Take a Hike

Well my "Birdie" quilt raised 75.00 for AAQI. I am so proud to be a part of this endeavor.

This month was very difficult for me. I was not able to sew for the first two weeks. Lot of pain but I just didn't want to give up. It took all month to make my little quilt. A few minutes of sewing time here and there. I wanted something whimsical to take my mind off of my recovery from surgery. I needed to smile. This was out of my comfort zone as far as fabric choice was concerned. Why can't a house be made out of crazy fabric? Why can't a red bird wear rubber boots? Why not! I tend to stick with fabrics that read more solid, tone on tone or are normal in color for the item I am trying to express. The wall hanging for my daughter's birthday was also out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed making it as well. What do you thing?

Aileen

Birdie - Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initative

A few months ago I sent in a AAQI quilt called "Birdie".  It is May and it is up for auction at Alzheimers Art Quilt Initiative. I am so proud to have a quilt up for auction. I make them with scraps and love. It is a great way to learn and practice new techniques, but more importantly it is a great way to help raise money for Alzheimer's research. We all have been touched by this disease. My neighbor past away a few weeks ago from Alzheimers. She was a lovely lady and will be missed by friends and family. The very first quilt I made was in Jean's honor called  Wonky Relish. That was only a little over a year ago and now she is gone.

 Help fight this disease by making a small priority quilt or buying one at Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

Aileen

My Bonnie 2

Okay! So I took apart the block. Boy was I all mixed up! Everything had to come off.
Here are the 2 blocks in there correct setting. Now I am getting that wave effect/or dark and light effect.
My dark is really brown. My daughter loves brown and blue and brown and pink. Time for a NAP!

Post Script.
After I posted the picture, I noticed that I still have an error. No biggie but something I did not notice at all  before. The dark block is suppose to have the light triangles of the QST touching the squares, dark up and down. This makes the star glow. So the QST are positive and negative! Oh well! I will think about fixing this block in the future. For now I will just do the next one the correct way. This is why it is always a good idea to make a sample block! LOL

A

My Bonnie lies over the Ocean

I have not been able to sew since my surgery for more than a few minutes at a time. Yesterday I decided I really wanted to see what the Orca Bay block looks like in the fabric combo I used. I liked it but realized this morning that I put the wrong block in the middle. So today will be 15 minutes of Rip-it Rip-it! LOL
Aileen

Birdie

I was very surprised to find out that my AAQI quilt called "Birdie" is being auctioned this May. Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative was started to raise money for researching for a cure. I have made several quilts this year for AAQI. This is the first that has gone to auction. I hope my little Birdie will bring in some money.

Aileen

Tax Time Doll Swap

I took part in a Tax Time Doll Swap using the colors red, white and blue. It was a challenge to make the blocks measure about 3 inches or smaller. I signed up because I needed a distraction. I was going to have surgery on my cervical spine in April and didn't want to think about it.

As the deadline loomed near, I realized that I had to finish it before surgery on April 6th. It was not due until April 15th. I finished it on April 4th except for the label on the back. Doctor said NO SEWING for 2 weeks! I'm thinking, "Yeah Right"! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Motion is painful, but I was determined to do all of the mini quilt myself.  It came out really nice. I was able to add the label by hand on April 11th.

Happy Birthday Amber!

Well it is hard to believe my oldest daughter turned 36! Where did the time go?

During the Holidays I made her family new Christmas stockings. They really enjoyed them.  She asked if I would make her some Heirloom wall hangings.  Con job if I ever heard one! LOL. It had been on my quilt bucket list for several years. I figure I would start with hers and work on the ones for the other 2 daughters as holidays popped up.

Last week was her birthday. I got a late start on her birthday wall hanging, but it is done. I will mail it today with an additional bonus. I made her a St Patrick's day wall hanging as well. Her husband is of Irish decent and I thought it would be great to start with these two wall hangings to get her "Heirloom" collection going!

Louis Quilt Finished!

Louis turned 2yrs old in January. He is very interested in words, objects and being quizzed. I made this quilt with 5 inch blocks his mom picked out. I used my scraps for around the quilt blocks and triangles. My stash for the black and white fabric. Louie loves circles and  the fish fabric was nice contrast for cornerstones. I also was on eBay and bid on a box of 11 lbs of fabric. In the box were some odds and ends. He fell in love with the map fabric. 

After much struggling with the thread (Trilobal variegated) I finished it. It broke over 100 times. I ripped it out several times, but I am stubborn and kept going. It was Signature Trilobal. I reset the tension on the sewing machine for 2 days, changed the needles to several different sizes. Watch Thread doctor on The Quilt Show to get hints. Use the 100/16 and that worked for a while. I thought it was the machine. Thread was only breaking while I was doing FMQ. If  I did straight stitching, it was fine. One of the things that was happening was the thread was pooling and also snagging on the little notch on the spool. I filed the crap out of it and still had an issue. Then I had a light bulb moment!  "PIRATE"! She made an adapter for use with the Sidewinder for bobbins.  So I took her invention and made a horizontal spool holder. My Janome 6600 only has a vertical pin and my cone holder didn't work either. This worked with feeding the thread but continued to break. I pulled off a dozen feet of thread and it worked again for a while. I started watching the thread instead of the FMQ and could see that the thread was coming into machine with one strand split here and there. WE ARE NOT AMUSED!!!!!! I will be writing a letter to Signature. I also read a few comments on the forum from other ladies having skipping issues with the Janome 6600. This was also happening. Time to service my baby!!

So below is the quilt and the spool holder. Thanks Pirate for all the tutorials!

Louie Louie Quilt part 2

Well Louie loves the top and the map for the back. Now I have a dilemma. If I quilt it with FMQ on the front, this will cross over the State boundary lines on the map. If  I quilt it from the back and follow the boundary lines, then I have to sew down all the triangles on the front first. I don't want to make 2 quilts. It seems that would be the only solution but not something I wanted to do.

What to do next?????????????????????

Aileen

Louie Louie Quilt

I have been working on using up my scraps. I have them all cut in the Bonnie Hunter method. I go in now and again and get a few pieces but never make a dent in it.


My grandson Louie loves to hang out with me in the sewing room. He is 2 years old and points out squares, triangles and loves looking at my novelty fabrics. We picked out a few pieces for centers and then I took out my 2 1/2 in strips. I have a neck injury from a car accident in October and it is difficult to cut out fabric or sew for longer than 20 minutes at a time. I wanted to be sure I have this done before I have surgery on my neck. Needless to say it has been a Very Slow Painful Process.
Today I was able to assemble all the pieces I had on the design wall. This is the result so far.

I made the triangles 3D. Its the method Ricky Tims showed on YouTube for sewing them with one seam. After I finished Louis spent some time talking about the different things he sees in the quilt. I still have to put outer borders on and then sandwich it. I have a piece of fabric of the United States. I may use that for the back. Louis loves to learn and reads everyday. He remembers everything. His favorite thing to do is be quizzed about his picture books down to the littlest detail. Maybe we can teach him all the States! Why not! He already knows the alphabet and can count to 10. ;o)

What to do with FMQ sample block?

In January I did a SewCalGal challenge. Now what to do with this block. Don't want to waste it. Well, I decided to use it to make a Alzheimer's Priority Quilt.  The Theme this month is Bird. So Bird it is.

 It is my first attempt at thread painting. Not the greatest, but I have to start somewhere. It was so messy on the back that I put an extra piece of fabric on the back before binding it.

My grandson loves it. He named it Birdie!

Aileen

SewCalGal Challenge - January

It is January 26th and I finally got around to trying the SewCalGal Challenge. No bad, not wonderful either. Had a lot of problems setting up my Janome 6600 so it would do FMQ correctly. The back kept showing the top stitches. After changing every setting, it occur to me that the sandwich was to thin. So I doubled it by using two different weight battings. I did use the little washer Leah Day suggested in the bobbin and the gloves and the Super Slider. I could see the difference from the first attempt to the last attempt. I am following both FMQ tutorials. I can use all the help I can get. I know Practice, practice, practice.

It is hard to see because I used blue thread. I didn't want to waste it, so I am going to use it on a background on a AAQI Priority Quilt! Will post finished quilt when it is done!

Aileen

New Year 2012

It has been a very busy few weeks. We enjoyed the Holidays with our youngest daughter and Grandson. He really liked the lights and ornaments on the Christmas tree. Grandpa took him for a walk around the neighborhood to see the lights. He came back saying candy cane. One of the houses had a lot of candy canes lit up on their lawn. I don't know who enjoyed it more, Grandpa or Louie!

Finished DH quilting and then did the AAQI quilt. Came out cute.

Now to get back to doing the Orca Bay quilt for my DD. We also need another quilt for Louie so he has a backup. I dug through my UFO's and found 38 - 10" Autumn blocks from a Forum Swap going back to 2002. I don't even recognize the names of the makers. There are even 4 inch squares in the envelope for the borders. Not really great choice for a 2 year old but thought I could use it for the back of the blocks. I want to do a QAYO or Fun and done quilt. Kill to birds with one stone. There is one block from Alaska that was a bear sipping a cup of Joe. My favorite block. Louie loves it too!

Still that is not the oldest UFO in the tub. The oldest is a Thimbleberry from 1995, I don't know what the name of the quilt was nor where the directions are. I will probably make it into the baby quilt and get it done. It is very girlie so not a good choice for Louie. He is more of the truck, airplane and animal kind of boy.