More Quilting Going On...

I've been making more selvage blocks over the last couple of weeks, but instead of making them so scrappy as I had started out, I decided I wanted a more "controlled scrappy" look.  I decided to use a blue calico and a white-on-white for the star points and background.  The center of the stars are the scrappy blocks made with the selvages.  

The blue and white fabrics are from my stash, so no wallets were harmed in the making of these blocks!  :D

I have 27 blocks finished right now and many, many, many more selvage centers that still to have star points added to them.  The blocks are 8" finished.  I don't know how big the quilt will be...but basically, it will be as big as I have blocks for when I'm done!  I have used all the selvages with wording/number/dots from my selvage basket.  The only selvages I have left now are the ones that have no white at all or only plain white with fabric, but no words, numbers, or dots.  I plan on using all of those selvages to try my hand at fabric-covered clothesline bowls.  


My "Christmas Stars" quilt is sandwiched and ready for me to start machine quilting on it.  I have to figure out if I'm going to try some sort of design in the body of it or just do meandering in the body and then a design in the borders.  Still thinking on these things...waiting for the quilt to speak to me and tell me what it wants!  :D

Loretta

2016 Grafton Beautification Project...

This past April, our little town of Grafton, WV, was pelted with lemons...I mean hail balls.  Grafton was instantly inundated with insurance adjusters from every company imaginable!  Next came the contractors...and finding someone to so body work on your car was impossible because of all the damage!  

Our house damage consisted of holes in the house siding on the north side (the direction the hail came from), broken shutters, dented gutters and downspouts, and dings in the roofing shingles.  As for our cars, both of Andy's cars look like someone took a ball-ping hammer to them...the Baja got totaled by the insurance company, but we didn't have full-coverage on his old Forester.  
The insurance company covered a lot of the damage...roof, gutters, downspouts, etc...but would only pay to replace the siding and shutters on the north side of the house that got damaged.   Unfortunately, both the siding and shutters were 16 years old and faded...and couldn't be "matched"...so we decided to throw in the extra money to have the entire house re-sided completely and all new shutters.  We also decided to go ahead and have the last 4 original-to-the-house windows and the front cement steps replaced while we were at it.

Last week the contractors finished up their part.  Now there are a couple of things we need to do to truly finish it off, but we can do those things over the next couple of weeks as the weather cools down a little and becomes a little more bearable!  

The new siding color is slightly darker and less "yellow" than the previous color.  The previous shutters were Wedgewood Blue and slatted...the new ones are black and solid.

The white area between the porch floor and the ground is where Andy & I are going to put up Airstone in the Autumn Mountain color.  That is the same color of Airstone that we put in our kitchen...

Continuing to the north side of the house...this is the side that got the majority of the damage...about 40 holes in the siding and all 4 sets of shutters were damaged as well as the metal wrap around the windows.  We also replace the stove pipe since it was grungy-looking!

This is the south and west sides of the house...the three windows across the upper back are 3 of the 4 new windows.  (I don't have a picture of the 4th window, but it is a crank-out "awning" window in the bathroom.)

Because of the extensive damage throughout Grafton, almost all of the houses are getting new roofs and many, many, many of them are also getting new siding...thus why I have been referring to it as the "2016 Grafton Beautification Project"!  LOL

I LOVE the way our house turned out!  I will post more pictures when we get the Airstone done in the front!


Loretta

A Quilt Showing and A New Project...

Quote for the Day:

"In this world, there's always going to be people who are better then you, so stop comparing yourself to others, and just be the best you."

~author unknown

Our local quilt group, the Millennium Quilters, held their quilt show.  I had never entered any of my quilts in a show before because:  1)  I give away almost all of my quilts so never have one here to enter;  and 2)  I don't think my work is "show-worthy".  

I wasn't going to enter one this year because the only quilt that I have of the six I made last year was the one I sent out to be long-armed and there isn't enough quilting on the borders, and knew I'd get dinged for that.  The rest of the quilt is beautifully quilted, but there just wasn't enough quilting done in the borders.  :(  I should have added more quilting there myself before I added the binding, but didn't...and if I try to add some now, it will all just pucker because of the binding being on already.  

Then about 2 weeks ago, I was laying on the decompression table at the chiropractor's office and saw the "Mr. Chillingsworth" quilt hanging on the wall...the one that I had gifted to him last year...

I asked to borrow it for the show and entered it.  The show was this past weekend and here is it hanging in the show...

Well...would you look at that???  It got "Honorable Mention" in it's class!!!  Wow!!!  Cool!!!

So...yeah...I'll be entering more quilts in future shows!  LOL


I have started on a new project...
I save the selvages off of the edge of my fabric (for those "non-quilters" out there...the selvage is what they put on the edge of the fabric to hold it onto the printing machines in the making of the fabric.  The make-up is denser and has printing on it, so you don't want to put it into your quilt.  However, many people save them and make them into a separate quilt...aptly named "selvage quilts"!)

This is what my selvage basket looked like...time to use them up!!!

I am making these star blocks using up some leftover 2.5" HST's from other projects as well as some new ones made with my new Accuquilt GO...all made from my scraps!!!   The selvages are foundation-pieced to used dryer sheets...which I press lightly with a cool iron, then cut down to 4.5" using my Accuquilt GO.  (I use my dryer sheets 2-3 times in the dryer before using them in a quilt to make sure there are no more oils or softener on them.  Once the softener is gone from them, they are merely a lightweight piece of non-woven material...similar to very lightweight interfacing.  I keep an empty tissue box on the dryer to put the used dryer sheets in when I pull clothes from the dryer.)

These blocks are so much fun to make and go rather quickly because there is no sewing/flipping/pressing like with other blocks.  Here is the tutorial I used:  http://quispamsisquilter.blogspot.com/2011/08/simple-selvage-square-quilt-block.html.  I use all the selvages...not just the ones with writing.  Here is a YouTube video showing how to make a selvage block, too, for those of you who like to actually see them being made:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKniayPTeKc.  

This is what the creative mess process looks like in my sewing room...

Hope this gives you some ideas of what to do with that fabric that you've been cutting off and not using.





Loretta

Where Have You Been All My Quilting Life???....

Quote for the Day:

“Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The roads of life 

are paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.”

~ Unknown

My dad used to say "the roof only needs fixed when it's raining."  The meaning was that sometimes we only learn that we need things WHEN we need them.  That's how it has been with my difficulty with cutting out quilt pieces.  I average about 5-6 quilts a year...and the actual "cutting" part is only a portion of the quilting process...so there are only a few times a year that I remember that I need help...and that is with the cutting part.  

With my neck and back issues (arthritis, stenosis, and herniated discs), I have difficulty cutting using a rotary cutter.  I even bought the Martelli rotary cutter that was supposed to be easier to use.  (I found that I don't care for it that much...out of all of my rotary cutters that I have tried, I actually prefer my "Splash" Olfa rotary cutter.)

Every time I have to cut pieces for a quilt I wish that I had a fabric cutter.  In fact, I *almost* purchased an Accuquilt GO last December when they went on sale for Christmas.  But, alas, I wasn't cutting out a quilt so I didn't *need* one.  Are you seeing the thinking here?  I only realize I *need* one when I'm cutting out a quilt...and each time, when I am done cutting, I think "see...I really don't need one...I can do it just fine."  But really I can't.  :(  

At my last massage session my massage therapist was appalled at the issues I had from my right neck down to my right thumb...all from having cut out the Christmas Stars quilt.  :(

So that was it...it was TIME to splurge and purchase something that I needed to make it possible to continue quilting.  And to my very pleasant surpise...the price had dropped $100 from the previous price!!!  (The usual price was $349, but would go on sale in December for $300.  The new low price is $249!!!)

I set it up yesterday and tried it out using some scrap fabric like they suggest.  Within MINUTES I had cut 36 HST's (half-square triangle pieces) and sewed them together!!!

I did some "test" sewing on the first 3 sets to find my exact needle position for the new pieces...since they are cut perfectly each time, they are all the exact same size...so I had to find out where the perfect needle position was for them...

I even took some of the "corners" that I had saved when cutting off of previous quilt blocks and ran them through the Accuquilt.  I was able to resize them to exactly the size I needed!  How easy was that???  No more measuring, flipping/rotating rulers, etc., that is involved in cutting out pieces!!!

Like I said, within mere minutes I had turned a pile of scraps into 2.5" HST's!!!    :)  

Of course, now I wish that I had invested in this sooooooooooo much sooner!!!  


And now...onto other news...

The roof got replaced about a month ago from the hail damage we had in April.  The 4 windows we were getting replaced got done about 10 days ago.  And today they started replacing the siding...

Loretta

Christmas Stars...

Quote for the Day:

“Christmas doesn't come from a store, 

maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more....” 

~ Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

A little birdie told me last year that she'd like a Christmas quilt, so for the past month or so, I've been working on a Christmas quilt that I designed myself in EQ7.  I am happy to announce that the last of the three borders are now on the quilt and it is ready to be sandwiched and quilted.  It ended up 100" x 100"!  Whew!...it's gonna be FUN trying to quilt it on my little domestic sewing machine!   :(

So here's pics of the scrappy "Christmas Stars" quilt top...

Even the THREE borders are scrappy!!!

I need to either purchase a king-sized batting for it or piece one from the batting pieces I have on hand.  I also need to piece together a backing for it.  THEN I will get it sandwiched and start the quilting on it.

Loretta

My Current Quilt Projects...

All of the Christmas fabrics start showing up in quilt stores in July.  There's a reason for this!  If you're gonna get a quilt made in time for Christmas, you've gotta start EARLY!!!

I actually started this wall hanging quilt about 3 years ago...at the beginning of December...not a good idea!  LOL  It was a panel that I saw on display at the LQS and I had to have it!  I started out handquilting it in my small, portable Q-Snap frame...taking it to guild meetings, etc., and working on it there.   It wasn't getting done very fast, OBVIOUSLY...so after I finished the Baskets quilt that was in my floor frame, I decided to put this one in the floor frame and finish it.  It is getting done a lot quicker now and will be ready to hang this Christmas season!

My current piecing project is also a Christmas quilt...this time a queen-sized quilt.  Last Christmas my daughter-in-law said she'd like a Christmas quilt, so I designed one in EQ7 for her...

It's coming along nicely!  All of the green/white blocks are pieced and squared up.  I'm currently piecing the star blocks and am about 1/3rd of the way done with them.  

When we were in Tennessee in June, we went to the Mt. Juliet Farmisan Market because our daughter had a booth there selling her glass bird feeders.   Across from her booth Crittenden Custom Creations had a booth set up and I went over to investigate.   Bill Crittenden makes hand-turned pens so I asked him if he had ever made any seam rippers.  He acknowledged that he had never done one before but was anxious to make one and took my order.  I received it about a week ago and am sooooooo impressed with it!  It is beautiful!!!

The handle is carved from a rectangled block of dyed plywood!  It is double-ended.  You pull out the metal end, turn it around and push the rounded piece back into the hole in the end to get this...

The end on the left is bigger...more for coarse cloth like denim or canvas.  The end on the right is finer and more for lightweight fabrics, like quilter's cotton.  I love the feel of it in my hand...it is very well balanced...like a nice writing instrument.  I haven't had any seams that needed ripped out since receiving it, but I'm sure that will all come to a screeching halt when I start joining my blocks on the Christmas quilt!  (Joining the blocks to make a top is ALWAYS where I make my mistakes!!!)  


Loretta

Another Trip to Tennessee...

Quote for the Day:

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love."

~Ernest Hemingway

In June we took ANOTHER trip back to Tennessee to our daughter's to celebrate our grandson, Clark's, 2nd birthday.  (Whew...4 trips in 5 months makes one exhausted!)  
 

Clark and Sera...

The party was held at a pavilion at the local park and it was HOTTER THAN HADES that day!  The kids were able cool off at the park's "Splash Pad"...

The next day we all took a jaunt up to the bridge where Erin and Dale got married in September.  There was a boat race that day so we got to watch it from the bridge for a few minutes.

Andy HATES having his picture taken, so he will do anything to keep from looking at the camera or smiling...

Loretta