Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Soooo... I am sure everyone is at the edge of their seats to know if my epiphany held true.  The answer is mixed- I got the hexy half blocks to work but I think the first block would have worked if  I had aligned it right (it seems so simple... and yet so far away...!) My husband, bless his heart, is my technical consultant.  He is the sewing machine instructor and the how to put the blocks together guy.  I have trouble with putting things together so they fit, and just looking at things to learn.  Apparently I am more a hands-on learner, so DH is the instructor.  I  make him look at the pics and then tell me how to do it.  The other day when I switched the presser foot to a walking foot I felt triumphant.  That is how bad it is.  However, although he is not interested in sewing himself, my husband is a good support and helps me figure those pieces out. 
This is my progress on my projects thus far:    flower garden quilt:  sewed some of the applique stems on with a straight stitch...the stems kept moving which was quite disturbing, apparently I either handled the quilt too much or the fusible web didn't work... I feel like I have to sew everything on really really fast so things don't start falling off willy-nilly.  Hexagon quilt: all blocks are done, just have to lay them out and sew them together.  Yes. That sounds painful to me too.  Yo Yo: washed the thrift store yo yos and stared longingly at them.  This took quite some time.   Just Ducky quilt:  bought two pieces of fabric. The fabric for the duck wings and some dotty blue.  Experienced a high when I first touched the woolies flannel.  I sometimes just hold the fabric in my hand.   Bubbles quilt:  Outlined one bubble.  I am not moving fast on this one.  Also, do you think it is bad to leave the hoop on so I don't have to keep taking the hoop on and off and on and off?  This seems like a lot of work. 

So, there is my progress.  I am going to beg my technical advisor to help me get some pics going and then you can SEE what I am talking about. 
 

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Watch out Blog World, Here I Come

Well, ok, it won't be as dramatic as all that.  But I was so excited to find a whole world of people who quilt, and who love the process as much as I do.  I never thought I would start a blog, so this is a big step for me.  Computers turn me off at times because they can be impersonal.  However, I have been so impressed with the blogs I have been seeing, I thought I would give it a try.  I also cannot believe all the give-aways... there are some really generous people out there.  I am glad to be part of this.  It is like getting a quilting magazine in the mail every day.

Right now I am working on quite a few quilts.  I am making a large block Hex quilt, I am having a hard time getting the hexagon sides to lay flat. This is the first time I have tried set in seams.   Also, I stubbornly decided to do a template instead of using the English piecing method, so as of this AM I was thoroughly stuck on how to get one of the half hex blocks to work ( I can't get the middle parallelogram piece to stop being shorter than the sides.  On the big blocks there is a full hexagon in the middle, on these pieces just a half hexagon).  However, as luck would have it, I had an epiphany in the shower this morning (again not as exciting as one would think) that I should add an entire hexagon to the half, similar to how I did the full blocks,  and then cut the extra off.  That makes total sense to me. (But probably not to anyone else.) I am also working on a Halloween quilt, a Bubbles quilt, and I have a Yo Yo quilt in  mind .  I found some yo-yos at an antique shop and so I triumphantly carried the five plastic baggies full to the front, convinced someone would snatch them from me. No one did.  So, I don't actually have to make the yo yos.  Yo Yo's look a tad fussy to me.  So now I can use someone elses.  Whoo-hoo!
 
Anyway, I am excited to start blogging and I hope to figure out how to post pictures of my projects soon.   Let me know if any of you out there have also had some quilting epiphanies lately!