A place to write about my family, my friends, my quilting and stitching...and generally, whatever else comes to mind...doodles.
And, that's what I have for today!
OH! Have to say...only SIX more days til the Newsboys' new album comes out! Not that I'm counting, or anything. onetwothreefourfivesix...SIX DAYS!!!!
OH! OH! OH!!!! Almost forgot...I ordered something for a top secret project and it came today. Way better than I thought it would be...ohmygosh, I am soooo excited! Can't tell you all about it, but will give hints/peeks here and there once I start.
In case you missed any of them (and wouldn't make it through the day without seeing this) here's a photo of the 4 blocks done...
It's raining...again. Forecast for tomorrow is...rain. Guess it's still April (showers bringing flowers and all that), so I'll be content with it.
My secret project is finished...the camper one...but I cannot show it, yet. I have one more secret project yet to do...not sure if I will work on it today or not. I have another project I would love to start...and then there's always the challenge rug that is waiting to be hooked on! Or, my mess to finish up...almost done! The wool needs to be sorted and then most of it will go back downstairs.
I had it done and pressed and ready to put away...then noticed that I had the middle 4-square patch turned the wrong way...so ripped out a lot of stitches and sewed everything back up. whew. But, hey! Those triangles were easy to do, after all! And, I think I did pretty good matching seams, too. YAY! Happy girl, here!
I'm almost finished with the secret project using the happy camper fabric. There's about an hour of hand-sewing to do, yet. Oh, and guess what! As cute as that fabric is...the design is not straight on the grain. Not too happy about that...so I'm not going to call it the happy camper fabric any longer.
Now to do the March block of the BOM. Yeah, I know...should have been done already. ohwell.
Raining all day...ugh. But, that's okay...I could concentrate on inside stuff and not worry about yardwork.
This really nifty 'camper' fabric for a secret project...
That's it! I have many sewing projects to work on.
I have 2 really good books waiting for me.
I have my free-motion quilting class.
Should be a great weekend!
Here's the back. I am very pleased with how the piecing of it worked out...matched seams and all. There is a lot of quilting on this baby!!!
Here's a closeup of the label. All my quilts will have the brown dog silhouette as a label. Makes me smile. I may invest in some kind of pen to write with...on this one, I very primitively stitched '2009' with floss.
This pattern is a Crazy Nine-Patch pattern that I found...here's the tutorial. Very easy and fun! I used my walking foot to quilt square spirals in each of the blocks (whew...all that turning was not so much fun), and to quilt straight lines in the sashings and borders. Then, I used my darning foot to do free-motion quilting on the larger outside border. I practiced a LOT before attempting it on the quilt.
I used Coats and Clark machine quilting thread until I got to the free-motion quilting. My tension was way off and when I adjusted it so that it looked correct, the thread kept breaking. So, I switched to Gutermann machine quilting thread and put my tension back to where it started and it worked great! whew.
I am very proud of my corners...they are mitered perfectly! And, it was easy! 
All in all, I am very pleased with how this turned out.
This was my 'practice' quilt. If I had known then what I know now (one of the main things is that I learned that I can do this!), I would have done a few things differently. But, I didn't want to be afraid of making mistakes, so deliberately chose colors/fabric that I would not grieve over. ~sigh~
So, what would I do differently?
1. I would choose different colors for the blocks.
2. I would not use the damask print I used for the sashings and border...too large of a design and I had to work with it more than if it had an overall smaller design. (But, if you can tell, everything is right side up and matching! woohoo!!!)
3. I was bored and didn't want to do more quilting in a block (ya know, stitch, turn, stitch, turn, stitch...) so I quilted one of the borders...got some puckers when I quilted the sashings...coming into the straight lines in the border. oops. I know...work from the center. Wasn't thinking. Apparently.
That's about it!
No time to write anything tonight...
I used to have a serger. Bought it secondhand and used it aLOT...wore it right out! Now that my interest in sewing has made a resurgence, I so wanted to have a serger again. (I thought that was kinda funny...resurgence/serger...haha!)
Bren and I were talking one day and I told her that I really really wanted to have a serger. I decided to save money from my income tax refund and started to look around for a used serger. One day, Bren called...her honey, Dan, had found a serger...did I want it? A free serger? Let me think...LOL. YES!!! Thank you, and praise God!!
It got here the other day...I cleaned it up (mostly just dusty) and tried it out. It works! It looks as if it's not been used very much. But, I will take it into the shop and have them look it over, oil it, and adjust the tension. Isn't it gorgeous???
I need to sew on the binding, cut off the excess fabric/batting, then handsew the binding. I should be completely done by the end of this coming weekend. I made one or two several mistakes in the making of this quilt. I will tell you all about them (might even show them to you!) when I finish this.
Pris Buttler. $6.00 ppd.
Have a good Sunday!
