Orca Bay Clue # 6!!

Bonnie decided to give us an early christmas present and upload step 6 of Orca Bay! I could not wait to cut my fabric and make a couple of blocks. I have all the black and all the red cut with 1/2 the neutrals. Here are two of my completed blocks. I love them!

Orca bay Step 4 and 5

Well I had a slow start on Step 4 of my Orca Bay quilt along. I finally finished approximately 20 squares but put it aside to work on step 5. I want to at least get in some of each step and in between, I can go back and work on the strings that I still have left.



I am so excited to see this quilt come together!

Orca Bay step #3 progress

I chose to use a paper piece to make my half square triangles for step 3 in Orca Bay. I tried to do it with the ruler but they just were not coming out good and it was taking forever. It took me a couple of hours to stitch all of the needed squares and I cut them all apart while watching tv.



I still have ironing to do and to peel off the paper backing, but it is going rather quickly. I will be starting on step 4, red string blocks today or tomorrow!



~Lynn~

Quilted Carpenter Star

I did a basic stipple on my carpenter star quilt. This time, my quilt was perfectly straight so I had no trouble quilting it on the frame. I started out doing a feather stitch but that turned out to be horrible so I ripped out the stitches and started over. I just have the binding to put on and I will have my very first finished queen size quilt for my bed.



I absolutely love this pattern and will definitely be making more of these. It took me less then a week to complete!

~Lynn~

Carpenter Star progress

Here are all my blocks laid out. It is nice to take a picture before actually stitching them together as I noticed a mistake in the block placement. I also double and triple checked with my pattern each time I stitched a block together to make sure they were correct. I love this pattern!

Carpenter Star quilt

I purchased the Carpenter Star quilt pattern back in September from Quiltscapes quilting. I am finally getting around to making one! I purchased my fabrics to make a different pattern but found out I did not have nearly enough and would need several more yards. So I changed over to this pattern and will only need to go back for about 1 yard of the dark blue fabric.



I already have all of the pieces cut out with the exception of 10 of the dark blue 10 inch squares. I have also marked the stitching lines on the back to make my half square triangles. I think this quilt is going to go together very quickly which for me is an absolute bonus! I am off to the fabric store for the rest of what I need and back home to sew!

~Lynn~

Orca Bay Mystery Quilt Part 2

I finally completed all of my quarter square triangles for Orca Bay and have started on part 2. So far, I have 6 blocks completely done. I love the way they are turning out but I think I may have cut my fabrics too small. I used 3/4", 1", 1 1/4" and 1 1/2". Using the ones and inch and under are making me have to use at least 8 fabrics. So it is taking longer to make them then if I had used larger cuts of fabrics. Anyway, here is the photo of the ones I have completed so far. I actually love them!

Half my blocks are done now!

Quiltville Mystery 2011 Orca Bay!

I have decided to join Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt which is called Orca Bay. This will be my first quilt along/mystery quilt that I have done. My goal is to get better at piecing and getting my quarter inch perfected. This seems like the perfect challenge for this!

Step #1 was to gather my fabrics and because I suck at choosing coordinating fabrics, I am using the color palette like Bonnie. Black, neutrals/whites, reds and blues. We cut the blacks and neutrals into 1.5" strips and then paired them up, right sides together and used a Companion Angle Ruler to cut out the blocks. I found that the best way to do this was by using STARCH first! My first blocks came out horrible but the ones using the starch are just perfect.



We have to start with 448 1/2 square triangles



which will become 224 hour glass blocks measuring 2.5 inches. So far, I have 40 made!!



I have 184 more blocks to make and hopefully I will have them done before step 2 comes out!

~Lynn~

My not so Square quilt :(

I think that I would win a ribbon for having the most un-square quilt in the world! I am working on a queen size quilt where normally I will only tackle up to a twin. Well, I now know the reason behind making sure your quilt is perfectly square! I loaded it onto the frame but noticed it was not square so I thought that I could float the top and quilt it anyway. WRONG :( Once I got toward the bottom, there was no quilting out the wrinkles.


So, I decided to take the quilt off the frame, remove the bottom borders and try to reattach with less fabric. This too is proving near impossible.

I have been using my Juki to piece with but now have it on the quilting frame. So, I went back to my bernina 440 QE. However, I noticed that my presser feet do not sit straight on the machine. WTH! I know I did not bump it or drop it or do something that would make it this far off. I tried all my feet and they are all crooked. I called my dealer and they said the bad news is that it is not supposed to be this way. The good news is that they can fix it while I wait. DH is going to come with me so maybe I can convince him I need an upgrade??

On a happier note, I LOVE my JUKI!!!!!

I finally finished a quilt for my son! I think I started this one over a year ago and finished all except for the binding. I put it aside and "forgot about it". I took it out again the other day and am ashamed to say it only took about 1 hour to finish!

I am currently working on a pattern that I purchased from Etsy called Buns over Band Box from LittleLouisequilts. I used fabric from Moda brights jelly roll and a basic black. I love the way it is turning out so far and can't wait to get it onto the quilting frame.







I have the two outer borders left to put on and then piece a backing together. This one I started at the end of May and hopefully will have finished by the end of this month.

~Lynn~

Ladybug Pillowcase dress

I finally tried my hand at making a pillowcase dress and I love love love it! Ladybugs are my favorite and were perfect for this little dress. I made it for my friends grand baby Sophia and cannot wait to see her in it. I used a pattern by tinytotpatterns on Etsy. I made it a bit different though and did not use the liner fabric. Instead, I used a bias tape to finish the armholes and I did a french seam throughout to eliminate exposed seams. I will definitely be making more of these dresses!

~Lynn~

MacBook Pro Computer :)

So DH bought me a new MacBook Pro computer. So far, I absolutely love it but am still struggling with how it works. Going from a PC to a Mac is a bit of a learning curve. I cannot figure out how to edit my photos yet so they all come out really huge. I want to download Irfan view but not sure it is compatible. It comes with a program called iphoto but I do not see anywhere in the program where I can edit the size of the pictures. I guess I will have to use the pc for pictures until I can figure it out. The only problem is I find the pc to be so so so slooooooow now. I seriously love the mac!

Monson Massachusetts Tornado

Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks the weather for the day will produce a tornado. But that is exactly what happened here in Massachusetts on June 1st 2011. In fact, it produced at least 4 with 3 deaths.

My day started out great! It was delivery day for my new Juki 2010Q Machine so I patiently waited all day long for the UPS man to arrive. As I sat at my sewing machine, I kept looking out the window for that glimpse of brown. Instead, I was seeing the sky turning black. Finally UPS arrived with my beautiful new machine just before it started to rain really hard. He dropped my machine off and ran out the door. I literally had 5 minutes to take the manual out of the box when DH called me on my cell and all I could hear in the background was hail. He was about 4 miles away from our house at our shop and the hail coming down was golf ball size and we had tornado warnings. Our call was disconnected and I told My youngest DS if I yelled RUN he was to run to the basement ASAP.

We turned the TV on and saw that tornados were touching down all around us. We heard one touched down in Monson which is the next town over from us and the town that my in-laws live in. I had no phone service and no way to contact anyone to find out who was safe and who was not.

We were fortunately spared the devastation that so many are facing today. I cannot believe what my eyes are seeing and just never thought something like this could happen here in our area. My advice to you now is if your news says you have tornado warnings, take them to heart and take cover because Mother Nature is not being very nice lately!

Here are some pictures that I took yesterday.

















~Lynn~

I love a nice of stack stitched fabrics!

I love browsing through blogs and coming across pictures of neatly stacked piles of stitched fabric. I always think, Why don't my piles ever look like those? So, today after I cut my strips into 2.5" strips, I neatly stacked them up so I could take a picture.

Doesn't that look pretty? I will be stitching these into 9 patch units today for a quilt that I am making for my bed, finally!

My Juki is scheduled to arrive from UPS sometime today!! Of course because I am anxiously awaiting his arrival, he will make me the last stop.

~Lynn~

Spray Starch and ironing

So today I decided to try using spray starch and ironing my fabric before cutting. I am actually surprised by how much better my pieces came out! And I have only sewn the strip sets together and ironed lol. Normally when I piece a quilt, I take the easy way out and I just put the two pieces of fabric together and sew. Most of the time, my piecing stinks. Today, I took the time to spray starch, iron and then pin each strip before sewing and I think this will make all the difference between an ok quilt and an awesome quilt!

I am making a quilt for my bed using two Moda Batik jelly rolls and some Moda black fabric. Tomorrow I will snap some pictures of my progress so far and see if the cutting goes better then it normally does.

~Lynn~

Trying to make a Dancer Skirt

Is it just me? or are there others out there who have a love hate relationship with their seam ripper? No matter how hard I try, I just cannot seem to get through a project without using my seam ripper.


I have been admiring all of the wonderful Dancer skirts over on Sew Forum so I thought I would give the pattern a whirl. I purchased it from Youcanmakethis.com, got my fabric all picked out, printed the pattern pieces, got them all cut out and I am ready to go! Or not :(

First issue I am having is with the shorts. I cut out two pieces of the pattern and stitched up the side seams. Then you are supposed to match up the seams and sew the crotch together. Well, my crotch area does not match up at all. It is like an inch off. I made sure that I printed the pattern correctly and I think I cut it out correctly but nope, still don't match up. So, i put those off to the side and set off to work on the skirt.

I cut out two pieces for the top part of the skirt and two pieces for the bottom part of the skirt. The pattern calls for me to gather the short piece and attach to the waist band and then gather the second part and attach. Well I obviously cannot read directions very well and I attached both pieces together first and then gathered and am now at the point of attaching them to the waist band. Hopefully it will still work because I did not follow directions.
This is what I have so far. I still have to try and figure out how to do the shorts and then sew the waistband. I think it is adorable but I much prefer the patterns that have the step by step directions with real pictures showing you how to do each step.

Anyway, My point of the post is to point out the fact that I am constantly using my seam ripper and cannot get through a project without it. I know I can't possibly be the only one out there who does this am I?

~Lynn~

Butterfly Block

I found a tutorial on a quick and easy butterfly block so I thought I would give it a try. It really is an easy block to make! The only thing I think I need to do is cut out the extra fabric from each layer as it does make the block rather thick and heavy. I also need to work on cutting my pieces a bit differently and stop being so anal about symmetry! I always seem to think everything needs to be even on each side and that is just not the case with this block.

My next post is going to be all about my wonderful piece of junk iron!

Have a great day!
Lynn

Well I finally finished a quilt top! I have been working on this applique quilt for at least a year. I started it and then put it away and would take it out to work on it here and there. I just need to get the backing pieced together and then get it on the quilting frame. I should have my new Juki on Wednesday so I am going to wait until then to quilt it up.

This year I have finally decided that I NEED to finish up all of the half started quilt tops that I have lying around.

Although I found this awesome butterfly quilt that I just have to start working on today!

If you love giveaways like I do, head on over and visit Dena at Tales at Wayne Manor! She is giving away a box of fabric! And then you can wait along with the rest of us for the other things she want's to tell us but can't ;)

Have a great day!
Lynn

I bought a Juki 2010Q!

Well I bit the bullet and bought myself a Juki 2010Q! I have been wanting to get a Juki TL98Q for a while but just never had the money to do it. I am glad I waited because the 2010Q has the sliding speed control so I can sew at 200 spm all the way up to 1500 spm!

I am excited to get this baby home next week and try it out on my quilting frame!

Where has the time gone?

I cannot believe that it is already May 16th and it is still pretty much freezing out! I am still trying to get my mojo back and really need to start posting more.

I am going to try to tackle some of my unfinished projects that are accumulating in bins in my sewing room. I have so many quilt tops that need just a few more things to be appliqued before I can sandwich them together and quilt. With this rainy, cold weather it is the perfect time to do just that!

I made an adorable little onesie dress for my friends granddaughter. It was the first time I sewed with knits and I used my serger to make a rolled hem. I love the way it came out. I will definitely be making more of these.


That's all for now. I will post pictures of the quilt I am going hopefully finish within the next 2 weeks.

Lynn

UFO's 2011n0

Last year left me with a TON of UFO's. I am the type of person that will get excited to start a project only to get side tracked and put it aside. I then see another project that I have to start and the other one never gets done.

Well, my goal for 2011 is to finish some of the unfinished projects from previous years. (there are tons!)

Little by little, I will finish up the projects.

Lynn