Carolina Christmas Mystery

I've joined the bandwagon and am doing Bonnie's mystery. My colors very much like hers.
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I'm going to try and keep up or not look ahead anyway. She's already posted the second step and I'm only half way thru the first...so far I haven't peeked...that doesn't mean I don't want to! Instead I'm going to use the excitement I feel...it's kind of like that feeling you got as a kid before Christmas...and use it as motivation to sew.

This is the nifty ruler I got from Fabric Depot in Portland during Quilt Expo there. It's making quick work of cutting the triangles! Although I love the EZangle method of making half square triangles, I don't like all the flipping of the ruler during the cutting. Voila! This ruler is one step! The drawback is that it is only designed for 2.5 inch strips. I think I'll find enough uses for it just the same to make it worth it to me.

Now I'm going to get off the computer and go get busy. Have to do a bit of housework and then I'm going to SEW! I plan on finishing step one today so I can look at step two.

I'M A WINNER!

I can't believe it! I was notified by Quiltmaker that I was one of the winners of the big bundle. Wow! I can't wait to see it! I never win anything...so maybe my luck is changing and I should go buy a lottery ticket!

Guess I've been on line too much...but who cares? WHOO HOO! Besides it's been fun following all the designers and blogs.

"Clutter kills our mojo, in every room, not just the sewing room!"

That's a quote from Stacey on Stashbusters that I read this morning. Is that ever true or what?!!

It seems like I've been in that space for quite some time now. Especially since I disrupted my quilting room to move the quilting machine and frame upstairs and redo the family room. It has disrupted the whole house and I can't seem to get anywhere.

First the bedroom upstairs that was emptied...well the closet is still full and needs to be edited so it can hold quilting related items and batting. Of course, all the rest of the stuff from the bedroom that I kept has been squished into other spaces... along with the stuff I'm waiting to move into the new quilt room.

Unbeknownst to me, my dear kitty, Heidi, was trying to tell me she had cystitis and was peeing all over this bedroom. I just wasn't paying attention...

I got one of those black lights to see where the pee was, and it seemed to be everywhere! I've treated it several times now and the black light still says it isn't clean! So I ordered another product online...anti icky poo...going to use a garden sprayer and spray it on and cross my fingers, turn around three times with my eyes closed and whisper the magic word....what is the magic word???

In the meantime the clutter around my house is killing me! I haven't known where to start....so started trying to get the carpet cleaned....but it's just been stalled. I've changed my tactic and decided to get on with working on the sewing room downstairs. I'm working on moving everything out so I can take up the carpet, put down laminate floors and paint. I'm running into problems of where to put the stuff! It's overwhelming how much there is!

There is very little sewing going on here right now. I had big ideas of some things I wanted to make for Christmas gifts but reevaluated and decided that I wanted to spend all the energies I could muster on getting this house put back together. The pressure of trying to do both I know would just immobilize me.

Goal was to put down the laminate floor over Thanksgiving weekend. That means I have to have the room emptied and painted first. I'm getting there, but not close enough that I think that is going to happen.

Today I hired and electrician that will come on Thursday and add 2 new circuits downstairs and 1 upstairs and move a switch and a light fixture. Then I will be able to run a space heater while using the iron and not blow a circuit downstairs. That will be a good thing!

I feel like I'm not getting anything done tho...so much stuff to deal with and decisions to make that I just...well, just don't. Spend alot of time on line, watching TV, shopping, sleeping....all avoidance. So Stacey you really have called me out on this one. And I pledge to keep sludging thru it with my vision of an organized home that will make it easy for me to be creative again. I'm shooting for the first of the year for having these two rooms put back into functional spaces.

Sue's going away quilt

Retreat weekend is long past and although I didn't get done what I wanted that weekend the quilt has been finished and gifted. Whew! It was a hard one...I had quilters block and just could not decide how to quilt it! Here's the quilt and it's recipient...

This quilt was a group quilt project for Sue as a going away present from our quilting group. She has retired from work and is moving to Idaho. We will sure miss her! I gave each person a piece of fabric to use to make a 12.5 inch block. Five of us and VERY different results! I am amazed how it all came together in the end. That is the lesson here ... you can make very different blocks work together by using a consistent alternate block.

Madaline sewed the alternate blocks and Debbie made the borders and then I quilted and finished it.

I did some new things on this quilt...(quilting is like cooking for me, it's always a new receipe.) I changed colors of thread which I've never done in a quilt before. I started with quilting loops in the red chains with red varigated thread, then I changed to a neutral varigated and quilted the light areas with straight lines using a ruler, another first, and stitched in the ditch around the blocks, another first. Then I changed to a varigated green and quilted the green areas with straight lines like the light areas and a freehand design over all of the quilt blocks based on thier design. For example on the applique block by Sue 2 I outlined around the applique and quilted waves and hearts in the frame. I did alot of rolling the quilt back and forth and was worried that it would get distorted but it seemend to do oka, even tho at times it seemed like there was excess fabric on the top.

This is a picture of our little quilting group that meets at the library and the makers of this quilt.

From left to right: Madaline, Ruth, Sue 2, Sue 1, Debbi 1(me) and Debbie 2. We are dwindling in numbers and always open to new participants!

Finished and Delivered

This is one and maybe the only finish I have had in my absence. It was a quilt for my boss's retirement. It's signed by the staff of the PACU. She was very touched and cried. I wasn't able to attend the party when it was presented to her, but I keep hearing raves...so I'm happy.

I tried some new things on this quilt and I'm still working on my freemotion quilting so I am critical of it. I'm always over critical of what I do. Also I was running short of time and didn't hand stitch the binding...I fused it and machine stitched it in the ditch from the front. Also fused the hanging sleeve rather than handstitch it. Those shortcuts make me feel like I cheated and I hope they will be ok in the long run as I have not done that before. But I had this roll of steam a seam 2 and rather than stay up all night and hope I finished the hand sewing, I fused!

It really is pretty nice afterall, so I'm going to try and remember that rather than where the oops are. And I feel better now after confessing (those Catholic roots go deep! lol)

This is a picture that a co-worker drew of the hospital entrance. I traced it onto fabric then highlighted it with outline stitching and colored it with crayons. I did the same with the lettering. I made the font on my computer and traced it then outlined stitched and colored. I am happy with the picture and I think it really makes the quilt. I had some little oops in the quilting of the center...got myself cornered, but....

I quilted it with an overall leaf and swirl design with varigated Rainbow thread. It went pretty quick and isn't a big feature. Wish I had taken a picture of the backing fabric. It was a big hit. It was a large scale print with Japanese ladies on it. Our boss is Japanese...of course.

Catching Up

Whew! It's been along time since I posted! I'm not sure why I got out of it...I think it was that I was reading so many other blogs and online groups that when I was done I was out of time or exhausted and just couldn't blog. I've been working on curbing my computer time so I'm going to try the blog thing again. I like it as a way of keeping track of my quilting.

I'm joining the Halloween quilt retreat hosted by Susan and will attempt to post my progress here.

The other issue is that I haven't really been sewing much. I've been working on rearranging my quilting spaces. I started it during the summer and would have thought I would have it all done by now, but I've run into some issues that have slowed me down. First one was that my helper, my nephew Travis, broke his arm pitching. Now he's off to college. Hard to move stuff myself...The second issue is that I discovered that the cat was peeing in the room I was moving my quilting frame to...guess she was trying to tell me that she had cystitus again...So the move into that space is stalled. I've gotten the smell out, but when I use the black light I still see lots of areas that glow. I'm going to treat it again today, this time I'm going to use a carpet shampooer with pet shampoo and X/O added. I've used Nature's Miracle on it 2 or 3 times now without success...any ideas?

This is what my sewing room looks like this morning. This is the view to the right entering the room.

And this is the view looking to the left.

It's rather overwhelming to me when I walk in there. Alot of stuff has already been relocated to the garage. I'm going to try and get the rest of the stuff packed up today after I get back from my doctor appointment and errands. Most of the cabinets are emptied and I will have to figure how to get them moved so I can paint the walls. I figure I can at least move them into the center of the room when I get the stuff out. I'm aiming for putting down the new floor over the Thanksgiving weekend when Travis is home from college to help me. We'll see....