Quilting progress

Now that I can sit at the sewing machine for more than a few minutes I should be able to have loads of fun.  Not so much.  December 21st I was told I need cataract surgery.  No date set but most likely the left eye will be done in April or May.  Then the right eye will be taken care of.

This means no sewing for a number of weeks after the surgery.  My other eye issues will complicate my recovery.  Sew....my priorities are getting quilts finished.  And most are at stages that I really do not enjoy working on.  I'm not going to have the fun of starting new projects.  Darn.

Progress report: 

The first BOD centre as well as the next two borders are quilted.

The second BOD centre is quilted.  The top needs the first two sets of borders added and then quilted.

My Bailey 17" has been cleaned and oiled.  Ready to sew!

The backing and bat has been prepared for another top.  Now that quilt is loaded onto the frame.  I'm hoping to get started with the quilting this morning!
(Provided I can get DS's felines out of the comfy hammock.)

My Brother embroidery machine has been cleaned.  So I have no excuse not to finish the last 20 BOD blocks.

Anna, from the hearts2hands yahoo group posted a photo of a cutting mat on top of a Lazy Susan.  I loved the idea and wish I had been able to use one these past 12 months while working on the BOD.  DH found a Lazy Susan in the garage that is a great size.  With an old cutting mat trimmed to fit, I'm ready to put it to use.  Even if it's just for those last 20 blocks.

I've started saving all fabric trimmings when squaring up blocks.  The scraps will go into a pillow and then the opening will be stitched closed.  Great pet beds and no waste.  Thanks to Missouri Star Quilting for that idea!

Off to kick some cats out of their napping spot.  The quilt is about to get quilted!

Back in the sewing room

Is it too late to say Welcome 2017?   May this new year be one with more positives than negatives. 

The last three months of 2016 were pretty eventful for family and friends.  DS put his condo up for sale and made an offer on a house (pending sale of the condo).  The condo has not sold as of yet and we're getting pretty anxious as he really wants the house.

To make things easier for Realtors to show the condo, DS's cats are "visiting" us.  Read that to mean they have taken over and are ruling the roost.

A dear friend was diagnosed with early stages of colon cancer, had all the pre-op tests as well as the surgery.  All in about 2 months time.  It would have happened sooner except she had a two week vacation planned which postponed the surgery.  The operation was successful and she was back home in time to celebrate her Christmas with family and friends.  With no chemo required.  Something to be very grateful for.

Back at the beginning of November I managed to fall down some stairs.  Did I land on my well padded back side?  No.  That would have been too easy.  Instead I kept my balance and landed on one foot.  Which did way more damage.  A torn hamstring and nerve damage.  An ambulance ride, numerous shots of morphine later along with multiple x-rays to check for broken leg or hip and I was sent home from the hospital with some pretty strong muscle relaxants and pain killers.

The gal and guy with Edmonton Emergency Services were great.  And had a wonderful sense of humour.   When they arrived to take me to the hospital I informed them that according to the "cat" scan my injuries were between my knee and hip.  They looked up the stairs and spotted the two cats looking down and immediately caught on as to just what kind of cat scan I had.  That set the tone for the trip to the hospital.

Time and physiotherapy are taking care of the healing.  I am now able to sit for more than a few minutes and walk without a walker or cane.  My sewing room has been calling me and I've been able to spend a few minutes every day at the sewing machine.  Not much, but every minute is great therapy.  Of course I'm still using my injury as an excuse to avoid cooking and cleaning. 

My injury made for a very quiet Christmas.  We were fortunate to have friends from BC stop by twice over the holiday season.  Always wonderful to see Carol and Terry.  We miss them a lot.


Since it's been months since I've blogged I can't remember if I mentioned finishing my oldest UFO quilt top.  I started this quilt years ago and got carried away.  It was going to be large enough to cover two queen sized beds, I'm sure.

So the blocks and partially finished top were put away and forgotten about.  Just before my fall the top was pulled out and I realized that there wasn't much left to do.  Remove a few blocks at the top and bottom of the rows.  Then stitch three rows together and one top was finished.  It still needs to be quilted.  The backing is ready.  I'm waiting for my friend JT to have a top to quilt and then both of us are off to Sparrow Studioz for a quilt lesson and time on their long arm.  This is a gift from JT and I'm looking forward to the experience.

So what to do with the left over blocks.  Put them together the opposite way of the quilt above.  It made a smaller quilt.  Probably twin size.  Where as the first quilt is definitely a king size.  I'll be quilting this one at home as the size is much more manageable.

Another top was finished in October.  I had tested a pattern for Eileen Hoheisel a while back.  I needed a quilt that was just a bit larger so I added a simple border.  Now to get it quilted.

The Block of the Day Challenge is over.  At least to the point that we have instructions for all the blocks and how to put the final borders on the quilt.  Because of my leg I am almost two months behind.  This is one (okay two) quilts tops that were not completed during the challenge year.   So the pressure is on to get these blocks finished.

Why the pressure?  Two reasons.  The blocks will come off the designer's web site soon.  And while I have the e-mail instructions saved, sometimes those instructions are not as clear as the ones on her website.

Another reason....well December 21 I had another laser procedure on my eyes to deal with the on going complication from diabetes.  During the procedure I was informed that I need cataract surgery.  My consultation with the surgeon is this week. 

Now there might be a long waiting period before the surgery can happen.  But once it does happen, my time in the quilt room will be over for a number of months.  At least there is surgery to correct the problem for which I am grateful!

A busy summer

Where did the summer go?  Fall is here and everywhere I go I smell pumpkin spice.  Not that I mind.  I love pumpkin spice anything.  We've been known to add some of the spice when brewing regular coffee.  DH isn't as keen on the taste as I am, but he does enjoy the fragrance. 

We've lost a few family members and friends over the past several months.  They are missed very much.  And will always be remembered!

On a happier note, the neighbours next door are almost finished their two and a half year renovation project.  Hopefully that will mean they can move in before Christmas.  We are certainly looking forward to watching their young family grow.

Have we slowed down on acquiring vintage sewing machines?  The answer is yes!  DH is now very interested in crystal radios.  When going through some old boxes that were stored in the garage he came across two of these little radios.  One was his as a child and the other mine.  I was so surprised that mine was still around and in working condition!  An even bigger shock was what these things are now worth!

There is antenna wire strung along the ceiling in DH's office as well as in a spare bedroom to improve radio reception.  I'm sure people think we're crazy.  But it's fun!

On the quilting front I'm keeping up with the 365 Block of the Day Challenge.  There are times that I just can't be bothered with the block and will use left overs from previous blocks to make up one of my own.  I really don't think that someone looking at 365 blocks in a quilt will be able to point out one that I made up and what was "supposed" to be there.  This project is supposed to be fun.  Not a burden.

Here's one of the 365 quilts.  A dark and another light border still to be added by the end of the year.

In June the volunteer sewing group spent the day at a local residence for dementia patients.  We had a Fidget Quilt for each resident.  We did wonder how the quilts went over and if they were being used.  Two weeks before volunteer sewing started up again we found out.

The quilt shop that hosts the volunteers got a phone call requesting six more quilts.  New residents had arrived and the quilts were "needed".  So I guess the fidget quilts are a hit. 

Since the volunteer group wouldn't start up again until the end of September the owner of the shop contacted me to see if I was able to get six quilts finished ASAP.  The challenge was accepted and met:

Each quilt has a zipper, ties, pockets, different textured fabrics and buttons.  Some have metal rings.  Others fabric loops.  They were started and finished over one weekend.

Now to get back to the sewing room.  I have yet another virtual retreat to get ready for!

Dot to Dot quilting, Ruler Work and dollar store craft

Finally, the second L Block quilt from the hearts2hands virtual retreat has been quilted.  I attempted some Dot to Dot quilting in the smaller squares.  That was fun.  Of course I had to do it the hard way.  Because of the pattern I chose, the thread had to be secured with each square. But it's now a habit to secure the threads properly at the beginning and when ending the quilting.  And that's always a good habit to get into.

The large centre block in this quilt was my first attempt at "real" ruler work. 

Every time I tried to practice ruler work, either the thread broke, didn't make a stitch, or the foot would fall off in the middle of the seam.

 I finally watched a video for installing a ruler foot from a different company.  They add a washer between the screw that holds the foot in place and the foot.  Why not give that a try?  There are a lot of small washers left over from putting my Grace frame together (don't ask).  Well that solved the problem of the foot falling off all the time.

 Then I decided to try lowering the foot to the height of a dime instead of the recommended height.  All issues resolved!  A bit of playing around with the tension and I now have a great stitch when doing ruler work.  And ruler work is as much fun as everyone told me it was!  This photo shows the quilting a bit better:

This shows what the quilt really looks like:

The quilt is made from one piece of fabric using both the front and back of the material. 

Now for the fun find at the local dollar store:

Ever bring back brochures, resort maps post cards and the like from your vacations?  Turn them into souvenir cups.  The Dollar Tree had these plastic cups on sale for $1.25.  Remove the lids, twist to separate the two layers of plastic, remove the paper "template", fussy cut from the maps and brochures.  And this is what you get:

These two cups even show the path from the main building that we travelled to get to our rooms.

I know some who use their kids artwork in these cups.  A fun project to give the Grandparents.  Unfortunately the cups cannot go into the microwave.  That's okay.  We all need to drink more water anyway.

I almost forgot...we have an addition to our collection of sewing machines:

Th

This is one of the few machines where DH and I do not agree on the probable date it was made.  I'm saying late 1800's.  DH says around 1910.  It makes a beautiful stitch.  Unfortunately the needles for this machine are no longer made.  So I won't be able to play with it as much as I'd like.

Quilt Backing Talk

A few weeks ago there was a discussion on the hearts2hands group about how different quilters with mid/long arms attach their quilt backing to their frames.  There seemed to be a lot of

• pinning one side to the leaders on the take up bar, 
• rolling the backing onto the take up bar, 
• pinning the opposite side to the leaders on the backing bar, 
• rolling the backing onto the backing bar, 
• then re-pinning the backing to the take up bar so the backing lays flat. 

I'm not that patient.  I pin one side to the take up bar leaders. Roll the backing up until the opposite end just reaches the leaders on the backing bar.  Pin that side to the leaders.  A quick look shows me if the backing is square.  If it's not, then I slide the leaders to the left or right until the backing is square.

Not square:

Squared by sliding the front leaders to the right and the back leaders to the left:

Notice the diagonal seams?  What's that all about?

If your backing is to narrow or short extra fabric naturally must be added.  But if extra fabric is added to one side then there will be bulk where the seam lays on top of itself as the quilt is rolled up on either the take up or backing bar.  Definitely a problem.

Diagonal seams do not stack.  This means no bulk throwing off the even advancement of the quilt onto the bars.

Is there any benefit to quilters who use domestic machines for quilting?  I think so.

Say you have the perfect piece of backing but it's just a bit too narrow or too short.  The problem is solved with a diagonal cut.

Here's a rectangle.  It's either too short or too narrow.

With a diagonal cut like this:

We can make it longer by sliding the two sides:

Or wider by sliding in the opposite direction:

If the backing needs to keep it's length but needs to be wider, then this just might be the answer:

By adding the rectangle between the diagonal cut the backing keeps it's length and is made wider.  If the quilter does not have the same fabric for this step, another fabric could be used.  Adding the second fabric this way does not yell "I ran out of the fabric I needed".  Which is what happens if the quilter just adds the different fabric to one side of the quilt.  Putting the fabric on a diagonal through the centre makes this a design choice.  Not an oops.

Not another machine!

This time it's DH's fault.  Okay, maybe a little bit mine.  I spotted an older machine on kijji and made the mistake of telling DH about it.  In my defence I did tell him we shouldn't buy it.  That we have too sewing machines already.  But he felt sorry for this forgotten gem.

Made in Germany, approximately 1890, this Saxionia Fiddle Base hand crank was shipped to Poland.  The family moved to Canada and the machine was passed down from mother to daughter and then to the daughter's son.  His children and grandchildren have no interest in this piece of their history (they weren't interested in the antique dolls that belonged to their great great grandmother either).  So the sewing machine became ours for $45.

DH has spend a few hours removing the coats of oil, tar, lint, dust, pet fur, etc.  The feed dogs move, the hand crank turns, and the needle goes up and down.  There will be hours more involved in the cleaning and polishing.  But this is the first machine we've found with Mother of Pearl inlay.  And the first Fiddle Base machine I've seen in person.

On to the quilting front:

Many moons ago the hearths2hands group had a virtual retreat.  Anna gave us instructions to make the LBlock.  I kinda got carried away.  Here's the first of many quilts made from the block.  And the practise doodling I did before quilting.  I'm happy with my first attempt at doing this style of all over quilting.  Out of my comfort zone, but fun!

Another LBlock quilt is loaded on the frame and I'll be using the same pattern for the quilting.  Hopefully the quilting will be a lot better!

Oops I did it again

Did I just break a copy right law?  Oh well.  I, or I should say we did it again.  DH knew I wanted a sewing table for my vintage machines.  I've been using a plastic folding table from Costcos that uses up quite a bit of room in my sewing room.  He spotted a small table with a machine on kijji and the seller was only a few blocks from home.  For $35 it was worth a trip over to see it.

The seller thought the table and machine was about 40 years old.  It was her mother's and she had no desire to keep it.  When we brought it home DH checked the serial number on the treadle machine.  It was made in Scotland in approximately 1912!

After a clean up of machine and table, and oiling of both, the machine is singing.  Beautiful stitch and reasonably quiet for a treadle.  And it fits in my sewing island!  Bonus.  When the machine is lowered my other vintage machines can be used on the table.

On the sad news front, we went to Massey Sewing to pick up a spare belt for this machine.  They are closing the shop!  Time to retire.  Very sad as the guys have years of stories and experiences.  They will be missed.

I have a new sewing challenge ahead of me.  A good friend of my DS's called today.  She recently got married.  They decided to do a "trash the wedding dress" party.  Their version was to paint the bridal party's clothes with latex paint.  The couple would love a duvet cover made from the clothing.  Any pattern, but king size please.

I should be getting the clothes next week.  I'm really happy that there is no deadline for finishing.   The bride is bringing a king size flat sheet for me to use to make it easier (and less cost).