Batiks On My New Mini Design Wall

 

Really, I guess I should call it a mini design board since it's portable and not affixed to the wall. My larger ones are really giant design boards and they are now residing on the garage door side of the shop. 

 

Something smaller was called for that I could put a couple of rows on (from the giant boards) or multiple block and take them back by my machine to assemble.

 

It's a good thing that I put a scrappy border on the board or it would have blended right in with the wall. Maybe I should finally put a little more color on the walls. Sweetie thought I should go with white, so I thought I would humor him for a while....after all the work that he did for me transforming his old wood shop into my quilt shop.

I've been collecting Batiks scraps for some times now and this is what I have to show for it. The hexies were started as a hand project for the long plane rides to and from Switzerland. Now they are my porch project, when I want to enjoy the outdoors but don't feel like reading. Although, an audio book, the outdoors and hexies to go well together.

The tessellating stars are in need of more one color batiks in bold colors. I saw a picture this some time ago on someones blog and saved it on my Kindle Fire. Unfortunately my KF died a couple of weeks ago and took the picture to the grave with it. It took a bit of playing with squares and triangles to figure out the placement to get the design down and right contrast between colors. I like it.

Making Crumb Blocks With Bonnie Hunter on YouTube

Recycling fabric and containers....I'm just so green.

Speaking of green, I just love arugula. Sweetie's daughter and hubby introduced us to it several years ago when they were visiting from Switzerland and now I love it in sandwiches and in tacos or fajitas.

Meet My New Quilting Buddy

Meet Bear and yes, this is his favorite spot in my quilt shop. That's why I usually have to sneak down without him. We probably should have called him Shadow.

He's 8 years old and is a Newfie/Lab? mix that we got from Atlanta Dog Squad in March.  They got Bear from a shelter in south Georgia and was is really tough shape when they found him.  His paperwork said that they had to give him several baths to get rid of a manure smell in his coat. He was treated for a wide variety of worms (including a mild case of heart worms) and a prostate condition, and his coat was all matted. Fortunately they didn't have to shave him. His teeth are pretty worn down from trying to chew his way out of an enclosure of some type for a long time. Plus, he was really skinny. Bear lived at a veterinary clinic that works with Atlanta Dog Squad for several months before he could be put up for foster/adoption.

He didn't shed hardly at all when we picked him up....but holy moly, when he's in a shed cycle (2 times a year) there's clumps of hair and hair bunnies everywhere....all the time!

Have You Ever Accidentaly Deleted A Photo From Your iPhone?

 

 

UUUUHHHHHH!!!!!! Four hours and $69 later, I have the picture back!

 

If it wasn't for the fact that I have to send it to the local paper as guild photo op, the deletion would have been a minor "Oopps" in the grand scheme of life. We were dropping off a stack of baby quilts to Safe Choice Pregnancy in Ellijay.

 

It all started so innocently this morning when I slipped on my glasses and checked my email (yes, I keep my phone by my bed....like I'm ever going to get a call/text that can't wait until morning). I had received an email for an Amazon cloud drive app, which then took me to my camera roll, which reminded me that I needed to send in this picture, which brought it to my attention that I didn't need all the reject photos from the photo op. Ssoooo....I started deleting the pictures and then GASP...I realized I had deleted this one too.

 

Now, if I were younger (like 12 and had the innate techno abilities they seem to have), smarter, and more patient, I would have been able wade through all that data to find the bit of megabits that were that picture. But since I'm not any of those thing, I had to finally cave and get out the credit card and pay my $69 (WooHoo it was on sale) so I could get my picture back and finally meet my obligation.

 

This is one of the great things about a blog...venting. Sure, I could have vented to Sweetie and in all his maleness he would surely have said "Babe...you have to be more careful".  He would have completely forgotten or ignored the fact that he managed to erase ALL the pictures off his phone a few weeks ago trying to load his Ride For The Wall pictures onto his computer.

 

I feel better now and I didn't even have to remind Sweetie of his own technological shortcomings!

 

 

 

Hexagon Star Tutorial Tweak

I found this Hexagon Star Tutorial that I will use in the future to make blocks from the star. However, I will have to tweak it a bit by making top and bottom rectanglish pieces a skosh wider and the outter center pieces maybe a skosh longer. That way I will be able to trim up to a square block and the stars will float when sewn to an alternate block....maybe a 9 patch or 16 patch.

When I was making the border for the above I Spy quilt, I guess I did something similar to the tutorial.

Hey...wouldn't one of these make a cute label (with verbiage written on Hexagon) in a pieced quilt back! One floating star!!!!

I Want To Test Drive A Juki TL 2010Q in Atlanta!!!!

"What does this have to do with test driving a Juki TL 2010Q?" you say...absolutely nothing, but one should have a picture in one's post...and I was playing around in Picasa. The photo is from this winter, up at Maggie Valley in NC. I hadn't attempted skiing since I had brain surgery in 2004 to remove an acoustic neuroma or meningioma...don't remember which anymore. I've never been the most graceful person and the tumor/surgery made me even more of a klutz....BUT...WOO HOO..... I CAN STILL SKI!!!

Anywho.....I really do want to get my hands on a Juki  TL2010Q to try some FMQ.  Has anyone been to Southeast Sewing Product on 228 Ottley Dr NE in Atlanta or know of another Juki source in Atlanta?  I've heard tell that the neighborhood was a bit dicey/dodgy...any input?

I thought that I was going to be able to try one out on my way North last month (for DD's surprise birthday party), but it was not to be. Fortunately, I had saved the number of the store that's located just off 24 in Murfreesboro, TN and by the time I did my Cracker Barrel/Audio Book stop, the store was finally open. But...they wouldn't have any 2010Qs in the store until sometime in August...bummer!!

New Use For Supreme Slider

Do you keep posts in draft mode for those times when you want to do a quick post and don't want to drag out the camera (I actually need to find it), the USB cable and the laptop.  This one has been hanging around for well over a month and I thought I should do a post before the month is out...cutting it close aren't I!

My machine has a drop in bobbin, which makes using a seam guide really inconvient.  There's just enough throat space to line up a quarter in (if using the straight stitch throat plate) and I can just peal back the slider and change/clean the bobbin.

Soon I think I will spring for the larger supreme slider...notice where I stitched thru it while FMQing.

This month my DD Abby and SIL Ken were here for a visit.  They left on the 12th and I headed to Wisconsin on the 15th.  Ken was putting on a surprise 30th birthday party on the 18th and I was part of the surprise.  I hung out with my pal Rochelle for several days and had a great visit.  On the 19th, we went to Ken's parents house for his sisters college graduation party...Ken's mom really knows how to put on a great party!  I was back on the road home early in the morning on the 20th.

On the 21st, Sweetie left for Chattanooga to meet up with the riders on the southern route for the 25th Annual Ride To The Wall in Washington DC.  It was quite the emotional week for him.  On his way home on the 26th, he stopped in Elon, NC to visit with a Marine friend that he hasn't seen in person since Vietnam in 1965.  It was a good visit!

Today I finally got back in the quilt shop to do some stitching.  I discovered that I had miss cut the last row of background pieces and re cut them today and sew the row together and joined some rows together.  Then for some mindless sewing, I did a crumb block...up to 20 now.

I thought I would have spent a lot of time in the quilt shop with Sweetie gone, but the weather was so nice and I had so many quilt blogs to catch up on......I spent a lot of time on the front porch reading blogs.  I did get some hexies sown (while sitting on porch) while I finished listening to the last audio book that I had picked up at a Cracker Barrel while on my road trip.