Monday, March 24, 2014

Thinkin'!!

 Good Monday Morning!!  TGIM!  Above is a quilt I finished a few years ago.  It was in the binding pile.  Well, I thought...I will bind that by hand, of course...everything should be bound by hand...NOT!!  It was just lingering, and lingering, and lingering there, and no one was getting any good from the quilt at all!  So...this morning, I made a two color binding and applied it...by machine.  And it is just great!  Now why do I think I have to hand quilt and hand bind every quilt? For a quilt that will be used and thrown in the washer repeatedly...I think a machine binding on some of my quilts is very appropriate. So I am going for it!  Done is better than perfect, sometimes!
 The machine binding...it is fun, and I like the contrast.  It took three hours to cut binding, sew it all back together, press it, apply it to the back, and bring forward to the front and stitch is again.  It took 12 strips of 45 inch wide fabric to do this...I would have been FOREVER binding it by hand...so yahoo!  The quilt is now on my bed with fresh linens...it will be heavenly to slip in those sheets tonight!  I do have quilts that it is very appropriate to hand stitch the binding, and I love to do this, but life is slipping away faster and faster...geterdun Julie, already!
 I am making more melon pieces to put in my quilt from last post...anything goes here...any little scrap will do!
More of them. I want to make 120 in total.  I have 29 done, so almost 25% done.  Fun, fun, fun!!  NO matchy matchy, no seam allowance worries...just going for it on the sewing machine!  And I am using up precious pieces of friendship fabric...I love that!!


Have a great day, everyone!!

Julie

Friday, March 21, 2014

A dream quilt...literally!

 Hmmmm...I have woken up thinking of making a string quilt like this one for several mornings in a row.  Why not start!!!?  This is just strings and crumbs, foundation pieced on scrap fabrics, cut into melon shapes, and blanket stitched to the background. You could also use paper foundations, but then you have to take out the paper, and I can't sit still long enough to do that, LOL! But that method works really well for some quilters, so whichever a person likes is just dandy.  Above is my first figuring out what to do...the squares are 6 inch finished, so I cut the melon shape to just fit with a seam allowance and a tiny bit extra room.
Here is my first one appliqued down.  I sincerely love working with these little pieces...love, love!!!


Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

Julie

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Overtime days!!


 Happy Tuesday!  I was lucky and got an overtime shift yesterday.  A busy day, and I was floated, but I am happy to have gotten the day.  Above is a start...a quilt that was in my mind all last year!  I have two rows cut out, and these above blocks are stitched.  This is Country Threads block of the month from last year.  I find that I like to have the whole pattern/or all the BOM kits, and then I can just go for it! (Thanks, Elaine Adair, for that bit of wisdom some years ago...)
 I have finished hand quilting and binding these mug rugs.  A fun, portable project.
 And...another estate sale!  Our neighborhood has had three in three weeks!!  I found this little tiny rocker...is it meant to be a pin cushion?  Ideas?  I would like to recover the little cushion part...
And a vagues photo of a string hot pad.  Take the tiniest slivers, mash them all up, press them down firmly with lots of starch, and then just sew over the top until it all melds together!  I was cutting neutrals, so that is why it is made of neutrals!!!  So that is what I have been up to, which is not really too much...



Have a great day, everyone!!

Julie

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Day off!

 Wheww!  Off work today...and catching up!  Above is a little needle case I made...machine quilted fabric that I quilted on my Bernina, then wool applique, then added little scissor pocket and pin cushion.
 The inside...
 The piece of quilted fabric that I made was too long, so the cut off piece became a book mark.  That is an 1/8 inch binding..
 I sandwiched this little quilt and quilted the borders in straight lines, to that I could bind it and quilt the triangles by hand when I have a spare moment.  Just trying to make some progress, any progress will do, LOL!
And thanks to friends, I came up with enough pastels strings to finish the middles of the String X blocks.  The pattern is a free one, and is on Quiltville, under the free patterns section.  Thank you, Bonnie...I must have made twenty or more Bonnie quilts...how about you???




**************************Nurse's Notes**************************

Praying especially for one older fella patient...undergoing his fourth lung surgery for cancer...hopefully this is the last one and the cure!!!

Praying for all my co-workers...we are a mixed bag of nuts, and many of us have been at our hospital for many, many years...one for over 40 years!! We come from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Latin American, Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany, China, Vietnam, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya...and on, and on, and on!!  And India...beautiful girls from India...Lots of other places too.  I think each nurse/aide/secretary/tech lends something special and unique to her (or his) care of our patients!!

Praying for peace...just want peace on Earth and good will toward all men!!  Don't like the news lately!!

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Hey, I forgot about the drawing for the book!!!  so, Mary of Quilt Hollow...you were randomly chosen to win the book from a couple weeks back...I will send you an e-mail and let you know and get your addie...

Please stay tuned for some giveaways coming up, as I am still sorting and organizing.

Have a great day, everyone!!


Julie



Thursday, March 6, 2014

Is spring coming yet?

 Well, I have been working on string blocks.  This is the String X pattern from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website. I picked through my strings, and selected any string that reminded me of an Easter Egg.  I am confident that spring will come to us SOMETIME this year, LOL!!  We have had more cold weather this year than any other than I can remember here.  So...I made 48 blocks.  Now I have decided that the quilt should be bigger...so I am combing the drawers and bins for more Easter egg colors!!
 Since I mistakenly thought I had made all the blocks I needed, I made  this little table runner with my leftovers.
 Then this little coaster...
 Then I hand quilted it and bound it.
 And this was all the pastel strings I had left!!  I have cut some more, ready to go,  and now the goal is to make 80 blocks altogether...8x10 block setting.
 In a cutting mood, I cut a bunch of pieces and parts for these blocks.  Not sure where I am going with this, but I like the crazy cacophony of colors on the cutting board, LOL!
 A little pincushion took all of five minutes...
And more of the cut off triangles from the string blocks became this.  I still have more triangles....





*************************Nurse's Notes****************************

We had a poor little lady who was in sad shape last shift I worked at this hospital. She was a frail older lady, and she was coming out of a public restroom, and a young man was running and did not see her and ran into her.  She fell quite hard and shattered her shoulder and hip on the same side.  Quite a game spirit in this patient...she says she is upset about this set back in her life, so we need to hurry and get her better so she get home to her garden!  We will do our best, sweet lady!!

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Have a great day, everyone!!

Julie

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Little bits of this and that

 Happy Sunday!  The above quilt from Terry's Treasures quilt along is completely complete. Quilted, binding done, labeled, the whole shebang.  I really enjoyed the push to get this done...thank you so much, Terry!!
 Here is a closeup of the binding.  I did it by machine...it was so much faster!  And since it will be a quilt that gets used a lot, I thought it would be OK to use a machine applied binding.  I used the little flange method so that there is a little more interest, and I could put it on by machine.  I have done this with two quilts so far, and I am getting better at it, although far from perfect!!  I learned something this week from Jo's Country Junction...she says to use the darkest fabric in the quilt and use it as the binding.  I like that idea!!
 I had a leftover block from the quilt, so I made a little candle mat and hand quilted it.  No marking, just going for it!
 A baby quilt that has been languishing for years in the quilt cupboard is at last together and quilted!!  I will wait to bind it until the next baby comes along...girl (pink binding); boy (blue binding).
 This quilt went to a patient this last week, after it was bound and finished.  He liked it a lot...poor little old fella, a patient at the hospital, needed some quilting hugs...he has a long recovery ahead of him!  I am never sure what kind of a quilt to give a guy...much harder than for girls, LOL!
 I started a string X quilt too...I do love my strings!!  48 of these to do...
 I tried to stick with all pastels, for spring!!  Tried, that is...some dark strings just insist on sneaking in there...
 The cut off corners from the string X quilt blocks became a couple little quiltlets.  The blue is entirely by machine, and the pink one is all by hand.  A fun experiment...it took about 4 times longer by hand, but I like the look better...it is somehow softer to the hand.
 Little four inch sampler blocks...
using this tool to make them.  I like this too, it gives the measurements for several different sizes of lots of blocks...easy...no brain work involved for me, LOL!!



And that is about all, folks!!  Believe it or not, it was 82 degrees yesterday, and now it is snowing and 21 degrees.  A strange winter!!  All the trees are confused...do I bud out or not, they whisper to me as I walk?!!!  Surely your trees talk to you too?



Have a great day, all!!

Julie

Hexies, rainbow quilts and plaids!

Good morning to all!!!  Above is a hexagon, for English paper piecing.  My kitten Lucky has discovered them, and decided that they are great...