I’m behind on the Splendid Sampler project.  Two weeks ago, the designer designed an applique piece.  I was working on two applique blocks for the Dear Jane quilt and didn’t want to do another applique until they were done. The Dear Jane appliques are very small and took longer than I intended.  The Dear Jane applique is finished.  One block is quilted and ready for binding,  The other is being quilted.  I finally had time to work on the Splendid Sampler applique.  It doesn’t have many pieces and worked up quickly.

When you applique birds, you can make a new species.  It all depends on the fabrics that you use.  

 

 

 

Last week’s Splendid Sampler block is paper pieced.  I didn’t want to do that one either until I finished Dear Jane.  There will be another block on Thursday so I have until then to catch up.

The weather was nice today.  I worked in the garden in the early morning before it got hot.  The garlic is planted.  I picked parsley and sage to dry.  The tomatoes in the round garden are mostly done so I took down the tomato cages and put them away.  The tomatoes in the barrels in front of the garage are still producing.  They are so tasty.  I’ll miss them when the season is over.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

I made a little basket quilt several years ago.  When it came to the top of the pile, I decided to use it to practice machine quilting.  Miss Molly inspected the quilt and said that it was good enough for her to take a nap on it.

I practiced a basket weave.  It was free motioned quilted. I was able to quilt the whole basket without stopping by quilting in the ditch between squares.  Four triangles have pebbling. I like the look and hadn’t been very successful in quilting that pattern.  I took my time and by the fourth triangle, I was very happy with my quilting.   

The cathedral window had to be marked.  I did find a way to quilt the four corners without stopping.

I quilted the vine in the border with a ruler.  I did learn that I should quilt slow and from ruler marking to marking which is only about three inches.  I’m not fond of ruler quilting just yet, but will keep on practicing.  I was able to free motion quilt leaves on each side of the vine.

Moda has three blocks this week.  Fortunately, they were all easy blocks using half square triangles and sew and flip. All three blocks are 6″ square.

Texas Puzzle is by Carrie Nelson.  Carrie is the author of the Miss Rosie quilt books.

 

 

 

Big Storm is by Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic

 

 

 

Mishmash is by Vanessa Goerhzen of Leila Botique

 

 

Have a great day and happy quilting.

When you submit a quilt for showing at a quilt show, there must be a sleeve sewn on the back. On wall hangings, there should be a permanent sleeve.  When you show a large quilt, you might not want a permanent sleeve so this Removable sleeve is just what you want.

The original instructions were made by Mary B.  It is very easy to attach and then to remove when the show is over.

Cut muslin 14″ high and the width of the quilt minus 4″.  I used an old sheet. The length of a queen sheet is just the right size for a king size quilt.

Fold in half and stitch.  I tore the fabric so that it would be straight.   Then I sewed with a walking foot so it would sew evenly.

With the seam centered in the back, press the tube.  It will be approximately 6″ wide.

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Pin to top of the quilt.  I pinned the top with the pin heads facing out so that I could remove them as I sewed.   The bottom was pinned sideward so that the pins would be out of the way when the second seam was sewn.

 

Thread the machine with monofilament thread in the top and regular thread in the bottom.  Mary recommended Bottom Line thread.  Superior mono thread is soft, not at all like the old mono thread that was like fishline.  It runs through the machine nicely.

 

 

 

Greatly reduce the top tension, (Down to 1)  Set length as long as possible.

 

 

 

With the right side of the quilt facing up, sew the facing to quilt at top and about 5 1/2″ down.  I sewed the top seam in the intersection of the binding, taking out the pins as I sewed.  When I came to the bottom stitching, I found that if I sewed 6″ down, I would sew in the border seam.  I removed the pins as I sewed, making sure that the sleeve was straight under the quilt.

The sewn lines are invisible on the front of the quilt.

 

 

 

When you finish using the sleeve, clip the bobbin thread in a few places and pull out the monofilament.  Save the sleeve for the next show.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

I have a spot on the wall In my New Hampshire home where I change the wall hanging each month.  Sometimes I skip a month if I’m in Maine or I forget to change it.  It was fun to make each little piece.  They sew up very fast.  Every once in a while, we need something for instant gratification.

June’s wall hanging is a little boy who is fishing with his dog.  He is out of school for the summer and is having fun.

 

 

 

July’s wall hanging is Sunbonnet Sue dressed up in red, white and blue clothes.  She is very patriotic. 

 

 

 

August’s wall hanging is a statement that I Love my garden.  Usually the garden is in full bloom in August.

 

 

 

September’s wall hanging is the same little boy from June.  Now, he’s back in school with so much school work that he almost doesn’t have time to do anything else.  

 

 

 

July is still on my wall.  I didn’t take time to change the wall hanging when I went to New Hampshire in August.  I won’t go back until October so September won’t be on the wall.  I do much better in changing them in the winter.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

The weekend has gone by and it is a new week.  Miss Molly has had visitors for the last two weekends.  Her cousins have come to visit.  Two weekends ago, three dogs visited.  Two were Schnauzers and one a Labradoodle. 

This past weekend, a Bagel (Basset Hound/Beagle visited.

The Labradoodle and the Bagel took Miss Molly’s spot on the couch.  She was not really happy, but let them do it. 

 

After the Bagel left, Miss Molly climbed on her spot on the couch and slept for four hours.  It’s tiring when you entertain.  Of course, the Bagel came with my grandson who is one of Miss Molly’s favorite people.  He and Miss Molly ran around the house and played.

 

 

 

I have a glass by my sewing machine that has a lot of tools that I use when I’m sewing.  

 

 

There are pens and pencils in the glass.  One is a regular pencil,  The pink one is a water soluble disappearing ink pencil. When I used it this summer, it was so humid that the ink disappeared before I could sew.  I will try it again in the winter when it is dry. I like the blue disappearing ink pens.

  I have several scissors,  the little pink one and the one with the pink ribbon have curved blades so I can cut close to an embroidery or the end of a seam.  The gray one with the purple ribbon is a paper scissor.  I paid $10.00 for it and it was a great buy.  When I have it sharpened, I have to be careful not to cut myself. I don’t use the little rotary cutter very much, but keep it in the glass so that I won’t loose it.

I use the little screwdriver to tighten presser feet and the needle.  Also to loosen the plate.  The tweezers are handy for getting things out of tight spaces.  The wooden iron is used to press seams so that I don’t have to keep getting up to use a regular iron.

  The little screwdriver is handy when the other one is too tall to fit into a space.  The pencil sharpener was always lost until I left it in the glass. The chalk is used for marking,  The flash drive has my embroideries on it.   When it is in the glass, I don’t have to look for it.

Other tools are close by in bins and boxes but these are the ones that I use the most.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

It was a cool day in Maine today.  I almost started the wood stove, but decided to wear a turtleneck and sweatshirt instead.  Somehow, the inside of my house is cool during cloudy days.  When the sun shines, it is much warmer.

I had a plan when I woke up this morning.  I was going to finish all twelve of the embroideries for the challenge quilt.  I love it when a plan works.  The blocks were finished and trimmed by noon.  I did have a few problems with another embroidery.  the thread jammed and pulled the embroidery so the stitches didn’t line up properly.  I have three that didn’t make the cut for the quilt.  I will use them in something else.  Even defective embroideries can be used.  I did several things while the sewing machine was sewing out the embroideries. I stay nearby to stop the machine if there is a problem, The machine is very vocal when it is in trouble.

One more flying geese was sewn. The Temperature Quilt is up to date.  The fabric colors are changing back to the colors that I used in the Spring.

I was a week behind in the Splendid Sampler project.  Last week’s pattern is a pieced rose.  It was very easy to sew. My neat fabric box is now a mess.  Nothing is in color order anymore.  It can stay that way for a while.   I cut out the pieces while the embroideries were sewing out by themselves.  Everything was ready to go after lunch.

This week’s Simple Sampler block is an applique of a little bird.  The freezer paper patterns are cut out and ironed to the back of the fabric.  The pieces are in the handwork box so I can work on that when I feel like doing handwork.

After I pick up the mess on the table, I’ll relax tonight with a Kate Morton book.  I’ve enjoyed her books this summer.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

I sewed and quilted a lot of different things today.  Fabric was chosen for two Dear Jane blocks.  One block was hand quilted.  A little applique was sewed on another Dear Jane block.  Machine quilting was started on a UFO wall hanging.  This one has been hanging around for a long time.

I have a challenge quilt that is due next June.  The pattern has twelve 6″ squares in it.  It has been a long time since I did any machine embroidery.  There are several 6″ machine quilted blocks in my embroidery file. I could use one of the patterns and take the fabric colors for the rest of the blocks from the thread colors.   Most of the quilt block patterns have only ten different embroideries so I will have to sew two of them twice with different colors.  I spent a bit of time eliminating the ones that I didn’t want for the challenge quilt and ended up with two contenders.  After going back and forth with the two, I decided on the one that I think will look very nice.

The USB stick didn’t work.  It showed the embroideries when plugged into the computer, but not when it was plugged into the machine.  I reformatted it in the machine.  When I did that, I knew that I would loose all the embroideries on the stick.  That was o.k. because I could cut and paste the ones that I wanted. The embroideries that I lost on the stick are in the embroidery file in the computer.  They were embroideries that I have done already in the past and I probably didn’t need them anymore.  Now I can use the stick.

Each of the embroideries take about sixteen minutes according to the screen.  That is sewing time, not the time needed to change colors and rethread when a thread breaks.  It always take much longer to sew out an embroidery.

        

I made four today.  It is a start.  There are so many pretty colored threads in the thread stash.  I did use one thread that was thicker than the others and the embroidery didn’t sew out as well as I would have liked.  I will resew that one and find another use for the defective one.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy using the embroidery function of the machine.  I can see quilting some of the ufos with machine embroidery quilting patterns.  I have done that before and it works well.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Today was a beautiful fall day which turned into a warm summer day.  I sewed inside because it was cloudy when I started.  The weather report didn’t call for rain, but I didn’t want to take a chance.   The new Moda blocks came in the e-mail this morning.  I thought that I would catch up.  When I opened the e-mail to see the block,  there were two new patterns today.  Fortunately, they were both easy blocks.  Last week’s block is a tall flower.  It is a different size than we have had before.

        

I was behind and I sewed  all the old blocks and the new blocks.  I am still using the Japanese fabric for the Moda blockhead 2 block of the week.  I think that the blocks will be very pretty when I put them together.

I worked a little on Dear Jane.  I’ve checked out the fourth row of blocks and will start that row soon.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

The long weekend is over.  Fall has officially arrived.  The weather is perfect.  Warm and crisp, not muggy.  On Friday, I went south a little bit to Hallowell, Maine for one of my daughter’s wedding.  The wedding was held along a walking trail at Vaughn Woods.

It is a perfect trail.  Not hard to walk it at all.  There were several people walking with their dogs on the trail.  The scenery is beautiful.  It is well worth the trip to walk the “Hobbit Trail” at Vaughn Woods in Hallowell.

 

 

 

After the wedding, we went to a steak house in Augusta and then on to Madison,  N. H.    On Saturday, we had a barbecue and then I went further south to my New Hampshire home.  I had so many chores to do there.  I didn’t have time to sew or quilt.

left N. H. at 5:15 A.M. for the four hour trip back to Maine.  I have had enough driving for a while.  Miss Molly spent five days at a kennel while I was away.  She loves to go to a boarding kennel, so I feel good about leaving her there.

This morning, I was relaxing and checking Facebook and a screen came up.  It said “Get  off the Internet and go sew something”.  O.K.  So I did.  Facebook is really bossy.

It was such a beautiful day.  I didn’t want to be inside so I took my sewing machine outside on the porch.  I have electrical outlets there.  I had planned to do sew outside all this summer, but didn’t.  It will be my new place to work on sunny days.

 

 

 

The black sashing fabric for the temperature quilt was in N. H.  I brought it up to Maine. I finished June.  It needed a black spot because June has only 30 days.  Then, I added the sashing and the July and August strips.  I’ve started on September.  The colors on the right side of the quilt should start going  back to the colors of the left side soon.  It will be a pretty quilt.

When I was in N. H., looking for a quilt, I found this Hunter Star quilt.  It was made from blocks that I made when I demonstrated Deb Tucker’s Hunter Star ruler.  It is such an easy quilt to make.  Looking around, I found two more.  

 

 

I have lots of quilting and sewing planned for the next few weeks.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

 

 

I finished a UFO today.  I hadn’t worked on one for a long time.  This pineapple log cabin was made many years ago. It was paper pieced.  It is small, only 12″ x 12″. Some of my UFOs are small and some are large. I have some papers with log cabins drawn on them that are just about this size so I could make some more. That is not in my plans for now.

Today was a designing day.  I have ideas for two more quilts.  They will take a while to work out the details, so I don’t have to start sewing right away.

One more Dear Jane is quilted and the binding is sewn on, ready to tack down and be added to the main quilt.  Another block is ready to quilt.  Then, there are only two left to make in the third row from the center. They are applique blocks with very tiny appliques.  I’m glad that I discovered Gypsy applique paper.  It is much easier to applique when I use it.  I’ll print the patterns for the fourth row and start that soon. I do have one block that is sewn on the main quilt in the wrong place.  I’ll rip that one out and resew it where it belongs.  I’m sure that no one would notice, but I would.

Mending is done, tomatoes are picked, errands are run.  I’m going to a wedding tomorrow and then down to New Hampshire for a few days.  It’s time for a break from quilting or crocheting.

Have a great day and happy quilting.