Do I wash Windows or Sew??

I guess that is the question. The sewing can wait the windows can wait. Do I want a clearer outlook on life? or do I want a brighter look at fabric? We are suppose to get rain and they say wash your windows and it will rain. So what is a person to do? The Winter grim is on the windows and it is driving me nuts to look out and they are so dirty, but I really would like to get this quilt top done and I guess I will put off the outside work for the quilt top. I can wash a window at a time on the inside and maybe it will look a little cleaner. The bottom sash on my windows tips in to wash, but it is the upper half with no screen that I notice the most. Oh well! Someday all my work will be done and I can sew for ever. Wishful thinking. Chris

An Experiment

We have an eastern facing sliding glass door. This year to give my husband something to do while recovery was going on we planted seeds for garden plants. This is some of the tomatoes and green pepper plants. Some have been transplanted three times because they out grew the pots.

This try is sage, flat leaf parsley and fern dill plus green peppers. As you can see the Tomatoes need to be outside. I need to move them today. They are getting stunted by being on the bottom of this table. No blooms yet, but I am sure they will have them before we get them in the ground. Still not warm enough to be planted outside.

These Peppers are colored ones. They are a sweet bell pepper, but yellow, orange, red, and purple oh yea also white. I am anxious to see them as they mature. We planted all the seeds we had and 42 plants came up. We are not planting all of them ourselves. We have a couple friends that will get some of them.

We must have the right amount of light as a greenhouse has to get them to germinate. Never thought we would get so successful with the project. Chris

Antique looking quilt coming along

Im my previous posting I showed you blocks for the antique looking quilt. Here are some of the blocks sewn together and you can see the cross sashing has a colored 1 1/2 inch block in it. These are all from scraps I have dug out and cut up and sliced and diced in the last few weeks.

The sashing fabric has a story behind it. We went to a close by quilt shop and the lady has fabrics displayed in cribs. She said anything in this crib she would sell to me for 50% off. So I bought 6 yards for sashings for two quilts. Then My Mother was a long and she had a filled punch card for this quilt shop and she said I could use it on the purchase. Well the cost of the fabric was $27.09. The punch card was $25.00 so I paid $2.09 for 6 yards of Thimbleberries fabric. I thought I did real well for my purchase. Chris

Scraps and More Scraps

Scrap quilts are very rewarding for me. I can see all the colors and the textures with one quilt. I like a coordinated quilt too, but the scrap quilts make my heart skip a beat.

These are small scraps I have collected and have piled up to cut up into usable pieces for scrap quilts. I have about 60 of the 100 scrap blocks I need to make for this quilt done.

This is the magazine I found this quilt listed in. It isn't as long as I need it, so I am making and extra long quilt to fit on my couch.

The final look is very country with the dark borders and it fits with my decor. This magazine is dated Feb 2009. The designer is Lynn Lister called Nana's Nine Patch.

The trimmings off of the stack of fabrics doesn't even fill a grocery bag, but I am using ever inch of the fabric I can for two different quilts I am making. Hey I paid for it so I can use every inch of the fabric right. Is that called being Scotch. Yes I am. Chris

Weather an issue

I would really like to sew most of the evening. I' m in the mood. Guess what the weather is not cooperating. We are to have more bad storms. Had to shut things down last night and this morning. My son is the asst FEMA Director in his County in Illinois. The Director is in Florida so he got a phone call last night and had to deal with it on his own. A small rural town of about 900 was hit hard and they had no electricity and the National Weather Service came to investigate and think from the path of destruction it might be a small tornado. That was at 10pm. At midnight it hit again and at 5am it hit again. Now we are in a Tornado watch until  10 pm. It is hot and humid and the air is still. You know they say the calm before the storm. So he will be out all night again and is suppose to be at work as a 911 dispatcher at 6am. Maybe I won't call him tomorrow and talk to him. Might not be a good day to ask him to do something for me. I should run to the store and buy some bread. No maybe not I would just eat the whole loaf being frustrated over worrying about the weather and him.              I started sewing and cutting scraps today again. I want this quilt to look like it is a period quilt from about the late 1890's. It is dark prints and shirtings and homespun fabrics. As soon as I can trust the weather I will get a picture on the blog to show you. Chris 

Hope you had a nice Easter

My Easter was very stressful with a family issue. I made dinner for my Mom and we ate early so she could get home and have the afternoon to relax. She is 82. I then tried to sew some and the weather became somewhat ugly. Not bad storms but a lot of Thunder and lightening and hail. I unplugged the computer and quit sewing. Had a couple quilting magazines to read and went to bed early. I am up and trying to get up enough energy to do some cleaning. Jeff is somewhat better. He went to the garage yesterday and started making a fancy birdhouse. He seemed to work through his stress wish I could have. Chris

What type of needles to use

I recieved this chart from a friend of mine Blewbird, She passed this on to me and I thought I would share it. Many people have stated they have had trouble with skipped stitches when using their domestic machines for quilting. I use to sell machines and so many times the wrong needle is being used and here is an explaination as to what needles types are used for. Thank you Carol for sending this to me. Many sewing machine stores want to sell you a universal needle. And as it states it is for universal uses, but not always the right choice for your needs.

I was always taught to use a ballpoint needle for knits and to use a sharp needle for woven fabrics. The Universal needle is suppose to cover both, but many are finding skipped stitches from using this for machine quilting. With the many layers of fabics and battings the universal needle isn't the right choice. A sharp needle mainly a denim or topstitching needle will go through the many layers and for a complete stitch. The needle is under a lot of pressure to pierce the layers and the universal needle is blunt enough not to go through all the layers especially at an intersection where seams are pressed in one direction. Hope this sheds some light on the problem and can say a lot of frustrations. Chris ps. Click on it twice and then save to you documents to see larger if you need to.