Monday already?

I made some good progress on the Cool Jazz quilt yesterday. I finished quilting on two more sections, leaving one section and the border to go. In breaks from quilting I started prepping binding and the backing for the Triple Star quilt and pulled out fabric for our pirates costumes and got it in the laundry. There's just so much coming up all at the same time.

We took a break last night and went to a movie, the new Resident Evil in 3-D. It was pretty good for what it is, a live video game. But what really impressed me was the magic makeup This woman has been running around killing zombies and fighting with the evil corporation for months and her makeup is still perfect. And apparently it's contagious, as along the way she finds another woman who's been living in the wilderness for month, filthy, hair matted into knots. Next scene, the other woman has perfect makeup and her hair looks freshly washed. On a scale of unreality, that beats zombies any day!

Time to get to work, more later.

A good start

I got a good start quilting Cool Jazz yesterday. I might have done better if the ancient air-conditioner that cools that area hadn't decided to conk out on me this week. With the temperatures still hitting 90 here, that meant frequent breaks to cool off were necessary. But, we got a little rain last night, so maybe it will be cooler today.

To quilt this one I decided on an overall design based on one I'd seen in a Quilting Arts booklet. It's kind of a teardrop shape and can be chained or used as fill and looks good both ways. I decided to chain it along the vertical sashing to divide the quilt into four sections, and chained all the way around, then used it as fill inside the sections. I'll do some variation for the borders. Yesterday I got all the vertical and outline done and filled one of the four sections, leaving three sections to go. That should go pretty smoothly today.

The deadline for our quilt show must be getting to me. Last night I dreamed that it was the day before the show and that I was still trying to finish quilting my quilts. And that I was typing up the program for the show on an old electric typewriter. It was a relief to wake up and realize I still have time – and can use the computer for the program!

More later.

One down, three to go!

I haven't posted for the past couple of days because I could think of absolutely nothing interesting to say about pinning the Cool Jazz quilt! But, it's pinned and ready to go. I got it prepped and started pinning Thursday night, then finished pinning last night. I also picked out thread to quilt it, wound bobbins, picked out a quilting design and did a couple of test swatches. So I'm all ready to go on that one.

The great news is that I am also all but finished with the Vintage Bow Ties quilt. Last night I finished hand-sewing the binding and started sewing on the sleeve. I just need to bury a few more threads, finish the sleeve and put on the label.

I'm trying to work my schedule to work on machine sewing early in the evening, then switch to the hand work later while I watch TV. It keeps me from getting too worn out and makes sure the hand work gets done.

Time to get busy, more later.

The countdown is on

We're one month away from our guild's quilt show and I don't know whether to be excited or panicked. Probably a little of both. We had a meeting today to go over everything and we have more than 190 quilts entered! Most of them will be judged.

That's the exciting part. The panicking part is that I still have three quilts to quilt, a bunch of sleeves to sew on, and a lot of work for the show, in preparing the program and publicity. Yikes!

Speaking of quilting, I love my Davis Vertical Feed treadle. The vertical feed operates in a similar way to a walking foot, the foot has two parts, when one is down the other is moving forward with the needle. So all the layers of fabric move smoothly together. In addition to using it for quilting, the VF is my favorite machine to do binding. It's amazing how smoothly the binding goes on with it.

I used it last night to attach the binding to my bow ties quilt, and am now in the process of hand-sewing the binding on the back. I've also checked off two of my long list of hanging sleeves, about 10 to go.

This evening's project was to measure and cut fabric for backings for Cool Jazz and Boxy Stars. Cool Jazz is stitched and ready to go, the Boxy Stars backing is pinned and ready to stitch. So tomorrow another quilt gets pinned.

Back to the binding, more later.

Organizing stuff

I love containers to organize things. Bins and baskets and pencil holders and crates.

But especially pretty baskets and tins. A few days ago I was in a store and saw sets of square nesting baskets in great colors of purple, orange and lime green, on clearance, and I was ready to bring them all home. Then reality took over and I realized I had no place to put them, so I left them at the store.

Along with collecting sewing machines, over the years I've also collected various notions, including sewing baskets, and I do use them to store various specific types of supplies, like zippers and tassels and leftover sections of binding. It's so nice to see my pretty baskets and know they are useful. In my dream studio I'd have space to display all these baskets together where they could be admired and useful.

I use open baskets for other items, like crumb blocks that are pinned with double layers of batting. I use these blocks to test motifs for free-motion and get warmed up before I start quilting, then I finish them as potholders or eyeglass cases. A huge basket holds small pieces of "not-my-favorite" fabrics that I use for linings for bags or backings for small wall hangings. Another holds pretty yarn (bagged to protect it from dust and kitties). And that's just a start.

I've been thinking about organizing a lot, since I've been spending so much time in my studio. Since I do both traditional and art quilts I have a lot of supplies, and I never know what I am going to want next. So I'm spending a little time each day sorting and making things a little more accessible.

That's when I'm not sewing, of course. Last night I got back to work on my palm tree, and did some more stitching. It's hard with a piece like this to translate vision to thread and fabric, but it's moving along. After working on that for a while I was ready for some low-pressure sewing, so put together some more hanging sleeves and hand-stitched on to one of my quilts while watching television. This is one job I'll be glad to have done.

More later.

Blues and greens and purples

Well, I didn't get as much accomplished this weekend as I'd hoped, but did make progress. The biggest was finishing the top for Cool Jazz, from last year's Davis block exchange on Treadle On. I love the way this one has come out, and I am so glad it did work out well. I hosted this exchange, and picked out the color scheme. I would have felt bad for everyone who participated if it had come out blah.

I have been working from my fabric stash on these four quilts, and have been able to find everything I need for them so far. That includes finding a beautiful purple print to use as backing on this quilt. I think I bought it planning to use it for the backing, but don't remember. I also found a fabric that will work for backing for the Boxy Stars and found binding for all four. I got the binding cut and prepped for the bow ties and Boxy Stars yesterday, and have fabric out and ready for binding Cool Jazz and the Triple Star.

Otherwise, yesterday I finished the little sewing kits for our show's boutique, did some organizing and spent a little time sewing mile-a-minute blocks.

More later.

Folding and organizing

There's been a lot of discussion on a couple of my email lists about ways to fold and organize fabric. I think the best way for any individual depends on their space, resources, how much fabric and how they use it. But for me the best is this ruler folding method. I ran across it ages ago and don't remember where, or I would give credit.

With only a few exceptions (if I buy a bolt of fabric) I wash my fabrics as soon as I get them home. I take it out of the dryer, smooth it out by hand and fold right away. I don't see any need to iron when I wash because I know I'll need to iron before I use it.

Fold along the length, just like it comes off the bolt, and lay on a table with one cut end toward you. Even up the edges and smooth out any wrinkles.

Lay a 6 x 24 inch ruler across the fabric, about three inches from the end. Fold the end over the ruler, then, holding the folded edge, turn the ruler over, "rolling" it in the fabric. This is just like the fabric is folded on the bolt.

When the whole piece is folded, slide the ruler out of the center, then fold the fabric once in the middle.

You end up with a unit about 7 inches by 10 inches, with the thickness depending on how big the piece of fabric is. It is easy to stack on shelves or in containers.

I wish I had a really fancy set of shelves to show off all the fabric, like some I've seen. But most of my fabric is stored in shallow bins (the under-bed style) in my storage room. The bins are sorted by color for basic prints or type of fabric (30s, Civil War, novelty, sewing theme, Orientals, animal prints, batiks, florals) The two shelves shown are in my sewing area and have the brights and the ocean and beach theme fabric I've been using most lately.

At least this proves you don't have to have the perfect arrangement for your fabric to be able to make quilts!

Speaking of, I finished the quilting on the border of the bow ties yesterday. I tried doing an outline of the wreaths, but decided against it. So it is ready to bind, as soon as I pick out the binding fabric. I got the borders cut, sewn and attached to the Cool Jazz quilt, but was getting tired, so decided to save sewing the miters until today.

Lots to do today, so more later.