Re-do from yesterday

In my rush to post before I went to bed last night, I left a bit of my message out--not intentionally either. Just some thoughts/statements that would have helped explain things a bit better. Bear with me as I repeat myself but with the added info or some editing of what WAS there. (New parts in italics). I swear my brain went "on hold" yesterday...........

"Well, it looks like blogger finally decided to play nice with bloglines---lit up light a Christmas tree today and I don't see a single red exclamation point. I DID click through the ring the "old fashioned" way but found that I have gotten into an annoying habit. On bloglines, you click on the post subject or permalink to open the post to comment. Clicking through the ring, I tend to close the post/blog but then I have closed the window with no bloglines backup. No biggie, I guess but more hoops to jump through to get back.

I had finished the hand quilting on the Little Quilts fans yesterday evening. A little story--my husband came into the sewing/computer room as I was taking a few painstaking stitches to fill the needle. He asked if there were not some easier to way to do that. LOL, of course there is, I replied--on the sewing machine like I usually do for those quilts you get stuck holding up for pictures. BUT, I explained, this quilt is made to look like a 30's classic and in fact, contains feedsack fabric from that era so I wanted to preserve the history. Also, when I started the project a "million light years ago", I didn't even know how to machine quilt. I have noticed something else while I was working--for some reason I tend to make the first stitch with my index finger rather than the thimble. It is hard to remember if I always did that or it is something new for me.

My mini-goals for the day were to cut, sew and apply the binding to both the fans and the Wild Goose Santa's magic and get a little work done on my ostrich Round Robin. Pictures are in my previous posts. Sounds simple enough. The binding is on but the hand finishing remains for both. There was just barely enough fabric for both quilts so the fans will have a narrower french fold binding than I normally work with. Santa's had to be cut on the bias but the instructions said not on the true 45----huh??? What the heck does that mean? What angle should I cut it then? I angle the ruler slightly then but had a gob of little short strips to sew together. Also I was told to only cut it 1 1/4 inches so it will have to be a single fold binding and will have to press over the 1/4 before I hand stitch. Still, both are closer to being done that they have been for years, LOL.

For the ostrich I had chosen a Sunbonnet Sue block--the components were something I started last year at one of the JOY quilt group meetings. The instructor had us team up with a friend, pick two fabrics and we did the Eleanor Burns' interfaced method and then swapped out the components. Easy enough to throw the block together a couple weeks back. I stitched around it with black perle cotton in the traditional manner but set the block on point. Kim's first instructions were to "box it in"---sashing and cornerstones which were easy enough to cut and sew today. I applied the setting triangles to square it back up. I pulled and cut the fabric for the half square triangles that I want to use to box it in further. Now I am debating about adding some little appliqued flowers in the open space in the setting triangles but thought I better see what the following rounds might be first. It would be nice space for quilting if not.

I just got the Triangulations 2.0 CD in the mail today so printed off what I needed on the newsprint type ream of paper I like to use for foundation piecing work. Those will stitch up in no time tomorrow--the cutting and pressing is what is time consuming. Not only does this software have triangles from 1/2 inch finished but it goes to 7 1/2 finished by 1/8 inch increments. Quarter Square Triangles are also included along with three free patterns. You print from Adobe Acrobat and run it off the CD as near as I can tell so it does not actually install on your hard drive. The advantage would be that perhaps you don't have to make oversized HST units and trim them down unless you need to do that for accuracy purposes. I see this as an adjunct to EQ5 as I can print off sheets of them like triangles on a roll but with the newsprint paper I mentioned for easy and inexpensive removal. I'll see how they do for accuracy but when I laid some thangles I had in the 1.5 inch finished size that I need for the project and held it up to the light it looked right on the money.

Other than that--my husband enjoyed watching the Auburn-LSU game this afternoon while I putzed around in the sewing room. Supper was quick and easy and required little effort on my part. I have to do better on Sunday though as the poor guy is having a certain test on Tuesday that will require his being on clear liquids all day Monday---yummy broth, jello, popsicles, white grape juice, etc. Without any further description, I think you all know where the poor guy is headed---pun intended on couple of levels. DirecTV is having a preview weekend so we are watching a few movie that we have not seen. They are also airing a few we own on DVD but have not viewed yet--I had to tell him which two NOT to watch, LOL. The weather has been picture perfect--a hint of coolness in the air.

Thanks for bearing with me. Still no pics today---nothing is done to show but that shouldn't last long, LOL. I'll have plenty of time to sit and stitch while he has his procedure if nothing else.