I was machine quilting this morning on my frame when the bobbin ran out. I decided it was a good time to dust a little and change my needle.
And then I saw this:
Of course I freaked out ! (I did not realize how bad my nails look-sorry) After some searching I saw that it was the screw on the door of the bobbin case.
Michael got his teeny tiny screw driver and we got it put back in.
Back to sewing!
Diane
Some more thing I have been working on and/or finished. And a couple of extras.
First I must show you a gift from my very good friends, Mimi and John:
I told John that I wanted a quilt ladder. I explained what it was and he whipped this up for me (he also made on for Mimi). I love it! I need to put some nicer quilts on it…
Do you see the lovely scarf above? That was a Mother’s Day gift from Adrienne. Can you see the little beads she knitted in? Oh, I guess not, but it is beautiful!
Let’s see…Socks I am working on:
A new ironing board cover:
Quilts for classes I am teaching:
Another set of blocks for my Civil War Quilt (and my favorites so far!):
Finally, with all the rain my garden is doing very well! Look at my tomatoes!
We are even getting lettuce for salads!
Thank you Katie and Lauren for my Mother’s Day garden!
Diane
Let’s just pretend that I have not updated in so long because I have been busy completing projects…Yeah- that sounds good!
I have been busy. Since May I have been working 2-3 days a week at the shop, along with lots of subbing at the Y (afterschool care). But I have been working on several projects.
I managed to make a pair of socks:
I chose not to have the stripes match. I also tried a 3 needle bind-off on the toe: evidently it looks better if you turn the socks inside out first… I still like them!
I am also half-way caught up with my Civil War blocks of the month:
Each month there are 4-8 blocks to complete. The one on the right was a bear- 96 half-square triangles in that set!
Katie put in a little garden for me for:
Dylan is riding a two-wheeler:
AND, I got a quilt back that I had hand quilted. I made this quilt top about 6 or 7 years ago. I started to hand quilt it and I immediately gave up. Then I learned about a group that hand quilted to raise money for their local library. I am more than thrilled!
I only wish that the quilting was more visible in these pictures. They all did a great job! Now to get the binding on…
Diane
Both pairs of socks are done! The sad part is that here in the middle of April, I still need wool socks!
Ooh-this is one nasty picture! Look at those bunions! Sorry-maybe you don’t want to look!
…and on my needles! This is the first time I have started cuff down, circular needle socks by myself. Yay!
Not a whole lot to show, but I am making these babies:
Are you working on anything exciting today?
Diane
1. That finished is better than perfect. (Although I still spent some time picking out stitches)
2. Wonky sometimes works. I think that the jar tops are my favorite part!
3. My micro-stippling is ok but would be better with an open toe foot – so I ordered one!
4. I can use the foot to help me gauge distances when quilting. (I wish I had figured that one out sooner!)
5. The quilting that takes the longest (in terms of starting and stopping) doesn’t always show up. For example, the brown, above.
6. I think that I switched the border and binding fabrics. My less than perfect quilting would have been less noticeable!
7. I am becoming a little more confident in my machine quilting!
What did you learn today?
Diane
This is what you get when Mom is good with LOTS of gel and your grandsons are a couple of cool dudes!
…and on the frame!
I made this quilt a couple of years ago (yeah, yeah, old story!). I have decided to play a little and use different thread colors and quilting motifs.
Buddy enjoys consulting with me on the quilting. His input is very important!
Below is a quilt I am making with my beginning quilting class. It is a little retro but it teaches a lot of piecing fundamentals. I think I will be quilting it on my Bernina and the walking foot.
It is a little more red than I had planned but I really do like the simplicity. There is no big print to “pop” but oh well…
Diane
P.S. Don’t you love this font? It reminds me of my days in 3rd grade, teaching cursive!
It occurred to me the other day that I had done no quilting on my frame since August! So I pulled out an old project, cleaned and oiled my machine and got ready to do some quilting.
I wasn’t sure what color thread I wanted to use so I wound a small bobbin and did some practice on scraps from the quilt. The color and tension looked good so I wound some more bobbins, rethreaded everything and went to work.
(The blue tape is for me to know how far I can quilt-sometimes I forget or mis-gauge)
I did one row and rolled the quilt and this is what I saw:
I think that I put my bobbin in incorrectly(I was having a little trouble) resulting in this mess on the back. Grrr!!
It could have been worse: those stitched will be easy (relatively speaking) to pull out.
I always suggest that you fix mistakes before stopping for the day but I just didn’t have it in me. So now I know what I will be doing tomorrow!
Diane
I am still plodding along on my postage stamp/granny square quilt blocks. Most of the blocks look like this right now:
I was adding quarter-square triangles as I sew and was planning to add the corners and trim the squares at the end. It seem to take forever because the triangles are bias on 2 sides so that the outsides will be on the straight grain. The bias edges have a mind of their own and need to be pinned as I sew.
The last block I made looks like this:
That is because I added squares around the outside (the black fabric) as I sewed and them trimmed the block into a square (sorry no picture !
Now before the quilt police come and arrest me, I am aware that my outside edges are all on the bias. Before I trimmed, I used a little spray starch to help stabilize the fabric. And there are sashing strips between each block which will also help to keep the blocks square.
I am doing this because it saves lots of time. I am able to piece and square my blocks in less time than it was taking me to piece as I was before. This makes me happy.
And when Momma is happy, everybody is happy!
About 2 months ago I attempted a toe up sock:
After casting off, I found that the rib was very tight.
So I started another sock and tried a different bind off:
This one was a little loose.
Then I forgot how to do my toe up cast on. I tried several times but it just wasn’t coming out correctly.
Then our knitting guru returned to the shop. Elvie said that as long as I was making one sock, I might as well make two. She showed me how to cast on and set up for doing 2 socks at a time. Yay!
Elvie also suggested that I do a regular bind off but use a much larger needle. Since the socks are only for me and I still consider myself a novice (excuses, excuses) I am not super concerned about the socks being exactly alike. And I am sure that I will be doing a lot of explaining about why I am knitting two different socks at the same time!
P.S. Thank you Khris for my beautiful table topper! It has been out since January!
Posts
All Comments
