Unique Featherweight

Ok, I bet you have never seen a water powered featherweight sewing machine. My daughter had to do a science fair project and needed help coming up with ideas. We were tossing a lot of them around and I think I was the one that came up with a water powered sewing machine. I was really joking but she liked the idea and this is what her and her dad put together with a water wheel on the side.

I don't know if you could actually sew with it but they did manage to get the needle to go up and down anyway.

Kathie L.

Last Charity Quilting of 2009

I wanted to get one more charity quilt top quilted before the end of 2009 so pulled this one out the other day and got it quilted up. It is a really cute quilt made by Elsie out of a center panel with a few borders.

This is the 23rd charity quilt I have quilted in 2009. Most of them have been for hospice but other charities have been included also including Project Linus, Quilts for Kids and a Breast Cancer fund raiser quilt.

I don't remember what the goal was I set for myself the beginning of the year (will have to check back to January on my blog) but I am sure this number exceeded that.

Kathie L.

Design Wall Monday

I am just starting on a new quilt for our living room so the only thing on the design wall so far is some of the fabrics I have for it so far. The pattern is called Monet's Wedding Ring by Judy Martin.

Our living room is dark so I am using darker fabrics than I usually do and hopefully it won't show all the black cat hair that ends up all over everything. I still need more fat quarters for this. I did shop my stash but since these are not my usual colors I need to go shopping.

Kathie

Christmas

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Christmas.

We had a great day. We were invited to Christmas brunch at Mandy's boyfriends house. What nice people and great food. They had every kind of breakfast food you could imagine.

Since my mother has been gone it is usually just the three of us at holidays so it was a nice change to be part of a huge chaotic gathering.

I did use some of my Christmas presents yesterday, a strip cutter and a new large cutting mat to start cutting fabric that will be a quilt for our living room. I am going to make a pattern called Monet's Wedding Ring that I saw in a book two or three years ago. It looks like pretty easy piecing but boy what a lot of little pieces. Since I am going to make it scrappy it will take a long time just to get it cut out and ready to sew so I am going to work on that a little at a time between other projects.

Kathie

Charity Sewing Day

This was my result from my husband and my charity sewing day. These were the blocks given to me by Betty that I took apart, rearranged and sewed together.

The border I added was not a perfect match but I was trying to use what I had. This fabric had "aged" for a long time. It was fabric left over from pilgram skirt that was made for my daughter when she was in the 4th grade. She is now a sophmore in high school!!!

At least I have now seen the last of that fabric.

This top is now folded up and on my charity shelf waiting to be quilted.

kathie

Ed's Quilt

My husband is off from work this week and enjoying having nothing that he has to do. Yesterday he decided to put the borders on this little quilt that he started several weeks ago. I was given a drawing where you sew squares together, cut it into three sections and flip it around and by magic all the squares are now on point.

He thought it looked interesting so tried it with a stack of 5 inch squares that had been donated by someone to the guild for charity quilts.

With a couple of borders added it turned into a cute little quilt that will be donated either to hospice or to the nursing home project the guild is doing.

Kathie

I won

At the craft co-op where I have some of my quilts they recently made up a raffle basket. Everyone added items to the basket and raffle tickets were sold to help pay for expenses at the mill where we sell our crafts. They didn't say anything about members not being able to participate so I purchased a ticket last friday.

This morning I got a call and to my surprise I won the basket. There were lots of hand made ornaments in the basket, a kitchen towel that fastens over the handle of the oven, a Santa for the wall, a can of nuts, a couple small candles and several other things.

What a nice surprise.

This afternoon I spent some time working on that quilt that was given to me. I have the center part all together and now working on the borders. I need to get something on the frame but am having fun doing a little piecing the last couple of days.

Kathie

Design Wall Monday

Judy L. always posts what is on her design wall every monday. I never seem to have anything on it then. Either I finished up what I was working on over the weekend or have not started anything new.

For once I have something kind of interesting on my design wall.

A few months ago we had a workshop at my one guild doing the 9 patch Pizzazz quilts. I finished up mine and it is a Christmas present for my step daughter. Betty started on a quilt but then didn't like the way it was turning out and said she would never finish it. I told her to give it to someone that would finish it instead of just tossing it so she gave it to me last week.

I took a lot of the sections apart, cut a few more solid squares and started sewing it back together yesterday. Once it is together I will have to see if I can find anything for a border to make it a little bit bigger and then it will be added to my stack of quilt tops to quilt and donate to hospice.

Thanks Betty, I am sure someone will appreciate this quilt.

Kathie

Snowy Maryland

I promised my friend in Texas that I would take pictures of our snow storm for her. The pictures of the deck railing were taken yesterday but all the snow fell. We ended up with about 15 inches of snow, not near as bad as some areas.

The other pictures taken were this morning. A lot of the snow blew off the trees in heavy wind last night but it is so pretty outside. Well it was pretty until we had to start working on the driveway. I think next year we better buy a snow blower, we are getting to old for this.

I did get a couple batches of cookies made yesterday and also pieced together this top that will eventually get donated to our local hospice.

Kathie L.

Weekend

Southern Maryland is getting hit hard by snow today so won't be leaving the house for the weekend. No problem, I am done shopping and don't mind staying in. I feel sorry for all the businesses, including the craft co-op that I am at as they count on this weekends sales.

I had to run out the other day and pick up a santa hat for my daughter to wear when they danced at a nursing home on monday. Same day she landed wrong leaping and has a sprained knee so no dancing for awhile.

Back to some sewing and baking cookies (extra credit for school!!!).

Kathie L.

Back to Sewing

I actually had some time to sew yesterday and didn’t know what to work on, do have that problem?

I finally found a bag that had some string blocks in it that several of us had made at a charity sew -in MONTHS ago. These were all done in guy type of colors with blue center strings.




I decided to pair them with cream squares and then cut them on the diagonal. Thought that it would make the pieced blocks go further and that it would be a new twist (for me) to string blocks. I then started to play around with them a bit on the design wall.





I ran out of blocks for what I originally wanted to do but this is what I came up with. I usually have to have things symmetrical so this is a big change for me but I think I like the look.

I will probably let it age a little on the design wall and see if I still like it before I start sewing it together.


This will be another hospice top to add to my stack that needs to be quilted. I must make that my goal for early 2010 to get a bunch of those quilted up. Even a quick meander on a few would get them done.

Kathie

Parties

Our guild party last night was a lot of fun. Games, friends and of course lots of good food. Both of my guilds and my bee all had gift exchanges. I think I will probably only participate in one or two next year, three gets time consuming to do all the shopping and a little expensive.

I did gets lots of goodies over the three parties. Here is a picture of all the sewing related items. In addition to all of this I also received a really cute cassarole dish.

One of the things here I have never seen before was turnovers. Now I have heard of jelly rolls, layer cakes etc. but never a turnover. These triangles are all of very pretty pastel fabrics. I am thinking of pairing them with cream or maybe a pale pink solid triangle and then figuring it out from there.

I also got two seam rippers, is someone trying to tell me something!!! I was glad to see these as this way I can put one in my "sew in" box that I take with me and have another extra when I replace my other one (which I do often).

kathie

Done, Done, Done

Finished the last of my Christmas shopping this morning. Bought some nice things this year but didn't go overboard on anyone. Used plastic as it is just so much quicker than standing there writing out a check but will pay them off as soon as the bill comes in.

This afternoon I am going to concentrate on wrapping packages. I have about half done already so hope to get the rest of them finished today. It would be nice to have that all done and behind me and start thinking about the next quilt project.

Tonight is my quilt guild Christmas party. Since I belong to two guilds and one sewing bee this is the third and last party.

Kathie

Done

After lots of tension problems yesterday I got the last customer quilt done. I still have a few others here but nothing that has been promised for Christmas. Now I am going to take a couple of days to get some cleaning (yuck) and other things done around the house, finish my shopping and rest my knee.

By monday I might be ready to pop something else on the frame but right now resting up for a couple of days sounds pretty good.

I work 3 days in the next week at the crafters co-op so I will be busy anyway but it won't be at the frame. I was only scheduled to work two of those days but a couple of people had medical emergencies so I needed to take another day.

I am hoping now my rush is over with that I will be able to start working on various projects and will again have some pictures to blog about.

Kathie

The End is Near

I am a happy camper today. I only have one more customer quilt to do that I promised for Christmas. Still have a few other quilts and I might get to one or two more but no more that were promised. My goal was to have everything done by the 15th so I am going to be a couple days ahead of schedule.

The owner of a quilt shop I was in the other day said she would be doing customer quilts right up till Christmas Eve. No, not for me. There is so much to do this time of year for your own family and own function that I am not going to drive myself more crazy by taking on to much.

In addition I have been having knee problems so have been trying to baby my knee a bit and take lots of breaks while quilting. I am looking forward to a few days of resting it.

Kathie L.

All in the fabric

It always amazes me that using different fabrics makes a quilt look totally different. In classes I have taken where everyone is making the same quilt they always look totally different with the different styles of fabrics and different placements.

Here is a quilt that I recently quilted for Jane. The piecing is very simple with 9-patch blocks, rail fence blocks and solid blocks but didn't her "Ocean Quilt" turn out nice. It was all in the wonderful fabrics she collected for this, it gives it an elegant feel. Now picture this same quilt in Christmas fabrics or maybe 1930's prints........... it would not be the same quilt at all.

kathie

Craft Shows

I did my last craft show of the season yesterday at our local Navy Base. It was my 3rd show. The first was outstanding and better than the last couple of years. The second one and the show yesterday were a little disappointing but averaged out I made about the same amount as I did last year so thats fine.

Since I still have a space at the local craft co-op I am hoping that most of the rest of my Christmas table runners will be sold in the next couple of weeks.

Now I am going to take time to get my Christmas shopping done in addition to finishing up all the customer quilts I have promised for Christmas.

Kathie