A Quilting Tip

Here's a quick tip for you. I wanted to do some wavy line quilting on the borders of a quilt and I needed to keep them parallel. So I took a hint from the long arm quilters and used a small ruler. To keep it from slipping on the fabric I sprayed the bottom of the ruler with some Sulky KK 2000. Voilá! No slippage and nice straight  parallel wavy lines. ☺

Talk about a giveaway

Jackie, at Canton Village has a supurb giveaway going on right now! Hop over there and sign up 'cause everybody deserves a chance to win.

Declutter and UFOs

Believe it or not, both decluttering and UFOs go hand in hand. In an effort to free up some space in the yarn stash so the yarn garnered at the yard sale could be added, two completed baby afghans (one for a preemie) came to light. So  a pile of Project Linus quilts and blankets was created.

Then a there was the light bulb *AHA* moment from several weeks ago. Have you seen these Skillbuilder Panels? Both of these were quilted, a fleece layer was added to the back to cover the printing and the whole thing was tied. To bind them, the fleece was pulled from the back to the front, a decorative machine stitch was used to stitch the 'binding' down. Two items plus the fleece were decluttered and resulted in usable quilts for children.

Like Michele in her recent post: With Heart and Hands.....: Everything But the Kitchen Sink I love the occasional tied quilt. It is not only quick to do but is very soft and cuddly.

This is the pile for Finn's New Year's Eve challenge at Pieces from my scrapbag..: Crossing the T's and Dotting the I's... hopefully more will be added soon.

Honestly, I was not planning to buy

...but it was a fiber related yard sale. I actually showed remarkable restraint. Only 20 fat quarters. (Amy, do you have that cat fabric on the top, it is an Alexander Henry?) I had only planned on picking up some acrylic yarn (if there was some) for Project Linus afghans. That I got. I thought the white in the bag on the right was acrylic until I got it home and realized there were 5 skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted. The real score was the blue/purple that you can barely see: 12 skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky SuperWash. After a bit of research I found that that yarn was originally $120 -- I got it for $30. O yum. Somebody stop me.

And the Winner is

Congratulations to StitchinByTheLake!

Once I get your snail mail address your prize will be in the mail.

Thank you to all who entered to play.

Fourth Blogiversary -- a giveaway.

It is The Quilter's 4th Blogiversary. Four years, can you believe it? This blog was started mainly to have a place to record  thoughts and actions about quilting. But it has morphed into something much more than an online journal. The family keeps up with me through this blog (Hi, y'all!), new work and old is posted not only in quilting but other fibery goodness, plus, occasionally, it is a wonderful place to release a bit of steam. Always one to keep a journal, I have found this blogging format excellent: it is easier to search than a hard copy book. ☺ It is also a good way to track progress on a project, too.

I have met a lot of wonderful new friends here too. Why, if it weren't for this blog I wouldn't have met YOU! I want to thank each and every one of you for taking time out from your day to visit and chat. And to thank you, I am having a giveaway! There is one qualifier to this giveaway: you need to have a viable email address and blog. If I can't respond to your comment, then you will not be in the drawing. Leave a comment on this post and you are in! The drawing closes Oct 25 at 4:00PM Mountain Daylight Savings Time. SO HURRY & COMMENT! Tell your friends! I will close the comment link at that time and do a random number generation for the winner.

Want to know what is in the drawing? I'm so excited about this for you, I could spit!

• Four fat quarters of Kaffe Fassett shot cotton
• Four fat quarters of Kaffe Fassett woven stripes
• One yard (that's four fat quarters if you divide it up) of an older Kaffe Fassett print that just so happens to co-ordinate with the other 

Do you see a theme here?

So there you go! Good luck and remember, it is the luck of the draw.

The New Stove

*Ring*  *Ring*

She: Hello?

He: The new stove is here and installed. The microwave is bigger than I thought it would be. It is 17" deep.

She: O? that is smaller than the old one.

He: You're not going to like this.

She: Wait a minute. How much clearance is there between the hood/microwave and the top of the stove?

He: 14"

She: O.M.G. I have a stock pot that is 10". What are we going to do?

He: We will discuss it when you get home from work.

All because he did not want the perfectly good microwave sitting on the counter top. The $767 stove & hood/microwave just got more expensive. Envision this: removing the cabinets (cookbooks stored there) above the hood all together or just to cut them down about 4". But then there is the exhaust fan to deal with.

I'm not ready for this. *sigh*

A GREAT Giveaway

Wouldn't it be wonderful to win this giveaway? Pumpkin Patch Primitives Quilt Shoppe: It's a Happy Halloween Giveaway!

Maybe my luck will change.

Autumn Leaves

Auntie needed a new decoration for her door and this pattern has been languishing in the 'some day' pile. After working on The Firewood Quilt for months and months, a quick project was needed for instant gratification.

The pattern is from Quilter's World August 2008 magazine, which, BTW, has the cutest little quilt on the cover of the December issue. This small 18"x18" quilt is a product of the stash: backing, batting, fabric, buttons, thread.

There are several balls of Candlewicking Cotton in the stash that have provoked thoughts of usage in quilts. The first attempt is shown here as big stitch quilting. My opinion? Meh. The thread is much too soft to do a larger quilt and will be used for embroidery, as it was intended.

Small projects such as this are a great way to try new techniques

More on the Firewood Quilt

The blocks in The Firewood Quilt measure 4" finished. I like a smaller block, can you tell? Squares of the darker brown were cut and added like Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville does in her Pinapple Blossom quilt. I don't want to re-invent the wheel so I am just going to link to her website since she has some great photos on the technique.

I wanted to keep a bit of consistancy throughout the quilt but I ran out of both the tan and the brown fabrics. A trip to the LQS resulted in fabrics of the same color and value but a different shade. It works for me. *shrug* The only fabric that is consistant throughout the quilt turned out to be the blue/green stripe. I have recently re-discovered a love for stripes: a striped fabric makes something look more difficult than it really is, similar to knitting a pair of socks with self-striping yarn.

The inner 2" border was added of the tan/beige fabric to stop the eye and give it a place to rest from the busy center. A 3" border was added and then a 5" border. Do you know about Fibonacci sequence? I first learned of this from Caryl Bryer Fallert's website. It is a mathematic formula that results (at least in quilting) in a pleasing sequence. The number squence goes like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on. Or 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5. This is where I got the width of my borders in relation to how much fabric I had on hand. *grin* To much information? It gets better. Think of pieces in a block similar to a log cabin: 1+1=2, etc, etc.

So there you have it. The sometimes haphazard design process that I use.

The Firewood Quilt

Remember this quilt? (Click on it for a bigger photo). It seems that this thing has been on the design wall forever. It all started with a trade with a guy at work and one charm pack. The one charm pack turned into seven plus a lot of stash fabric and it resulted in this quilt. I quilted this behemoth (it is 100"x100") in a divide and conquer style and I plan on doing a tutorial in a few days.

O and I am now the proud owner of 5 cords of firewood.

It's Pathetic

Toni, The Quilting Pirate, has a challenge/drawing going right now to show our Halloween decorations. I have two Halloween decorations. How pathetic is that? I have one of those metal Jack-o-Lanterns that you can hang on a wall and this table topper.

The table topper was a kit I purchased at Quilt-A-Fair several years ago and is 24" square. Normally, I do not buy kits but that focus fabric in the center just pulled me in and there was no other way to get it! I machine quilted it in a loop-d-loop. I love my little Halloweenee quilt even though it is getting distorted in the wash.

Through The Gate

Quilt measures 4" x 6".

I have pondered on what to show in the Park City Girl: Quilt Festival - Fall 2009. I decided that Through The Gate would be my entry into the festival. A year or so ago I took a class that featured fusible webbing and cutting a 'window' from black fabric to highlight a scene made from a focus fabric. The focus fabric I chose was actually too small in scale for the size of the wall hanging. However, I used the same two fabrics and created this postcard and the scale is better on the postcard than on the wall hanging. The black gate is a combination of the fusing technique and satin stitching.

Hackers and email

Just thought you might want to know that thousands of Gmail, Yahoo, AOL accounts have been compromised. Here's a link to read about it. If you are having trouble with your blogger account this could possibly have something to do with it.  Read some of the comments in the link to the alert.

RESET YOUR PASSWORD!!

I can't stress that enough. RESET YOUR PASSWORD.

I reset my password every 3 months. I make it a unique password that I can remember without having to write it down by using a mnemonic that includes a number or two. Don't know what a mnemonic is? The most famous one is, of course, royBgiv: Red Orange Yellow Blue Green Indigo Violet = the colors in the rainbow. Then there is: George Eats Old Gray Rats And Paints Houses Yellow. Take the first letter of each word and it spells geography. Make up a sentence that you can remember, don't forget to add some numbers in there, take the first letter of each word and Voila! you have a very unique password.

HTH.

The Wedding Dress

In May 1910, grandfather and grandmother were wed. She and her four sisters were expert seamstresses and needlewomen and made her wedding dress. "The bride looked very charming gowned in a white silk princess dress richly embroidered, and over white." -- from one of the newspaper clippings.

The dress was re-discovered during the clean out of Auntie's condo. It was crammed into a small box that was slightly deeper than a box for a man's tie. When the box was opened the dress, over-blouse, embroidered bolero-length top and shawl burst forth like a spring! The dress is in surprisingly good condition in spite of the cavalier manner of storage.

The yoke and high collar of the dress are pin-tucked and are set into the princess style dress. Long sleeves come to a point over the back of the hand and are decorated with a passimenterie cording as is the center front of the dress from the hem upwards. The edge of the collar and the bottom of the sleeve have a whipstitch edgestitching over cording. An over-blouse of a different weight of silk was worn between the dress and the embroidered top to protect the dress from snags by the beaded edge of the top. The beads on the edge of the embroidered top have a silver lining that have tarnished with age and look quite dark. A silk stole completes the ensemble.

In May 2010, this dress will be 100 years old. I made the decision recently to donate the dress to the Colorado State University Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising which is dedicated to textiles. The curator was excited to receive it because there is provenance and feels the dress would be a great fit for the museum. The dress is made of silk and is quite fragile and I know that this museum will take good care of it. The curator also mentioned that they are planning a wedding dress exhibit in the near future and this dress is a perfect fit for the exhibit.

Today, I handed over the dress to the museum curator.

Grandmother's wedding dress has a new home.

Blogger Quilt Festival

Do you see it? It's overthere on the righthand sidebar. The badge for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. The badge/link at the beginning of this post takes you to the FAQ for the fall festival. If you want more information, then you need to check out the spring festival HERE.

I am going to participate but I do not know which quilt I am going to highlight. It will be an older one since I have nothing new to show. I urge you to participate. It is great fun to go around the blogosphere and see the 'quilt show'