I Think I Need to Explain About My "Quilting Ruler"

On a post the other day, someone commented on this ruler I was using under my walking foot. I think she thought I was using it over the whole quilt to make straight lines. But I was only using it to mark my quilting line when I had to stitch across the dark fabric. I could mark them with painter's tape, but I didn't have any tape that day and didn't want to wait until I had some. And since I had this ruler handy, I just stuck it under the foot. And that's where it was when I decided to take the pictures for that post. But I really wouldn't advise using a plastic ruler next to your needle. I've nicked it a few times and even though it's a fairly soft plastic, it can't be good for my needle.

I mark lines where there is no seam, but I can't see the marks against the dark fabric. This pink marker shows up better than any other color but I still can't see it unless I almost have my nose to it.

This ruler is a thin as quality paper, but more rigid, so it keeps that straight line. I got a postcard in the mail yesterday and it is just a little bit thicker, but I will start using it instead.

This is the quilting ruler I use when I have the ruler foot on my sewing machine. I prefer making straight lines with the walking foot though.

If you have any tips on how to stitch on dark fabrics, please let me know.

To Do Tuesday # 77

After seven gray and drizzly days, the sun came out today and we had to turn on the air conditioner! Like they say in Texas, and probably every state in the union, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute. I wanted to work in the garden, but it's a muddy mess out there, so I continued to sew.

Last week's goals are done!

✔ Make 28 half string blocks and 7 string squares
✔ Buy enough muslin to finish blocks

(I found another yard in my stash, so didn't have to buy any muslin. Yay!)

✔ Quilt 7 square blocks and 7 pinwheel blocks
✔ Make 4 lap bibs (1 Xmas)

At the bottom of this post is one of the bibs I made in 2018 for my mother-in-law when she was in a nursing home. She used it in the dining hall once and then decided she would rather eat in her room than with "those crazy people." LOL. She didn't care if she dropped food on her clothes if she never left her room. After she passed, I put the bibs in the car so I could use them if I ever ate in the car. Little did I know that Covid would end our dining in restaurants and any meal eaten out would be eaten in the car. And then I found out that these scarves don't work well when not eating at a table. Car seats lean back more and these didn't cover the lap at all.

We also discovered that restaurants don't give out knives, even when asked for one, and it is really hard to cut meat with a plastic fork. So what I needed was a bib that didn't look like a bib, covered my lap as well as the front of my shirt, could be used as napkin but also keep liquids from soaking through, could hold silverware, would fit in the glove compartment, and stay folded and compact so it wasn't in the way. This is what I came up with this week. I used quilting cotton on the front and homespun on the back. The homespun is softer and more absorbant than the quilting cotton. It works, but I'd like to make it cover the lap a bit more.

Now Goals for January 26, 2021

• Make six more scarf bibs
• Finish quilting Jacob's Ladder
• Rip out the stitching from one pinwheel block so I can reuse the backing
• Quilt the string block on the new square in a square block

That doesn't seem like much but if I get more done, I'll consider it a bonus.

To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

Sewing Weekend for Week 4 of 2021

It's been a foggy, drizzly weekend so far with thunderstorms forecast late Sunday. The perfect weather for stitching and reading, so I stitch by day and read by night. The plumber was here Friday and Saturday and I sewed with my noise cancelling headphones on for most of the day. Not the most comfortable way to sew, but it was going to be loud no matter where I was. I had no idea plumbers made so much noise.

I decided not to send the Jacob's Ladder quilt out for quilting. I don't think I'll ever look at the quilt without seeing all the faults. I had considered throwing it away instead of finishing it into a flimsy, so spending more money on it seems like a waste. But I do need to practice quilting and it will be fine for that. I started quilting it this week, using a combination of straight lines with the walking foot and ruler foot and I'm having very little trouble seeing the dark green against white.

The pinwheel quilt blocks are a different story. The light colors against muslin are impossible to see. But I found that drawing a line with a dark Frixon pen is making it much easier. I thought I had all the string parts of the Scrappy Pinwheels quilted until I put them all on the wall yesterday and realized I had one too many pinwheels and one too few square in a square blocks. Since I had used every scrap of backing fabric, now I have to rip out the quilting on a pinwheel to reuse that backing. Why oh why couldn't it have been an extra square in a square with less quilting in it?!!

Getting down to business though, I have maintained my 100% daily stitching success rate for the year, and have used a little more fabric from the stash this week. I came very, very close to buying some unneccesary fabric, but I resisted. I thought I needed a little more muslin to finish my pinwheels, but I found another yard in my stash.

One Monthly Goal Complete!

My One Monthly Goal for January was to make 20 blocks for this quilt, and I have made the blocks and done most of the straight line quilting on them. I will be linking to Elm Street Quilts when Patty posts the final linkup.

I am linking this to:
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate
Patchwork & Quilts at Quilting Patchwork Applique
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Making at LoveLaughQuilt
One Monthly Goal January Finish at Elm Street Quilts

To Do Tuesday #76

This week went by with a rush, whistling through the shutters and trailing dust eddies in its wake. A few more weeks like this and we'll be wearing short sleeves and wondering what happened to winter. Nothing even remotely interesting happened in my life this week so I had plenty of time to sew and do housework and I ignored the housework. The coming week will be a different story though. Doctor appointments requiring a half day each and the plumber is definitely coming Thursday.

One of my goals from week two of 2021 was to put up the Christmas decorations. I didn't get it all put away, so I added it to the list again last week. And finally, I did I finish that task. At least I think I did; Christmas decorations spread throughout the house have a way of being overlooked. Soon, I need to make some changes in the storage closet and build another rack with room to hang wreaths. Wreaths in boxes take up a lot of room.

Last week's goals are all done!

✔ Add additional border on the backing for Gairden Walk so it can be quilted
✔ Iron and cleanup top and backing for Gairden Walk, pack it up, send it out
✔ Choose backing fabric for Scrappy Pinwheels and cut into thirty-five 13 inch squares
✔ Cut some trial blocks and batting and experiment with quilting patterns
✔ Quilt at least 5 Scrappy Pinwheel blocks
✔ Put up Christmas decorations and get those boxes out of my sewing space

Goals for January 19, 2021

• Make 28 half string blocks and 7 string squares
• Buy enough muslin to finish blocks

(This is easier said than done. Since I'm not driving, I have to impose on someone to take me, and I hate asking people to take time out of their day to take me somewhere.)

• Quilt 7 square blocks and 7 pinwheel blocks
• Make 4 lap bibs, similar to below, but bigger (1 Xmas)

(I thought I had posted about these in 2018, but I guess I didn't. It's more like a scarf that works like a bib. I'll take better pictures this time.)

Linking to:

To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn by Us

Scrappy Weekend Week 3

I am giving myself a sewing weekend. The plumber was supposed to be here Saturday, but he was a no-show. That was probably a good thing as then I didn't have to deal with any distractions. I waited for him until 10:00 Saturday morning and then put a note on the door and headed up to my sewing space.

My weekend actually started Friday afternood and I thought I'd get a lot of quilting done, but I decided to try making myself an eye patch first. Since I had no pattern, it was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of scraps in the trash. I never did come up with an over the glasses design that only allowed vision from one eye. As much as I don't like the idea, I think I'll have to make a regular eyepatch. So that was a whole day wasted. Meanwhile, I thought I'd show you the progress I've made with quilting on the Scrappy Pinwheel blocks. I decided to do a meandering stitch on the square in a square blocks, but now that I've done three of them, I think the quilting may be too dense. I'll quilt a few of the pinwheels and then decide if all of these need to be tossed.

Saturday afternoon, I quilted one pinwheel and it may be okay. I'm using the walking foot on the straight lines of the strings and the free motion foot on the open spaces. I need to either do all the walking foot part first and then switch to the free motion, or set up two sewing machines to do the quilting.

Now on to the sewing reports. I don't think I spent 15 minutes in the sewing space any day this week. It was more like two or three hours every day. Some days it was just cutting strips, or trying out patterns, and of course Friday afternoon and nearly all day Saturday were spent trying to come up with an eye patch design. I spent several hours last night quilting with the ruler foot and it was a struggle. Either the center bulk of this bulk is more of a problem than I've had before, or I've forgotten how to do it easily, but today my shoulder is killing me and the quilting doesn't look good either. I won't be doing any quilting today, only piecing, or I may work on cross-stitch. The positive out of all this is that I've maintained my 100% success rate for the year. I also pulled fabric from my stash to make the backing blocks so I finally have something to show in the stash report.

Linking to:
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate
Patchwork & Quilts at Quilting Patchwork Applique
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

To Do Tuesday #75

We had a taste of real winter this week. It never got below freezing, so the snow we got melted away quickly. But for the day it was here, it was so pretty, and wasn't it nice to come on a Sunday when most people didn't have to get out? I thought so.

I had a good sewing week, but I didn't complete all my goals for the week.

Goals from January 5, 2021

1. Iron top and backing for Jacob's Ladder ✔
    It is ready to go to the long arm quilter as soon as she gets her machine out of the shop.
2. Make 25 half string blocks ✔
    I made 37, plus 12 four inch blocks
3. Put up Christmas decorations 
    I put up some, but not all. I did build a shelving unit to store all the totes that hold various

    decorations. Some of the totes had broken under the weight of stacked totes.

4. Work on the cross stitch project. I just didn't want to stop working on the string blocks.

This week's goals are much the same.

Goals for January 12, 2021

1. Add additional border on the backing for Gairden Walk so it can be quilted
2. Iron and cleanup top and backing for Gairden Walk, pack it up, send it out
3. Choose backing fabric for Scrappy Pinwheels and cut into thirty-five 13 inch squares
4. Cut some trial blocks and batting and experiment with quilting patterns
5. Quilt at least 5 Scrappy Pinwheel blocks

6. Put up Christmas decorations and get those boxes out of my sewing space

Linking to:
To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn by Us

Sewing Weekend Week 2 of 2021

I hope everyone is well and enjoying this new year. So far, so good for me. I have discovered that using the sewing machine (first time since August) perfectly hits the sweet spot of my vision. The only problem I've had this week has been not being able to tell which is the right side of the fabric, which made me try out Mr. Ripper sooner than I wanted. And that was tough. I threw some pieces away because it just wasn't worth trying to hold the fabric and a magnifying glass at the same time. But all in all, it was a very encouraging week, and I got a lot done.

I worked mainly on my string Scrappy Pinwheels. Originally, I was going to make the quilt with all pinwheel blocks doing quilt as you go so each block would be separated by a half inch sashing. But I've been playing around with designs, and made then made another block to see how it would look. It looks better on the computerized design than it does on the design wall. Now I'm not sure which direction I'll go with it.  Sorry for the dark photos.  I should have taken pictures while it was still daylight.

On to the reports!

I stitched every day this week so my 15 minutes to stitch report still shows 100% success rate.

Since I am using scraps and previously cut muslin, my stash report remains the same as it has for the last eight months. I'm not going to reduce my stash at this rate.

I'm linking this post to these blogs. Click on them to see what other quilters are doing:
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Sunday Stash at Quilt Paint Create
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

To Do Tuesday #74

Sometimes it seems that my posts are redundant. Most of the goals I post on the weekly to do list are also goals on either my PhD list, my OMG list, or my yearly list. I think the To Do Tuesday list is more like a breakdown of steps to get to the ultimate goal though. Since I didn't make a post last Tuesday, I'll jump right into this week's goals.

1. I need to iron the top and backing for Jacob's Ladder. Both of those are contingent on finding that darn iron though.
2. Make 25 half string blocks. I cut the backing late last night but need to recheck the measurements while I'm wide awake.

3. Put up Christmas decorations. What does that have to do with sewing you ask? Well, the boxes are in the middle of my sewing space.
4. Work on the cross stitch project.

Linking to:
To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

January 2021 One Monthly Goal

I should probably work on my sewing space and aim low for any outright sewing this month. But since I spent a couple of days last week cutting strips for string blocks, my goal for January will be to make 20 pinwheel blocks. This is on my PhD list for a 2021 finish and it seems I only have one block complete right now. So I've got to work a little on it every month I think.



I tracked down the missing sewing machine cord last night and then made another discovery. Eureka!


It's not the big iron I need to iron my backing, but it will do for piecing.

Linking to:
One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.