Liberated Shoo-fly quilt

I'm so happy with this quilt. I had no plan when I started it. It just popped into my brain one day. And Happy New Year! May the new year bring more cuddly quilts.

I free-motion quilted my Shoo Fly quilt, and I even sewed on a binding, too. Time to hem it down, and label it. Now I plan to work on my "Hear" wall hanging (I plan to do a bit of applique and embroidery on it), and hold off making another quilt. I'm waiting for the time when I get my hands on Gwen Marston's new book! I think that it will be inspiring. We went to see that movie "Sherlock Holmes." Jude Law is cute, but the movie was not so hot. I nearly fell asleep and that was during a fight scene.

Home at last!

Here's all those old jeans in their new home. My son-in-law loves the pockets on this quilt because it is a handy place to store the TV remote. I don't know if it can be spotted peeking out of a pocket in the photo? And I really have scored big time with my presents--two different people gave me CD's. And my new recordings--in no particular order--are Norah Jones "The Fall," Sharon Isbin "Guitar Essentials," "Andrea Bocelli "Amore," Adam Lambert "For Your Entertainment." Some mixture I know, but I like just about everything. I guess I draw the line at progressive jazz, hip hop, or something way out. Now, if I can only manage to clear off the table, it's about time to pin baste that quilt I'm making. And I have been working on that free-pieced letter thing, but it is requiring a lot of reworking (already) and thought.

Shoo Fly quilt top

I'm really happy, I finally decided where I was going with this quilt. I used a dark brown print from my stash for the sashes. And I added one of my favorite patterns--a string border--on the top and bottom. I'm washing a bit of flannel that I had hanging around to use for the backing. I have a batt on hand, too. Well, I owe the Liberated Shoo Fly pattern to Gwen Marston's book. So I'm eagerly awaiting the release of her new book "Liberated Quiltmaking II" in a couple of weeks. You can bet that I'm going to get my order in early!

King size denim quilt--Finished!

Here I am with King Kong--the king-sized denim quilt is on it's way to its new home! It's so big, we never did fit the whole thing into one photo, even with two people helping me to hold it up.

Shoo-fly progress report

I've been a bit busy around here. Monday I went to a funeral for a friend. It was a very dignified ceremony. And a gentleman with a wonderful voice and style sang a few appropriate songs, accompanying himself on the guitar. I found out later that his name was Roger McGuinn of The Byrds. Now about the quilt. I've been hesitating because I was having trouble deciding on the finished size. I have decided to make approximately 45 by 70 inches. So I have been joining the blocks together. I made this my own version of the quilt in Gwen Marston's book, with a patchy look. I have so very many scraps and a rather large stash. Sometimes I wish that I had a better method of photographing things. I just threw this over the lounge chair.

Dedication of Memorial for Victims of 9-11 Terrorist Attack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRPYTiN5Oso

Oh happy day! denim quilt update

There's one advantage to being an insomniac, I get to solve some problems in the wee hours. There were two things that were causing problems with finishing this quilt (nicknamed King Kong). The first one was that I was tying it by spreading it out on the dining room table. Therefore, the table had to be all cleared of any centerpieces, and so forth. And it was difficult to see the TV from there. But I discovered that this quilt, which was well pin-basted, could be tied in my lap on the sofa. I just hung my little scissors around my neck on a crocheted chain. This speeded up the tying process in a big way. I could tie the quilt while watching a DVD or TV show. The second problem was that it was so daunting to think about applying and hemming binding! Even though I had already calculated and cut out miles of binding, and the strips were hanging on a hanger on the sewing room door, I changed my mind on that plan. Although I have read about turning the lining to the front of the quilt and hemming it down, I had never tried that method. Luckily, there was at least an inch of the flannel backing hanging around the edges. So, I trimmed the backing to one inch outside all around. Then I put a lot of water in the steam iron, and I ironed the edges in 1/2 inch and then another 1/2 inch all around the ends of the quilt border. That was quite a lot of ironing. But there's another problem. And that was that if I just popped the edge under the sewing machine, I would get a lot of puckers in the edge. So I checked out my sewing machine handbook, and tried out a few of the stitches. I decided that if I used the blind hem stitch, and adjusted my machine for sewing on a bulky edge, that would do it. The edge would be fairly flat and neat. It worked. And I had thought it would have taken me another month to finish this quilt. I hope to have the recipients of the quilt pose with the finished quilt for a photo finish really soon.

Free-pieced letters

As President Reagan used to say "Here you go again!" I've been thinking and thinking about making a wall hanging with this word for weeks. At last I've made a start. I'll explain the philosophical meaning as it gets further along.

Easy Knitted Hat

I knit these hats for family and friends and to donate to the homeless. I'm a volunteer for SPINOC.org and we help homeless folks to get into homes and jobs. But my family loves these hats and my granddaughters just asked me yesterday to knit them each one in a bright color. The first size of 80 stitches will fit a woman or child, and the 90 stitches is for a man's size.

Knitting worsted yarn similar to TLC or Super Saver
Size 7 needles
4sts = 1 inch

Lady’s size (Men’s in parenthesis)

Cast on 80 (90) sts
K2, p2 for 6 (7) inches
Work decreases: Row 1: * k8, k2 tog*
Row 2: and all alt rows, Purl
Row 3: *k7, k2 tog*
Row 5: *k6, k2 tog*
Row 7: *k5, k2 tog*
Row 9: *k4, k2 tog*
Row 11: *k3, k2 tog*
Row 13: *k2, k2 tog*
Row 15: *k1, k2 tog*
Row 17: k 2 tog all around
Leaving a long tail, cut yarn and thread through the rem sts. Sew tog.