Kansas City Troubles and Kansas City Projects

My husband is in his conference, and I am in the motel room watching the housekeeper clean. It doesn't get better than watching someone else clean, does it? I'll leave her a tip when we leave on Sunday.

In the meantime, our Kansas City Troubles haven't been insurmountable yet. I left my face cream at home (Oh no, I'm having to use scented hand lotion on my face!), and my husband left his WaterPic that he uses every night without fail. Oops. Mom called and tried to tell us that he had left it, but we thought we had packed his new travel size. Apparently, it was the travel sized one that she had found, not the larger one. Last small trouble:  my husband, bless his heart, brought me some breakfast., including some strawberry yogurt. A spoon never occurred to him. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with that yogurt. And did I mention the world's hardest mattress?

On to my Kansas City Projects:

I've been working on this quilt for about five years. I finished the top in no time, but I decided to hand quilt butterflies into the white squares and around the borders. Unfortunately, as this was one of my first quilts, I did not know not to use 60/40 batting for hand quilting. It's been hard going.

Here is one of the butterflies that I've finished. The butterflies are quilted in slightly different colors, using about eight different green and blue and variegated threads.

You probably can't tell the difference, but the top butterfly is worked in blue and this one is worked in a variegated thread. I have 9 of the 36 squares left to finish. Maybe this is the weekend I get them done...

I miss my Sinbad. I hope you're playing with him, Mom. He needs his playtime! Of course, I miss the girls, too. Oh well, just two more days.

Time to get sewing if I intend to get anything done. I hope you have a great sewing day yourself. 'Til later...

Debbi

One UFO that will remain a UFO for the foreseeable future...

This is why I will not be taking my hearts quilt with me to Kansas City to bind this weekend. Callie firmly believes that quilts are for cuddling, not sewing. No sooner had I begun to sew the binding onto the front of my quilt than she came over to "help." I guess I'll find some other hand sewing projects instead. It will be nice to get this UFO finished as soon as I can have some "alone" time to finish attaching the binding. I wonder if some kitty "yum" is called for here?

One border down...

First, since I am new to blogging, I am constantly trying to improve the appearance, layout, and content of this blog. I apologize if the changes cause confusion. With that said, if you start looking for my Pages list, I have moved it from the right side of the site to the top. Please tell me if you have suggestions for improving ANY aspect of this blog. I am very receptive to hearing from you.

Now, on to my Tonga Batik again. As you can see, I finished the first border.



Okay, okay, so it's a 1 1/2" solid strip border. So it wasn't particularly hard to make. Have any of you ever laid out your quilt on the floor to measure it? Yes, of course. How about using a battery operated tape measure for measuring length and width? With four cats watching as the measuring tape goes back and forth, back and forth? A pouncing cat can wreak havoc with accurate measurements!

Anyway, the next two borders are pieced checkerboards ending in a final, wide outer strip border. Those checkerboards will require a tiny bit more time. I am accompanying my husband to a conference this weekend, so I will be switching projects for a while. I will be spending the next two nights packing and getting the house and pets ready for our absence (Mom will be house- and pet-sitting for us - thanks, Mom!), so I don't think I'll have much time to sew. I may try to get the binding constructed and sewn on to the heart quilt and take it with me to finish. I will also be taking my African mask quilt to work on. For variety (yes, I get bored quickly) and since I will be alone in a motel room for three solid days, I will also take an African lap quilt that I have been hand quilting on for a couple of years. I have not shown a photo of this quilt yet, so I should still have new things to post while I'm gone.

And, of course, I will be working on school work as well. Sigh...

Have a great quiting day,

Deb

Quilting Story Time!

When I was a child – I have no idea how old, but old enough for my mother to believe that I could hold a pair of scissors without trying to stab my brother or sister with them – my mother decided to teach me to sew. She had been sewing her own clothes since she was a child herself, so she felt that this was a natural skill to pass on. Boy was she mistaken…

Mom had taught sewing to eager, young Girl Scouts for years, so she knew exactly how to begin teaching me. First, she taught me about choosing a pattern. Done. Next, she taught me about choosing an appropriate fabric for my clothing project. Okay, I hated fabric stores (how boring!), but I picked out some material I didn’t hate. Next, she taught me to pin my patterns onto the fabric itself. Alright, here is where we hit our first snag.

Unbeknownst to either of us at the time, I am mildly OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). It was more of a problem then that it is now, but I still struggle sometimes. I was determined to do this job right, so I pinned the entire pattern every ¼ inch. That sucker wasn’t getting away from me! Mother made me take out at least every other pin, much against my wishes. How was I going to make sure that pattern didn’t move?

Anyway, now it was time to cut, using adult (really big for little hands) scissors. Snip. This took considerable concentration since my project was now only pinned every half inch or so. Snip. It also took a long time. Snip. I mean a really long time. Snip. Mom couldn’t take it; she walked out. Snip. It was either leave the room or throttle me in frustration. Snip. I do believe I only cut ¼ inch at a time. Snip. Poor Mom.

I don’t remember ever finishing that project; I don’t even remember what it was supposed to be. I do remember the sewing machine, however. It was a big, black Singer. It had a knee pedal instead of a foot pedal. This was supposed to be a good thing since I was too short to reach a pedal. What Mom didn’t realize, however, was that I was too small to have the leg strength to activate the knee pedal! I had to brace my left knee on the inside of the left side of the cabinet and attempt to do the splits. This pushed my right knee into the pedal on the right side of the cabinet. But not very hard and not for very long. I sewed in short, weak spurts. It didn’t help that this machine needed a spin of the large wheel on the right side of the machine in order to wake up the needle and get it moving. The fact that the wheel was much larger than my hand was another slight challenge. Looking back on it, learning to “drive” that Singer was remarkably similar to learning to drive my first stick shift car. And just as successful. I flooded the car in the middle of an intersection the first time I drove it onto the road. I had to switch places with Mom so she could get us moving again. Yep, remarkably similar experience.

Hearts finished (except for binding) and Tonga...well...in progress...

Sorry I didn't post earlier, but I had a migraine Friday night that came back Saturday morning, which was a shame since I really wanted to learn how to make the bag that Katha was showing us at the Dogwood meeting that morning. Instead, Mom and I attended the meeting but left early because we both had headaches by the time the lesson started. Oh well, I paid attention to her instructions - maybe I can try to make one by myself later.

Anyway, I promised photos of my finished heart quilt now that  it's quilted, so here are a couple.

Mom quilted a heart on the bottom of each of the hearts bocks. Aren't they cute?

The blocks don't alway have striped fabric on the right, it's just that the heart quilting shows up really well on that fabric.

Here is the finished quilt (well, finished except for binding). I haven't measured it, but it's more of a lap or twin sized quilt.

This is the finished back. I don't usually do anything very fancy on the back, but I'm glad I did for this one.



Now, a sad story. Just look at the piece below. It is the inset piece between the blocks of my Tonga Batik Block of the Month quilt that I've been working on forever. I was getting ready to cut down and sew all of the inset pieces that join the blocks together when I noticed a problem.

 As you can see, I used a blue-green fabric for part of the zig-zag, but gray for the long pieces. They are supposed to match.

Yes, sad looking, isn't it? Needless to say, I had to rip out unsew all of the gray pieces and replace them with the blue-green. Although I liked the way the gray looked, the blue-green blended better, so it won.

Once I got the right strips in, I tried them out to see what the quilt would look like. This is how I caught the error in the first place. This looks better!

 Another view of the proposed setting.

 This was the corrected vee inset piece before I cut it down.

 All lined up and ready to cut.

 I hate the waste that this type of trimming creates. But I have to say I like the way it finishes.

This is the middle of the quilt top. Four more borders to go. Sigh. How does it look so far? Did I mention another four more borders? Pieced? Heavy sigh. I hope they require gray strips. Heavy, heavy, sigh...

It's late and I have about three loads of laundry to put up before bedtime, so I'm through for the night. I hope your quilting weekend went well.

Debbi

P.S. Don't anybody mention bias edges and matching zig-zag lines! Ever!

Tonga Batik quilt - Some Assembly Required!

I finally feel like I've been making some progress on this complicated Tonga Batik pattern. Since I finished the monthly blocks and the setting zig-zag strips, I've spent my time making odd, useless looking combinations of fabric. Here are two shots of some of these odd and useless combos.

I managed to get 48 of these units sewn last night, despite the fact that Sinnie kept trying to tell me it was bed time. There is nothing as penetrating as the stare of a supposedly sleepy kitty. It didn't help that once I figured out how these units are going to be used, I had to go back and re-iron the seams in the opposite direction before sewing the units together.

 This is the layout for some of the assorted odd units. Okay, now it's making more sense.

Same units, pushed together (same unit style, different pieces from the first photo, as you can see from the changing look of the variegated batik). 

Same units again, this time sewn together. Once the top points are trimmed down, this unit will become the set-in triangle between blocks. I had intended to show one of these cut down, but Callie was asleep on my cutting table, and no, I don't make my kitties move just because they have all of my sewing surfaces, not even when Tessie or Sinbad curl up and go to sleep in my sewing chair - one of their favorite places to sleep when I'm trying to work. When my working annoys them, Tessie curls up in my sewing chair, Sinbad stretches out on my ironing board, and Callie sleeps on my cutting table. I watch TV.

I had to see what this is going to look like, so I spread out two blocks and two untrimmed set-in triangles on my ironing board. I think I'm going to like it. The final product may have been worth all the trouble after all!

A side view of the same arrangement. Now I can't wait to get my pieces trimmed and sewn together. I still have some fiddly things that I have to make for the ends of the rows, but at least I'm beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Once the rows are sewn together, I can add the zig-zag strips to join them and really see what it's going to look like.

I hope to have some more photos this weekend, so check back and see if I'm making progress! Wish me luck!

Deb

Midterms!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in the past couple of days. It's midterms at the school. I teach Communications at a vocational school, and I'm currently up to my neck in memos, letters, and exams. I've only been able to get in a couple of hours of sewing each night, so I don't have a lot to show you right now. These settings that I'm working on for the Tonga Batik are complicated and time consuming - but they're fun and challenging as well. I can't wait to see them completed!

It's kind of hard to see from the pieces above, but those are actually blocks of alternating four patches and squares. You can best see that in the block at the top of the photo, just right of center. With these patterned batiks, this quilt is going to be rather busy. I'm using different colors/fabrics from those that were provided for the project, and that's changing the quilt from a warm, rich raspberry and earth-tone base color to a cooler blue and green base. I am hoping to finish up with a quilt that will have masculine appeal. I'm really bad at making quilts for men. I keep throwing in flowers and butterflies, pinks and pastels, or purples and lime greens. We'll see how this one comes out. I hope to have the top done this weekend. Let's see if I can resist sewing in a large butterfly somewhere.

My husband and I will be traveling to Kansas City next weekend (don't worry, Mom will be coming over to care for the furries). I'll probably take the mask wall hanging with me to finish. Since it's the first day of March, I think I can safely say that I once again failed to complete ANY of my UFOs for the month. I guess they'll have to carry over to this month. In my defense, however, my heart quilt is finished except for the binding, and the mask quilt is finished except for about six inches of the binding and finishing the hand quilting around the applique. Okay, so I didn't even touch the Red Sea quilt all month... But I did get a lot done on my Tonga Batik, which wasn't even listed as one of my To Do projects for the month! That must have been why it was so appealing; it was something forbidden. : )

I'll try to get some photos tonight of the rest of the setting pieces and post them tomorrow. We'll see if they make any better sense to you than they do to me!

Back to teaching...

Deb