Watched You Tube

Today sucked actually. It is lovely outside, but the smoke from fires so many miles away have settled in the valley making it impossible to be outdoors or to have open windows. I do not want smoke coming in and settling on fabrics for projects I am working on right now.

I watched several of the tutorials from Quilty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PPcP1eHbdo&list=PLsYvTdlNYsS6WvLOnEL5-ZoNDLst7HQ2K 

and Missouri Star
https://www.youtube.com/user/MissouriQuiltCo

Sometimes I flipped through them, sometimes watched for awhile and sometimes watched the entire video. There is a lot to be learned even when I think I know what it is about. 

One thing I learned on a Quilty tutorial was about accurate 1/4" seams. The two women on the show were Mother & Daughter and are legends in the quilting community. Of course, they have wisdom born out of experience and from being with, and teaching so many quilters. 

Yet. One needs to know herself too. 

Marianne Fonz measures the squares. A 3 1/2" raw square with accurate seams finishes at 3". She joined two squares and measured to see if they finished at 6 1/2". Less meant the seam was too scant. More meant that it was too heavy. Mary Fonz said that if they were all the same it didn't make any difference. Her Mother said it did if you were using triangles. Mary also said she had a tool on her machine that helped her sew to the edge and be done with the stress of measuring. Her Mother countered with birthing and growing up stories, and scoffed at the tool saying they were not for all machines. Sigh.

I am on the side of the Daughter. I am only making quilts with squares and rectangles and sew the same seam, and do not care what size the quilt is when it is finished. I plan to look for that 1/4" guide. One video was also on a similar Log Cabin quilt pattern that I am currently making, so I watched with interest.

The other tutorials from Missouri Star always seem to have shortcuts to traditional patterns, and I like what I see. I flipped past the triangle patterns. And the thing is that I am doing so much now that I have no time for anything NEW.

So why do I say today sucked? I have several bins out of my closet on the floor that are opened with fabric spilling out. The doors to my closets make them look stuffed. I am just feeling sorry for myself that there is so much here. And yet, I am grateful for all I have been given and have and feel quite pleased with what I make from it all.

What else I did was to sew up one of the baby quilts, add the batting, turn it and pin baste so it is ready for tying. Then I baked two onions for onion rings. OMGoddess are they good! And my housekeeper came. She spent several hours doing a few things I passed onto her.

As for the new computer setup. The geek is returning with an extension to the keyboard and will answer any questions I have. I have a growing list. I miss the Mac and he says I can do the same things with this system. Hah! I have a full page of questions already, and a lot of frustration.     

Machine Labels

I had help figuring out how to make them and made 8 of the 11 needed. Yet, while they were finished, I am not sure I like them.

It is a struggle to program one letter at a time and then have the machine print them out vertically top to bottom. All those loose threads needed cutting and the ones between letters. Ends of them all. Again, I am not sure I like the look, yet, for now, they will do.

And then I finished the first Twister quilt. This one waits now for a recipient. I thought it was pretty busy when I first made it and after seeing more of them online, it is what it is. It makes a nice personal nap/lap quilt.


The other fun thing today was that the computer geek showed up and installed a new tower and brought a small screen for the desk, so that both it and the SmartTV are set in place. Of course, its another learning curve. My vision is not all that good to see far away to write from even the big screen. I can use my keyboard in front of the big screen but it is too much. So once again, I wait for the extension cord to fit. Meanwhile, I am playing with a mini wireless keyboard.

Heart of the Piano Pics

Sprinklers went on this morning and the Sun is shining. Here are the photos for the HOTP quilt. The back is wavy piano keys and music and the front uses the TWISTER template with 10" squares. The quilt measures about 62" square and is perfect for a personal lap/nap quilt.

To Make A Label

The Pacific was wonderful today. It is actually a 4-hour drive out to the western limit of Cali from the little valley I live in and that means a very small amount of time there. However, I believe that the sound of the waves hitting the sand retime my soul. Is it worth it to be on the road for 8 hours? I am still thinking about it.

My computer geek comes in the afternoon to set up a tower and tweak the SmartTV so I can make better use of it.

I finished Heart of the Piano tonight (pic tomorrow because the house is too dark for a good one to show up), and tried to use the alpha feature on my machine to make labels. Dang, I am not good at reading directions and desperately wish someone would SHOW me. I have at least four labels to make and will start working on them by embroidering the old fashioned way.

Also got the fleece for my Grandson's Quillow and some iron-on fusing for the Row by Row appliques. JoAnn's in Bakersfield has changed what merchandise they carry and the store makes me not want to shop in that location. Online seems to be the trend.

Working, working, working

I subbed the black thread for red and finished a holiday Twister quilt that had no designation. I am in a 13 Days of Halloween swap that it is going in for the final gift. Twelve were more Halloween seasonal, however, the last gift gets opened ON Halloween if my partner saves it.

Either way, the 60" square quilt is on its way to a new home. This one seems a bit busy for me and I like them bright, so hopefully the partner I get will be ok with it in her home. This is a good size to toss over a chair or take a nap under whenever the desire takes hold. The binding is machine sewn on and I thought I was going to hand sew the binding, however, my clips are on the Heart of the Piano quilt. It needs to be finished first.

I put away the paper projects for now and am headed to the Ocean again in the early morning. I do plan to stop at JoAnn's on the way home to pick up a few things

Binding for Heart of the Piano

For as strong a faith as I have, there are times when I find it hard to believe in positive outcomes for our world and the people in it. I want to believe, and someday I will again. There is this fear factor out in the world. Fear that the wrong person will get elected. Fear that everything one has will be lost. Fear. It is more contagious than Love. And why is that?

This year, my quilting theme is BE THE LOVE YOU SEEK. Love is the answer for fear. And yet fear holds us by the throat and even when it lets go, we remember how it felt. Love is what feels good, and fear makes us think we will loose love, never have love or that we don't deserve it.

This is one of the FB14 projects I have been working on. It needs to have binding finished, a label put on and loose threads clipped for a once over before getting shipped to its new owner. It uses the larger of the Twister templates and lots of scraps. I am enjoying the colors in this quilt. Red with white and black really speak to my heart.

I've started the Row of the Month quilt too. The author of the quilt pattern lives in Australia and reports that this has been their heaviest Winter rain in years. As a result, the first row is made with Umbrellas. It makes me smile because we sure could use the rain here in Southern Cali.

Paper Crafting Swaps

I took a break from quilting for a couple of days and turned my attention to Paper Crafting for some Swap-Bot exchanges. In one way, it is still 'shopping from my closets' because there is a lot there bought to create scrapbooks for my Grandkids, and one for my family, and the last one for my own photos. It takes me such a long time to get into it and I have taken several classes.

Working with paper helps me work with fabric. I cannot say why this is so, yet it is.

One of the swaps was for an altered cigar box for Hallows. This one was free from a smoke shop and is sturdy cardboard rather than wood.

You can see a Black Widow Spider crawling out of rolled paper in the corner. I used 2 different patterns so rolling one over the top of the other created this interest. Then some pulled poly batting for web. Inside is more batting that cushions the jar, sanded for aging, with a label saying 'Miss Muffet's Magickal Ingredients Spider Eggs'. I snipped off the ends of Qtips and pulled at the cotton to form a nest of....ugggh. They look mighty real.

 The other project is called a Halloween Pocket Whimsey. It is also an altered project, this time, altered from an empty toilet paper roll as its base. It is cut down half an inch, glued at the bottom, decorated with small scraps of paper and accessories added to the outside and small gifts on the inside. These are not finished.

I spent a fair amount of time sorting supplies because I don't work with paper much and had to find items that were of the Halloween theme. I did end up going online to print off certain things and also watched a lot of tutorials on You Tube. Most people who make these items work with Paper Crafting the way I do with Fabric Arts. Most of them are more grrrlie-grrrl than I am, so both that and the lack of supplies have my end products almost tailored.

When I do a vision board, I usually glue things off the edge of the page. Yet, here for these, I am still a bit conservative in my efforts. Some of the tutorial facilitators talk about making their own decorations and its definitely more work than I care to get into.

My plan is to back off all the rabbit trails I got onto...making mini matchboxes, doing more altered cigar boxes (I do have another one started), creating apothecary jars. I've signed up for several more swaps for Hallows and will put them together first, and stick with making those Pocket Whimseys for the Grandkids on Halloween.

I have several quilts going and need to stay at it if they are to move out of my hands and into the hands and hearts of people I love.