A Little Walking, A Little Quilting

Today was one of those days where I didn't sit down except for lunch. I don't know how I ever had time to work before. The day started with cutting out blocks for The Disappearing Pinwheel quilt with my neighbor, who is also in my quilt group. We cut out the big blocks and then put one pinwheel together and cut it up so we can show everyone what to do at the next meeting. Then we'll divide up into pairs and make the quilt in an assembly line. We broke for lunch and I made a template so we can check the completed 12 inch block before cutting it into thirds. When we made our block, we cut it with a 12 inch ruler, which of course is really 12-1/2 inch. We caught it after cutting the block into thirds and then had to re-cut some of the pieces.

After lunch we walked the neighborhood and handed out letters to encourage each neighbor to go to the next city council meeting. Our roads are terrible and all they do is fill potholes when what we need is to have the road replaced. The cul-de-sac at the end of our block is nothing but filled potholes. So maybe if the neighbors unite, the council will listen.

Buddy the cat was waiting when I got home again, with a still-twitching trophy in his mouth. He was meowing (sounds more like mwarr than meow with his mouth full) to get into the garage to eat his prey but I just told him that he was a good boy and left him outside. I don't know why he feels he has to eat varmits in the garage and leave their parts for me to clean up. I guess so it can't get away if it can still run when he puts it down. And it may have gotten away because I looked outside when he quit meowing and he was sitting alone by the back door.

Then I had to make yet another trip to WallyMart for fabric to finish this lap quilt. I made these four blocks for the quilt as you go demonstration yesterday, but I liked the way they turned out so I decided to use them in a lap quilt instead of practicing more free motion quilting. Since it was just going to be a practice quilt, I used fabric from my stash and WallyMart. I couldn't find anything to match the fabrics from my stash so decided to make a border from one of the WallyMart fabrics. I needed to go to the bigger nearby town anyway. But that store didn't have the fabric, so I'll have to go to the store in the smaller town tomorrow. You'd think all WallyMarts would have the same fabrics, but they don't.

This block is from the book Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel 1982.

I'll be linking to these blog parties: WIPS Be Gone at A Quilting Reader's Garden #10, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict #79, and Let's Book It at Vroomans Quilts #10

Disappearing Quilt Blocks, Have You Made Them?

You've probably heard of the Disappearing Nine Patch, and Stack and Whack, but have you heard of the Disappearing Hourglass or any of the others at Missouri Star Quilt Company? This isn't a review or endorsement of Missouri Star Quilt Company by the way. Monday night at Quilt Guild, we had member led demonstrations of several different quilts that could be made quickly and easily by making one block and then either putting it into a quilt top before cutting it up, or just cutting the completed blocks. These were so neat!

After my demonstration of quilt as you go techniques today at Quilt Group, I wonder if any of these disappearing blocks could be done as a quilt as you go. It would be such a good way to make some quick quilts when we need to give out more quilts than we have made. That happens in winter when so many of our elderly end up in the hospital or nursing home. And the great thing about these quilts is that they look like they are really complicated when really, they are so easy.

Oh, and I have another quilting question for you. What rotary blades and cutter do you prefer? I have mainly used Olfa and Fiskar blades and never really paid attention to how long they each last. But I changed the blades before I started cutting the butterflies and quilt as you go samples, using a new Fiskars blade. It was getting dull after two days of cutting, but I kept it in for another three days of less intense cutting, but using a lot more pressure on it. After the third day, I found it wasn't cutting through in places and I had to either go back and hit those places again, or cut with scissors. I don't have a new Olfa blade to try right now, but I just bought a Gingher blade that the LQS owner assured me would outlast every other blade. I hope so, one blade was $13. Oh, and I'm also giving up on Fiskars rotary cutters. The screw won't stay tight. I like the Olfa with the automatic blade retraction handle.

Design Wall Monday

I've got all the wing pieces done and my goal now is to complete 2 butterflies every day.  Meanwhile, I am still researching the various ways of doing quilt-as-you-go and making demo blocks for that.

Linking to Patchwork Times.

Stash Report Week 4

I really hoped to end this week with a loss, but I ran out of fabric and had to buy just a little more, and, well, you know how that goes. Five yards later and I have fabric added to my stash that has no particular purpose, other than it's pretty and will work well with other colors.

I also bought some yarn and realized that I seem to be building a yarn stash.  And since I absolutely refuse to build and keep up with another stash, I'd better start using this.  Don't get excited knitters, I am only making hats on a round loom.  Baby steps.

I'll link up with Patchwork Times tomorrow.

Showtime!

Began 2014, Finished 2015
Quilted by Diana Buckley