Moving on

I finished up the monster quilt I showed you in the last post as planned yesterday afternoon, almost right on schedule. Aline had called me about something else and I told her I would be finished in an hour or so. What did she want to do about pickup and delivery? They attend church near my home and it being Wednesday evening, there is usually choir practice and/or Bible study going on.  We left it that one of them would probably run by before heading home.

Funny thing was her husband stopped  to pick up the quilt and the phone was ringing at the same time.
  I could guess who it was on the other end though we let it ring.  Aline was telling me that if I didn't see Hans by 7:45 he wouldn't be coming, LOL.    He'd already been and gone!

I have been knitting a bit in the evenings and started the hat on the right Tuesday evening.  Really I wanted to do it as using a true circular needle or "in the round" as they say but had already shut down the computer so just went with the standard methodology.  Circular needles but used straight like I normally do.  I am at the point with that watch cap where you switch over to stockinette stitching. 

Since I was done with the quilt before I had to worry about supper prep I cast on and followed along with the video tutorial I posted last month from knitdenise.  Well, I cast on twice because the first time I had done it far too tight and should have used a shorter 12 inch cable between the needles.  Another inch or two and I'll be doing the shaping for the top.  Then do I try the video for knitting with two circular needles OR switch to double points?

And just like that----I got more than one thing going, just like I do with quilting! 

And also considering another project with any leftover yarn.  I do like this Grape Fizz color and can see getting another skein when I am down near  Hobby Lobby next week.  I  may need more to finish it.  I know I can get two watch caps out of one skein of yarn but switching things out, maybe not. The hat is from the redheart dot come website for "knit roll brim hat".  Change things up a little bit and adapt for in the round. 

At some point I need to re-crochet the top of this hanging towel thing for the kitchen----provided I can remember where it is that I found the directions.  Just poking the button through the double crochet spaces has led to some raveling.

Oh, speaking of the kitchen.  DJ is just about done in there!  A couple coats of green on one last door and he is finished.  The ones he has already completed are hanging.  I'll get a "tada" picture taken when he is officially finished.  It really looks different in there!  I can also expect to have a return on my dryer top as he has had it taken over as his work/storage space since this whole deal started.  You can do the laundry but forget using that normally available surface for a folding/holding prep area.

At present I am pre-washing fabrics for Allison's tree skirt (and maybe stockings).  Most of this is half yards, from Connecting Threads.

Technicolor Tidings

Peppermint Frost

Sweet St. Nick--but only that candy on butterscotch background

The cream is for the background of the skirt, as my  niece requested.

I hope to combine this with other things in my stash, including what was cut away from the backing of my Patience Corner to make crazy patched sections of the "petal" segments of the tree skirt.   I know I have some charm squares left from my quilt and can incorporate some pieced elements into the segments, whatever.  She wanted a mix of fabrics that would go with any decor down the line.   So that is exactly what I will do.  I like the button and loop closure on this as well.  McCall's M6453

But first----slog through pressing all this fabric.  I hate to iron but half yards are not too bad as three yards of backing fabric.  Today may only be about prep work---and fill in with knitting for actual creative time.

Friendship Quilter's Christmas Party is on Saturday and I am signed up for dessert.  I am thinking I am going to make another peanut butter sheet cake since the girls seemed to enjoy that at the retreat in October.  I made cookies for the last sew-in a few weeks ago though I am wanting to try an Angel Sugar Crisp Cookie recipe I have flagged on pinterest from Taste of Home.  Maybe next week, midweek or so.

Well, I've got a date with the iron.  Good thing it is warm enough outside to open a window and maybe keep from getting overheated doing said pressing.

more quilting----but almost done!!

This is an image of the quilt I have been working on since Sunday afternoon.  My friend Aline's sister pieced it and if I am understanding correctly, it is the sister's first quilt.  Aline sashed and bordered it.

This puppy is BIG---like 85 inches square big.  I initially thought it was a 4 x 5 block set but nope, square.   As of last evening, all the interior of the quilt was completed when I did SID 16 of the blocks.  Some of the subtle flying geese in the border are done as well as the 4 patches Aline used.  By the time the last two days were done, I felt like I had been wrestling a bear!  Apparently I can do 80 ish quilts on my domestic machine but it is not always easy.

Today is the remaining border bits and I think I am just going to do "piano keys" 3 inches wide that will echo the size of the colored squares.  Aline and Lorraine will team up for the binding detail though I would have at least put it on for her by machine had Aline brought it with the quilt.

Almost done----and then tree skirts and maybe Christmas stockings will be doing more than just dancing in my head, LOL.  Once my Connecting Threads order is here I can get busy.

quilting

No posts for a few days.  I am busy quilting a quilt for Aline and her sister who did most of the piecing.

At this point I have it all locked in and have some of the border elements done and 9 blocks of 25 done.

I'm guessing I'll be done in about 2 days time and will see if I have permission to use Aline's picture of it.    Here is what it looked like from the backside when I closed up shop. 

good day

Woohoo!  Not only did I get my Christmas Patience Corner quilt binding done but the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide just beat the #3 Georgia Bulldogs to win the SEC Championship and the opportunity to face Notre Dame for the BCS Championship for the 2nd year in a row.  Roll Tide.

The quilt measures 83.5 x 95 and really is a perfect fit for my bed with that oversized pillow top mattress.  Thanks again to those that gave me fabrics to include in it and especially to Norma for quilting it.  I am thrilled!

Today was the Christmas parade in our little corner of NE Central Alabama.  I took the camera with me today to get some pictures.  You can see that it was a gorgeous day----hit close to 70 so there were quite a few people out.

This first one shows some of the elementary school kids dressed as Christmas packages.

Hauling a gazebo down the street to promote some builder---couldn't believe it!  Candy to toss out to the kids in the back.

Color Guard with an area band coming up behind them

The Shrine group always look like they are having a great time with their little go karts.

One of two Christmas "trees" --- too cute!  (That gas station has been closed for a long time---that is NOT the price of gas here locally)

The local band approaching-----

The man of the hour---normally he rides in on the fire truck but that lead off the parade instead---

Day two: binding

Okay, I did NOT get much of this done yesterday but I tend to procrastinate with the more tedious aspects of quilting.  It is well documented here, LOL.  I am maybe 3/4 of the way across the first bottom edge but the label is sewn down and about 9 inches on the adjacent long edge at this point?    Also my mind tends to wander to other matters---dreaming of the next quilt projects or solving the world's problems (not!)

December is here tomorrow.  I want this on my bed!!!  I guess I have to get with the program???  Norma, have you finished quilting your lovely quilt so  you can join me in the endeavor this weekend?

I may have gotten a little further on binding but my hands were cramping up a bit by last evening.  I guess between lots of mouse work on the computer lately and knitting the right hand especially was squawking at me by 9 p.m.

A couple of notes on binding.  I do a blind, applique like stitch and I always keep the bulk of the quilt away from me, working left to right with the stitches.  I do it very close together to bury the stitches so you can only see the effect of the stitching, not the stitch itself.   I call it binding, not hemming.

Why do I make that distinction??  You would be surprised how many people think binding a quilt IS hemming.  Like you hem a skirt hemming----with a tack stitch and then a long thread length to the next tacked stitch and sometimes with double thickness of thread.  Of course, they work right to left and in their laps and every blessed stinkin' stitch shows.  Little fingers and toes will get caught in there plus it looks bad.   When you make every effort to use the best fabrics, pick a lovely pattern, execute that pattern to the best of your abilities I do not see why you don't try to do better on your finishing.   Fast is not always better.  If you have good light while you watch TV and "love" to do binding, go for it.  I don't so I have to set up a situation where it is not on my lap and light sources from two directions.   Done is good but try to do your best in that area too, okay?

Normally too, I match the thread to the binding, not the backing but how do you match the stripe?  I tried it with a darker green and I was still seeing stitches so switched to a color that matched the backing.  So far the only spot where I have remotely seen any thread is the bits of red stripe concentration.

Off my high horse----and back to Christmas

The  little town Christmas parade is tomorrow.  Fa-la-la-la Lifetime Christmas movies (DJ watches that cr**, I don't)  or those sappy Hallmark Channel movies are probably playing incessantly from now until the end of the year.  Christmas Carols are playing in every shopping venue.  Ready or not!  It is coming.

I'll switch out the seasonal wall hangings tomorrow but I don't know how much other decorating will happen.   We got rid of another of my surface areas for putting anything out---hall way book shelf---earlier in the year.  DJ has started painting the lower part of the kitchen cabinets and the boxes will just be in the way.  He won't want to put the tree up for another couple weeks anyway.  The Nativity set always goes up even if the rest of it stays packed up.  I still don't have Christmas stockings made though I plan to every year.  The ones I currently have were some I picked up at a church bazaar.  (Unfortunately one of them is cut the reverse of what it should be so the stocking points backwards but I knew the maker) I have plans to do some from the Nancy Halvorsen's  book The Night Before Christmas.   I have no wreath either since the two bedraggled looking ones from years past were finally tossed BUT I have a neat one on one of the tree skirt patterns I just got recently, a quilty looking one.

See my bloggy friend alefthanded quilters recent post and comments about giving quilty gifts  HERE.   Basically know your audience before preceding in my opinion there!  I offered to make a tree skirt for my niece/godchild because she let me know she was looking for one.  I asked her opinion about the style and have a second email out about the fabric choices----traditional or is a more contemporary look okay?  I can go either way since I ordered some stuff from Connecting Threads.

Well, still in my jammies and Aline just dropped off the quilt I am going to quilt for her and her sister that will be a guess what, Christmas gift.  Guess who better get cracking if all that is ever to get done.

And sew it goes-----

meeting show and tell

One of the best things--always--about quilt meetings is show and tell, though I don't think we really ever have a formal one with Bama Belles.  The girls hold up something they are working on, ready to pin, or are turning in for donation as they come in.  I missed a few pictures I might have taken but you'll see them down the line unless they are heading out as Christmas gifts.

First up, Jane's strippie quilt.  Isn't this just a sweet quilt for girl?

Beverly made this one using cloth book panel pieces and a "divide and conquer" method.  She said she used conventional binding on the periphery though.  This is going to a great-grandchild.

Beverly also made this "Bob the Builder" BQ 1 quilt for another great grand.   She started the quilt at the fall sew-in.  The child has a pillow she had made with some Bob fabric in it and now he will have a quilt to go with it.

This is Beverly's mini twister wreath.   She had misunderstood some cutting instructions that I had given the group along with an alternative pattern and re-cut her squares smaller than 5 inches.  I helped her salvage the twister base by rigging up a cutting template that would work.  Here is the result.  (yeah she knows one section was mis-cut but it could not be fixed.  Put a bow on it, LOL)

Lois was working on binding her twister wreath-----just about done!  See the pretty embroidered star she added at the center?

Lois also had quite a few quilts to turn in.  She was busy helping the others pin and just pointed me at her transporting bags so I unpacked them to get pictures taken---the kind without hands and feet, LOL.

Her disappearing nine patch

Lois USA map----this would not be one of her favorites, from what she told me. ( Like I don't have to get her a copy of this picture.  I usually get a print for the maker and another for our albums)

Lois cannot remember the name of this pattern but said it came from a magazine.  While it has a Puss in the Corner feel I do not think that was how it was pieced.  What looks to be a negative coloration block is really a longer rectangle.  It is on point.  Since the background is Little Mermaid fabric, I told her I would name it something along that line in the quilt document. 

Same pattern here but a different colored background

And here is a lovely string quilt blocks that was good for using up some small scrap pieces

There were several quilts pinned, including one that I will be quilting for Aline and her sister.  Bev had one that she had made for someone else to give to his mom for Christmas and had brought her crazy patch block to trim down.  Such a prolific quilter!  

Teresa was giving her sister Judy a quilting lesson as Judy had recently completed her first quilt----she needed a walking foot first!  Teresa was demonstrating her stitching on a crazy quilt blocks (or the accompanying pillow) that she is doing as a commissioned piece for someone.  Brenda was binding her twister piece.  Marilyn was busily putting borders on a Scooby Doo piece for one of her grandson's Christmas.  I was sewing as well---that Criss Cross project that is on "going, drag it around and will get done eventually" 

Some decisions were made for the Christmas party on the 11th, some of us left for lunch and others stayed----the next thing I knew it was close to 2 and time to go home.  Good way to spend a cold and gloomy day this past Tuesday.

another Trip Around the World version

I guess I have still have Trip around the World quilts on the brain.

I drew this one up from a picture of one of my mom's quilts some time back.  I considered attempting it instead of the Quilting Assistant version I did end of making.

I see this as being a take off from Snuggle Up, that old favorite pro bono quilt that is oh, so adaptable and the technique I learned from Billie Lauder "Get Looped"  for making her bargello quilts.  I have that book around here somewhere but of course, now that I am looking for it, can't lay hands on it.  The principle is surely the same though no matter what width you cut them.  I could see possibly having to cut the strip in some manner in the middle area where there is more light fabric or working in quadrants of the quilt rather than long staggered strips as you do in a snuggle up.

I think too that this MIGHT be the idea that Eleanor Burns uses in her Quick Trips Quilts book or at least one version is similar.   I'll have to review that book---nighttime reading, don'tcha know?  LOL.  But I kind of have a plan to try it someday but with a less limited fabric palette.  I want to use the collection of fabrics you see at right,  plus what was leftover from the donation quilt   Some of this I got with my birthday money and others were added later.  You know a stack that you throw in with the rest and think, "this might work" but you are not quite ready to commit to that idea?  Of course, that challenge fabric was a donation fabric which I intend to use for a personal quilt.  I cannot imagine the girls begging me for more of the "tons of black" stuff or begrudge my using it in that manner..

I had some plans to get the binding on my Patience Corner today and frankly have been dawdling.  I spent a good chunk of the morning working on the archived blog material to re-size the photos.  Light Image Resizer 4 is doing a great job on doing batch resizing.  (Thanks for that suggestion,  Linda in KS!).  Then it is just a matter of noting the name/number and locating it the re-sized image folder.  Reload it to images here and delete the old one.  Because I now have a watermark added, and know where Picassa has stuck them, I can then delete the larger images.  So far I have managed to get thru late November to early August 2012---60 some odd posts in.  It is paying off too as my capacity now says-----it was closer to 98 and they would not let me post any pictures till some of it went away.

You are currently using 906 MB (88.5%) of your 1024 MB

Want to check your capacity if you use blogger?  https://picasaweb.google.com/home

Norma pointed out to me that this is happening all over bloggerland---a good many of us long time bloggers are getting hit with an upgrade storage deal notification.  HMMMMMM  It gets curiouser and curiouser. 

On the home front, DJ finished up the painting on last of the upper kitchen cabinets---the two above the fridge and hardest to get at.  I had asked him if he was going to take a break before starting the lower ones.  I guess he did but it only lasted about 2 or 3 days.  He was priming the lower end today, starting at the left end to the left of the sink, near the microwave.  It made nuking our lunch a little more dicey and left dirty dishes in the sink since I cannot open the dishwasher without messing his work up at the moment.  (He didn't remove the right side cabinet door.)  

Well, I still have quilt picture to share with you from our meeting yesterday---Lois had a bunch to turn in and they are always so pretty.  Give you something to look forward to tomorrow.  I think I'll get the sewing table turned around and do what I planned all along.   It needs to be done by the 8th and guild show and tell and really do want it on my bed when I get ready to decorate the house.  Won't happen if I keep procrastinating!!