A little hitch in the big web

Three things to be happy about:
(1) Getting on with it
(2) Coffee pods
(3) James Lee Burke novels

Right now I'm listening to "A Morning for Flamingoes" by James Lee Burke - you gotta love Dave Robicheaux, he's so laid back!

I was tooling right along with webbing the Passion quilt, but then my bobbin thread ran out and I air-sewed through three pairs without knowing it - monkey wrench!!!

I changed the bobbin and resumed sewing without realizing a pair had dropped behind my sewing machine, throwing the pattern off.  yeeeeeech!

Had to spread my stuff back out on the floor and figure out where I went wrong, thank goodness I took that photo of the right-side half!

Okay ... so I fumbled and stumbled til I figured out where the problem was, and had to unsew a few blocks... well, it was quite a few blocks!

Then I thought it would be smart to make sets of foursies and sew them together...

It was working til I spread it out again and saw a 9-patch that got turned.

Sheesh!  How'd I do that???  I was so frustrated that I put it aside for two days...

So now I'm ready to tackle it again.  The sideways block has been removed, I'll continue sewing my foursies and hook it all up together.

Borders will probably be black and white fabrics, no big deal; my goal is to get the flimsey out of the way before Bonnie releases her first mystery clue!

That's it for now, just wanted to show some progress, sew forth and sew on til later...

Units done!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) qwerty keyboards
(2) warm fuzzy slippers
(3) the color red

I finished the last of the 9-patch units I need for my Red and Black Passion quilt!

I've said it once (or twice?) and I'll say it again - laying out your squares and webbing the blocks as Bonnie Hunter instructed makes for a very quick process!

84 9-patch units and 84 alternate units - all done!

Now I only need to press the 9 patches I just finished and start laying them out on my design floor.

(I was up before the sun this morning!)

Here we go!

Two of each unit will go into the 12" block, I want to set them 6 across and 7 down which will give me 72 x 84" before borders.

I hear you - "that's a large quilt!"  Yes, but I want it to be large enough to fit my bed; throw sizes are okay sometimes but I want to use this one on my bed.

These are the original 9 that I showed you some time ago, to be incorporated into the layout as I play with them!

I even had a lot of the of 2-1/2" squares left over - quilt seeds!


That's it for now, enjoy your Saturday; its time for breffus!

Sew forth and sew on til later...

Road trip!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) the color red
(2) cosmetic samples
(3) comfortable sneakers

Why are they called sneakers??

Oh well.

Yesterday I took a little road trip, with my friend Renea riding shotgun!

Oh, the things we saw!

What exactly is this thing???

I couldn't resist putting my toe on the little lever thingy!

I didn't press down on it, though  ;o)

Oh, the stuff we ate!!

fresh made mini donuts - just looking!

Here's a little hint:

Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Meanwhile, before we hit the trail, I managed to get a few more of the Passa 9 patches finished:

I got back home just at 7 pm; was too pooped to do any sewing!  Oh well, it only gets better, right?  Sew forth and sew on til later!

My Festivus list!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) straight teeth
(2) overalls
(3) a foosball match

In a nutshell, the "Festivus" celebration was born on the Jerry Seinfeld show, where George Costanza's father wanted a celebration "for the rest of us."  He'd get a Festivus pole and gather the family around and berate them for their failures during the year.  The poorest performer would have to carry the festivus pole of shame.

Well, I love Christmas and I don't celebrate Festivus, but I thought it would be a fun name for this post.  Throughout the year I started things that for one reason or another I didn't finish; I don't mean UFO's, that's a whole different category!

So, this is my Festivus list, or "things that I dropped like a hot tater."

First up - Inspired by Toefeather, I wanted to make a 4-inch block every day for a year, then I'd have 365 blocks to make into a quilt.  Clever girl!

Seemed easy to do and it really is, but that daily block became a group of weekly blocks, then there were no blocks at all, doh!   After I made 35 blocks I discovered I wasn't sure I liked how they all looked together and I dropped that idea!  I'll make one more then set them in a quilt with sashing in between.

Another one - a slashed 9-patch block using African fabrics. 

Sounded like a good idea and the single blocks looked great... but when I placed several of them together on my design wall - yuck!  Not my idea of an attractive quilt.  If you stared at it too long it'd probably knock you down!

I could take the ones I did and set them with some kind of sashing (w-i-d-e sashing!) I suppose, but I'll not be making any more of these rascals!

Here's a good one - South of Baltimore!  I was using scrap yardage to make the flowers and leaves.

This actually should be considered a UFO because I can finish it by simply making two more blocks and setting them in a gigantic four-patch.  The blocks are 16" square so they'd make a nice wall hanging.  At this point I can't remember why I dropped this one - UFO!

And last but not least - my stash report!  Where did that go? Well, I found it tedious to try and figure out how much fabric I was using every week.  I stopped my wild fabric buying several months ago, I don't even look at the emails from Hancocks of Paducah or Thousands of Bolts or eQuilter (why haven't I dropped off those mailing lists??) and I think I've bought less than two dozen yards this year, so maybe the list did have some effect!  How much fabric did I use this year?  I have no idea but I know I used some, so that's a good thing!  So that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

If you had a quilting Festivus list, what would be on it??  I'd love to hear your hidden secrets!  Have a great Friday - sew forth and sew on til later!

halfway there

Hi everybody, I hope you're coping with the hot hot HOT weather without any problems - I went out for awhile Saturday and I was dragging when I came back inside.  Cooler today though!

I've been working on my slashed african 9-patches and I'm happy to report I'm halfway done - no dragging there!

This is a pile of 10 slashed 9-patches.  I decided on a 4x5 layout for this quilt, with each block trimmed down to 12-1/2 inches.

You know there always has to be one oddball in the group, and here it is:

When I made my first slash on this one, I made a mistake and slashed it top-to-side, rather than top-to-bottom.  To make it large enough, I had to add another slash and I was *this* close to tossing it out!  But look...

Trimmed down, it doesn't look too-too bad, right?  I think it's a keeper!

Here are six of the blocks on my design wall, just to see what they look like as a group:

For maximum variety I wanted some blocks to have two slashes, and some three.  I'll need to do some twisting, turning, and fancy shuffling when I do my final layout, but I think this will work as a throw!  It's different, anyway.

So that's 10 down, 10 more to go.  I'll make border decisions after they're all done, something with a small-scale pattern maybe?  We'll see.

I hope you've all been enjoying the Red, White and Blue blog hop, there are some great blocks being posted!  You can find the daily list on Jane's blog - http://janesfabrics.blogspot.com/    And here's the master list:  http://janesfabrics.blogspot.com/2012/05/redwhiteblue-blog-hop-schedule.html   Go forth and enjoy!

Sew forth and sew on

cutting it up

Three things to be happy about:
(1) swimming all day
(2) fresh berries for pies
(3) beach towels drying in the sun

Well, it's been so hot hot hot, I wish I could swim all day like these good folks:

This picture is from Atlantic City, I have no idea when it was taken but it looks rather dated.  But still...

 

The storm Friday night wiped out a lot of people but we didn't lose electricity in my immediate area.  Still, it's been too hot to sew because my sewing room is upstairs at the back of my house, and the AC back there isn't working - just blows out regular air, yuck!  Time to get another one, duh!

But I did cut some African fabrics to make the slashed 9-patch I tried out last week, I think it's a winner.  And I just remembered to dig out those great scraps I got last August from the dressmaker!  There were some prime pieces in that group.

I intend to make a throw size quilt, so I estimate I'll need a 4x5 arrangement of 9-patches, maybe 180 squares of African fabrics.  Then there's the 2" white strips I'll used in the slashes, a different number for each block. 

That's what I'm up to today, if I can ride out this heat wave I'll be a happy camper.

Be sure and visit all the blogs on the Red White and Blue blog hop, there are some pretty blocks on parade!  Here's the pinterest link:
http://pinterest.com/mdmsamm/celebrate-red-white-blue-begins-july-1st/

Have a great Monday, sew forth and sew on

Contain yourself!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) the joys of hibernation
(2) plans for a February vacation
(3) creative juices flowing


I like that slogan from The Container Store - Contain Yourself!  I saw these really neat battery storage boxes when I was in there the other day looking for just the right size plastic tub to sort my stash into 

This one holds a dozen AA batteries and it's relatively flat, so I can carry it in my purse.  They also had sizes for D-cell, AAA and that other size, but my camera uses eats up the AA size.  I'm still trying to bring order to my sewing room and I didn't see the container I wanted (JoAnn carries them) but I always get a kick out of looking around in there.

Speaking of order out of chaos, have you ever run across bags and boxes of stuff in your sewing room that you wonder where they came from, but when you put them there Lord knows when, you didn't label them because you were sure you'd remember exactly what was in them?  Me too!

I found these two mysterious baggies a couple days ago, stuffed to the brim...

What? when? why??

I found lots and lots and lots of 2-1/2" squares I cut from African fabrics...

I know I cut these - myself - at some point but now I don't know what project I had in mind when I cut em!  Or was I just cutting squares for the hang of it??  When did I cut this fabric??

And this abundance fell out the other bag...

9 patches!  dozens and dozens of 9 patches made from the prettiest soft colors you ever saw

I counted 122 completed 6" blocks, plus lots and lots of 2-patches, plus other 2-1/2" squares waiting to be paired and sewn.  This bag contains enough 9-patches for a full size quilt!

So, I'm still on a mission to "contain" my sewing room by labeling the mysterious stuff, re-designating or repurposing other stuff and just plain using up what I can! 

Sew forth and sew on