D's Stars finally finished!!

It's DONE!!! Meeting up with Jackie tomorrow evening for dinner then off to D's work. She's been told not to take her break until her mom gets there. She still has no clue about this quilt lol! Sunday afternoon I dropped in on my parents with the quilt as soon as it was out of the dryer. They've seen and heard about this quilt thoughout the process and wanted to show them the final product before I gave it away. Pictures were taken at their house.

As I mentioned last post, I ripped the binding off D's Stars a few times. I'd had enough with this binding so I scrapped it and started fresh. I had a few hiccups with the fresh binding as well. I found that my space felt awkward and was fighting to feed it though straight. I used my 90's singer for the binding, while I used my old 1948 Singer for piecing and my powerquilter for quilting. What was different, well its a different table, my ironing board was right behind me, I was on the rolling chair instead of my usual smaller chair and my table had my bobbin winder and some fabric piled all over the place. Hmm something to think about...

With D's Stars finished it's time to get moving on MT's Layers of Charm quilt. Again, I have a short deadline (see Big News below). I've decided to start with stich in the ditch then figure it out from there. I'm fretting over the binding now which is a switch, it's usually the quilting I'm stressing over.

Big News -MT and I spent Saturday together, he needed to sign his lease and took the opportunity to show me his apartment. It's tiny but we'll laid out, clean and secure. We did some running around looking at furniture, we found a beautiful couch but at 1500, this was his entire furnishing budget so we are going to keep looking. We did have some luck at Home Outfitters, he got a vacuum, the Henckel knife set he wanted, some pots and pans. He loves to cook and they had a major sale so it was a real score  He gets the keys on the 29th but officially moves in April 2nd. I have Friday the 25th off for Stat holiday and booked the following Monday and Tuesday months ago for 'me' days. Tuesday is the day he gets his keys. He's planning to take the day off as well so we can prep (unpack his kitchen stuff, hang curtains) and checkout Ikea to hopefully find a couch and some last minute things (dish rack, cutting boards, excetera) I'll be honest I'm not sure I'm ready but he is, so its time to let him fly.

Did I mention his room will be my new sewing/office. 16x19 room with big windows for natural light. I have tons of ideas but want to do this on a shoestring budget. More on this later.

Last but not least, while out with Martin on Saturday, I was finally able to make my way back to Michaels and picked up the second last Happy Planner they had on the shelves. Crazy! I bought the expansion pack and added March - June (planner goes July 2016 -December 2017). The paper and lifestyle expansions which has sections for recipies, budget, will need to go another Micheals to buy the larger rings (my local store was sold out).

Binding blues

Thursday night I was supposed to baste and start quilting D's stars. Instead I added another row. What was I thinking??  In all honesty Chris came home looked at it and said what I been pretending not to see - it looked uneven. 6x5 rows not 6x6 that I'd originally planned. Why the change,  because my batting which was supposed to be 60 by 60 wasn't - it was short in one direction so when I realized that it wouldn't fit I stopped making the joining pieces for that row and put the extra patches and corners to the side. With everything cut and ready to go that last row went together quickly.

Got up early on Friday and got the backing ready before work and was spray basted using a trimmed down queen size batting I had in my stash during my lunch hour. After work started quilting, I was on a roll until  around 11 when something felt off. I took a peak at the underside of the quilt and discovered a big wrinkle. Stitch ripping until 1:30 am. There was still a slight wrinkle but much better. Picked it back up first thing Saturday morning, it was ready for binding at 2 pm.... there was no way I could bind and wash/dry the quilt in under 2 hours. I'm a bit bummed I didn't get it done by Saturday night but also happy that I get to spend a bit more time with this quilt. I play with the idea of making another exactly the same to keep for myself but I think I need to work on something else.

Sunday was a lazy day. I did get some of the binding done, ripped, done and ripped gain. I don't know why it's just not working for me. Alarm set early tomorrow again. Hopefully I can figure it out before work at 8

Deadline looming & Panic has set in

D's stars top is finally finished. Now the quilting begins. I have until mid Saturday afternoon to get it basted, quilted, bound and washed/dryed. No pressure lol! Honestly, spray basting, stitch in the ditch so no measuring, marking or over thinking and binding by machine doesn't take that long so it's doable... Right?? Dinner is at their place so no prep work or extra running around on on my end. I can do this, I can do this. ..

I did find sometime to get to Michaels last week to see if they had received The Happy Planner. The shelves were bare, they are currently getting all new stock. I was told to come back in a week after their next shipment.

I was procrastinating itching to do some EPP one evening last week so I made a quick hexie pin cushion. As you can see by all the holes already in it, I put it to good use with D's Stars. I'm also thinking of starting a leader/ender quilt. Those little scrap pieces sure do fill up fast to keep away the thread trails/nests, may as well keep a basket of 2.5 inch squares to use instead and get an extra quilt out of it. :)

Planners - do they work?

This past weekend did not go as I originally envisioned it (I thought I'd get D's Stars closer to the quilting stage). Excuses, excuses I know but I was on call at work last week. Upgrades late Friday night and pages at 4:30 am on Saturday morning I was functioning on less than 4 hours of sleep, after running downstairs and checking it out I was awake for the day. Quite a bit kid chauffeuring to work and back, Chris was working OT. I was  feeling ill all day and barely functional by 6pm. Sunday was running around with oldest daughter M.

One thing I was looking for was a planner. I'm feeling so disorganized and have little bits and pieces of my life scattered everwhere. I'm looking for a way to track my life in one spot. I don't update my blog regularly, I don't upload doodles or notes and don't use it for other parts of my life so it's a disjointed way of tracking and a very limited piece of my life.  I went to Staples and they didn't have what I was looking for in the size I wanted. There were a few bigger planners but they were hourly which was not the format I was looking for and were just shy of $100 - thats a lot of money for something that really isn't what I was looking for. I thought about making one, but that's a lot of work. I bought a cheap small weekly planner to use until I get/find what I'm looking for.

Taking my search online, I found The Happy Planner series (create 365) through Amazon and that got me thinking about Late Night Quilters - Quilters Plannner  I think Stephanie Palmer did a beautiful job on this, seeing that they are sold out (again) I'd say a lot of quilters agree. Each have their pros and cons, but I'm leaning towards the 365. The reason is - it's expandable. The way I envision my planner is almost scrapbook like, I want to capture pictures of projects or ideas, recipes, fitness tracking, etc and be able to insert it into the week. The 365 is also very reasonably priced (24.99). With our currency issues and shipping costs from US that it can be bought in Canada using CA Dollars through Michaels or Amazon is a major plus in its favour. It also has accessories such as extra pages, page protectors, (even a hole punch) so that you can insert any pages or extras easily. I did not see the price of the Quilt planner but I'm looking forward to see how it evolves.

One con I read in the reviews about the Happy Planner is that disc system is a bit flimsy when stuffing it in and out of the reviewers purse. I did take this into consideration and since I work from home and rarely travel it would be a fairly stationary item in my life and shouldn't be a big problem for me.

Current planner is 18 month July 2105-Dec 2016, while looking at their site I started scrolling through the blog saw they are launching their 2016-2017 planners (there are so many different options) Mar 1st.... I swear sometimes the timing of things I think the universe has a blinking Neon sign pointing the direction for me to go (or maybe just having a cosmic laugh at my expense with giving me hope I might actually get my *stuff* together) - I really hope its the former!

One of the Michaels stores in my area has the 2015-2016 planner and they are on sale right now. I will be making my way out this week to check it out.

No pictures this week but hopefully I will have some progress with pictures soon!

Derailed by Quick threading needles

Ok derailed is a bit extreme, more like had an obstacle thrown in my path...

D's stars is continuing to come together but a few weeks ago I noticed some of the sections threads were loose at edges and there were missed stitches. I figured out after lots of wasted time fiddling it was the new needle I put in when I started this quilt (actually Chris figured it out for me). Apparently at some point I had bought quick threading needles. In my troubleshooting I had replaced the needle but grabbed from the same pkg of needles. I was threading it normally and never noticed the slot just above the eye. Anyway my old Singer was not happy, it was unthreading and then rethreading as it sewed a stitch or two later but wasn't consitent and on quick glance I didn't notice it. Dug out a pkg of 'regular' needles and have been checking each section the last few weeks and it's all been good. I've reinforced seams that I thought looked even the slightest sketchy as I come across them but how many did I miss before I discovered the problem?? At the time I had fallen down the rabbit hole far enough in that starting over just wasn't happening. Quilting is going to be an overall stitch in the ditch. That wasn't my original plan but I really hope this will be enough to reinforce any missed areas so the quilt doesn't fall apart after a few washes.

It doesn't look like much progress since last post but it's coming together. I'm more organized in the back end for the stars which is the biggest time consumer but I admit it's been slow going

The past few days I've been watching The Splendid Sampler blocks pop up in my Fb feed and there are so many creative people out there. A lot of quilters are making tiny tweaks to the blocks or fussy cutting with fabric I'd never think to use. It's really incredible how people can take the same pattern as 15000 + others and mark it with their own special flare! I'm loving this group. I didn't jump right on the 2nd or 3rd blocks, with work and D's birthday less than 3 weeks away that has been my priority. I'm hoping to take some time and catch up (4th block will be released tomorrow)

This weekend marks a 3 year & a 17 year journey

This long weekend (Monday is Family Day in Ontario) marks my quilting journey and blog's anniversary weekend. Pictured is the first block I made. Valentines weekend also marks 17 years since Chris and my first date. I probably should have led with that....

First picture of us March ' 99

Chris & my lives crisscrossed so many times before we actually met its bizarre. I won't get into it here or this post would be a short novel but it's surprising that we hadn't met years before. Long story short - we met through mutual friends. Although we were both divorced at this point, we weren't introduced as potential dates for each other. He was doing me a favor by taking a look at my broken computer. Once he got it running with a new hard drive, I asked what I owed him and his reply was 'Dinner?' Not sure if you can see his blue eyes and dimples in the picture but how could I turn those down with such a smooth request? We had beer & take out pizza and watched Blade on VHS.

9 years later we married (8 years in May). We've had bumps and baggage (some mine, some his) to overcome along the way and still stumble on occasion but it's our road and one I'd take with him over & over again.

Picture is about a month after our first date.

Now back to quilting. I still remember the nervousness that first Saturday making the log cabin block with my very small Ebay/Walmart stash (a handful of fq's) using the kitchen table as my work-space. I was so worried that it was going to be a disaster. Other than not loving the fabric I was so proud of that block. Wanting to make more from the Sewn by Leila skill-builder-sampler I rushed to the LQS that afternoon and bought my first jellyroll of Batiks. I worked all weekend completing 5 more blocks by Monday night. I was hooked and Chris was looking for a place to move my sewing mess work-space LOL. And here ends my trips down memory lane ...

Saturday I concentrated on D's stars. I'll be honest as much as I love this pattern and how it's turning out, its slow going & I was beginning to panic. Part of the issue is watching Netflix while quilting, if I'm not interested in the show it goes OK, but if it's something I like, more watching then sewing/cutting/ironing is happening. This weekend I tried something different. I turned YouTube on the tv and picked a favorite band, cranked the volume loud enough so I could hear over the sewing machine and let it loop through the upbeat familiar songs. Wow! I think I found my quilting groove!   It looks like a mess in the picture but there is actually a method to my madness. I will be working on this tomorrow (Monday)

Today, I was away from the sewing room most of the day (family time) but I was able to squeeze in first block of The Splendid Sampler which was released this morning. My youngest R helped me pick which fabric to use. She loved all the 1930's reproduction fabrics and after some wrangling on her part, this quilt will be hers with the understanding that it will be a year in the making. That being the case, Farmers Wife revival quilt which I'm still itching to get started on will probably be M's. This doesn't mean I'm off the hook for their other quilts, I just get to make them lap size instead (and with the added bonus R offered to help me finish making hers - unsolicited quality time with my 18 yr old daughter outside of a mall... I feel like I fell into a pot of gold!!!). Maybe once M see's her sister helping she'll offer to work on hers with me as well - one can dream right!?! ;) . I will have to come up with some boys quilts as well... though I'm not so unrealistic to think they will be offering to work on it with me unless there was a way to put working electronics/car parts in it. LOL

Back to D's stars tomorrow. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend (or continues to for those with a long weekend)

Figuring it out

After my last post I couldn't get the idea that the Splendid Sampler needs patterned fabric out of my head and wondered if I could find a bundle that mached what I was envisioning.

See what I found!! 1930's Reproductions in 10 FQ bundle pack. I'm really hoping that the fabric choices are comparable with what is currently in stock in 1930's selection on the website. I know it's a crap shoot but this whole sampler is a complete mystery so maybe this is the right way to go... or maybe not. Time will tell. I also picked up a few mini bolts. I didn't go Black instead went for Charcoal & picked up another White and Snow (these have become staples in my sewing room). Orders rarely take more than a few days from this store so my pkg should arrive just in time for the first block. So here is the plan until I change my mind again, white as background, charcoal as my dark and a mix of patterned and solids for the medium. A few hours later basking in my purchase I realized I messed up on the previous calculations ...we need a total of 30-35 FQ's total for Splendid Sampler so if I bought all 35 FQ's that would have been $175 + tax. I'm still happy with my purchase and can't wait for next Sunday!

Farmers wife quilt revival 1st pattern ordered and received. I really am itching to work on this but D's Stars needed some TLC first.

Saturday I was in the sewing room by noon. Turned on home reno shows and got moving. Sunday, I was able to put some time before the Superbowlers arrived but its slow going. Now that I've got a bunch of the squares for the stars cut it should move a bit faster right? I really like the way this is turning out! There is one seam that slightly puckered and am probably going to rip it before I join to the next section..

I think this will be rows of 5×5. Other than MT's quilt this is the first time I've made a quilt larger than the 45 x 60 batting size allowed.  Up until last summer I thought pre packaged batting only came in craft, baby, queen and king sized only. I'd buy my batting at Fabricland when they had 50% off sales and thats the size Warm & Natural comes in. Fast forward to last summer when the LQS had a sale on batting. What do I see lap sized batting 60 x 60. After much discussion I bought bamboo batting. So it leaves the question are all the quilts I've made actually considered baby quilts? What makes a lap quilt?

On the to do list this week, buy two binders, clear binder sheet protctors to keep the patterns organized and get farmers wife book spiral bound.