Thursday, February 28, 2013

Can Anyone Please Tell Me....

Can anyone please tell me 
how in 46 years of using a sewing machine
that I have missed this trick???????



To gather fabric,
place your machine tension on the highest number








AND
your stitch length on the longest stitch



and just sew!



Voila


No more stitching two rows and gathering
OR
zig zag over a thread to gather
OR 
using a special foot!!!!


SO, DID YOU KNOW THIS????

Blessings all,
Kathy

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Quilters playing Bing-O

Our guild is going to our annual beach retreat in March and we try to come up with different things each year. So this year we are including some quilters Bing-O or Quilt-O.

Have you played???

Our night guild first played it years ago and had such fun winning fat quarters.

Here is Fons & Porters blog instructions if interested...Bing-O

and a few other sites too.

Vroomans quilts

Nana Girl Quilts


Here is my first block and I may make another. The members are also making theirs and putting a frame around it so all we have to do to assemble is have 2-3 people sew the rows together and we have a quilt top all ready for a charity quilt.


I will post all of our blocks from the retreat on a later post.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Upcycled...Book to Quilt

At our guild, Neuse Quilters, we have a great group of ladies who love to share their hand me down fabrics. One day recently, I had been busy and noticed, towards the end of our meeting ,that there was some fabric on a table....so I began to look through it. At first I just thought, "I do not need any more left overs" and then I thought again....

There was a scrappy piece of brightly colored fabric with animals.... letters... an alphabet?????

Well....maybe I could take just this one...????

It turns out it is not just a piece of fabric



but a fabric book
@#@$@%@^@&@&



WOW.....I see a quilt....not a book at all.....

So here it goes.








All quilted...


and I made a little pillow with the extra block/page.





All ready for the Ronald McDonald House!!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My good friend's daddy's VA Home quilt
all finished.







We are praying he will like his nice new home
and I want him to feel comfortable there
and that his quilt helps with the transition...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Blessings all,
Kathy



Saturday, February 16, 2013

Squaring Up, Snow and Seeds...???

Do you like to square up a quilt? Well, I DO NOT !!!
I really jut like to put the borders on and get it finished
so I can hold it up and go...

awwwwwww...it is finished.

Here are some hints/pointers/rules
that others have discovered
that I find helpful.

First I love my 6" X 12" ruler.

I find common measurements for the block,


like 1/4", 1/2" or 1" etc


and make sure that I am holding the ruler on that mark
on the left side of the square
then cutting on the right side(of the ruler)
any excess fabric needed to be cut.





 I used some blue painters tape to place on the ruler here



to help me see better, since the fabric was so light in this spot.


However, I need some new tape...it kept on tearing off in pieces.



After all four sides are square OR
reasonably so,

add top and bottom border
and square again...



and the same for the two side borders...

Top with out borders


with borders



and then square up the whole top...oh my...this is too much...but necessary.

Make any sense?


Oh yea...the snow.

Well, we are suppose to get some light snow
here in eastern NC over night.

So, will be inside quilting away.

I am really glad about getting another hard freeze for gardening
purposes since we have not had many.



Hoping to plan carrot, turnip, beet and radish
seeds in a week or two.


Blessings all,
Kathy

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Packing Up and Photos

I decided to take down the last of my Christmas decorations today...all but the mantel with the manger , of course. And wanted to take some photos for last minute memories.





Snow man
made from a kit












I made two from this pattern...
one for a friend and this is mine.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Added a cute little sunflower mug rug





to  my Etsy shop also.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And working on a baby sailboat quilt too...



So much fun to make.

And a good old pot of chili for dinner too...it is COLD here in the south!!

for the south...



Blessings all,
Kathy