Category: Table Toppers

I could have waited a year…but I didn’t

Sometimes, life gets in the way of life. That is the only thing I can say. It has been nearly a year since I have written a blog post. There are a host of reasons. I haven’t stopped quilting. I don’t think I would ever stop doing that. It is likely the only thing that keeps me sane.

This quilt top was made during the guild retreat. It was a lovely retreat back in March. Much fun was had by all. It is a lovely design by GE Quilt designs named KIRA. Looks complex but super simple.

This was a wintery table runner I did. I liked this, except for the end where there are 2 od the same snowflakes together. Poor planning on my part there. I did the sections separately. Did not work out as planned. Oops. Still pretty though.

This is my Kite quilt. It came out cute. It has some shirt 3d kite tales. The back has grey fleece, so super soft. This was just me entertaining myself. Nothing special and I did not have anyone in mind when I make it.

I finished this quilt that I started so long ago and gave it to my sister for her 70th birthday. I had actually hand sewn a few of these blocks together

My quilting Godmother, Nanette sent me a few orphan blocks (purple and white) along with a half yard of the purple and I made as many additional as I could. This will be a donation quilt to one of the Guilds charities. I hope to get it on the long arm this week. On the list, but we will see.

There are many other things that I have done. As I find picture I will share.

The Non-Quilting stuff

It’s been a year. If you don’t want to read this nonsense, feel free to stop and move on. A very wise person tells me to write stuff down. So, I am. Not sure if I am supposed to share it or not, but some I will, some I won’t.

So many changes this year. I spent a long time recovering from spinal surgery only to learn there are quite a few things I will never recover from. I added another auto immune disease to my list of stuff that totally sucks. I turned sixty. Not a whole lot different from 59, honestly. I said goodbye to a 10 year relationship that I should have said goodbye to 9 years and 10 months ago, but I didn’t. More on that later.

I am a widow, twice and honestly it totally sucks. Once was bad enough, but come on, twice. The second time, he was my person. the one you read about in the romance novels. The one you think only exists in fairy tales. It can’t be real. That kind of thing. He was someone that looked at me, not the outside, but me. To him I was the most beautiful woman on the planet. Well, that is how he made me feel anyway. He did not see what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

So now what? I read dark mafia romance novels and dream of him. No, he was not in the mafia, but all these books talk of tall, chiseled men with tattoos, which he was. Funny, I never found tattoos even remotely attractive and used to get mad at him every time he got another one and now, I find it extremely attractive. Odd. It is all very confusing to me. I want him back. I miss him. It makes for sad days and nights for sure. More quilting is needed.

Happy sewing

Happy Quilting

Ho hum.

Experimentation…sort of

So, I bought this QCR Mini curve ruler from Sew Kind of Wonderful” a long time ago. They, of course, had a really cute dog pattern that I liked. That is how you get Lori to buy an expensive ruler. Put it with a dog pattern. Works every time.

So, this was my experimental piece to determine how crappy I could sew curves. I’m gonna go with medium crappiness.

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First, cutting. I hate cutting. You cut out your squares and then use the ruler to line them up and cut the curves. It said to use a 45mm rotary cutter. I found this very difficult. I was actually cutting the template and shaving pieces of plastic off. So I sat for a while with a nail file filing off where I “nicked” the template. Mostly because then it would hang up in the same place. Once my friend Lynn told me to slow down when I cut them things went a little better. Did I tell you I hate cutting?

So, once I had them all cut I began sewing. You leave ears and then square them up. So overall once they were squared up and trimmed they did not look bad. But, I need to try something else before I decide if this ruler is a success. I used some valentines fabric so I could give this to my next-door neighbor. She needed something Valentines for her table. It’s not the worst thing I have ever made, but certainly far from my favorite.

Yep. this is how my dog sleeps. Crazy girl. Right in the middle, paws in the air. Loudly snoring.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Boo!

I really like Halloween things. However, you can only use them a few weeks of the years. That, however, does not stop me.

I made this table runner almost a year ago at a mini-retreat with my quilting partner in crime, Lynn. I thought it was cute. However, this involved a lot of stitch and flip which I find annoying and wasteful. But I finished it. I had the blocks done last November, but finally sewed them together and put the finishing touches on. I feel like the only thing I make lately are table runners. It is sort of true. Made tons of them after my neck surgery. Smaller projects were easier to focus on.

I decided to quilt this on my long arm. Was initially disastrous. Somehow, not paying attention, I loaded it incorrectly and managed to sew it together. Had to take the pole off to get it off and take out the stitching. Don’t even bother to try and imagine what dumb a$$ thing I did. I am not sure myself. Almost threw it in the trash and then I remembered how much I hated stitch and flip so thought better of it. All that to quilt a lazy meander.

I am adjusting to life with my daughter away at college. It is quite different for me. I call her most nights before I go to bed and she usually calls and texts randomly throughout the day. It helps. Family weekend is at the end of the month, so I will likely go visit then and take her some college necessities.

Now that she is not here, it makes me feel old. I try not to feel that way, but I do. Such is life,

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Déjà vu

Yep, you’ve seen these before. LOL. Apparently, I had some sort of pack with these fabrics. These 2 make three and I am pretty sure there is still an unquilted one in my sewing room. Not sure what I was thinking or what I will do with these.

I am on a mission to finish things up. There are several more table runners. Yikes. So many and a couple of quilts that need quilting. Who am I kidding? There are a lot of quilts that need quilted, but there is an order in my head. I need to get on that.

My daughter was home last weekend from school for Labor Day. Makes my heart happy to see her. She seems to be adjusting well to college away from MOM.

And here is the other one…..

Looks familiar doesn’t it?

I am working on some Non-SouthwesternI fabric things. LOL

I am working on my Halloween Table Runner. I actually plan on using it!. How about that.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

It’s Spooky time!

Last weekend I got crazy and used my AccuCut to cut some pumpkins and bats! It turned out pretty cute! I have a giant AccuCut. I had it long before it was popular. Maybe 20 years? So, I have a friend that is a teacher and she brought it home from school one time and I decided I needed to give it a whirl with fabric. She was cutting out shapes for her bulletin board at school. I loved it and bought my own! She would borrow dies for me because the dies were expensive. Over time I collected some of my own. Honestly, I haven’t used it in forever.

I am pleased with the outcome. I was too lazy to put fusible backing on, so I just used a glue stick to hold them down. It worked pretty well, although I prefer fusible. I used a blanket stitch to go around the edges. The spider web fabric I have had forever, likely years. Still cute though.

So I did straight line quilting, which I did not think I was going to like after a couple of lines, but it turned out OK. I don’t mind it.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

What a week!

I completed this table runner last weekend, but not get to photograph it until today. One f the many table runners that I made while recovering from my neck surgery. The Getting them quilted as time allows. Pretty simple design, but the fabrics don’t look too bad together. e prints were all part of

The prints were all part of the same line of fabrics from many moons ago. Simple straight-line quilting and a black cotton back.

Well, this is the week that my daughter left for school. Dropped her off yesterday. My feelings are very odd. I was so sad to see her go, yet happy for her to have this experience. I had a wonderful time in college and want her to have the time of her life.

At the moment she is having a difficult time adjusting. It is new. She is nervous. Doing my best to alleviate her feelings, while still having my own.

Last weekend we went to Niagra Falls for a long weekend. We had a blast. I am so glad we went.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

R U kidding me?

Literally just took this out of the package and decided to start it. take a few stitches and BAM, blood on a brand-new white potential table runner. Ugh. Could not figure out where it came from, but whatever. I am so annoyed with myself.

I bought this table runner from Annie’s. It just has some red and blue embroidery and I thought I could do something quilty around it. I don’t have anything red, white and blue for my table. Hoping I can get the blood out. It is not the first time I have bled on a project, but it is so white and not easily covered up (silently screaming).

I have quite a few table runners laying around…. Last year when I had my Neck surgery, I felt like I could not work on large projects, so I made a bunch of table runners. Now I have to get them quilted. I made a couple that are a bit southwest. If nothing else, they will make become Christmas gifts. I have at least 5 or 6 more. I like to quilt lines on these table runners because lines are easy and quick.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

And Just like that…it’s nearly Christmas

Good thing I finished those placemats.

They came out OK. It does make my dining room look festive. My Santa chair covers also help. The stuffed dogs? Well, Raising Cains chickens sells them every year. I recently got 2 new ones (Charlie Brown and Snoopy). Proceeds go to help dogs. My daughter thought they needed to be in the photo. They are always yellow labs in a costume. Super-Cute.

The placemats came out ok. After I made a couple, I was unhappy with my thread choice. It was a pretty red/green twist. It just looks dark to me. Fortunately, my lines are pretty straight so it does not look that bad. I wish I had used thread that matched the background fabric. Next time.

So, I sent my Plaid Challenge Quilt to my brother-in-law. He had a rough year, so I thought it might make him happy and he does have to live with my sister. LOL. They sent me this picture last night of it over thier love seat.

I do love it when I see one of my quilts in use or displayed.

Everyone at my house is not feeling well. Not horrible illness, just enough to annoy you. Makes it difficult to get things done for the holidays. We have been avoiding everyone because it certainly could be the “Rona”. My daughter and I lost smell and taste. I am about 10 days in so on the back side. It just felt like a crappy head cold.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

I swear, I really do make stuff….

I do not know why I am finding it so hard to write a blog post. I really do have the best intentions, but somehow it never gets done. I have made things….I did, I really did.

This quilt is the TRIAD Puzzle Quilt. What does that mean? Triad is my daughters school and their colors are red and black (she claimed this one early). “Puzzle”? When Nanette send me tis bunch of blocks. I had no instructions and just figured out how to put them together. Certainly not what it was intended to look like, but it works.

This was also the quilt that sat on my long arm for nearly a year as I recovered (sort of) from my neck surgery. It is an accomplishment that I finished it and got it off the long arm.

As you can see my daughter immediately put it to use. It has a lot of crazy quilting on it. Messages to her…..practice stuff etc… All that matters is that she loves it.

The Recovery

So, I am still recovering and feel like I may be doing it the rest of my life. I have taken my walks from the neighborhood to the walking path. The town that I live in has a very nice/beautiful walking/riding path. I ran out of mailboxes (and sidewalk) on my side of the street and did not like crossing the street. I am just too slow and it is a main road. So, I am not counting mailboxes any longer, but distance. Some days I can get to .64 miles. SO, just over 1/2 mile. Other days, I am lucky to walk 100 yards. I do not understand the rhyme or reason why some days I can do it and other days I feel so weak that I am holding on walking around my own house. To me this is the really frustrating part. I have gone for well over a week without being able to walk very far. When this happens I do try an increase my steps within the house, but sometimes even that is a stretch.

I have been spending time with my daughter. Last week she had her wisdom teeth out. If she knew I even had this photo she would be annoyed. It was last Wednesday. She is better but still can’t open up her mouth well. You would think I have silence, but I do not.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Not sure what to think

It seems that I can manage small pieces fairly well. Of course, still not good enough for me. I just want things to go back the way there were about a year ago.

So, this is the second able runner that I made from a scrap pack from my local quilt shop. I bought it for $12.99 and I think I have 2 more table runners from the same pack. I think it was actually a manufacturers sample. Some of them had pinked edges and they were all a pretty standard odd size. Regardless, I like it. It is a little busy looking, but tolerable, I think.

I do like this pattern it is called Jumping Jack. Very simple and easy. I will have to wait to quilt this until I open my black batting. Hopefully soon. I have a quilt I need to get ready for the long arm that requires black batting. Currently, I find using my long arm, very stressful. Since I can’t quite do things the way I want to I become frustrated and don’t want to do it at all. I know, wrong attitude.

I also made this one. I have hung on to a yard of this blue fabric for forever. For some reason I found it beautiful and did not want to use it. Finally did. It was super easy to do and great for using only two colors.

Gluten Sensitivity?

I am learning things every day. At some point I became sensitive to gluten (or so I thought). If I ate it, My heart rate increased to about 130+ for an hour or longer. This made me totally feel like crap. I was not overly thrilled with gluten free bread. It had a weird feel (gritty or something) in my mouth. So, I was unhappy. I constantly wondered why food would be taken from a fat girl. First you take my ability to do a whole lot of anything and then take food away form a fat girl? Come on. If things were not crappy enough. At first we thought it was sugar that was causing the problem. It would be much easier for me to avoid sugar. But no, it was everything I loved.

What I found out after some research was that it may not be gluten, but modern day wheat. So, I researched and found that many people with gluten sensitivity can eat heritage wheat. Heritage wheat? Wheat that was grown a long time ago. Not hybrid to yield more or sprayed with chemicals. I found a company that grows and mills this type of wheat. Sunrise Flour Mill makes just this wheat. I bought a bag. Super expensive $20 plus shipping for 5lbs. I made a loaf of bread and just like magic, I could eat it without the increased heart rate. It was like magic to me. I sat at the table eating bread, dipping it in olive oil in true fat girl style (I can laugh at myself). I have since ordered more and it gets less expensive if you buy bigger bags. his past Friday, we made pizza crust and our own homemade pizzas. It was delicious.

My mother was from Germany. These are one of our favorite things. We called them pretzel blobs, mostly because I think it annoyed my mother. They were (past tense) delicious.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting