Monday, October 31, 2016

Design Wall Monday - 10/31/16


DESIGN WALL MONDAY -
Check out all of us who link up with Judy L. -
At Patchwork Times on Mondays.
We have some awesome stuff on our walls!
Well, THEY do - ME - not so much sometimes - ;))
===


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! - ;))

On my wall today -

The same six that I had the other day -

Plus the rest of them - ;))


I will probably re-arrange some of them - but for now - they're getting me in the mood for later when all of the little ghosts and goblins come knocking on the door - and the princesses - and a very special little "Tigger" - ;))

I really like Halloween prints - they are so FUN -


And, of course - there always seems to be one of these in the bunch - ;))


Today I hope to get the blocks together into a "top" -

And finish quilting the Halloween Sudoku - ;))

I found my Spider stencil -

And it fits the center block perfectly -


And I think that I can extend it out to the outer blocks, too - ;))


I'll test it with some chalk powder first -

But it looks like it will work - ;))

Don't you just love it when the stars align? - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Monday, October 24, 2016

Design Wall Monday - 10/24/16


DESIGN WALL MONDAY -
Check out all of us who link up with Judy L. -
At Patchwork Times on Mondays.
We have some awesome stuff on our walls!
Well, THEY do - ME - not so much sometimes - ;))
===


On my wall today -

The same six that I had the other day -



But I have ten more sets to play with -


And I am quickly running out of month - ;))

It's the 24th already -

And Halloween is next week -

How did that happen? -

I better get moving or I'll have another UFO project to add to my list - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Thursday, October 20, 2016

And then there were six -


Moving right along -




Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Quilted and Bound -


No - not the Halloween Churn Dash blocks - at least not yet - ;))

I'm a S-L-O-W P-O-K-E Quilter -

I go at my own pace - no deadline - no stress - just PLAY - and I change what I PLAY with whenever I get bored - so when I got bored with the Drunkard's Path units - I started playing with the Halloween Churn Dash blocks - because I can - ;))

Anyway - before I started to play with the Halloween Churn Dash - I got the Halloween Cheater Panel and the Amish Cheater Panel Pillow/Table Runner both quilted and bound - ;))

The Halloween Cheater Panel actually got bound TWICE -

Once with the skinny little "accent" strip -


But I didn't like it - it was too skinny and messy - and it was the "wrong" black fabric. I had dug out two different pieces of "black" - an older one that I used for the backing on the Halloween Cheater Panel and a newer/darker one that I used for the sashing in the Halloween Sudoku Quilt and the borders in the Amish Cheater Panel Pillow/Table Runner - ;))

I figured that I would save some time and cut the binding for all three at the same time - using the "darker" black. It matched the Amish Cheater Panel Pillow/Table Runner and will look great on the Halloween Sudoku Quilt but the difference in the fabric color was obvious on the Halloween Cheater Panel - so I "un-sewed" it and redid the whole thing with the "correct" black - and while I was at it - I cut a wider "accent" strip - just to see what the difference would be - and to see whether or not I preferred the wider width - ;))


The first time - you can see me following my chalk line -


And - to keep the binding off the floor - I stuck my arm through the roll - until it got a bit twisted. Then I took it off - straightened it out - and looped it around my hand instead - ;))


The afternoon light really shows off the quilting texture -



And the Amish Cheater Panel Pillow/Table Runner started out as a "cheater pillow panel" - then I added some side borders "quilt-as-you-go" style - until it was table runner size. At that point - it looked a little too plain - so I added rows of "decorative" stitches in matching colors - no real plan - just one stitch/row after another. I was VERY pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out - ;))



Now it's back to the Halloween Churn Dash -

And maybe some more Drunkard's Path units -

When I want to take a break from quilting the Halloween Sudoku and Thanksgiving Sudoku quilts. So far only one is "stitched in the ditch" - the other one is fused/basted. I don't have photos yet - maybe tomorrow - or the next day - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Tuesday, October 18, 2016

I had to laugh -


The other day - as I was browsing through various quilting blogs - I ran across a couple of Bonnie Hunter's recent posts all about how she was trying to get her "Quilt Cam" to work in a new/different way - ;))

Being somewhat "technically-challenged" myself -

I was curious and wanted to find out exactly what was involved -

And to learn how she does that "broadcasting" thing of hers -

So I started reading her posts -

And I had to laugh -

Not at her or her predicament - mind you - don't get me wrong -

And I don't DO Facebook - or YouTube - so I don't know first-hand -

And I didn't quite understand it all anyway -

But she was apparently successful in getting it to work -

And I was all - "Good for you!! - You figured it out!!" - ;))

But at one point she said -
(Emphasis added by me) -
I purposely wore a shirt with words during a test broadcast to make sure that I was NOT in mirror image for those watching. It would be too difficult for those watching to see me sitting at a backwards sewing machine, working on things that were also backwards. I don’t want to live in a backwards world, and neither should you.

And that part struck me as funny -

And I had to laugh -

Because when I read it -

BOB thought -

Oh, Bonnie -

Backwards?!?!? -

Seriously?!?!? -

Welcome to the world of A Left-Handed Quilter!! - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Monday, October 17, 2016

Design Wall Monday - 10/17/16


DESIGN WALL MONDAY -
Check out all of us who link up with Judy L. -
At Patchwork Times on Mondays.
We have some awesome stuff on our walls!
Well, THEY do - ME - not so much sometimes - ;))
===


On my wall today -

The first four blocks of a Halloween Churn Dash -
It's October and I feel like playing with some Halloweeny stuff - ;))


I really like the Candy Corn fabrics - they are so cute!! -
And the owls - and the spider webs - oooh - I LOVE Halloween!! -
Next to Christmas - it's my favorite holiday - ;))



Here are two more blocks partially sewn -


And a few more sets all matched up - waiting to be cut - ;))


Halloweeny stuff is so much FUN to sew -

And I want to personally thank whoever it was who came up with the idea to add purple and lime green to the traditional orange and black colorway -

That makes playing with block color combinations SOOOO MUCH MORE FUN - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Thursday, October 6, 2016

On a roll -


Boy - I have been on a roll these past two days -

And I took a bunch of photos as I went along - so I could show you what a great time I was having - ;))

I tried to get a shot to show you how stitching around the windows in "black" makes the "yellow" IN the windows POP -


But you might be able to see it better in this one -


Stitching inside the bat "wing" kind of squishes it down -


And the texture in the "yellow" moon really shows up in this one - ;))


When I got to the "lime green" border I switched colors and tried to follow the swirls -


And then back to the "black" borders to do the same -
You gotta love quilting with thread the same color as the fabric - bloopers sort of blend in VERY nicely - ;))


Then - because the borders were quilted "more densely" than the rest - I went back and filled in the different colored backgrounds - like I had originally planned -



I used the same color/brand of thread in the top and the bobbin and REALLY like the effect on the back - kind of like "glow-in-the-dark" on the black backing - ;))




Then I played with the Amish Cheater Pillow/Table Runner - and my walking foot - stitching a variety of decorative stitches - minding my own business when the thread CAUGHT - BIG TIME!! -

I finally cut it loose and it pulled the throat plate OFF!! -


See that black blob? -


The big black blob next the point of my scissors? -


THAT was the problem - and when I cut the throat plate loose - I had THIS mess! -


I cleaned it up - checked the bobbin and saw that it was the WORST wound bobbin I have seen in quite a while - SLOPPY winding - how did I NOT notice? - Who knows? - I tried to take a photo - but couldn't get a good one - but you get the idea. So I unwound it - added the thread to my TUSAL stash - rewound a proper bobbin - and continued to play - ;))

The late afternoon sunlight really shows off the wonderful texture -




It even looks good from the back - ;))


That's a pretty good sampling of the decorative stitches available on my Husqvarna Lily 555. I may do another version for my Brother machines - they have decorative stitches that can be sewn without a walking foot - seems that the Operation Manual doesn't recommend using the walking foot with any stitch that goes in "reverse". Have to add that to my list of "Squirrels" - ;))

Next up - cut/sew the binding strips for both - get them attached - then baste/fuse my Halloween Sudoku. I stitched together a backing from odds and ends on Wednesday and set it aside so it's ready when I finish the other two - ;))

Ha! - "Finish" - a word I don't use very often - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Play day -


After pulling some pretty colors from my thread stash -


I set them aside for a minute - and tried to stitch an Easy Feather that I found on Lori Kennedy's blog - The Inbox Jaunt - HERE - as warm-up practice - ;))


Her version doesn't have a "spine" down the center - so when I got to the top - I tried to stitch one back down to the bottom - just because - but it didn't work out - so next time if I want/need to stitch a "spine" - I'll probably stitch it first - ;))


Then I went back to the Halloween Cheater Panel and changed my mind - instead of stitching in the background areas to make the "black" areas puff up - I decided to stitch inside all of the "black" stuff - the letters - the cats/bats - and the houses/trees. You can't see the stitching in the cats from the front very well -


But you can sort of see from the back - and the back IS black - it just looks gray with the lighting -


The trees came out really cool -


And it gave me some good practice - like trying to color "inside the lines" - ;))


Tomorrow I plan to quilt the borders and may add some more stitching in the "yellow/moon" sections. I don't think the "orange/green/purple" backgrounds need any more quilting because the "black" areas are pretty evenly distributed - and I like the density of what I have so far - ;))




Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



Monday, October 3, 2016

Design Wall Monday - 10/3/16


DESIGN WALL MONDAY -
Check out all of us who link up with Judy L. -
At Patchwork Times on Mondays.
We have some awesome stuff on our walls!
Well, THEY do - ME - not so much sometimes - ;))
===


On my wall today -

Same as last week - ;))


If you've been following along lately - you know that I finally finished up my June Wedding Sudoku Quilt - and added several rows of decorative stitches to my Amish Cheater Panel Table Runner - ;))

Next up is to play with my Halloween Cheater Panel and practice my Free-Motion quilting -

I want to play with my Halloween Sudoku Quilt, too - so I may pass on linking up on Mondays for a while - there's really no point in posting the same photo every week because I don't have anything new to show you - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go -



Sunday, October 2, 2016

October should be a FUN month -


OK - you know I had to fix it - ;))


It wasn't so bad - the tuck showed up when I stitched the binding down in the ditch between the flange and the outer binding - not when I attached the binding to the back in the first place. Whew! - And since I still had Lily set up with the gold thread on top and the off-white in the bobbin - I "un-sewed" the few stitches on the back - and re-stitched it in the "ditch" on the front -


Even though the stitching doesn't exactly hit the "ditch" on the back - it's still less noticeable than the tuck - so I'm happy with it - ;))


And since I was playing with Lily - I decided to change the thread to black and play with some decorative stitches and my walking foot. My Brother machines don't recommend using the walking foot with any stitch that goes in "reverse" - so my Husquvarna Lily 555 is perfect for the job. I tried a "feather" stitch and a "serpentine" stitch in the black borders on each side of my Amish Cheater Panel Table Runner -


I stitched the "feather" stitches first and then the "serpentine" down the center - so it puckered a bit - but I think this runner will be a good example of the decorative stitches that are available on this machine. I can sew other stitches in the other borders - and use it as a reference piece - ;))


The Halloween Cheater Panel is all ready for Free-Motion quilting practice - ;))


Like I said yesterday -

October should be a FUN month - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



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