Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Author Archives: Pam

I made my first quilted item as a visual aid for a math project in 7th grade. Over the next 25 years quilting was hit or miss, but quilting took over all the other crafts I've done in 2003.

Quilting Funk

I don’t know if it’s the heat or the clean sewing room, but I’ve not wanted to quilt.  That’s not to say I haven’t been working on the Double Wedding Ring in spite of the heat – but no machine piecing.

My husband gave this puzzle to me for Christmas.  I started working on it, but then put it up unfinished.  I wasn’t able to focus on it since the sewing machine was calling me.  So, this week, since I couldn’t sit still long enough to piece, I pulled out the puzzle and started on it again.

It took a week, but it’s done now.  I stayed up late and finished it.  So, now it goes back in the box.

And I think it broke my quilting funk.  I’m ready to finish Oklahoma Backroads.

QA Wednesday

Last week’s goals

  • Finish quilting and bind the 1000 Pyramids –  DONE
  • Every day quilt on my DWR. – 6 of the 7 days
  • Clean the sewing room.  – DONE

It’s a good thing I didn’t have much more planned.  I’ve been rather listless.  I think it’s the clean house and sewing room – I don’t want to mess anything up.  It has however afforded me plenty of time to work on the DWR.

I’ve got the DWR in a laundry basket and it sits beside my recliner with a basket of supplies on the table (I don’t pretend to be a decorator).  In the evenings I watch the summer dramas on either USA or TNT and quilt.  With the new hoop, my wrists aren’t giving me as much trouble as I was having on the floor frame.  I think it’s because I can change positions more easily.

So what’s up for this week?

  • Continue working on the DWR.  I need to complete a ring every two days if I’m to finish this quilt by November.
  • Make the this month’s KVQG block – the meeting is Monday!
  • Make at least one Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler block – 4 or 5 would be better.
  • Make progress on Oklahoma Backroads.  I have all the blocks sewn together in pairs

Check out what others are have planned by following the links over at Bari’s.

99 Pyramids

99 Pyramids. Back in April 2008 I took a class to learn how to use my Wonder Cut Triangle Ruler.  I quickly finished up the front and then pieced together a scrappy backing and binding from the leftover pyramids and green fabric.

At one point I even had this quilt quilted — but the tension was really bad, not to mention the quilting design didn’t work as expected, so I ripped the quilting out.  It wasn’t very hard given the bad tension.  A couple of weekends ago I decided the quilt had aged appropriately (that, and I have a great-nephew on his way sometime this month) and this quilt needed to be quilted.

There’s lots of love pieced and quilted in to this quilt and it will be great for dragging around when the baby gets big enough to drag it.  Most importantly it has no pink in it.  My niece told me she “hates pink!”.  As soon as the baby get’s here I’ll add a label and get it to my niece – not that there’s a big hurry — there’ a heat warning through Thursday.

What’s On My Design Wall

Literally nothing today – except threads. I’ve started sewing the Oklahoma Back Roads blocks together that I showed yesterday.

Check out other design walls by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Oklahoma Backroads Blocks

Yesterday’s plan was to work on Star Struck. However, in cleaning up the sewing room, I found a stack of blocks that needed to be contained in a project box. I grabbed an unlabeled box and found my Oklahoma Backroads blocks. I finished up the last 20 blocks, so now I’m ready to start sewing them together.

I started working on this quilt as a leader/ender project back in October. It is a Bonnie Hunter pattern that you can find here.

Stash Report

When I picked these gloves up at the store, my husband assured me he knew where my gardening gloves were.  I guess I gave him a funny look because he made the connection.  These aren’t gardening gloves — they just look like gardening gloves.  I hope they become my machine quilting gloves.  The ones I bought which were designed specifically for machine quilting creep off my hands.

This was my sole quilting related purchase for the week. Although I quilted – baby 1000 Pyramids, DWR and Oklahoma Backroads (finished all of the blocks), the fabric has previously been counted. I did however send out a length of fabric to a friend looking for a sunflower print.

Fabric Added this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 132.011 yards

Fabric Used this Week: 1.25 yards

Fabric Used to Date: 57.956 yards

Net Stash for 2010: 74.155 yards

Check out how others are doing over with their Stash Busting efforts over at Patchwork Times.

Clean – Or At Least Close Enough

A month ago I said I needed to clean my sewing room.  Today it’s clean — or close enough.  Sure there’s stuff piled on my sewing table and desks, but the cutting board is cleared and there’s space for three to sew.  Admittedly the ironing board is in the other room, but that’s only so I can get to my design wall.

One of these days I’ll get through all the boxes on the black shelves and maybe even get the shelves out of this room.

QA Wednesday

Last week’s goals:

#1 – move the Double Wedding Ring from the floor frame to the lap hoop. I don’t know if this will require re-basting or not. I guess I won’t know until I try. – DONE, didn’t rebaste.
#2 – work on Star Struck – Ignored
#3 – since the rest of the house is clean, I now need to work on my sewing room – not much – did get the floor frame taken down.

The DWR didn’t get pulled out of the frame until Monday, which did allow me to take down the floor frame.  Already the sewing room feels bigger.    Part of the delay was I wanted to practice with the new quilt hoop.  I wasn’t able to find my whitework  hand quilting project (it’s here somewhere), so I pulled out my baby 1000 Pyramids.   I quickly realized that was not a good hand quilting project, so I began to quilting to my sewing machine.  I’m just about finished.

So what’s on my list to do this week?

  • Finish quilting and bind the 1000 Pyramids —  I’m going to bind it in the scrappy green binding pictured
  • Every day quilt on my DWR.
  • Clean the sewing room.  I just offered to host my quilting buddies for a sew-in  this month, so this has to get done.

Check out what others are doing by following the links over at Bari’s.

August Quilting Goals

This month I hope to spend more time in my sewing room. I don’t have to work any weekends, so that will help tremendously. My Double Wedding Ring and my Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler quilts have not been touched for months, so I really need to get back to these two quilts. Naturally there are other bits and pieces I’d like to accomplish as well.

  • Keep up with the SBS BOW and the monthly Offline Quilters’ challenges.  This month the goal is 5 blocks on row A.   Who knows what the BOW will bring.  The end result should be 10 more blocks toward the 140.
  • Three 12″ blocks – two are for a swap and one is the KVQG BOM.  I should get the BOM pattern sometime next week.
  • Quilt, Bind and Label the baby 1000 Pyramids – since I’m waiting for the baby to be born, the label might roll to September.
  • Resume quilting on the DWR.  I’ve taken the quilt from the floor frame and put it in the lap hoop.  Last night I worked on it for a while.  I’ll get back to you on how I like the hoop.
  • Finish piecing the Star Struck blocks.  This would be a good project for a sew-in with my quilting buddies.  We haven’t had one of those for a while.
  • Quilt my Texas Braid. Alright, I admit it.  This is my long shot.

Will I finish everything I’ve put out on my list?  Who knows.  Check back with me through the month to see.

July Recap

July apparently was the month to quilt and bind. Three quilts (approximately 40 x 40) quilted and bound. On the piecing front, some progress was made on Star Struck and I started the guild BOM. The month started with putting a new sink in the hall bath and finished with a clothesline coaster.

Since my calendar is not as crowded this month, I hope to spend more time in my sewing room.