September Finish for ALYOF

I met my goal.  The completed quilt for my great niece.  I quilted it and bound it and mailed it a few weeks ago.

  

This is the back.  I wanted it to be bright for contrast to the front in case the recipient's mother didn't like the front.  I got a thank you message through facebook saying she loves it and it matches the nursery.  Still waiting for the requested picture of the baby on the quilt.

To see what others finished in September click here.

Decluttering with the KonMari Method

I have spent a good amount of my life acquiring things.  But now I spend a good amount of my life de-cluttering things.  I find myself attached to the silliest of things.  I would get attached to my kids toys for example.  I at some point managed to let go of things.  I had to find a good steward of my things that I could entrust with these treasures.  It helped.  I told the recipients to never tell me when they let go of these items.

When my husband passed away I still had to find a good steward for my things.  But I was willing to let a lot more go because I knew that someone could make good use of his things NOW not later.  I let go of piles and piles of clothes and shoes to name a few.

Many of you  have heard of FlyLady. She has you work on your daily routine which includes dishes and quick swish of the toilet for example.  Then she has you work on a room a week going around the room in a methodical way sorting and getting rid of things for a specified amount of time.  She made sure you left time at the end of your session to properly take care of your sorted piles.  You repeated week after week until theoretically you were done.  I needed her when I first started getting rid of things.  I think she appealed to the depressed and overwhelmed.  She encouraged you to just do something, anything, but keep trying.  I was pretty good about following along with her weekly email reminders.  She was getting you to clean a bit as well.

When I had my house fire I had a big wipe the slate clean moment.  I moved back into my house and everything was freshly cleaned, painted and put back together again.  I had a garage full of boxes and 2 storage units filled with boxes and stuff.  My house had what I wanted in the rooms at the time.  I went to the task of getting all the things in the garage sorted and given away or put away.  I then had the daunting task of bringing everything from storage and putting it in my garage.  Actually it was all hauled out onto the driveway and was sorted into categories.  Some of the things I knew I wanted to keep or to spend more time sorting through were placed in the attic for storage.  Then there were the things that I could sort through relatively quickly and get rid of.  I still had too much.  This was in May of 2012.  This is when I started disposing of my husbands things in earnest..

I began bringing in boxes to be sorted from the garage.  I would put the boxes where I thought I wanted the contents ultimately stored.  It didn't take long to clutter things up again.  I did my best and tried to keep things grouped together.

The following year my mother passed away.  My Dad insisted that I take whatever I wanted of hers before I left town after the funeral.  I took what I could and gave away what I did not want.  I reasoned with Dad and he agreed to let me set aside the larger items to be picked up when I could return.  What I did bring back from those trips just added to the clutter.  More clothes, furniture, fabric and sewing paraphernalia.  The water was rising in an already over my head depth.  I continued to try to sort and give away.  The strong emotional attachment was there again.  Even worse than before.  But I continued to pick away at the clutter.

About 7 months after Mom passed I got a call from Dad that he was sick and had fallen at home.  I ultimately had to go to him to help sort his medical situation out and make some decisions about his future.  Long story short we packed up his house, sold it and he moved in with me along with all his stuff.  By the end of May he passed away.  Now I had all his stuff to deal with.  More furniture, clothes and stuff in general.  Not to mention all the paper and the estate to settle.  Again,  the picking and choosing of what to give away continued.  More stuff to the attic, more giving away of large objects.  Still identifying those good stewards of my parents precious things.

I am not exactly sure how I came across the KonMari method.  She is so totally different than FlyLady.  She has five categories that she wants you to work on.  The first of which is clothes.  She wants you to gather all your clothes into once place regardless of the season they are for.  She wants you to be shocked by how much stuff you have.  She then wants you to touch each item and if it "sparks joy" you keep it, otherwise you dispose of the item.  She encourages you to thank it for serving its purpose in your life.  She also encourages you to quickly move through this activity and stick with it until you have gone through all your clothes.

I have neither the energy nor time to gather ALL my clothing into one place and do a massive sort.  Not yet at least.  But I did realize that I had two laundry baskets piled high with socks.  I would start there.  How did I get so many socks?  Well there were Mark's socks that fit me and I liked to wear.  There were the socks that my mother did not like for either her or Dad and she passed them to me.  Then when they both passed I inherited their socks.  Ray's socks were mixed in there and so were my son's.  My daughter had a few cast offs but for the most part she manages her own socks.

I went through the basket and started pairing up things.  I then selected the socks that belonged to each person.  I chose a number for each person and more or less stopped picking the ones I liked when I hit it.  I still had a huge basket full of good, wearable socks that are now paired and sitting in a tote awaiting donation this weekend.  There were very few that I threw away because they were stained or holey.

The difference this time is that I was choosing what to keep rather than what to get rid of.  If I went with the philosophy of only keeping the good and tossing the bad then I was stuck in the cycle of still hanging on to too much.  For some reason choosing what to keep gave me the right mindset to let go of the excess good.  I still have socks that are mismatched.  Over time I will realize what is not mated and never will be and will toss them or donate them to someones sock puppet project.  But I can see how this change will make a huge difference for me.

Winning Week

I used to enter online giveaways for quilt items quite a bit. But I stopped because I felt like I had too much stuff already. I came across a giveaway for Darcy Ashton's new book of appliqué owls and entered. To my surprise I won her book. I had also entered the A Lovely Year of Finishes contest and was just notified that I won a pattern from Persimmon Quilts. I'm having a winning week.  

Here is progress on my September ALYOF project.  All quilted and ready to be bound.

Hugs!

Swooze

ALYOF for September

I met my second great niece for the first time back in May.  Her mother told me that the nursery was done in yellows and grays.  I cannot recall if I had already bought these fabrics first with the intent of making a modern quilt or if I bought them after learning this information.

I started my crawl through cyberspace to find a pattern for a baby quilt.  I came across a picture of a pillow that inspired me to make the top pictured below.  It has already been topped and is in the process of being quilted on my DSM.  Yes I know I have the Avante but I wanted straight line quilting and I don't have the tools or skills to accomplish that on her yet.

My goal for this ALYOF is to finish the quilting and bind and mail it to Madison by the end of the month.  To see other peoples goals for A Lovely Year of Finishes for September click here.

Happy Quilting!

swooze

A Finish for The Second Time

I finished my daughters tshirt quilt earlier this month and it went downhill from there. There were gaps in the borders that I was able to ladder stitch closed. Then we noticed there were spots on the binding where it was not sewn to the top correctly.

I removed all my hand stitches, picked out the bad spots where I had not sewn both edges of the binding to the quilt and re-sewed it. Today I finished sewing the binding back down. Here is my report for A Lovely Year of Finishes.

Happy quilting!

Swooze

Avante

Guess who came to stay!  I think I'm going to name her Trudi after the lady that sent me on the journey that led me to making this purchase.

Without further ado....here's Trudi!

Happy quilting!

Swooze

Watch This Space

Exciting things are coming my way!

Hugs!

Swooze

Elna Grasshopper

I got a new toy.  I first saw this machine on Bonnie Hunter's blog.  She loves her vintage machines!  This machine was made in Switzerland.  Did you know I spent a college semester there?  I felt a connection to this cute little machine.

I have been watching these on eBay.  This one popped up and had its little accessory box.  There are no extra feet but I can worry about that later.  Right now I need to learn to set it up and use it.

This machines case folds out into a table.  There is a part that needs to fold somehow so it lies flat.  Once I get that I will need to thread it and give her a test drive.  Except for the frayed electrical cord she's in great shape.

Here are some pics.

More later!

T-shirt Quilt Revisited

I washed and dried the quilt and threw it on my daughter, in her bed.  She pulled it up on her and snuggled in for a longer sleep.  She must have been waking up and petting her quilt because not long after I heard her stirring she called out....."Mom, there's a hole in my quilt".

I went in to see what she was talking about.  Of course my heart sank.  What I discovered was two places where I had either missed the edge of the fabric or the thread failed me or who knows that.  I had gaps in the seam.  Something more highly surmountable than a hole in my opinion.

Here is what I saw.

My immediate thought is how do I fix this without making it look like it was fixed.  Whipstitching and top stitching would only enhance the fact that I had to do something to the quilt.  Not how I wanted to start out with this quilt.

I put a call out on the yahoo group Stashbuster and the Facebook group Quilting.  I had several suggestions.  The two that caught my interest were permanent fabric glue and ladder stitching.  Assuming I had enough of an edge on the fabric the ladder stitch should work.  On closer inspection it looked like the blue section would be fine and the red section would be close.  I went for it!  I ladder stitched.  Here is the result.

I think I got a good result and I learned a lesson.  I will be inspecting my seams a little more closely before the quilting!

Super Sized Nine Patch

I made three of these little gems several years back.  A year or two ago my friend Laurie quilted them all for me.  I made binding for all of them several weeks ago and attached it to one of them.  I was experimenting with machine binding the quilt.  I made good progress but never good enough to satisfy me.  I will try again in the future but for now I hand tacked the binding to the back.  It was a nice little travelling project.  I will be binding the other two over the coming weeks between other things.

This is a McCalls pattern and the pattern can be found here.

T-shirt Quilt Finished

Here is the t-shirt quilt I made for my daughter.  The shirts were her Dads.  Newer readers may not know that he passed just a little over 4 years ago.  So this is also a memory quilt for her.  I asked my son if he wanted one too but he declined.  I think now that has seen this one he may change his mind.

Jackie at Wattafind quilted it for me.  If you look closley at the bottom of the eagle block you will see that she also embroidered it for me too.  It has his name and year of birth and death. 

This quilt is a very good representation of him.  His interests and accomplishments are all represented here.  You will see more t-shirt quilts from me in the future.

Quilt Arm

I got a call from my boyfriend, who is working on an out of town job, the other day.  He told me about a lady selling fabric for $3 a yard and then he told me about a lady selling her quilt arm (he can’t remember long arm) for $6,500.  He encouraged me to call both gals and find out what the deal was as I would be visiting him soon and in these ladies vicinity.

I called the $3 fabric gal and got her story and made arrangements to go see her wares.  I did make a buy there.  Of course after I stopped myself she told me there was more fabric in the back.  Of course I had to look and found a little piece that I liked and added that to my stack.  If she had shown me these treasures first I am sure I would have bought lots of that and less of the other.  I told her when pay day rolled around I would probably be back to see her.  We will see.

I called the long arm owner to find out what she had and what was included in her offer.  Handiquilter Avante 18.  Once I had those answers I began researching the value of her machine, etc.  My biggest concerns were first moving a 12’ table and then placing a 12’ table in my home.  I didn’t value the thought of setting up the machine on my own only to struggle with getting everything to work properly.  I marked off a tape outline of how big the footprint of the setup was in my dining room.  After my mind calmed down at the thought of this monstrosity I measured out the height of the table and then the machine on top of that.  I have even begun thinking about where else I could put this thing.  In the process of my research I had a sales rep offer me her Avante for $900 more and she would set it up in my home and train me on it.  I think my issue is size.  Too big.

Let’s assume I can put this machine in my home and get it setup and can get past its size there is the issue that I really do not free motion quilt on my little domestic machine.  I have done some.  It isn’t that I don’t want to learn it is just that I hate mushing my quilt through the little throat space.  I have thought I need to do some small art pieces to get more practice.  I just have not.  Do I want to spend this much in hopes that I might learn one day?

I subscribe to a newsletter for estate sales.  Just this morning I found an estate sale titled “A Quilters Dream”.  Of course I had to investigate.  A room dedicated to fabric.  Bins of fabrics throughout the house.  Quilts. Quilt tops. Quilt Books.  You name it, they have it.  Then I spotted a frame quilting setup.  The pictures are not good enough to tell what exactly she has but based on some of the descriptions it looks like a Janome 1600 on a Little Grace II frame with a stitch regulator.  I have an idea of the value and I am planning to go have a look when the sale first opens.  It is a smaller setup and based on a new frame I saw online it can be setup as a crib or a Queen.  In the picture it looks like  crib size but even as a Queen it isn’t quite as big as that 12’ table.  On the newer tables the frame can be folded down.  Not sure I can do that with this one but it may be an option.  My thinking is that with this setup it takes up a lot less room and the investment will be a lot smaller.   When I think about having this setup I do not think of it as a monstrosity. 

Stay tuned.  I may be a quilt arm owner tomorrow.

A Lovely Year of Finishes

I need to get my daughters quilt bound and A Lovely Year of Finishes is just the motivation I need to accomplish that.  The red binding is machined on.  Now to get the rest hand tacked down to the back.

Do you have something you would like to finish this month and possibly win prizes?  Join us at the linky party shared above!

Texas Row by Row Experience

I collected rows from many different shops and continue to collect them for the Row by Row Experience.  This challenge started June 21st and I started a new job June 22nd.  The combination of me being at the office 10 hours a day and then rushing to my sewing room to get my rows complete so that I could be one of the first to turn in a completed quilt kept me from blogging.

I finished and turned in my quilt 2 weeks ago at Thomas' Sewing Center in Mesquite.  The prize was 25 FQs and a $25 gift certificate for using their row.  Because they do not  have FQs pre-cut I got a few yard cuts and the rest in half yard cuts.  All batiks.  They are shown below.

I put this together as minimally as possible because I plan to take it apart and finish the rows into wall hangings for my office.  I will get more enjoyment out of them this way.  For now I will enjoy it as it is.  I have to locate the fabric I want to use as borders for each wall hanging so I am in no rush.

In other quilty news.  I have hired a college girl to come over and help me with my organizing.  I needed someone that could help me move furniture around and help tidy as we went without commentary and complaining.  She has been over for 2 - 2 hour sessions so far and we have made a big impact.  I continue to to tidy on my own and can't help but smile when I want to put something away and know where it belongs.  By trying to work away at the mess in small bites of time I actually accomplish more because I do not get overwhelmed.  I make lists and then we work on that list until time is up or the list is complete.  Progress!

More to talk about but I will save it for another post.

Design Wall Monday - June 15, 2015

More Dizzy!  By the pattern all the blocks would look like the green block and in that same position.  I mirror imaged two blocks and flipped two upside down.  The top and bottom pairs will be sewn together then a border of the background fabric on the top and bottom.  There is a wider sashing piece that will go between the pairs also from the background fabric.

I am not going back with the seam ripper but if I did it again I would switch the purple and green.  But due to the mirror imaging it's not that easy.  This is made from 2.5" strips but I would like to play with it on a smaller scale.

Hop over to Patchworktimes to see what everyone else has on their design wall.

Dizzy

I bought the pattern Dizzy by Tiny Seamstress Designs back in March or April. I had passively been thinking about what colors I wanted to use.  I recently went on a shopping excursion to buy some neutrals.  When I got home with my purchases I auditioned the Stripz jelly roll and chose a background.  Above is the first block.  I'm planning to tweak the pattern just a little.

I have all my blocks made for Avignon Picnic.  I might play with the layout tomorrow and start assembling that top.  Will see what catches my attention tomorrow.

Progress This Week

I have the center of the denim quilt assembled.  I have the border and backing chosen.  Need to do some cutting.  The backing needs to be expanded.  Undecided on how that will be accomplished.  Pictures once it's bordered.

Here is a block from Avignon Picnic.  Click the link for a full picture.  I have since picked this apart, into halves, because I didn't like the pink and brown all smoothed together.  My picture is turned sideways.  I am NOT enjoying assembling these blocks.  I think it's because I want thing spread out well and do not want them all to be the same.

I sat down with my iPad and wrote down all the possible combinations.  Do you know how to determine how many unique combinations you'll get?  I have 4 units that I want to be uniquely placed in the block.  I can use any of the 4 for the first position.  Then for the second position that leaves 3 choices, 2 for the third position then 1 for the fourth position.  This results in 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 or 24 unique combinations.  I am planning to make a 3x4 layout that will require 24 blocks. Hey, that worked out great.

Shown here are my units and my list of possible combinations.  Once I sew them together I will check them off.  Decisions removed.  I'm ready to sew it together now!

Not shown here is a big hunk of gray, a big hunk of yellow and a little gray floral.  This is heading to be a very modern looking baby quilt.  It is inspired by a pillow I found on Pinterest.  I just have to write down the measurements I need.  Pictures coming soon.

Here are some fabrics I pulled from a Stripz jelly roll.  I found mine at Walmart but I think JoAnns Fabrics carried them as well. In fact I think the jelly roll I used for Avignon Picnic was also a Stripz jelly roll.  I was auditioning the strips I chose with three different neutrals for the background.  I was really leaning toward the white which has a circle/swirl of white dots.  I just bought another neutral and it has a more dominant circle pattern to it.  I think that's the winner.  I am going to make Dizzy by Tiny Seamstress Designs.  I already plan to slightly alter the layout.  Typically I am a Prewasher but since the jelly roll won't be washed I'll skip that step for this one.

More to come.

Design a wall Monday -June 8, 2015

Some time ago I pulled out a jelly roll that was languishing in my sewing room.  There may even be two here.  One from my stash and one from my mothers.  I had seen a video from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  They had you sew 4 strips together then cut squares from the strip set then cut those on the diagonal and put them together.  I made one block and thought what a muddled mess.  I like the colors well enough but there is not enough contrast for my eye.  

This project has been sitting and sitting.  When I tidied my sewing room I put it in its own project box.  As I topped other projects I began thinking about what's next.  This one bubbled to the top enough for me to want to unpick all the strips.  That in itself took 5 or 6 hours.  I pressed and sorted them all and started searching jelly roll patterns.  I found several but decided on Avignon Picnic at Moda Bake Shop.

The pattern doesn't really say how many strips are needed.  I pulled a neutral from my stash and cut as many strips from it as I could.  I also pulled a blue from my stash to brighten things up a little.  Below is a practice layout.  The brown blends in with my ironing pad.  I think it will look good.  Better than the blob in the top picture!

Another project that I resurrected was this denim and flannel project.  I bought 4 100% cotton shirts from a garage sale just because.  That spurred me on to get this quilt top together.  My boyfriend also had a flannel shirt that somehow got bleach on it.  That and the garage sale finds all got cut up and used.  I had already made 18 blocks.  I had a pair of jeans already set aside.  I cut those up and went and snagged another pair from my boyfriends closet.  They were a pair that I gave to him at least two years ago and he never wore them.  They were patched and intended for him to work in.  It's ok.  They are perfect in this top!  63 blocks in a 7 x 9 layout.

I have the first two rows assembled and intend to get more of them done today (Sunday).  Then I have to decide on a border.  It will be just a small one to stabilize the denim against the flannel and shirtings.  I'll post again when these are nearer the top stage..

Head on over to Judy's to see what others have on their design walls.