I have been a bad blogger these days. I have a few projects on the go, finally got to my machine quilting of my 9 patch tonight.

My sister made this picture above. I love it. She draws it out then colors it in with special gel markers. I love the colors.

Hope to be posting some finished projects soon.

Have a great day.

Thread catcher

This is the best invention. The thread catcher. It only takes 2 hours to make. The top part on the table is a pin cushion.

For those of you that read my first blog about my mom moving back to Canada, well it's happening JUNE 15th. Mom I forgot to put in your e-mail that I love the star quilt. It will look awesome after you quilt it.

Quilting show

It was that time of year again. The biggest quilting show in Manitoba. It only comes every two years and I don't miss it. These are my items I bought. I was very impressed with myself that I didn't spent my whole pay cheque this time!! I just loved that fabric, it came in a pack together for 50 bucks, I thought that was a great deal. These are little Kimono's that I think are so cute. The paper hanging from the sleeve is an english name transfered to Japenese names. The love letter book is a pattern book of letters of the alphabet. My youngest daughter wants her name on her quilt, so I have no excuse now to get it started.

After being at the quilting show and seeing all those beautiful quilts it gave me inspiration to come home and continue on my, with the quilting. It is coming along quite quickly.

Have a great Monday

Finished

This block seemed to take forever. I'm so glad that I changed the blocks from the cream background to the prints. I'm happy the way it turned out. Well I was finishing these up I was thinking "What next"?

So I thought that it is time to quilt one of my tops. I don't have time in my life to hand quilt so I love this new trend of machine quilting. I will be using my favorite tool, the walking foot. So I tried to take some pictures as I was using my other favorite invention, 505, spray basting.

This is much faster then having to hand baste the layers together and much easier on the knees. Don't think it would work for hand quilting. This is for you Karyn.

Take your backing, right side down and lay it on the floor and tape it down so that it is quite taut. Take your batting and lay it on top, it's like spreading out pizza dough, I find it easier to have a helper to spread it out evenly. Then lay the quilt top on the top, centered, and make sure that everything is smooth.

Now get that helper to help you peel back half of the top two layers carefully. With the 505 spray, spray the backing (wrong side) not the batting because it will just soak in and not be as affective. Keep that helper around to help pull the batting back into place and make sure it is very smooth. Do that by smoothing out with your hands and walking around on your knees.


Next spray the back of the quilt top with 505 and then pull back over the batting and smooth out once again. When you are done with that side you repeat the same order with the other side. So you are only working with half of the quilt at one time. Much more managable. It is not an instead bond so you have time if you need to make some adjustments. The hardest part for me is finding enough floor space. This is only a single, doubles are really hard.

Now it's ready for the walking foot! I'm using a very simple design. Keep you in touch.

Have a great day.

Blocks are done

This special cake was made for Darren's (boyfriend) 50th birthday. He is a firefighter and I thought this would be perfect. He really enjoyed it.

I felt that I would never get these blocks done. Now I'm ready to put the sashing on and cornerstones. That will go much quicker. I spent an hour today cleaning up my sewing room and I noticed that I have A LOT of fabric to use up. The true sign of a quilter!!!

Would anyone be able to tell me how to but these pictures in the order I want them. The second picture I pick I want it to go under the first but it alway goes on top of the first picture. Can you please help?

Have a great day. Happy quilting.

Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday and I had a great day. I had the day off work and did all the things I love to do. I started it off by sleeping in and then taking Sam for a long walk. I spent the afternoon sewing and I feel that I'm not getting very far very fast with these new blocks. My sewing machine is working better. Apparently I can't use a size 70 needle anymore. After 6 years of using a 70 I can't anymore, I find that wierd.

My girls and boyfriend bought me a Wii fitness and sport, so we had some fun with that too. It was a great day.

I also had today off and did some more sewing and I still feel that I'm not getting very far with these blocks.

Hope to post the finished blocks soon. Have a great day

FRUSTRATED

I'm having trouble with my sewing machine again. This time my thread is breaking every 5 minutes. I haven't had time to take it back to get looked at again. I miss being able to sew for hours with a good movie. I have been working on my hand applique blocks, they don't sew up as fast and you don't get instant results.

Have a great day.