3-D Pinwheels and Prairie Points

The baby quilt is finished and gifted! I think it turned out pretty cute! It was the first time I have ever tried prairie points so I learned something new. I also had never made anything that was 3-D so quilting it became a bit of a dilema. I ended up quilting in on my DSM in wavy crosshatching. I think it gives it movement like wind blowing.


Here's a close up of the quilting. I used Warm and Bright polyester batting in this quilt. It has a nice bit of puffiness, but not too much.

This is the sweet Desiree whom I worked with. She was a traveling nurse and spent a 6 month assignment with our unit. She was lots of fun to work with. It was exciting when she found out she was pregnant and she was so cute about it. Getting pregnant was a big surprise...ie. not planned. One night she just wasn't feeling right and was having some abdominal pains and was light headed. A trip to the clinic solved the mystery... It was fun teasing her about the grape, plum, tennis ball that is growing inside her! (she was devoring everything she could on the subject and the text book she was using refered to the size of the fetus in those terms) She's gone back to the East coast to be near her family now, and who can blame her? This was taken on my last day working with her last Tuesday. She'll be missed. Isn't she cute with that little tummy starting to pop out? Happy baby times Desiree!

She said the quilt will probably be the only handmade thing her baby will have as nobody does any crafting in her family. I'm glad I made if for her. It was fun...and I had it in my PIGS anyway. I only had to purchase the backing. The top was mostly cut out and someone else's UFO I purchased at retreat one year. It was a puzzle to figure what the original owner designer inteded to do with it. There was a pattern with the fabric but the fabric that was cut out was not as directed per the pattern. I think she was going to do something with alternating plain blocks but I cut them up to use as the background for the pinwheels and found some white I had and used if for sashing. I would never have picked out these fabrics...I do like it tho.

About prairie points....I've never done them before and I learned a few things in doing them that I will pass along. I searched the web and followed the directions I found at http://www.mccallsquilting.com/artheblk/prapoints/ and at http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/ss/prairie_points.htm

Well I sorta followed the directions...I didn't read carefully the part about stop quilting an inch or so away from the edge of the quilt. So I spent a really long time, I mean a really, really long time unsewing the quilting and tieing it off and burring the threads in the batting. It was made doubly difficult by the fact that I had squared up the quilt top and cut all the thread ends off. So I was left with these little tail ends to knot and bury. To top it off, the thread I used for quilting, Superior Rainbows, kept untwisting and I had a heck of a time threading a needle with it! I struggled with it for about 3/4 of the quilt then I was working on it at our library quilting session and Madalyn gave me this GREAT tip (thanks Madalyn!)...use a needle threader. First I tried using the needle threader to thread the needle but that didn't work. What did work was threading the needle threader thru the batting and up thru the top of the quilt and grabbing the thread ends and presto! pulling them thru. Worked like a dream...would have cut the time I spent on that task by a jillion times! Next time....

Anyways, learn from my mistakes...Only quilt to within one inch of the edge of the quilt. Then you fold the backing back and pin it out of the way

Then turn the quilt over and sew the prairie points with a quarter inch seam along the edge of the quilt. Adjust the length by moving the points in and out of each other. Using the fudge factor there is quite a bit of leway. I don't think my points are perfectly spaced but it's not noticible to the naked eye and I'm sure the baby isn't going to get out the measuring tape and figure it out. These prairie points were made from 4 1/2 inch squares. The were folded on the diagonal and pressed and folded again on the diagonal and then pressed again. One side then has a folded edge and the other side opens so you can slip one inside of the other.

And here it is all finished!

I've been busy

Don't have any finished quilting to show you yet so thought I would post a few pictures I took off my front deck recently. The first one I'm standing on my very tiptoes to get in the little peak a boo of the sound. From my height I don't normally see it. The Olympic Mountains are in the background and the land mass beyond the sound is Vashon Island. My roof top has a great view and when I think of remodeling this place I dream of adding another story and having a quilting studio with a view. Unless I win the lottery it will never happen, but it's nice to have dreams....


Here's the only flowers I have growing this year...boxes and hanging baskets on the deck. They are doing pretty good even though they got a late start. Thanks to Lowe's for starting the petunia hanger for me!
I've been busy working on the baby quilt and working overtime and watching the Olympics. I can say that I'm on track to meet my goal of 31 hours of quilting this month, maybe exceed it! I will hopefully get the final stitches in the baby quilt tonight and post pictures soon. We are having a potluck lunch on Tuesday at work and that is the last day I'll work with Desiree before she leaves so it has to be done by then! I only have one more side to do the handstitching on so it is possible.

The overtime makes for a nice paycheck...and who can't use that? But it sure zaps me...takes away the time I use for recovery from my 12 hour shifts...and then the way the schedule worked out I didn't have more than one day off at a time...not good for me! I hate to admit it but I'm feeling my age...I guess that is why I'm seeing more and more that I have to simplify things in my life and home so that there is less energy devoted to just managing and I can use it for fun! But boy is that a big job in and of itself!

What my bed says about me

What Your Bed Says About You

Outward appearances are a concern of yours, but not your primary concern. You try to take care of yourself and your home, but it's not an obsession. You try to be an organized person, but you often fall behind. Certain parts of your life tend to fall into chaos. You are not very high maintenance in general, but you are high maintenance about a few things. In relationships, you tend to kick back and let the other person be in charge. You tend to be a down to earth, practical person. You think in terms of what is actual. You are a traveler. You are comfortable anywhere, and you rarely feel homesick.

What Does Your Bed Say About You?

I always find these quizes fun to take. I think this one pegs me pretty close. How about you?

Here's the quiz: http://www.blogthings.com/whatdoesyourbedsayaboutyou/quiz

My current distractions from OC

My OC is waiting patiently for it's outer borders meanwhile....

This is a little quilt I put together for a co-worker who is having her first baby. Need to get it finished before the end of the month as she is moving back to the east coast to have the baby.

It was someone else's UFO that I bought off a fundraiser table at retreat a few years back. It was mostly cut out but that was all. I think the original owner had a different idea for it as it wasn't cut out per the directions of the pattern with it. Kind of a puzzel of sorts. Looks like she was going to use alternating plain squares between the 3D pinwheels. I decided to add the white sashing instead.

The other decision I'm debating on is how to quilt it. Should I quilt down the pinwheel flaps? At least get them tacked down at the points or leave them loose? Any ideas?

I'm trying to find a backing in my stash but so far haven't had much luck. Might have to go shopping!

This is the other distraction...trying to get my entertainment center finished. Travis is helping. The first coat of stain didn't go so well and we had lots of sanding to do. The second coat is so-so, so I guess I'm going to do a third. Didn't quite get up the energy to do it today...it makes such a mess! And it is such a mess!

I plan to buy a large flat screen TV when this gets done...should think that would be motivation enough, but sadly it is not. The project has been sitting since last August when I had the fireplace removed and the entertainment center built in. It was unfinished and to save some $ I thought I would take on the finishing...maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

The fireplace isn't missed and needed to come out because the chimney blew off during a windstorm the previous winter. Even though I considered a gas fireplace replacement I came to the conclusion it wasn't worth the expense. This house needs a fireplace downstairs and that is where I will consider adding a gas fireplace.

Don't think I'll be back to the OC anytime too soon. I've a couple of other pressing quilts that need to get finished pronto.

Oh, and the other distraction...the Olympics. Boy do I get hooked in! Sure wish I had that big screen. I didn't plan too well and started watching before I got to sewing and just didn't make the transition to the sewing room. Tomorrow I'm on call so I'm not sure what I might get done, or how much I might have to work, but I'd love to get the little quilt ready for quilting.

It's August already!

It seems like I am just watching the days fly by. Where oh where does the time go? Maybe it's because the summer was so late in getting here. Don't have any quilting progress to photograph so here is a picture of summer from my youth when summer went on forever, so much so you were anxious for school to start. This was from 1960. I'm on the left. Wonder if those life jackets would have saved us?

I didn't make the goal of finishing 5 by the end of July...no big surprise. It was a good challenge tho, I thought alot about getting stuff done. It did prompt me to unearth most of what I have as UFO's and PIG's tho...a few surprises there.

I've been trying to get some other projects around the house done as well. I've hired Travis, my nephew, as a helper and thought it would free me up to do stuff like quilting, but it just hasn't worked out that way. We have accomplished alot too...plumbed water to my second story deck, cleaned up the yard, repaired the fence, patched the garage door, built shelves for a storage closet, washed the windows, and have been working on staining my entertainment center. Not too bad since it's been hard to mesh our schedules. Travis has done most of the work with me getting the organizing stuff done and feeding him and putting stuff away, somehow that seems to kill the day just the same. Big problem is that the summer is running out and he will be leaving for college soon and we haven't started on the project of repairing my leaking deck. That's mostly because I haven't figured out just how to do it or who to get help from or just what I want. I've spent alot of time on the computer looking for answers and in general just procrastinating making a decision.

Back to quilting tho...did my accounting for July and updated the sidebars. I did have a couple of finishes that helped to contribute to using stash, but most of it was given away. I gave away 26 yards to compensate for the yards I bought last month. It suprises me how little in yardage I used in a quilt...for example the Bargello quilt only tallied up using 6.5 yards. It's a good sized throw quilt at 58 X 75. I DIDN'T BUY ANY FABRIC IN JULY! I didn't sew for as many hours as I would have liked and I see I'm still falling behind for the year. This keeping track is really making me aware of what I really do and has made the biggest impact on my aquiring stash than anything...maybe I need to apply it to my finances...not really sure if I have shifted what I was spending on fabric to something else or not. Think not...I think it has been going to pay off credit cards but I'm going to have to start tracking that too! Any maybe eating too...maybe there really is something to that writing down everything you eat and weight loss...hmmm....