Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Notions

A Whirlwind Trip

Last Thursday morning my SIL and I headed off to the Kansas City metro area.  The occasion?  The start of Hunter Quilt Marts Customer Appreciation sale where everything in the store is 25% off. (I’m not sure is that is true for sewing machines and longarms).  I was in need of quilt batting.  I’m down to about 9 yards on my king roll and maybe 9 yards on my queen roll.

After 12 hours switching off the driving every few hours we arrived at my brother’s just outside of Ottawa (KS).  We visited that evening and Friday morning. We then headed toward the city where I visited with a friend from my previous guild for a few minutes — she was holding some quilt books for me (will do a post on those books) and we did another small task that I cannot do here in Mississippi. Then we kept driving north to St Joseph (MO) where we visited with my sister who had quilts I had purchased from a guild members estate via proxy. We spent the night, heading to bed early so we could get to Hunters Quilt Mart in Centerview (MO).

The goal was to get there by 10:15 or so because we wanted to leave by Noon so we could get to another shop before they closed.  We got there at 10:45.  Oops.

We both had lists.  Ruby started with her notions and notions she remembered from my list.  I headed to the thread.

All of these are Glide 40wt thread which stitches beautifully with no tension issues.  Cool Gray 7, Mercury, Biscotti, Magic Mint, Grape, Salmon, Strawberry Blonde, and Yellow Whisper. All of these are replacement cones except for Salmon and Yellow Whisper.

As for the notions, I picked up needles for the longarm, an 8″ rotating mat, a Hot Ruler, a tube of bobbins, 2 backlash springs for my bobbin case, a new ruler and small snips.  The small snips were not on my list.  They did not have the Brother bobbins for my sewing machine in stock, but now I know exactly what I’m looking for.

That just left backings – not that any of these quilts are finished (or started in some cases).  At the top left is the backing for my Quartered Squared quilt which I haven’t started. In the middle is the backing for Cascade which clearly hasn’t been started.  At the top right is the backing for my Rivanna which is my current leader/ender project. I have just over half of the HST made for it.   That’s the left over FQs sitting on top of it.  At the bottom is the backing for Star Studded, a BOM I started in 2019.  It turns out I only have to made the center star and assemble it.

Although the batiks were calling to me, I remained strong and stopped shopping.  We checked out, stopped by the batting and told them what we bought and headed to the car to unload it so we could load the batting.  A Honda CRV has more cargo room than my Nissan Cube.  The same amount of batting was brought home, but I had plenty of leg room this year and there were 2 us in the car!

Where we went next later this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Stash Rport

It’s taken two months, but I finally have some fabric usage to report. Last week I finished the Blue Disappearing 9-Patch top. That’s a chunk of fabric. I’ve not bought any new fabric since the first of the year, but I did purchase a ruler yesterday.

blocloc

  • Fabric Used Since Last Report: 9.264 yards
  • Fabric Used Year to Date: 9.264 yards
  • Fabric Enhancement Since Last Report:  0 yards
  • Fabric Enhancement to Date: 22.932 yards
  • Net Fabric to Stash: 13.668 yards

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

 

My Favorite Quilting Notion — Today

My favorite quilting notion varies by what I’m working on. The current favorite is this seam ripper.

Yesterday I pulled out Dancing Flowers to finish up. Applique is not my favorite, but darn it I want to finish this wall hanging. Just two more blocks. Besides that, I finally decided on and bought sashing fabric for this and the coordinating king size quilt, so I need to get the top done, so I can pull a backing so my numbers don’t look so bad Sunday. But I digress.

I’m using invisible thread on top, black in the bobbin. I’ve set my machine to a blind stitch at .03 length and 1.0 width – in other words tiny. Instead of placing all my pieces on the background to verify they are in the right place, I started with the stems. I thought they might be a tiny bit high on the background, but I wasn’t worried. It wasn’t until I had two stems, two leaves and one of the two part flowers on the background that I admitted defeat and knew I had to rip it all out.

Tiny stitches. Invisible and black thread on a black background. Ugh.

But this wonderful seam ripper came to the rescue. I was able to slide the blade between the pieces and the background to slice the thread where it bit into the piece. Had the whole block ripped out in no time. I still have to pull the bits and pieces of thread from the background, but that won’t take long. Then when I do this block again, I’ll verify ALL of the pieces before I start sewing.

Stripy 4-Patch Backing

I really do need a better name for this quilt. I stopped by the library and checked out Quilt-Lovers’ Favorites Vol. 2. They call the quilt — or one similar to it — Candy Stripes. But back to the backing. This is really growing on me. Two widths of the fabric wasn’t quite long enough for the length of the quilt. So, I pieced another string of 4-patches to insert in the middle. It turned out really cute. I don’t know if I’m going to attempt to center the strip, or let it fall where it may — which will be an inch or two off from center.

If you don’t have a Companion Angle Ruler, or something similar, consider getting one. I became a fan of this ruler and the Easy Angle ruler after working on one of Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts. This strip went together so much easier that the ones on the front. On the front I cut triangles from squares – and I can’t promise you I cut them on the diagonal twice so the edge was on grain. One reason this top sat so long was I didn’t look forward to squaring up the strips. I still had to square this strip up, but it was so much closer to being ‘right’.

Well, off to sandwich the quilt. Have to pull out the ‘big board’ now.

The Doorbell Rang

It was the mailman and he had two packages for me. One from Connecting Threads and the other from Overstock.com.

Last week I started to place on order with Connecting Threads and then asked my friends if they wanted to go in on the order with me to save on shipping. They did. Now I have to divvy up the thread and get it to them. The red fabric is for my cornerstones for Texas Braid I’ll be making next month. The white shirting is just because. The kit in the back is 30’s fabrics for a sewing kit and two book covers. I don’t know if I’ll make the kit up or just put the fabric in my 30’s bin for my Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler blocks.

The package from Overstock.com contained 2 5-count packages of Martelli rotary cutter blades. Earlier this week I put my last new blade in my Ergo 2000 (love that cutter!) and discovered I had a “flat”. Almost couldn’t get the bolt out to remove the new blade. When I finally got it loose, I discovered my generic blades had cut a grove into the bolt! I had always heard you should use the Martelli blades to prevent this from happening, but I’ve never had any problems with the generic blades I’ve used in the past. I pulled out my spare bolt and ordered new blades.

SBS Block Due 10/25


A10 – Bachelor’s Puzzle

Today S, T & I went to the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo here in Kansas City. It was the first time I attended the event since it moved up to the KCI-Expo Center.

They had some great quilt and garment displays and of course vendors. I nearly made it out without buying anything.

The very first booth got me — although I made it through the entire show and circled back to make my purchase.

It was the Bo-Nash booth with the Bo-Nash Bonding Agent. Apparently it can be used to baste quilts instead of the quilt basting spray. It also came with a tube of vinyl/leather repair, so I’m going to try and fix my car seats. I’ll let you know how it works after I use it.

SBS Block Due 10/11

H7 – Odd Fellow’s Chain

73 tiny pieces. The half square triangle units finish at 3/4″. Originally I planned to paper piece this block, but this evening I realized I could use my Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers. All in all, the block went together quite well, it just took ‘forever’.

SBS Block Due 10/4


L3 – 54-40 Or Fight

This block has a template for the background triangle, but I’m not a big template fan when there are other options. Quilt In A Day has a set of Triangle in a Square rulers which I use, but since this a a six inch block, they were too big.

Then I remembered. I have a set of Tri-Rec Tools. I don’t know when I picked these up or why, but they worked great for this block.

A Week Without Quilting!


Who knew that a missing ruler could cause a week without sewing? I finally found my missing Easy Angle Ruler in a pile of papers. Apparently when I was clearing (note, not cleaing) my desk it got grabbed up and put on the shelf.

But truth be told, I’m not sure much sewing would have occured this week anyway. Earlier in the week I was working on the finishing instructions for the smaller Kansas Spirit quilt and I’ve been cleaning the house.

Today and tommorow I’m hosting a couple of my quilting buddies and we are going to sew all weekend. I’ve got Taco Soup in the crock pot for lunch, and the chicken is marinating in the refrigerator. I’ve talked my husband into grilling it tonight by making an Italian Wedding Cake to snack on.

Now to pick something from my list to work on this weekend.

What Cleaning Does


I did not set out to clean. However, I received a “ton” of fabric cast offs which needed to be put up. There is still more in the basement waiting to be washed.

When we redid my sewing studio/office, I made the decision that if it didn’t fit on the two sets of shelves, I had to find another home for it — whatever it is. A few weeks ago I looked through all of my quilting magazines and donated a 12″ stack. You can’t tell by looking my shelves, because I gathered up the magazines that were scattered through out the house.

The fabric is a bit tougher. But, since I’ve made significatant progress on my DWR, it moved out of the bin it’s in and into one of my project bins. I also pulled out the extra fabric from a couple of other quilt tops recently finished and either put it away or dumped it on my table to be cut up into scraps. That’s the pile on the right in the picture below.

The pile on the left if what I found when I cleared my cutting table off. I’ve midplaced my small EZ Angle Ruler. I misplaced the large EZ Angle Ruler at the begining of the year. I didn’t even know I had one let alone two, plus the Companion Angle Ruler until I started working on Bonnie Hunter’s Orange Crush. Now I can’t find either!

I guess I keep digging.