Tag: wall hanging

What the Heck am I doing?

Good question. I sometimes wonder what I am doing. I quilted, on my domestic, my scrabble dog wall hanging. I needed something to do that would take me a bit of uninterupted time. Sometimes when I have a lot on my mind (or just anxiety in general), I want to work on something that requires my undivided attention. This has been basted and staring at me for quite a few weeks. I figured it would take me 1-1.5 hours after I got set up to complete the quilting. I was not far off the mark.

I did find, that since I don’t really quilt much on my domestic machine, except straight line, that I now suck at free motion quilting on it. It is possible that it is because iut requires strenght (shoulders, I think) that I don’t have and may never have. I used my dog boine ruler. Not sure why they are called rulers, they don’t actually measure anything. I did take a photo of one of the better-looking areas (LOL).

Anxiety, who me?

Haha. Crazy anxiety. That’s me. I am a worrier by nature., I think I got that from my mother. She was a worrier. So anxiety is just an added bonus.

What causes me to be insane? Well, last week on Wednesday, I woke up unable to walk. Awesome. The absolute most severe pain I have ever felt, everytime I put my right leg down. Words can not describe this pain. Thinking my post (artificail knee) had finally come loose after 25 years, I had my daughter drive me to the ER. Nope, knee not loose. Not much we can help you with, go to your ortho. Six weeks wait. Try someone local. Eww, not what I usually want to do, living outside the city. The local doctors in the rural world have always scared me. But, they agreed to see me that day. I was pleasantly surprised. Young Doc, who told me that my pain was likely coming from my hip (even though it did not hurt). Told me the answer was to shoot up the aggravated knee with medication and then come back on Friday and have the same thing done to my hip. It worked! However, now, I can add hip arthritits and all the goodies that come with that to my crappy resume. I also now keep crutches by the door of the bedroom in case it happens again. This is one of the many reasons I am half crazy. What lovely thing will I wake up with tomorrow? If this is getting old, I have a strong understanding of why people fight it.

Fun Coming!

Fun is needed. Going on a mini-retreat in Amish country in Ohio, with my quilting partner in crime Lynn and maybe one other person (hopefully Sharon comes because she seems like she would be fun). We are staying at a historic hotel. Not only is it a retreat center, but they have ghost hunts. LOL. It is has Victorian Era Decor and past presidents have stayed there (Grover Cleveland). Hotel Millersburg is in the heart of Ohio Amish Country (AKA lots of quilt shops). Photos to come….

So, I am collecting up my projects that I will work on and looking forward to the great escape.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

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Some Progress

One of the local quilt shops I frequent, sells scrap bags. I bought one of these $12.00 scrap bags. I like to try and see what I can make out of the bag, by maybe only adding a background fabric. I do like a challenge. For this I added the Royal blue from my stash. I am the crazy dog lady, so I hung this up in my hallway (there was an empty spot).

This has been my helper lately. One of the things that is wearing me out, is getting up to iron. I have had this tool for years and it was still in the package when I recently got it out. It has been helpful in flattening seams so I don’t have to constantly get up to item. I have really only been using it on small seams, but it does a pretty good job. It extends my sewing time a bit and at this point, I will take anything.

What Else?

I save all my scraps that are not big enough to do anything with. Then I make dog beds for Shelters and organizations that help pets. There is no point in putting them in the trash when they can be upcycled to something useful. I use a heavyweight cotton and put a zipper in each one. I put my scraps inside a trash bag, so they are easily removed and the cover can be washed. I have a couple laying around my house for our dogs and I donated these five to “Barely Used Pets”. Interestingly, I also receive monthly medication that needs refrigerated. It comes with ice packs and recycled cotton as an insulator. Of course I save all this cotton, tear it up and use it in the dog beds.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

My One Monthly Goal for January…Tada

All done, quilted and even hung up in the kitchen Nook.

So, My one monthly goal was to quilt and bind my jars.  Since my jars were pretty wonky I chose a bit of a different layout.  My daughter asked my they were not neatly spaced on the shelf.  uhhh  “This is our house, how does everything else look?”  Daughter:  “Oh ya…right.  actually neater than our pantry”.  So, it looks like it belongs in our house. It looks great hanging in the kitchen.

This “Ancient Alien” is now complete.

 

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your Family

 

Blogging Slacker here but I got my One Monthly Goal completed! Woohoo!

I feel like it has been forever since I have done a blog post.  Way too much going on.  My daughter has had some crazy virus.  SHe is getting better, but we are still doing breathing treatments three times a day.   Kevin has also been sick.  Amazingly, the person with the compromised immune system (me) has managed to stay healthy.

I managed to completed my One Monthly Goal amidst the insanity.  I really love this quilt.  I have names it Hugs and Kisses.  I quilted circles on this quilt (hugs).  They don’t look to bad.  I used freezer paper.  basically, I used a protractor (showing my age) to draw circles on freezer paper and then sewed on the lines.  The freezer paper was good but I did learn a few things.  First being, don’t iron all the pattens on at once.  Just iron on a few at a time.  I initially ironed them all on and manipulating them under the machine caused them to loosen.  I eventually, pulled them off and only put them on one row at a time.  Then I had no more issues.  I will use the freezer paper method again.  I ended up using a sulky thread that was sort of an Ombre orange.  It went from dark orange to light orange.

I got to make this quilted wall hanging for free.  My local quilt shop Red Rooster Quilts gives a free quilt block every two weeks.  I am already collecting my next set, which is a lovely christmas wall hanging.

I really like this wall hanging and plan on hanging it in my family room.  I think it is because I really like orange fabric.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

I Tried this out over the weekend. The results are good.

OK, so I tried out the freezer paper method for quilting.  The results are good, but there are a few things I would do differently.  So, I ironed on all my circle drawings to the whole piece.  I found this not the best approach.  So, with the all of the freezer paper over the entire quilt, I found it difficult to move the quilt around without crinkling and loosening the designs.  Plus, since I was making a complete circle for each one, I had to totally turn the quilt around on each piece.  That is a lot of turning and manipulating.  So, I took them all off and only put on those for the area I was directly working.  Once I did this, I did not have any more issues here.  So, I think that circles are hard.  I found that I had to go very slow, which is OK.  I also found that I could not quilt a circle with feed dogs down, but rather did a lot of pressure foot lifting.

So, you can see from my photo, that my quilted circle is not too bad.  It is not perfect, but I’ll take it.  The first one I attempted, I took out, but once I figured everything out, I was good to go.

So, I finally successfully used my knee pressure foot lifter (for the most part).  I find it very hard to remember to lift my foot before lifting the pressure foot with my knee.  I did eventually manage to coordinate this, but it took me getting everything in the right spot.  Then, I found it easier to quilt the circles.  I will continue this freezer paper method for this quilt and will likely use it again.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

 

My One Monthly Goal

So, for my one monthly goal, I am going to finish my hugs and kisses wall hanging, in entirety.  Thank you, Red Rooster Quilts, for giving this to me, block by block every two weeks.  I also need to thank them for allowing me to deposit my paycheck at their store every two weeks when I went to get my “free” quilt block.  I would love to see the statistics on their sales and see the benefits of this way to get more money from us quilters.  I don’t blame them, I love the shop.  I would imagine that people may have went more often and bought things they really did not need (not talking about myself, no I am not). I think of the 26 weeks, I only went three times and walked out with nothing, and that was likely due to being short on time.  And yes, should they do this again, I will fall prey to their clever marketing schemes.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, it is about a mile from where I work.  So, when the nerds start getting on my nerves, I must go to a happy place. $$$

So, last week-end, Lynn and I had our own Sew in. She brought this beautiful quilt she had done.  She had such awesome quilting.  I asked how she did.  She told me she traced her design on freezer paper, ironed it on and then follow along.  Sounded like something I needed to try, which is why you see the freezer paper all over my Hugs and Kisses quilt. Hoping it makes my quilting less scary. I had a picture on my phone, but some how bunches of my photo’s keep disappearing.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Bloggers Quilt Festival – How Fun

I found a Bloggers Quilt Festival by reading Susan’s blog at DesertSky Quilting.  She always knows where the good stuff is.

20170813_195432_resizedThis contest is hosted by Amy’s Creative Side.  It is a great place to see a lot of beautiful projects.  There are prizes just for entering.  No pressure.  Prizes are randomly drawn based on entries.

My entry is My “Oma’s Treasure”.  I love this Wall Hanging because it means a lot to me. Brings back a lot of memories of My Oma and my Mom, who I miss.  At 53 I still want my Mom sometimes.  This is also something I dreamed up, so I can claim it for my own design, even though ti is a little Loud.  I had a lot of great advice from my Blog friends on things to do, which I greatly appreciate.

My Oma has been gone since I was a teen-ager.  The embroidery in the middle is from a kit she sent me from Germany.  I found it is a box of stuff I was going through and decided to turn it into something Quilty.  As a teen. I was not to bad at embroidery.

I hope you all enter the Bloggers Quilt Festival.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting.

 

Oma’s Treasure finished for my One Monthly Goal

I actually really like this piece.  I had lots of advice from people on what to do and I thank all of you for your help.  I so very often finish pieces and am unimpressed.  This is already hanging in my dining room by all the other beautiful thinks that once belonged to Oma, Mom and now me.

Despite the fact that my Oma could not speak English, she always knew what to send me that would make me happy.  Something to make or do.  I believe the center embroidered piece is around 40 years old.  Surprisingly, I did not do such a bad job as a kid.

The embroidered piece is made from linen, so I did add some interfacing to the back to20170806_131034_resized add a bit of stability.  I also sewed glass beads in the centers of some flowers to keep the batting from shifting.  I went totally outside my box and did quilting outside my comfort zone and I am totally happy with it.  How crazy is that?  So, now, when I sit down to dinner, I can imagine Oma smiling down at me.  Getting sentimental, I should stop now.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Join One Monthly Goal, great way to get things done

I am Such a Slacker on Free Quilt Block Day

As I have mentioned in the past, Red Rooster  (Dublin, Ohio) quilt shop gives a free quilt block every two weeks.  There are thirty total that will complete a wall Hanging Quilt.  It is super cute and has a lot of Orange, which I love.  They are total geniuses for doing this.   These are about 6” blocks, so they are giving you maybe a dollars’ worth of fabric.  But, I am going into their store and spending money every two weeks.  So that dollar they are spending they have already made back more times than I care to admit.  I always liked the shop, but now I have a very specific reason to go every two weeks (which I would not normally do unless I specifically needed something.  Random visits cost money) and collect my block and whatever else tickles my fancy (the problem).  The other part of the issue is that my Day job as Nerd Whisperer keeps me about two miles from the shop.  So, when I have had my fill of the nerd squad I go to relax and wander around their store (probably not the best option for my wallet, despite the free block).

So, why am I slacker?  Well, I didn’t buy anything today when I went to get my block (I should probably see a doctor) but when I was checking out, the lovely lady at the counter asked me if I was up to date on my block creations.  As she handed me block #15, I had to admit that I just finished block #10.  Seriously they are 6 inch blocks.  I am such a slacker.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

What to do……with this……

I am that person that has to be doing something at all times. If I sit down to watch the news or something else on TV, my hands must be occupied. If not, I will be eating something (which I certainly do not need to do) or I might fall asleep.
I have done some piecing by hands, but I find that it winds up being a lot of the same thing, so I find embroidery keeps my attention a little better. Since, I really like to quilt, I have to find ways to incorporate my embroidery into quilts.

Currently, I have this Halloween picture that I need to do something with. If I remember correctly, this was a picture from a coloring book (maybe. Honestly, I am not sure). I do remember that it took a fair amount of time to do this picture.

The problem I have is that now I am not sure what to do with it. I am a practical person by nature, so I do like things that I can use. So, maybe a Table Topper? The only issue is that it a picture that can only really be seen from one direction, and it would end up getting washed a lot (not sure if that matters or not). I already have one for hanging on the door, so I don’t really need another wall hanging….  It is also about 16″ x 18″ which is fairly large.

So, I am looking for ideas, if anyone has one. I have all my Halloween fabric out and am just staring at it with that blank look. Thanks.

Happy Quilting

Happy Sewing