Doodling

Well did anybody think I dropped off the face of the earth. I am just not a writer to say.
Today I am going to share with you some of my doodles or drawings.

Some people would call one drawing zentangles, but the fact is to call something a zentangle you need to have taken the certification class by the developers of zentangles. With that said I call mine doodles, for that is exactly what they are. I mostly do them to past the time or relax in stressful time. I love the designs that take a simple shape, like a dog or bird and doodle inside but I am completely stumped by what to put inside them without it looking like a mess.

I traced the dog a couple of weeks ago and still not sure where to start.

I also like drawing designs that have a Norwegian rosemaling look of flowers and scrolls. I would like to combine the folk art style with the doodle style. That might be easier than a dog shape.

Till later, have a good day.

Cheryl M.

Getting back into things again and again!!

Though I read several blogs everyday, I just don't seem to have anything to say on my own blog that would be interesting, at least to me. I have been busy with the guilds and groups that I belong to. Though I love doing all the things with and for the groups, I think I have to slow down after this year is over. Being president of the guild and helping with the organization of a large quilt show in the area is putting the stress level in over drive. I say this now, but when asked to do something or want to do something comes up again, I most likely will be in the midst of it. 

One of the guilds that I belong to is starting a UFO challenge in June. To qualify for a UFO one block has to be started for the project. Well I have been wanting to start a small wool project by primitive gatherings, its' called little buds. So I started one block. The leaves are about 1/2" by 1/4" small and I am using 50wt sewing thread. So far it's not to bad.

You can see from the picture how small the leaves are compared to the penny.












Just take one stitch at a time and hopefully I will have it done before June 2014. Wish me luck and I will try to keep you informed of the progress.

 

Till later

Cheryl M.

On the needle week 2

This week was one of those weeks that zoomed by, but at the same time it took so long to get to Friday. One more week of work and then it will be time to play with my new camera.
On to the subject of the post. What I have on my needles has not changed much this week. I do have pictures this time, so that will make a more enjoyable post.

The first item is the cap for soldiers that I got about half way done.


I did finish the right fingerless mitts that is a gift for a special friend. The pattern is on ravelry called 'Queen Lucy's fingerless mitts' .


 The next thing that I have on the needles but have not worked on for a couple of weeks is a shrug that I hope to finish before next weekend. The yarn is amazing by Lion Brand, its very pretty but not sure if I like working with it. I hope I have enough yarn. I am already on the second ball and I have not gotten any further than about 4". The pattern is also on ravelry, its called 'mockingbird shrug'.

 

The other project that I mentioned last week that are also sitting for me to pick up again, is a shawl called 'easy knit shawl'.









And the last is a pair of socks that I am doing for my daughter. This is the first time I 've done them two at a time and I can say that I like doing it this way. Don't have to worry about if the second sock will be the same size and the stripes will match. Just have to turn the heel and add a small ribbing cuff on the top. So those will be done. Thanks for looking and I hope everyone if able to doing alot of knitting and some quilting this weekend. Stop over to Judy's patchwork times blog and see some other knitting projects that others' are doing in blog land.

On the needle week 1

I so enjoy looking at all the inspirations that I get from Judy's 'On the needle fridays' that I thought I would join in. Maybe it will help me to get my knitting project done and not start a new one before the last knitted project is finished. At the present time I have 5 projects started. The only picture that I have is the caps of soldiers. I just start it a couple of days ago.

The other projects are fingerless gloves that is a gift, so no picture till given, a pair of plain jane socks for my daughter, a shrug that I really hope will turn out, and a shawl. Hopefully I will finish one of them this weekend and have a picture for you next week.

Thanks for stopping by have a great weekend.



Hello 2013

Well a new year to start fresh, hello 2013. I hope to make it a learning experience with an old hobby that will be a new hobby this year. Thirty years ago, before kids, work and quilting or sewing, I enjoyed taking photos with a couple of 35mm cameras that I owned. I have shoot bald eagles, wild flowers and volcanoes in Alaska to Hawaiian rainbows and night stars. Pretty much when the kids started to come along, experimenting and developing 35mm film became an expense that went to the way side. Well I decided to take the plunge and get a DSLR this Christmas. I really didn't think that I would have to much problems, since I used to play with special effects on the 35mm, it should be like riding a bike. LOL. The realm of having to think of all three aspects of taking a picture for the past week, as opened my eyes that its' not like riding a bike, more like learning to climbing a mountain. One step at a time.
So one of my goals this year is to post more often on the blog. Making new friends in online. Posting pictures of different things as I learn how to use my new toy. Hopefully at least once a week, maybe two or three times I will post a picture and what I have learned about it.
I have only had the camera a couple of weeks, I was really hoping for some great photos of my grand kids at Christmas opening presents, but several of them came out blurry. One thing that I learned is don't assume that auto with a DSLR means that the camera thinks for you and you don't have to think, like a point and shoot camera. I could not figure out why the shutter speed was so slow, till a couple of days later and the aspect of understanding the three elements of a taking DSLR pictures made me realize that the learning curve just got a little bit steeper for me. With a 35mm film camera, you set the film speed to the speed of the film that you placed in the camera, set the needle of the aperture so that it meters in the middle and focus the picture. Pretty simple after you do it a few times. But with the DSLR you can manipulate the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to get the shot in almost any lighting condition. Pretty exciting to me, I'm looking forward to seeing what I can learn and even see how I can incorporate it into my quilting.
Anyway out of about 300 photos that I have taken, 90% of them I have deleted in trying to learn the camera. A good thing I didn't have to develop the film. Don't you love the digital world. Click, delete and try again. Of the handful pictures that I have kept, looking forward to a the new year, new week and new hobby. Enjoy.

Done

I finally finished one of my own projects. Last January my DH bought me a tablet. The problem with that was the current purse was to small. So I had to make a larger one. To bad all my problems couldn't be solved that easy, lol. It took me about 5 months but it is done.


Update: the purse patterns is modified from the 'Quilt' magazine I believe the Feb 2012 issue.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.4

Starting over

That is what it feels like. Starting over with new ideals for old projects. I finally got to clean up my sewing room again. It seems to be a 6 month chore. I will sew for deadlines and have everything a mess and can't find anything and it will get so fustrating that I can't sew any more. I moved the tables around, hopefully this will be the magic arrangement. I've tried every other way and it still got a mess. The real solution is to get my projects done and out of the sewing room. I found projects that are over 25 years old, mostly cross stitch, but I still want to finish. I think the best way is to just pick up a project and start working on it till it gets finished and then to the next one. Last week I finished the last project that I did for someone else. It was a t-shirt quilt for a co-workers daughter's gradution. It turned out great, but forgot to get pictures. I think it was the one project that has cured me of saying yes, till at least for a few months.
I think the first project will be a quilt that I started last year, its for my king size bed. I will show pictures of it when I get it up on the design wall, Right now it's in a tote bag, so I have to figure out where I left off on it.
In the mean time I still have some organizing to do in the sewing room, so that should take me most of this week. Till later
Cheryl M.

It feels so right!!!

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.

Design Wall Monday 8-22-2011

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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.