Today will be a day of restful sewing. We have had a busy couple of weeks and now that Christmas is over we can get back on track. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day went as expected so needless to say I am glad it is over. There are enough leftovers for a meal tonight and I will start simmering the bones for a pot of soup for tomorrow's meal. The kids gave me a pasta machine so I can make noodles. Yeah!
Santa brought me a Kindle for Christmas so I have been having fun playing with it. I must finish my library book before I get too involved with the books that Mike downloaded for me and the free book Bonnie from Quiltville pointed out. I think that it is one of the best gifts that I have ever received. No more smelly, dirty library books.
I hope to spend the day reading and sewing and possibly napping. There is no way I am going out Boxing Day shopping. There is absolutely nothing that we need and I hate crowds as it is. So I may start to get caught up with my Orca Bay mystery. I may even get a few pieces set up for the applique quilt I want to work on this winter. Did I say yeah Christmas if over yet? I may even remember to take some pictures and post them.
That's all for now.
Lynne
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Getting back to the blog.
What a busy summer and fall I have had. I redid (if that is a word) the retaining block border around my back flower garden. That was a lot of heavy lifting. We also redid the patio and sidewalk. We did not order soil to build up the flower beds or fix the border around the patio and sidewalk because it was scorching hot all summer and grass seed would just roast not germinate in those temps. I will order dirt in the spring when I am in the mood to garden again.
Fred and I finally tore the basement apart and re studded all of the walls because the moisture build up between the moisture barrier and insulation soaked the existing studs and we did not want mold in the walls. We first lined the walls with thick styrofoam insulation then put Roxul between the studs and secured it with vapour barrier. We then put up drywall, instead of the ugly panelling that we had down there, and we did the mudding, sanding and priming. The basement is so warm now that I sweat when I am down there.
I have to finish painting but after smelling the paint that I put on the shelves Fred built me for days and days, I cannot even think of smelling paint for a while. Besides, I have started quilting again so I have all my stuff organized and against the walls. I do not have the energy to move things around again right now. We still have to paint, put down some kind of flooring, put up trim and baseboards, and finish the stair area. We might do some of it over the Christmas break.
I have moved all of my sewing stuff to the basement now and I am enjoy spreading out down there. It was a pain to share my sewing room with my bedroom. I have room to breathe in my bedroom now.
I have started so many new projects that I don't know which one to work on. My problem is that I start something and then need different or more fabric and have to find the time to go look for it (and we all know how easy it is to find fabric here, not.). Anyway, I have finally started to work on the "Winter's Song" applique quilt. I am not happy with some of my fabric choices and I need larger pieces of fabric for some of the blocks. This quilt cannot be done with fat quarters. Yardage is required as it is a large quilt. I need to go on a major fabric shopping trip in the states. The shops here have limited choices.
I have also started the Orca Bay mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog. I have cut most of Step 1's fabric but I need more neutrals. I do not want to use a lot of white on whites this time. I need to go to Marshalls fabrics and have a look. I have started Step 2 of the mystery as it consists of making 72 x 3.5 inch string blocks with blue fabric and I have lots of that. I have been digging all of the blue fabric I can find from my scraps, strings, cut up squares and strings to use in these blocks. I have been sewing and sewing and have only completed 24 of the 72 blocks. Back to the basement for me.
In the meantime, while I was pulling blues for Orca Bay, I have been putting aside blues to use in another of Bonnie's patterns called Blue Ridge Mountains. That one will take a lot of collecting. I really should order some packages of fabrics online and scour thrift stores.
All of the above fun has seriously cut into my longarm quilting business, so I better smarten up and get my priorities straight. But I am having so much fun doing my own stuff. Oh well, the business does pay for my quilting addiction after all.
I will post pictures of my progress with Orca Bay next time.
Fred and I finally tore the basement apart and re studded all of the walls because the moisture build up between the moisture barrier and insulation soaked the existing studs and we did not want mold in the walls. We first lined the walls with thick styrofoam insulation then put Roxul between the studs and secured it with vapour barrier. We then put up drywall, instead of the ugly panelling that we had down there, and we did the mudding, sanding and priming. The basement is so warm now that I sweat when I am down there.
I have to finish painting but after smelling the paint that I put on the shelves Fred built me for days and days, I cannot even think of smelling paint for a while. Besides, I have started quilting again so I have all my stuff organized and against the walls. I do not have the energy to move things around again right now. We still have to paint, put down some kind of flooring, put up trim and baseboards, and finish the stair area. We might do some of it over the Christmas break.
I have moved all of my sewing stuff to the basement now and I am enjoy spreading out down there. It was a pain to share my sewing room with my bedroom. I have room to breathe in my bedroom now.
I have started so many new projects that I don't know which one to work on. My problem is that I start something and then need different or more fabric and have to find the time to go look for it (and we all know how easy it is to find fabric here, not.). Anyway, I have finally started to work on the "Winter's Song" applique quilt. I am not happy with some of my fabric choices and I need larger pieces of fabric for some of the blocks. This quilt cannot be done with fat quarters. Yardage is required as it is a large quilt. I need to go on a major fabric shopping trip in the states. The shops here have limited choices.
I have also started the Orca Bay mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog. I have cut most of Step 1's fabric but I need more neutrals. I do not want to use a lot of white on whites this time. I need to go to Marshalls fabrics and have a look. I have started Step 2 of the mystery as it consists of making 72 x 3.5 inch string blocks with blue fabric and I have lots of that. I have been digging all of the blue fabric I can find from my scraps, strings, cut up squares and strings to use in these blocks. I have been sewing and sewing and have only completed 24 of the 72 blocks. Back to the basement for me.
In the meantime, while I was pulling blues for Orca Bay, I have been putting aside blues to use in another of Bonnie's patterns called Blue Ridge Mountains. That one will take a lot of collecting. I really should order some packages of fabrics online and scour thrift stores.
All of the above fun has seriously cut into my longarm quilting business, so I better smarten up and get my priorities straight. But I am having so much fun doing my own stuff. Oh well, the business does pay for my quilting addiction after all.
I will post pictures of my progress with Orca Bay next time.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Summer Solstice
I cannot believe that I have not posted since February. Oh well, nothing to say I guess. I have not been doing much quilting lately because the garden keeps calling me. It is another overcast day, a good one for yard work. I think I will take advantage and do some more weeding and fixing of garden beds. I will take a few pictures to post, the garden beds always look better in photos. I must also solve the weed problem in the lawn. I don't want to spray because of the dog.
I have been taking a few minutes here and there and piecing 6 1/2 inch crumb blocks together. They work up quite fast. I want to get rid of all of those scraps as I am tired of the fabrics. I want some new stuff, but I don't want to buy any more until I use up what I have. It will get done.
Well, Fred is up so I can make noise now.
Bye for now.
I have been taking a few minutes here and there and piecing 6 1/2 inch crumb blocks together. They work up quite fast. I want to get rid of all of those scraps as I am tired of the fabrics. I want some new stuff, but I don't want to buy any more until I use up what I have. It will get done.
Well, Fred is up so I can make noise now.
Bye for now.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Scrap HSTs
I somehow hurt my knee over the weekend. Don't ask me how, but I can barely bend it, so I am having trouble getting up out of a chair and stairs are impossible. I cannot get downstairs to do laundry or get at my longarm. I just need to quilt the feathers in the centre of the piece and I can't get down to do it. I have traced the design on tracing paper for all four sections and I hope to follow them on the squares. I am not confident enough to freehand them because I want them to be the same. One day I will win the lottery and purchase a Statler or one of the other computerized systems, but right now it is just me.
So the whole point of this post is to show the picture of the bonus hst's that I am squaring up to use in a project. These units were from the Maple Leaf quilt that I pieced many years ago. It is still downstairs waiting for me to quilt it. I made it king sized because my plan was to use it over our twin beds so it looked like a king but since we don't have both beds in the same room any more I may re-size it or quilt it for the kids. Most likely I will give it to the kids. (who are enjoying the warm Florida weather right now)
I received my copy of Bonnie Hunter's new book on Tuesday and there is a pattern for a quilt that I may make using these squares. Her quilt is called 'Holy Toledo' and it is similar to 'Lady of the Lake'. I will play around and see if the units will work. Quite a few of the units are not light/dark so it may look like mud. I will see.
There is also a pattern in her book called 'Tumalo Trail' which I really like as well. I do have a pile of nine-patches using 1 1/2 inch squares that I could use in it. I will also have to change the name of the quilt to 'Tu-Pelo Trail'. LOL.
Here is a picture of my sweetie wondering what he did.
Isn't he gorgeous. He is very camera shy and it is hard to get a proper picture of him.
I am off to hobble around the house again.
Happy Quilting,
Lynne
So the whole point of this post is to show the picture of the bonus hst's that I am squaring up to use in a project. These units were from the Maple Leaf quilt that I pieced many years ago. It is still downstairs waiting for me to quilt it. I made it king sized because my plan was to use it over our twin beds so it looked like a king but since we don't have both beds in the same room any more I may re-size it or quilt it for the kids. Most likely I will give it to the kids. (who are enjoying the warm Florida weather right now)
I received my copy of Bonnie Hunter's new book on Tuesday and there is a pattern for a quilt that I may make using these squares. Her quilt is called 'Holy Toledo' and it is similar to 'Lady of the Lake'. I will play around and see if the units will work. Quite a few of the units are not light/dark so it may look like mud. I will see.
There is also a pattern in her book called 'Tumalo Trail' which I really like as well. I do have a pile of nine-patches using 1 1/2 inch squares that I could use in it. I will also have to change the name of the quilt to 'Tu-Pelo Trail'. LOL.
Here is a picture of my sweetie wondering what he did.
I am off to hobble around the house again.
Happy Quilting,
Lynne
Friday, February 4, 2011
RRCB pictures
Here are two pictures of my Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt. The colours do not look great in the pictures. My pinks look orange. I am taking a digital photography course from Continuing Education and the instructor informed us that we could change the settings to get a better picture than the default settings. Who knew. I guess one should read the instruction manual. I am going to play with the camera and try to take some better pictures of the quilt, probably once it is quilted. I am so excited that I finally took the time to play around with the camera and downloaded all of the pictures on the disk. There are some pictures of the Terry Fox t-shirt quilt I made for the charity run and one of feathers I did on a customer quilt. I will post them another time.
I think now that I know how to download pictures and am not afraid of doing it anymore, I will take pictures of all of my work and post it.
I am off to have a coffee then downstairs to the longarm to quilt my wall hanging. Pictures to follow as well.
Happy Quilting,
Lynne
Friday, January 28, 2011
My RRCB is finally finished.
I have finally finished sewing the last seam on my RRCB tonight. What a huge relief to have it finished. I hope to put the top on the machine this week and get it quilted. I did take a couple of pictures and I will wait to post them after I take my course next week.
If Bonnie has another mystery next year I do not think I will join in. I have enough large quilts right now and no beds to put them on. I did the Carolina Christmas quilt and was not terribly thrilled with the outcome and I was really on the fence with the RRCB so I really think I need a break. It is a lot of work to keep up and I have had enough self imposed stress the past few years. Time to take a break from stress. I have to use up all of my scraps on charity quilts this year before I start something new anyway. The exception will be wall hangings for my living room and hallway. If I need fabric for those I will buy it but I will shop the stash first. I want to use up my batiks.
On a personal note, my back is killing me today. I guess from either sitting with poor posture at my machine for so many days straight or from the great lunk of a dog sleeping with me all night. Why I let him I do not know.
We had so much snow today. I could barely see further than the basketball hoops and the far end of the park was invisible. It took Fred ages to snow blow and the roads were horrible to drive on. It is a good thing we have a great system for snow plowing in this city so tomorrow we will be all back to normal.
Happy quilting,
Lynne
If Bonnie has another mystery next year I do not think I will join in. I have enough large quilts right now and no beds to put them on. I did the Carolina Christmas quilt and was not terribly thrilled with the outcome and I was really on the fence with the RRCB so I really think I need a break. It is a lot of work to keep up and I have had enough self imposed stress the past few years. Time to take a break from stress. I have to use up all of my scraps on charity quilts this year before I start something new anyway. The exception will be wall hangings for my living room and hallway. If I need fabric for those I will buy it but I will shop the stash first. I want to use up my batiks.
On a personal note, my back is killing me today. I guess from either sitting with poor posture at my machine for so many days straight or from the great lunk of a dog sleeping with me all night. Why I let him I do not know.
We had so much snow today. I could barely see further than the basketball hoops and the far end of the park was invisible. It took Fred ages to snow blow and the roads were horrible to drive on. It is a good thing we have a great system for snow plowing in this city so tomorrow we will be all back to normal.
Happy quilting,
Lynne
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Plugging away.
Another cold morning. They have started carving the snow sculptures in St. Boniface so it should start to warm up now.
On Friday I finished sewing the string blocks and pressed and cut them in half. Yeah! Yesterday, I finished sewing them in twos and fours so I am ready to arrange all of the blocks on my design wall and see how they look. I am anxious now to see it put together. I think this will be the first of all of my quilt tops to be quilted. I haven't decided how I am going to quilt it yet. I think because there is so much play in each block I am going to custom quilt the top. I know I will run into trouble if I try to use a panto and I really don't have anything that would work for this quilt. The pattern has to be curvy because there are so many angles to the blocks. I have a bit of time to think about this. I am really starting to like the quilt. When Step 7 was up I was a little disappointed but once I saw my blocks with my fabric choices I felt a little better. Then when Step 8 was revealed I was happy, the border makes the quilt. It makes all of the colours pop. I think I will use the constant blue fabric as my inner border strip. I cut too many for the hsts so they are cut and ready for me. I will audition them first.
Last night, instead of putting the RRCB blocks on the design board I pulled out my bonus hsts from Carolina Christmas and finished pressing them open and then I am squaring them up. Not all of them square up to unfinished two inches so I am squaring them to 1 7/8". This will be fine since I am going to make a wall hanging with just those units so it doesn't matter. I nosed around in the quilter's cache site and found a block that should work out fine. I may make a few more units up with a different neutral for some interest. We will see.
I can hardly wait to take the photography course so that I can upload photos of my blocks and quilts into my blog.
Happy quilting,
Lynne
On Friday I finished sewing the string blocks and pressed and cut them in half. Yeah! Yesterday, I finished sewing them in twos and fours so I am ready to arrange all of the blocks on my design wall and see how they look. I am anxious now to see it put together. I think this will be the first of all of my quilt tops to be quilted. I haven't decided how I am going to quilt it yet. I think because there is so much play in each block I am going to custom quilt the top. I know I will run into trouble if I try to use a panto and I really don't have anything that would work for this quilt. The pattern has to be curvy because there are so many angles to the blocks. I have a bit of time to think about this. I am really starting to like the quilt. When Step 7 was up I was a little disappointed but once I saw my blocks with my fabric choices I felt a little better. Then when Step 8 was revealed I was happy, the border makes the quilt. It makes all of the colours pop. I think I will use the constant blue fabric as my inner border strip. I cut too many for the hsts so they are cut and ready for me. I will audition them first.
Last night, instead of putting the RRCB blocks on the design board I pulled out my bonus hsts from Carolina Christmas and finished pressing them open and then I am squaring them up. Not all of them square up to unfinished two inches so I am squaring them to 1 7/8". This will be fine since I am going to make a wall hanging with just those units so it doesn't matter. I nosed around in the quilter's cache site and found a block that should work out fine. I may make a few more units up with a different neutral for some interest. We will see.
I can hardly wait to take the photography course so that I can upload photos of my blocks and quilts into my blog.
Happy quilting,
Lynne
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