20th finish for 2017

The gray and pink herringbone quilt is done! Yeah! It turned out 42 1/2" x 53 1/4". I used a gray Aurfil thread for the top and Connecting Threads silver in the bobbin. My go to batting is Warm & Natural.

I had been cleaning up my fabric storage room a bit at a time over the last couple of weeks especially with digging around looking for every pink fabric I had. I saw that I had this bin of batting pieces.

I wonder how many baby quilts would I be able to make using up what is in this bin? I will sort thru them and start sewing the pieces together to find out the answer to that question! Those scraps of batting add up to some money already spent so I need to use it.

Don't forget to sign up today on Trisch Price's blog for a chance to win an ebook of Rayna Gillman's new book

You can submit a comment for a chance to win on all the different stops on this blog tour until Dec. 8.



Friday, November 10

C&T Blog

http://www.ctpub.com/blog/create-your-own-improv-quilts-blog-tour-kickoff/


Monday, November 13

Cindy Grisdela

https://www.cindygrisdela.com/blog


Wednesday, November 15

Teri Lucas, Generation Q Magazine

https://terificreations.com/


Tuesday, November 21

Desiree Habicht

http://www.desireehabicht.com/blog


Tuesday, November 28

Victoria Findlay Wolfe

https://vfwquilts.com/


Thursday, November 30

Trisch Price

www.hadleystreetquilts.com


Tuesday, December 5

Melissa Shields

www.quiltingroomwithmel.com/


Thursday, December 7

Patty Altier

http://pattythequiltlady.blogspot.com

Half day vacation?

The weather is beautiful in NE Ohio for this time of the year. It was in the low 60's yesterday so it was time to take a half day vacation and get some outside work done. I bought these screen gutter covers earlier this year but didn't install them.

I wanted to replace the gutter covers that are on the house as the plastic is disintegrating. After about 2 hours of messing around trying to get these installed on the garage where I can reach with a ladder, this is what I ended up with - four inches short! I think the measurements for the pieces didn't include that there was an 1" overlap and that is why I was short!

These were not easy to install and I had to mess with them to get them screwed to the gutter. I was so mad I ended up going with Plan B which was to take the screens off and install Gutter Brush.

I had bought a box of Gutter Brush awhile ago, but now I will have to buy more to do the house. As far as I am concerned Mike Holmes can take his endorsed screen and shove them where the sun doesn't shine!!! I boxed the screens and screws back up and it will go in the donation pile for the Habitat resale store.

Next I needed to clean up one of the flower beds. The day lilies had died back and there were some dead weeds had needed to be removed.

I also needed to remove this over gown Alberta spruce. I have a electric chain saw so I used that to cut it down.

I needed the wheelbarrow to haul the spruce to the compost pile. I had forgotten I had tossed some vinca I had salvaged in the wheelbarrow so I had to plant what had survived before I could use the wheelbarrow.

As I hauled the spruce to the back I hauled a load of sweet peat from the back to the flower bed. Two loads of very wet sweet peat and the front looked much better. There is no way I could get the stump out so I drilled some holes in it, poured some bleach on it, and I will wait until spring to see if I can get it out.

I was getting tired by this point but I had one more job to do. See this empty spot in the garage?

I now have a paper towel holder. My brother gave me a huge pack of paper towels that he salvaged from a house he was helping to empty. The only issue with the towels is they have a musty smell so I won't be using them in the house, but they make perfect garage towels for checking oil, etc.

By 4 p.m. I was tired so I headed inside to get something to eat. I need to learn to pace myself better because I could only think about doing any sewing. I was up early this morning and got the binding partly sewn on the gray and pink herringbone quilt. I will get it trimmed and stitched tonight.

Now that is what I call a vacation! LOL!!! I plan on taking another half day today. I need to get as much cleared out of the living room as I can so I can finish painting it before the floor guy comes. I also need to move out all I can out of the bedrooms too so there will be many trips up and down the steps this afternoon.

AHIQ monthly report and my a busy four days!

First, I have to thank Hilda and Vicki of http://www.colorwaysbyvicki.com/ for their help yesterday to get the links live for the blog tour of Rayna Gillman's new book Create your own Improv Quilts". Today you can leave a comment on Victoria Findlay Wolfe's blog http://bumblebeansinc.blogspot.com/ thru Dec. 8th for a chance to win an electronic copy of Rayna's book.

My four day weekend involved sewing, lots of cleaning, laundry, and a bit of shopping. I will write about the sewing! Lately I have been making herringbone quilts which is not improv piecing, but left with lots of small pieces and with trying to start using up my mountain of scraps I decided to dig out the pink scraps to see what I had to work with. I think this fits into the spirit of the AHIQ philosophy of using what you have. I had leftover 6 1/2" blocks from making zig zag quilts and it was time to put them on the design wall to see how many I had. I did find some strips of pink and Kona snow that were in the box so it was time to sew those together and cut blocks.

Then there is almost always a dab left of the strip so I found a bunch of those in the scrap box and cut 5 1/2" blocks for another baby quilt.

I found a few pieces of leftover binding just big enough to sew into a block and cut at either 5 6 1/2" or 5 1/2".

I continued finding scraps, sewing them with the Kona snow, and trimming them into blocks. By the end of the day Friday I had three step zig zag baby quilt tops. I got one of them sewn together Sunday and here they are:

With all of this effort sewing bits and pieces together to make blocks, the scrap box still looks about the same - FULL! It is going to take some serious sewing to make a dent in my scrap pile! I did find some other little gems aka scraps in the scrap pile that I plan on making into baby quilts.

I did mostly on-line shopping for stuff for myself this weekend. The sales were too good to pass up! I don't spend much money on clothes, but it was time to get a few new things including a couple shirts and pants that were 30% to 40% off and free shipping. Superior had discounted their King Tut because they are changing colors around. The cones were 30% off so I bought a blue for when I get into making blue baby quilts and the darker colors for t-shirts quilts. Of course I bought enough I got free shipping too!

I did breakdown and go to a brick and mortar store. JoAnn's had embroidery floss on sale so I stocked up for my next t-shirt quilt for the High Art Prize.

I got a few one yard pieces of flannel. I have been trying to use up what flannel I have, but I need just a bit more to make a decent sized quilt.

Then I got a bit of this Cleveland Indians fabric just because.

I have the gray and pink herringbone quilt quilted. I used a light gray thread. Tonight I will work on binding it

My birthday was earlier this month and yesterday I got a present from my sister with a beautiful card. She knows how like minions so now I have a minion Xmas ornament! She bought us matching bracelets. I will think of her every time I wear it.

Exciting news! Blog tour giveaway!

I am behind on posting about this and I still have some kinks to work out, but here we go. Rayna Gillman has a new book out titled Create your own improv quilts.

It is a very informative and inspirational read, and one of my quilts was used in the book! Rayna asked me to be part of the blog tour giveaway and of course I said yes! Farther down in this post is the list of participants in the blog tour. Now here is where I need help. No matter what I have tried I can't get the links to the participants to be live. I really need to get this solved by the time it is my turn which is December 7. So anyone out there if you can give me a hand I would so appreciate it!


In the meantime the blog tour has just begun and you have until December 8, 2017 to sign up at each blog stop for a chance to win an ebook copy of Rayna’s wonderful book! I will post on December 7 my quilt that was part of the book. This is the first time a quilt of mine has been in a book so I am over the moon excited and grateful to Rayna.



Friday, November 10

C&T Blog

http://www.ctpub.com/blog/create-your-own-improv-quilts-blog-tour-kickoff/


Monday, November 13

Cindy Grisdela

https://www.cindygrisdela.com/blog


Wednesday, November 15

Teri Lucas, Generation Q Magazine

https://terificreations.com/


Tuesday, November 21

Desiree Habicht

http://www.desireehabicht.com/blog


Tuesday, November 28

Victoria Findlay Wolfe

https://vfwquilts.com/


Thursday, November 30

Trisch Price

www.hadleystreetquilts.com


Tuesday, December 5

Melissa Shields

www.quiltingroomwithmel.com/


Thursday, December 7

Patty Altier

http://pattythequiltlady.blogspot.com

Progress on the gray and pink top

I got the top trimmed, the backing pieced, and the batting cut. The quilt is now ready for me to pin baste it.

I don't have confirmed plans for my four days off for Thanksgiving. I could be helping my son move, I should try and get some painting done around the house before the guy comes to refinish my floors 12/11/17, and I need to travel to the town where my parents house was to pick up from the neighbor a couple items the neighbor bought at an auction for me. The Universe has seen that my Dad's mother's treadle machine will be back in the family so I must go get it. Of course, I want to do a bit of sewing. So far I have not been invited to dinner Thanksgiving, but I did buy the fixings to make a cheesecake just in case. I should make a pecan pie and take it to my brother as I owe him one for his birthday with was 10/31/17. I had that nasty cold so there was no way I was baking.

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Another top almost done

I had plenty of dark pieces cut and as I was going thru my scraps I put in a separate pile some gray, pink, and white prints that I used several years ago. I decided to cut up what I had left and use it in this next herringbone quilt. I had to piece several of the fabrics together to get a big enough scrap to cut to size so I would have enough of the grays for this top.

Tonight I will trim it and get it pin basted together.

19th finish for 2017 and R.I.P. Malcolm Young

I started out the weekend by mowing the back yard. It was like a hayfield. It took me over and hour to get it done. That was hard work and I was tired! It looks so much better. I needed to get it done before the rain rolled in on Saturday. While I was mowing there was a big buck having lunch, but my mowing didn't seem to bother him. After all he is used to mowers since he is a city deer! I couldn't get a picture of him.
Before

After

I finished another herringbone quilt and here it is. It finished 42" x 52 1/2". I had a awful time with my quilting thread breaking when I was free motion quilting this. I am still not sure what the issue was, but I kept at it and got 'er done!

I have the next one on the design wall and I will show you it tomorrow.

Saturday Malcolm Young passed away. He was one of the founders and rhythm guitar player for the band AC/DC. You know how much I love AC/DC; after all I spent a good part of 2016 making that art quilt with AC/DC t shirts. Malcolm had left the band three years ago due to dementia and that is what caused his death. R.I.P Malcolm Young. Say hi to Bon for all of us.

Top done and how I trim the herringbone quilt tops

Another herringbone top done! Yeah! It turned out 42 3/4" x 53 3/4" which is about the size I was aiming for. This size will be just right for baby quilts and so I can use regular width quilting cotton for the backing.

I thought I would show you how I trim the herringbone tops. First I trim off the triangles on one side. I have two cutting mats lined up end to end, I have my 72" metal ruler, and two bricks wrapped in fabric. I lay the quilt out nice and flat and I line the ruler up along the staggered edge. You have to be careful not to stretch the top since your outside edges will be on the bias so easy going on the smoothing!

Here is a close up of how I align the ruler

Now sometimes if the pieces grow a bit in the sewing process so the ruler is not always at the very edge of the triangles you will be cutting off. I recheck to make sure the quilt top is laying flat and if it looks good I just go ahead and cut.

The metal ruler I am using is an 1/8" thick and 2" wide so the rotary cutter glides along for a nice cut. The bricks hold down the ends so the ruler doesn't slide. I also use my left hand to hold the ruler as I cut. I bought the ruler at Home Depot - no I am not sponsored by them. Lowes had a similar ruler but it was made in China and the markings were painted on. The Empire ruler was made in the USA. It cost me less than $15.00 and I use it all the time along with my 60" metal ruler which I bought years and years ago.

I turn the quilt and trim off the other side. You can measure from the cut edge to the edge you are going to cut to make sure the width is consistent.

Now I have a nice pile of triangles to make HSTs!

Next I trim the bottom of the quilt top. I use my metal ruler along with my big 24 1/2" square plastic ruler to try and get the cut as straight as possible. When you only have two points of reference for this cut, lining the square ruler along the side helps a lot!

I turn the quilt top around and cut the top. Here I only have one point of reference so again I use the big square ruler to get a straight cut.

I guess I didn't need to add this piece on! LOL!!!

I will then fold the quilt in half and check to make sure that it is squared up ok. I have been off a bit on one of the other two tops so I just trimmed on a tiny bit to make sure the top was nicely squared up. The bottom line these are just giveaway baby quilts and they don't have to be perfect, but I still want to do a good job on them and not end up with something way out of whack. I hope this helps!

So you know I will be working on finishing this quilt this weekend and probably putting another one up on the design wall. I have a bunch of 4.4" x 16.5" pieces of pink that are leftover so another herringbone top will be made.

Have a great weekend!