Jaye – Page 160 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Tornado in the Workroom

I finished the Frosted Stars blocks as I mentioned, so I was a bit at loose ends for what to do next. I am planning to go out of town so I didn’t want to unwrap the Jelly Roll, which is required in the next step of the Frosted Stars quilt project, until I had time to press all of the strips with Mary Ellen’s Best Press. As I mentioned, with the Zig Zaggy quilt, it makes the Moda strips much easier to handle.

I looked around the workroom, which needed to be tidied in a BIG way, and saw a few half done household and charity projects.

Perfect.

I got to work.

The first was one napkin from the four (or 6?) that I cut out at the end of July/beginning of August. I don’t like making cloth napkins, but I like using cloth napkins. I also like the fabrics, most of which I would use for quilts.

Anyway, I straight stitched around the two FQs and then proceeded to perform the most odious task of napkin making, which is to press the seams, so that when I turn it inside out the bottom fold is the same width as the top fold. It never works and for some reason this drives me crazy. It takes me forever to even get it to a point where I can stand to use the napkins. Once I get this part done, it is ok. I find it especially humorous that the one person in our house not old enough to drink loves the Martini napkin. Very entertaining.

Anyway, this napkin is done. I have a yard and a half of 3 different kitchen related fabrics that are waiting to be napkins. I can’t wait.

The Court of Honor was on Friday and the Young Man was awarded 4 new merit badges. It took me forever to sew his last batch of merit badges on to his sash. In fact, I believe I did it the day of the Court of Honor. Since I was clearing off surfaces anyway, I sewed on the merit badges and resewed his troop numbers on. The handsewing I had done when he first joined the troop was coming undone and looked crappy.

He was awarded another 100 year special merit badge so I unsewed the one he had already received and sewed them on in such a way that they were symmetrical.

Anal, I know. I want them to look good, especially if I have to sew on all of these badges. Don’t get me started on my well developed and long rant about the BSA not having a sewing merit badge as an Eagle requirement. It is crazy to have a bunch of sewing that needs to be done and no merit badge to teach them how to do it. Another commentary for another day. I do need to remember to find some thread that matches the the shirt – a beigey color that I would never normally buy.

After doing a bit of unearthing, I found the parts for another pillowcase, so I sewed that together as as well. As I was doing the French Seam (remember Twiddletails directions for the burrito pillowcase?), I started wondering if I could do a French seam on the gift bags I make. I really like those French seams and am glad I learned how to do them.

I had a piece of fabric purchased recently for a gift bag. I thought I could make it quickly, so it had been hanging on the arm of my chair for a month or more. Since I was finishing things up, I decided today was the day to get that fabric off the arm of my chair.

I also decided it was the day to try a French seam on a gift bag. I am pleased with the way it came out.

My one concern was the ribbon tie. I insert a piece (usually recycled cloth ribbon) into the seam and reinforce it. I didn’t want the French seam to mess up the ribbon. I need the ribbon to close the bag. I couldn’t quite imagine how it work in my mind, so I tried it out. The key turned out to be just keeping the ribbon out of the way of the needle and inserting it properly in the first place. Above is the inside of the bag after I sewed the second seam.

Above is the bag with the right side facing out, but with the top folded back so you can see the French seam. I like the fact that there are no raw edges anymore. These bags get a work out even if it is just once a year and the French seam will make the ones with these seams last longer. You can also see how perfectly the ribbon comes out of the side. YAY!

This process kind of freshened up the process of making gift bags for me as well. I have a lot of Christmas fabrics needing to be made into gift bags, so perhaps I will do it now. I could make some for my SIL as a treat.

Frosted Star Blocks Complete

Here are the Frosted Star blocks. After all the drama of this project, I have finally completed a major hurdle.

The next task is to sew the border together. The border is made up of Jelly Roll strips. We’ll see how that goes. I probably need to get a Mary Ellen Best Press refill to get through all of those strips.

The thought of all of those strips makes me think that I am done with Jelly Rolls. Time will tell though. As I love to yell at the baseball players on the radio “it’s not over until it is over!”

FOTY 2009 FINISHED!!!

My Fabric of the Year 2009 project is finally done. DONE!!!

I was pretty sick of it when I quilted it back in April, so it took me awhile to get the facing on it and then the sleeve. Fortunately, the label is part of the back.

This is not the most spectacular photo, but it is better than nothing and, I hope, you can get the idea. I am thinking of hanging it in my office . I can get a better picture if I do that.

More Diamonds Progressing

I find it really interesting how the colors fall as I press and cut. I do rearrange the diamonds on my design wall, but I generally just grab the next fabric, press and cut. Sometimes, I decide I don’t want to press one color or pattern just yet. They all have to be pressed, so I don’t do very much selective pressing.

I was amazed at this group, because of all the brown and orange that fell together AND it is the month of Hallowe’en.

Diamonds Progressing

I am pressing and cutting patching like a mad thing. I am progressing, but not fast enough. I have to keep at it. The edges are on my mind at the moment. I think I will buy Fast2Cut ruler from C&T and the diamond edge ruler from Creative Grids. I haven’t received any answers to my inquiries about whether they will work with the diamond ruler I already have, but have to get prepared to sew this quilt together in one weekend.

Frosted Stars Progress

Here are four of the blocks I have made for my Frosted Stars project. There are a couple of things I found and a couple of things I decided.

I found that the red is not working. It is too intense for this project, so I am not going to include any other red in the blocks I have made six blocks so far, which is slightly less than half of what I need.

I also decided that I would use the turquoise primarily for the background triangles. I decided that I am going to include a couple of blocks with the silver for the background triangles. I am also going to include a couple of blocks with other blues. Perhaps I will include only one, perhaps more. I haven’t decided.

My next step is to cut a bunch of background squares so I can put more blocks together. I haven’t worked on these blocks since last weekend as I have either not been sewing, pressing and cutting diamonds or have been working on the Zig Zaggy back.

Kathy Sperino Gorgeous Quilting

A few days ago Kathy posted the quilt below on her blog, Finishing Lines. I love the way she has matched the thread to the piecing. I like to do that as well, so the quilting is a design element, but doesn’t overwhelm the piecing. Check out Kathy’s blog for some really cool inspirational pieces.

I have been tempted to ask Kathy to quilt the Tarts. We’ll see.

clipped from finishinglinesbyksperino.blogspot.com

surface tension . . .

Creative Prompt #86: Lines

Note from the Management: Please comment on whether or not you would like to see this project continue and why. Thanks.

Definition: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A representation of one line segment

Three lines — the red and blue lines have the same slope, while the red and green ones have same y-intercept.

In Euclidean geometry, a line is a straight curve. When geometry is used to model the real world, lines are used to represent straight objects with negligible width and height. Lines are an idealization of such objects and have no width or height at all and are usually considered to be infinitely long. Lines are a fundamental concept in some approaches to geometry such as Euclid’s, but in others such as analytic geometry and Tarski’s axioms they enter as derived notions defined in terms of more fundamental primitives such as points.

A line segment is a part of a line that is bounded by two distinct end points and contains every point on the line between its end points. Depending on how the line segment is defined, either of the two end points may or may not be part of the line segment. Two or more line segments may have some of the same relationships as lines, such as being parallel, intersecting, or skew.

Stand in line

Queue up

Nazca Lines

Laugh lines

United Van Lines

Flight lines

freight lines

Fault lines

Atomic Line List

Bus line

Some lines from Wordsworth:

.... Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
      'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
      These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
      Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, ....

Train line

Check in line

Reading Between the Lines

Fly Lines

Home Equity Lines of Credit

Product lines

Fabric lines

Coloring outside the lines

long lines

Paragraphs, lines and phrases

On the line

Walking the line

“I walk the line” by Johnny Cash

Subject line

T1 line

Life lines

Security line

Grocery line

50 Yard line

Goal line

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.

A line of poetry

Opening lines

width of a line

Greyhound Bus Line

Norweigian Cruise Line

Zipline

Pick up Lines

Shipping Line

Tightrope

Safety lines

Slack lines

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31