The Sewing Machines

Summer's back!  I am energetic again!  When the sun comes out, I'm a whole new woman, and this woman is happier and gets more accomplished.

I've been working on a second Blue Star Mothers quilt.  This one's bigger and scrappier, although as you can see, it's a controlled scrappiness.  (I may have some control issues, but that's a whole other blog.)  All quilt projects teach us something.  Sometimes it's that it contains a technique, or color combo or block that we never want to do again.  This is actually a really good thing to learn.  If you don't like a project, take the time to figure out why.  Then you never have to go there again.

But I digress.  Here's a chunk of the new quilt.

And here's the lesson.  I have not yet found the perfect sewing machine.  My Janome Horizon does many things well.  It has lots of space for quilting and quilts beautifully.  (Okay, there was that time last fall, but never mind.)  It has about 9000 stitches and puts up with acrylic painted canvas which is a bit like soft plastic.  It also has a whole bunch of feet, including a special dual feed foot which is a bummer to put on and makes it sound like a freight train.  I generally love this machine, but it's not ideal for patchwork where I want a lot of little seams to match up.

I've had this  machine for almost 3 years (Thanks, Mom) and use it almost every day.

I'm not a super perfectionist, but I like everything to match. Okay, mixed message.  Let's just say match within reason.

I do not like to stop and put on feet that don't just snap on.  I'm patient with the quilt, but not so much with my machinery.

 I fought this for about a dozen Blue Star blocks and then decided not to fight anymore.  My ten-year-old Pfaff 2044 is always set up in Barb's space and its integrated dual feed works great.  I'm so much happier with the blocks and there is decidedly less ripping out.  It's true that the sewing space on the Pfaff is smaller, it does not have push-button thread cutting (which is really nice, by the way) and the bobbins are smaller and have to be refilled more often.  But if you want some seams to match up, look out!  This baby gets it done.

And no changing of feet.


So is the ultimate machine out there?  Maybe.  Does it cost the earth?  Possibly.  Am I fine until Barb moves to a bigger place and can do quilting activities there and takes the Pfaff with her?  Absolutely!  Until then, I won't jump off any bridges until I get to them.


Check out these Queen Anne cherries.  I don't really like the taste of cherries except in pie, but I love the look and think there might be a cherry quilt in my future.  In my spare time.  (Imagine insane laughter.)

By the way, I'm teaching the Blue Star Mothers quilt at Let's Quilt in West Linn, this Saturday.    There are a few spaces left and new students are most welcome.

Enjoy Summer!

Candy

Happy Long Weekend

I would like to take a  moment to whine about the weather.  When we were in Southern Oregon for Mother's day it was 92, the kind of summer weather I grew up on.  At mid-morning today, we're enjoying a chilly 54.  Not exactly great for Memorial Day weekend.  However, given the tornado weather in Oklahoma this week, and the fact that my house is in one piece makes it impossible to be anything but grateful.  Mission of Love and eQuilter are collecting funds and quilts for tornado victims. For more information, go to the eQuilter website.

Once in a while, I find that I need to let new ideas bubble around in my imagination for a while.  I want to sew, but don't want to figure anything out.  I didn't want to invest time or brain power in choosing a pattern or figuring out what fabric to use where.  What I did was make a quilt from a kit.

My first kit quilt was made in the late 70's.  My mother-in-law sent away for a baby quilt kit.  After it arrived, she had a "what was I thinking" moment and gave it to me.  The fabric was sort of marginal and looked like it had been cut with a chain saw.  Coming from a clothing and textiles background, I found the lack of attention to grain line pretty unimpressive.  I finished the quilt and have no memory of what happened to it.  The whole experience really put me off kits.

In the last few years, kits have come back into fashion and are offered in many quilt shops.  They're so much better than 35 years ago (I guess that shouldn't be a big surprise).  The fabrics are actual cotton and cut and assembled with care.  I love the process of creating my own designs and choosing colors and fabrics myself.  There are times, however, when a kit meets certain needs and just feels right.

I finished the top of my kit quilt and it will be perfect for a summer nap.  Or to wrap up in on the 4th of July if the weather doesn't shape up.

Years ago I bought a poppy with the most delightful coral flowers.  When my husband built raised beds in the front last year, we divided it and replanted.  The main plant and two of the smaller ones survived and it's poppy time again.  

This coral is probably my favorite color.  I'd love for my mother to do a watercolor of them.  I'll have to work on that.  In the meantime, I'm wondering if I can create a quilt from one of these pictures.  They just speak to me.  The only thing I don't like is that they last such a short time.  I want them to be there all summer.  Actually, winter would be good too.  Guess I'll have to get busy on that quilt.

Enjoy the holiday weekend and stay safe.  

Candy

MPS Show +

We are enjoying the most totally gorgeous spring weather I can imagine.  It's warm, sunny, breezy and the door can stay open so the dogs can go in and out at will.  And believe me, they have a lot of will to go out and sniff the breeze about every ten minutes.

We sold patterns at the Metropolitan Patchwork Society Quilt show last weekend.  This was our booth.

We have patterns for all of these.  I'll be teaching the  red, white and blue quilt, above (In Honor of Blue Star Mothers) and Scrappy Flag (below) on June 8 at Let's Quilt in West Linn, OR.

Scrappy Flag looks better now that it's quilt and bound.  This isn't my pattern, but after making the red stars the old-fashioned way, I decided that my sanity would be better served if they were paper-pieced, which I did with the little stars.  For the class, we'll paper piece the whole thing.

On July 12, I'll be teaching Singing Tulips and In Full Bloom at Let's Quilt.

These are both mostly fused with some painted shadows and highlights.  

The website is currently having some sort of issue.  I'm putting others to work on it.  If anyone wants to buy a pattern, please email me.  Hoping to have it fixed soon.  

I'm currently working on a pattern for Gone Fishing.

I don't actually fish as I have trouble sitting still long enough to outsmart a fish.  This actually works for any theme fabric.  Since these days there is fabric for about any hobby or sport, it's pretty easy to please the hobbyist or sportsman in your life. 

I have a little project I'm working on that sounds pretty boring, but struck me as a good idea.  I'm creating a list of my quilts on a spreadsheet program with just a few details about each including size, color and year completed.  There are lots more that have been given away over the years that won't be on this list (but future give-aways will have a list of their own).  The list will be in the cloud and eventually linked to pictures.  A paper list could get lost, but some little remnant of what I did will live on.  Also, if I ever need proof, it will be someplace in the cloud.  I do wish I'd kept better records starting with the first quilt, but live & learn.  If I'd known in my 20's what I know now, I'd be brilliant by now.  Or at least a bit more organized.  

Enjoy!

Candy

A Little Spring Miracle

I did this dopey thing and learned something. These pictures are in the order that the occurred.  I just needed to share.

I found this cool blue vase on a clearance shelf and since I have nothing like it and it was seriously on sale, I bought it. Later, I picked up some yellow tulips.

The next day I put them together and really loved the yellow and green and blue.  I didn't do a lot of fussy arranging, but just stuck them in the vase and put them on the table in the front hall.

The following morning I went to admire my handiwork and found this.

It seems that in my excitement to create some color contrast, I forgot to put water in the vase.  I felt like such a dork, as well I should have.  Since I had nothing to lose, I filled the vase with water and left it in the kitchen to see if I could revive the poor flowers just a little.



Over the next few hours, I found that tulips are a lot more sturdy than I gave them credit for.  


















Little by little, they straightened up.  Every time I looked at them,  they were just a little more lively.

After just a few hours, they were beautiful again.

By evening, they were almost as good as new.  We should all be so resilient. 

A Little Dose of April

Today is a vintage April Day in the Willamette Valley.  It's about 60, breezy, rainy, then sunny, now cloudy.   There's still time to wrap the day up with some thunder and hail.  Don't care for the weather?  Stick around, it could be totally different in 10 minutes.

I took the tulip pics about 15 minutes ago.  I love the colors and how tough these spring charmers are.  We had rain and torrential downpour last weekend and I thought they'd really get clobbered, but no, they're still here.  

These were planted last fall.  I've never had any with stripes on the edges of the leaves.  Pretty cool. This fall I want to plan a bunch more for a more showy spring.

About 5 minutes ago I took this picture.

Then I turned and took this one in the opposite direction.

  

Since then it's started and stopped raining. It makes everything green:  The grass, the trees, the deck, the flower pots, the sidewalk.  There's a reason this is power-washer country.



The best thing about warmer weather for Toby is the ability to be both inside and outside.  Usually, the back end is in the house, and head and forefeet are outside.  Apparently, he needed a little sun.  

I've been finishing some Quilters on the Edge projects to hang in the Metropolitan Patchwork Society show at the end of the month.  I'm nearly finished with the last one, but found that I needed a little distraction so I looked through my UFO stack to find something completely different.  This is from a Valori Wells book.  I started it probably six or seven years ago.  Batting and backing were already attached so I could just quilt.  I love all the colors and movement through the quilt.

All that's left now is to bind it.  I've mentioned this before and I likely will again:  Cut binding before putting a project away.  I would love to have the purple in the narrow border repeated in binding and hope that I can find something that works.  Actually, several different things could work, but I want it to be better than just okay.  

Last week I started a post that was a big whine about electronics that do not work and play well together. Not posting it. Sometimes it's good to moan about stuff for a while and then dump it.  Gets it out of the system.  I was working on the pattern for Blue Star Mothers and playing musical computers.  It seems that Electric Quilt does not work with MAC.  It also won't do the metafile thing with any word processor but WORD.  Enter one elderly laptop that only talks to the printer when physically attached.  Once I got it all figured out, it went pretty well.  Now, about the website . . .  We're working on it.

Quilt for the fun of it!
Candy

Happy Spring

This first day of spring here in the Northwest is  pretty typical March.  Early this morning it was dark and stormy.  Then it was beautiful and sunny.  Then it got cloudy again and now it's sunny, with clouds racing by.  It's been blowing like 60 (as my grandmother used to say) the whole time.  When these pictures were taken, there was a storm blowing off to the east,

mostly clear skies overhead

and a new little storm coming in from the west.

Don't like the weather now?  Just wait 10 minutes and it'll be all different.

For me, spring isn't complete without the smell of daphne.  Our old one didn't make it through a cold snap a couple of years ago, so we bought a new one last weekend. That spicy, sweet aroma  just shouts "spring" to me and I run out and sniff it several times a day.

I belong to a small quilt group called "Quilters on the Edge."  Our latest project was portraits of our members.  We each had a set of black and white 8X10 photos of each of the seven of us.  We each made two blocks of each person, one to keep for our quilt and one to give back to the person whose picture it was.  Does that make sense?  We each ended up with a set of portraits of all the members that we made and a set of portraits of ourselves made by each of the other members.

It turns out that seven blocks creates a challenge for putting the quilt together.  I haven't seen any of the other quilts yet so I'm not sure how others solved the problem.  I enlarged our logo and added a woman falling off the edge.  She might be me.

Each member supplied the others with a background fabric and off we went.  My portraits are obviously very simple.  It's amazing what one can do with just three or four fabrics for each face and some paint for eyes.  I learned a lot with each face.  I started with mine - upper left corner.

The small group challenges all of us, which was the point, but has also formed a bond of friendship that's an added bonus.  Quilter girl friends are such a blessing.

Judy, second row, left, created the original logo which I changed up a bit to fit the space.

We'll be showing all our quilts at the Metropolitan Patchwork Society Show on April 26 & 27.  For more info on that, look at the Metropolitan Patchwork Society Facebook page.  Barb and I will be there as vendors with our quilt patterns and quilt rack pattern.    

Which brings me to the MOBquilts website.  The new site is up, but still has a few issues.  I will be getting help to deal with them and let you know when it's fixed.

Today would be a great day to fly a kite and if I had one, I'd probably give it a shot.  When I was a kid, back in the Jurassic days, they magically appeared in little neighborhood markets about now.  I don't know where I'd even look this side of ToysRUs.  Think I'll just quilt and listen to the wind howling around the house.

Happy Spring!

Candy













 

Reviving a Broken Resolution

There once was a resolution to blog more.  And it went down the drain in record time.  Things just kind of got busy, you know?  Now it's March and the days are longer and there's a bit more sun and my spring energy is back.  I got to get out of town a couple of times in February which was worth dealing with the back-up of house and quilting when I got home.  

The first trip was skiing in Deer Valley, UT.  This one was taken in the evening when the sun was setting.  The snow, the weather and the company were all great.

Last weekend we spent on the coast outside Jacksonville, FL.  Imagine two days of mostly sunshine, palm trees and gentle breezes and one day of tornado watches.  I read, I lounged, I didn't take pictures.  Everyone needs a weekend like that once in a while.

Yesterday, Barb and I went to the Rose City Yarn Crawl.  We hit 13 stores in 8 hours.  I knit on occasion; Barb is much more fanatic.  Like quilt stores, each shop has its own charm and personality. There were so many textures and colors and ideas and friendly, helpful people. Also, one shop had some gorgeous felted art that just blew me away.   Barb is visiting 5 more today to qualify for the grand prize.  I don't know about her but I started asking if it was time for bed about 5 minutes after dinner.  I only bought one skein of yarn for a scarf, but I fondled a lot of yarn. Got some really cool ideas.

And finally, I finished a quilt that I will be teaching at Let's Quilt in the summer. (Let's Quilt moved from Oregon City to West Linn in January.  It's much closer to my house and I'm so excited.)  When I finish writing the pattern, it will be available on the www.mobquilts.com website.  

It's called, "In Honor of Blue Star Mothers."  It's more traditional than my usual, but I was in the mood for it.  As always, I learned a couple of things while making this.  And I can always use another patriotic quilt.  

Next time:  Why I love my small quilt group.  

Enjoy spring! 

Candy