It’s finally, completely done! Label, hanging sleeve, dowel rod, hung on the wall (mostly level)…the whole shebang:
My “assistant” “helped” me hang it on the wall and I was unable to get a photo of the completed quilt without him.
Here’s another view, that shows it with the wedding quilt that Ann and Nancy made ten years ago:
I’m now moving on to other UFOs…stay tuned!
Woo-Hoo! I found my underwear. Woo-Hoo! Fifteen months later. Twenty-five miles from home.
A couple of friends told me they’d seen my underwear. And they told me where they’d seen it. So I decided to find it myself.
And here it is.
It’s hard to see in this photo (more about that adventure later), but this is the beaded bra I made and donated for an auction that raised money for mammograms for uninsured or under-insured women. The bra cups are covered with flower, leaf and butterfly beads. The sides and back are covered with pink fabric. I named the bra “Garden of Hope.”
It’s hanging in the fitting room of Dockside Clothing in Grand Haven, Michigan. I believe the store owner must have purchased it at the auction.
Taking the picture was itself an adventure. I walked into the store and told the clerk that I understood there was a beaded bra in the fitting room and that I was the person who made the bra. She did a double take. I guess I don’t look like the highly embellished undergarment type.
At lunch a friend had shown me how to take a picture with my relatively new phone. (See what happened to the old one here.) So I took the photo with my phone. Then the issue was what to do with it. Apparently my $20 not-very-smart phone and my $5 a month plan do not permit me to send email or to download info from the phone. So I texted it to my daughter-in-law’s smart phone and she emailed it back to me. I think I should be able to take better photos with the phone, but the instruction book is not too clear. I’ll have to experiment.
But when I get back to Grand Haven next month, I’ll take a real camera and get a better picture.
by Nancy
Christmas in February? Why not? 🙂 I’ve been having fun doing a little scrappy piecing here and there with some of my leftover Christmas fabrics. I’m using the pattern for Spinner from Bonnie Hunter’s Addicted to Scraps column in the March/April ’10 issue of Quiltmaker. My version is a little less scrappy – I’m only using one light fabric for the background instead of a light and a dark. (By the way, I’ve been reading and enjoying Bonnie’s blog. She’s a lot braver than I am with color choices and scrapiness, and I am inspired by her quilts!) My hope is to make enough stars for a Christmas lap quilt for next Christmas season. When I took this picture a few weeks ago, I only had 3 blocks, but now I’m up to 12. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post an updated picture soon!
Update February 22, 2010: I’m up to 16 stars now!
by Nancy
I’ve been doing some crochet lately, as well. I’ve finished all the little squares for my scarf (just as the weather is finally warming up!), but I haven’t been happy with any of the joining methods I’ve tried so far. So, I’ve put it aside to ponder a bit more and try to find out more about joining method options.
I’m slowly continuing on my crochet cardigan, though I have to admit I’m finding it kind of monotonous. I may just have too short an attention span to be a sweater kind of person. I’m hoping that I’ll feel motivated to do some serious work on it on our next long car trip, whenever that is.
But the fun thing I’ve been doing the last two months is participating in a Crochet Along on Ravelry, a web site for knitters and crocheters, which Rebecca introduced to me. It’s a lot like a Block-a-month quilt project. You crochet an afghan square or two each month and then at the end of the year, you have enough squares for a blanket. The leader of the Crochet Along picks the square each month, and then everyone posts what they are working on, so you get to see lots of different color options. It’s fun! For this one, there are two 12″ squares and a 6″ square option each month. You can do one or all of them, depending on your interest. I’ve been doing one 12″ square and four 6″ squares each month, so far. Here’s a look at what I’ve done. From left to right are my February 12″ square, two of my January 6″ squares (I have two more that are the same as those), and my January 12″ square. I’m working on the February 6″ squares now.
by Nancy
My quilting productivity is inversely proportional to the number of snow days in our school district, so progress has been somewhat slow lately. But I have finished piecing my hat and mittens table cover, quilted it, and sewn the binding on. If all goes well, I’ll blind-stitch the binding to the quilt back tomorrow at Quilting Ladies, and it will be done. Here it is in its nearly done state:
UPDATE: I was able to go to the Quilting Ladies yesterday and got it all done! Yay! Picture to come soon!
Er, as Cathy kindly pointed out, there are fourteen blocks.
A few more blocks:
Darting Minnows:
Gentleman’s Fancy:
Beacon Lights:
Westland: This was an interesting block because the corner squares had to be inserted with a Y-seam. I hadn’t done this in quite a while, so I needed the directions. There was a minor disconnect between the directions on the block page and the directions on page 223-224 about how to stitch that Y-seam. However, no ripping was required, and I think the corners match pretty well.
For the next block, ripping was required. It is Review:
This is Not Review:
This is Review:
I chose Review because I needed a block with larger pieces to show the design in the fabric. It was an easy block to make wrong and an easy block to make right. It doesn’t matter how fabulous the diagrams are if a person doesn’t look at them. And I didn’t.
Here are all nine blocks I’ve finished:
I’ll make one more block. I’m leaning toward Eddystone Light, as suggested by Cathy. It has such a cool name. The first Eddystone Lighthouse began functioning in 1698. It is off the coast of England near Devon. I’ve tried several color schemes, but I haven’t found the right one yet.
The target size for this little quilt is 41 inches by 63 inches. I don’t want to piece the backing. I don’t know what color(s) I will use for sashing and borders, but perhaps this weekend another Crackpot and I can arrange for a fabric store session.
I’m continuing to work on my small quilt. I was going to say lap robe, but that sounds so old ladyish. Anyway, here are the next blocks, in the order I made them.
Goose Tracks (as opposed to Turkey Tracks or Duck Paddle):
Birds In The Air:
Free Trade:
Grandmother’s Favorite (although I have three favorites):
Big T (not Capital T):
Memory Lane:
And here are all but Memory Lane together:
The more discerning viewer will note that there is now a fourth light colored background fabric. It came from our favorite, locally owned fabric store. After a horrible block mishap that had the possibility of causing seizures in vulnerable individuals, it was clear that I needed at least one more quiet fabric. So I got some. You will note also that I have resorted to some fussy cutting, in particular with Grandmother’s Favorite and Big T. I have also strayed off the no smaller than 1/8 inch measurements with Grandmother’s Favorite.
Just a few technical details:
I’m using my 1/4 inch with guide foot. This foot lets me run the fabric right along the guide for a perfect scant 1/4 inch seam. And it works spectacularly well ever since I asked the repair man to move the needle position slightly to the right so the needle goes exactly through the center of the hole (even though he said it wasn’t supposed to be there).
I’m using a #11 quilting needle.
I’ve only broken one needle. To use the 1/4 inch food with guide, the needle needs to be in the center position. When I turn the machine off, the needle defaults to the left position. I forgot that once.
I’m using Gutermann polyester (gasp!) thread. It’s a medium tan.
I’ve been quite determined to use a fabric scrap at the beginning and end of each batch of chain stitching pieces. Fons and Porter emphasize this, and it has worked well. I knew that, but I didn’t always do it.
The only times I’ve pinned pieces together are when I sew the large sections of each block together. So far, not using many pins is working well.
This little project has shown again what a great book Marsha McCloskey’s Block Party is. The directions are clear and complete, and there are several diagrams for each block. Even info about which direction to press the seams is included. I was feeling a little rusty, and I haven’t made any major errors (well, except for the broken needle and the horrible block mishap which didn’t have anything to do with the book or the instructions).
By Nancy
I think this may be the second Crackpot project made using fabric (the striped one) Lorene gave us at Thanksgiving. I want to make a table covering for the table which is right inside our front door. Currently it still has a fall leaf applique on it, so I’d like to get caught up on the correct season. 🙂 These are the three blocks I’ve made, and now I need to put them together with some setting triangles and a border…
I started working on this in January, 2003:
I finished the hand quilting during and after All Together Week this summer, so all that was left was the binding, which I sewed on a couple of weekends ago and have been finishing off ever since. I still need to put the hanging sleeve and the label on the back (and wash it, because it is covered in cat hair!) but it’s finished enough to show in public!
