Amber's quilt...progressing!

Being a frugal & loyal Stashbuster, after putting the borders on Amber's baby quilt, I decided to use up the 'leftovers' from the front of her quilt and 'piece' the backing. Although if you look at the front, you'll see I need to staighten out the 'wave' in the top border (this is what happens when you plan to miter the corners, then figure out that it won't lookd good that way, and then just sew straight across. I always measure my borders from the center of the quilt. I'll have to rip it out and fix it tomorrow. Usually when I piece a backing, it's just a hodge-podge of sticking whatever I grab together, not really making any rhyme or reason. But this time I thought I'd make it special. After all, Amber's is my husband's ONLY daughter and this is her first baby. Here I've just laid the various pieces I made (from the leftovers) onto some kind of watery fabric. I figure I'll just plan it out on graph paper (this is SO not like me.... planning? not I!) then I can put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Once I got the leftovers put together, I made sure I put some leftover fins in the strips I would be using to tie it in to the front. Sorry the lighting is poor. This is the completed backing, after adding approximately 4" border around the whole thing. I know I'll have to trim it back. I've also decided to 'tie' it since it has so many fins, I don't want to quilt anything down and I won't be able to see the back as I quilt the front. Maybe I can use the wide tables at the LQS to layer it all and pin. I'll do that tomorrow.....'after all, tomorrow is another day.'

Off to get a printer!

Extra parts?

It's really hard when your printer dies, like it did a few weeks ago. One night it worked fine, then the next morning it puked out whatever was choking it. Does anyone know if printers are worth fixing? It's a printer, scanner, copier, camera card reader and I LOVE it!

Nothing's as easy as cleaning up the cat's furballs.

Great News!!

I must have a guardian angel (or maybe I should say my 21-yr old daughter has one). I've been praying that my daughter finds her way, using her head (which wasn't always the case, when WE were going through her teenage years--YIKES!--) and really grows up into a responsible adult. (Isn't that what all parent want?) Well, she's taken her sweet time about doing it, but she's getting there splendidly! Yesterday, she had 'her day in court' regarding getting "full parental rights" of her son, Malakai. Being a single parent, Kai's biological (father, and I use that word loosely) hasn't been in contact with him (by choice) since he was under a year old (he's almost 26 months), and hasn't paid more than $50 in child support plus a box of diapers. He doesn't choose to work, has since produced another child somewhere (another single mom)...there are MANY other negative factors (behavior & productivity), but I won't go into any more details, since this is a happy message. After the Dept of Social Services (DSS) met separately with my daughter and the BF, they said they WOULDN'T recommend she get FULL rights, because he is fully capable of working and providing an income for them both. (Being capable and doing it are two different things in my book....sorry). Even knowing how DSS felt, she went to the Probate court without any attorney (...'a fool for a client' is running through my head) believing that if she told her 'story', they couldn't possibly continue with shared custody (I truely believed that, too). She said the only people in his chambers were the judge, her and her friend(Kathleen), and a man from DSS (not the woman who chose NOT to recommend sole rights). The BF didn't even show up for the hearing. The man from DSS said, after looking at all the info in the file, he saw no reason that she shouldn't get full parental rights (YIPPEE!!). The judge apparently agreed ,and handed over the decree that SHE HAS FULL PARENTAL RIGHTS for her son, along with telling her he'd take care of the documents when she wants to change his last name, and notarize her will that she/we want stating we'd be his guardians, in case of her death. See even Kai is happy!!!

Happy Easter... I'm sewing again!

I was playing the other day and in the process of showing my mom about Paypal, I ordered fabric...! I know, I have more than I'll ever use, but once in a while I actually buy some. And just look at those stripes,... aren't they great!! I found a pattern called Prairie Stroll and it looked soooo easy. All done with 3.5" strips/squares, kind of. Actually, the 9" finished block is made up of two 3.5" squares with two 3.5" x 6.5" rectangles sewn to the outer edges of the two squares, then one 3.5" x 9.5" rectangle goes down one side of the four pieces that have been put together. VERY Easy! See? Can't wait to get it all together and add a border to it. I'm planning to add a narrow, plain black border to it, then not sure what else....Flying....(by the seat of my pants...!, as usual) oh, Also, took Kai to the library in town to see the Easter bunny. He wasn't as impressed as I thought he would be, so we just played with the toys & kids there.

3-D Flying Geese Tutorial

One of the great things about the GHQG Sharing Day event (see post below), is learning new techniques. One of which I'll try to post a tutorial for... 3-D Flying Geese. There was no copyright on the handout, so if anyone sees there is an infringement, please alert me and I'll remove the 'instruction sheet". Hopefully, you can read this sheet. I'll explain it as I go along. First, you figure what size you want the flying geese block (I picked a 4" x 8" rectangle-blue w/ stars-, although I should have added my 1/2" for the seam allowances to make it 4.5" x 8.5"). Too excited to try this technique! But whatever size you use, make 2 squares that are the same width as the rectangles width (I made mine 4" squares - orange/yellow stripes) Fold your rectangle in half, wrong sides together. Put the two squares right sides together, then lay the folded rectangle between them, lining up the raw edges, putting the fold at the top. The folded edge of the rectangle should be 1/4" down from the top of the two squares. (You'll see why at the end.) Be careful with directional prints to make sure they are going in the same direcion. The fold should be 1/4" down from the top of the 'sandwich'. Very important. Sew on the right side of the 'sandwich', encasing the folded fabric's RAW EDGES in the seam. Open the 'sandwich' and press the top fabric, then open the 'rectangle' and press to flatten. See below. Now, what I didn't check on (I was sooo anxious to try this out when I got home), was that the 'fold' of the fabric (which will be the point of the geese) was 1/4" BELOW the raw edge of the two squares! As you can see, my point was too close to the top and will get cut off in the top seam. Which also led the bottom to be too high on the front edge. I will be off to the sewing room to 'fine tune' my technique... This was the first of many geese to come.

GHQG Sharing Day

Tomorrow is going to be nice. Our Greater Hartford Quilt Guild will be having a fun event called Sharing Day, which consists of all 13 chapters getting together (this one is at Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT) and 'sharing' projects that our chapter has been working on. Demonstrations are given at various tables and lots of handouts and ideas are shared. It certainly gives you a 'boost' if you ever feel like you're in a 'quilting slump'. See our great projects at Sharing Day for a slide show. The only downfall, is that it's only from 8:30-noon. Not long enough! It was very nicely done. LOTS of room at this facility, wonderful snacks and lots and lots of demonstrations that taught me some great timesaving tricks ( who can't use that!!!). Great day!

Heartstrings arrived!!

Got word from my church that the quilts we had sent out to be quilted had arrived home!! As soon as I was able, I zipped on over to church and picked them up (didn't even wait to get home to open the box and see them -- click on the title of this post to see one of them), and they are GREAT! Thanks Mary.... can't wait to finish the bindings so we can put them on them at the next mtg. (April 7th).

Progress on Amber's baby quilt!

Okay, maybe that's premature... the Amber part. I was all set to put the 'fish' blocks together, and I realized that amount of blocks that I got from the fabric piece I bought didn't make a very big top, ... even with borders. And of course, I can't find it in the local qs. Well, that's what happens when you buy a small piece (under 2 yds), because you don't know what you'll do with it...yet. So, solution is to add sashing and a couple of borders. Now, as much as I'm not on No-Buy (on Stashbusters group), I've been really good about not buying any fabric unless it's the "b's" (borders, backing, binding, basting thread, and batting). I suppose that this falls into the 'b' catagory, so off I went to my favorite quilt shop http://quiltingbytheyard.com/ and got there just as they were ready to close up for the day. Thankfully, Pat, helped me pick out a GREAT sashing that makes the blocks "POP" off the fabric. We found a border fabric that matches the fish fabric exactly (same designer-- and it goes horizontally and vertically!!) and threw in a bright yellow for a flange piece between the sashing and the outer border. YEA! It's washed (don't usually wash fabric first unless it's a deep color) and ready to iron. I hope to get enough done on it this weekend to make it a top. Off to sew!....

Excited to see one of our quilts done!-almost

Here is one of the tops we sent to Mary to quilt.... Now to bind and send it off. Click on the title of this post to see the latest quilt to be done!

Catching up

Since I have a mtg of our Peace by Piece quilters tomorrow night, I think I'll finish putting the strings on the remaining blocks for the next top were doing. One of the ladies likes things to 'match', so I pulled a busy print with colors I loved and I'm putting 'matching' strings to go with it. She'll be pleased. Hopefully, we can cut and put on a border by the time I get to the mtg. Okay, so I had a chance to put this together this weekend (3-8-08) and it kept going just fine, so I finished the top. I really love this one!!