Halloween

I've had this wonderful pattern for a Halloween quilt for a couple of years and I decided that this year I would make it, just for me! It's different from my normal quilts: lots of applique and embroidery, but it's way cute. So off I go, I even started early enough - or so I thought August. It only had 5 major blocks, not so big so surely I could get those done. So I started on the first block. It turned out great, but it took a lot

longer than I thought to get it done. The cat on the roof is really cute though and was worth all the time and effort so off I went on to the next blocks sure that I would still make deadline. And maybe I would have if life hadn't intervened. Why does stuff like that have to happen? I forget that I don't have 4-5 hours a day to devout to quilting every single day. The other blocks have gotten done. See them below.

So you can see these blocks came out cuter than cute and I love all of them, but they took me gosh darn forever. You do not want to know how long it took to blanket stitch around each one of those fence posts.  However it's worth it. Now that the main blocks are done it's time to finish off the quilt. I thought that would be quick. That's what I get for thinking. It is now well past Halloween. I will finish this quilt. I happen to really like it. But it is driving me crazy. I discovered that there were 2 more blocks, plus corner blocks, not to mention the border. Oh yes the border -  I mean for crying out loud today alone I cut out 14 bats for the border. The person who designed this is just crackin' up. Easy quilt! Sure it's easy, but it will take them 2 years at least! Ha ha ha! 

 I guess Halloween and trick or treat can sa(y) quilts right?

 

My Helper

Every once in a while, or maybe quite a lot depending on the day, I require some help. In quilting that usually means that I'm scrambling to look something up in one of my many quilting books. Or, egads, trying to find that one article that I pulled out of the magazine that had an amazing tip that I knew I would use one day - TODAY IS THAT DAY - but of course I can't find the darn article in the array of articles that I have saved. Truly I thought I had a system that would help me find them again, but it obviously isn't working. Arghh!

Oh well, soldiering on I continue and mutter to myself as I sit at my sewing machine. Much to my surprise, I do wind up with a helper. He doesn't really solve the problem, but by getting right in my face and forcing me to slow down I'm able to figure out what I was doing wrong. Who's my hero? My cat, of course - Tigger.

Normally Tigger sits on the other side of the room. But that day he just came right up onto the machine. After he had my attention, he backed off and let me sew, but stayed where he could keep an eye on things.

 

Thanks Tigger. This piecing will be done very soon and I will be ready to quilt this quilt very soon. Seems even cats have a lot to sa(y) about quilts!

 





Time Flies

I really can't believe that so much time has gone by since I've last sat down to write. I'm so ashamed. Writing is not my forte, obviously, I've said that before, but gee whiz, for the very few of you who actually read this blog . . . well.  I can only say I'm like your old high school friend who pops up now and again. I think of you a lot, and I mean to get to you, but life gets in my way.

This time, old friends, life did get in the way. For part of the time I was I just wanted to be sewing, not writing, BUT I was doing neither. I will not go into details, just suffice it to say I was too sick to even think - well I was thinking about it - to sick to pick up a needle, so I was reduced to looking at magazines and such. Dreaming about doing things. Do you dream about what you want to do? I highly recommend it. The hard part is remembering to put it down on paper somewhere so you won't forget what you dreamed! Old School: if you see something in a magazine that you like, cut it out and put it in folder or tape/paste it your doodle book. New School: Use Pinterest! It's a great online bulletin board.

One of the things I came across was snowball blocks. Not new, definitely old school, but they can be very fun and they are easy, peasy to do! I used them to showcase a fabric. Large trains, in this case, otherwise they would have been cut up. I didn't want to use them in the border of the quilt either.  So fussy cut the print you want to showcase and then cut out 4 smaller squares.

Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each of the small squares. Sew them on the corner of the big square. This shows just the first square.

Then you trim off everything with a 1/4" seam. It will look strange and feel stranger! Yes, you're cutting both squares at the outer edge. So this is what it looks like before you press it.

Now press the small squares out. It's a miracle! You get your square back.

I  had so much fun with this. I hope you will try it. Doesn't have to be something big. Mine wasn't.

Okay . . . it looks bigger. I love it when life sa(y)s quilts!

Lousy Blogger

It's official, in case you hadn't noticed it, I'm a lousy blogger. Lousy in that I never get to my blog! I'm supposed to be carrying on about quilty stuff and that's great, but I find that I like to "do" quilty stuff and sitting at the computer doesn't always satisfy that need. Maybe it's the fact that I like to give you guys pictures to go along with my terrible ramblings and if I don't have them I feel bad about writing? That's why I wasn't a journalism major in college.

Yet, I wasn't a quilting major either. I was an economics major. My son, though, bless his wonderful heart, all through high school thought that meant I was a "home economics major." Not in a bad way, but just because I did the quilty thing and lots of other crafty things. He was kind of embarrassed to discover later that - no - Mom was really a math kind of girl!

Well I've really turned that mostly toward my quilting. I do hope that the few of you that actually read this poor excuse of a blog enjoy it. Maybe it makes you smile and maybe it makes you think that one day you can try it, if you're not already dabbling in the fine fun of quilting. It is an art, but it is also fun and that's why I do it.

The last blog had the finale of making the Pathways quilt. Did you make yours?

Then like you, probably the holidays and regular life interrupted my ability, time, (and desire - my head is hanging in shame) to get to this venue. But here are a few of the quilts I've done.

My friends children are now having their own children so I have baby quilts to make. But I'm a superstitious old fool and won't start a baby quilt until after the child is born. Then I quilt like mad to get it done. Here is one that is finished.

I have another almost done and one more that isn't even started! Luckily babies understand. I also made a table runner and place mats as gifts for people we were visiting over the holidays. Did I think of this way in advance? Of course not!

And now we're in a brand new year! I've got quilting projects galore. I'd really like to share them with you. I'll try to be better about writing, but remember with me the problem is that so many things sa(y) quilts!