Design Floor Monday

Finished!  A soft, pastel Boxed Stars quilt.

 

Finished a couple of weeks ago, but with the Jewish High Holidays going on for a few weeks, I just never had the time to post.

She needs a border, and I think I have enough of that white material to make a 2.5" border around.

I loved doing this.  My points are not perfect.  Hey, they are not even half perfect.  They were pretty good until I boxed the stars, and then most of them did not line up nicely with the box border, but I really don't care.  I['m far more interested in the color play than in sewing perfection.  Anyhow, whoever gets this quilt won't care either.  That's the advantage of being the only quilter in my family.  They all love what I do, and don't know enough to see the mistakes.  Hah!

Design Table Monday

 

I'm boxing my stars.  

Here are some more.

 I just ordered yet another book on quilting as you go.  I really don't like the process of making the quilt sandwich.  What I want is to make the individual blocks, then make a mini-sandwich of backing, batting and block, quilt it (either by hand or machine) and then join the blocks as I go along.  I've been looking at various techniques and am still searching for the perfect one.  Which I may never find.  

At any rate, these guys will all be joined up.  A white border, and that's it.

Have I told you just how much I love making these?

No more inept quiltarian.

I'm still in starry heaven.  Who knew that flying geese could be such fun?  Way back when I started quilting, I did a couple of Schnibbles, and one of the patterns included tons of flying geese.  So, being brave and dumb, I made tons of the geese.  I used Carrie's method, which works for most people, but not for me.  This time, I made rectangles with folding corners, and I can do it!  By golly, I'm a real quilter!  Like knitting, the quilting world has lots of ways to make the same object. And one of these days, I'm going back to making Schnibbles!

I boxed in one of the stars and I like how it looks. I have 4 different fabrics for the boxes.  This star is my first star before I got those points correct.  I'll keep it just to remind me of how far I've gotten.  Besides, I like the color.

And i am no longer an inept quiltarian.  Well until the next time something messes up.  Eh, who cares, I'm learning and having fun.

More Stars.

I think I'm a star-crossed lover.  I love making stars.  Yes, I know what the original phrase means.  But I like making stars and then arranging them, and crossing them over each other.  Sigh.

Stars again

 

Yay, stars!  I did it!  I conquered flying geese and folded corners!  Wow, does this ever open up possibilities for me.  

I really struggled with these two elements, until I realized that moving the needle was the way to handle them.  So I move the needle to the right 2 clicks (I have an older Pfaff without the gazillion needle positions), and then my sewing line is a pinch over the actual sewing line.  And it works!

There are many quilters who can handle that scant 1/4" seam naturally without having to resort to playing with needle positions, but I'm not one of them.  So, my scant 1/4" seam is 3 clicks to the right, and now my geese and corners are 2 clicks to the right.  

I made a note and stuck it onto the machine, 'cause you know I'm going to forget this.

Design Floor Monday

Stars in my eyes.  As a somewhat inept quiltarian,I need to work extra hard on flying geese blocks.  But I think I'm getting the hang of it.  First star on the left has cut-off points of the stars, but the other two are much better.  Yay, me.

The plan is to make 25 stars, and border each one with a print fabric.  I initially wanted to use the white in the blocks, but I don't have enough fabric, whereas I have a lot of pretty prints that will match.  5 blocks across and 5 down.  I make square quilts.  I like the symmetry of  square quilts.

And that's all the quilting news of the day. 

Still dyeing after all these years.

It's almost 5 years that I started to dye yarn.  I began very timidly on a hot July day in 2007.  It took me 1.2 hours to dye just one skein.  That doesn't even include the prep time.  So then, when it had dried, I wound it up and knitted a pair of socks from it.  Maybe about 2 weeks later, I decided to try again.  Much faster this time, and that's the beginning of this story.  I loved it so much that I would dye and dye and dye.  I couldn't keep up with the knitting, so in Oct, I decided to try to sell on Etsy, and I've been doing that for almost 5 years.  Who would ever have thought it?  Not me.

Fast forward to now.  I'm now tired of the whole dyeing process.  I can't even begin to tell how many skeins I've dyed, each one individually, because that's how I like to do it.  But I can tell you that I swear there have been a gazillion skeins.  And now I'd rather sew.  Go figure.

Yesterday I decided that I was running out of sock yarn.  Oh, I can buy on Etsy or in my LYS, but now I have this bug in my head that my skinny yarns, sock and lace, have to be dyed by me.  So what's a girl to do when she needs some nice sock yarn?  She dyes.  And I did.  7 skeins:   2 merino/bamboo, and 5 Falkland Island merino.  Here they are.

 I'd think of selling them, but I really need some to knit with.  Besides, the Falkland merino is messy.  There's something amiss with the skeining up, and you can see what happens after dyeing.  It's all perfectly fine to knit with, but a mess to ball up.  I would not do that to a customer.  I'd hear her swearing across the country.

See what I mean.  And I didn't do this.  Every one of these skeins has been a pain in the bottom to wind up.  I originally bought the yarn for sale, but like all my yarns, I tried it out first.  Considerably more money than my regular Penny yarn, and I really can't tell the difference between them.  Penny yarn is just nicer to work with.  So that's the end of the Falkland merino.  I won't be ordering any more.

It's funny how all the yarns I dyed are not in my usual pastel mode; they're all somewhat gloomy.  Might be my mental state yesterday.  As the grands say:  "Whatever."  Today I'm just fine.  Yippee!

And here are 4 more stars to get added to the starry quilt.