Design Wall Monday - Cars is Quilted!

This weekend and this morning, I spent just about every waking hour quilting and it will be the last time I quilt on my little Janome. My shoulder may never recover!

It looks distorted in these pictures but that's because I didn't have Hubby here to hold it and I had to stuff the corners in a couple of cabinets to hold it up. At least I hope it's not distorted. After all the pushing and pulling this weekend, I should probably block it before binding.

It didn't help that I was working in the trailer with my machine on a tv dinner table. I also haven't found my quilting gloves yet either, but found that my dishwashing rubber gloves have a better grip. Who knew? lol

Jo from Jo's Country Junction is doing a BOM Challenge in 2018. The challenge is to finish a BOM that is a basically a UFO. The assignment for this week was to find said project. That might be easy for some quilters, but when most of my stuff is in boxes, unmarked boxes at that, it made it a little more difficult for me. I didn't find my BOM. In her post describing the challenge, Jo said that the reason she doesn't like BOM's is that it seems such a waste to spend all that time reading directions and cutting just for one block. That clicked with me and I realized that I feel the same way. When people talk about doing a sampler challenge, I just cringe. So thank you Jo for not making me feel guilty when I say no to samplers.

Here is my BOM, even though I haven't found the actual project yet. This is what it looked like the last time I saw it. I only have one block left to finish. I'm not sure why I never finished it, except it was the first BOM I had ever done and I was tired of it by the time I got to the last block.



I'm linking to:
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts
Moving it Forward at Em's Scrapbag
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Sewing Room Sunday

Before we went to Missouri, I bought a used Grace Machine Quilter frame. I finally put it together this weekend and tried it out. It's definitely not as smooth as a long arm but much cheaper. Much, much cheaper. It came with the basic frame, a queen/king extension kit, and a pattern perfect setup.

With the basic frame, free motion quilting is done by standing on the far side and holding the handles like with a long arm. But the sewing machine's foot pedal is mounted on top of the sewing machine and the handle to press the pedal is at the top of those grips, and I find it very uncomfortable. But it can also be used from the other side when using a printed design. There is a wood stylus that can be attached to the side of the sewing machine carriage to trace the design. This is my first attempt using the stylus. Not to bad with a wandering pattern, but would look pretty bad if it was something with a recognizable pattern, like circles.

This is one of the wood pattern perfect pieces. They attach outside the frame but I want to enlarge the slots that are used to adjust side to side for a better offset.

The instructions on assembling the table were good, but really lacking in everything else. I found a video that showed the frame with the pieces on it, so between that and the instructions, I managed to get it on. I used the previous owner's leader cloths, but I need to make some that work better.

Now the bad part. I don't have anywhere to put it. It's in the living room now, which is also my sewing room, but it can't stay out except when it's being used. So now I have to figure out how to take the legs off to store it, or something else besides taking it completely apart every time. It took hours to put it together this time and it already had some of the pieces together. I'm sure it would get easier with time, but spending the better part of a day assembling is just not something I want to do every time I want to use it.

See the towels on the floor under the frame?  I need to get a rug to protect the floor from scratches before I trip over a towel.

Sometimes Men Make No Sense at All

We were supposed to have thunderstorms and hail last night, so I spent yesterday cleaning out the garage so we could get the cars in. After work, Hubby helped me and we got it done just as the dark clouds started moving in. And then... nothing. Not a drop of rain and no hail. Nothing but wind. But in the course of cleaning, rearranging, and putting up stuff, Hubby mentioned that he wanted to have a man sale. Not a garage sale, a man sale. A sale for men only. I told him he couldn't keep women from coming to a sale and if he posted an ad for men only, it would only make women curious and they would come anyway. And what about couples who go to garage sales together? And, most importantly, what about women who enjoy using tools?

You would think after being married to me for forty years, he would know better than to say women can't do something. Who was it who bought a sewing machine at a garage sale? It was him. And who was it who found the planer at a garage sale? It was me. I told him he would miss out on sales if he discriminated against women; plus, he would have to live with me and that might be worse! I advised him to post it as a tool and equipment sale instead, but he insists he will have a man sale.

What brought about this argument discussion was when he asked when I was going to be finished with the three banquet tables I bought to sandwich quilts. They are currently set up in the living room my sewing room. I told him I planned on pinning the Around the World from the Couch quilt today. What I didn't tell him is that he has to help me. I hate closing those pins, even with a spoon, especially in the middle of the table.

Then he thinks he is going to set up all his stuff on the tables and pull them out on weekends when the weather is nice and he doesn't have something to do. Again, I silently sighed and rolled my eyes because I know you can't decide to have a garage man sale at 7 a.m. on Saturday and expect anyone to see your last minute ad on craig's list or sign at the corner - especially since we are on a dead end street. And again, you'd think after having garage sales many times in the last forty years that he would know that. But then, he was never in charge of the advertising, sign making, or change collecting. He just put out the signs where I told him.

I'll let you know how his big man sale goes if he does it this weekend.

Creating a Convertible Sewing Room

One of my goals this year is to create a sewing room.  The problem is that none of our bedrooms are really big enough.  I used to have a desk and bookcase in a bedroom but not only was the space cramped, there was no place to put everything when a daughter came for a visit.  The desk was against a wall so working with a large quilt was difficult.  Still, I decided I would make that 7x10 foot space work.  It did annoy me that there was so little space for my sewing when the living room was unused and practically empty.  Hubby said to make the living room into my sewing room, but I didn't want that to be the first thing visitors see when they walk in the front door.  I suggested moving the dining table back in there and using the dining room as my sewing room.  He didn't like that idea at all.

Then, inspiration struck.  What if I could build a sewing table, cutting table, and side work table that folded up, nested inside each other, and could be moved out of the way when we needed a living room?

When it is a living room:

And when it is sewing room:

I already had the cabinets on the back wall.  They have housed everything from stereo and tv to china, and now they'll hold my stash, sewing machines, and office stuff.  I  had neatly folded fabric and lined it up on a couple of the shelves, in order by color.  It looked great.  Then, everyone decided to come here for Christmas and I stuffed every loose item, sewing related or not, into every crevice so now it looks like a hoarder's closet.  And in a way, that's exactly what it is, I don't why I have half that stuff.  Luckily, Institches with Bonnie is having a 15 minute organization challenge so I plan on getting that straightened out just as soon as I have a place to put it.

I also had the corner chair already.  It's a recliner that got kicked out of the family room due to lack of space.  Saturday, I bought the wood to make the sewing table; Sunday, we found the other two chairs on craigslist.  So it's finally beginning to come together.

From Child's Rooms to Sewing Room to Guest Room

I have spent more time and money collecting fabric for my quilting stash than I have actually quilting I think. And yet, I never have enough when I want to make a quilt and inevitably have to go shopping to match a fabric or get backing, or something. This built-in bookshelf was first meant to hold my daughter's books, stuffed animals, and trophies, but when she went to college, I took it over. Now I think it's time to take it down and use the stash. It collects dust which is the enemy in my family of allergy sufferers, and it takes up a lot of visual room in a very small room.

I bought four big plastic totes and loaded them into the attic, along with two garbage bags of fleece and batting. And then I found another bookcase full of quilt fabric in Hubby's office closet.

Yesterday, I bought three gallons of paint and moved a ton (really!) of tile from the house to the garage. It did help that the tile was in 36 pound boxes, but there were 28 of them and I had to lift each of them twice, once onto the dolly and once onto the floor. Then I painted the living room, three coats to keep the yellow from bleeding through. I swear this is the worst paint I have ever used, a Monarch premixed wall paint.

This afternoon I started on the guestroom while Brownie was there to help. We moved all the furniture except the bed into the empty living room, and put the bed in the middle of the floor. Also had to unload and remove that bookcase mounted to the wall. There was one screw in the bookcase that I couldn't loosen and had to ask a neighbor for help. After it was down I saw that the crown molding had been put up around it, so had to go get another piece of crown molding and paint it. Then I started painting that room.

And then, since I was doing the room, I thought I'd replace the electric outlets. Three of the four outlets in that room are too big or something. Everything that is plugged in just falls out. Really annoying.

Now all the fabric (my stash) that was in the wall-mounted bookcase is stacked on my bed and I have no idea where to put it. My current goal is to use up my stash and just buy fabric specifically for the quilt I want to make. Seems like I always have to go buy some fabric every time I make a quilt anyway, even if I start with some pieces out of my stash.

Here's the bedroom/sewing room minus the bookshelf and with missing crown molding replaced:


The little white bookshelf will go back on the floor as soon as the baseboard is dry enough. I sure don't want to paint that over again. As much as I disliked painting these walls, I really hated painting the trim, and I'm still not done. Hubby did agree to take off all the doors on the next nice day & shoot them all at once. It is SO nice to have a hubby who can do things.

Now that the bookshelf is off the wall and the room is painted, the room looks much more inviting, which is a good thing since it is going to be the guest room my in-laws are staying in over Christmas. I also got the carpet cleaned today. It's amazing the amount of dirt that gets ground into rooms so far from the outside doors.



Until next time, may you have blessings and quality paint,
Marti