As you all can see, there is no June quilt.    And at the rate I am going, there will be no July quilt either.

This year is the 100th year for our school so we are hosting a Centennial Celebration on Labor Day.  So I have been busy trying to get this place in better shape.

I want to show some pictures of some of my artwork.

Before:

Here is the linen closet: Here Kaity is helping me clean.Painting done waiting for the border.

After:

Next pictures will be the middle hallway.  Just need to finish hanging the pictures and stuff yet.

Have a good day.

Well, May is almost over and I am almost done with this month’s quilt.  Instead of stopping with just the top, I have bit the bullet and have it in the quilting frame and am machine quilting it.  I don’t know the name of this pattern.  More stars.  I just saw a quilt picture on the internet and like it so decided to make on like it.  I used all blues and the background is a Precious Moments toile that I’ve had from my fabric store. Mine turned out very differently than the picture I found because I used all blues and the picture I saw had a contrasting color going through it.   Here the photo blog of that.

Here its in the frame:

The pantograph:

I have decided that a long arm is the way to go, although short arms can do some stuff.  It is getting a little tight  now that I am at the end of the quilt.  I think I can do it but I wouldn’t be able to do any that’s bigger.  Ok now for the big question:

Yesterday I found a partially finished quilt at a second hand store.  I had to rescue it.    got it home and laid it out:

After looking at the rest of the blocks I’ve decided it is a Disappearing Nine Patch.

Here’s some blocks put together in a 9 patch fashion and cut into 4 pieces.

To make a Disappearing 9 patch you turn 2 pieces around.

Should I finish putting it together as is or take it apart and put it together like the last photo?  I’d love to hear what you think.

I will post a picture of May’s Quilt when I have it out of the frame.

This month I was working on a Scrappy quilt using lights and darks into a pattern of exploding stars.  The original pattern calls for all half-squares or triangles but I decided to use squares instead of sewing 2 triangles together when both were to be the same value.  It was less work that way and still turned out nice. 

Here she is:

A friend of mine contacted me last week and offered her mid-arm quilting machine that she never uses….. Wow!  So, Vernon and I went over Friday to pick it up.  This thing measures about 12 and 1/2′ x 3′.

It filled her tiny room.

Needless to say, I have much more space for it.  At least I won’t be crawling under the machine to fill the bobbin.  I went over to Barb Lundgren’s this morning to get some pointers.  She has a long-arm quilting machine and is very experienced.  I put a small sample in the frame and have been practicing.  Some of my “artwork” looks pretty bad to put it mildly.  But all in all, I am very excited.  Now maybe my tops may actually get finished into real quilts.

Vernon setting it up in my sewing room.

Getting the practice piece ready.  Kind of “fun” setting it up without instructions. :-p

A sample of my artwork.  Barb says Practice, practice, practice and patience, patience and patience.  How well I remember how long it took me to get proficient on a knitting machine.

I have also started a new painting project.  The hallway.  I will try to post pictures of that later.

Until then have a wonderful day.

I saw a picture of this quilt on Pinterest when I was looking for another pattern called Hearts Delight by Carol C. Porter.  I just had to have it so I went on Amazon or Ebay and purchased the book that the pattern was in.  I found out that I had half the patterns in the book in another quilt book that my friend Joy Coates had given me a long time ago….(by the way, I’d never made any of them.  ).

So, I go to my stash and pick and choose the right fabrics and blithely start in.  I wasn’t very far along until the realization hit me—this quilt has a ton of tiny pieces.  One step was to cut out 1 and 1/4″  squares.  Whew, I never go anything less than 2 inches and only do those to use up all the samples I’ve amassed from Good’s Store for their Tropical Breeze fabric!  (And yes, I do use Tropical Breeze for a lot of my quilt tops.  Gasp!!!!  Remember, I am trying to use up my scraps from having 6 girls and myself to make dresses for over the years, besides the remnants from my fabrics store.  Also, I love TB and how well it wears, etc. )

These little teeny weeny squares are placed on the end of other small pieces and sewn on diagonally and then the corner is trimmed off and the other corner folded back to finish the block.  It makes details clearer but tons of work to say the least.  Well, it took a lot of time and determination but it paid off and here is the result:  Very labor intensive!!!

There’s not much else been going on around here besides trying to get the library cleaned twice a week, pushing the schooling and trying to get the children interested in finishing before next September.     I do think that Lavina is on the home stretch.  Then there are days like yesterday that I felt like a chicken with her head cut off and that someone tried to sew it back on….backwards.  I was trying to finish up the income tax returns and all 3 youngsters seemed to be taking my name in vain:  “Mom!”.  “MOM!”, “MoM”….. all day long.  I told Vernon that I felt like I didn’t get anything done.  His calm response was: “Oh yes, you did…you were teaching the children.”   Aww…. he can be so understanding.    Well, today its better but then again, I haven’t tried putting any schoolwork in front of Kaity either.    Well, you’all take care until next time.

I already had February’s Quilt done and posted when I decided to pull out an UFO  (unfinished object) from my stash and see what I could do.

I started this quilt back in 1998 or ’9 right after I bought my new Bernina 1008 sewing machine.  (I found the pattern for this quilt at the ClothesLine in Dayton, VA at the same time I got the machine.)  Well, I didn’t realize that on a Bernina the edge of the presser foot wasn’t 1/4″ and also this pattern called for cutting strips and sewing them on and cutting them later.

I chose the fabric, and cut the diamonds to make the stars and followed the instructions, blithely thinking all was well.  Unfortunately, after making all the star points I was devastated to find that they would not lie flat nor were they all the same size!  How awful!  Talk about discouragement…..so I just gathered it all together and stuffed them in a box and thought I’d deal with it later.  I had a new baby to occupy my time anyway.

Several years later, I got it out, and began the tedious task of seam ripping.  I had decided that the original background fabric was too thin and so cut new diamonds. Then I got tired of it and back it went into the box.

A couple of years ago, Kendra Lily told me that if I ever finished that quilt that she’d love to have it.  I promised her that if I ever finished it that she could have it but that wasn’t a strong enough incentive to get at it again.

But this time I decided to conquer this thing once and for all.  Remember when I felt so victorious a month ago?  That was the high that pushed me over the edge.  Anyway, I had some determination that I WAS GOING TO DO IT!!!

Out it came again and I doggedly plunged in.

I saw that by juggling the pattern a little I would still be able to use the original fabric.  Apparently, I had pulled too hard on the strips so the pieces were too short to work in the order the pattern called for.  So, I eliminated the first color that was to be on it, (burgandy) and started with the blue instead.  By choosing a lighter pink, it all worked out ok.  I did have to piece some of the stripes though.  I couldn’t get any more fabric like it and I didn’t feel like wasting what I already had done and also figured that it wouldn’t hurt it much.  Most of the piecing isn’t even noticeable anyway.

It still didn’t want to co-operated but I kept on until I was done.  I think that I am not a conqueror but feel more like we made a truce.  It will not be a masterpiece as it still buckles and bulges but I think quilting it will do wonders for it.  As for me, I am glad the battle is over.  Kendra Lily is more than welcome to it.Log Cabin Multi-fan Star

Then I pulled out another UFO… An Double Irish Chain that I had started and had to rip out.  I do not remember what was wrong but for some odd reason not all the pieces were with it and I couldn’t find any more fabric so I just made it as big as I could and it is now a crib quilt.  I was planning to embroider teddy bears on the center of the empty blocks but unfortunately the timing belt on my embroidery machine didn’t get tightened when I had it to be serviced.  I tried to use it and ruined the machine.    So, now I am not sure what I’ll do with this quilt.  I think it needs something yet.  But here it is:

Until next time.  I am working on a new quilt top but I am finding that it is very time consuming.  But, “Little by little, inch by inch”  its coming along.  I just hope that I will be done before the month is out.    ~Kim~

After making up my mind to try to do a quilt top a month again this year, I went through my stash of precut quilts.  Thanks to Accuquilt Go!, Go! Baby, and Studio fabric cutting systems I have about 6 ready to sew up.  I chose one that I felt like doing and started in.  I have my sewing machine set up in the living room for the winter as it is too cold to work in the sewing room.   I don’t like sewing there when its so cold as we don’t heat that part of the house anymore.

This one is called Churn Dasher and Stars.  I am trying to use up my stash of scraps and remnants but when I saw this pattern, I decided not to do scrappy but to choose 2 co-coordinating fabrics.  So, I chose a small lavender and white print and lavender marble and white.  Simple and they looked nice together.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the fabric for the stars should’ve been stronger until I had most of this quilt put together.  Then I was faced with the $64 question.  Do I change it or go ahead and finish it as is?  For best effects I really should change it since the stars do NOT stand out at all, but on the other hand since I am making this quilt to use up my extra stash it seemed futile to redo it.

I left it as is and know that this quilt will keep some one warm regardless if the churn dashers are the predominant block instead of the other way around.   Oh well, there’s always a next time if I want it.  Not all is loss either because it just gave me a new wrinkle in my brain.  I learned something from that mistake…or at least let’s hope that I did.

Speaking of wrinkles.     I put the border on only to have not wrinkles but sea waves.    Now, how on earth did THAT happen?  It one thing to have a tiny bit of fluting but this was terrible.  Picking out those seems trying not to stretch the fabric was no fun at all but after I did it 2 or 3 times, I was ready to throw in the towel so to speak.  But I am determined to win this battle so I persevered.  Its not perfect but it will do.

Here she is:

After about a month of having the sick bug here we are glad to finally be on top of it.  Lavina had pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics 2x before it took effect.  In the meantime we started her on something called Reliv in hopes to build up her immune system.  I believe this is the 4th time she’s had it since she was hospitalized with it 2 years ago.   Now we found out that Kendra Lily also has it but are praying for her recovery as well.  She’s in Guatemala with our son and his family.  He and his wife are both nurses so they know what to do to treat it. 

We had a scare a couple of weeks ago when Vernon burned some trash in the furnace.  Not sure what the girls had in their trash but something exploded and blew the furnace door open.  Vernon saw that the fire was shooting up the chimney but he does try to burn the creosote out periodically and didn’t give it much more thought.  That happened about noon but by suppertime we noticed the bathroom right beside the kitchen was extra smoky.  Investigation showed that the stovepipe from the furnace to chimney was more holey than righteous and some sparks had set the insulation to smoldering.  By the time we found it, it had been over 7 hours.  With the help of a couple friends Vernon was able to pull out all the insulation that was affected.  He hosed the rest of it down and changed the elbow that was rusted through.  We praise God for His protection over us.  By looking at that piece of stovepipe we marvel that it hadn’t happened a long time ago.

Here’s some charred boards from under our floor in the bathroom.When Vernon dropped the elbow, it literally fell apart!

Well, now I need to sew up some new dresses for Kaitlyn this month.  She is getting taller.  God bless you all.

As I mentioned earlier, I want to get one top done each month.  So, thus the push to get this one done and OUT of my system.

Unfortunately, I found I do NOT enjoy piecing double wedding ring quilt. 

Fortunately, it did turn out prettier than I thought.  So here’s for the unveiling:

Here’s a close up:

I don’t think I have ever been so glad to see the end of a project.    Don’t you all just feel my relief????

Well until next time.