What I Do For Fun

Anyone who knows me, knows that my passion is sewing.....quilting in particular. Sewing calms me down after a hectic day, comforts me when I'm down, and is a pick-me-up if I'm not feeling well. I'm lucky to have a sewing room where I can go for all this therapy. Vince and I (mostly Vince) converted our old bedroom to a sewing room a couple of years ago. We painted the floor instead of carpeting or tiling it. I just love the painted floor; it's very country.

My sewing room as three stations, if you will. I have a wonderful sewing desk (Thank you Treva) that has plenty of room for even two sewing machines, should I need to drag out my serger. On the day I took this photo I was using it for computer work, so there's no machine on it at all.

Behind the sewing desk I have a large wood desk that I use for my cutting station. Its top is large enough to accomodate my biggest cutting mat and I can use it for drawing and lying out pieces when I'm not cutting. It also makes a nice storage spot for finished blocks, magazines I'm reading during breaks from quilting, and it's the spot where Kelsey puts things that belong to me when she's cleaning another room.

And then my pressing station is set up under a window. I have a regular ironing board that I keep there when I'm working on blocks or other sewing. I have a table ironing station that I made for larger pieces and it comes out when I'm putting a quilt together.

I really love this room. It has a television with Dish DVR, a couple of nice windows, a small heater for when my feet get cold, and even a couch for anyone who wants to keep me company while I sew. My daughter, Ashley, comes over often to check out what I'm making or to show me what she's working on. She has inherited my love for fabric!

And my sewing room is also a favorite place for my granddaughters, Annika and Alivia. They love to come and help Grandma sew. Annika insists on lifting and lowering the presser foot as I sew. She stands beside me, not so patiently waiting for me to finish my seam, all the while asking "Now, Grandma? Now?"

I love this photo. See how smart these kids are? Playing Scrabble on the computer! I can tell you this.....they felt pretty special this day. They were allowed to play with my computer while I sewed. It was a lot faster than letting them help. And they played Scrabble for a long time before deciding it wasn't as much fun as it looks when Grandma is playing.

The last project I finished was a quilt that I started over a year ago when my sister still lived in Dubai. It's called the Morning Splash and is a pattern designed by Judy Laguidara. Judy has a wonderful blog at http://www.patchworktimes.com/. I'm envious of Judy... she blogs daily.
Lavina and I decided to make this quilt together so we would send pictures back and forth to each other showing our progress. I can't find all the photos I sent her along the journey of this quilt. But here are some of the ones I sent early on, and then the ones later on as I got close to completing it.

This is where I left it after Lavina decided to move back to the states. She wasn't going to have a lot of time to quilt, so I moved on to some other projects while she got set up in her new home.

In September I attended my annual quilt retreat. I decided to finish up the quilt so I spent me first day at retreat cutting and sewing borders. The pattern called for more borders, but I didn't have enough purple fabric so I ended mine here. I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

Now I have 7 quilt tops finished awaiting quilting. Did you notice there is no long arm maching in my sewing room? Did you see that there is no room for a long arm in there? I've been plotting a way to get my dream machine. In two years my youngest daughter will have graduated high school (God willing) and we will once again have a free room. I'm thinking I could knock out a wall and combine the 2 bedrooms into one big room . . and voila' . . . a room long enough for a long arm. Unfortunately, every time I mention this to Vince, he starts in about how maybe he should be allowed to have some of his things in the house too! Men . . . .

Show & Tell

In lieu of the fact that today was a very ordinary day, I will post something much more exciting from the past. I want to share some of my favorite quilts so I'll start with one that I'm very proud of. "He Is Risen" hangs at the front of my church. I designed this one by adding a few elements of stained glass windows I'd seen with some quilt elements, and then collected fabrics for over a year. It was a lot of fun. I carried a little drawing of the piece with me and every visit I made to a fabric store or a vendor booth at a quilt show, I'd search for yet another perfect piece to include in this work. The colors are all batiks with the exception of the white dove and the unique brown cross fabric. That piece I found on ebay and was thrilled to find a nice wood grain fabric that worked so well for the cross. The quilt measures approximately 60" X 80" and is quite large for a piece that hangs on the wall. But I created this specifically for the church and I knew the wall would support a piece of this size. I'm happy to share this with you and would like to make more of this stained glass type of quilt to show off in the future.

Progress Made

It was a good night for quilting at my house. Both my granddaughters were here as their parents bowl on Wednesday nights so we have a standing date with the little girls every week. Tonight Annika was anxious to sew so while Vince and Kelsey occupied Alivia, Annika and I held up in my sewing room. Same scenario for Annika....unfolding, pressing, cutting, re-pressing, and re-folding..."Done, Grandma." I finished the machine quilting on my current project. It's turning out fun, but I hesitate to photograph it with the binding attached but not finished. So instead I'll show you the quilting from the backside. It's hard to see the stitches in these photos, but if you double click on the photos you'll get a nice enlargement that shows the details very nicely. I normally match the bottom thread with the backing fabric but I thought this might be a nice example to bring to class with me when I am teaching machine quilting. I feel I'm really mastering a nice smooth stitch as well as an appealing random design. So here's what it looks like on a section of the back. This project is a very unique project. It is intended to hang in front of some shelves we have in our half bath. These shelves hold a lot of unflattering items, some of a personal nature, and this will help keep all those items from view. Vince asked me if I could make a curtain for it and for those of you who know me well....I can't make anything that simple. Hopefully tomorrow I can post a photo of the finished 'curtain'. I'd like to think it will get hung up right away, but the bathroom isn't quite finished yet and I think this will likely be the last thing to go up.

Day Two

As Day Two comes to an end I regret that I did not get this piece finished. I did some quilting this evening as you can see from the photo. But I have a very good reason for not getting more than this done....I got a visit from my granddaughter and I had to take some time to play. She did play well though while I finished up what I was stitching. She claimed a few fat quarters as her own and proceeded to sew them. This little gal is 5 years old and has watched her mom quilting so even though she's not old enough to use all the right tools, it's remarkable how much she knows about the process.
The first thing she did was unfold the fat quarters and lie them out on my big quilting ironing table. Then she pretended to spray them with her makeshift squirt bottle (an empty water bottle) and ironed them with her special iron (a small Tupperware container). After they were adequatey pressed, she brought each piece over to my large sewing table where I was quilting and proceeded to cut it with a comb! And she used it like a rotary cutter, using the ruler and everything. Then she'd take it back to the ironing board and iron it once again before refolding the piece and declaring it "sewed".
I'm very proud of her for paying such close attention to her Grandma and Mother while we sew. She narrated every step as she acted it out and she knew why she was doing them. I would guess that she asks her mom as many questions as she asks me when I'm quilting around her.
So while I didn't get as much quilting done as I had planned, I did have a great evening with my granddaughter. And when Annika went home she made plans to come back again and quilt with me soon (probably tomorrow, right, Grandma?)
I've posted another teaser that shows some of the quilting I did get done tonight. And whether or not I finished..........any evening spent quilting is a good evening!

And Now For A Little Tease....

And here's a little sample of what's to come. This is what I've been working on tonight and it should be done in the next day or two. This is just a small section of the whole project. I love these colors and can't wait to post the finished pictures.
I've started sharing my passions today. Living in a small town and quilting. Life doesn't get much better than this!
I have so much to post that it will be an exercise in self control to keep from ignoring everything else in order to post as much as I can.
Again, Welcome to my blog. I hope that you'll enjoy it with a cup of coffee and be inspired in some little way every time you join me.