Category: Charity Work

Mystery Quilt Clue #4 – Getting Weirder

So, I went a bit rogue on this block. I was finding it way to orange (even thought I like orange), I made what was supposed to dark light and vice versa and then rotated the block. It gave it a weird effect, that I find tolerable. Not totally in love it, but it does help the totally orange look that I had enough of.

I have also created a blog for our quilt guild, Marysville Crazy Quilters. Feel free to take a look at some of the quilts and projects my quilting friends are working on. The guild does a lot of charity work, which I like.

Personally, I still feel crazy. I have come to the conclusion that Covid is truly a state of mind. I don’t like it. This Covid state of mind has me less likely to quilt. I find myself staring at the TV or the ceiling of the bedroom and rarely wandering over to my studio. I have to get out of that state of mind. I am struggling to make a few blocks for a mystery quilt. Jeez. I find I do more when I actually have less time to do it. How is that right? I do have plans to make a few Christmas gifts so I better get moving. I also have had a quilt on the longarm for a couple of months. It stares at me as I walk by and yells insults at me for ignoring it. Ugh.

I hope you are all staying safe.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Some Important Lessons learned

Hello Fellow Quilters!

Lesson #1 – I hated these fabrics when thy were given to me to make a donation quilt.  I hate them a little lesson now that it is together.  It looked better on the design wall than it did in the picture.  I think this would look better with some different fabric.  I may try it with some of my own at some point. Lesson is,don’t always judge fabrics so harshly, sometimes they will surprise you.

Lesson #2 – If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector, get one.  We all could have lost 20200531_200223our lives.  Our ancient (20+ years) carbon monoxide detector, went off and would not stop.  Initilly we thought it was nothing, but something said call the fire department and have it checked.  It goes off when the kids unplug it or bump it and it beeps to let you know that it is on battery power.   Well, when the firre department came, they opened the door and shut it immediatly.  They said that they could not go in without oxygen.  They suited up and returned to tell us that they had never seen carbon monoxide this high in any house.  They set up some fans and got us some things we needed out of the houser and we were off to spend the night at the neighbors.  The next day it turned out that the exhaust pipe from our water heater became disconnected and all the Carbon monoxide was going directly into the house.  We had it repaired and the fire department came back did a recheck and we could return home.  Please, if you have propane or natural gas anywhere in yur home, pleaase get one.  If yours is old, please replace it.  It saved us.  We would have all been dead in less than 30 minutes.  Lucky for us it was a nice day and we had been outside, so we had only been in the house for about 10 minutes.  Phew.  I was bit freaked out about the whole thing.  Yikes.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

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Insanity has set in.

I can’t even begin to count the swear words on this one.  It looks simple enough and honestly I think it is.  The problem is me.  So, let me explain how this went, after the top was finished.  “Hey Mom, shouldn’t the dog part on the top have a leg also?”  Son of a nutcracker.  Ugh.  “Oh, and doesn’t the dog need a tail?”  You have got to be kidding me.  Yep, no top legs and no tail.  What is going on? I have totally lost my mind. Even better after I made the leg section and finished the top, post mistakes, I found a leg section that I had made.  It was not like I made it a long time ago and forgot, we are talking one day to the next.  I think that quarantine is eating away my brain.  This project is  My One Monthly Goal.  My intent is to finish it.  We will see.  I am supposedly heading back to work next week, so I am not sure it can happen.

So, when/while I got frustrated with this quilt top, I made some pillowcases.  For me, it is 20200504_195345something I can see being completed.  This stack has 22 pillowcases.  This brings my total pillowcases for charity to 44.

It also means that my stash has lost 44 yards of fabric.  Trust me there is more where that came from.

So, I had the chance to look at my next charity quilt kit.  Good God.  It is equally as ugly (maybe more) than the last one.

Could the fabrics be any uglier?  Yes, they can.  See my last charity quilt.  The picture on the right is the pattern I am supposed to use.  On the plus side, all the 2.5-inch strips are cut. and it should be quick to put together.  But, I do not like working on quilts that are not something I would ever put together.  I know, charity, someone will love it.

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Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Stay Safe

It’s Done…..ugh…

Done, quilted and bound.  Just did a simple meander.  The thing that bothers me about the quilt is the dark brown.  It just looks wrong to me.  I have another quilt top I made and I have a similar project with it.  There is a color that looks all wrong in it.  I can’t be to blame for this one, I did not choose the fabrics.  I am sure someone will like it.   I have not even opened the other charity quilt.  I will get to that later.  I am trying to work on the Weiner dog quilt top.

The problem I am having is that I started it a while ago.  I wanted it to be big enough to 20200421_140325put on a twin big, so I started making it bigger, but I did not write down my notes or can not found where I wrote my notes.  So, I am spending a bit of time figuring out what I did, which is annoying.

I think it is a great way to use up scraps though.  It is cute and I am the crazy dog lady.

So, I am on a two-week furlough from work.  Hoping it is only 2 weeks.  Hard to tell right now.  I hope you are staying safe is this crazy world.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

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Borders did not help.

Still Ugly.

This was to be my One Monthly Goal, but since I have no idea what day it is, I will have to monitor my own goal.  Haha.  This should be quite a challenge for me.

My goal is to completely finish this quilt.  Quilt and bind.  Mostly, I want it finished so I don’t have to look at it anymore.  I feel like I need to apologize in advance to whoever is gifted this quilt.

I have one other charity kit that I have not even opened.  I am a little scared.  Could it be any worse?  I bet it could but hope it will not be.

Waiting to see what goes on in the world.  I am still employed!  Yeah!

Happy Sewing, Happy Quilting, please stay safe.

My dogs are not capable of social distancing in any form.

Moka once again, not social distancing
Snibble not social distancing either.

What day is it?

So I had every intention of participating in One Monthly Goal.  However, I can not keep track of days or dates.  Here it is April 9, 2020, missed it!  I swear I may be losing my mind.  It is like time has stood still in my mind because nothing changes, yet it is actually continuing.

I might as well tell you what my goal was.  My intention for the One Monthly Goal was to complete the top for a charity quilt.  My quilt guild had about 35 kits ready to pass out at meetings, yet we are not having meetings, so they volunteered to drop them off.  I said I would do a couple, considering I needed some motivation to actually do something.

Don’t care for it one bit.  The dark brown bother me.  The instruction I had for this quilt were crazy.  They were all wrong and totally goofy.  I am not a good instruction follower in general, but since this was not my fabric and for charity, I thought I should actually read them and follow them.  WRONG.  They were wrong on most counts, what needed cut, the layout, everything.  It still needs borders and I am hoping that makes it look a little better, but I am not very hopeful.  I am hoping this is meant for a man.

Mostly working from home.  I am getting better at that.  I get up early before everyone else gets up so I can get as much done as possible before they arise.  They are pretty good at not bothering me though, with the exception of the dogs.  “Hey Mom us up, let’s all sit on her.”

I hope you are all staying safe.  Happy Sewing, Happy Quilting.

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My Moka refuses to Social Distance!

Some Charity Sewing

I do actually get some sewing done. I have made a few pillowcases for my guild. These 9 bring my total up to 23 pillowcases. The pillowcases go to a shelter for abused women. They get to select a pillowcase and they put some personal care items in them. Some come with nothing, so the pillowcase becomes the first item that belongs to them after their escape.

There was a time in my life when I needed to escape.  I began squirreling money away, a little at a time so it would not be noticed.  Things turned out differently for me and it turned out that I did not need the money.  I still have the account though as a reminder.  Today I save money in that account so Haley and I can go to Europe when she graduates.  Now it has a happy intent.

I am still struggling a bit with my sewing.  I just can’t seem to get much done.  I find myself going from one thing to the next a lot.  I think that is why I made the pillowcases, so I could see something finished.  I do have a baby quilt on the long arm.  I picked up a UFO to work on and I have another one in the works.  I think I need to get back to the “One Monthly Goal” that might help me get in the swing of things.  I will put a reminder on my calendar.

A big thank you to Susan at DesertSky Quilting for mentioning her Uncle Donald Quilt.  It brought such a smile to my face.

Because I am a crazy dog lady, I found the below picture hysterical.  Happy Sewing, Happy Quilting

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A Hand Quilt Along Miracle

I finally finished this runner for Kevin’s dresser.  It truly is a miracle.  This has been a good year in the making.  Funny thing, as I look at the photo, I realize that there is one extra row between the Ohio State dog bone and the black and pink dog bone.  I get that is what I get for winging it.  Never noticed it until I looked a the photo.

I actually even managed to quilt and bind this one (it is even on his dresser (finally).  I used a special ruler to quilt this one.  Why is it special?  I made my own dog bone ruler and it worked perfectly.  More on that later.  To see all the fabulous work by the rest of the ladies in the Hand quilt along please visit the following sites:

Kathy, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan,  Nanette, Sassy , Edith, Sharon, Karrin, and Gretchen

Happy Sewing
Happy Quilting
Treasure your family

One Monthly Goal…It is truly a miracle

I am not sure how I managed to finish my One Monthly Goal, but I did.  This is the quilt WaterMark_2018-04-21-19-28-17top given to me by Nanette.  I love it.  I quilted dog bones, free-handed it.  That was a bit scary, but it came out all right.  I used a festive multi-watermark_2018-04-21-19-26-10.jpgcolor thread.  I love multi-color threads.  I don’t know why.  I am weird.

So, the back, come crazy dog fabric.  I had a friend give me whole bolt of this stuff.  It is sort of odd, not exactly fleece and not exactly flannel.  Just weird, but perfect for my dog quilt.  Yes, this is my dog quilt.  I have already used it while lounging on the couch.  Warm and cozy and extra special since the top was made by an extra special friend.  I have plan to make another quilt like this and donate to a dog rescue so they can hopefully raise some money.

Seems that family is on the mend.  Kev is getting better and my sister’s prognosis no longer seems as bleak as it once was.  A long way to go, but there is light.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

 

Fidget Blankets and a visit from the Fabric Gnome

So, This past weekend I got barely anything accomplished.  Saturday was the big Ohio State Game.  Go Bucks! then Sunday we were at the rental cleaning since we will be getting new tenants this weekend.  Very little sewing went on.  I did, however manage to complete 2 fidget blankets.   My guild was making them for a doctor who gives them to Alzheimer patients.  We were just asked to complete the fabric portion.  The Doctors office will add all the fidgety items.  They sew on socks and elastic bandages and plastic keys and satin ribbon etc…  Great idea.  I looked them up and they average about $45.00 each.  The back needed to be flannel or fleece so it easily stayed on laps and the front could be any combination of scraps.  Finished size is approximately 18 by 24 inches.  Pretty Simple.

And….The fabric gnome came by again….  Darn that gnome.  This time he left me someWaterMark_2017-10-26-19-40-44_resized (1) southwestern prints and colors.  Okay, truth be told, I got a $20 gift card from Connecting Threads for renewing my American Quilters Society Membership.  Being that renewal was $20 and I got a $20 gift card, how could I go wrong?  I ended up getting 8 yards for $28.00.  IT was on sale.  I can never resist a good sale.  I already have a design in mind.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting