Quilting the Sailboat Quilt

I've been busy quilting the Sailboat Quilt.  I spray basted it, boy do I love the spray basting over the pin basting.  I had mentioned to my step mom how it hurt my knees to walk on the floor basting my quilts and she gave me some knee pads.  Wow, what a difference they make!

 I am quilting it on my Singer 16, whom I refer to as my big old lady since she is an industrial treadle and 129 years old!

 I was going to FMQ tiny wavy lines straight across, but my FMQ foot must still be packed somewhere, I looked for an hour and could not find it.  That's okay, my walking foot fits her just fine.  I'm just sewing crooked lines across and will stitch in the ditch down the sashing going the other way.  I don't want "squares" on the sailboats.  I love working on this machine!

I promised myself not to stress about the quilting on these next couple of quilts I am quilting since I want to finish both of them quickly.

I don't need to wear my quilting gloves to sew with a walking foot, but I prefer it and they keep my hands warm as an added bonus!  Somebody chewed the edge of one of them.  I'm going to blame Pippi since she has a bit of history of chewing things.

What kind of machine do you like to do your quilting on?  BTW, I learned how to quilt on my Janome but prefer my treadle.

Missy

A finished top

I have a finished top finally!

I took like ten pictures to get one decent enough to use, even waited over an hour for the sun to move, tried blocking windows and everything.  I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture, but the red "spots" are actually sailboats.
The borders are on and today I will baste it.  I would have basted it yesterday but wanted to sweep and mop my kitchen floors first.  In my normal klutzy fashion, I was walking through a doorway and hit my middle knuckle so hard on the door jamb, that I had to wait hours before sweeping and mopping.  Then of course I had to wait for the floors to completely dry.  I also had to find the painter's tape, after searching through umpteen canisters and several boxes, I found it in a clear jar sitting on  my sewing machine cabinet!
My goal is to get as much of this quilted as much as possible this week, unfortunately the sewing room is in the sun room which is freezing right now. (It was -2 when I woke up this morning) Hopefully it will warm up later.  At least I will have my quilters gloves on to keep my hands warm.
I'm thinking of doing straight two inch lines, I just need to see how even my blocks are first because I want the lines to match up with the sashing.
I have one extra block, I'm thinking of writing the quilt label on it in the white area and putting it on the back of the quilt.  What do you think?
I am using a blue and white striped sheet for the back.

I have my hand crank set up in the living room.  I have been working on my string blocks in there in the evening when Chris is home, this way we are in the same room(and it's warmer in there after the sun goes down).  When I get it done, I can pack away my Christmas quilt and have another throw for the living room.
What is on your design wall this week?
Missy

Feline Friday - Cat tip of the day

We got a new to me couch, from my stepmother.  She has had it for a long time, but it was in the formal living room and never used.  The cats love it, so I keep a blanket on it for them.  We call it the "calico couch".  Can you see why?  (yes my husband bought a Rte 66 pillow and put it on there.  When we move, all his Rte 66 stuff will be going in his office.)

Cupcake, Custard and Pippi

 Cats love to be "in" things and they just love my dress form, coat rack thingie.

 Cupcake was hamming it up for Chris to take pictures.

 Oreo got a bow tie to wear with his tuxedo!

 He was really posing for me too!

 Here is my cat tip of the day.  Cats like to be up high.  You need to provide a place for them to do that.  We have a cat tree.  When we move to a bigger house, we will buy a new cat tree and one will go in my sewing room as an attempt to keep them off my sewing machines!  They also need scratching posts, if they have a tendency to scratch someplace, put a small scratching post there.  We have small squares of carpet that the cats love to scratch on, I use them in their favorite spots to scratch on the carpet.

do you see Chris's office area in the back?  This will have to do until we buy our house.

 Cats love cats beds, They even share sometimes!

Oreo, Cupcake and Muffin

I hope these tips help!  Of course, I love any chance to show off my fur babies!

I hope you are keeping warm!

Missy

2014 Goals

Should I call them goals, or list of stuff I want to do? Some of it I guess would be a goal to finish, and some of it is just stuff I want do, so I guess it is both! The first thing I want to do this year is buy my first home! My husband and I have been married for 18 years and this is the first time I have had a desire to buy, I have always been content to just rent. I would love an old Victorian home, but they usually cost so much in renovations that we cannot afford them. That's okay, the Lord will give me the house of my dreams.
 I have a few quilty things via the internet I am participating in this year also. I am a member of an internet group from treadleon.net and it is all about people powered machines. They are having several block exchanges this year and two of them are blocks I have been wanting to make! A cat block and a jar block exchange. I've never participated in a block exchange before, so this will be fun! I am also participating in a pincushions swap, all of these have to be made on either a hand crank or treadle.
 I will also be participating in my first BOM (block of the month). It will be a winter themed quilt from Quilt Doodle Doodles .  You really need to check it out, it is the cutest snowmen this month!
I am also participating in my first virtual quilting bee with 12 other bloggers, Donna from Donna's Lavender Nest is our great coordinator for this.

I have three tops that need to be quilted this year.

The border needs to be added.

This is ready to go, just needs a pieced back.

I want to do some fancy FMQ on this, so I'll need to practice on some small projects first.

I have four projects that I started piecing in 2013 and I plan to finish all but one this year.

String quilt, the penguin fleece blanket I got for Christmas will be my backing.  I have 24 blocks made and I'm thinking of making 35 blocks, 5 across and 7 length wise?  Or should I make it 6 across?  I'll probably put a border on the back and front to make it bigger.

44 more blocks to finish sewing!

Scrappy Trip along quilt for my king size bed.  I did not have enough room to lay them all out, but I have 38 made.  I'll decide on a border after I sew them together.

Bowties I started in April.  Could not find my blocks for a picture..

These are the ones I have made after my move.  This is an ongoing project that might or might not get finished this year.

 And of course I still have the rail fence prayer quilt that needs to be finished quickly!
I guess that makes six quilts I want to finish this year!

We'll see how 2014 lets me finish all of these projects, I'm sure the BOM and block exchanges won't be finished until next year though.  I need to get busy!

Missy

2013 Finishes

2013 has been an interesting year for me.  The biggest thing that happened to me this year is my move to MO!  We had been planning this move for a couple of years!  Now, after 18 years I'm ready to buy my first home.

This picture was taken from my back porch.

I really do not have very many finished quilts.  I am slooow, not to mention packing, moving, and unpacking takes a lot of time!

Front of the Quilt

Several of ya'll sent me blocks to make a prayer quilt for a sweet girl.

Here is the back of the quilt.

At church we machine pieced and  hand quilted a Great Granny Square Quilt for a friend in church(another prayer quilt).  We had a lot of great fellowship!  Hand stitching takes a lot longer but is so worth it!

 




I also finished quilts for seven year old niece and 17 year old nephew for Christmas!  But I had to have them done by October to give to my mom before I moved.  Quilts are heavy to have to ship!

denim rag quilt

Great Granny Square Quilt

I also helped my friend Chrystal make a baby quilt for her baby, I did not have time to make one by myself, so she came over and I supplied the material.

Not a great picture!

Well, I guess that is five quilts, although only 2 of them were done just by me.  I did quilt the pinwheels quilt though.  There were some small projects along the way and tree finished tops, I'll show you those later.  Did I mention I did all of my work on people powered machines?  Either a hand crank or a treadle were used on the quilting I did.  Except the pinwheel was quilted on my Janome because I had not bought my Singer 16 yet.

I hope everyone has a great new year!

Missy

Almost finished!

I am almost finished with my nephew's baby quilt, he was born July 21!  I just followed the directions on the pattern and this quilt is huge for a baby, especially since I still have the borders to put on!  I sewed up the borders yesterday, but did not take a picture yet.  My goal for this month is to get this thing quilted!  I've been working on it since I think May?

 My hand crank that I use for small piecing is a Redhead 66 or Redeye, depending on who you ask, but since I'm a redhead I'll call her a redhead!  Did you know the feet on this machine, and probably some other vintage feet, are a 1/4 inch on the left side?

 As you can see, I normally put a piece of tape on the right side to mark my 1/4 inch seam, but when doing a HST, the tape is covered, so the left side of the foot is a perfect guide!

 It is perfect for sewing my half square triangles since I don't have 1/4 inch foot for her since she is a back clamper.  I really would like some feet for her, so if anyone has any, maybe we can work out a deal!

 Have you ever heard of Marshall's Dry Good store in Batesville, AR?  My friends at the quilt retreat in Greenville, TX told me about it.  We stopped on our way home from visiting my stepmom in AR.  I got a lot of fabric to build my stash.  The orange and blue was $1 a yard!  The rest $2.99 a yd.  Of course I had to get the penguins and the cute houses with cats.

 These batiks were $2.99 a yard!  Except the yellow at top was $1.  The dollar fabric has some defects in them, but are perfect for quilting!  I got 1/2 a yard of each but the bottom I got a whole yard.

 I also got some great neutrals!  My stash is sorely lacking in that department.  The white on white and the alphabet were $1, then I got two tans, a brown and a grey (even though it looks blue in the picture)

 Can you see the alphabet on it?

My last three were more "expensive", $3.99 for the peanuts and $4.99 for the carrots and Brussels sprouts.  They are for a jar block exchange I am participating in later this year.  I've been wanting to make one so when a group I'm a part (treadleon.net) of said they wanted to do one I jumped in!

I'm going to have fun using this material this year, I'll have to stop there the next time I drive to my step mom's again!

Do you have a goal to finish this month?

Missy

'Twas the Night Jesus Came

‘Twas the Night Jesus Came

‘Twas the night Jesus came and all through the house
Not a person was praying, not one in the house.

The Bibles were left on the shelf without care,
For no one thought that Jesus would come there.

The children were dressing to crawl into bed,
Not once ever kneeling or bowing a head.

And mom in her rocker with baby in her lap
Was watching the Late Show while I took a nap.

When out of the east there rose such a clatter,
I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash
Tore open the shutters and lifted the sash!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But angels proclaiming that Jesus was here!

The light of His face made me cover my head–
It was Jesus returning, just as He said.

And though I possessed worldly wisdom and wealth,
I cried when I saw Him in spite of myself.

In the Book of Life which He held in His hand
Was written the name of every saved man.

He spoke not a word as He searched for my name;
When He said, “It’s not here” my head hung in shame.

The people whose names had been written with love
He gathered to take to His Father above.

With those who were ready He rose without a sound
While all the rest were left standing around.

I fell to my knees, but it was too late;
I had waited too long and thus sealed my fate.

I stood and I cried as they rose out of sight;
Oh, if only I’d known that this was the night.

In the words of this poem the meaning is clear;
The coming of Jesus is now drawing near.

There’s only one life and when comes the last call
We’ll find that the Bible was true after all. –

AUDRY PATRICIA WOOLVERTON

I know it is late, but the message is always true!  I borrowed this poem from a blog I follow, Michelle at  Life With Lou .

I pray you had a great Christmas.  My step mom gave us a Petit Jean Ham and my mom gave us slippers, mine are totally cute and warm!

Be sure to enjoy a warm cup of hot chocolate on these cold nights!

Missy

Merry Christmas!

I pray you all have a blessed Christmas!

I have been wanting to start a Gingerbread village for years and found this church a couple of weeks ago, brand new at a thrift store, for $5!  The penguin was 50 cents.

I also found my first building for a Christmas village, a church, last week at another thrift store for $1.25!  My friend Cara and I did ceramics last week and of course I did a penguin, I have him caroling in front of the of the church.

I was only able to find a couple of my Christmas decorations in the storage room (we left a lot of stuff packed while we are looking for a home to buy).  I also put my small Nativity scene in front of the church.

Now if I could just keep Squeeky off the book shelf!

The cats have been bad, this morning my husband found the lights over the window chewed through!  Which means they do not work anymore!  Do you see the piece of garland Oreo is playing with that he chewed off the end?  Which is why I do not have a tree!

But of course Christmas is not about decorations and gifts, it is about our Lord's birthday!
Isaiah 9:6  "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

I do enjoy my Christmas socks though and really liked this picture someone shared on Facebook!

Did you know the Grinch uses a treadle to make his Santa suit?  Now, I do not do Santa, but I like his picture.  My husband said this is what I look like when I get busy sewing on my treadle.  LOL!  He says I need to train my cats to push the pedal for me!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Missy

The start of a postage stamp quilt?

I made some more rail fence blocks.

Some of my strips had some extra length left, so I cut them 2 1/2 inches.  I now have a start for a postage stamp quilt!

I am just going to put them to the side until I decide if I want it a red and white quilt, or red, white and black!

I got four more blocks in the mail!  These blocks came from Heidi at Meatloaf Quilting, aren't they cute?  I love the apples!

I had a cake order for Sunday.  The 17 year old wanted a sculpted green converse tennis shoe, but the mom wanted something simpler.  That stinking shoe took me three hours to make!  It turned out okay, but the next one I make would look better.  I think the polka dots was my favorite part of this cake!

Until my friend Ashley sends me her blocks and the backing for the rail fence block, I will be working on my sailboat baby quilt.  There is no way it is going to be done by Christmas!  I am going to start sewing the rail fence quilt together next week!

What have you been working on?

Missy