Tag: sewing

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

Learning…..

Where have I been?  Jeez, no kidding.  I feel like it has been forever.  Sure has been a rough year.

I have been practicing my long arm.  Just about done with this one.  Nothing crazy. just simple stuff to start.  I like this quilt.  Funny, because I said I was going to practice on an “ugly one”.  I will get to that.

So, the below machines are not pretty, but they are packed with memories.  The Kenmore on the left was the machine my parents bought when my older sisters were doing the “Home-Ec” thing.  It was the only machine I sewed on for years.

The one on the right, was my grandmothers.  The last thing she sewed on that machine were my kindergarten clothes.  After that she got glaucoma and could no longer see.  When I would visit, this is the machine I would sew things together with.  I would just sew strips of fabric together.  Little did I know it would lead to a life long passion for collecting sewing machines and fabric.  My sister Karen had my grandmother’s machine and gave it to me when I saw her this past summer.  I just had them both serviced and they are working perfectly.

I have fabric that my Uncle brought my grandmother when he was in Hawaii (military man).  I have saved it many years.  I will incorporated it in a quilt and use her machine to piece it.

On the one Mom and Dad bought, I will sew the memory quilts from my little sister Kellie’s clothes that her husband gave me.  I have sort of begun, but there are so many memories that come back when I look at these clothes, it is hard.

While these machines are nothing special, they are special.  At least to 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

Trying to find my place…

I am lost in every sense of the word.

We went on vacation, which was good.  Some of vacation was for us (beach), then we met up with family.  My cousin and his family came from Germany.  I have not seen him in some time.  It was wonderful seeing them.

So for a couple of days, we went to Ocean City Maryland.  We had a great time.  I ate crab cakes and crab cakes and crab cakes.  I like crab cakes in case you have not guessed.

Then we went on to Washington DC to spend time with my cousin and my sister Karen and her family.  We had a great time there too.  But there was something missing.  My sister Kellie.  She was my traveling partner a lot.  Before we both married we had a really good time.  Even after marriage and children, we managed to sneak a couple trips in.  I miss that.  I miss her.  It just seems wrong.  I am wondering why I struggle so much with her death.  I have buried two husbands, but this one gets me.  I feel like I will never get over it.  I find myself not wanting to do anything, but I do.

Yes, you must suffer through my vacation photo’s.  I am even in them (I avoid photos like an allergy) LOL.

My spot at the Beach!
My cousin Holger, my daugther and me
The Capitol – Been years since I went to D.C.
The whole lot of us at the Spy museum!

Spy Museum (D.C.), Beach, Me, Haley (daughter), Holger (cousin) and the capital.

Oh, and the quilt.  So, my most wonderful friend Nanette, sent me a box that had some scraps and a few finished blocks.  I made this interesting table runner from it.  It is a bit Improv, but I do like the colors a lot.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Another finish….and just in time

My family from Germany is coming to visit.  They should be arriving in the states today.  They have three weeks planned out.  We will be meeting up with them in Washington DC in a couple of weeks.  I have never met my cousin’s wife or daughter.   I am very excited to meet them in person.  We do chat and sometimes talk on WhatsApp.

So, Sophia and Christine, love horses.  They send me videos of Sophia riding her horse frequently, which I enjoy.  So, I made a horse quilt for her.

IT gave me such grief.  Mostly due to the fact that sometimes, I am just a dumba$$.

So, this was one of the quilts that I was basting when I had the spray debacle.  Funny thing that turned out to be the least of my problems.  I had this all rolled up ready to be basted.  Thought I was ahead of the game.  Hahaha.  Turns out that as I reached the bottom of the basting, I failed to measure this quilt.  I could say I improperly measured, but truth be told, I never measured it at all.  So, turns out my backing and batting was a few inches too short.

No way to unglue all that.  I decided to quilt it and leave 6 inches unquilted and then figure out what to do.  I sort of figured that I will piece the batting and backing on.

Well, I managed to piece in the piece of batting, not a big deal.  However, I had left over 20190719_192622-1.jpgarrow fabric that I was going to use to piece across the bottom.  Wrong.  Came out totally wonky and looked like a crazy person did it.  I think the problem was that it was directional and sewing the fabric on was not as easy as I thought.  Ended up finishing the quilting without the back and hand sewing a piece clear across the back along the bottom (light green).

I really did not like this quilt the entire time I was working on it, however now that is is finished, I do like it.  It looks like a horse quilt for a little girl and that is what I was going for.  The back came out OK despite my issues.

I got word today that they were in New York.  Looking forward to meeting up with them!

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

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

Check out my new thread rack…sort of

So I bought myslef a new thread rack that I love.  Except, it is not really a thread rack, it is for nail polish.  However, i love it for threads and  it even fits serger thread.  Plus it looks so pretty.  It is from Amazon  If you are interested.  Finally I can see all my thread and not rifle through boxes and drawers.  I actually have more thread and my serger thread, so I may get another one.

So, an update on my basting spray issue. THank you to Sharon for reminding me to email the manufacturing company.  This is what they told me:

Good afternoon Lori,
     Thank you for reaching out to us at June Tailor. We did have to make some changes to the basting spray due to a new law change in California. You will be happy to hear though that we have since revised and it is now like the original basting spray yet staying within the guidelines of the new law. It is due in here to us sometime in August. If you would like to send me your address I would like to send you a can on us, to try. Below is the changes we made and why.
Thank you for reaching out.  I have included an overview of some of the changes made to the formula and why.  To summarize, we needed to make changes to our formula to comply with regulations in the state of California.  We also moved our production to the United States and already have our chemists working on improvements for our second production run.  In addition to a more robust nozzle with a more restrictive flow rate, we have worked on the scent.
Our Quilt Basting Spray is made up of an adhesive and a propellant. A propellant is a compressed gas that acts as a vehicle for discharging the contents of an aerosol containers; in this case, the adhesive component.  The state of California now restricts us on using certain types of chemicals in this propellant, so we have had to modify our formula slightly. The adhesive should work basically the same as previous cans.
We added the ball in the can to further assist with mixing of the adhesive and the propellant. Please be sure to shake the can well before using.
If your can has a small white spray nozzle with a black dot, you may need less of a heavy hand when spraying your batting. We have already made modifications to the design and flow-rate of the can nozzles on the cans to provide a more restrictive flow as the product is sprayed. This should help with stickiness and dry-time.  It is, of course, still always best to test a small piece of fabric and batting.
Additional modifications are already being implemented in regards to the odor and we are looking for additional input from you, our long-term customers. We have received excellent customer feedback and questions about the changes to the product and are working very diligently with our chemists to make product improvements and adjustments to give you the very best experience with our basting spray while keeping within regulatory guidelines.

I can hope there is improvement. It was my favorite basting spray.  I actually have a couple of quilts finished.  Need to get those posted.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Some awesome Quilting news…

The Uncle Donald Quilt goes to the Ohio History Museum, along with my grandmother’s.

What?  Holy Cow. 

Several weeks ago, a lady form the Ohio History Museum spoke at our guild meeting.  She talked about quilts up to about 1950.  I was not looking forward to this speaker, but it turned out that she was very knowledgeable about quilting and historical quilts.  In her presentation, she showed many lovely old quilts.  She explained that most of their quilts were donated and cam with the history attached to them.

When it was question time, I asked if they had any early quilts that were made by men.  She told me no they had never came across anything like that.  Once she was done speaking I showed her a photo of Uncle Donald’s quilt.  Right away she asked me if I would consider donating it. I would.  SO, she asked me to send her an email with any information I had.

That was easy.  I knew Uncle Donald, and he was one of my favorite people.  After he died I continued to visit Aunt Helen a couple for times a year.  We would go to lunch and talk about all sorts of things.  I often took her something I made when I visited.  Once time when I was there she gave me the “Uncle Donald Quilt”.   

I had no idea if he was illiterate.  My dad thought he was a pretty smart man, and I image her was, even if he was not educated.  I know my grandmother was, she was actually a school teacher at one point in her life, but boys became valuable farm hands and were often not educated past the 8th grade.

My Grandmother’s (Monnie) quilt

Uncle Donald had 8 sisters (one of them being my grandmother).  Since he was the youngest, he wound up joining in on the quilting.  He made his own quilt.  Aunt Helen thought I should have it, since he was my family. 

So I had all the provenance and sent her the information I knew.  She emailed me back information about my family after she researched them.  I had guessed the quilt was from about 1920, but was unsure.  I knew when my grandmother was born, but did not know that until Donald was born in 1907.  She thought that 1920 was pretty close because the 1920 census had listed him as an illiterate farmer.  He would have been 13 then and become a valuable farm worker and likely not had time for quilting after that.

So, my Uncle Donald Quilt will be part of the Ohio History Museum’s quilt collection, along with one of my grandmother’s.  Uncle Donald’s quilt will be the only one made by a man in the collection.

It feels very good to know that items from my family will be forever saved as part of a historical collection.

It takes about a year for things to be officially added to the collection along with filling out paperwork, but I am thrilled it will be forever saved.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

What did I do this weekend?

I know you are all dying to know.  LOL. I made this baby quilt top.  I have some fat quarter packs that I have received as gifts and was trying to find a good way to use them.  I still have a few things to work out, but overall came out kind of cute.  I guess I find anything with dog fabric kind of cute though.  Good way to use five fat quarters.  I made a few mistakes in piece sizes because I forgot to properly account for seam allowance, but I think I have it figured out now.

I made the mistake of not putting all the pieces on the design board, so I have some fabrics together that I don’t like, but I will not make that mistake next time.

So, the Connecting Threads warehouse was this past weekend, in Columbus, Ohio.  SO I went, almost didn’t but then on my way home from something else, decided to check it out.  Glad I did and also glad I went in the afternoon.  Apparently there was a 2 hour wait to get in the building when they opened.  I am not patient and would not have waited for 2 hours to get in the building which was a warehouse with no air conditioning.  I don’t black Friday shop either.  I want/need nothing that bad.

There was still plenty of stuff for me.  I bought 18 yards of fabric @ $2.50/yd.  Pretty good.  I did have to stand in line for abut 30 minutes though.  I was a hot mess.  Next time, I make Haley go stand line immediately while I shop.  She tried to get me to go to the car and she would wait in line, but I toughed it out.

First picture is what I bought.  Second picture is the warehouse.  The fabric is on rolls, and there are rolls and rolls.  The third picture is the line which wrapped around the aisle of the warehouse and up another.  They also sold yarn there, lots of yarn.

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).

20190604_194900.jpg

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!