time for a quickie....

I don't know about you, but every so often it's refreshing to make something that can be finished in minutes, instead of days ...or weeks....or months.
Much of my pattern design is a long multi-step process, as are the memory quilts I make for clients.
A lot of thought and stitching goes into them and it takes attention, concentration and commitment.
So, as a treat I really enjoy those quick, but darling, little projects that are done and done in a jiffy and don't create a large quiltnado in the process.

This is a little Christmas table runner I made for my Sister-in-law, don't worry she's already seen it.  I've already gifted it to her so she can put it out ahead of Christmas. It is the "ten minute table runner" that has been around for quite some time, but it is so fun to make. See the link below for PDF instructions if you need a quickie......

As you can see in this closeup, I added red  jumbo rick-rack to each end of the runner.

This pattern was written by LaRae Brunnell Clark and the pattern was shared by the Utah State University Weber County Extension. here is the link.
http://delawarequilts.com/10-minuteTableRunner.pdf

Oh no, a Quiltnado

First there was Sharknado, and if that wasn't scary enough, now there's this ....

beware, this perilous phenomenon could be headed your way! 

It can strike without much warning and leave behind a massive trail of debris. 

 my recent category 2 quiltnado 

"Quiltnado"

noun \'kwilt -'n ā - dō\

definition:
A very intense squall consisting of fabric, thread and sewing tools.
Known to strike suddenly, very often coming on the heels of a quilt related activity such as
a guild meeting, fabric shopping, or blog hopping.

example:
"I was going to do some laundry, but before I knew it, a very intense quiltnado hit."

Intensity ranges:
category 1  - Mild, generally only lasts 1 hour or less and leaves behind a very small debris field.
category 2 - Moderate, can last anywhere from 1 to 4 hours and usually involves a combination of newly purchased and stash fabric. A moderate debris field that includes many fabric and pins.
category 3 - Severe,  a quiltnado in this category can easily last a day or longer. The debris field is very widespread and may include candy wrappers, coffee cups, ignored family members, backed up text messages, massive amounts of fabric, pins, empty spools and pizza boxes.

origin:
www.thistledownblog.blogspot.com
www.thistledownquilts.com 


There is not much you can do to ward off a large quiltnado. The best course of action is to make sure you have plenty of supplies on hand,  (including chocolate) then hunker down behind your sewing machine and ride it out. WOO HOO!

When was the last time you've been hit by a quiltnado? What category was it ?

save your favorite tops and t-shirts from this terrible fate......

Surely, I am not the only one that has had this wardrobe tragedy befall them.

Have you noticed small holes that mysteriously appear on the front of your knit shirts? Especially t'shirts or tops that tend to be more closely fitted? 

At first I figured it was the quality of the fabrics in the shirts I was buying, and to some degree that is true. But still....why are all these little holes appearing toward the bottom of my knit tops and t-shirts?

See here.....

 and here....

How annoying!
I finally figured it out, maybe you have already and I've just been slow on the uptake.


In a perfect world, this is what the waistline of jeans and shorts should look like......
nice and smooth and flat.

But most of mine, and most likely yours too, look like this next picture. The top corner by the button- hole curls over and sticks out.  That's when I finally said A-HA,  there's the culprit that is ruining all my shirts prematurely. The stiff, curly corner on my jeans and shorts are wearing little holes in the shirts!

Grated if I spent more than $20.00 on a t-shirt it would take a lot longer to happen but eventually those tiny holes would appear I'm sure.

so here's what I did....  I took my rotary cutter (you could use a scissors) and lopped off that stupid little corner. It won't hurt the buttonhole.   I hardly ever tuck anything in, and if I did a belt would cover it. So why not just cut it off? So I did.

Then I set my machine to a dense zig-zag stitch about .5 length and 3.0 width. and stitched along the raw edge to finish it. One down and many more to go.
Hopefully this solution will be helpful to you and your wardrobe of tops and t's.

Save yours now, before it's too late.

feathered friends.....

I guess we might need to hang a for rent sign outside of our new birdhouse to attract some feathered friends, but how cool is this birdhouse.

My friend Cathi gave it to me and it is just so precious.
It's made with felted wool from reclaimed clothing and was made in Nepal. The newspaper packing that was inside was the Himalayan Times ~ no really ~ and it was an english version.
Haven't read it yet.
Anyway, we hung it up on a tree the other day, facing east as recommended by birding sites, but so far we have not seen any little moving trucks show up. We're hoping that perhaps a wren would find it appealing. It is nice and cozy and it's supposed to hold up to the elements for a year. I almost hated to put it outside because it's just so darn cute. But, if a little bird can make it a home I don't want to deprive them.
Maybe if we offer a move in bonus like some pretty thread or other irresistible nesting materials we'll get a taker. We'll just have to wait and see.....in the meantime I'm free motion quilting some leaf shapes on a small quilt I made. I should be organizing my tax paperwork but not today.....

tangled

You've heard of zentangles? I love a good zentangle but my tangle is a different sort.... I have thread tangles! Yikes - I am packing for quilt retreat and my thread stash is in sorry shape. I think it's time to get it sorted out and untangled, don't you? Granted this is just the tip of the iceberg - I have multiple thread stashes, and they all need attention.  Do you you tame your thread stash, or do you let it do it's own thing?

I am really looking forward to retreat, no news there, but I am having a hard time narrowing down what I want to work on while there. Right now I have waaaaaayyyy too many projects in the take along pile.
Such as......
I have a charity quilt to machine quilt, a table runner all cut out and ready to stitch, some foundation papers for some mini quilts, a new travel tote design I am working on, some red and white fabric for a concept quilt, a small piece that I am need to finish hand quilting, fabric for a crib quilt, and........
I think that's all I have packed so far.

No, I am not staying a month, only four days, but with no cooking, errands, work or cleaning etc. I paln to make the most of it.

I did make a garment this week (gasp) I picked up a pattern for a short sleeve cowl neck top and I had some ancient fabric I figured I'd try it with. It's a knit and it actually turned out pretty good, it fits, and it was easy and quick. I'll probably wear it to work tomorrow.

 I also made some bolt tenders for work ( I work PT at a quilt shop - of course) These are for shoppers to mark their stacks of fabric they want cut so nobody takes them before they're done shopping.

Well, back to my tangles.........and my decisions......

a stitch in (double) time.....

Calling all procrastinators.......If you know me, you know that I am the reining queen of procrastinators.
All hail the queen! NOT. Today was spent in my studio stitching in double time. I thought I would be farther along with my gift making but alas here it is a week before Christmas and I am frantically stitching away. Please tell me I am not alone....please don't tell me that you had your gifts done and wrapped before Thanksgiving, don't tell me your cards are mailed and your cookies are baked. That would just be cruel.
One of the gifts I am determined to finish tonight is a scarf made with this really fascinating yarn I found at the last quilt show I went to. Have you seen this yarn? Have you tried knitting with it yet?  I am knitting with 7 stitches cast on and as you knit it kind of twirls itself around and makes a unique accent scarf.

this is the yarn

this is the scarf, so far

I must say it was a challenge to cast on,  and will probably be just as much of a challenge to cast off. Guess I'll find out later.  Next up is to finish an apron....

this is an apron yet to be completed....

 I better step away from the computer now if I want to get these done tonight...tomorrow is another day.
Speaking of tomorrow - (Saturday) it's the last day to enter my giveaway. Scroll down to the last post for entry info. 
It's super easy, and I am loving all the delightful comments you are all posting about Christmas. 
I so miss my family up north. I guess the only thing I don't like about Christmas is not being with them.  (don't mind me, just a small pity party in progress. If you're missing your family you're welcome to join in )


Well... off to knit and hug my darling DH

more fabric play......

Let's see, where did I leave off????
Oh yes, we rust dyed our fabrics and then we were playing with creating our own stamps to use on our fabrics.  We used all manner of things to make our stamps.....
Cathi used some sort of discarded kitchen utensil for this one. Hmmmm, Cathi, won't you miss that in the kitchen???? LOL Then she over-stamped it with a small commercially made texture stamp. This turned out very cool, I also like the way the brush strokes still show up from painting the stamp surface with the fabric paint.

Cathi's stamp work

Cathi also made this stamping using two different stamps and two colors, one stamp was made with assorted washers and the other was the toothpick stamp. Stunning!

Cathi's double stamp fabric

Karen made her stamp using assorted washers and created a tone-on-tone look by using a

subtle, neutral fabric paint.

Karen's stamped piece - step 1

 Karen then over-stamped it using a metallic paint achieving a dimensional effect...

Karen's stamped piece - step 2

Here is Marti's stamped piece showing the two distinct stamp designs and colors she used.

I love the paper clip stamp. This was so much fun!

Marti's double stamped fabric

This is my stamped piece that I did using a stamp made with metal bobbins....

I stamped onto a white-on-white print fabric and then over-stamped it with a 

commercially made dot texture stamp.

Linda's stamped fabric

Karen enjoys calligraphy and so she was drawn to this commercially made 

stamp, and I can see why....

Unfortunately, Marti was going to have to leave early and our day was ticking away......

 So we moved on to surface design using stencils and rubbing plates but more on that next time....

rust never sleeps......

Hooray - Cathi just sent me her pix of her rust dyeing and she got some really cool results.
Tell me this one doesn't look like C3PO from star wars......

Cathi's C3PO?

I like these two a lot too......

Cathi got some good rust going here

Cathi's rust dyeing - to me, this one looks like fossils of long legged bugs.

Hopefully someday we will all do something with our rust dyed pieces -  right girls? LOL
 But if not, we had fun with it.
The next technique on the days agenda was stamping designs onto fabric. The really cool part was making the stamps. Cathi found these with these really cool foam blocks that you can create your own stamps with. They are called Magic Stamp by Pen Score.  You warm them about 30 seconds with a heat gun and then press them onto found objects to create stamps. If you don't like the design you just heat it up and try again.
This was a lot of fun......

Marti's stamps.... paperclips and asst. washers etc.

Karen at creative play......wearing her thrift store "smock"

Linda's toothpick stamp on a commercial fabric

I'll show you the results of this creative play in my next post. Sorry, but right now I am itching to head into the studio... or go to bed ??????   decisions, decisions.........

part 2 - Cathi's summer art camp

Okay....so our fabric has been sitting in plastic bags with all manner of rusty things, and hopefully it is becoming fabulous. I rinsed out my two smaller pieces that were scrunched up on the cookie sheet by the end of the day Saturday and they had already been sufficiently rust dyed. I used a white on cream fabric and after rinsing it out I laid it in the sun to dry and then stenciled over it with this cool timepiece stencil  that Karen got from Karen Pharr Studios, a vendor at our recent local quilt show. I used a brown/bronze color Shiva Paintstik and a stencil brush to stencil the designs.

Linda's rust dyed and stenciled piece

This really cool looking piece is Karen's. This is the piece she wrapped around the rusty piece of rebar. It looks like fish bones or a fossil of some crustacean sort of creature....very cool

Karen's rust dyed fabric

 
I think she waited until the following day to rinse hers. Karen any insights???? Can't wait to see what she does with it....no pressure. :)

These are the other pieces Karen did and they turned out very cool too.

I really like this one of Karen's too. A lot of depth to this piece.

more of Karen's ..... see the safety pin design at the upper right.

This is the piece I wrapped around the rusty chain and put in a large plastic bag. The fabric I started with was a mottled pale yellow/pink. 

no distinguishable chain links, but a lot of great rust dye.

This was the piece I had setting under the rusty gear thingy....... it was done on a tone on tone fabric.

Linda's gear thingy piece......hmmmm

I don't have Cathi's pix yet. I can't wait to see them. When I took a peek Saturday it looked like they were rusting up good. Will post them as soon as they are available.

Cathi's summer art camp - part 1

WOW...... what a fun-filled day of fabric play at "Cathi's summer art camp" Last Saturday, me and 3 of my bff''s spent the day at bff Cathi's house where she hosted an awesome day of creative play.
We have been trying to plan this day for months and it finally came to fruition. Cathi had her large cutting table all set to go and we protected it with a large canvas tarp she purchased. This is the before picture.....

We had numerous techniques we all wanted to try and we decided to begin the day with rust dyeing as it takes awhile to produce results.
We had all collected interesting rusty pieces.....

we also had a helper..... this is Clancy, Cathi's adorable dog. Maybe "helper" is a bit of a stretch, but he seemed to enjoy the day.

The technique of rust dyeing is simply arranging rusty items onto fabric that has been wet with ordinary vinegar. You then place it in a plastic bag to keep it from drying out and then it is left to stand. From what we had read it takes up to 24 hours for it to set in. We used old cookie sheets to arrange our rusty pieces onto, under, and around our fabrics. The rustier the better. We sprayed them with the vinegar and bagged them up and waited........

This is Cathi's rust composition, can't wait to see the results

This is one of Karen's compositions

This is one of my compositions, (I scrunched my fabric)

Karen also wrapped another piece around a rusty piece of rebar, and I wrapped a piece of fabric around a  large chain and those we put into a large ziploc bag to "stew".
Rust dyeing fabrics is a safe alternative to "powder" dyes although you are limited to rust for the final color. We did come out with some interesting pieces as I'll show you tomorrow........

A new sewing machine.....

Goodness, sewing machines seem to be multiplying like rabbits in my house. My dearly loved and much used Viking 990 died on me a few weeks ago (r.i.p.) and the part to fix it is not to be found right now. Rest assured I will keep looking, but in the meantime my dear, sweet generous friends all offered the use of their spare machines to use. First I had Marti's Janome and it was very easy to learn and so I stitched away on that until the other day. My friend Cathi sent me home with her Bernina to try.

my dead machine, and two loaners from my BFF's

Then,  before I got a chance to try it, a used Viking came up for sale here locally. I kind of wanted to stay with a Viking because I have had such good service from mine these many years and it has sewn virtually everything I could throw at it. Poor thing just finally got tired I guess. I also have a lot of extra feet for the Viking.
Anyway..... I brought my new machine home and I hope it is happy here. It's a Viking Designer 1, but it is missing the embroidery unit. I finally had a chance to try it last night and so far so good. As with any new machine there is a bit of a learning curve but it stitches great and has a lot of cool features. I'll let you know how I like the stippling quilt stitch when I get a chance to use it more.
But..... I got it for a good price and I don't think I would use the embroidery unit right now. If I want to I can always purchase that later.
Now I just have to bling it up with my Studio Bling so it feels like mine.

my new Designer 1

I know a lot of people like using the embroidery units, do you have an embroidery machine and how much do you use the embroidery features?????
What do you like most about the sewing machine you have???
What do you like the least????
How old is your most used machine???
I bought my 990 in '84 or '85 - wow - that was a long time ago!
Now I can begin returning the borrowed machines to my BFF's and hope I can return the favor some day.

something's missing....

OMG - I am so sorry. The blog post for assembling the quilt blocks did not post as scheduled and I guess that could make this stitch-a-long a bit challenging, don't you think? Thank you so much Penny for calling it to my attention. Now I have to go wash the egg of my face.

Here is the missing post for assembling the blocks and sashing:

Now we get to put the rows and sashing together and it's going to start looking like a quilt.

Make the block rows as follows...
There are 2 row settings,

Row 1 setting (make 2 of row 1)
Row 1 uses 2 of the single 4-patch blocks, one of the double 4-patch blocks and two of the 8-1/2" strip pieced blocks.
Set them together as shown below and pay attention to the placement of the dark (red) squares.

Row 2 setting (make 2 of row 2)
Row 2 uses two of the double 4-patch blocks, one of the single 4-patch blocks and 2 of the strip-pieced blocks. Again, pay attention to the color placement.

Stitch the rows together beginning with row 1 . Add a sashing strip, but note the placement of the 4-patch placement in the sashing. (circled in photo)

 

 Add a row 2. Continue adding rows and sashing alternately and note the position of the squares in each sashing row (circled in photo).

TA-DA! ....the quilt top is assembled and next we will move on to adding the borders.

now back to our quilt....

Okay, enough goofing off - here's the next steps for the Stitch -a-long  with Linda. So far we have made all the blocks, the sashing and the most of the borders. Now we can start putting put it all together. Kathleen is keeping right up...... check out her progress at welcome to my world

Border 1
The first border that gets added are the 4-1/2" x 34" print border strips.
Add one to each end of the quilt. They will be wider than the quilt top so after stitching they will get trimmed.

stitch un-pieced print borders to the ends of the quilt.

Trim off excess border fabric, even with the edge of the quilt.

Piano key borders.......
you may have been wondering what we were going to do with the rest of the strip pieced sets.
It's for the next border on the quilt.
Cut the remaining strip pieced units into sixteen 4-1/2" segments.

cut sixteen 4-1/2" segments

Make two piano key borders by stitching together 8 segments for each.
Press seams in one direction.

Make 2 piano key borders

Stitch the piano key borders to the border you just added on each end of the quilt. 
Press seams to the print.

 

 Side borders....
On to the last border!
Remember the border strips that you put together in the  October 28th posting .......
Stitch one to each side of the quilt, matching the seams of the border with the sashing seams at the middle of the quilt.

Match seams of border piecing with sashing seams at center of quilt

The ends of the borders will be longer than the quilt so you will trim them even, as shown below......

okay ~ there's the borders but wait we're not done yet.........