Center done

Quilt Center
Well, here's the center of my quilt... now for the borders! Just as I predicted, it's too long to hang on the fence now. :) I took it to work and used the tall library shelving units to hang it for a quick picture - really speedy, I just lifted up a book on that top shelf every foot or so, and pinched the top edge of the quilt under it. I've been working on the borders, but I'm at the cutting strips to go with all my hsts stage and it's nothing interesting to take a picture of yet. This IS the first large quilt I've done - larger than twin size, I mean. I've been surprised at what a mass of fabric it is to move around!


Here's Libby, looking at the birds in my front yard. I know I'm weird, but I love the way she curls her tail around her toes so neatly. I wanted to try to move her tail around to the right side of her body, so she'd look prettier, but figured I'd take a picture of her before I tried it. Lucky I did, as soon as I tried to pose her, she got disgusted with me and decided window-sitting-with-interfering-mom wasn't a good place to be. :D

Chickweed Lane is my favorite comic strip. :) Mostly because it features Solange, the Siamese cat - the artist has the quirks and mannerisms of the Siamese down to a T. Chickweed Lane Index

Parking challenge

Ok, I know it's not quilty, but here's a challenge for you to try:

Click Here to Drive

I'm not doing too well with it - better be glad you're not parked next to me! :D

Almost done.

Well, I'm still not finished, but hey, it's only Saturday. :) I've got three more rows of 6 stars to go. Here it is at the 6 blocks by 5 blocks stage - I went on and took a picture of it now, because soon it'll be too long to fit on the fence without hanging on the grass.


And still playing in Corel, I decided to see what it'd look like if I had set the blocks on point. I rotated the picture 45° then cropped it to make it square again:


Interesting look that way! It would have meant a lot of white triangles around the edge, though. I think I like the straight set better. Easier too.

This whole quilt was pretty easy, doing it in snowballs, nine-patches, and cobblestones. I was trying to give the impression of white sashing around the stars, with colored cornerstones. Back up far enough from your monitor and you can see I could have made the stars as one block, then added sashing and come up with the same design.




I'll put a 2½ inch border of white all the way around this, so the edge color squares float like the middle ones do. Then I have a LOT of little bonus hsts, in the point fabric for the stars, all high contrast dark calicos against white. In EQ, I've only had long one-fabric strips for borders on this - haven't even started trying to replace a border with something using the little triangles! A line of little sawtooth points would be easiest, but I've done that before, and would like to try a new pattern using them. Any suggestions?

Jelly Bean

Thanks, Hanne!
This one was quick. :)

You Are a Caramel Apple Jelly Bean

You have a gentle sophistication. An appreciation of fine things, without being snobby about it. You enjoy sweet tastes and silky textures.

What Flavor Jelly Bean Are You?

Art from Snowballs, 9-Patches and Cobblestones

Well, I have been sewing on all my little 6½ square blocks. But I don't want to show you a picture till I'm farther along. :) So, here is the little set of squares I sewed as a test, BUT *evil grin* I've put it in Corel and squinched at the photograph, so you can only get a general idea of what I'm doing.

This first version (all three pix started with the same photograph) is what they call an 'impressionist dabbled paint effect:



The one below is what the quilt would look like if I dipped it in white paint or a discharge dye, and let it drip:



And the last is what Corel calls a 'swirled paint effect' but instead, looks to me like something you're seeing through a rainy window pane:



The quilt is actually going to be queen sized - six 9-patch star blocks across and eight blocks down, plus borders. Because I want the star points to match around the 9-patches, I had to stop making snowball blocks and start connecting, so I'd be able to make sure I have the right combinations of snowball corners I need. I'm hoping to get a lot more done this weekend! Right now, I'm at 4 blocks over and 5 down.

Leaf Art

I've joined an Art Quilt group, here in Memphis, to try to expand my quilting horizons and stretch my limits a bit. I don't consider myself an art quilter by any means, but I figure it can't hurt to give some of the techniques a try, get out of my comfort level. We're almost all beginners at this, muddling along.

We each brought a piece of fabric to our last meeting - only stipulation was that it could NOT be 100% cotton quilting fabric. Then we traded pieces in a drawing, and also traded some embellishments.



The piece I drew looked like autumn to me - so I added some satin branches and corduroy leaves along the top edge. This picture (at least on my monitor) looks a lot more pinkish than it really is - the two red leaves are actually a deep burgundy. There's another 6 to 8 inches that drapes off the table on the bottom - plenty of room for someone else to add something more! Today I'll take this to our meeting and trade for another piece of fabric. I still don't feel like an art quilter - this is just machine applique. Maybe if I'd done something abstract and non-representational, it'd feel more arty? I guess I need to decide what my definition of an art quilter is. Any suggestions?

More Blocks

Well, working full time gives me only an hour or so each evening to quilt, so this may be a long, drawn out riddle. *evil grin*

Here's the progress so far:

Yes, I know it looks a lot like the last picture, but this time there's

52 snowballs with 4 dark scrappy corners
50 scrappy nine-patches
8 half cobblestones (rectangular, for the edges, lots more to come)
30 square cobblestones (and a lot of strips cut but not sewn yet)
AND more than 230 bonus triangles in the baggie, and stacked on the lower right corner, from the snowballs.

I'm kinda procrastinating on ironing all those triangles, yes, they WILL be for the border, (you guys are so smart)and I still don't know if I'm just going to make a row of hst's or maybe something windmill-y with them. I'll decide when I get the final count.

I've staggered the half cobblestone stack, so I can see what fabrics I've used for them. I am just anal enough that I don't want to have a bunch of the same color in that outer edge, so as I sew the cobblestones, I'm trying to remember to put aside a variety of center fabrics for these skinnier blocks. Some of my scraps will let me strip piece a row of 4 or 6 centers between white strips, but there won't be too many repeats.

:)

A Riddle

Is anyone ready for a riddle?

What do you make when you have:
48 scrappy nine-patches,
33 snowballs with scrappy dark print corners, and
15 I dunno what name to give them, but I've been thinking of them as donuts,
(all 6½ inches square)

AND what seems like two hundred little bonus 2¼ inch half square triangles, some pressed and some not?



Well, you'll just have to check this space later for the answer! But except for the white background, it sure is eating into my scraps.

:)

The Material Mountain

Well, I succumbed to the lure of the going out of business sale again. They've upped their ante, now the fabric is all 50 to 70% off, so of COURSE I had to stop in and see what they had left. Plus I'd been beating myself about the head for not getting more thread at 30 or 40% off last time. *excuses to self* And I had just organized my stash, so I knew exactly what I didn't have much of ... plaids! So here's my newly washed and folded material mountain:

Our guild president has issued her president's challenge to us - lap quilts for folks who are wheelchair bound. Some of this will be used for that. I was thinking the plaids with red might look good paired with navy or black in a guy type quilt... and who can say no to fabric on sale?

Of course the mountain didn't go uninhabited for long.



Doesn't he look like he's thinking, "I have climbed to the mountaintop, and it is good."


"One feels much closer to the light of the sun, when one is on the summit." (I'm glad it's a florescent bulb, or he'd be singeing his whiskers!) Toby is my main heat seeker, he can sit in the sun in a window until his black ears and nose are almost too hot to touch.



But then he had to taunt Libby, pacing below. "I am KING of the mountain!" He can't be dignified and aloof for long... lol



"HA, ha ha, and YOU can't climb up when I'm here, pttttth!" Of course, by this time, she was studiously ignoring him, pretending that she had NO interest in sitting up there. She strolls into the kitchen toward the food bowl, and suddenly, Toby gets worried that he's missing something... so he jumps down and follows her.



At which point, Libby gets a gleam in her eye and saunters past him, jumps up on the table with the fabric. Here's Libby thinking, "Ya know, being up here looked a lot more fun when he was up here, and I was down there. Now what do I do?"

Violet?

I am a Violet What Flower Are You?

Never thought of myself as a violet, but that's what the survey said!

Bloglines

Just have to give a little WOW for Bloglines - it's easy to sign up for, and since I use Firefox as my preferred browser, I just put the "subscribe" button on my toolbar, (just dragged it there, that was easy too) and it didn't take me long to subscribe to my 60 favorite blogs! Visit the blog, hit subscribe, it's that easy.

Now, I just go to bloglines, log in, and there's a nice list of everyone's blog I like to visit. If you've posted, your blogname shows up in bold print. If you've posted two or three times since my last visit, there's a little (2) or (3) after your name. It makes it SO much faster to only visit the folks that have a new post!

Stash Organizing

Would you like a tour of my newly organized stash? It took me all day - but I also watched tv and set up bloglines with all my favorite blogs... :)



After hours of folding and sorting, I ended up with 4 plastic drawers of fabric. On top, there's the florals and blues collection, under that the forest green, green, and brown drawer, moving to the left, my red, pink, lavender, purple drawer, with a few maroons and burgundys on the bottom. Then in the drawer to the left of THAT, on the bottom my skimpy stash of blacks and greys, topped by mostly-white prints, whites, creams, beiges, tans, yellows, oranges, pumpkins, and peach. Some of the teals ended up in the blue drawer, and some ended up in the green drawer.

Below that you'll see my seasonal and theme drawer - I don't know why I keep adding to these - maybe cause they look so good on the after-season sale tables? I've got red/white/pink valentine fabric, Christmas fabric, Autumn leaves, Winter snowflakes, Easter eggs, St. Patrick's day shamrock and leprechaun fabric. And even after making a big patriotic wall-hanging, I STILL have some red-white and blue fabric. And because that was the only drawer with an inch or two of room, I also put in my little collection of stripes and checks and plaids.

I have a LOT of white muslin, and had bought some off white and unbleached at my neighborhood Hancock's going-out-of-business sale. Some of it I bought from Ann-sewsalot after her daughter's wedding - all nicely serged on the edges, (she made her own tablecloths instead of renting or using plastic) so it'll be great for dying or marbling.

All the pieces in the drawers are from FQ size to 1 yard or a little more. On top, near my lamp, you'll see some bigger pieces I also bought at the sale. Some of them were in the drawers but had to come out to make room for smaller pieces. Now I need to figure out where to store all my bigger chunks and whites.

*embarassed grin* I also have two bags of scraps that are too big to just throw away, and ANOTHER drawer of 4 inch to 6 inch squares I bought on e-Bay with the intention of someday making a landscape type quilt. And a drawer of UFO's.

And geesh, these are just my quilting cottons. I also have denims, flannels, satin, nylon, t-shirting, fleece... :) I'd better get busy sewing!

But there are sure to be sales at all the stores tomorrow.... maybe just a few?

Webpages

No quilting yesterday, but I did get the block of the month web page done for my guild. I drew the block in EQ, then put a few of them together in a sample wallhanging.

Anyone want to see the instructions and comment? We do have a lot of beginners in the guild, so I should try to spell things out more, maybe:

July 2006 BOM

I still haven't made MY block for our outgoing president yet, but when I do, I'll put a small picture of it up on the BOM page too.

For those of you who were asking, no, the can cover was not a pattern. I was drinking a diet coke while I was making it, so I kinda rolled the can on the fabric to measure how big it needed to be.

I've already thought of some changes I'd make if I were to make another one. I like the separating zipper, but a drawstring might be easier. I'd also like to put some more insulation in it. That one only has two layers of a fairly thick batting. I wonder if the kind of stuff you use for fabric bowls would insulate well? But actually, as cheap as you can buy those foam can covers, (or get them free at events)it might be fun to hide the sporting or beer logo with a quilted cover.

And no, Finn, I didn't have a pattern for my bowl either. *guilty grin*

What I did was take an exacto knife, carve the curved rim off one of those cheapy thin plastic 'serve-n-save' bowls you can buy in sets of 4, with lid. Then I made 6 evenly spaced slits down to the bottom circle on the bowl. In order to trace around it for my pattern, I DID have to smash the sections down pretty hard... lol

I might go to the dollar store and get a HUGE bowl next, to cut down. Then, on each two of my six sections, I could cut a different edge shape. I've seen some that look scalloped, some have slightly rounded points, some are flat on the top, like my first bowl... *thinking*

Purse and Bowl

Hi everybody!

Sorry I haven't blogged in a week or so, but I've been out of town all weekend, at a quilt retreat, then had board meetings and guild meetings to go to. But here's what I did at the retreat, took a class where we made a purse:


My favorite colors, forest green and browns, with some gold lamé and gold ribbon trim to dress it up. I started with the lamé square in the middle of my solid green canvas, then added strips like a log cabin block. Some of the trim wouldn't curve too well, so it ended up on the seam lines, and the thinner cording and ribbon I couched on, with invisible thread.

Our guild president has a nice embroidery machine, and she offered to do our names on a strip of fabric. I couldn't resist, and had her do my screen/website name instead, and it turned out so nice, I decided to put it on the outside pocket of the purse instead of the inside, like everyone else was doing. I've had too much roll out of my purse and get lost esp. when I pitch it in my work locker or on the front seat of my car, so I put in lots of zippers. My purse ended up not looking a thing like everyone elses... :)



I lined it with brown ferny print, and made two interior pockets with green prints, one a patch pocket, the other a zippered pocket. The thing you see on the right is a zippered can holder - I often pack a can of something to meetings, or bottle of water. It's a separating zipper, so I can zip the top off, and it'll fit a taller waterbottle.


The two rings you see inside the purse are two thick covered hair elastics. I'll use them to hold the can against the side of the purse or, when I'm not carrying a can, I can clip my keys inside. There's two D-rings on the top corner of the purse, so I can change straps. Right now, I'm using a black webbing strap, but I might make a green canvas one to match the purse.


And last, my first attempt at a fabric bowl - if you recognize the fabric, it matches the stuff I used for mom's table-runner and napkins. This went together a LOT quicker than I thought. Then, knowing how I hate to waste ANYthing, I took the pie shaped wedges I cut out of the bowl sides and made a coaster. :)

Did a LOT of quilting on my Liberty and Justice quilt too - I've got the inside finished, and now I'm trying to see how much of the pledge of allegiance I can write in script around the border. The binding's cut already, so hopefully you'll see a 'done done' picture of it soon!

Now, off to visit all of you!

Table Runner and Family

Here's Mickey, (my mom) holding up a table runner I made for her. This was done before I got the Janome, so the quilting was straight or gently curved lines (around the grapes) that I could do with my old machine. For this one, I'd laid out masking tape on the top, and stitched in the 'gap' between the rows of tape. :)


For Mother's Day, I'd made her the set of 8 cloth napkins you see on the bottom of the picture. This is the underside of the table runner. If you look between the rungs of the chair back, you can just see the pinkish mauve color the walls are painted in Mickey and Fred's dining room - that's what I'd tried to match for the table set.

My family tries to get together for major holidays. Here's the three Dads we honored for Father's Day yesterday, Fred, Sean, (my nephew), Bob (my older brother). I tried to post Sunday, but blogger was busy and wouldn't let me.

While we were together on Sunday for Father's Day, we also celebrated a couple of birthdays. Here's my Mom and Bob. Bob was only an hour or two away from sharing a June birthday with Mom. I'm not sure how much Mom could influence her impending delivery, but she said she was determined he'd have a birthday of his own!


Another set of birthdays - here's Fred and Kelly (my niece-in-law, married to Mike, my other nephew). We blew out the candle and lit it again for them... a recycled cake :) We had two cakes anyway; carrot and angelfood, along with a pan of brownies. We certainly didn't need a cake for each person! Kelly's real birthday is in a couple of days.


Sean's daughter Randi (my grandniece) made and iced this angelfood cake for her dad for Father's Day. He had to hide his eyes for the surprise - She loved the idea that the strawberries had made the whipped cream slightly pink.

More Free Motion Practice

Lots of practice with freemotion quilting this week. :) I looked online at some of the many quilting patterns you can buy, for ideas, then tried to draw some of my own. I actually drew one out on paper, and tried to stitch over it, but... it was a real booger to try to peel the paper out of the little stars and loops and swirls. Guess I taught myself a lesson THERE!


I need to pay attention to which way the stars are going, and try to remember to cross the last line at the top of my stars, so they 'close'. I'd maybe do better if I marked the fabric first, instead of just winging it and stitching away, but... this was so much FUN! I might not like it so much if I were drawing it on with chalk, or those blue water erase markers, and then trying to follow my lines.


Hitting needle down before I started sewing did seem to help, thanks! I was surprised at how much bobbin thread this used - two whole bobbins for a practice piece of fabric that's about 20 x 25. I don't think my bobbins are wound as tight by my Janome as they were by my Kenmore. Any one else notice this? If I wind bobbins for my Janome on my Kenmore will they be too tight?

Trading Cards and scrap use

Well, here's what I've been doing this week! I gathered all my scraps from the Liberty quilt, even the teeny ones, and started stitching them all together. Now I've got a chunk about the size of a FQ. Tomorrow, I'll put some batting and a backing with it, and use it for more free motion practice. I think it'll be the right size for a basket liner, you know, the kind you put in before the dinner rolls, fill it with rolls, then flip over the corners to keep the rolls warm.

I've also joined an art quilt group, here in Memphis. Not because I particularly feel like I'm an art quilter, but I want to expand my horizons, learn new techniques. Our first project is to make artist trading cards.

The easiest way to make a bunch of them is to measure out a chunk of material big enough to make the number of cards you plan to swap... embellish it, then chop into the right size sections. The true color of these is probably somewhere between these two pictures - off-white satin with pink ribbons and white lace.


My cards will be 2½ x 3½, and I needed 8 of them. I also plan to send one to an old friend whose daughter is about to get married in August.

My friend has a wedding dress that her grandmother wore in the late 1930's, then her Mom wore it in the early 60's, then she wore it when she got married in the mid 80's. Of course, she really wants her daughter to wear it, but her daughter says NO WAY, Mom! It's a very yellowed ivory, long sleeve, high neck, with a huge skirt and lots of trimmings. At first her DD said she was going to wear a white bikini and get married on a beach in the Bahamas instead of wear the dress, but now, I think they've compromised on a simple off the shoulder white satin style, very close fitting. The daughter wanted her colors to be silver and pink for the 2 bridesmaids, and pink would NOT have gone with the yellowish ivory.

So the trading card I'll send to my friend will have some bits of off-white satin and lace, pink trim, AND a section of some yellowed satin I found at a garage sale. Sort of a tying-it-all-together kind of trading card. :)

I also plan to add some beads to these before I sew them onto the cardstock to trade with the group. The satin and lace bits are actually from my own wedding dress. I've been divorced so long, I can't believe I've still got scraps around... :)

Band Performance

Summer Reading club kicked off today! We had the Mid-South Navy Band Brass Quintet play at our library today, for the neighborhood children. The band is a super bunch of folks, and the kids really enjoyed listening to them play. We also had a good crowd, I almost ran out of chairs! Of course, the only thing I can show online of the kids is the backs of their heads, but the band was happy to pose!


Anybody recognize the quilt on the wall? :)
It made a good backdrop for the band, especially since they performed some patriotic songs that the kids would know. Everyone's toes were tapping.

And me? I'm still practicing my free motion quilting before I take the needle to this, I'm such a chicken... lol

Free Practice

Well, there's my first attempt at free motion quilting. It's about 8 inches square, so I'll probably bind the edges for a potholder or - what do you call those things you put a hot pot on? Not a trivet if it's cloth, is it?

What I've learned:

It's easier the faster the needle goes. Otherwise you get big stitches.
Don't make an 'uploop' at the end of a word, it'll look like a cursive e. Put more space between words.
It's hard to connect the last leg of a star, you're stitching the wrong way to see where you're going.
Try not to have two of the same word near each other, it invites comparison. On this one, I have 3 land stacked on top of one another, and another on the upper right corner.
Dotting i's and crossing t's are a pain!

Top done!

Here it is! I changed the fan in the upper right corner to the pinwheel block because I wanted more white there. When I decided to go on and use the flag print for the border, I took the 4 little windmills out of the corners. Then I made the little flower looking thing, out of my extra 16 half square triangles. I have no idea what block it is.

I know the flag print border is kind of busy... I had two reds that I was thinking of using, but the first was too rust toned, it didn't look right next to the red in the house and the log cabins. The second red was a blotchy hand dyed look, too bright, it stood out like a sore thumb and almost made you wince when you look at the quilt. There IS enough of the blue with little red stars (that was used for the background) to use for a binding. I kept thinking to myself, if I DON'T use this flag print now, what would I ever use it on again? So there it is.

Ann's convinced me I should let this quilt be the first thing I try free motion quilting on, now that I have a new machine that has a darning foot and will let me do it. But I have NO clue what sorts of quilting to try on it, as a first attempt at quilting on my machine. :)

Just went and read Judy's info on machine quilting, that helps. But what patterns?

Still working on Liberty

Well, here's where I am now - got my Liberty sewn to the house and spark. I tried several different fuses for the firecracker, and finally went and bought some single fold teeny bias tape in white. A straight fuse looked funny, so I'll hand stitch (uggh) down the new skinny bias fuse all curvy. I also decided to try and save some of the spark points, so when I trimmed the blue straight, I saved the bright bits, and I'll stitch them down too. I didn't want them all ending at the edge to the rectangle they're made on.


I took my first class with my new machine today - since anal obsessive me had already read the instruction book, I didn't learn much, but it WAS great to see her put all the different feet on and demo all the stitches for me. The letters are so cool, and I can see some great quilt labels using them!



These are my two sleeping angels... don't they look innocent? Someday, I'd like to do a quilt where two sleeping Siamese cats, faces together, make a heart shape. I know, kinda sappy, aren't I?

Of course you know they're not really sleeping, they're plotting together, and it helps them share their devious brain waves when their whiskers are touching.

House and Firecracker

Do you get tired of seeing this quilt block by block? :)

I think I'm a slow quilter when it comes to making things without a pattern, and of course, when I decided to make a little dormer window for my kitten, and a second story to the house, it took longer.

If I'd drawn it in EQ5, and printed up the paper piecing pattern, it'd have been faster and flatter too. It would have been more difficult to get exactly the little bits in the windows, I'd have had to pre measure the little squares. I got stuck when the dormer roof was too tall and I didn't want to cut the point off, till I got the idea to rip those seams open, pin the tip back, sew the long seam, then re-pin the dormer back on top of the eaves. I've still got to add a strip along the bottom and left sides before I connect it to the firecracker.


This hasn't even been trimmed yet - it's got a slight bubble up in the center and I wanted to see if pressing it flat would take the bubble out. It did, mostly! My problem was in slightly stretching the bias when putting in the angled colors. I also had trouble getting the strips to match across from each other! Even a slight jig made the strips look bendy.

I've just laid the blocks on that fabric to take the picture - they're not attached and won't be attached there. :) I wanted to iron it before I cut a FQ of it to take to guild meetings for our FQ drawing. There's a lot left over. I don't like taking pix of blocks directly on my ironing pad - I'm embarassed it's got yellowed spots!

AND Justice

Well, after looking at the pictures of the bottom ¼ of the wallhanging (sometimes a picture takes you away from the details and makes you look at the whole) I decided that I didn't like the 4 log cabin blocks with the navy logs. There was too much space between them, and too much fill at either end. Also, because of the strong navy, the motifs had the illusion of looking staggered, when they weren't.

Instead, I ripped them off and made 5 new log cabin blocks to replace them with, and this time put the red on the top, right, and blue on the bottom, left instead of alternating it like last time. Makes all the motif insides look the same level, and I like it much better. :)



I didn't pick apart OR throw out the other 4 log cabin blocks. They're just the right size to fit across the quilt, so I'll use them on the back, as a reminder to myself that I prefer the logs in a little log cabin block to be very close in color/value!

Not sure if I'll leave the border fabric with hearts/baskets/stars along the bottom or not. There's enough to put a matching row along the top too, what do you think? Is it too busy? One row, two, or leave it off? Think it'll look different with a solid dark border next to it?

Now onward to making the wonky house and firecracker!

Progress

Well, here's the watermelon, AND the first two blocks I've made on my new machine. I really like the ¼ inch foot, it is so much easier than using a chunk of masking tape on the machine bed ... :) I also love being able to see thru the bobbin cover and know when I'm getting close to running out of bobbin thread.



The watermelon has a weird middle right now, because I plan to turn it under, in a scoop shape, and make it look like there's a bite missing. I thought I had enough of the navy-with-red/white I used on the right side star points to use for a border, but I only had a FQ of it. I do have the dark red with teeny stars that I used on the first EQ layout, and 2 totally different patriotic fabrics I haven't used yet. I have a LOT of the two light fabrics I used on the star blocks, but I think I need to border this in something darker, don't you? What I don't use on the front, I plan to stitch together in big chunks, especially the more obvious patriotic prints, for the backing.



Here's where I am so far. Not too far off the layout I did in EQ, is it? I'd probably be faster on my old machine, I have to keep stopping and looking up things (like what the needle position should be for a perfect ¼ inch stitch and how much pressure to use against the feed dogs.) The instruction book is *gulp* 75 pages.

I collect brass cats. Nice for quilt holders across my mantel, aren't they? Normally I don't line them all up on the edge though. :)

On a different note, I'd like to thank Bonnie for her great website, and for her giving my guild permission to use the Strip Twist block and instruction pages for our guild's Block of the Month for May. At the guild meeting Tues. night, a LOT of people had nice things to say about her site, how they loved her scrap user's system, and all the creative ways of using the stash. We had a tremendous response for Block of the Month, lots of blocks made, and I think it was mainly because of the excellent instructions with pictures on Bonnie's site! THANKS, BONNIE!

I think I'll start sticking in a few gratitudes every now and then, mainly because I like reading other peoples gratitudes:

I'm grateful for a week and a half of vacation. I do love not having to set my alarm! No driving in traffic either!
I'm grateful for a good quilt guild to belong to. I love seeing everyone's things in our Sew and Tell, and even though we get bogged down in the business side of things sometimes, we also have fun.
I'm grateful that everyone liked the mandarin orange, pineapple, whipped cream, coconut and pecan ambrosia I took for guild potluck. I only brought home one largish spoonful in the bottom of the bowl, which is a definite improvement over last time, when there were so many desserts, I brought home half a pan of brownies that I DID NOT need to eat all by myself... :)

My new Janome

Well, I finally did it, after talking about it for months, I bought a new sewing machine. It's a Janome Memory Craft, 6500. My trusty old Kenmore still works, and I felt like such a materialistic consumer for even wanting a new one. But want it I did, and here it is:

Just ignore the tv you see at the top right over the machine, I like to watch 'King of the Hill' late at night. Yup, you can see Hank standing out by his trash can, beer in his hand. *grins* I must be a redneck too, I keep the piece of plywood on the table I sew on, to protect the table surface from scratches, inadvertent slips of the rotary cutter, heat from the iron, etc.

This machine DOES so much more than the 30+ year old one! I'll be able to free motion quilt now! And it has a thread cutter and separate bobbin motor and needle up/down and all kinds of feet and stitches and... :) Can you tell I'm excited and happy?

The only thing I've found that I don't like so far is that the acrylic table-expander that comes with it tends to go sliding off to the left. I looked online and read that someone had a simple solution for it, hook a rubberband around the extender leg, then stretch it to the sewing machine leg. Cheap, easy to remove when the table comes off, and low cost to replace.

I'm off work this week and part of next week, and I can hardly wait to play on it. The only thing I've done so far is attach all the loose parts they expect you to bolt on, fill a bobbin, thread it, and sew a couple of test seams. But tomorrow.... :)