Darn – summer is back and boy will it ever be a hot and humid 6 months here in Sweatsville, South Texas!  After all the fun of de-cluttering (better word for downsizing, and cleaning out things) and quilting a quilt yesterday, this old lady is T-I-R-E-D!  I treated myself and did not partake of walking this morning.  I am trying to walk at 6:30 and be done with it!  It seems to give me more time to enjoy the Studio again.

I made this quilt in the 2005-2006 time frame but never quilted it.  I loaded it 2 months ago and it has patiently waited.  I need to learn to spend a couple of hours each day when quilting because 5 hours standing on one’s feet is just a little too much for someone over 39!  LOL.  Anyway I became brave and tried my hand at free hand quilting around the plates.  I think I achieved the goal on ONE Dresden Plate.  For my next quilt, I am going to FINALLY get the quilting rulers out and teach myself to do something other than meandering (free motion).  Good project for the summer.

 I did meandering on the borders and in the white blocks. I stitched around the applique and in the green border I did meandering with circles.

The back is Moda (green) and In The Beginning (middle) fabrics that I have had over 10 years! Still good as new!

I intended to put the binding on the back first, then machine sew it down to save time. Of course I did the usual, put the binding on the top first (hard to break old habits)! I figured that I now had no choice to but hand bind it! BUT, it worked by sewing the folded over binding on top of the 1/4″ seam allowance when I sewed the binding onto the quilt.

The top of the quilt after sewing the binding down by machine. Works great!

This quilt will be used to cover my Longarm! I was going to make another top for that, but after finishing this quilt I changed my mind. It really adds color to the room! I love it!

And not to leave out French General progress which is slow so here he is!

I will be tracing the embroidery pattern for Aunt Bea’s Parlor blocks and Stonefields this week.

Have a great week!

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Slow Stitching Sunday Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party

Greetings from summer in South Texas with the usual humidity, but not yet 100 degrees, but getting close next week.  Clay and I have been married 23 years this August, and on 3 June it will be 23 years that he contacted me to be a ‘Pen Pal’!  That did not last long.   So after 23 years of collecting and keeping paperwork that was required to keep (now we just keep it on a zip drive) it was time to purge unwanted things and prepare for the new carpet laying in June!

I have just completed going through all file cabinets going through all “old” paperwork and then disposing of everything that is not necessary to keep!  That took me 2 full FULL days to go through 8 file cabinet drawers and then setting up file systems that were colored coded!  How about that for fun.  That filled 5 bags of TRASH and that is difficult to burn, and too long to shred, so it has been buried and we anticipate a tree will now sprout!  LOL.

Wednesday afternoon (hearing appt during the morning) I started on the library.  Oh this one took 3 hours on Wednesday and 9 hours yesterday. Yesterday was the time to start looking at pictures, letters, and documents.  What a time.  I reviewed pictures from my life in 1980 through current time.  There are a lot of pictures and cards that Clay and I have amassed since 3 June 1996, the day he found me in Sterling, Virginia!  What memories.  Those memories were wonderful to look through.  I filled up 2 more bags, but I shredded most of the things.  Being from the old school where we had to keep paperwork to prove issues, etc., it is time now to just let the computer storage devices save all statements.  There are still a lot that I saved from our past and current lives, but not near as much as I had been keeping.  I do not know whether to call this ‘downsizing’ or just ‘elimination of unimportant things’.

We also have removed a computer desk, file cabinet from the computer room, and a hutch from the Den that was no longer being used and we are passing our Trundle Bed and a Glider to my cousin Kay’s daughter Kathleen, to use in her recently vacated bedroom when her older son moved to an apartment.  Kay now has 2 great grandchildren that are just beautiful babies.  I know that the glider will be used to sooth the baby at nap time along with the new baby blanket I made her.

Because there will be a 4 day interruption in early June for the carpet laying, I will not be starting a new quilt project.  Instead, I will do the 4 applique blocks for Suzn Quilts QAL, work on Stonefields (hoping to finish it), and transfer Aunt Bea’s Parlor embroidery blocks to fabric, and continue working on my  French General embroidery project.

I feel so great about this ‘cleaning out project I feel as if a burden has been lifted.  Sometimes it helps to just leave the past in the past and bury some memories.  I have had the best 5 nights of sleep since I started this project, so whatever I sent to Shredderville, trash, burn pile, or buried, I am very HAPPY!

A couple of years ago I took over the Music Room where we used to play our guitars together.  Now Clay plays his guitar here in the Studio and I  enjoy listening to the music when sewing.  I still have my piano and sometimes I have been known to sit and play awhile, but not a lot.  I now store fabric and yarn in this room and I want to re-arrange some things and see if I need to “downsize” anything.  It will not take long to accomplish this project, it entails moving some things from the Den and rearranging things that I have let accumulate where they do not need to be.

So hopefully in a few days I will have something to show about quilting.  I do hope that this has inspired you to think about how technology has taken over the old fashioned way of record keeping!

Have a wonderful week-end!

Nanette

I have finished my Feathered Star Quilt! I should have been through in April, but a little vacation, paperwork, and ordering new carpet for the house tended to get in my way!

When making a highly technical quilt it is not smart to take a break in the middle of the process thinking it would be easy pick up where it is put away for a couple of weeks! I have thoroughly enjoyed making this challenging quilt, but another lesson learned is to make sure that I purchase extra fabric required to finish the quilt. I had purchased fat quarters in 2014 thinking that It would be enough to make A Star of Chamblie.

BUT, alas it wasn’t and it would not have worked out if I had not found 4 more fat quarters on Ebay and 3 yards of the sashings and border fabric from Snowy River Quilts. I was certainly blessed to find all the fabrics I needed. Of course this was after I had purchased other yardage from Marsha McCloskey.

It is difficult to believe that it began with this around the 1st of March 2019:

And ended up with this on 11 May 2019!

The border will be finished at 5″. I like to add an inch for the long arm quilter.

I completed all the pieced blocks for A Merry Christmas To You SAL and ironed all the fabric stash – which was a LOT of ironing!

My next project will be to finish Stonefields! That UFO really needs to be completed before I start working on another new quilt. Stonefields is not a difficult quilt – just lots of small blocks. I will be starting with Section 6 out of 10 Sections. So more than 1/2 way finished. Besides, it will be a cake walk compared to Feathered Stars!

I now have my Studio cleaned up and in neat orderly. (I cannot work in a messy environment)

My View when sewing!

Clean ironing Board!

Clean Design Board and Cutting Table!

There is a quilt loaded and waiting to be quilted called Dresden Plates. It is a quilt I did about 10 years ago. But it will wait a little longer.

I have so much fabric and know that I will never use all up!

Then there are more tops to be quilted and more fabric stash behind that! Like I really need more fabric!

In June we will have new carpeting laid in the house. I had thought about moving forward with more quilting until a week or so before that happens, but now I have decided to do the “downsizing”, throwing away paperwork that is not needed, cleaning out my old books and give them to the local Library, and taking clothes that I no longer need or want to Goodwill!

This really does not sound like fun, but it will be a nice break from sewing highly technical quilts and when finished, the moving of the furniture, etc will be easier on us!

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Slow Stitching Sunday Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party

We have had rain! In the last two weeks we have received close to 5″.

Green grass looking good!

I am slowly making progress on my French General wall hanging.

Star of Chamblie had a “little” issue last week. The last Star had problems that I did not catch until I put the sashings on!

Notice the upper left blank spot!

So I changed out the corner squares and the triangles. Kiss that afternoon goodbye. Then there was the issue of needing more sashing fabric. I was blessed again as I found it on line!

Now the poor baby is resting and I am taking a break working on 9 – 3″ Stars and 17 – 3″ 9″ Nine Patches for the SAL A Merry Christmas To You.

I am beginning to place the blocks on the Design Board.

Then there is a nice stack of fabric to iron. Remember all the Moda Marble Star fabric and some batiks for my Borgello quilt? Well…..

Now I have 3 things going at once. Not fun!

In addition we are having new carpet laid in the house! More time away from sewing and some negotiating and tomorrow we will order the carpet. We will have it done in June! That will take me away from sewing because…RIGHT…it is called ‘moving things’! But the new carpet will be so nice!

Have a great week!!!

Nanette

Check out all the participants in this segment of HQAL!

Kathy, Lori, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Deborah, Slow Stitching Sunday Susan, Jessisca, Sherry, Nanette, Sassy, Edith, Sharon Grethen Karrin

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Slow Stitching Sunday Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party

Greetings on a beautiful warm day in South Texas!  San Antonio has been celebrating Fiesta for the last two weeks.  Today was the Battle of Flowers Parade and tomorrow night is the Fiesta Flambeau Parade.  When I was younger I loved this time of the year.  They hold a Night in Old San Antonio, NIOSA, and it was fun fun fun!  I would volunteer to work for a couple of hours at the food booths and then have plenty of time to go join in the eating and beer drinking (well just a few LOL).  But that was then and this is now no beer around here!  LOL

We were blessed with 2″ of rain on Wednesday!  I love the rain and here is a view from the front porch!

Today I am working on the 64 Flying Geese and the HST’s for the sashings for Star of Chamblie!  YUP – changed my mind and now adding the stars to the sashings!  I am glad that I waited until the weather calmed down so I would make the correct design decision.

The 68 Flying Geese will measure 1″ x 2″ when added to the Sashing.  Here is how I make my flying geese (the easy way).  I used Eleanor Burns Mini Ruler Set for these.  She has taken all the hard work in making Flying Geese and her rulers come in different sizes.  I believe I purchased this package for her Victory Quilt.  (That is one that never got made – but use the rulers all the time).

The kit comes with 3 templates – 2 rulers for very small Flying Geese and a template for cutting 2″ squares!

This is the 2nd phase of the process.  This stack of crazy looking blocks will yield 2 Flying Gees that will finish at 1″ x 2″!

So easy!  Just lay the little ruler on the flying geese, trim, flip the ruler and you have a perfect Flying Geese!

From a wierd looking little block….to a perfect Flying Geese block!

This is the next step – wish me luck as this can be frustrating making all things match as they should on the sashing!

I am using Marsha McCloskey’s  Bias Strip Method for HST’s The Sawtooth will require 176 of the puppies!  I have 4 sets ready to cut and I believe that I can get at least 120 out of this set of 4 different ones.  They are fairly easy to do this way and another way for perfect HSTs – especially when I needed all those 1 1/2″ HSTs for my Star of Chamblie Blocks.   After I have finished cutting and making the remaining HSTs, I will start putting the quilt together!  I know this is a pipe dream but it would be wonderful to have this quilt in a Flimsy by the 30th of April!  What a way to finish the month and start May with another project!  (OOPS I have 12 Stars to make for A Merry Christmas SAL by next Wednesday – what a Dreamer I am!)

Speaking of Marsha,  I have a lot of fabric left from the order I placed in early March and was not sure what to do with it.  I quickly realized that Marsha and Sharon Yenter wrote the Blended Quilts Book I and II.  Was I ever lucky!  I found one on Ebay and one on Etsy!  Each were $8.00!  I am waiting for Book II and just know that this will help me in making a couple of quilts and use up the blue and white fabric, along with some Dutch Chintz that I have left over from when I was working building a stash for Reproduction quilts! (In fact I have a great stash of Dutch Chintz fabric – EXPENSIVE SPLURGE – so I had better do something with it!)

I had visited a local quilt store on 13 Dec 2017 (want to know why I remember the exact date?  I came down with the Flu that night!) and found this neat French General pre-printed embroidery project.  I almost bought a kit that day but decided to settle on this project.  I started working on it last year and have recently picked it up and plan on finishing it during the evenings.  It will be into a nice framed picture for the Wall!

Whittles had Moda Marble Stars on sale and I just could not pass the sale by!  What spoke to me was my Wedding Ring quilt or a patriotic Log Cabin!  The fabric run is not the same as the Moda of 10 years ago.  It is not as soft and smooth, but that is OK.  It will look good in either quilt.

AND, if this is not enough, I found this fabric set aside that I had purchased a few years back to use with the Sweet Land of Liberty Panel by Sandy Gervais!  I have a book called Panel Play that I will enjoy making this easy top as soon as I beat my head against the wall finishing Star of Chamblie!  I wonder just how many more quilts I need to make to continue challenging my brain!

I guess I just needed more and more of Moda Star fabric!  (Sure Nanette!)

Thank you for stopping by and reading about what I have been up to!  I am hoping to meet my end of April goal!  If I get 4 days of sewing accomplished without running into a problem with the sashings or the sawtooth border, I will be done!

Have a great week-end!  Happy Stitching!

Nanette 

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Slow Stitching Sunday Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers;  Peacock Party

Again, Happy Easter to all!  May we all remember why we celebrate this day each year!

I have finished all 9 blocks for Star of Chamblie!  I have enjoyed the process and the challenge in making them.  I will, of course, be changing the sashings from the little Stars that are in the original quilt pattern.  I am just not in the mood for any more challenges with this quilt!  There was one quadrant that gave me fits on all of the blocks, so there was something amiss but I could not and did not want to dissect the pattern any further!  When you make a highly technical block such as a Feathered Star and only have 1% problems with one little section, that is called HAPPINESS!

I will be using the blue for the 2″ sashings (no stars) and a 2″ blue border around the blocks which will allow me to change fabrics without disrupting the background fabrics used in the Feathered Stars.  If I had been able to make this quilt when I purchased the fabrics, I would not have been so limited on the fabrics, as I would have been able to order more.  So there was a fabric challenge along with the difficult technique in making the blocks.  I was blessed to find 4 more fat quarters of the fabric on eBay – which saved the day!

I will say, that I am very VERY relieved that I am to this point in making this quilt!  Next I will make 176 each, 2 1/2″ HST’s for the Sawtooth border using the Bias Strip Piecing for HST’s  method.  This method provides perfect HSTs with the bias on the inside and straight of grain on the outside!

So I present 9 Blocks for Star of Chamblie Blocks!

I chose to place a plain square in the middle star, with 4 Dark Blue Stars on each corner and 4 Light fabric in the alternating blocks.  The blocks will not be touching when I finish with the sashings.  I have selected the fabrics for the sashings and if it works out I have some beautiful fabric for one more border before I add the Sawtooth (HST’S) Border.

Next step is to make the HSTs, add sashings, add another fabric border, and then the Sawtooth Border.  I am still hoping for a finish before May gets here!

Tomorrow is house cleaning day for me, as I have put it off until all blocks were finished.  If you ever decided to make a feathered star quilt I recommend that you start and do not take a break in the process.  I did take a break and I see where a break in making such a complex block is not advisable.  I had all the remaining blocks cut out, but when you leave a project like this for 2 weeks the rhythm is gone.

Have a wonderful week – and enjoy stitiching!

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Slow Stitching Sunday Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers

Hello from a beautiful Spring day in South Texas! It appears that cutting the Parallelogram correctly at 1 and 9/16″ worked!!!

This is Block 6 of 9. Now that I have a little (?) problem area corrected the sewing goes faster.

And 2 more Dresdens completed.

Have a great Tax Day!

Nanette

Linking To:  My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Sew Can She; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Fiber Tuesday;    Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHOW; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts;  Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Show and Tell Monday with Bambi; Slow Stitching Sunday Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers