Needle and Thread

It feels so right!!!

2012-01-31T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well I did not mean to ignore the blog for so long. One thing led to another thing and before I knew it; it is the end of January. Earlier this month I joined the FMQ challenge over at SewCalGal blog. It feels so right to be FMQ again. I wish that was the only thing that I needed to do during the day, quilting for about 8-10 hours a day, and be in total bliss. But that doesn’t put food on the table or buy the wonderful thread for the quilting. Each month there is a different teacher that has offered to demo or explain a design or technique. Several hundred quilters from allover the world are participating in the challenge. At the end of the month if you submit either a practice piece or project to a link on SewCalGal blog. You have a chance to win a prize. Even if I don’t win anything, I still have won for myself in making time to FMQ, and practicing techniques that I may not have done. Plus see so many wonderful blogs and pictures from other quilters. I have already gotten some new inspirations and its just the first month. The January teacher is Frances Moore at frantastic-stitchwitchery, the technique is a leaf design that can be used for an allover quilting.
I one technique that I least like is the allover designs. Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with allover designs, they have there place and purpose. Why do fancy feathers or heirloom designs if your not going to be able to see them. The reason I don’t do them is that I have problems staying consistent in size and want to make things to small for the overall quilt. Making it turn out to stiff or unbalanced. I have a couple of tops that I need to do an allover quilting, but have put it off, due to not being very good at being consistent and fear of messing them up. I would prefer to do heirloom feathers and pebbling than large flowing easy leafs. So that said I am glad that the first month was an allover design, out of the box and foot forward. I practiced on paper for a few days and then put a piece of what ever fabric that I had in my stash together and started the design.

I also had some 12” blocks that I had cut up to do a quilt as you go quilt, I thought would be great to use this design. Not to large and not to small. It will be either a quilt for one of my granddaughters or a charity quilt. One side is butterflies and the other side I am using 7 different colors for each of the different blocks.

Here is a close up of the butterflies, so you can see the leaf/heart shape.

I have a couple of things that I want to play with during this challenge. 2012 FMQ may be the exact thing to get some projects finished. Thank you SewCalGal for a doing this wonderful challenge.
Cheryl M.

Stay tuned for changes !!!

2011-11-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

I know that I have been absent for a long time. If there is anyone left to say that to. Anyway I will be updating the blog and starting a website at the end of the month. I want to concentrate my efforts to teaching my own designs with my own tips and tricks and taking the mystery out of free motion quilting. Maybe in the space between life and teaching I want to write up a book proposal.

These changes will have to wait till I get some time, since I am back to 40 hour day job, which is great for the pocket book but stressful on time wise.

Design Wall Monday 8-22-2011

2011-08-22T07:30:00.000-04:00

Where does time go. One day it was July and the next its August, about to be September. Only thing that I seem to work on lately is still class projects. The current project from Quilters’ Academy 3. It’s a mock feathered star that is easy if you break down the parts into half square triangles, square n square, and flying geese. After you get the parts made, its assembled like a 9 patch. I miscalculated the yellow background fabric so I have to get more to do the side setting blocks.

Also wanted to let anybody know that the opportunity quilt that I was working on earlier this year is finally finished and if anybody is interested I posted about it in the previous post.

That’s all for me for now. Jump over to Judy’s blog and see what everybody else is doing this Monday.

Cheryl M.

2011 Opportunity Quilt

2011-08-22T07:28:00.001-04:00

I wondered if this quilt would ever get finished. If you look at earlier post about this quilt you will see that it was an overwhelming adventure. I am happy to say that the quilting, binding, label and sleeve are finished. It has been registered in the local quilt show, quiltfest jax, that will be next month. Though I don’t expect the quilt to win any ribbons, but it will be fun to see what the judge’s comments will be.

The funds raised from this quilt will go to the local food pantry that helps supply food to low income families and the homeless in the clay county area. In this economy it is usually the last place people will donate funds or food to. The selves nowadays are mostly empty. So the funds that the guild brings to them in October will be a blessing for them to stock up on things before the fall and winter months get here.

If you are interested in a chance to win this quilt please drop me an email and I will get a ticket to you. They are $1.00 each. The drawing will be on September 24 at the end of the quilt show. If you get a chance to go to the show look me up at the First Coast quilt guild table at the front area of the show. It is a fairly large show, with over 450 quilts and about 70 vendors. Thanks for looking.

Also by the way all the fabric is hand dyed and measures 73” by 73”.

Cheryl M.

Design Wall Monday 7-18-2011

2011-07-18T07:42:00.002-04:00

Been a while since I did a design wall Monday. So I will jump into it again. I am the worse blog writer. I do quilting things for teaching and personal projects, but when it comes to telling about them. I feel that they are not anything worthy enough to write about, a snip here or a one seam here kind of thing. My quilting projects are mostly teaching samples for my classes at the present time. I get so wrapped up into getting the project done and to the shops that I forget to take pictures of them. I have about 5 projects going at the present time, and only one is at the stage to be on the design wall. This current project is a class sample for the Quilters’ academy book number 3. It is a wonderful book to learn different techniques for half square triangles, flying geese block tricks and basics about sewing on the bias. I started out with a plan to make the sample quilt that has 9 different blocks that consist of 16 half square block that are arranged in different configurations. I sewed one block together and thought that my students would get frustrated with getting the points aligned. So I modified the blocks to incorporate flying geese and s2s blocks. Sixteen 2” blocks are a pain to put together, let alone teach it to others. Some of my students are somewhat beginners and I want them to feel like they can do the quilt without getting frustrated and quit.

This morning as I was sewing the sashing to the blocks and trying to keep everything square with the star points I made a decision that this quilt will be to difficult for some people. Since I already have one row sashing sewed on I decided to make a small table runner out of it. The other blocks I rearranged to make a modified table running that is in the book. The bottom line I will teach the techniques and the students can arrange the blocks as them want later.
I will try to post about my new sewing machine baby that I simply love for free motion quilting tomorrow. Till then, jump over to Judy’s blog and see what others are doing.

New obsession

2011-06-17T18:01:00.000-04:00

Been busy making my class samples for my quilt classes. I will post about that real soon. But in the mean time I have started a new obsession. For a couple of years now I have seen Judy L. knit socks and been wanting to try. Well for 1 1/2 years I have been trying without any success, till recently. I learned how to knit the continental way using circular needles with the magic loop style. Boy that was a mouth full! I finally finished a pair last week.

I have been buying yarn, when it was on sale for the past year. But when I walked into Joann's today and discovered that clearence items where an additional 50% off. So I collected enough yarn to do 11 more pairs of socks plus the 6 pairs that I allready had. I sure hope I like knitted socks. LOL.

Till later I have to go find a place to stash my new yarn obsession.
Chery M.

FMQ challenge continues

2011-04-30T22:40:00.000-04:00

So far I have been able to do the FMQ challenge for the last 7 days. I seem to only grab a 15 –30 minutes time frames, but at least I am doing in each day. Thanks Wendy and Joanne for the challenge, it was just what I needed to jump start the FMQ again. Here is what I have been doing for the my day 6 and day 7.

For day 6 I finally figured out the swirl design for my daughter’s quilt. It was staring right at me in one of the fabrics in the quilt.

It’s feather design with swirly curls for the feathers. I wanted to quilt the red blocks in red and the only red thread that I had left was a spool of invisfil 100 wt. poly.

So I did one small area and it was a dream of a thread to work with, I melted into the fabric and showed very little wobble in the back tracking areas. The small area that is next to the swirl feather is about 1/5” wide by 1” long. The invisfil thread is so fine that you can get very detail in the spacing and control of your movements. If you ever get a chance to work with this thread, do try you will be amazed by control you can have.

On day 7 I started the quilting the red blocks in DD quilt, going slow and that is OK. I mark each 3” block with a pilot frixion pen just enough to see. It might take me the next 7 days to do this quilt, at least I will have been working on it and not folded up in the corner. One thing that I noticed about this design is that every now and then the swirls form a heart shape, fitting for who the quilt is going to.

Cheryl M.

One more on my plate!

2011-04-24T21:44:00.001-04:00

Well I may have to be committed after May 6th, with all that I have going on now with teaching classes to guild projects and starting a couple of knitting projects, plus starting up doing my hand needlework again, I really don’t need another thing in my life. BUT I have decided to join in on an online free motion challenge that Joanne and Wendy are doing. It started on Friday April 22^nd and goes to May 6^th; the challenge is that you have to do some form of FMQ for 14 days straight. I think it will be more help to me than doing an overload to myself, for the simple fact that I will be trying to finish some of the projects that are lying around my sewing room. Finishing is always a good thing in my world. The projects are somewhat small so the idea is to get back to FMQ slowly and work up to doing maybe a couple of larger projects after the challenge is over. I have not done any FMQ this year and I only did a couple of things last year. So with that said I will go organize my projects and report back sometime tomorrow.

Design Monday 3-21-11

2011-03-21T08:20:00.001-04:00

Just a quick post about design wall Monday. At the present time I don’t have anything on my design wall . This week I will change that, I will be able to put up something of one of my own projects. For the last 4 months I have been putting my guilds’ opportunity quilt together. Its is not hard, just very time consuming to get all the points to align up in the right place and several pins later. I can say that the top is together and ready for another member to quilt it.

As you can see I went with the orange border strip.

Now go see all the other design wall Mondays for great inspiration on Judy’s blog.

Cheryl M.

Design wall Monday 2-21-2011

2011-02-21T06:00:00.007-05:00

I finally have something different on my design wall. Though I am still working on the opportunity quilt for my guild. I will show pictures of that also later. This quilt is my class quilt for the Quilter’s Academy class that I will be teaching in March. It is the first quilt in the second book. A fairly simply quilt, more nine patches with solid blocks in between them. The fabric is some of my hand dyes that I did last summer in playing with a kit that I ordered from Pro Chemical and dye, to learn how to do hand dyed fabrics. It totally is not my colors, but I like the change from blue and yellow for now. If I don’t like it when I get finished I will put into the pile for charity.
For the other quilt that I am working on, you may be interested to know that I have all the blocks together and working on the pieced border now. I hope to have the top completed by the end of the week and ready for someone to quilt it. The only problem is that I am not sure if I should use the gold, yellow or orange accent border. I would love to hear what others think. I will show the complete quilt next week.

If you want to see what everyone else is doing, hop over to Judy's blog and see what is going on.

I think I got it!!

2011-02-11T12:26:00.001-05:00

I did another gradation yesterday. This time only 1 1/4 tsp. of dye in a 1/2 cup of water. You can see the gradation came out better. the first two are close to the same. The middle two are about the same value and the lightest two are close to the same. In real life you can see the graduations better. I think one reason for the little difference in gradations values is because of the color I am using. Some colors dyes I have discovered do better gradations than others, also the different variables like water amount and estimating dyes volumes plays into the equation.

I was also playing around with the photo on the computer. I discovered that if I take the color out and have a black and white picture you can see the texture of the fabric. Cool hah!!

I might try to do a different gradation color this weekend to see how that comes out. My time is premium for me now. Doing class samples and organizing my lessons plans makes for doing two jobs.

Till next time

Cheryl M.

Hand dyes

2011-02-09T11:27:00.002-05:00

Last May I started to learn how to dye fabric. This has been a real learning experience. The quilt that I have been showing on Design Wall Mondays for the last three weeks is all done in hand dyes to get the correct shade of colors. I do pretty good in following the instructions on Pro Chemical and dying website and a couple of books that I have. All of the fabric pieces that I have done so far have been 1 yard or more cuts. My problem is that I want to do some 6 step gradation using only FQs'. The reason for doing only FQs' is that I like to do scrappy and applique quilts and large yardage would most likely sit in my stash. Plus I only have so much room and money to experiment. I did a couple of colors to see how they would come out. My 6 step gradation come out to have only 2 gradations in color in IMHO. I think that I am using to much dye for the concentration of water ration. I use 2 tsp of dye to 1/2 cup of water and keep adding 1/4 of water back into the mixture of dye of the next step. As you can see the first 4 FQs are very dark and the 6th step is lighter in shade. If someone can till me what I should be doing for FQs and not whole yardage I would greatly appreciate the advice.
Cheryl M.

Monday’s Design wall 1-31-11

2011-01-31T07:43:00.000-05:00

Well it’s Monday again, and I have a little more to show on my design wall. The same quilt is still on the wall. I have a couple more blocks up and sewn together. It seems that I should be done putting this together, but it is slow getting all the seams to match. I can only do a couple seams at a time. Then I have to move to something else. I had to dye some more fabric for this quilt. I ran out of the darker blue and I still have the border to piece together. I will be glad to see this one completed.

In other things I started to work on a class sample for the Quilter’s Academy series, this one is for a class that I am teaching in March. It is from the second book of Harriet Hargrave’s book Quilter’s Academy. It should go together fairly quickly after I find some more fabric. I cut the strips out last night, but I figures wrong and did not have enough. I should be able to find something very close. If not I will find a way to use what I have. Make it into a learning experiment for class example of what not to do and how to save a quilt. All in one example. I hope to have it up on my design wall next Monday. I am sure everyone is tired of seeing the same quilt on the wall for three weeks. I know I am sure tired of seeing it. I am ready to move on to other things.
If you want to see more things and get some wonderful inspiration go check out all the links on Judy’s L. blog. Till next time and hopefully with something else on the design wall.
Cheryl M>

Design Wall Monday 1-24-11

2011-01-24T11:26:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post for design wall Monday. As you can see that I have done a little more on the opportunity quilt for one of my guilds. I have all the blocks back from the members, and just have to finish a couple of blocks that I said I would do. I have been able to stitch a couple of 4 patches together and will sew them together this week. I am hoping to get this center done by the end of the month and working on the border real soon. My goal is to have the top finished by the 11th for guild meeting. Then someone else can take it for a little bit to have it quilted.
Thanks for stopping by and go look at all the other design Mondays' on Judy's blog.

Design Wall Monday 1-17-11

2011-01-17T07:51:00.002-05:00

I thought that I would try to do Judy s' design wall Monday again this year. Since I have more time now, I might be able to keep something on the wall to report, other than one or two thing a year. I presently am the quilt mother for my guild's opportunity quilt. This is our 2010 opportunity quilt that I hope the top gets finished in the next month. I am so ready for this quilt to go to a quilter. It started out to be a project that sounded interesting. Last year I presented 4 quilts to the guild. I did not think that they would pick this one, due to that it is paper pieced. The problem was that not many guild members like to paper piece. Then I thought that it would look the best in hand dyed fabric. The problem was that hand dyed fabric would cost the guild to much money to make. So I learned how to dye the fabric myself. Which turned out to be pretty cool, so now I have a new skill that I enjoy very much. Its not a difficult pattern but it does have 27 pieces in each block and not all the blocks are the same color arrangement. Anyway the blocks are almost finished, just waiting to receive about 4 more blocks from a member and I will be able to put the top together completely. The pattern is from the magazine 'Quiltmaker' the September/October 09 issue. Thanks for looking at my blog, go see all the other great post on Judy's blog of other design wall Mondays.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T09:10:00.000-05:00

Wishing all a Happy New Year. Hoping that you succeed in all your goals and dreams.

UFO Challenge

2010-12-31T20:11:00.011-05:00

If starting a new business isn't overwhelming already, I am going to add a couple of things to my already long list of "to do". In 2011 I am going to do an online UFO Challenge. I hoping that this will give me a reason to work on some of my things that I kind of keep putting off. Like when you say that "I'll do that project later" and the later never comes. In starting my business for teaching computer programs and quilting, I will most likely be working on class projects and my long list of UFOs will be forgotten to a later time. So in the spirit of doing things in a group. I have decided to join in Judy L. online UFO challenge to try to complete 1 projects a month for 12 months. I added a 13th project just to make things interesting to me. If I finish a project early then I will work on the 13th project a little at a time, so that this time next year I will have an added bonus of 13 UFO project done.
Here are the project list. Some of these project are close to 15 years old, like #9. I started this quilt when my son was in 7th grade I think. He is now 28 years old. Most of them are only a couple of years old.

Mysteries quilt #1 (blue and gold) - March
flamingo doll quilt - July
star quilt
red and white doll quilt - April
firework quilt
interlocking chain / bird quilt - January
Hope crumb small quilt
stack and whack star doll quilt - June
Angel’s graduation quilt - May
jungle fever quilt - February
pink and brown butterfly quilt
Asian circle quilt
puppy trip around the world quilt

Cheryl M.

Whirlwind and changes

2010-10-27T07:52:00.001-04:00

Well the last two months have been a whirlwind. From working a large quilt show here in Jacksonville FL for 3 days, to a 7 day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean, to coming back to work and couple of weeks later finding out that my hours at work will be cut to 24 from 40 hours. The plus side of fewer hours, maybe I can get reorganized to start putting some more quilting and piecing classes together in the local area. I also want to put into place a business plan to start my own business. Just not sure if I want to go into the direction of teaching quilting on a large scale or do my second love of computers. Starting a computer consulting business is very risky in that the field is flooded with everyone thinking they can give help about computers. I would love to combine the two fields together, teaching quilting and how to use the computer to the best advantage. So many things can make quilting easier if you can use the computer, from software programs, such as EQ, to drawing quilting designs on the computer first. Just the use of taking a picture and looking at the fabric in a different media will give you a different perceptive to fabric choices.
The one thing that I do know is that I will have to work on my computer certifications, bring them up to date. I finished school 4 years ago, and have not done anything with getting a job in the field or keeping my certifications up to date. So some of my extra time will be hitting the books again. The cut in hours will only be a short lived thing, the next step will be finding a new job in March when this job, ( with the cut hours) will lose the contract money completely.
On the teaching front I started teaching a beginners class from the Quilters' Academy book again. This time I have 4 students. The first night is a really fast and whirlwind of a time. Trying to get the terminology covered and try to start cutting on fabric, within a two hour time frame, is almost impossible. Last night was the second class and things went good, a couple of things about sewing the strip sets together and learning to rip is always the at the top of the things happening in the beginners class. With the extra time I will be able to post more about the classes and things from the Quilters' Academy book that I discover as I do the project myself.

Where does time fly off to!!

2010-08-23T13:10:00.001-04:00

I can not believe that it's been two months since I blogged. I really need to do it more often. I think the last thing that I left off with was having a FMQ (free motion quilting) class to teach. Both of the classes that I taught went very well. They all said that they enjoyed it and learned a couple of things. In teaching any class the one thing that I want a student to leave with is the satisfaction that at least they got what they paid for and to learn at least one new thing. I have another FMQ class scheduled in November.
The other class that I taught was the beginners quilting class that I used Quilters' Academy book by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave. With 5 students it went very well, resulting in another class in October that will continue with parts from the first book. It is almost impossible to cover a large percentage of the ideas and instructions from this book in only 8 hours of class. To do it right it has to be done in about 16 to 20 hours. It is better to learn the basics and in short increments than having student that are overwhelmed by massive piecing instructions. I believe that some quilters have not learned to think more than what a quilt pattern says to do. The ability to understand and create a pattern is far more rewarding than to just copy something that someone else has done before.
I hope to make time to show tutorials on my blog with step by step instructions on doing basic concepts. Like how to get perfect points and having a nine patch be the right size when you get finished. One of the things that I showed my students in the Quilters' Academy class that when they finished the center block in the sampler, to know how to fix the seams so that is comes out the correct size. Just because the nine parts are the same at the beginning does not always come out the correct size at the end. Knowing the size of the blocks and using the ruler you can figure out what seam is off and correct it from that point. Without ripping the entire block apart.

Till later
Cher

Progress (little by little)

2010-06-16T12:14:00.001-04:00

OK I know its been a long time since I blogged. Its not the easiest to do with a list to do a mile long. I been working on a couple of projects. One finishing up the charity quilt that I posted about earlier this year. I will get a picture of the quilt and post it soon. The other thing is that I was working on a small doll quilt for a pin less circle class that I taught, at one of my guild workshop last month.

Also been working on the sampler from Quilter's Academy projects. Since I received volume 2 in the mail a couple of weeks ago, I put the setting triangles on the rail fence and nine patch squares. I did correct the problem with the wrong size pieces that I talked about last post. In fact I ended up starting over because as I started putting the pieces together I did not like the look of the design. I still may finish it and give it away to charity or donation to the Quiltfest Jax fund raisers at the annual quilt show.
I have a free motion quilting class tomorrow that will be exciting, there will be about 8-10 students. I can't wait to see the joy in there faces when they discover that FMQ is not that hard. My goal is to have everyone believing in the possibilities that they can create something special. Till next time (hopefully not as long as before between post.)

Late night problems

2010-05-04T13:00:00.010-04:00

In all the years that I have sewn, you would think that I would have learned to not sew precision piecing late at night. Last night I thought I would relax a little by sewing, so I sewed a few strips together to make the nine patches for the quilter's academy sampler. Things seem to be going OK, got the first set done and then sewed the second set. Pressed all the seams OK (hind sight is that I did not check the seams and sets for accuracy, before I cut the segments). The pieces did not come together at the seams. Now the nine patch is not a hard block to do, but it does require the piecing to be precise so ALL the seams intersect properly. At first glance I thought that the set with the blue, pink, blue set was the wrong size. But in examining the sets the culprit was the pink, blue, pink set. In the pictures you can see that the 'pbp' set in an 1/8" short and the center strip in not an inch like it is suppose to be. So I had to re cut the strips and resew the pbp set again. A good example that veteran quilters make mistakes.

At first glance it look like the bottom set is the wrong size. But the top set is the pbp set and it is the one that is 1/8" short. The little loop or bump on the bottom is the result of the set being longer that the top set. there is no way that these two sets are going to lay flat and match the seams.

This picture shows the seams when I lay the sets flat the right seam is an 1/8" off. I have the left set of seams butted up exactly the way it would be sewn.

Here is the pink, blue, pink set under the ruler. It only measures 3 3/8" it should be exactly 3 1/2".

This is the blue, pink, blue set. If you look at the 3 1/2" mark you can just see the color difference between the background and the blue piece of fabric. The important thing is that it is exactly 3 1/2" long and the center strip is exactly 1".

Till later

Quilters Academy sampler

2010-04-30T22:33:00.003-04:00

Just want to show that I started working on class samples for my class that I'll be teaching in July. The color is a little off. I really have to learn how to edit photo with adobe photoshop element. There are two more parts that I want to work on this weekend. The sampler is from the book Quilter's Academy by Harriet and Carrie Hargrave. It really is a great book for beginners and quilt veterans alike. It teaches the basics and tells you the reasoning behind why you use a specific thread and needle. And why thing come out one way and they are suppose to come out a different way in the piecing process. In doing the series, a quilter can learn and also enjoy the process of piecing with very little frustrations.

Classes at LQS

2010-04-23T11:48:00.005-04:00

Just want to pop in and say that I made arrangements with one of the LQS to teach two classes this summer. One is the Quilters Academy series book #1 by Harriet Hargrave. It will consist of four classes that hopefully will be just enough to make things clear but not to fast for a beginner quilter to understand the basic concepts. I plan on teaching from the book doing a couple of projects. Mostly giving the students the guidelines and hold anybodies hands that are not sure of things. I 'm really looking forward to teaching this class. I have always felt that something in the quilting community has been missing. After scanning the book I realized what they were.
The basics, in making quilts to clothing or even craft items, you can not make a good fit with poor or wrong size pieces. Understanding the reason why fabrics lay a certain way and the proper size thread and needle mix together is what results in a good to excellent items. The type of items that everyone wants to win a blue ribbon with. I see several quilts shops that I have visited through out the United States give a quilting class on one project. Telling the quilter to cut this many pieces and seam together this piece to that piece to make one quilt. This logic is OK if the quilter knows the correct way to lay the fabric and cut to achieving the correct seam. Or better yet how to change something to get the correct answer to have the perfect block. I hope to write in the blog the process of me sewing the samples for the classes to some pics and ideas that results in the classes.
The other class is Free motion quilting that will hopefully result in making quilters to believe that doing free motion quilting on a home sewing machine is not any harder than drawing on paper, but you need PRATICE to achieve the results that are so worth the effort.
With luck this weekend I will be cutting and sewing the first project together. Maybe I can have something to show on the blog soon.

Eye opening experience

2010-02-08T08:53:00.010-05:00

Why is it that when things spin out of control for a day or two, it takes two weeks to recover. The out of control started in thinking that I could clean my sewing room up in a couple of hours and after 2 weeks it is more of a disaster than when I started. With things all over the place I seem to not be able to sew. Then I came down with a sinus infection and strep throat, that laid me out for about 4 days. One thing after another seems to be getting in my way with finishing my charity quilt. I have 4 braids done and the dark purple bought. So if I have a couple of hours to sew I might be able to sew the top together before Thursday, which is when it needs to be done.
The one thing that I have been looking forward to for a long time is taking a classes at the guild retreat from Harriet Hargrave this last weekend. Oh my gosh it was a eye opening experience that will stay with me for a long time. In the quilting area of sewing I have felt that people where missing something in the quality or lack of knowing the correct things when it came to small things in the quilting area overall. Like the proper thread, and needles, how to lay out the fabric to get a straight grain cut. Since my background comes from the garment construction and heirloom sewing, quilting people always did it differently just because someone that quilted said so. That the two worlds of garment and quilting where not to be intermixed. Ms Hargrave has the idea that you have to have a good understanding of the correct basic, not the idea of what is new and neat gizmo that will do the magic trick and everyone is quilting. She was saying things that I learned from my mother and aunt 40 years ago, I just take it for granted that others learned it also, but the case is not so. Several people that I have meet have only quilted and pieced for only about 5 or 10 years, when it started to become popular to quilt.
The things that you need to do is get back to basics, have a good sewing machine, turn off the automatic buttons, and practice. Find the speed and hand rhythm that is comfortable for you, may it be slow or medium, not fast and quilt away.
She has a new book series out that is called quilters academy, you work through the book step by step and understand the ideas and basic to know the correct way to do things. I am hopeing that my daughter Angel will work through it with my help. That maybe I can start teaching classed on this series in the local area. My hopes are looking up in that there is a place in the quilting area that will satisfy my need for my last career.

Design Wall 1-18-2010

2010-01-18T08:43:00.016-05:00

Well here we are again. Another week gone in the year of 2010, and before we know it it will be Christmas again. Isn't that a scary thought in the middle of January. I did a fair share of sewing this weekend. Dh wasn't feeling very well so I stayed in my sewing room while he rested. By Sunday he was feeling better. I got two braid strips done on my charity braid quilt. Its a fun technique, not much to think about, just the color placements of the braids. I turned under the edges to get a better idea what the braids will look like after I trim the sides.

Since I don't have enough pieces to sew the braids next to each other to make a twin size quilt. I'm going to sew a long strips in between the braids. I found a couple of fabrics that I thought might go with them, but I'm not sure if I like either one of them after I put them next to the braids. Thinking maybe a solid tan or dark purple color between the braids and borders. If you have any ideas or if you can tell me which fabric or neither you think goes with them, I would love to hear it.
Till next week, and hoping I will have all five braids on the design wall and have a better idea. Jump over to Judy's blog to see every one's design walls.

Design wall 1-11-2010

2010-01-11T10:16:00.014-05:00

Well here is the first design wall post of the year for me. Last month I said that I was going to do the Monday design wall from Judy L. blog. Last week I did not have my stuff, (mind) together to post a picture. I did read and look at the other post on the link from Judy's blog post. Everyone blogs and designs walls are looking great. So keeping this short so I can get it posted and linked.

The design wall is the start of a quilt that I am trying to start, and finish before February 11th. This quilt will be a charity quilt for one of the guilds that I belong to. As a group we are donating about 15 quilts to a local children's home. I wanted to play with all the 2.5" strips that I have been exchanging with a guild group. Most of the strips I pulled from my stash, I only had to buy about a half dozen other fabrics. I was short on the green and lighter color purples. So shopping I went for more fabric. On the wall is only two strips of a braid quilt that I found on the web. I will look to see where I got the pattern from so that credit to the pattern is to whom it is properly credited to. Hopefully next week I will have all 7 strips up on the wall and starting the borders.

So if you have a few extra minutes jump over to Judy's blog and look at all the wonderful blogs and links. Have a great Monday.

New Year and New Ideas

2010-01-04T09:03:00.002-05:00

Well the holidays are past and only 11 months till the Christmas 2010 is here before we know it. The Christmas wrapping and everything else was done by 9:00 PM Christmas Eve, with 10 minutes to spare. Overall the holiday was pretty good, no surprises and very, very little arguing from my children. All the Christmas decorations are put away, just have to wait or DH and DS to put them back up in the attic.

I am looking forward to getting several things done and a few things started in 2010. Especially getting the new career going with designing and teaching in the local area. I keep a list of several projects that I am doing (UFOs) and projects that I want to do. This list keeps me grounded as to not adding new projects, and keeps the list in perspective to what I want to finish. In the beginning of 2009 I had 114 items on the list and I might add that this was not a complete list of everything. Not all of these items are quilting, some are sewing garments, to painting, hand needlework, etc. This is the reason why I keep a list to ground me in the right direction, otherwise the list would be in the 2 to 3 hundred range and very little would get finished. As the end of 2009 I completed 25 items. Now you would think that the list would be 89 items on it, well I see things I want to do and buy the fabric or thread or whatever is needed, then a new item is added to the list. As a result the list as of the start of 2010 has 116 items.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T08:44:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas to all. I hope you are ready. Well it is Christmas Eve day and I am still trying to finish things up. At least most of the gifts are wrapped, only about handful to left to wrap, not like I normally have about a couple of dozen at 10:00 pm and just starting. With luck everything will be finished by 9 PM. Have to get stuff for cooking dinner tomorrow. With luck I will be able to stay out of the kitchen tomorrow except for a short time. Making a 7 layer jello and bread today. My daughter in law is going to cook the mashed potatos and vegatable to tomorrow and sweet DH will cook the turkey in the oil less fryer.

I might get to sew alittle on some of my UFO's tomorrow or play with my new toy. DH said that I could order a wacom intuos4 tablet. This thing is so cool. I am looking forward to designing some embroidery designs and quilting stuff this coming year. All part of my plan to make quilt and embroidery a last career. Till later everyone have a safe holiday and wishing for lots of sewing time in 2010.

Getting organized

2009-12-07T10:13:00.010-05:00

I am still getting organized,even if it is just in my head. I Taught one class at a local quilt shop. It was good to be teaching again. The class only had 3 students but very rewarding. The best feeling about teaching is when the light bulb goes off in a students head and realizes that it's not hard and all of the possible creative idea that can come from one idea. The class was a pin less circle technique that I discovered a couple years ago. It is from Dale Fleming's book Pieced Curves So Simple. It really is a fun technique, especially now that circles are back in the quilt designs.
Things are slow in the designing area. With Christmas only a couple of weeks away, I am trying to finish project for guild exchanges and finishing Christmas shopping for family. It sure helps to be able to buy several things online with discounts also. Hurray for sales. Everything should be delivered and wrapped before the 24Th. That would be a new thing, I am always wrapping gifts on Christmas eve, it's almost a tradition to lock bedroom door and wrap for a couple of hours. I think the new Christmas tradition is to order early online and wrap when it gets delivered. LOL
If things slow down a little I will be able to take some pictures and show here, the fun part of blogging is seeing all the eye candy for inspirations.
I think next year I will join Judy L. design wall Monday. Only I will have two design walls, one for my never ending UFO projects and the other one for designs that I will market. The market design wall I will only show small portions, when I copyright the design and publish for sales then I will show the entire designs.

New Beginning to the last career

2009-11-06T10:38:00.010-05:00

Starting a new career is always a little scary at first. But this time I am hoping for some fun and less stress with this new career. After all it's not like I just started quilting and sewing yesterday. Of all the things I have done, sewing and needlework has been the longest learning process that as to date that engulfs 45 years of experimenting to perfecting. Other adventures have come and gone with some successful and some that just was not the right time or idea that I wanted to pursue. I am also hoping that if I call it a new career and not a hobby anymore then it will be successful and make it through this rough times that this economy is going through.

My overall plan is to start teaching at local shops to teaching in shops in other towns and cities in the southern states in about five years. That in late 2010 have quilt designs that I can publish and start the ball to selling my own designs. With luck I hope to be self employed by late 2011. If not 2011, for sure by the end of 2012.

Last but not least, please feel free to comment. I love to hear what other quilting bloggers have to say. I read somewhere around 2 to 20 blogs a week and love to find new ones. I have learned a tidbit here and there from others willing to share. That is one of the best parts of the quilting community is that so many of us quilters love to share and teach this wonderful craft.
If anybody has some helpful advise in the selling and designing of quilts or embroidery designs please let me know. Though I have taught needlework and sewing classes in the past, things do change. I am always looking to improve techniques and share with others. I believe that one of the most important things that we can do in life is to share and help others, even something as small as teaching someone to sew a quilt or garment.

Let the adventure begin
Cheryl