Tag: free motion quilting

Look… I finished something

It truly is a bittersweet miracle. I started this quilt for my daughter several years ago when she was an actual bookworm. Now I think she reads a lot…on her phone.

There are so many fancy bookcase quilts. Mine is not that fancy. But, I did include the titles of many of the books that she read.

Not all the books have titles on them, but I would guess that about half of them do. Haley wanted to take this quilt to college, so I had to get it quilted. She will be leaving next week. I did not think that I would like it, but when she held it up, I did think it was sort of cute.

I chose not to put a regular label on this quilt and instead quilted messages into the quilt. She noticed a couple, but there is a ton of messages in the quilt. I can’t wait until she finds “Moka smells like chocolate”. Haley has always said “Moka smells” and my response has been “She smells like Chocolate”. She is a chocolate lab.

Haley picked out the fabric for the back of this quilt. She chose Harry Potter themed newsprint. Seemed like a good choice for the back of a library quilt.

I can’t imagine her not being here. It will be the most difficult thing for me. I won’t be there to protect her. But, I raised a strong smart young woman. I need to remember that as I wipe away my tears. My baby has grown up and I don’t like it. She has been my purpose. My reason for being here.

Moka says Hi. She has a habit of sitting on people’s heads when you lay down. Haley was not impressed.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Rescue a furry friend

And… I am back

Successful Neck Fusion.  I am already getting the feeling back in my arms and legs.  I was told it might take a while for my spinal cord to recover, but I already see an improvement.  I did spend one night in the hospital, which was the right thing, despite the fat that I did not want to.  But the first night was a bit rough.  Glad it is over. and I can get back to my life.

So, yes, I have already been sewing.  Not the easiest thing to do with my star wars brace, but it is my happy place.  Not a lot, but every little bit counts. Reusable Paper Towels –   Sounds weird, but at my house, dish towels are used every day multiple per day.  It is hard to have enough and have a place to store them.  Then there is the fact that I am a freak also.  We have 3 dogs so if the towel gets dropped on the floor I am done with it , and in the laundry it goes.  Also, if I don’t know where the towel has been and it is out on the counter, in the laundry it goes.  The five second rule does not apply to dish towels at my house. I am using the JoAnn Fabrics dimensions. I had the flannel and am using some old towels that were in really good shape. I looked at buying yardage of terry cloth, but it was expensive and I did not like the feel of most. Easier to buy Bath towels, or use what I had.

So, I am done with the quilting on the Easter Topper. I tried to get fancy, but am still somewhat limited. I need more practice. So, before my surgery I attempted to make bias binding for this piece. Epic fail. I don’t make bias binding often and had to look up how to do it. Still did it wrong and wasted some fabric. I was not clear of mind right before the surgery, so I should not have attempted. Lesson learned. Hoping I have enough of something that matches to give it another go.

This is my contraption that I must wear. Super Attractive. Basically keeps me from moving my neck. I get to take it off for sleep, which I am quite happy about. It does look like something from Star Wars and I am still trying to come up with a witty name for it. The worst part about this surgery was the wait time before. You are left with your own thoughts, which are far worse than ay surgery could be. I have so many sewing things planned, I am hoping I can get to work on all of them soon.

Happy Sewing!

Happy Quilting!

Moving right along…

The Easter Table topper.

What do I like about this table topper – I like the shape. I always like interesting/different shapes. I love my decorated eggs and my colorful peeps.

What do I not like about this table topper – The thread I chose. I love variegated thread, not on this. When I look at the light teal and dark teal (flower looking pieces), they do not line up correctly. The pattern I used looked perfect, but I futzed with it for quite some time to get it to lay right and I still don’t like it. Since this piece is for my table I will have to tolerate the things I don’t like. I would have to make another and see if it came out better before I would give this to someone. Still sort of cute.

I don’t follow directions well – I am sure I am ot the only one. I was looking for something Easter and did not find a lot of patterns. I found this on the Bernina website. It had a lot of embroidery on it which I clearly had no intention of doing. I have two machines that do it and I never do. My 1st late husband and I had a commercial embroidery business, therefore I no longer want to do it and after having commercial machines, find doing it on a one needle sewing machine annoying. So, I basically used the pattern for the shape and the eggs and then went off and did my own thing.

Bambi – Christmas quilt – Off the design wall and being pin basted. I am using a blanket I got for Christmas on the back. It is super soft and very pretty. I think it will be best used on the back of this quilt. I may quilt this on my domestic since I currently have something on my longarm, that is begging to be done. I am finally doing things quilty.

News from the world of Lori – So Doctors have finally figured out what is wrong with me, hopefully. Apparently, my neck has severe arthritis to the point that I do not have spinal fluid surrounding my spinal cord in a decent sized area. So, on February 5th, I will get it fixed. There really is no option, I could wind up paralyzed if I choose not to do it. So, do it we will. Such is life. Yes, I am totally freaked out by it.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

A Finish and other fabulous news…..

Yes, I finished something! This is my Zipper quilt. It is a Missouri star quilt pattern. I think I chose to do this quilt becasue I had a couple of charm packs and it is charm pack friendly.  Had to wash this quilt, why?  Well, My little Ruger AKA, Polly Pissy Pants, felt the need to mark it as his because it was hanging off the edge of th table.  Super annoying but I still love him. 20191117_155339

I did long arm this quilt, just some swirls, nothing fancy.  But it was easy and was much quicker than doing it on my domestic.

The back was something I had in my stash forever.  It works!

The news – So the past year has been super trying for me.  The loss of my sister, the loss of my job etc.  So, I took a new job last April that I knew that I was way over qualified for.  I hated it.  Met some really good people, but just not for me.

I started interviewing for a different job about a month later.  It took from May until now.  I start tomorrow.  So, while I have always worked on Columbus, I now have a job 5.5 mies from my house, paying more money.  Honda North America is right around the corner and I have wanted to work there.  Finally, I got a job in IT for them.  I had interviewed for a few other jobs there, but finally got a good one.  I was driving 50 miles to work, and now it will be less than 6 miles and I am not overqualified.  In comparison my benefits are leaps and bounds better.  There are way more and they cost less.  Please be the dream/last job I will have.  Gosh I hope so.  So, I am hoping that this is one more step in the right direction of me feeling like me.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Look what I got!

I got a Handi-Quilter Simply Sixteen and a little foot frame.  I am so excited.  I have wanted one for a long time, but I find it so hard to spend money on something I want.  I constantly think about the fact that I still have a child to educate blah blah blah.  The household consensus was “you really need to do something for you”.  SO, I got crazy and did.

It was super easy to set up. I was off practicing my quilting in no time.  The hardest part was adjusting the tension.

Now I am afraid to start on one of the many tops I have waiting.  I will have to bite the bullet and do it.  I think I will likely start with one of my ugly quilts.

More to come.

Tomorrow is that day.  The day I lost my sweet sister Kellie.  While it huts every day, that day is a reminder that I would rather not have.  I have to go to the office, which I am not sure is a good thing or a bad thing.  Hoping it keeps my mind occupied.  If nothing else, at least it will be just me, hiding in my office.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your Family

I learned something new

So, I have acquired quite a few fat quarter packs that have five fat quarters.  I wanted to figure out something to do with these.   If you only have on fat quarter pack of the same design you could be limited to what you can do.  I do love babies so I decide that I needed to find a pattern that was friendly to these 5 fat quarter bundles.  Baby quilts it is.

I could not find any pattern that was suitable or that I liked, so I made my own.  I really liked the dog fabric, so I wanted to make sure that I could showcase the dog prints.  I had a few issues with the size of things, so this is not perfect, but the next one, I will have just right.  I don’t have any fancy quilting software, so I was just drawing on paper.  It was super simple to make and with the 5 fat quarter pack and a yard of solid, I made a cute baby quilt.  I sort of like it.

20190618_191938I quilted dog bones into the quilt with my homemade dog bone ruler and put dog fleece20190618_191900 on the back.  I like fleece on the back because it is very forgiving.  However, I find it much harder for some unknown reason to quilt.  My shoulders are killing me after quilting when there is fleece on the back.

 

So, what did I learn?  I managed to sew the 20190618_192631binding on by machine entirely.  Never did it before.  Watched a couple of video’s.  For a first time, it is not too bad.  I don’t mind the hand binding on the back, but for some things, I think sewing it on is acceptable and I have to tell you that I have never had better looking corners. ever.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

My Table Setting and my Quilting Godmother

So, everyone needs a Quilting Godmother.  Seriously, mine listens to my problems (personal and quilt related), leads me down the path of good quilting and then ever so often a box of awesomeness arrives at my home.

I never thought when I created my blog that I would make real friends here, let alone find a quilting Godmother.  Who would have thought?  I have found so many awesome like minded people through my blog.  I am ever so grateful for the friendships and comradeship.  I really do love you all (Nanette…you have a special place in my heart).

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Look at all this wonderful stuff I got from my Quilting Godmother (LOL)  There are such beautiful things in this box, I can’t even tell you.

I love creating like this.  I will take these things and then like a puzzle put them together.  So besides the quilting challenge, I also have the figure out how to put it all together challenge.

About my table setting…Looks great from distance.  Don’t look to close.  For whatever reason, a preschooler with safety scissors must have cut these out.  The place mats did not go together well, mostly due to the cutting.  Cutting accurately is so important.  Learned that lesson again…..dang it.

Since these are for my table, I will tolerate their mediocrity.  I actually created these so I WaterMark_2019-06-04-15-16-00could practice quilting spirals.  I have a quilt that I want to do the spiral pattern on and wanted more practice.

It did not turn out too bad.   The practice was good.  I will feel better when I set out to quilt the big quilt with spirals.

20190601_193652This is my Snibble and all the reason my things frequently come complete with dog hair.  I had these laying on the back of the couch as I completed the binding.  She decided that she needed to watch me as I worked and plopped herself on top of them.

So, my mother was from Germany.  It turns out that growing up, there were some made up words in my family (by my mother).  Snibbles was one of them.  I grew up thinking that Snibbles were little bits of paper or fabric (scraps) because that is what my mother referred to them as (along with her best friend who was also from Germany).  I was frequently told to clean up my Snibbles.  I learned while I was in college that it was not really a word.  It was rush week (yes, I was a sorority girl)  and we were doing something that involved cutting paper.  I said “we are going to have to clean up all these snibbles”, as if that was a word everyone knew.  They all looked at me like I was crazy, so I repeated myself.  Then came the laughter and the realization that this was not really a word, but something my mother and Betty (Mom’s best friend, also from Germany..I see a pattern here)  made up.  My whole life up til then, I thought Snibbles were  a real thing.

Snibble is now a real thing.  My late Husband named her that because she was a “scrap” of a dog (he was very familiar with the Snibble story).  He was working for a farmer changing oil on tractors and their dog had 13 puppies.  Only one was a girl and the boys were being mean to her and not letting her eat.  He rescued her for me.  She was all bit up when she came, but is a wonderful happy girl now.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your Family and your Quilting Godmother!

Happy Memorial Day and a finish

Happy Memorial Day and to all that serve(d), Thank you.  My father was in the Army Air Corp and my late husband Derrick was in the Army.  I miss them both dearly.  The army Air corp is what brought my parents together.  My father was stationed in Germany when he met my mother.  They are all awesome people to remember on this day.

I made this quilt for a lady I work with.  She is having a baby in July.  I love babies so anytime I can have an excuse to make something for a baby, I am going to do it.  I also think a lot of this person.  There has been only a couple of times I have met a young person and thought to myself, WOW, they have their act together.  This lady is one of them.  Super smart, knows what she wants personally and professionally and is not going to let anyone stand in her way.  She is having a boy and the nursery will be Ohio State (another reason to like her, LOL).

I needed to experiment with batting and minky after the last quilt I made without WaterMark_2019-05-22-12-53-07batting.  I like it much better with the batting.  This one has minky on the back.  It does not seem overly heavy, so I think I prefer it to have batting.

About Minky….  For me, there are good things and bad things about using this on the back.  You can see none of the quilting on the back.  In this case it is good, because I quilted the babies name into the quilt.  If you could see it on the back, it would be backwards.  Love how soft it is for the baby.

Something I did not like…For whatever reason, I found this very difficult to move while quilting.  My shoulders hurt for three days after I finished.  I thought it would move more easy.  Nope.  I have my slider that I put down and it works perfectly for every thing else I quilt, but this was crazy.  Maybe between the slider and Minky it was too slippery and did not move at all?  I have no idea.

I really like this patter (see previous post for link).  IT is quick and easy.  I think it is also a great way to practice new quilting designs.

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your Family

OMG…A blog post

Yes, I know it has been a while.  Just when I think I have my act together.  The S**t keeps rolling downhill and I am in the path.

Life goes on and I will survive.  I wont’ t bore you with all the details.  Just life crap I was in no mood to deal with.  It did not however, totally stop me from quilting/sewing, or you would have read about me in the paper LOL.

I hope you all had a lovely mothers day.  I did.  Spent the day making pillow cases for the guild charity.  Went to dinner with the family and they surprised me with a Ninja Foodie, which I have used every day since…..  I had an electric pressure cooker, which I loved, but this thing is the bomb – pressure cooker, air fryer and slow cooker all in one.

This quilt was an experiment.  I liked this pattern, Baby Bento Box, which can be located at Ronda’s creations.   Super cute and fast.

Anyway, I wanted to make this top with just fleece or Minky on the back without batting.  I ended up using fleece, because it was an experiment and less expensive.  Honestly, I WaterMark_2019-04-24-20-35-08don’t think I like the no batting part.  What I love is how the quilting looks on the back.  It looks good even when I am not.  It seems that fleece will hide a lot.  Honestly, it looks even better in person.

I am working on another one, which I will use with batting and Minky (already have it put together) to see if I like it any better.  It is the lightweight feel that gets me.  This would defiantly be a summer quilt.

Positive notes – New job is going well (or at least I think so), and I will have some exciting quilt news soon.  Hard to keep in, actually.

I have missed you all.

Happy Sewing

Happy quilting

Treasure your Family

 

April One Monthly Goal

So, my quilt guild is having a paint chip challenge.  You draw a bag and in it is a paint hip with three colors.  You need to use those exact colors and one additional of your choosing.  I have completed my top, but don’t really like it (No, it is not the pineapples.  I like those).  I am hoping some quilting and a different color binding will make me like it more.

That brings me to the pineapples.  I want to do some free motion quilting that I have not watermark_2019-04-03-14-44-47.jpgdone before, so I am making some loud happy placements for my dining room.  I will use them to practice the quilting for my paint chip challenge quilt.

So for my One Monthly Goal, for April, I plan on having four completed placemats.  Hopefully by then I will feel comfortable quilting my paint chip challenge quilt.

I am using some fat quarters.  I love these.  They are so bright WaterMark_2019-04-03-14-45-11and happy.  It makes me smile.  I love the flamingos and pineapples.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your Family