Atomic Bloom

Never mind that i have about 50 projects already started....i started yet another one.

I bought this magazine...Australian Quilters Companion #43....just for this pattern. it's called Atomic Bloom. you cut 64 wedges....it goes together sort of like a fan....and cut about a gazillion 1 1/2" strips....and a bazillion 1" strips....and only about a million 2 1/2" strips. and there are many triangles and many, many squares. but it is soooo cool. and throw in a bit of applique leaves and circles.

I'll probably still be working on this next year. it calls for polka dot and stripe fabrics. so i called on my quilting buddies for polka dots and they came through with lots and lots of dots. i started the first block.....this will be cut into a square about 16".

Aren't all these dots just yummy?

There are 4 large center squares and floating squares and applique and lots and lots of color.

I'll keep you updated as i go...but it will be slow going.

Pieced Batting

What do you do with your batting pieces that are left over from a quilt project?

If they are large enough i use them for baby quilts or wall hangings.

But then, you still have pieces that are too large to throw away but not large enough for another quilt....but i keep them just the same. by now, i have a large laundry basket full of pieces. 

I used  to stitch them together to use in donation quilts or in my own quilts. but i didn't like the bumpy seams. yesterday i had a brain storm and figured out a way that is quick, easy and quilting friendly.

I used my embellisher machine.

I just trimmed the pieces so the edges were even, made sure the same sides were up, placed one about 1/4" over the other...and ran it through the embellisher. Voila!!

Then i flipped it over and ran over the other side.

The seam comes out as flat as the batting...no bumps. and you can tug on it and it won't come apart. don't know why it took me so long to figure this out.

It probably wouldn't work on 'puffier' batting but the thinner warm and natural works great. i just quilted a baby quilt with 7 batting pieces in it.....i dare you to find a seam. you can't.

It's apple time

Every time i go out to mow the garden/orchard area, i check the apple trees. for the last couple weeks there have been apples on the ground so i have been gathering them up and making pies. dh sure does like apple pies....every time he says it is the best one he has ever eaten. LOL  my sister says when i look at the apple trees...i see..picking, peeling, coreing, canning, etc. when dh looks at the apple trees....he just sees apple pies. i think she is right.

The creatures don't seem to care about the fuji apples...but that is good because those are my favorites. but they sure do like the granny smiths. more and more of them were getting eaten or chewed on, so i picked the grannies the other day. i had 2 five gallon buckets full. i left the bad ones on the trees for the creatures.

This is what i have so far. 6 future apple pies.

And i still have this many left to process...that is a HUGE bowl. should be enough for 6 or 8 more pies.

And a few fujis that i have picked up the last few days. a few of these have been eaten.

Tomorrow i probably need to process the rest of the grannies.  i looked out at the orchard when i came to the studio this morning to check on the main fuji tree. it has lots of apples and is hanging on the ground. also had a big surprise in the orchard.

Little stinky there has been hanging around the last several days. i don't know where he came from but i sure wish he would leave. our dog barked at him today and there was a little bit of a 'stay away from me spray'. ... thankfully that didn't get on the dog.  i was under the impression the skunks came out to forage during the night and slept during the day. it makes me wonder if this one is sick or rabid or something. so we have the guns loaded and are waiting to catch it and do away with it. i just can't have a stinky doggie.

Another little project that i accomplished was to finally paint the inside of the bathroom window. it is a lovely maroonish red. i am liking it. my next painting project is the roll out windows in the reading room....i put on the primer this morning.

I cleaned out the last of my stuff from the studio basement. holiday decorations; craft items; stuff that just accumulated down there. i filled the back of my pickup and conned my dh to go to the thrift store with me to drop it off. of course, i had to feed him mexican food along the way...but he will do almost anything for food. LOL

And it is raining here again today so no logs will be sawed and split.

I guess i will go up to the house and work on one of my many projects there. i have to start block #6 of the Tokyo Subway Map quilt.

AND...Survivor's new season starts tonight....yipee!!

Talk to ya later.

El Destructo Strikes Again!

Just when i think there is no more destruction to be had....my sister finds me another tear-down job. i had sometime previously torn out the drop ceiling in her kitchen at the beast. now she decided that she needed the boards down also that held that drop ceiling up. the problem was as i was taking off the boards, plaster ceiling parts were falling off also. i think the plaster was just held up by those little boards. and the ceiling had gotten wet a lot so it was not good. so i took down the boards and about half of the plaster ceiling.

 

Yeah, we took down that ceiling fan, too. there were 2 holes cut in the ceiling slats...one of them had pipes from the kitchen upstairs. i guess that is where the leak was years ago. but it is now all down and nothing will fall on your head. just another job for the to-do list....replaster kitchen ceiling.

We wound up with plaster dust all over the house and our plaster dust footprints, too. we carted out 9 milk crates full of plaster pieces for the dumpster. and then had to sweep and mop the floors.

While i was at the beast for a couple days, i also took out the paneling in a bedroom closet. naturally there was painted wallpaper under the paneling. and roamed around the upstairs rooms, taking nails out of walls and old curtain hooks off windows and the like.

We also had a few stumps to deal with. we pulled one out with the truck and i took a chain saw to two more. there is one huge stump that is about 4 foot tall that i started to tackle but my chain came off the saw and was making strange noises. when i brought it home, dear hubby had to order another part to fix it...some hub thing. i don't know. i only know how to USE it...not fix it. LOL

And we ate lunch at the cutest little BBQ place called Chubby's. it was just a little shed set on a parking lot with 3 small booths inside. but it smelled delicious. their baby back ribs were wonderful...very meaty. my sister had a pulled pork sandwich and she said it was good....it had meat falling out the sides. they had lots of people coming in as we ate, too. they told us they had moved from another location in town and i'm glad we found them. we'll go there again one day.

The next excursion into the big city comes in October when my niece arrives in town from Savannah, GA.  we will check out the Octoberfest and have some beer and bratwurst and take her out to the beast so she can see our progress. we also have a trip to the zoo planned and some thrift store adventures.

So i better get busy with customer quilts so i will have some traveling money.

Carousel Animals quilt

This quilt belongs to my sister. i embroidered the animals for her and she used up her stash of Christmas fabrics to piece it together. it will live at the beast.

I had a time figuring out how to quilt it...i knew how i wanted the blocks to look but not a clue about the rest. so i just loaded it on the frame and got started...figuring it would talk to me.

The first day i did all the SID and most of the blocks. i only used a ruler for the SID...all the rest is freehand.

The second day, once i got the background of the blocks done i decided to quilt the 'frame' around the blocks in horizontal rows...just a bit further apart. it was becoming very graphic and geometric. i kind of liked it.

Then the paper pieced strips were throwing me for a loop. the vertical ones had red borders on them but the horizontal ones did not. what to do...what to do. finally decided to put pebbles/boulders in the red borders and a random baptist fan over the strips. the BF was done with a 5" circle and was a random thing as far as how many arcs on each one...just depended where i wanted to get to next.

Here's the zebra and the bear...they are all so cute.

I had some tension issues on the back and there are pokies in some places. i tweaked and cussed but nothing seemed to help it all the time so i just moved on and didn't worry about it. it will hang on a wall and the back won't show. and my sis always says 'it'll be fine...don't worry about it'...so, i didn't. LOL

It took 3 days and a lot of thread but the carousel is now operational. on to the next project...the welcome October Santa wallhanging for the studio. October will be here before i know it.

When was the last time you rode on a carousel...which animal did you pick?

Where've I been...What've I been doing???

Both good questions. i've been around and busy....sit down and relax and i'll show you.

Still dealing with trees and woodshed....blah, blah, blah.   and i decided September was home improvement month and i needed to get some of those things on my 'to do' list actually DONE. so Monday morning i painted the outside basement windows of my studio. .. there's about 10 of them. so, 2 cans of wasp spray later...those are done. i also painted the 2 little windows and door in my shed at the studio...another can of wasp spray....and digging out the tall ladder. still had paint in the can so i also painted the back deck of the studio...more wasp spray. a turtle kept me company while i painted the deck. so i got 2 things scratched off my list. the deck wasn't on the list...so i should get extra points for that. took me about 4 hours all together. why do we put off things that could be done so quickly and easily. i'll just say procrastination is my middle name.

I found a cute quilt idea on someone's blog that i wanted to try. that link is on the computer at the house so i can't tell you who it was. i believe she called it the Stamp Collection. you just cut out bits of fabric and stitch around them...raggedy edge...like you were putting stamps in a book to collect. very fast...kind of cute. i have put it through the washer once to fluff up the edges but need to brush it out and wash it again.

Isn't it just the cutest thing? i cut 12.5" blocks out of muslin to stitch the bits to. i made all 12 blocks in a couple afternoons. i was thinking after i already had 2 blocks done that you could do 'theme' blocks. like all flowers, all birds, all animals...whatever....like you would in an actual stamp collection.

And i quilted up a couple things for a customer. she is going to make a bag out of this piece. it is so colorful and vibrant and i just love it.

And this one is from the same customer. I liked it, too, but it was tougher to decide what to quilt.

A friend of ours has a little girl who is turning 2 later in October so i had to make her a quilt. i thought an alphabet quilt was right for that age. so i embroidered the blocks and made 4 butterflies for the corners. i thought later that i could have put her name in one of the corners instead. my planning skills need work. LOL

It's third in line to be quilted so i need to get busy. it's it cute that they used a quilt for the Q.

My latest obsession was found online on someone's blog, also. go visit http://www.ohfransson.com/   a couple days ago she showed the Tokyo Subway Map....she is making a quilt of it. i decided i 'needed' one, too. LOL   after all, there are only 1600  2" squares to make it...piece of cake...right?  i spent last night drawing out the lines. good thing i have colored pencils. the black squares are the stops for the subway.

Here's a closer view. i am just loving this...a LOT.  my hubby just shakes his head and laughs at me. but it is so graphic and colorful and so me.

The next quilt up today is one for my sister. it is carousel animals. i embroidered the animals for her and she put it together using up her stash of Christmas fabrics.

That picture is kind of fuzzy due to my camera skills. there are all different animals and they are too cute. she paper pieced the rows of tiny strips around the blocks.

Here's the camel

Now i need to get up and go work on those carousel animals. oh, but i really, really want to cut out 2" squares for the Tokyo Subway Map. i know...i'll make a deal with myself. i'll go do the SID and stabilize the quilt then i'll cut out some 2" squares. that will be my reward. LOL

What are your plans for the day? whatever they are....hope you are having fun.