Caleb at 10 months +

Here's our little cutie Caleb. He will be one year old on June 17th.
With six family birthdays that week, he picked a day of his own to be born.
He has big blue eyes and long lashes. Don't little boys always get lucky that way.

Chris

Snap, She's Got It

This is my second snap bag. My daughter liked it and now has it.

On Easter Sunday I showed it to her and was telling her what was used in the top to make it snap closed.

My brother went to his van and brought me a 25 foot Stanley ruler that was cracked about 5" from the end. He said it wouldn't last him five minutes if he started using it. Thanks, Bruce.

I'm sewing triangles together to make half hexagons for the Merry Go Round quilt. I have a lot of triangles to sew to finish this quilt. I've used them for leaders and enders as well as chain sewing. I'd really like to get this quilt finished so I can enter it in the shows in October.

Chris

Quilt Retreat

On April 15, 16 & 17 we went back to Casowasco for a quilt retreat.

Eugenia Barnes, AQS certified quilt appraiser came on Saturday and appraised our raffle quilt.

This beautiful quilt was appraised at $1,900.

Let's Try This Again

There is nothing like posting a picture of a block that is sewn together wrong to make you humble.

Here's Lady of Lake Erie block sewn correctly.

I do like the block. It is easy to assemble. Just pay attention to the layout.

Chris

Lady of Lake Erie

This is the latest from Bonnie Hunter as seen in Quiltmaker Magazine, May/June 2011.

She calls it Lady of Lake Erie as she did this version of Lady of the Lake in blues.

I just had to try it. It was easy. I used my Omnigrid HST ruler to cut the small triangles.

I wonder how it would look down scrappy, and working the colors on the diagonal. Hmmmm, might give it a whirl. Another project box please. Could do one in polka dots. Wonder if I have enough. Will have to think about what path to follow before I start.

On Friday I'm off to a quilt retreat with the Chenango Piecemakers.

I just looked at the picture again. I sewed the second strip of HSTs to wrong side of large HST. The strips of HSTs are to be sewn to the dark sides. Frog stitch coming up in my immediate future.

Chris

Snap Snap

It's been a sewing day, culminating with the sewing of a snap bag. It's my first one and rather small. I wanted to try one and had some remnants of pre-quilted fabric so I used that. Now I want to make a larger one with handles. I'm not good with a bag that has no straps or handles. I'd walk off and leave the bag on a counter. Ellen Adams picked the Block of the Month for Triangle Guild and showed hers done in lavenders. The block is from quilterscache.com. It's named Scrappy Zig Zag. I made five in various pastel shades. It's looking like spring in the sewing room. And I didn't cut into any yardage. I just used small pieces in my baskets of small pieces....as opposed to tiny scraps in a big bag.

Have any of you seen the pictures of the WalMart people that someone may have forwarded to you? I went to Wallyworld today and they were there. Twentyish man was seriously into blowing a whirlygig. Young boy riding a skateboard around the store, cutting off customers. And it got worse.

Do you have a favorite ruler? I have one that I swear by to make half square triangles. It's the Omnigrid Fons & Porter Half & Quarter Ruler. I can make those HSTs and they are the right shape. I just need to trim off one dog ear on each HST after I stitch. If I want a 3 1/2" HST I align the 2 strips of fabric, which I've cut 3 1/2" wide. Cut one triangle, flip the ruler and cut a second. There's just a little flat spot on one corner and two sharp corners instead of three sharp corners. I feed the flat spot under the needle first. The triangle doesn't get drawn down the black hole like so many triangles do.

Recently I replaced my 6" x 12" Omnigrid ruler as the corners were getting rounded off. I bought a 6" x 14" Omnigrip. The new ruler is a non slip ruler. Love it.

Time to go start the grill and do the first burgers of the season outside.

Chris

NOW I'm Done

After I checked the outside border on the Jacob's Ladder quilt top I realized I had all eight HST blocks running in the wrong direction. One block went in a different direction from the other seven. Think frog stitch to remedy this problem. Yesterday I removed the three blocks from one corner and resewed them correctly. Then I took the top downstairs and did the frog stitch on the other three while watching the NASCAR Sprint Cup race. This morning the corners are sewn back and the pattern follows out to the corners, unlike on Saturday when I thought I had the top finished. Now to press the top, removed the loose threads and press the backing before I take it to Peg to be quilted. It's rainy now and then and the wind is blowing hard. April Showers bring May flowers. We can only hope so. Chris

The End

I say The End because today I finished the final border on my Jacob's Ladder quilt. After I spread it out to admire it, I figured out that I had one HST block in a corner set wrong. The other seven HST blocks might be sewn wrong too. Like Scarlett O'Hara "I'll think about it tomorrow." That border has been a PITA all the way. Otherwise the quilt looks good. Back to the pictures and directions, tomorrow. My sewing room is almost neat, except for a couple of boxes of stuff I don't know what to do with and a pile of papers on the computer desk. Fabrics are in neat piles. Projects and strips of fabric are in storage bins. Last Sunday I planted 70 of those jiffy pots with heirloom tomato seeds. Margaret, Bob's sister in law sent us tomatoes last summer. They were delicious. When asked where she got the seeds she told us she saved them. So I did save some seeds. Nearly all the pots have sprouts in just seven days. You know those people that bring around zucchini in the late summer. Well, watch for a white haired woman bringing tomato plants later this spring. Chris