Next month

Taking a blogging break of sorts as I visit family. Hope to have lots of pics when I get back!

Odds and Ends

Still looking for the camera, darn those "safe" places. When I die, the kids are going to have a tough time figuring out why I put things where I put them. But the quilt is completely done and ready to take on the trip home. What else has been going on..... oh, last weekend, Mae finally reminded Bill on the weekend about her ceiling fan (instead of reminding him on a Monday). So we picked out a new fan for her room and proceeded to replace the old with the new. First, the electricity had to be turned off, but the switches at the box aren't labelled very well. There was much hollering up and down the stairs - "that one? ..... NO!...... that one?...... NO!" Finally got the right power turned off and proceeded to follow the "easy installation". Ha! That is a flat out misinterpretation of the word "easy", that's all there is to say about that. End of story. 4 hours later, Mae has a working ceiling fan again.

Wednesday, Steven and I went on what I think may be the last college visit. This one was to the University of Delaware. It was about 2 and a half hours away, but involved getting on the Turnpike and 95, which was really blech. Traffic was not lovely. It was even worse coming home. Bumper to bumper at 7 PM. When do those people get home??? Anyway, it was a great visit, the school seems really nice, the campus was lovely, and Steven has rated it as his #2 choice. He's still adamant that he wants to apply early decision to Virginia Tech. We'll be there in a few weeks moving Will back in, and Steven can get one last look before working on his applications.

What else? Oh, I kinda sorta got back into the Singer featherweights. Laura asked me to find one for a friend, and I got carried away on Ebay. Now I have 7. I'll put the rest up for sale at Kindred Quilts after I've given them their tune-ups and whatever repairs were needed. What was I thinking??? I'll be working on those all weekend.

One-Block Wonder quilt- almost done

All I have left is the border and the binding. I hung it up to see how all the quilting of the hexagons looked, and would you believe, you can't see a thing! Oh well. I did end up ripping the stitches out of seven hexagons from the first two rows I quilted and redoing them. And after I said I wasn't going too! Since the variegated thread isn't going to show up, I may just do a simple meander on the borders. Picture coming soon. I put the camera in a safe place......

Wednesday - quilting and such

Ugh, now I remember why I've been sending out my quilts to be quilted all these years. It is dang hard squeezing all that fabric through the little throat of the machine. I started a little to the side of the middle, so that when I get all the way to the end and have to do the other side, I'll have a little less than half to go. That's my little psych trick. The bad thing is that I was very rusty on the first row, but 3 rows later, I'm getting a little creative, getting into the groove, and it looks better. Oh well. I'm not taking anything out now! And at least the quilt will be DONE sooner rather than later. I don't know of any long-arm quilter who doesn't have a backlog of many months. My favorite long-arm quilter has had Will's college quilt for almost a year now. And he's going to be a sophomore next month!!

Tomorrow we go pick up Mae at camp. I can hardly wait to see her. Last night was the toga party and they had a Hawaiian luau on Monday.

Yesterday I took the train to Hoboken to meet Bill for dinner and then the Yankee game. We took the ferry over to Manhattan - wish I had thought to take a camera, it was breathtakingly beautiful outside. I'm not a fan of skyscrapers and the whole urban/city look, but it was a glorious day and the sunlight reflecting off the mirrored buildings was pretty spectacular. We went into Manhattan and ate at Harry's at Hanover Park - it's right smack in the financial district. OMG, what a dinner. If you go on a Wednesday, their special for the past 40 years has been Beef Wellington. Needless to say, that's what we got and it was to die for. Before that, we had this out-of-this-world mushroom cavatelli with truffle oil. Not needed at all, but someone's eyes were bigger than his stomach, was the canadian bacon, and the spring lobster rolls. By the time the entree arrived, we were pretty stuffed, and neither of us could finish the beef. We had a bottle of wine with dinner and a bottle of dessert wine after while we sat and talked. Actually the dessert wine came after we decided to skip the game altogether. Bill gave the tickets to the waiter who scrambled to find someone to go with him! We had such a wonderful relaxing dinner and took our time walking back to the ferry. The return ride was just as delightful watching the shadows and golden glow of the setting sun slide across the buldings. The wind was fierce, but I just wrapped my hair up with a clip. I told Bill that if Mom were here, she would be moaning for a toboggan for her head, hahahaha (wind headaches, you know).

Basting the quilt

The One-Block Wonder is officially basted and ready to go. Now if I could just blink my eyes and it would magically quilt itself..... It's been a long time since I've tackled machine-quilting a big quilt myself, and a long time since I had to baste one. I used the kitchen table and spent alot of time smoothing out the backing and the batting. Then I carefully started at one end and started pinning the top to the batting and backing. Like I said, it's been a long time since I've done this and wouldn't you know, haste makes waste. I pinned about 2/3 of the quilt together before I realized I had started with the top too far down and would be running out of the back....sigh. So I started at the other end with very little fudge room and unpinned, smoothed the layers, and repinned. So many safety pins, ugh. I pricked my fingers a zillion times before I thought to use my ever trusty orange stick to help close each pin. I have one of those gadgets somewhere that's just for closing the safety pins (can't think of the name right now), but didn't feel like looking for it. Tomorrow I'll remember exactly where it is, but I won't be needing it tomorrow, will I?


I found this fabric recently and it just cried out to me to be taken home. It WAS on sale, and I got 5 yards - all that was on the bolt. This is more like what I wanted for the One-Block Wonder. This is an Alexander Henry print, and the design is so soft. The colors are kinda girly, what with all the pinks and greens, but that's okay. Nobody in my house has ever complained that the quilt they're snuggled under is too girly - they just grab whatever is on top of the pile.

One-Block Wonder - completed top and tips

At long last, after much procrastination, here is the completed One-Block Wonder quilt top. I was really getting tired of having it hanging on the make-shift design wall of my china cabinet. Only Steven complained about it though, and it was more of a "so when ARE you going to finish that one?" Mae's off at camp and Bill was in San Fran on business so I just sewed at odd hours. The gold/green border fabric was an old Jinny Beyer fabric that I've had for forever - I'm using it for the backing as well (I had some serious yardage!). I did ask Steven for an opinion on adding the green to it. I wanted to do something to "frame" it, and he picked the green that I used. Check it out a little closer.


What I did was cut a long strip 1 1/2" wide, and folded it into 3rds - kind of like a binding. I cut 1/2" strips of WonderUnder fusible and ironed it to the back of the 2nd fold to keep the strip together. I cut more of the 1/2" strips of fusible and ironed it to the back of the strip itself. Then I fused it to the edge of the pieced top. Lots of little strips of paper, lots of ironing - I'll sew it down as part of the quilting. Turning the points was tricky at first until I got the hang of it. I used an orange cuticle stick to hold the points in place as I ironed. It looks like it's all mitered perfectly, but it did take some time to get it just so. See the points up close:


Hints, tips, and tricks.....
Don't bother pressing the seams open unless you love pinning things! Pressing them open sounds like a good idea, but when it comes to putting the rows together, you will have to pin, pin, pin to get the sections lined up just so. I much prefer it when seams nestle together as I sew along. It's like an extra helping hand when joining blocks and rows together. The next time I make one of these, I will be sure to just press the seams to one side.

Aim for perfection, but don't sweat it. It's nearly impossible to tell when the center of the hexagon isn't exactly perfect.

Another thing I found is that although it is difficult to picture how the fabric will be changed, just count on getting more drama with a larger sized print. This fabric was more of a medium in terms of the size of the flowers, and the flowers themselves were very clearly framed against the black background. It resulted in smaller scale designs. If the design has almost a watercolor feel to it with softer shapes and no sharpness to the lines, you will get more of a flowing effect. In hindsight, I wish I had looked for some of those large Alexander Henry prints.

A design wall of some kind is a necessity for the One-Block Wonder quilt. Rig up a blanket to seldom used closet doors, or a wall if possible, or even your china cabinet, like I did. You need to be able to arrange and re-arrange the hexagons vertically. Forget the floor - I don't know anyone who can lay something like this out on the floor and have it be undisturbed for several days/weeks.

Save the little pieces from the ends of the strips after you've cut the regular triangles out. You can make miniature hexagons from them to use in another project.

Kitty Gone Wild!

We couldn't get a "normal" dog! No, we had to get a goofy eyed, bat-eared, upside down clown.