{Post #801} Sewin' Again

Cut these out yesterday.  Two are Christmas gifts.  Guess who got her sewing machine back?  It took about 3 hours to piece these.  They measure about 21" across.

~Joan

{Post #800} I Gone And Did It

I just did something I have not done in years.  But is was time.  There just isn't room for everyone and everything.

I listed 3 of my quilt tops on eBay.  And I'm not sorry (yet!).  The first one is a top that I like soooo much.  I had planned on hand quilting it.  But it doesn't really match any room in my house.  And I would have liked it to be bigger if I was going to paint a room to match it.  And...you can see why it is on eBay.  Here it is...

The other two are recently made.  I like them both but have quilts I use in their places for those holidays.  I thought of finishing them to give to someone else.  But there are so many variables in what a person likes that I didn't want to chance giving something to someone who would never use it.  Can you relate?

Check out my auctions if you want...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/whistlersmother10/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

~Joan

{Post #799} Countdown on SOK

I decided to keep a countdown so I can show that I am making some progress on this quilt.  Many people blog for many reasons, but my reason is for posterity.  I like to see the progress on projects.  Sort of like a diary. 

As of right this minute, I have 18-1/3 more rows to quilt plus 7/8 of the border.  Stay tuned!

~Joan

{Post #798} Seeds of Kindness 3/4 Hand Quilted

I read something really funny on someone else's blog today.  Made me feel all organized and together.  Ha ha ha...

It had to do with hand quilting, in case you're wondering about the relevance...

"This week I had a delightful addition to my morning ritual. After my typical activities (pawing through the basket of clean laundry for my clothes and running to the bus stop with wet hair), I tried a little hand quilting on my way to work."

If I quilt in my spare time this next couple of weeks instead of starting new projects, this might really happen!!

If you have just recently started reading my blog, let me introduce you to my baby, my pride and joy, my hand-cut, hand-pieced, and 3/4 hand-quilted labor of love...

My Seeds of Kindness quilt.  You can read all about its history here.  This picture shows it lying on top of my queen-sized bed.  See the spool of gold thread and the little piece of white ribbon near the bottom in the center? 

There is it...I have quilted on both sides of the core going horizontally as it lies, and from the left side all the way over to the spool.  So you can see I have about half of the quilt (the right half) to quilt one direction.  I also have about 1/8 of the border quilted.  I plan to devote my hand quilting time to this project until it is finished.  Stop laughing!  I mean it.

I use the safety-pinned ribbon to mark my place when I get to the end of a thread.  It used to take me 10 minutes or more to find where I left off quilting.  Now I just hunt for the ribbon.  Much faster!

Elisabeth has started taking piano from Rachel's piano/violin teacher.  The interpretation of that is I don't need to be there since E can drive herself and R there.  That means I have at least 2 more free hours on Mondays.  I think I'll just hand quilt while I wait for my laundry to need processing! 

My machine (Janome) is still at the shop.  Just got off the phone with the repairman.  Sounds like he hasn't even looked at it yet.  Yikes!!

~Joan

{Post #797} New Front Door Decoration

This is a decoration that I can see using every season (or until I grow tired of it).  I had hoped to embellish it a little with "something", but I don't yet know what that something is.  On my birthday last month, a dear friend brought me a large purple (my favorite color) chrysanthemum.  I had seen this idea done in a slightly different way, so it was time to try it.  I went to a local "indoor yard sale", run by a mission that benefits from the sales and got this little TV table to transform. 

One of the great things about it is that the pot sits down inside the table, so it won't get blown over.  A little black spray paint and light sanding, and voila!

Before:

I was going to put one of my artificial pumpkins on the floor beside it, but it kept getting blown away...time to buy a real one!


~Joan

{Post #796} Machine Woes

I think my machine is in good hands.  Of course, all I want to do now is sew!!  I am going to machine quilt the two runners (1 and 2) I just pieced.  My machine had a few issues, but it was limping along.  The automatic needle threader (which I never used, but now that it's broken off, my eyes are bad enough that I need it), one of the two screws that held the throat plate down disappeared (aliens?), and the thread tension was only correct when it was set on 9 (out of 9).  So it was time!!

~Joan

{Post #795} Blue I Spy and Tuscany Runner

I am about to do something drastic...live without my sewing machine for about a week.  I just found that there is a sewing machine repair/maintenance place about 5 minutes from my house (as opposed to over an hour away, where I used to take it).  So I am going to take it in after I finish this post.

I've been a busy sewing bee.  I decided to finish an old project (UFO) and start a new one.  There was an I Spy quilt top languishing in my sewing room for over a year.  I am giving it as a surprise, but I don't think the family even knows I have a blog.  I learned a new free-motion quilting pattern and it turned out fantastic.  It's hard to get a good pic of the quilting, but here it is washed and dried.

It looks odd because I took the picture at an angle to hopefully capture more of the texture after it was washed and dried.  Here are a couple close-up pics before it was quilted.  Don't you love the monkeys??  They are having a GOOD time!

Some of the squares are one fabric, and a handful of them are 4 different fabrics pieced together.

Here is a picture of the whole thing, before quilting.  It measures about 40" square.

Then, in preparation for being w/o my machine for a while, I cleaned off all the little scraps on my cutting table.  Once it was cleaned off and all the strips and squares were in their proper places, I picked one of my all-time favorite fabrics that I just have a bit of, that I never used because it was one of my favorite fabrics and I didn't have much of it, and I plunged in and cut up that fabric to make a table runner!  Those of you with a hoarded stash know what I mean.  You can't bear to cut it because there isn't much, but the print is big, oh, the drama. 

The piecing is finished, and here is a close-up and a pic of the whole thing, which measures about 18" x 48" (I think)...

Hope to have this on my fall table this year, so I will quilt it soon.  Now off to deliver my machine to be spruced up and then back home to shampoo my bedroom carpet (nothing but fun around here, my friends).  After that I am going to inventory and declutter my pantry and big freezer.  I know, you're all jealous.  Go sew something!

~Joan