this rug as a demo for our quilting group. I originally started the pattern with one thing in mind, and then decided that I didn't like it. I changed my idea to just blocks of color. I don't particularly care for the finished product but it will be just fine in my classroom at school. I can't wait to see if it's durable.

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I made it totally out of T-shirts, It is a great recycle project! The bits of color among each block are the logos, pictures and wording on the T-shirts.




I am allllmost done. The problem is that I am unable to work on it for more then a few minutes at a time.



I have some serious shoulder issues that really, really flare when I work on this rug. I am determined to finish it so I do it in small bits. I find it very upsetting that I cannot locker hook any longer. Luckily I have this and this and this to enjoy. Unfortunately, I also have tons of supplies to do more rugs!!

It's so much fun to pop over to Judy's blog and see what all the bloggers are working on this week!!

Design Wall

Look familiar? This is the quilt for an hour quilt that Judy


hosted in 2008. I am going to finish this because I just love it!! I plan on having it done for my June UFO project!





I am giving Ms. CCCAtlover free reign to quilt this. I will be the helper but once the borders are on and it's being quilted, it'll be her baby. BUT, just to clarify, mine to keep!! LOL!





Check out all of the other fabulous works in progress at Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday

My design wall "a few miles down the road" now looks like this!



You know what that means? Yes indeedee! The quilt is quilted and being bound. No more peeks at it until it's finished and hanging at the quilt show! However, to be fair, I'll give you a little teaser at the so-so quilting. (I'm pleased because it's the best I can do but I'm not thrilled with my best. Make sense.)

Design Wall Story....

Until Aviva's wedding canopy is finished, my design wall is a few miles down the road on Ms. CCCat's longarm.... I therefore submit a story about my "design wall" along with pictures, in lieu of the real thing.....
I am a math idiot. If there was a book, Math for Dummies, I would need to own it. Geometry to me reads, Gee, I’m a Tree. When I went to college, my degree required no math classes at all. I however, had to take a rudimentary math class! It was computations and probabilities. It was a two week course and I couldn’t pass it!!!

Also, I decided that it would have been soooo much easier to have been born any other religion then Jewish. Christians have crosses (a rectangle and squares) Muslims have a crescent moon (circular and therefore appliqué able) but Jews, Jews have the Star of David…. 60 degree triangles!! Not good when you are a math dummy!!!!

Aviva’s chuppah (wedding canopy) is based on 6 pointed stars.

Each star is based on a 60 degree angle. At some point when I was cursing the borders on the chuppah, I shouted out, “What angle am I supposed to set this at!!!” From the other room, DH aka the guy that READS MATH BOOKS, calmly shouts back, 30 degrees….HUH!??? I stormed into the other room. NOW WHY WOULD I NEED 30 DEGREES IF THIS IS A 60 DEGREE STAR!!!???? Because,”Mr. I read math books for fun explained,” 30+60 = 90. But why do I need a 90 degree angle if I’m working with 60’s? Big ole sigh from Mr.” I know how to do calculations in my head without a calculator.” Because, if you have a 60 degree angle, the opposite is a 30 degree. WHATEVER! All I care is that this star here, lines up with that star there, and that the borders don’t look wonky.

Fast forward to last week. Ms. CCCat and I are trying to figure out the straight line quilting in the borders. The quilting will be mimicking the 60 degree angle of the stars. I started with the top and bottom. It looks great.As we were going, I kept saying “How are we going to line up the top border quilting with the side borders? Even though there are feathers between the borders, the lines will need to be in the same place because the eye notices it. I couldn’t explain it but I voiced over and over about these lines needing to match up. Today I finished the top and bottom border. After much agony, we marked the left and right borders….with the same 60 degree angle. I worked on the side borders for a bit until we decided to quit. For some reason I rolled the quilt. UHMMMMMM!!!!!! 60 degrees on the side and 60 degrees on the top will never match!!!!!!! What the heck??? WHY DON’T THESE **&#$%^%&*))*@&^ LINES MATCH!! Suddenly, Mr. “I knew you weren’t listening to my mathly wisdoms” voice was in my head….60 + 30 =90. 60+60 will never = 90.

I still don’t completely get it. All I know is that I need to rip about 10 rows out of my border…and I thank my annoying 60 degree stars that I don’t have another daughter to make a chuppah for!

Design Wall Monday

My design wall is a few miles down the road right now at CCCatlover's house! Aviva's chuppah (wedding canopy) is finally being quilted.

These pictures show us loading it on the frame.

I HAD to take this picture as I NEVER, EVER, EVER make things square! This chuppah was built on bias edges. I had no real pattern other than the stars. Every turn was an agony of "what to do next." (my poor friends had to suffer in what we like to refer to as chuppah "hell" also) However, all of the agonized, kvetching and picking the brains of those around me, resulted in something that was square! I have no earthly idea how I did this but attribute it to sheer, utter luck!!

Here are some shots of the continuous curve quilting I did on Sunday. It's not the greatest but it's the first time I've done continuous curve. It's getting better but is a far cry from smooth! The thread in the pics looks like the tension is off but I think that's just because I had my camera setting on macro.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the rest of the design walls listed on Judy's blog.

Design Wall

I can go to retreat!! My original rule was I couldn't go if Aviva's chuppah wasn't finished. I modified it to read, I can't go until I have the top done and ....IT IS DONE!



The bottom must not be straight on the design wall as the stars look different sizes.

Such a relief to have this off of my shoulders. Next stop....quilting~

Design Wall/Chuppah

This week has brought, thankfully and finally, many changes to my design wall. Last week I was here. As I was the week before, and the one before that! I've finally been inspired to get this thing done! This morning I was here......


....complete with mitered corners! Yes! Me! Mitering corners!

This evening I was here....


It's a bit misleading as the left and right are not attached yet.

I have a really big problem. The top and bottom have .75 difference. I don't know if I should compensate when I add the top and bottom borders or if I let the difference grow.If I split the difference before adding the top and bottom borders, all the excess will be in those solid triangles. If I let the problem grow....well, it will just get worse! I don't know if the problem came in with the triangle border or before. I had tons of trouble adding the triangles. I must have ripped the biased edges a million times. Seriously, I learned a valuable lesson that the degree of angles really matters! LOL!

Hopefully by next week the top will be done!

Design Wall Monday

Finally I am working on Aviva's chuppah. Good thing as I now have 3 months to finish plus all the other pre wedding things....

Yesterday I planned ahead for Design wall Monday. . I took a picture of the progress I've made. Although it is impossible to notice, I've actually sewn blocks together and taken those blocks and formed rows and joined a few rows. I was feeling rather pleased with myself.

Don't ask me why I was sitting and staring at it but!!!! thank goodness as I had a big mistake! Can it be seen? Now that I know it's there it sticks out like a sore thumb! (See the dark star in the middle of all the white ones? It's supposed to be on the edge.)

I was devastated because I have be "arguing "with this silly quilt for months now. The points are supposed to look like this....



but instead mostly look like this!



It has been driving me nuts and I am beginning to dread/hate working on this thing. I keep telling Aviva we might have a problem, I don't think I'm "sewing love into this chuppah!"

When I had joined the two rows together (the mistake row) the points were perfect! I danced!
Not dancin' so much now knowing that I have to rip!



I briefly considered NOT fixing it. Then my better judgement kicked in and it is all fixed now. All I can say is thank goodness for Judy and her design wall Monday or I would never, ever have noticed it.....well you know, that is until the day of the wedding!

Aviva's Chuppah

It's really not much further along then the last time I showed it....I really need to light a fire as the wedding is in March. I have a self imposed deadline of the end of the year! HA!



The strips around the outside are there to see how it would look if I continued the pattern of diamonds and triamgles.

Design wall Monday

Look familiar? I only added another project on top of last weeks entry. Sigh....maybe if I stopped posting blog posts I'd actually sew!!!! LOLOL!! It's there because I'm trying to decide how to quilt...plus I am picking out the terrible quilting I'd done earlier.



I always forget to remind ....go to Judy's blog and see what everyone else is working on.....

Design Wall Monday

THis has been on my design wall for at least 6 months....maybe more.





It comes from this quilt that I made this at retreat in January....




.....for my husband. He in turn promised it to his dad. I never bound the thing! It's been sitting here patiently waiting while I recover from my quilting funk.

However, this is design wall Monday. Why the funky, wonky table runner looking thing? It was what I started to assemble to create a quilt from the leftovers from the quilt. I got this far, decided it looked like a table runner and quit! Perhaps my current streak of inspiration will allow me to work on it as a quilt...or at least finish it as a table runner!