Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Design Wall Monday

Wow, the weekend has gone by fast and I didn't get much sewing done. Mom, however, was a machine. She quilted 3 quilts and made 2 more quilt backs. I spent a lot of my time here:

I know it's a small garden but it's the first time in over 20 years that I ahve been able to be outside and I am really enjoying my daily time fiddling around in the garden. It's not on the scale of Judy's garden but it's enough for me. Chris planted tomatoes and lettuce for himself because I can't eat either of those things and because I can't eat green things we are limited to the vegetables we can plant. I've planted lots of parsnips and carrots along with yellow squash, potatoes, red and yellow bell peppers, corn and cantaloupe. I'll be thrilled if any of it produces!

Inside the house this is my design wall for the day. I have yards and yards of newly dyed fabric to iron and list in the shop. I'd better get to it. I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day holiday and if you get a few minutes be sure to check out what everyone else has going on today.

Design Wall Monday

Before getting into the design wall post I want to tell you about Saturday. Anne was invited by Oracle to attend the air show at Join Base Andrews in Maryland. She invited me along and we had a great day.

We were in th Oracle tent which was front and center on the tarmac. We could not have had a better view. Oracle sponsors Sean D Tucker  (who I knew absolutely nothing about) but later learned that he is the only civilian pilot to ever be allowed to fly in formation with the Blue Angels. He does some really cool things with this cute biplane. We also saw an F22 Raptor and a B-2 Stealth. Awesome.

But the highlight, for us, were the Blue Angels. I've never seen them perform live and it was worth the trip just for that. The ground control crew was right in front of us and we watch them signal them with mirrors. They use radios too, of course, but they also flash mirrors.  The weather was beautiful, my shirt turned out great and the sunscreen worked. It was a perfect day.

The air show was followed by a great sewing day.

I finished the blocks for Kim's quilt! I'm going to leave them on the design wall for a few days to make sure I like the block arrangement and will hopefully start putting the top together this weekend.

Willie and I worked hard last week to get the rail fence quilt done and I loaded the Grinch quilts yesterday. The back for both is one large piece so, with an easy overall quilting design, I should get both of these done this week before Mom comes for the weekend. She's going to have some quality time with Willie over the holiday weekend.

Check out whate veryone else is doing over at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

Where did last week go? I can't believe it's already Monday again! This vegetable gardening thing has me enthralled. I'm still at the point where I want to check it every hour to see if there's new growth. I hope that stops soon so I can get some sewing done instead. Once it gets to July and I have to water it twice a day in the scorching heat I may be able to leave it alone the rest of the day.

Last week wasn't a total waste. I got these 7 pillowcases done to send off with my QOV quilt. I had some brown fabrics left from the QOV and a backing fabric from the quilt that's currently on the frame so I pulled a couple of other manly fabrics from my stash and made these. Now it's all ready to go off to Alycia. If you don't follow Alycia you should check out her recent posts. She's been doing an interesting series on a "day in the life of a QOV" where she talks about how she processes and controls all of the tops and finished QOV quilts that she receives. She dedicates an amazing amount of time to this program and I am grateful to have someone like her to take care of my QOV quilts.

If you want to make a pillowcase for your next QOV or simply for a gift, I have a tutorial for these pillowcases here.

I didn't quilt an hour every day but I got a few hours in and I'm now close to the end of this quilt. I didn't get any of my other projects done though so I will set a goal of getting the last 8 blocks for Kim's quilt done this week.

I also have this new little project. My cousin's son is in some sort of touring band thing and his drum section hs a little mascot (doll!) and he wanted a new outfit for it. Dolls creep me out so much that I made him take the doll and leave me the old clothes as a pattern. The last thing I want is a doll laying around my sewing room.  You might as well put a rubber snake in there with it to complete the creep factor!

Thanks for all of the links to your sewing table construction plans. They were very helpful. We finally agreed on our plan and bought the materials yesterday. Since I replaced the ballast in my light fixture without electrocuting myself, we will move on up to power tools and see what happens with this.

This afternoon we are off to a meeting where I will get to see a lot of old work buddies. Why don't you go check out what out internet buddies are up to at Patchwork Times.

 

 

Making a sewing machine table - advice needed

I know that some of you creative types have made your own sewing machine tables. Tomorrow Chris and I are going to give it a go. I recently took apart our gigantic (and heavy) entertainment center. The top is a nice thick piece of wood and I want to make it into a new sewing machine table with a cut out for my machine. For those of you who have done this, how dod you support the surface under the table where the machine sits? I envision the perfect solution with some 3" u-shaped brackets but I'm not sure anything like that exists! How did you build yours?

I bought adjustable legs from Ikea so I can get it to the perfect height. 

Sewing Saturday with the Country School Quilters was fun today.

I finished my red, white and blue veteran's quilt top and started the green one. There were 8 if us together today and 4 of us had owned that border fabric at some point! It's so old that I'm pretty sure that I bought it before I ever started quilting. I'm glad to have it out of my stash and it was a good finish for the leftover reds and creams from my last QOV.

Last night I got all of the sashings and border cut for a veteran's quilt ans a QOV from the green scrap blocks. It will look just like the one above when done....except green. Fortunately I had one extra block becase one of the blocks has some halloween fabric in it with an image of a headstone engraved "RIP". I didn't think that would be appropriate in either quilt.

I got the rows together for the veteran's quilt. Next month I should be able to wrap this one up and will start the QOV in July.

If you have any advice on my sewing table I would appreciate hearing it.

Design Wall Monday

I missed last week's edition of DWM because of our internet issues. I'm pretty certain that missing that one post screwed up my entire week. It seems that I've become dependent on this post to organize my thoughts and plans for the week. Seriously, I don't feel like I got anything done last week. I did finish spreading the 5th (and last) truckload of mulch and I did a lot of work in the garden. I also increased my daily exercise commitment and got some other things done around the house. But I don't feel like I accomplished much in the sewing room. This week will be different.

I didn't quilt for an hour every day last week so the Coming Home quilt is still on Willie. Instead I did hand sewing on the binding of the last quilt that I quilted.  I will get back to Coming Home today. See that ruler? It's the cable ruler from Willow Leaf Studios. I've had that template for at least 3 years, probably a lot longer, and I've never used it. I could kick myself. This template is so easy to use and it makes a great border design. You will see lots more of this in the future. It would be great on masculine quilts.

I am also using up some stash to make pillowcases to send to Alycia. I've got a QOV to send her this week and will include these in the box.

I am determined to get the last 8 blocks made for Kim's quilt. Kim and Jamie just bought a house so I need to get this quilt moving along!

First I need to replace this ballast in one of my sewing room fixtures. If I don't electrocute myself and if the repair works I may finally tackle the dripping faucet in the bathroom. The division of labor around here assigns jobs requiring fine motor skills and hand tools to me. All jobs requiring strength, stamina or power tools go to Chris. He will be involved in building my new sewing table in a week or so.

I'm off to Lowe's to buy a ballast. Why don't you go check out what everyone else is doing at Patchwork Times.