Are you seeing Double?

It is not very frequently that I have people insist that they want their quilt done exactly like someone else's quilt.  I typically just don't do that because every quilt is an individual masterpiece to the person who made that particular top.  People just don't pick the same colors and styles of fabric patterns and quilts can look so very different and all of them awesome in their own way because people are different.  While it is a compliment for someone to want to do something like you most people still want just a little something different so they can call it their own.  Recently I had a lady call and she said I have made a quilt like Gloria's and I want you to quilt it exactly like that!  I even borrowed her quilt because I wanted to be sure that the pattern was exactly like her's because I just love that quilt and I love the way you quilted it because it is so much a springtime quilt, and has the light and airy quilting that isn't the heavy stuff you see on most quilts.  Oh well to each their own.

Because I do each quilt as an individual I don't always remember all of the details of what I did with a specific quilt and this is one that I did at one of my busy times and I did not get any pictures made to put up on my blog.  Drat, that will teach me!  I have to remember to do that so I have a record of what I did to what!  I had to borrow Gloria's quilt so I would know how the quilt the thing! 

Well I finished quilting this morning so I am definately going to post pictures of this one.  There is a little difference between the two quilts because the border fabric that Gloria used was not available any longer on Janice had to pick out another border fabric.  The backing fabric that Gloria used was great but again Janice could not get enough to make a backing so she had to piece her backing and that turned out great.  The thread that I used on Gloria's did not go as well with Janice's quilt because of the difference in the border so I used a slightly different thread.  I'm not sure what Janice will bind the quilt with, but that may be another difference.  Anyway, here is Janice's quilt.

This picture is the quilt just laid out across the bed.  It will really be a great springtime quilt with those vibrant colors!  Now the center of the quilt is not quite centered on teh bed because the center is actually the light strip.  The quilt top is centered on the backing though!

The vibrant colors and then the half-square triangles that is using cloth made from all of the fabrics is really awesome, and a really wonderful way to use up scraps.  In every section of "made" fabric there is one strip of the color of the solid portion of the half-square triangle which really is nice!  And the way the 1/2 square triangles are rotated brings an interesting secondary pattern to the quilt.

 

This is all part of the light and airy quality of the quilting.  Using the varigated thread that contains the colors in the print really brings visual interest.  You can't see it in this picture but there is a straight line of quilting running through the center of the print strip so the quilting does meet the guidelines for that particular batting and how closely it should be quilted.

All of the orange pieces have the same quilting pattern which is some curlie q's.  The pink and orange prints all have a leaf pattern for the quilting.

 

Now this is the back which was pieced with this orange strip lengthwise down the center of the backing.  So nice that the top of the quilt had the strip that ran the exact same way so here is that quilting pattern that is on the front printed strip down the center of the back in the orange piece of fabric with the two sides having the quiting from the pieced strips.

A close up picture of the pieces strips on the front.

A closer picture of the back so you can see the line running up the center of that printed strip on the front.

 The pink and orange border with the little circle pattern quilted around that border.

The outer blue flower border has the leaf mofit quilted there as does the blue flower fabric that is one the ends of the pieced strips on the front.

I think this quilt turned out very nice.  Sure do hope the customer likes it also!

I'm working on some other things including a tee-shirt quilt that I have to finish by April, just another month away and then there is another tee-shirt quilt to be finished by August.  My tee-shirt quilts are really time intensive.  People seem to want to bring in their tee-shirts and then they find more they want added, and then they decide to add pictures, and then they decide they want some message or saying quilted into the quilt and so it can really get to be a long and drawn out process so I have to start those things early in order to get them finished!  Also have a few of my own projects that I would like to make some progress on! 

I hope you all have a wonderful quilty week!

 

Hey Baby it's cold outside!

Thank the Lord, I have a nice warm house.  It is so unfortunate that not everyone is able to say that and so sad to think that many of the ones who don't have a nice warm house are children.  Wish I could give them a nice warm quilt to snuggle up in and a nice hot meal to warm their tummies.  It is a great comfort to me to know that my kids and grandkids are taken care of, and my great-grandson also.  They all have nice warm quilts that I have made for them to snuggle in if they like.  Each year at Christmas I start going through the quilts that I have on hand and pick out what I want to cycle out of the house this year and I always have a wonderful time doing that.  I'm sure that many of you have made so many quilts that you really don't need or even want to keep them all, so Christmas is a wonderful time to start a new cycle, and it gives us an excuse to purchase more fabric in the new year and start all over. 

I have promised that I will try to be better about posting on my blog so I am attempting to do that and I want to go ahead and show you some more pictures of what I was up to the weeks before Christmas when I was running around here like a chicken with her head cut off!  So here are some more pics.

This quilt was comissioned by one of the physicians I work with.  She wanted blue and some yellow.  It had to be masculine, meaning to her that there could not be any fabric with a flower print.  Then she picked out this pattern and wanted it to be very scrappy.  Well believe me it was.  I dug through my stash and pulled out every piece of fabric I had that was any shade of blue all the way to teal!  I had well over 100 different fabrics in this quilt and none of them with a flower mofit!  Hard to believe huh.

Another specification was that she wanted it to have a little bling.  Well the bling was achieved by using Fairy Frost fabric in the yellow with the gold metalic print and the white with the silver metalic print and then I picked a grey fabric with just a hint of a shimmer.  The Fairy Frost and the gray were used as the background fabrics.

After the quilt was started then she said she really had wanted to do some purple in it but she had so much purple in the room she was afraid to do a purple quilt.  Hence the purple border and binding, which when all was said and done, she really, really liked and the backing is the same purple.

Rather than put a label on the quilt, she wanted me to do what I call quilt writing on the borders of the quilt.  This particular quilt I decided that I would only do a top and bottom border and no border on the sides.  I guess I could have decreased the time I spent on the quilt if I had done side borders rather than all that extra stripping, but then again I really like the finished project.  The top border has her husbands favorite scripture.  I just used contrasting thread in my quilting machine and it turned out quite well.

This is just a closer look at one of the stars so you can see the scrappiness of this quilt.  I made the strata and then cut out the pieces.  When I was laying the quilt out I really wished that I had kept my pieces together better because it became a huge headache to find the pieces that matched and it looked so much better when the entire star was made out of the same strata pieces.  Problem was that the strata was very different and I would not have enough of one kind to do the entire star.  If I ever do this pattern again I will have a much better ideal of how I want to do the strata and how much of each strata I need. 

 

I really love the scrappy quilts and there will be more.  I have some pieces left over from this project and I have plans for those "one of these days".  Oh me, another UFO!

 

I also finished up a batch of my Quilts for Kids and those have all been mailed now which made me feel really good!

 

Well I can hardly wait until my next post because I want to tell you what I am up to next!  Ya'll have a quilty month with lots of love and laughter!

 



Double Knit??

Boy isn't it a lovely day!  I can remember many years ago, now I'm going to tell my age here, when we first started seeing polyester double knit fabric.  Well we thought this was the best thing since zippers or maybe even the best thing since buttons.  You didn't have to iron it after it was washed and dried!  Oh my wasn't this a time saver and it gave us more time to do other things, like sew!  Everyone loved it!  Today the most amazing thing about this fabric is that it never wears out!!!  I mean never!  It is also very heavy! 

 

Well believe it or not I had a customer call me about quilting a top for her and I don't even remember where she said the top came from, but it was not something that she had made.  She wasn't even born I don't think, when they were making this stuff!  You guessed it the top was entirely double knit polyester! 

 

 

If you have never worked with this material, it is very stretch-------stretch-----------stretchie!  Extremely hard to quilt is the translation of that sentence!  But like Larry the Cable Guy, I "got 'er done".  I don't think Larry would have anything bad to say about the finished product either.  A lot of our older generation made quilts that were designed for a regular full size bed and the quilt was not the spread and they did not allow very much drop off of the sides of the mattress.  Many of the older quilts will just cover the top of the mattress with no drop down the sides at all!  This can make it difficult to use them as a regular part of the bed linen unless they are on a bed that is being slept in by one person only.  If more than one then you will hear the accussations of "cover hog" flying about frequently.  

 

At any rate I got this quilt and got it quilted.  Here it is!

You can tell in this picture that the person who made this handsewn quilt loved the 9 patch block because that is what it is!  All 9 patches sewn together without sashing or borders!

 Someone had a lot of scraps to get rid of and I don't know if they were all her's or not, but if they were all her scraps, she was a very prolific seamstress!

The person who brought me this quilt had picked out the backing and binding and I think she did a wonderful job.  All of the melon colors were just beautiful and the backing really brought out the color in the scraps.  As you can likely tell I just did a meandering quilting technique all over the top.  Sometimes that is just the best quilting pattern to keep it from looking too fussy or busy.

Now I love the binding and just wasn't able to get a good picture of it from the top.  Sorry I'm not better at photographing my projects.  The binding really made those colors pop out on the top!

 

 

I really enjoyed doing this very stretchy quilt!  It did turn out lovely.  I will give you a hint if you start to quilt a quilt top that has some stretchiness be sure to lay it out and quilt down the outside first!  This will help you manage all that in-between stuff and you can ease and stretch as you go to make things turn our properly!  They may never be perfect, but then neither am I.

 

Remember quilting is a very fun thing to do!  If it stresses you to the max then lets figure out why and see if we can turn this into something that is fun and relaxing.  I have found if something just really causes me to be anxious that I will do less and perhaps never even finish the project.  I need to stop and figure out why I am so very anxious and see if there is a way to de-stress it!!  Sometimes it's just one part that gives me trouble and if I can work through that the rest does fine.   Are you having a problem with a quilting project?  If the answer is yes, try to figure out which aspect is giving you the most problems and if you want my input just let me know.  I'm always happy to help a fellow quilter!

 

Ya'll have a great day.  Happy quilting.



Road Trip

Road Trip

 

 

 

Got up the other morning and it was just one of those days that I really didn't want to do anything much.  Not that my "To Do" list isn't huge, but I didn't want to do those things.  I'm sure you understand exactly what I'm talking about here.  I asked my husband, what do you want to do today?  His response, "I don't know."   Hummmmm.  After breakfast I sat down at the computer and opened up my facebook page and was looking at recent things and there it was!!!  Several weeks ago I had found on facebook a quilt shop called "Chattanooga Quilts".  I had said I wanted to visit that shop and just had not previously had the time.  Well guess what, now I have time.  I asked tubby hubby if he wanted to ride with me and he said okay.  That is not normal for him to be agreeable to visiting a quilt shop with me!  Must be kismit!

 

Like the wonderful planner that I am (not), I got the address and put it in the GPS and off we went.  Drove straight to the place without incident!  Between 40-50 miles from my house so a nice little drive.

 

This shop was a very nice small shop and the lady who was there was very friendly, but a good salesperson.  She did not hover,  she did offer help and even offered to get a chair for my husband to sit in while I shopped!  That impressed him and made him feel good too.  There was a class going on at the time I was there and the classroom was held behind a curtained off area of the shop.  There were lots of samples hanging on the walls with the books depicting the patterns located next to the samples and they were clearly labeled as to which book had that pattern which is always nice.  Makes it easy to find anything that is of interest.

 

I am sure it was designed for the shop owner, but the way the cutting table is set up next to the check out area was a good ideal and the area was L shaped with the long arm of the L holding the cutting table and the shorter base holding the check out area.  This configuration is nice because if you have several people waiting to have fabric cut and then more people waiting to check out they are not crowding each other.  I have been in shops where it is one long area and it was hard to tell who was waiting in which line. 

 

If you have some free time, this shop is worth a visit.  You may even decide to go back once you see the prices are reasonable and cheaper than some of the other stores I have visited.

 

Oh I do have to tell you that while I was there I bought another book.  I am forever buying books and this is another one that will help you use up your scraps.  This one is titled "Friendship Strips & Scraps" by Edyta Sitar for Laundry Basket Quilts.  Of course the sample on the wall is what prompted me to purchase this particular book.  The title of that quilt is Spool Quilt and I loved the strips used to depice the thread on the spools.  They had shades of blue which is one of my very fav colors in theirs.  The only thing is there is a lot of applique around the border of their quilt that I'm not too sure I will do!  Sorry I'm not really into applique unless it is by machine like a lot of  El's quilts.

 

At any rate this particular book has several different quilts using the fabric made of strips that are very intresting and something I may want to do after I retire.  (I keep saying that like I don't already have enough projects to keep me busy until I'm 100!)  Well at any rate this project is for a later date.  I've got too many on the back burner that need to be finished before I start another one!

If you have visited this shop already, please drop me a line and let me know what you thought.  Believe me I can handle it if your opinion and mine are not the same.  If you decide to go here in the future, let me know what you thought when you visit.  I love getting the opinion of others.  I often miss things on my first trip to a shop and it would be helpful to me! 

 

I hope you all have a wonderful day, quilting and sewing with love for your loved ones!  Now on to my next project!





This and that and some of my favorite things

This is a night for reflection.  Looking back on my past projects and things I have really enjoyed and things I have learned.  When I started quilting many years ago people did not have computers in their homes.   One of the places where I had worked had a "computer" and let me tell you it did not resemble what we call computers today at all.  Any patterns we had were those that were published in the local paper or when a friend passed us a pattern, usually pieces cut out of an old newpaper which we would use.  I feel really privileged that I have some of these old patterns still on the old newpaper.  I have a "Dutch Doll, girl and boy, that my aunt had and they were lovingly saved and put in an envelope for safe keeping.  I have inherited several old patterns from different people and I cherish those.  Today's quilters really have a wealth of information they can retrieve at will on the internet.  I have several sites that I really like and go to often to get ideals and look for new items or new gadgets for my sewing room.  I want to take the time to share a few of these with you. 

"Missouri Star Quilts" is a real favorite since they have videos showing you how to make different patterns.  Their videos are really a great tool and they have some quilts that are really quick and easy to make and you can look at the things of their site and your mind will just take off as you see possibilities galore for the things they are teaching.  It is really wonderful to have this resource at your fingertips.  This is a great place to search for new ideals when you just don't know what you want to do next.  Check them out at http://www.missouriquiltco.com/  a really great place to browse.

Another great site if you are hunting a block pattern of any kind is http://www.quilterscache.com/  Check this site out for free quilt patterns for you to use in making your next quilt.  It is so neat to go on this site and then you can just take off with blocks of whatever size you want and make yourself a sampler quilt or just a quilt with all the blocks the same.  There are even patterns where they start with one pattern and then show different patterns that build off of the first one and add additional elements.  Check out the Go Alone Star #1 and #2 and then the other patterns designed by some of her friends and hostesses of the Arizona Quilting retreat.  Just think of the possibilities!!  Martha gives cutting instructions and tells you how much of each fabric you will need to complete the block.  I really think a quilt using all of these star patterns would be fab and a real eye catcher if you lined up the large stars and then used the smaller stars as a secondary pattern running through the quilt.  I see another project for 2013 on the drawing board.

Now you all know I have a longarm quilting machine.  One of my favorite longarm quilters is Linda Taylor.  You can visit her website at http://www.lequilters.com/ and even if you don't have a longarm machine she has lots of tools and gadgets that work for everyone.  I know she sells a large square up ruler on her site that unfolds so you can cut large pieces of fabric and get the perfectly square.  She is an awesome quilter.  I have taken several classes from her and really love her work, which can be very modern and quirky, but always beautiful.  She is another of those awesome women who support other women in their quest to do something they love and make money.  She has helped people get started by carrying their items in her store and selling them at her shows.  There are people in Texas who now make an adequate living due to selling their things to Linda for her to resale.  Some of these women are older women who are trying to live on inadequate social security checks and some are ladies who for some reason are limited in the time they can be away from home so they can work in their home and get paid.  Now Linda doesn't toot her own horn, but I have heard the stories from reliable sources and I find this an admirable trait in a business woman.

Another wonderful woman is El.  http://www.quiltinaday.com/ will take you to El's site.  You can find anything you want here and if you are like me much more than you can afford and El is another woman who tries to help her fellow women by helping then get their ideals up and running and then by being a distributor for their products.  My bud (Peggy) and I call El out bathroom buddy.  We were in Paducah, KY and we went out to the fairgrounds to take a class with El and of course had to take a bathroom break and we were in the bathroom, Peg in one stall and me in another carrying on a conversation about the upcoming quilting cruise she was advertising and we didn't know she was also in the bathroom and listening to us!!  Too funny for words.  She admitted that she really wanted to know what people thought about the cruise and if they were saying it was too expensive and exactly what their reaction was to the posters.  Well she found out because Peg and I were talking about the pricing, etc and how we needed to see if we could save enough money to go on a cruise and how much we would love to go.  We even have a picture of Peggy and I with El standing in front of the bathroom door!! lol

Now I want to share another site with those of you who have a desire to use up all those scraps you have saved and you just don't know what to do with them!!  There are so many things and I found this one quite by accident. http://www.quiltville.com/ is Bonnie Hunter and I really love her site.  If you want to use up all those scraps, this is the gal who can tell you how to go about doing it!  Most of us quilters really hate to waste things and our fabic is not something that we just want to toss out.  Our greatest thrill is when we can cobble all of those little pieces together to make something really great and we feel like we got a quilt or potholder or whatever for free because we didn't go out and spend any additional money for the fabric.  What can I say, there is a streak of our pioneer ancestress' in all of us quilters.  Everything had to be used completely.  The only thing that was thrown away was the things that could not be used for any useful purpose, and there aren't many things that fit that catagory.  I think Bonnie and I both got a double dose from those women from our past who were thrifty and imaginative, well maybe Bonnie got a triple dose and I got the double.  I know I really have learned several things from her that I didn't know before I started looking at her site.

There are many more sites that I love to visit just to get new ideals or when my mind just seems like so much mush.  They never fail to plant new seeds in this old brain that just seem to sprout and grow until I have so many ideals I know I will never complete half of them.  I hope you enjoy checking out some of these sites. 

Now next on my list of things is that I am reflecting about is the fact that I feel we are here to help our brethren and sisters.  Now that help can take many forms but one of the forms that I particularly like is being able to quilt, which I love doing, and being able to share that quilting with others.  When the tornado hit Ringgold last year, many people were left without homes, and many more were left with damaged homes and had to seek shelter with friends and family while repairs were made and those friends and family didn't always have things they needed to make the opening of their homes to those less fortunate and easy thing.  Many quilts were donated to families who were sheltering others, and those quilts then went with the families who had lost so much of their material goods.  If you could have seen the love some of those quilts were given by children who suddenly didn't have their home and were thrown into strange surroundings with strange "things" and they didn't have their blankies anymore, I know it would have spurred you on to run right home and sew up more quilts to give.  If you spent a day in a chemo room and watched these people who are fighting for their lives come in and sit for hours in a chair, wrapped up in their snuggle blankets and quilts it will pull at the heart strings in ways you can't really imagine.  If you visit a large medical center and go to the pediatric oncology wing and see how those kids love getting their own quilt you will want to sit up all night sewing for them so you can finish that quilt before it's too late for them.  If you happen to be on the scene of a fire that totally destroys a home and see a firefighter or policeman pull out a quilt to wrap up a child, or a suddenly displaced adult and see them clinging to that scrap of material you know that scrap of fabric that someone quilted will be a huge piece of their lives from that point forward.  If you see a child that has had to be removed from their family and put into foster care and when they leave the shelter they are given a quilt to take with them that becomes their quilt and see them cling to that little quilt.  Well all I can say is there are so many worthy ways to give back to our communities that none of us should be able to say I don't know what I can do that would help anyone.  Just look.  Opportunities abound!!  Sew up those scraps and give back some of what we have been so blessed to receive.  If you don't know what to do then ask.  If you don't have a charity feel free to ask me and I'll point you to several, local, state and national!!  There are people hurting everywhere, they really aren't hard to find! 

I hope you have a wonderful day quilting and sharing!

Tis the season

Well it's Thanksgiving (Oops!!  I wrote this and then forgot to post it.)  and what better way to be thankful than to pick out someone that needs a little extra love and give it to them!  After all this is the season of giving so why not sew up a "charity" quilt or two to give to the local nursing home, or whatever other worthy cause you want to support.  Maybe you can donate a quilt to be auctioned to provide money for a charity you would like to support.

The local quilt guild got together and decided to sew up some lap quilts for the local nursing home and have them to give for Christmas.  Christmas fabric was donated and the fabric was cut to 3" strips the width of the fabric available.  Now some of the strips were the usual 44-45" and some were 12" and everything in between.  Next the strips were subcut to varying lenghts.  Anywhere from 6" to 18" and everywhere in between and then were sewn end to end to make a very long strip.  Next these long strips were cut into lengths of approximately 60" and then they were sewn together side by side.

The huge variety of prints really go together to make a beautiful
Christmasy throw!

For this particular project we sewed the strips together until they were about 41" in width making the top about 41" x 60".  No borders were added and the quilts were quilted using a simple meandering pattern which is fast and easy.  The binding is added and they are ready to go to their new home. 



It never fails to amaze me that it really doesn't matter what color
the fabric is if the theme is constant.

During this time of "Thanksgiving" stop and think about all the things you are thankful for and how blessed you are and then think about those you aren't as fortunate.  Even when time is short, this is a very quick and easy project and can be loads of fun when you get together with a few of your buddies and you all toss in some fabric scraps.  You can't imagine how much these throws mean to people in the nursing home who have no family nearby to visit during the holiday season.  Think about sharing your love during this season!
Love ya!

Okay, let's clean house!

No, not the dreaded housework!!  As much as I love quilting, in equal measure, I dislike housework.  Unfortunately it has to be done.  My quilting room has to be cleaned occassionally also.  Now my quilting room is a mass of projects in all stages of completion.  I really do generally know what I have and a large part of the time I can even find it without too much trouble, but occassionally I do misplace something and I have to hunt.  I really hate the hunting part.  I always feel so stupid that I didn't put it where I should have and that I can't remember where I put it!  When I start having to search for things I know housecleaning in on the agenda.

Such a weekend this was.  Typically when I start cleaning out my quilting room I begin by trying to pick up all the different scraps of fabric and sorting them into the scrap heap, or folding them to be put away in the bins and I just start making a stack of folded pieces to be put away.  My first goal is to get to the bottom of the chair where I pile "stuff".  Now along with various fabric pieces, there will be various pieces of batting that have been trimmed from the edges of quilts.  I don't mean just slivers of batting but pieces can range from  45" wide down to about 6" with lengths varying from 36" all the way to 120".  Typically I cut up the smaller pieces and stick them into a bag hanging on the end of my quilting machine to use under the hopping foot when the machine is not in use.  Usually I keep a good supply of approximately 3" square pieces for this and they always work very well for wiping the dust off the machine and cleaning out the tracks and little things of that nature.  Use them and toss them.  They are also great when the string supply on my floor reaches epic proportions.  Strings will cling to those little pieces of batting, and when the floor looks like it may have a shag rug on it this will grab the strings in a hurry.

Alas, I wander.  I hate to toss those large pieces of batting and realistically there are only so many small wall hangings I am going to make so what next....Wwwwwweeeeeeelllllllllll.  I have these lovely little dogs, French Bulldogs, and they all love their little doggie beds.  Goodness those little things are expensive.  Now when I am testing out a new pattern with the quilting machine I take those pieces and cut them up to the appropriate size and bind them for dog beds.  Well guess what...those excess pieces of batting are now going into those doggie beds, but I don't just use the scrap fabric where I practice new patterns.  I just take a couple of yards of fabric, not quilt quality but some I have purchased cheap to make dog beds, and layer in several layers of batting, cover it with another pieces of fabric and quilt the whole thing.  I wind up with a quilted piece of fabric that is the standard 44-45" width and 70-80" long and much thicker than your regular quilt.  Then I cut that up into rectangular pieces the size I want and just sew a quick binding, all machine sewing, no hand binding for these babies and I have 6-8-10 dog beds done with 2-3 hours of work.  I've cleaned out my chair and used those scraps of batting.  Typically I will have also found, in that same chair various pieces of binding that were left overs from some quilts I have bound and I just sew all those bindings together and use those to bind my dog beds.   All of this gives me a great sense of satisfaction.  I've used scraps, leftovers that most people toss and made something very useful that we would have had to purchase otherwise.  Now I can play Mrs. Thrifty Homemaker and my doggies love their beds and we keep an adequate supply of clean beds for my little darlings.

I frequently toss these on the end of the sofa, that's where my Dorothy
likes to sit, and they gather all the doggie hair and dirty paws.

I really love the fact that after I have spent hours, literally hours, cleaning up the living room then someone always comes in with mud on their shoes and of course they have to sit down and then prop up their feet on the footstool.  If I throw one of these little pads on the footstool then it makes cleaning  up the mess so much easier.  Sometimes I can just open the door and give the thing a good shake and it's fine, but if not, no biggie, just toss it in the wash with the rest of the dog beds and it's ready to go again.

These just happen to be the right size for my husbands foot stool.

While you may not have dogs or cats who would love their own little bed, or a hubbie that tracks in dirt and mud and props his feet dirty shoes on the ottoman, there may be some other activities you or your family participate in and you could use a few of these wonderful pads.  Do you have a child or grandchild who is active in sports.  If you ever go to those games you know how dirty the bleachers can be at the ball park, or stadium.  In the summer you don't want to lug a blanket around, but a 24 x 18 seat cover is great, especially if there was a shower of rain just before game time!  Even if you have stadium seats those little seat covers just add a nice little layer of comfort and are so easy to toss in the washer.  They are also a great item to toss in the trunk of your car just in case you have a breakdown of some kind on the road.  Great for kneeling on when you have to change a tire, great to sit the kids on so they are away from the road and out of danger.  Great for tucking into a diaper bag to have a pad to lay baby on for changing instead of laying them on that changing table you have never seen before.  They are even nice burp pads when you don't have a burp pad.  Nice little pads to have at church if your small child tends to lay down on the pew for a nap during services, or to let them sit on the floor with their toy when you take them somewhere like the doctors office.  Sizes can be adjusted for your specific purchase.  Bet if you think about it you will think of a hundred different uses for these little free pads.  You may even want to make a few as gifts for your friends because they are sure to comment on their usefulness and how creative you are to have come up with this ideal.

Happy sewing....

So sorry to be late in posting, but due to the severe weather we had yesterday, we were without power for about 18 hours yesterday evening and last night.  God blessed us with no storm damage and family who came through safe and sound.  Hope you all were likewise blessed.

My Retirement Collection

For years now I have been telling my husband that I am collecting all my fabric and patterns for my retirement.  Since I will not be bringing home a weekly pay check, I decided that I would have to squirrel away for those days when I would have lots of time to sit around and quilt and I very patiently explained this to my husband.  This has given me a handy excuse to purchase much more than I should at any given time.  It has also provided fabric to donate to worthy charities over the years.  I have also been able to share my abundance with friends and family.  The only problem is finding places to store the fabric and making sure the fabric is cared for so it does not become unuseable.

A few years ago, my stash had grown to such proportions that I was forced to find a new way to store the fabric.  My stash had grown from having a few pieces put back in a drawer with assorted patterns and thread and other sewing "tools" to taking over the drawer and then my fabric alone filled a drawer.  Next I tried stacking it on a very deep shelf.  That shelf would hold the contents of 3 drawers and the stash kept growing!!  I kept reading articles in magazines about the perfect sewing room and seeing pictures of rooms that had lots of room for enormous amounts of fabric.  I didn't have as much fabric as they had, yet, but I really did want one of those rooms.

Then my dream came true and I actually got a wonderful room 16' x 24' for my sewing.  I had lots of room, and was even able to store some other things in my room.  I loved piecing quilt tops and I was a purist and felt every top should be hand quilted.  I just didn't have the time.  It was taking me about a year to quilt each bed sized quilt.  That is when I started thinking about a longarm quilting machine.  I started checking on prices.  This was about the same time my husband decided he wanted a bass boat.  Well I was behind him 100%.  I mean he worked hard and he deserved to have some relaxation time.  So we bought his bass boat and just a few weeks later I pitched my ideal for a quilting machine.  How could the man say no after we had just spent all that money on his hobby and I could actually make a little extra money with my hobby?  I got my machine which took up almost half of my wonderful sewing room.

My sewing room became an ocean of fabric.  It didn't all stay in the sewing room either.  There was fabric in the guest room, fabric in the living room, fabric in my bedroom, fabric in the storage room, and I don't mean just one or two pieces in each place.  I could never seem to find what I was hunting.  I would know that I had some beige fabric that I had used for another project and now when I wanted to use the rest of that fabric and not have to buy more, I simply could not find it no matter how hard I looked.  I had to have a better way to store my fabric so I could find what I wanted without spending a week and still not finding the particular piece I was hunting.

Finally at Christmas I decided, no more.  I have been deligent for years about packing away my Christmas ornaments and decorations in large plastic tubs so they would not get damaged from year to year.  Now was the time to organize my fabric just like I did my Christmas.  I took my Christmas gift cards and headed to the local Walmart and purchased plastic containers with lids.  I think I actually purchased 6 on my first trip thinking I would not have enough fabric to fill all the containers but could use the extra ones to store some of our out of season clothing.  I actually had a plan.  I love 40's fabric, Aunt Grace especially and I had purchased fabric of every different pattern I found.  I purchased a minimum of 1 yard of fabric, unless I really loved it and then I purchased 3 yards just in case I wanted to use it for a border.  Well I could fold the 1 yard pieces much like a fat quarter and they fit perfectly in those lovely containers.  Each container would hold about 40-50  1 yard pieces all nice and neat.  I arranged them in order of colors, I had blue, yellow, red, green, orange, brown, pink and right on down the line.  I believe I made about 4 trips back to the Walmart for more containers before I finished, but the end product was my fabric, gathered from the four corners of the house, was now all in one place.  And I had neatly labeled the ends of the containers with what color fabric so I now could find that elusive piece of fabric that I knew I had somewhere. 




Nothing fancy, just labels and writing with a felt tip pen. 
As you can see it has changed some over time.






The really great thing is how well they fit and I can actually
tell what the fabric is without pulling out the piece and unfolding.
Makes it easier to take the piece of cloth I am trying match and just
hover over the different color to see what goes best!


Since that first sorting many new pieces of fabric have been added and many of the old pieces are now in quilts somewhere, but I have continued using my lovely containers, with labels on the ends.  At times I have many pieces of fabric pulled from those containers as I audition them for their place in the current project, but the ones who don't make the cut are eventually put back into the containers to await their turn in a new project.

I would like to encourage each of you to decide on a way to store your extra bits and pieces of fabric unless you are one of those wonderful people who are able to have only 1 project at a time and dispose of any leftovers immediately.  If you are more like me and save and keep your scraps in hopes of one day putting all those pieces together into a wonderful quilt, then try to pick a system for storage that works for you.  At least that way if you want a particular piece of fabric that you know you have, you will be able to find that fabric without the frustration I used to experience.

Another thing that you will really need to watch out for in leaving your fabric folded or creased for very long periods of time.  These creases can become permanent and cause you to lose some of your fabric or have to cut around areas.  If you have fabric that you have stored, take it out of the drawer or container and refold in a different manner so your creased don't become permanent.  Sometimes I will actually take a container and shake out each piece and toss it in the washer on a rinse cycle and then dry and refold and put back in the container.  This keeps the fabric fresh, prevents permanent creases and your fabric won't dry rot. 

Really the same thing goes for your quilts.  They must be taken out and shaken and refolded to prevent those permanent fold marks.  When storing your quilts, please don't store them in plastic bags as this will damage your quilts causing dark brown spots and streaks through the quilt.  Storing your quilt in a pillow case works wonderfully well.  It keeps your quilt clean and neat and you won't have brown spots.  If you have fabric left over from making your quilt you may want to sew up a couple of pillow cases to match the quilt and then an extra for storage.  Putting your Christmas quilt in a Christmas pillow case makes it easy to find without pulling so many things out of the linen closet in your search. 

However you decide to store you fabric and your finished projects, make it as easy as possible for you, and pick a design created to decrease wasted time looking for a particular item.  These are just small steps to make your life easier and decrease stress and give you more time for quilting.  If you have a special way you have stored your fabric or sewing supplies, please let me know and I will pass your tips on to others to help make their lives easier.  Over half the fun comes with sharing.    I hope you have a wonderful day.
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