WIP Wednesday - September 12

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted in 8 days. So, Hidy Ho Neighbor-rinos! What have I been up to? A lot.

For starters, I DID NOT go to the fabric auction; I didn't trust myself. I know that 15,000 yards sounds like a lot, but do the math: 15,000 yards divided by 24 yards (in a bolt) = 625 bolts. Yes, that is still a lot of fabric, but a quilt shop has a lot more than that. I did not go because, after all, I am trying to bust my stash not add to it. And I'm out of room.

I met, instead, with my Quilty Friend. We get together once a month alternating homes. This month I hosted. I worked on odds and ends of things: I put some blanket binding on a crochet baby afghan for a pregnant coworker, I did a test on the machine for something on the challenge quilt to see if it will work (which I will end up stitching by hand), I gathered supplies for the class I took yesterday, wrote a letter to Don Henley of the Eagles asking permission to use a certain line from one of his songs for the challenge quilt (better late than never, eh?) and I pulled a project box down to work on this week.

Over the weekend, I also worked on the Autumn Leaves quilt (formerly known as Banana-fana). Let me give you a recap. The quilt was quilted and bound. After washing, some hand dyed fabric scraps bled. Wah! I tried everything: Synthropol, Retayne, Oxyclean and color catchers. The Shout Color Catchers, when basted over the spots, took out some of the lighter ones, but not all of the spots. So I went out early in the morning and pruned a maple tree, washed the leaves, painted the backs of the leaves and pressed them carefully onto the quilt over the stained spots. Then I went back and outlined with a black Micron pen. I now have leaves blowing across the quilt. The beauty of doing it this way is that if the fabrics continue to bleed, I can just add more leaves. Ha!

Hmm. Let's see. O. Yesterday's class. It was an incredible Invisible Machine Appliqué class by Kelly Galagher-Abbott. Her website is www.jukeboxquilt.com. I wish I had know about this technique before I did the challenge quilt. What is so different about it, you ask? Well, the supplies included a washaway stabilizer, glue sticks and manicure orange sticks. What was really scary at first was the thought of doing a zigzag using the straight stitch 1/4" foot. Yes, you read that right. My 1/4" foot was on the machine using a teeny, tiny zigzag. The photo to the left is the class sample I made. You can not see those stitches. Trust me on this one. So here is another block for the Orphan box(es).

CarGuy is at the drag races in Topeka Kansas. I told him to keep his eyes open for the Tinman and the Cowardly Lion. A friend of his races and CarGuy went along for moral support. So while he is gone I have some alone time. I like alone time as long as it doesn't stretch out too long. So tonight I decided to talk to you all and when I'm finished here I'm going to mosey over to The Quilt Show and catch up on a few episodes. I have my knitting right here so I can multitask. I've got my evenings all planned to keep myself busy and to get some things done that I have not been able to get around to doing.

O and the photo at the beginning of the post? I'm a barefoot stitcher just like Bonnie at Quiltville. What is funny is that I looked around the class and there were three more women sewing barefooted or stocking footed.