Getting Ready for the Mystery!

Hello All!

     So those of you who are Bonnie Hunter fans know that each year she publishes for free a mystery that usually begins sometime around Thanksgiving and lasts anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks.  She gives us a color palette but we are not required to stick to that and we don't know what the quilt is gonna look like until it's finished.  For control freaks like me it has been a good thing, relinquishing control of something, trusting another to the outcome of a project.

I did my first mystery with her last year, it was a blast and the completed quilt is on my bed.  Well, the almost completed quilt is on my bed, the binding is not done but that connects with the story here.

In preparation for her mystery I decided to clean my sewing room and by clean I mean actually put stuff away, not just move piles of stuff around. (Which I have been known to do.)

It took me seven hard working hours to clean my room.  I don't think it has been this clean since I first moved my stuff upstairs.  This first picture is where I sew.  I think I have a pretty sweet set up, my fabric behind me, my TV and DVD player and my Singer machine.  I use the system of wrapping my fabric around magazine boards for 1/2 yards and more, the baskets hold smaller amounts and are sorted by color.  I have tried other methods of fabric storage but this works for me and really didn't take that long to do.

In front of my sewing table is my ironing board which I made from 2 carts that I bought at Sam's club and then put a piece of board on top, hubby helped fasten the board to the cart and then batting on top and then the silver iron fabric that you can get at JoAnn.  

 

The last picture is how I keep my rulers organized.  In this room there is this little odd wall, what happens when you have rounded corners in your house, anyway, I use the Command hooks and positioned them to accommodate the various sizes.  I was worried about scratching the wall up but I am careful when I remove and put them back.

The boxes stacked on the left hold all my crazy quilting laces, threads and trims.

So that's a little peek into my sewing world and I hope you enjoyed it.  If you see something that inspires you and you want to use it, feel free!

And the good thing about spending 7 hours cleaning is I found the following:  binding for the quilt that is on my bed, a pattern for a table runner that I had started but could not finish because I lost the pattern,  another fabric that I am going to use to bind the quilt that is on my mid-arm machine, and a TON of batiks that I honestly don't remember getting, it's like finding buried treasure.

  

If I don't talk to you all before the mystery starts I will be posting my progress here and on the Bonnie Hunter yahoo group.  Try the mystery, I highly recommend it!

New Beginnings...

Hello My Lovlies!

Well it's been a couple of jam packed months but I am back.  I attended my second Crazy Quilting International Retreat and it was a blast!  Words cannot express the wonderfulness of these women.  I will have to devote another post to that because I am bursting at the seams to show off my new creation.  Last year I went to Goodwill with my BFFs, Cathy and Bev and saw this:

One of two sad little shoes that had seen much better days and were well past their glory.  I felt sorry for those shoes so I took them home.  They sat with me for an extremely long time, but the heel of the shoes intrigued me.  I took the shoes apart and decided to crazy quilt them.  Seemed easy enough right?   First,  I made a template of the top and cut out pieces of white fabric to use as my base for my cq and then it sat for another long time.  Fast forward to our visit in Texas, where I found a black and gold scorpio cameo.  That came home with me as that is my sign.  So put it all together and you get this:

I am so happy with my little shoe now!  I did so many things I have never done before, beaded a rivoli, soutache, a little ribbon flower and used ice resin.

I have already found another unusual pair of shoes, and have taken them apart and will be making a Halloween shoe next.  I have already collected stuff so hopefully it will be done around this Halloween, not Halloween 2014.

See you next time and be sure to do something you LOVE today.

Susan

Terrier Town...A Little Late...

Hi There!

     Well I said I would be back with some progress on My Terrier Town BOM so here's another month for you:

     The middle dog shows up much better in person than she does in the picture.  I made it light to represent my son's dog.  She is about 5 years old and God could not have made a less intelligent dog, but that's part of her charm and we could not love her more.  We have thought that if she were a person she would probably have severe ADD.  She cannot even grasp the game of fetch.  We tried so much to teach her and she will happily run next to my dog and watch, but try to teach her alone and you end up will a bunch of toys at the end of the hall after she has run down to them and then comes happily back to you without them.  We have seen her run into doors and walls while she is watching something else.

     Enough gushing about our pets!  So, I have another block all fused and ready for applique so shortly there will be another block to show you.

     On another note my daughter got a job at JoAnn's and she could not be happier.  This may be dangerous for me however, but first I will need to see how big her employee discount is!  But honestly, I am very proud of her and I know this job is a good fit.

Make sure you do something that you love today!

It's Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

Hi My Lovelies!

I know it's been a little bit of time but we went to the great state of Texas to see if it was a place we could retire to and to visit some of hubby's relatives.  Although we thought Texas was great, I think the extended hot weather would bother my mom too much.  So the search continues.

What I am so excited about is something very silly to a lot of you.  Let me back up a little, my dad was a fantastic gardener, grew lots of veggies, especially tomatoes.  That gene did not pass on to me.  I have tried and can do ok, but, nothing to write home about.  So I tried a new brand, called German Girl (I figured since I was German the plant would feel a sense of family).  Two tomatoes so far, over a month later, but they are some great tomatoes!  Look at the size of this baby...

I will say that the tomatoes sat and sat and once I left the state and my son took over they turned red!  I still maintain that I did most of the work and that it was just dumb luck that they "happen" to ripen when I was not home.

My next post will be to share my Terrier Town progress.... I am keeping up so far!

Until then make sure you do something you love!

Susan

A Quilt in Honor of Dad...

Hello All!

     Well no more progress has been made on my terrier quilt but I did want to share with you my quilt that I completed with my dad's shirts.  My dad passed away several years ago and I miss him a lot still.

Every winter he wore these long sleeve flannel shirts and they all had to have a front pocket for his cigar and matches.

     So since the shirts were made of cotton flannel, 50/50 and 100% polyester some of the fabric stretched so I picked an easy design.  Large 4-patches were just the ticket.  I matched those with blue cotton flannel.  The back was totally pieced with his shirts.  My daughter, who had a special connection with my dad, has already claimed it as her own.  I have enough to make one more quilt and I know my dad would be happy...

     The lovely model posing is my son's dog, Ket.

Until next time, make sure you do something you enjoy!

Susan B

Hello My Lovlies!

It's been a while I know, life stuff....
But last month I started a new project and I wanted to share it with you.  I bought this pattern a while ago but didn't start it yet.

Isn't this adorable?!

If you cannot see the name, its a Block of the Month called Terrier Town and is created by Late Bloomer Quilts.  I have a little black Lapso Apso/Terrier and anything that has a black doggie just tugs at my heart strings.

So last month I started and my goal is 2 blocks per month.  Here are the first 2 put together:

Now I don't have all of the fabrics suggested for this quilt, so I am pulling from my stash but I think it looks great so far!

I already have another block for July done and when I finish the second one I will post that also.  I still have a few weeks.

Hope you all get to create something fun today!!!

My Little Binding Experiment, Part 1....

Hello Everyone,
Here is Part 1 of my "Looking for My Perfect Binding Method."  The backstory is:  I decided a year ago that I could not hand bind anymore, it hurt my fingers and hands, and I just wasn't enjoying it.  If I am going to do hand work I would rather do some embroidery or just about anything else.  For those of you who enjoy snuggling up to your quilt and binding the heck out of it, good for you, and I do sincerely mean that, I just tried and tried and bound over 9 quilts before deciding there had to be a better way for me.  
My first machine binding was last year on a table runner with some fusible thread. It worked fine  however, the idea of sewing around my quilt three times, first for attaching the binding, second for zig-zag with the fusible thread, and third, for stitching the binding down was a drag.  There was also the ironing problem.  (Difficult little snot, aren't I?)  I have certain health problems which make standing in front of a hot iron very uncomfortable so I use my iron sparingly.  So the process worked fine, I just started searching for something that would work better for me.
I finished my spiral table runner recently and thought this would be the time to try something new.

  

   So here's the table runner all done. Isn't it cute?  I used a temporary basting spray to fuse the binding down.  It partially worked the way I wanted it to but overall was not as successful as I had hoped.  As I was sewing some of the binding began to lift due to handling so if I did a large quilt this would not work.  Also the spray was kind of messy on my fingers.  The plus side?  I did not have to use an iron and I did not have to sew around my table runner 3 times.  

     So I went back to JoAnn's and searched the isles for my next idea and will let you know how it goes.  For now I wish you all time to do what you love the most for life is short!

What is Bias Batting Tape Anyway?

Hi Everyone!

Well it has been while hasn't it?  So now that some craziness in my life has settled down I am back and I have been doing a little experimenting and thought I would share it with you.  So those of you who quilt your own quilts, what do you do when you get to the end and you mis-measured your batting?  So after I was done yelling and crying (Just kidding) I went upstairs to retrieve my handy fusible batting tape only to realize that I only had about 6 inches left of the stuff!  What's a girl to do?   I begrudgingly went to the computer to see about ordering more when I thought really what is this tape?  It's lightweight, fusible with a little stretch.  I went to my sewing room and started to hunt around and came across some lightweight knit fusible by the yard leftover from another project.  Next, I took my trusty rotary cutter and made a few bias cuts the same width as the tape I had.  Here is a picture of the tape I made on the batting:

  It held the batting together nicely and I quilted through it with no problems.  I really cannot see how it is any different than what I bought in the roll.  Well there is one difference, mine came in the pieces I cut so instead of one long strip I had to overlap the ones I made which really was no big deal.  It is fusible which means just like the tape it is meant to hold to whatever you iron it to.  The quilt has been on my bed being used every night for several weeks now and I haven't seen anything funny happening to the area where I did this.  Just something for you to think about for you next batting emergency.

Have a great day and make time to do something that you love to do!

Pincushion and Sandwiches....

          Well, trying to get caught up, which is  probably impossible but I will give it a go anyway.  Here's my second pincushion, I call her Princess Anastasia, because she is wanted it that way.  I know it's a little over the top but it was so much fun to make it was hard to stop.  My next one will probably be a ring holder for my daughter.  Instead of one long piece of velvet there will be rows of velvet kinda like sausages.

     
          Princess Anastasia has hand dyed velvet for the pincushion section and the shoe is a dark velvet teal.  Then there is purple lace all over and the collar is lace stiffened and attached to the shoe.  Then I put over 100 rhinestones all over.  Isn't she lovely?

         So now you are wondering where Sandwiches come into all this?  Well, I was reading an article on the internet that says people of my generation, born in the 60's are now being called the Sandwich generation.  Why?  Because we have children at home, although mine are adults (supposedly) and we take care of one or more parents who also live with us.  After I read the article I felt better because I am not the only one out there in this situation.  Although I love my family, it can be stressful and difficult to carve a little me time out of all of this.  So are there any more Sandwiches out there?