Travelling with the Old Crank

Singer 99 handcrank from the late 1930's.

 I took it along to my daughter's college apartment for the long weekend to make some covers for the arms of the living room chairs.  (They were wearing a definitely amateur fix.)

 I had quilted the yardage at home before I went.  She and the young woman who will be her roommate for this coming year share some favorite colors--most notably that pale teal or aquamarine.  My Sweet Teen is taking a summer class, working as a summer resident hall assistant, and working in the materials science and engineering department. (And I have a bit less than six weeks to be able to call her a Sweet Teen.  Where have these years gone?!)

This is one of the lovely covers on the chairs--corduroy and safety pins.

All four arms look like this:

Now they look a lot better!

That little 99 handcrank was amazing (as well as quiet).  I took along some size 16 and 18 needles, but it did a great job with the 14s I use for most piecing and quilting. However, the next time I plan to sew while visiting her, I'll take a TV table so I'll be cranking at a more comfortable height.

And in completing these, I fell in love with bias binding all over again!  (We usually use straight binding for our prayer quilts.)

Our solution for the really ugly sofa was to cover it with a large cotton painter's canvas from Harbor Freight.  Before I took the large one she had a smaller one that covered only part of the sofa.  She and her friends made some "chocolate bowls" last week, forming the bowls around balloons. One exploded, creating a chocolate mess on the canvas.  All the chocolate washed out and the canvas is whiter and had a lovely hand, so I'm sure she'll be willing to launder the new one too.  She thought she wanted the same covers for the sofa, but when we put the chair covers on the sofa over the canvas, we didn't really like them, so at some point I may make her some in an off white or cream color.  By happy coincidence, when I'd purchased some cooking tools for her kitchen, the store had some lovely sea-colored melamine, so I bought two dinner plates, two salad plates, and two bowls.  The smaller plates were the perfect size for a pattern for the front piece on each cover!

I'm eager to do some more quilting, but I spent this morning and a good hunk of the afternoon in Albuquerque getting our office ready to paint.  And I'll be back there to paint tomorrow.  Not nearly as much fun as quilting! But the robin's egg blue we chose will make our office environment a lot more soothing than the multiple shades of white and water stains in there right now!

Happy quiltmaking and knitting,

Photos 7 & 8 Prayer Quilt

More fun and happy quilts from our quilt dedication:

This Saturday we'll be sewing more quilt tops for more prayer quilts.

Yesterday I stopped in Joann's Fabrics for some fabrics to make accessories for the furniture in my daughter's student apartment.  I found what I wanted.  I even had coupons they wouldn't accept.  I got to wait in two lines for at least twenty minutes each.  I can't help feeling sad for what the venture capitalists who own Joann's have done to their stores.

I did meet a couple of quilters and will probably get together with them to do some sharing.  That's fun!

Happy quiltmaking,

More Quilt Shots 5 & 6

April prayer quilts from our dedication service:

I quilted some of these, but most were quilted by others.

Happy quiltmaking,

More Prayer Quilts-#3 & 4

Here are a couple more beauties from our April Prayer Quilt Dedication.

happy quiltmaking.....

Prayer Quilts...1 and 2

To assure people I'm still around, I'm posting photos 1 and 2 of our April Prayer Quilt Blessing.

Since I'm not getting a chance to make quilts during these crazy final two weeks of school, I'll try to post more of our prayer quilts in a day or two.

I hope everyone had a good Mother's Day--especially the women too familiar with that deep longing for a child but who done have one as well as the mothers who know the very special pain of losing a child.

Finding Time

Actually, I'm not finding time....However, I'm grateful to have friends who have asked if I've disappeared.  I do apologize for appearing to disappear.

No quilting has happened for several weeks.  Last month I did get to a lovely show where I made two purchases:

 These tools are a purple-ish violet, but the camera chose blue, and I wasn't able to edit the photo to make the color closer to reality.  These were purchased from Lumenaris. I had contacted Lumenaris ahead of time asking them to please bring me some violet colored tools.  I got to the show two or three hours before it closed the first day, and these two were the ones that were left. These are wonderful tools!  I did buy the extra stiletto tip for the screwdriver set so that I can have both the stiletto and seam ripper at hand.

The show was for sewing, quilting, and crafting and was mostly vendors with a few of the vendors classes thrown in.

 I also got more of this miracle fabric to cover a new rectangular ironing surface I want to make.  They do sell completely finished ironing board covers.  I made my first purchase from them quite a few years ago and would hate to have to go back to a regular ironing surface.  Those of you who prefer pretty ironing covers from quilt related cottons would still enjoy these.  You can put a pretty cotton cover on top of a cover made of this fabric, and it would still reflect most of the heat.  It is lovely to be able to have beautiful pressing without having irons at their highest temperature.  Goodness knows irons aren't built to get really hot anymore. This fabric counters some of that.

Some quilty items are wonderful investments and this is definitely near the top of my list.

I've done no quilting at all since our prayer quilt dedication at church in early April.  I'm overwhelmed with school stuff.  However, I hope to post photos of all the prayer quilts soon.

I purchased a new-to-me car just over two weeks ago.  Before I had it two weeks, I parked at the grocery store next to an end curb.  Someone intentionally ran a grocery basket into that small space, rammed it with great force into my car multiple times, did side damage and front bumper damage--$2200 worth.  The owner of the body shop said there is a lot of this going on and that I personally wasn't targeted.  But I'm wondering if someone saw the temporary permit we have to post in the back window until the license plate arrives and then targeted my car.  Ugly stuff.  So, Monday I have to take it to collision repair and pick up a rental.  I just dread the whole thing.

Right now I also have a lot of friends and relatives dealing with unpleasant health issues--which kind of tells me I need to be taking time to quilt.  There's also yard work to be done since we've had a lot of wind and tumbleweeds love to travel through and park in our yards on this street.  But every time I set aside time to do that we get another storm.  My school year will be over in two weeks, so I'm hopeful that I'll soon be able to let more quiltmaking be my therapy.

Time for some deep breaths!

Happy quiltmaking,.....

At Last, Another Quilt Quilted

Where did March go?
I finished quilting this today, but that's about all I have to show for the month!

 This is one of Ruth's half square triangle quilts.

 I tried something new for me.  I treated the four adjoining white half square triangles as if they were a solid block and quilted a wreath of hook feathers.  Last night I watched the hook feather tutorial by Lisa Calle.  You can find it here in her free video tutorials.

 For a little relief from the feathers, I quilted swags along the inner borders,


 but I quilted more feathers in the sashing between blocks.

The colored half square triangles were filled with variations on another design that I think it's fun to quilt.
The pretty floral border got a scrolly interlacing feather that doesn't show up well either in person or in photos--but it was good practice, and I like knowing it's there.

I really enjoyed watching Lisa's videos and listening to what she has to say about learning to quilt on a domestic sewing machine rather than a long arm.  My mind doesn't see much difference between long arm quilting and domestic machine quilting, because what my mind thinks about is the the needle going up and down and catching the thread and moving to the next stitch.  Therefore, with a sit down machine, I think the challenge is with having to move a big quilt through the machine and making sure it is supported for the greatest ease.  I'm thinking the challenge with a long-arm quilting machine is more in becoming familiar with the machine.  I do think using a ruler platform and rulers is probably easier on a long arm.  Of course, the challenge of a long arm is affording it and having adequate space for the frame, but for some people those aren't challenging.

I did link to Lizzie Lenard's Free Motion Mavericks.

My school is on break for the next week, so despite a whole lot of other things I need to do or catch up on, I do hope to get more quilting done.  It's lovely to have a creative activity that makes my heart sing!

Happy quiltmaking...and knitting,

Snowy Day: Quilting Finished

I finished the quilting on the "Round-up Quilt" for my cousin who had a heart attack and by-pass surgery.  Long day.  Lots of snow and ice outside but lovely quilty fun inside.

 No pattern, just improvised as I went along.  Most of the strips were cut two and half inches wide.

 The panels were cut 7-3/4 inches tall--somewhat unusual measurement.

 The panes were lots of different widths.

 Panels almost always present a quilting challenge--they need to be quilted enough to stay in place but not so much as to detract from the pictures.

 The pairs of strips created nice five inch borders for quilting.

 Some rows needed additional strips to expand them to a consistent width.

 I've been watching lots of quilting You-Tube shows and am recognizing that in order to increase the amount of quilting I do, I have to get over the fussy double spines that I've done for decades and be willing to retrace spines multiple times as most longarmers do; not constantly tying off saves lots and lots of time.

 This was the first time I'd been successful with this kind of flip-flopped curved feathers.

 It did take a bit of thought to make sure the curves would work out as I wanted in each corner.

 The lasso quilting was a great idea for some of the panels, and it was also a lot of fun to do!

When I was a child, I spent hours and hours trying to learn to lasso.  Never succeeded.

These are just as much fun and will last a lot longer!

The four patches are okay, but I think I need to work on them in some future quilts.  (Of course!)

Now, to select fabric for binding.  I used a woven railroad strip on the back because it seemed to be a little tougher and aptly suited to the theme of the quilt.  I'd like to go with a red or brown binding--or one that alternates between red and brown.

It would be really difficult to explain the joy I feel when I'm quilting--probably a lot like what a lot of toddlers feel when they are dancing and singing!

I'm linking to Sew Many Ways

Update: 3-6-15
I've not managed to quilt any thing more this week, so I'm sharing this link over at Sarah's.

Happy quiltmaking....and knitting,

Quilt Day!

I did shovel snow yesterday.  Lots more came and lots blew away.  Here's what we are left with this morning; a lot of little freshly hatched snowflake siblings are joining this.

Still no mountains in sight.  Happy to be inside, safe, warm, and with a lot of choices for hot meals and beverages!

Albuquerque is claiming they experienced their highest single-day snowfall since records were started in 1931.  Far from our highest out here in the country (about 40 miles away), but it is plenty; however, there is more on the way.

A perfect day for quiltmaking in a nice, warm house--nice hot meals planned and probably some made-from-scratch-with-almond-milk hot chocolate to be consumed.

 More quilting to be done on a Victory Prayer Quilt for a Kansas cousin who had a heart attack and by-pass surgery a week and a half ago.

 I need to change to a Bobbin-Line thread to quilt the picture panels.

 I'm using one of the new cones of green for most of the rest of the quilting.

I've lost count of the number of prayer quilts ready for quilting (I think I'll line them up for a count this afternoon), and I'm really longing to remove a Singer 15-88 from my treadle cabinet, drop this treasure in, and try her out.  She needs a new name, and I'm open to suggestions.

For all my friends farther east wondering about what we're going to do with these storms, be aware that although they are stalled over Northern and Central New Mexico for the moment, they are not wearing themselves out, so we will probably send them east so we can be ready for the next ones.

And, I just looked out the window, and the high school senior from the farm across the road is out there shoveling for the little old ladies who live on our little street--there are some benefits to getting older!


Happy quiltmaking and knitting,