Wishing All A Merry Christmas

Hey y'all...Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This year I decorated with a Christmas present from way back....1962....this is Barbie's ball gown coat (made by my mother).

My New Year's resolutions for 2015...get back in the gym, shed a FEW! pounds, and be a more frequent blogger.

See y'all latter when I update my blog with what I've been up to in my absence .

Scrambled Cable Signal As A Quilt

This is a shot of the big TV outside of my quilt shop (set to a music channel) with the cable signal all messed up. This was taken sometime ago and my immediate thought when I saw it was that it would be a pretty scrap quilt done in batiks.

Yesterday I was going thru the unread posts for quilt blogs that I follow and when I came to  the latest post from Stitched In Color I knew I was right! Check it out...

My Quilt Shop Sound System

This is my compact little sound system that I use to play all those audio books that I have been listening too while I keep my nose to grind stone to get the shower gifts done. Superman and binding clips work wonders to keep cords under control.

I have several more audio books to post about...just finished one today and have another ready to download tomorrow.

All three quilts are quilted and I will start to work on the binding tomorrow. I have to play around with the width of the binding (flanged) because the widths given in the tutorial that I had pinned was just too wide. I'm going to start by cutting each piece by a quarter of an inch and of course sew it to one of the mini practice pieces.

As I said, I finished the quilting on the one that I frogged on the way across Alabama going to Texas. It turned out that I over estimated how much I had pick out, but that was OK because I needed something to do during the drive across eastern Louisiana, coastal Mississippi, and southwestern Alabama. Honestly, there isn't any reason to look out the window...my apologies if I have offended any quilters from the above mentioned states...but it's the truth.

Frogging Across Alabama

This week I was quilting on this and not without some difficulties. Yesterday I finally took care of some of the issues I was having...mainly by skipping the upper tensioner and finished quilting this.

Needless to say, I wasn't happy with half of the quilting...Ssooo...as we travelled across Alabama I ripped out the offensive  quilting.

It's almost all out but I've had enough for one day and we will have about five hours of driving tomorrow .

Long Hours In The Quilt Shop

I've been spending long hours down in my quilt shop FM quilting gifts for my daughter's daughter. Spending enough time each day to almost finish a book each day!

 

 

The scene is the 2012 Olympics in London with a whack job causing mayhem. I do enjoy it when they have multiple readers.

 

 

Again multiple readers were used for this book who's characters included teenagers both male and female as well as adults of both genders. Set at an exclusive boarding school in Rhode Island.



This book is part of a series (book 2) and I have a hold in for book 3. The locale has changed with each book and has a very good reader.

I almost finished another book again today...to busy to take pictures.  I spent some time on the phone today with Sew and Vac Direct because of some thread shredding issues that I was having. They are so nice and helpful...was on with Steve today...so nice and patient.

Start Of A Baby Quilt

This is the very beginning of a quilt for my granddaughter that will be born in May. It was photographed under florescent lighting and it turned the deep purple rather blueish. Awards for photograph are not in my future.

I wasn't sure about the layout...I tried some of the different zigzag layouts that I've seen on line. They were just to busy for my taste so I went back to this layout. I'll post a picture of one layout tomorrow. In hind site, I wish I had used 4 1/2" HSTs instead of 3 1/2" ones.

The pressure is on...we've scheduled a road trip to Texas and we're leaving next Thursday. We'll be gone about a week and will be visiting just east of San Antonio. I'm so excited about seeing the river walk!!!!

Fortunately, I have more accomplished than the photos indicate...the quilt top is together, so is the changing mat, and this morning I finished a smaller (24 x 30) quilt in the fabric family. It will be good while the baby is still tiny and will make a great doll quilt for her. There are enough scraps left to do a runner for a dresser, but that will have to come later.

Quilting will begin tomorrow.

Meet My New Oakey Doakey Quilting Buddy

Meet Oakey...the people that surrendered her called her Oakley, but she responds to Oakey. She is only 6 but looks a little older due to the natural white speckling on her face and paws. Oakey is a Lab/Pit/Hound? mix that ended up on the losing side of a bitter divorce. The husband brought her and a male Black Lab into a shelter, chained in the back of a pickup. When the truck stopped Oakey jumped out and nearly choked to death on the chain. Fortunately an Animal Control Officer saw it happen, saved Oakey and slapped the former owner with an animal cruelty fine. The Black Lab was so aggressive that it was put down. Oakey won the hearts of the people at the shelter and they contacted The Atlanta Dog Squad and was put in foster care. We went down to Alpharetta a couple of weeks ago to meet her and decided to bring her home that day.

Oakey loves her beds and will snooze for hours with me down in the shop. She's an Oakey Doakey Dog!

Please excuse the poor iPhone photo taken her first night home.

Audio Books and Quilty Baby Gifts

This is my first book by this author and one of my favorite readers. The book was OK...just enough to finish it. I kept saying to myself "how could someone so smart be so stupid" and talk about shallow. I'm happy to report that it was not autobiographical...the author made a point of pointing that out at the end of the book.

 

You can't go wrong with a Michael Connelly book...even if the reader is gravel voiced.

My daughter is having her first child and I'm spending a lot of time in the quilt shop making quilty items for her shower. The shower was pulled up much earlier that I had been planning on, so now the push is on. This will be a changing mat and I had to take a strip of the blue out of a pineapple block to be able to do one more of these blocks. The down side of being a scrap quilter.

 

This was not done with the Twister template but from a method posted about on betukbanki.wordpress.com. Unfortunately, if can find the post on her blog to publish a link. This method doesn't waste a lot of fabric like the Twister method does.

Audio Books and More

The story line in the above was good and the reader was OK...sounds like a heavy smoker and he makes women sound like drag queens.

 

This books was finished yesterday and for some reason there is a problem with the library system server authentication today and I can't download another book....I wonder if it's due to our wonderful weather. Guess I'll have to quilt to music today.

Light listening, but good to quilt by...reader was OK....would try another of authors books.

Here are some of the readers that I have found really enjoyable: Annie Fields, Hillary Huber and Bernadette Dunne. I will work my way through books that they have read...if they are available in MP3 (iPhone) format...unfortunately, there are more books available in the WMA (laptop/PC) format.

My birthday blaze.....once again iPhone photos...so not the best.

Beautiful Snow Before The Ugly Ice

 

I sent this picture to my son this morning in a text on my iPhone, so it really doesn't do the scene justice. It was -10 in Wisconsin this morning...I'll take the snow anytime.

 

Most of the snow is gone now (midnight) and we will hopefully be on the light side of the ice storm that is suppose to hit some time Wednesday (today).

 

While the snow was coming down, I was in my quilt shop working a crib quilt for my daughter's first baby due in May. The shower date is being changed and I have six weeks less time than I thought I had.

 

This is Sweetie's shop (taken from back porch) and we both love door that he finally added...the roll up door got a lot more difficult after he insulated it.

New Project From Sweetie's Shop

Fresh from Sweetie's shop...we had been using a dresser that had been Sweetie's as a single guy and I was only able to lay claim to two small drawers. Just enough to hold my undies.

Yes, I'm showing the cyberworld my underwear drawer...this was my must have in the top drawer design...I love it. Plus I have two drawers to spare.

Experimenting With Threads And Tension On My New Juki

Aaahhh, more of the lovely dusty pink fabric....

The top row in the above picture was done with 40# cotton on top and in the bobbin (both pictures are of the backside of each practice sandwich) and produced a nice meaty stitch. It was quilt shop quality thread, but it sure is linty....I think it's called Star something or other. The upper thread tension was at 2 (I think) and I had to adjust the bobbin screw a quarter turn to the right (at 3 o'clock).

After finishing the top row I realized I was out of bobbin thread and decided to try using a pre-wound bobbin of Bottom Line from Superior Thread. For sure the top tension was at 2 and I turned the bobbin screw to 11 o'clock...I am happy with the stitch.

Also, the Bottom Line (poly) wasn't affected by the hot iron when removing the Miracle Powder used with the Full Line Stencils.

The above picture (again the backside) was done with Bottom Line on top and in the bobbin. I sewed the first row with the same settings as the cotton/Bottom Line row and the top side looked really good. But on the back...not so much. The tread wasn't laying on the fabric, but there wasn't much stitch definition.

 

I experimented with the upper tension without much improvement, so I thought just for the heck of it, I would wrap the thread one more time in the upper tensioner like you would with silk...it works. I'm happy with the stitching.

 

I used thread color 623 (silver) in Bottom Line which their website says almost disappears or takes on the color of the fabric and it really does!!!

Birthday Blaze

 

I've officially joined the age group where birthday cakes are fire hazards...62!...WooHoo my first social security check arrives March 26...WooHoo! Now that 16, 18, 21 and 62 has been reached there will be no more birthday woohoo's from me again...ever!!!!!!

 

 

Tonight Sweetie and I will go to Charlie's, a great Italian restaurant in Ellijay and celebrate. Dirty Martinis with Blue Cheese olives...tasty!!!

 

Then tomorrow, we will celebrate again with our card/Mexican Train friends. Two of us share a birthday.

 

And of course, Sunday will be the Superbowl Party at our house. Neither one of us has a dog in the hunt (Packers and Bears) but we'll both be rooting for Payton.



 

 

 

Variegated Thread Questions

Those of you that FMQ with variegated thread, I ask...what's with the black sections of thread? The beige and grey tones show the stitches very nicely, but the black sections just look like lines drawn on the fabric. Is this common with black thread? Thankfully, I was just doodling...I don't think I'll be using it on anything for FMQing. Even it the black stitched better, I think there's just too much contrast in the sections to look good.

 

It's just....OK...OK enough to not abandon like some other audio books. I was really disappointed the the 3rd book in the Sophie Metropolis series isn't in MP3 format...bummer.

New Audiobook For The Shop

 

 

This is book two in the series featuring Sofie Metropolis...Greek P.I....a very pleasant listen. Hopefully the same reader will also do the third book in the series.  I'm not sure if there are more in the series...our small regional library only has three available to download.

 

I sure am becoming acclimated to Georgia weather...this hearty Wisconsin girl is cold...I feel for y'all having to deal with that bitter, face numbing arctic blast...I don't miss it. 

 

We had a scare here two days ago with our furnace...we woke up in the morning to low 50's temps in the house. The water drain tube from the furnace had frozen and when enough water had accumulated, it tripped a sensor and shut the furnace off.  Sweetie had to syphon the water out quite a few time before the tube cleared out. No wonder it's so dry in the house during the winter...your furnace really does suck a lot of moisture out of the air.

 

I'm sure most houses up North have floor drains in the basement and the furnace drains into the floor drain. I don't know if it's the norm here in Georgia, but we don't have a floor drain...maybe because the garage is under the house. Ours gets routed up and across the basement ceiling and out the side of the house under our back porch. Seems kind of strange to me.

Free Magnetic Seam Gauge For Juki TL-2010Q

 

 

 

And some free advertising...although if they wanted to send me some free refills, I would greatly appreciate it!

 

I thought I would do a quick post on this because of a comment that I left on another new Juki owners blog about using this because it wasn't a computerized machine. She responded back that she thought that the thread cutter and needle up/down feature was computerized. And it may be, but I thought that if Juki was selling magnetic gauges (for apprx $10) for the TL series there must not be an issue with magnets. If you buy your machine through HSN, Juki gives you one in the package deal.

 

With the gauge snugged up like this it's a scant quarter inch and out to the next line it's a true quarter inch.  The compensating foot that came with the machine is just way too generous a quarter.

Listening In The Shop

Too bad our regional library doesn't have anymore of her audio books to borrow...very enjoyable. This time the story takes place in Savannah.

I'm on a listening roll...this was my previous finish...also enjoyable...an easy listen.

 

With the Sew In coming up, I've been spending more time in the shop getting projects ready. Today I was cutting flannel triangles and sewing some half square triangles. All from scrap dive fabric, of course.

Another Sweetie Project

We finally got feed up with the lousy builders grade dishwasher and splurged (our Christmas present to each other) on a new Maytag...does a great job on stemware and crusty dishes.

I thought this was such a cute picture of Sweetie and his shadow Bear.

My order from Superior Thread arrived today...ordered Bottom Line in #623...it really does almost disappear.

I think the Juki prefers a heavier thread for FMQing though...just a prettier stitch.

New Foot Pedal Stand For Juki TL-2010Q

It's always been a pain having the pedal skidding all over the cement floor. In the picture above it's corralled in between a big hunk of lumber and the power supply (which is butted up against a big paver block). My guilds first all day Sew In is next week and I didn't want to be constantly chasing this over the newly tiles floor at the church.

So....I grabbed the board and the pedal and headed down the path to Sweetie's shop. I handed the board and pedal to Sweetie and said I needed a rectangle made to go around the pedal. As usual, Sweetie thought my plan was flawed (he usually always does and usually concedes that my plan was pretty good after it's all said and done). However, this time I will concede...it would have been heavy and bulky.

So...I told him to get creative and make it more portable, but with the stipulation that board height was perfect for a comfortable foot angle while quilting...plus it completely took the thread cutter out of the equation while FMQing!!!

Less than 30 minutes and whaa-lah...Sweetie appears with my new pedal keeper. Now that's customer service!!!

Microfiber Design Board/Wall Creation

The guild is having an all day quilt in this month and I needed a portable design wall for some of the projects that I'm taking along.

 

I discovered some time ago that microfiber shop towels are really sticky when is come in contact with cotton fabric. First, just by washing the towels with other cotton items and having to peel them apart after drying. Then the light bulb went on when I was using the towels when I was prepping scraps from a scrap dive with sizing. I like to crisp up the scraps before I cut them to size.

 

The towels went down to keep my ironing board cover from getting any more ratty than it already is. I had some pieces of scrap placed for spraying but had to move the towel off the board to press something and saw just how well those pieces clung to the towel. You have to give that towel a vigorous shaking to get the pieces to come off (if they do at all).

 

 Just walking by a design wall using flannel, felt, or batting can create enough breeze to send your pieces to the floor...bushy dog tails can clean of your wall in one pass.

 

I sewed three sides of two towels sandwiched together (with what I decided were the stickiest sides together) and then turned it. Sweetie cut a 15 1/4" pieces of Luan (sp? very thin plywood) for me and I stretched the pocket over the Luan. The sides of the Luan was covered with masking tape because even with sanding the edges were still too snaggy.

 

To make it stand up, I used two cheap plastic picture stands that I've had forever. I binder clipped the base of the stand to the Luan and use actual faces of the frames as the feet of the portable design board. 

 

You can buy microfiber by the yard on-line and if I remember correctly, it's at least 50" wide. I plan on making large pockets for the foam insulation boards that I already use and I will have double sided design walls!

 

What I'm Listening To In The Shop

I'm really enjoying this audio book...the reader is excellent...the story takes you all over Atlanta.

I was on the hold list for this AB for months...worth the wait!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Machingers Needed A Bath

Before (duh...right)

 



 

After a ride in the washer and an air dry...not pristine, but much better...maybe I shouldn't have waited to long to wash them!



Dirty Santa Gift That I Brought Home

 

Just what I wanted!!!

 

 



(iron not included)

 

 

Due to the luck of the draw, I picked first and last...

I had to be a Dirty Santa and take this from someone...

Gifts Made For Guilds Dirty Santa Gift Exchange

 

I saw this on Pinterest...yes, I finally succumbed to Pinterest...but only mildly so!

There wasn't a pattern so I just had to wing it. Mine is reversible.

 

 

I also made a mug rug/pot holder (used Insul-Bright) that is double sided.

 

The mini topper is just the right size to fit on top of the toilet tank.

Using Full Line Stencil For All Over Quilting

This large all over quilt design quilts up really quickly...done before my new set up. I wasn't observant when I placed my order and ended up with the larger of the stencils for this design...something really larger than I wanted, but I was eager to use it, so it wasn't going back. It'll be good really for a quick quilting of a charity quilt.

On the smaller sample, the top half was marked with a regular plastic stencil and Pounce Powder. The bottom section was FMQ'ed after I had marked a grid with a Frixon pen and ruler.

I want to try out some Bottom Line thread by Superior, but am concerned about using an iron on it to make the Pounce Powder disappear...especially since the powder really is hard to get out of the stitch line unless the iron is really hot and you really dig down into the stitch line.

 

 So as an experiment, I dug out my cloths steamer to try and remove the powder and it was not successful at all. My iron set on synthetic was able to get most of the powder off but not deep in the stitch line.

 

For another experiment, I got out a Frixon making pen and put a line on this sample and used the steamer. The ink line disappeared but not the white line. Then I used the steam in my iron and that didn't budge it either...so test your fabric before marking. I generally just use the pens for lighter fabric and use it in conjunction with the Pounce Powder to fill in a quilt design that doesn't show up on light sections of fabric.

Quilting Table Assembly For New Juki TL 2010Q

 

Here's my new machine again before opening is cut.

A quick cut with a jig saw.

The openings edges cleaned up nicely with sandpaper. I had Sweetie cut the opening 3" longer so I could slide the machine back to access the bobbin and allowed for power cords to feed under the table.

Set up how I intend to quilt.

 

I think when the permanent set up is done, I will have Sweetie cut an opening in the back left corner to set the machine in for piecing. Sweetie also wants to put locking rollers on the legs so I can move the set up away from the wall easily.