July Stars and Stripes Doll Quilt Swap

I finally finished the Doll Quilt. I started the quilt over 3 times. 

I seem to have a mental block about stripes and plaids. Always thought it was just plaid. I guess from being a fat kid. "Does this make me look fat???" I just could not coordinate it with anything. It was like sucking on a lemon.  Its a quilt not an outfit! UGH! That is the only thing I can think of.  I have always avoided stripes, plaids and polka dots. My husband loves plaid. He doesn't owe any. Even when we were up north, he had very few.

I was over thinking it I guess.

I think it came out really nice.

Happy Birthday Shara

July 21 is Shara's birthday. Daughter # 2. I mailed her 7 large boxes of her stuff. This included her sewing machine, some fabric, thread, scissors, needles, and walking foot. . I hope she makes something nice for herself!!!

I sent her a small box with the e-notebook bag I made her.  She collects Owls! I hope she likes it!!!

Happy Birthday

Love 
MOM

July - Summer Rains

It has been raining on and off all month. After the flooding in the beginning of the month, it was quiet for 4 days. The rain is now back. In some ways it is refreshing. Everything gets that lush green color. Flowers bloom like crazy and the birds, frogs, crickets and bugs start singing up a storm again. The muggy will kill you, but that is just part of living in Florida.


I have been home for a very long time. Nine months. I can't do much but I keep trying.  It hurts to do anything. Even sewing can leave me wiped out after just 1/2 an hour. The final result is worth it. Sewing is my go to for mental health. It is food for my psyche and I need that. Fabric-ology if you will. 


For the last 2 weeks I have been trying to make a gift for my daughter for her birthday and the little quilt for Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Both are very small projects. Both having the same deadline of  July 21st. Both need to be mailed out.  I also signed up for a Doll quilt swap that is due by August 4th. I started working on the doll quilt the end of June. After piecing the 8 sections together, I found that my math was off and it was way to big. So I have to start over. I was so frustrated. These are the scraps.  As I sewed the scraps together, I began to calm down. I was making new fabric from a pile a scraps. The brightness was so cheerful. I felt my frustration leave me and my heart soar.  This was not what I intended to create for AAQI, it was what emerged. I decided I needed a Butterfly to glide by in this jungle of color! 

Gliding By

by 

Aileen Kline

AAQI #11148

June AAQI

I worked really hard to get this mini quilt for Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative finished. Just have the label to go. I love it! This is going to make it really hard to part with. It is a prototype. My DD#2 loves owls and I wanted to create my own design. I did some thread painting on the trunk and used some variegated thread around the owl. I started with a totally different background, then changed it to black.  I wanted the moon in the background so the owl would stand out better.

I don't work well plotting out every detail. It stresses me when it does not come out like the drawing.
The only thing I drew was the owl. Everything else is freehand seat of the pants cutting. I have a lot of fused fabric left over for another day.

Aileen

HOO ME

by

Aileen Kline

AAQI # 10859

May projects

I bought myself a Nook for Mother's Day. I have put off getting one thinking I would never use it. I was wrong. I have read 6 books is 3 weeks. Watched 3 movies and 5 comedy shows while sewing.  I don't think I have read one whole book in 6 years. I also got my 2 yr old grandson to sit still and watch Thomas the Train while I was FMQ. Win Win!

My DD#1 came down from the north with family for DGS 8th birthday. We got him a Nook as well. He was getting behind in his reading. He is all about technology, so I am hoping he will read more. It was fun to celebrate this milestone with him. Found out I have NO eye hand coordination for video games at all.

I wanted to make him a bag to protect his Nook like the one I made for myself. His mother also wanted one. I adapted a pattern I found online at Moda Bakeshop by Kimberly Walus  I made it a little wider because my DD has a protective rubberized cover on hers. I did decorative stitching on DD and DGS. It was a lot of fun using those stitches on my machine. My bag is plain but Celestial.  I have to make a few more for my other 2 daughters. They were just so much fun to make!

Aileen

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!