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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now I have something else to complain about. I don’t like to bind pieces that are not square or rectangular. I just don’t know how to do it right. Yep, always something to complain about.
I think I got the on point part straight and did not put exact pieces next to each other. But, I realized that I did not really know how to bind things that were not square or rectangular. I was not sure how to deal with the angled corners. I did it, and it lays flat, but I don’t really like how they look. Always something to complain about.
I did straight line quilting. At this point I have learned that you pick an angle that does not correspond with any seams. That way if you are a little off, no one will see it.
Personal Progress
So, I am really not getting very far. I had an entire week where I felt to weak to walk. Ugh. I finally figured out that I need to walk in the morning. That is the only real shot I have at doing it. I feel like when I wake up in the morning, I have gas i n the tank, however that gas runs out quickly. When it is out I am done for the day. I have zero strength and can not walk far. I even struggle inside my own house.
I have managed to get to the 7th house though. I am not happy about it. It is oddly painful to walk. My neck, shoulders and arms hurt a lot. I have been going on my walks by myself. That way no one but me hears the lovely words that come out of my mouth as I walk. Once I get to that 8th mailbox I will then need to cross the street because the sidewalk ends.
What Else?
We have been going on college visits with my daughter. Two down and one to go. I go to the information session and then Kevin goes on the walking tour with her. Makes me sad that I can not, but glad that he does it. I have a hard time imagining her going off to school and leaving me. But as a “Smother Mother” I am sure she will be glad to get away. Well, I hope not. I have very fond memories of college, and I want that for her also.
My Moka
AKA Moka Monster
AKA Dork
AKA Dorkasaurus
AKA Mokachino
She is a very spoiled girl. She also has epilepsy. She looks forward to her medication every morning and night, since they are stuffed in treats. We refer to her as the “Master Puppy” because she sleeps with Mom and Dad in the master bedroom.
QuiltingNeeds.com 