Scrap Post-a little of this and a little of that!

Someone on one of my lists asked where were the pics of the baby-I haven't posted any for a couple of weeks I guess! We had him here on Monday-JW's first full day at Med. school- & I took a few new pics. He had his first shots that day but he was good as gold, no fever or fussing.

Gorgeous boy! So huggable & kissable!

I was forced to go to Quiltz this week, I needed binding for the Future's So Bright quilt & while there I tried very hard to resist but succumbed to an additional fabric purchase! They have a new line called "Harmonies" that I found irresistible- apparently I am not the only one because it's a brand new line & several of the bolts are almost gone.
The photo doesn't do it justice it's beautiful & I bought enough for a full length apron with the brown & pink spot for ruffle & trim. I am going to make one of the retro aprons from Cindy Taylor Oates "More Retro Aprons" book. I bought the fabric with my 25% off coupon.


I promised pics. of my new quilt hanging/storage system. it's out in the loft by my longarm machine.

You can see that I still have one empty rod & I have a few more quilts to hang but first I need to bind them, I only want to hang completed quilts here. I have 12 up so far & the system is working as well as I hoped, DH did a great job of carrying out my design!


The wall grid is a similar system to those used in many retail stores, strong & very efficient, takes up little space, I can still see them & if need be they are easily moved. I can also drape a sheet over the whole thing to protect the quilts from dust & fading.
I love getting organized- next I have to find a way to store my collection of LA books, DVD's & reference materials- not showing that, it's just too messy!

Vintage Thingies Thursday

Well I'm not sure what happened to my week, hope yours hasn't whizzed by as fast as mine!
VTT is here again so slip on over to coloradolady's blog & see who else found some sweet old things to display.
I have one prized possession to show today my green [the company calls it light turquoise or something!] Singer Featherweight 221, manufactured in Clydebank Scotland, I believe.
I had coveted a FW for years & casually scouted eBay & talked to my friend about it,


I knew she had one, didn't realize that she had two!
Leslie's Mom was a prolific quilter, into her 90's [I never ever saw a house stacked with so many completed quilts] & she owned not just one but two FW's. After her Mom died Leslie decided to keep one FW & had thought to list the other on eBay but wanted me to LA a few quilts for her so we did some trading & I ended up with this little beauty for my very own! I think that I got the better end of the deal.

Because it belonged to Leslie's Mom, it was beautifully maintained & sews like a dream. I'm not crazy about the foot pedal so I am looking into a different one.
About 6 years ago when I was teaching GS #1 to sew on my electronic machine he kept complaining that it was making the wrong stitch-turns out he's a boy, he was playing with all the bells & whistles- so I pulled out the little FW & he had no more strange stitches because there are none, just a perfect straight stitch. Here's the patriotic quilt he made with the FW- he sort of thinks the machine is his now!
For years I said this machine was white & a friend said "no they are green" & lo & behold she was right, it is very pale green when you see it against white. Very funny huh, I'm a quilter & I promise you I'm not even close to color blind though I do have two color blind sons!


The original carrying case is also in A1 condition, it's definitely green, lol, & I have the books & a few tools too, though I think that silver tube of grease has seen better days-at least I think it's grease?

I love the fact that I have provenance on this machine, that it was used by a great quilter, the mother of a good friend, & it is all the more special for that.
That's all for this week now hurry on over & check out Colorado lady & the rest of the VTT gang!

NYB, She's Done!

Here it is- I am so delighted I am practically doing the "happy dance". This major project has been hanging over my head way too long so the finish is cause for rejoicing.

I love "finished" projects, don't you? But I also enjoy the process! Does that make me task or goal oriented?
No matter, right now I am enjoying the glow of attaining a [long overdue] goal.
I will load up a few pics of the quilt, well more than just a few because I am really celebrating, maybe even good for an adult beverage,LOL.
This is my second NYB quilt, the other is a KS made for son Matthew in 2005 from a planned colorway and it looks very different.

I decided to leave two opposing corners curved, I just liked the artistic appeal, even though I knew that it would require the construction of yards of double fold bias binding.
Each individual block is a mini quilt, a unique arrangement and combination of fabrics and design, no two the same. Almost all of these fabrics came from my "stash" my personal collection of fabrics. In addition I did purchase a couple of the batiks that I used to frame the blocks.

The piecing of the quilt took a good while, can't remember how long, but the entire thing is paper pieced and then of course the papers have to be removed after construction, a tiresome task.
If you look closely you will see that I also coordinated the border fabrics with each of the adjoining block fabrics. That took some planning, I never imagined how I would put all that advanced math to work!
Making up the fabric combos for each block was the most fun! There's a musical theme, African themes, Monet themes, Oriental themes and so on. Thirty different blocks in all. Who would ever have imagined that all of those very different fabrics would work so well together.
Arthritis and the time required are the reasons I seldom hand stitch quilt bindings any more, but this quilt called for that kind of sacrifice.
If you have ever paid to have a quilt finished by hand you will know whereof I speak. Most professionals charge around .28cents/linear inch to attach a binding to the front and hand secure it on the back. When I tell you that the hand work on this quilt binding alone took me more than six hours, after I made the double fold bias binding and attached it to the front of the quilt, you will understand the .28c/inch! The circumference is 345" which translates to $96.60 just for binding this quilt!

That said, most quilters will never get rich [I never knew a rich one anyway] it is simply not feasible to charge for the labor entailed. I can't begin to estimate the total time invested in this one quilt-the machine quilting alone took me several days, you can see that each block is custom quilted according to the theme of the fabrics, and as previously stated I have no clue how mucht time I invested in the piecing.
Our main reward is the joy of the creative process.

I used Superior King Tut variegated gold thread [Kailua] on the top and a gold Bottom Line thread in the bobbin so that the stitching would not distract from the pretty backing fabric.

This is the Japanese themed backing fabric- I was very pleased to find this and on sale, it coordinates both color and theme-wise with the front, the blocks look sort of like fans.
Anyway, I do love this quilt and I may have to keep it- unless of course, someone were to offer me a great deal of money for it lol, almost everything has a price you know!

New York Beauty Quilt Progress

My UFO NYB top [about 8 yrs. old] is finally and in the process of binding. I am so pleased to get this far with it and hope to finish the hand stitching today while we are watching darling baby Matthew [who had his first immunizations today so he may not be a very happy little fellow.]
I had to make bias binding for the NYB because two of the corners are rounded-the original design called for one rounded corner & all these years later I'm not sure now why I went to all the trouble of designing a second one!
Last time I made bias binding for a quilt I miscalculated the square root [explanation later in the post] I think, because I ended up with at least twice what I neededand therefore I have yards of it left over, see?

This time I decided to try something differentand did a rough mental calculation rounded up, I figured hey I know how to do this!
I was a little wary when I looked at the resulting binding that I might be short but decided to sew it on anyway. Things went swimmingly until I reached the final corner when aarrrrrgggghh, I realized that my suspicions were well founded..................
I don't have quite enough,

I'm short about 18". Drat!

Not willing to allow any opportunity to pass me by I decided this would be a good time to illustrate briefly the art of constructing double fold bias binding. This too is "old hat" for experienced sewers but not so probably for newbies and non-quilters.
I need a square of fabric to begin and to calculate the size of that square I take the length needed-18"- & multiply by the width in this case 2.5"[the folded bias binding will be 1.25"]. I come up with 45. I need to find the square root of this number in order to get the size of my fabric square, so I rounded up the sq.root at 7 and then decided on a 9" square just to be really sure I have enough!

Here is my 9" square.
Divide the square cornerwise like so......
re-arrange.........


and sew the triangles back together to make a rhomboid parrallelogram!


Because I only needed a small amount I then cut the fabric into two 2.5" wide strips & simply sewed the two pieces together to get my 18".

For a longer amount I would sew the parrallelogram into a tube and then cut a continuous strip.
But back to the current project.........

I pressed my new 18" piece in half along the length......

Whew, perfect, I made just the right amount- I will only have about 6" left over!

I sewed it to the piece already attached to the quiltand finished attaching the binding to the front of the quilt. See, no need to panic, it's fixable!
Clear as mud??
Don't despair, there are some excellent tutorials on the web, if you ever really need this very important skill just Google "making bias binding"!
However I am not very trusting any longer of this method of calculating the yardage I will be suspicious in future, will I get yards too many or inches too little! There are limited uses that I know of for left over bias binding.
Now I have just one more step, to stitch the binding down by hand to the back of the quilt with tiny nearly invisible stitches.
Oh & a handy little trick for securing the binding during final stitching whether by hand or machine, these hair clips work really well instead of pins.
You can pay megabucks at the QS or pick them up at the dollar store. They are hair clips after all, no expensive rocket science required!

VTT

Last week I missed Vintage Thingies Thursday, we got in from CO. Wednesday & the nine hour drive leaves me a little weary so Thursday I was trying to catch up with myself!
I have a couple of rescued items to show this week, then you can check out all the other vintage aficiandos at coloradolady.

The first is a small bureau that I discovered outside in the yard of the first house where we lived in VA. after we were married. I may not have paid much attention to it but I happened to see the back & could tell it was oak, the remainder of the surfaces were covered in many & various colored coats of paint! DH indicated that it had come from his mom's house in MA. but there the information ran out! It had some old pots & pans in it, not worth rescuing, but I could see the bureau was sturdy so I stripped & sanded & sealed it & replaced the hardware & it has been in use in our home ever since. Simple, bare of any special adornments, it's a treasure to me! I have no idea of it's age but it is well made & sturdy, dove tail carpentry rather than nails & screws & I would guess the first quarter of the 1900's?
The second item was also rescued- while we lived in Germany in the 70's we used to go "junking", picking up others discarded items from the sidewalk during the quarterly "un-contained" trash pick ups! We searched our surrounding villages for their assigned dates & then drove around at night looking for treasures-we never came home empty-handed & sometimes we found such jewels!
This little cabinet is one such "jewel', it looks like what we would call a bedside table. I guess it could have been a commode cabinet..........

It was in fairly good shape except that the top had a split that needed fixing where the wood had bowed. I sanded the finish lightly to clean it up & show off the grain & sealed it.

It too is dovetail construction and again simply bare of any but the necessities including wooden handles. It has one long hinge rather than a couple of shorter ones on the door, unusual in my experience.

It makes a handy little storage cabinet in the guest powder room for towels & TP etc & the linen scarf with the crochet edge is also a vintage find.
Don't you just love giving new life & purpose to old cast-offs?

The Storage Dilemma

Where to put "stuff", it is always an issue!
I am always looking for better storage solutions & often DH is called in to assist with some sort of construction task. Recently I purchased supplies to make some shelving in my studio, & in the loft by my longarm machine a place to hang some of the quilts that are scattered around this house......


here.....

there....


and....


everywhere!

This is the system I will use to hang at least some of these quilts after I purchase appropriate rods tomorrow.
This sort of system is used by many stores for display & it is relatively cheap & easy to install
I don't have a picture of my work table before but here it is after DH installed the wall grid so I could get all my tools & other stuff up off my work space. It was also an opportunity to cull unused items & reduce the total mass!
I am very pleased with this you might almost say that I am excited about having a cleared area for cutting fabric & trimming quilts etc & although it might not seem like a big deal for me it is!



The flat surface is all clear & underneath behind the curtain is more storage!
Below is a quick pictorial tour of the rest of the studio, it is really quite a small room so everything has to serve multiple purposes like this bureau with the pressing pad I made to fit on top of it.


My wonderful Tracey Table, that is the best investment I have made in sewing efficiency & convenience.


I converted the closet with three inexpensive bookshelf units [Ikea & Lowes] it's a bit untidy at the moment I have been digging around in it! I cut up a clear vinyl shower curtain & hung it flush with the front of the shelves to keep out the dust.

Those are my UFO, PIGS & WHIMMS in the clear plastic boxes, they are decreasing in number as I have completed 14 UFO's so far in 2009! Only six more to go.


Then I made a pretty curtain to keep out the light & reduce fading.
Last is this open shelf stacked with mostly quilt books, magazines, patterns & some bric a brac!
It could use some tidying also!
Now lest you assume this is it, I haven't shown all the LA quilting supplies etc in the loft-or the machines, fabric, quilts & supplies that are at the CO. house! All that for another day.

Scrappy D9P Done!

It takes me a few days to get back into the different routine of the country versus the city - & vice versa, so I always feel a bit disorganized & inefficient till my brain re-orients myself. We came into AZ Wednesday evening so I missed VTT & here it is Sunday morning before I post.
I quilted the D9P with fast freehand peacock feathers then got it bound & labeled ready for the CO. baby boy when we go back.
I did reposition a couple of blocks to make it look more random-that's one reason it wasn't done sooner, frogging [ripit-ripit] two blocks then resewing wasted a couple of hours but I absolutely had to do it my eyes could not tolerate it in the original arrangement. Then I goofed around with the idea of a pieced scrappy border & couldn't make that work, more time wasted. For a "fast" scrap quilt it sure took up more time than I planned!
I am quite happy with it now I think it's a sweet baby quilt & quite neutral enough for a boy-he's currently using a much more feminine version that I made for his sister a few yrs. ago.


I made the simple little label on the new embroidery machine & I'm happy with it, the quality is certainly nicer than those made on my DSM.

I have another top- The Future's So Bright quilt on the LA ready to go, probably I will not get started on it till tomorrow because I have to get ready for church now & later this afternoon the whole family is coming for ribs etc which will take care of the rest of the day.
I already visited my nearest QS "Quiltz" a couple of times since we got here, I needed a red print for binding for one of the vintage eBay tops & backing for two other tops. I was fortunate to get the backings from the sale table at $3.99/yd plus a yard of a B&W. I'll take pics & post those maybe tomorrow.