New Challenge

It was a busy week at work, without time to do much sewing. I did take time to relax and went to my guild meeting Wednesday evening. We had been instructed to bring a metre of ugly fabric with us. We passed it around to music and when the music stopped, cut the piece in half. We kept half and then passed the other half around until the music stopped again. We kept cutting and passing until we were down to piece about 2" x 3". I am now the proud owner of eight ugly pieces of fabric.

Now for the challenge! Turn the ugly into something beautiful and bring it to the meeting in May. I have two months to work on this, but since I am always up for a challenge, I started pulling fabric out of my stash Friday night. To get into the whole thing, I convinced myself that these fabrics were not ugly, only unloved. I found lots of things in my stash, but what to do with them all? Since I was already way outside my comfort zone, just working with these unloved pieces, I decided to go even further. There is a block that keeps appearing on the Exuberant Color blog called "Crooked Cobblestones" that I was interested in. It is even further outside my comfort zone, but who cares. In for a penny, in for a pound!

These aren't as crooked as Wanda, on Exhuberant Color, does but for my first real trip outside the box, it will do. Now I just have to get them sewn together, quilted and bound. It was a fun trip!

Have a good week!

It Is Done!

My new cutting table is finished! It is wonderful! I got up early today, on my day off, to figure out how to make my design wall. I had decided against styrafoam as a fire hazzard, couldn't get a large piece of cork board & didn't want to piece a bunch together. I finally decided on a white flannelette wall hanging filled with quilt batt.

What do you think? Now I won't have to photograph everything on the floor of our family room. I really like how my "1 fabric quilt" is shaping up. I picked up more fabric after working yesterday morning. Now I have enough to play a little.

Now a drum roll please...here is my cutting table!

It is an original design, part my idea, part my husband's, with finishing touches from our youngest daughter, to make all our ideas come together. It is 36.5 inches high, so I can keep my back straight when I am cutting. The top is 30" x 60". It has 24 cubes for storage and room in between to keep all my rulers. Sam worked hard this week to get it built! Oh..that is my "box" on top. Sam made that for me a few years ago. It is 18" wide, 17" high & 12" deep. It is a miniture chest of drawers, with nine individual drawers, to neatly store a bunch of my sewing supplies.

Just a few more pictures!

I should have taken pictures of my old sewing room, with everything crammed into an 8' x 9' room. My new room is heavenly to work in! A big thank you to my husband!

Hopefully, I will get some sewing done this week. It is back to my rail fence quilt, to get the quilting planned out and started.

Happy sewing & quilting to all!

Basting is done!

I finally finished basting my rail fence quilt! I can't believe it took this long, but finally the five hundred pins have all been removed and I will be able to start the actual quilting.

I took the entry form for next month's quilt show in to Thimbles & Things on Saturday, so "All About Hearts" will be in the show. I was just going to have a quick look around, but I spotted the Timeless Treasure border print. I couldn't believe that it was still there. We had a demonstration of how to do one fabric quilts, at guild, a couple of weeks ago & I thought that this one would have run out of the store.

Going across the fabric, it has just over a 10.5 inch repeat. I decided that it would be my first real project after my husband finishes my cutting table. I say real, because actually the first will be to trim the fabric I got for my new design wall. I figure I will need the wall to play with the pieces to get them they way I like. Of course, I will wait that long!

Yes, after working a 57 hour week, you guessed it. I cut a strip of it, using my old table that hurts my back, and got four squares out of it and cut those diagonally and rearranged them on the floor to come up with this. Just like in Kay Nickols book "Wonderful 1 Fabric Quilts". I think I am going to need more fabric! I only bought 4 meters and I want to try a couple of other cuts to make sure which I like best. Yes, I am a quilt nut!

Have a great week and I hope you get lots of time to quilt!

Not Quite As Bad

I worked 56 hours this week! 'Tis the season for accounting people to be busy. I did manage to get another quarter of the basting done on my rail fence quilt. I also managed to do the two squares for "Block of the Month" at Evening Threads Quilt Guild. I think it is shaping up nicely.

Twelve blocks done!

Speaking of twelve, it is twelve years since I made this 23" square. It has been hanging in my cubical at work ever since. I finally took it down along with my two circle hangings that I showed you two weeks ago. It is time for a change, but I haven't decided to what yet. It has to be something that looks good on a gold background. When I get my new sewing room sorted out, I will be able to see what fabric is available and go from there.

From my Celtic phase, representing harmony.

Yesterday, I did manage to get out & got the last of what I need to make my design wall. My husband & I went shopping today & got everything to make my new cutting table. By the time we lugged it all home and downstairs, we were too tired to start putting it together. An interesting golf tournament on TV, might have been part of his problem. Me, I will be tired until after April 30th! It will probably be at least another week before I will be able to take pictures to show you. I am also determined to finish basting that rail fence quilt this week. Hope you get to work on what you want to do!