Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Marguerita

New 9′ Pool Table!

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Hurray! We have a new to us (used) 9 foot pool table in the basement and the basement floor is cleared of clutter allowing us room to play! How cool is that?! This has been a year (plus) long endeavor and we still have to get the parts of the 8′ table out of the basement – no mean feat in itself.

Tom did an absolutely awesome job of leveling and smoothing the table and together we stretched the cloth. It is sweet!

Now the chore is clearing out under the stairs to the basement, knocking out the stairs, suspending the winch from the roof rafters and winching up the single sheet of 4′ by 8′ (1″ thick) slate without breaking it. Then we have to lift (no winching) the base of the table up and out of the basement – all in 1 piece. The ball return is built into the base and there’s no taking this baby apart. She went into the basement as a single unit and will come out the same way, about 30 years later. Tom and his brother Steve grew up in the house and learned to play pool on this table.

Cheap Sewing and Quilting Table

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I don’t have the room or the money for a huge expensive sewing cabinet, and being the innovative person that I am, I created my own design for a sewing table and because I work hard at my craft, I call it my Quilting Desk.

I started with 2 relatively inexpensive height adjustable folding tables from SAM’S Club (MODEL #4435) that measure 2′ wide x 4′ long, some rigid foam insulation and clear vinyl – 54″ wide and on a roll, in the fabric section of WalMart (JoAnn’s probably has it too) $2-3 per yard. I use 2 tables because I quilt large quilts and I cannot have any drag on the fabrics as I am quilting them – I need a perfectly flat surface for several feet, all around the sewing machine.

After setting the height of the tables to just clear the tops of my thighs as I sit in my most comfortable chair at the table, I put my sewing machine on the table top and measured the height from the top of the table to the top of the stitch plate. It measured at 3½” and I purchased 2 pieces of rigid foam insulation – 1 piece of 2″ thick x 8′ long x 2′ wide and 1 piece 0f 1½” thick x 8′ long x 2′ wide.

I cut the length of each piece in half, to make 4′ sections, and then lay each 2″ x 4′ onto each table, then put the 1½” x 4′ sections on top. Then I made the cut out for the sewing machine to fit in. I set the sewing machine on top of the foam insulation and positioned it as far away from me as I could comfortably sew and quilt. I like a lot of support space in front of the needle, to support a heavy quilt as I am quilting it.

I used a pen to mark a space around the sewing machine and set the machine aside. Using a serrated knife to cut the foam, I cut out the space for the sewing machine from both layers of foam. I started with a cut to just fit the sewing machine, but then went back and made it bigger because I wanted space to access the front loading bobbin area easily. I then made 1 straight cut through the top layer of foam only, to create even easier access to the bobbin. When I need to change bobbins, I just slid this piece out a few inches, giving my hand access to the bobbin area.

Lastly, I lay the clear vinyl over the top of the foam and around the sewing machine. This vinyl is so slick that everything including heavy quilts just glides right over it – sweeter than sweet! I put it in place and then cut out an area just larger than the feed dogs, and taped all 4 sides of the cut opening to the sewing machine. Because I have bad eyes and am a poor ¼” seamstress, I put a strip of black electrical tape (you can use masking tape or anything else you want) to mark the ¼” edge for quilting.

For inspiration and for fun, I slide photos, magazine pages and quilt patterns under the clear vinyl so that I don’t always have to look at the blue foam. In the photo you can see that I also use the table top for my pressing surface (try not to notice how dirty my pressing pad is!).

In about an hour I had a custom Quilting Desk that is completely portable and stores easily. The tables have folding legs and they can fit in a closet and so can the blue foam insulation.

This video shows the basics …

This video shows how I convert the set up to support big quilts for machine quilting …..

Here are a few more notes and a mistake I made:

There are other posts on my blog here about other quilters who have used these tutes to create their own tables or even make adaptations that worked for them, posted under “The Frugal Quilter” catagory.

The Berninas

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I came into some money in 1995 or so, and bought a used 1630. What a dream! That machine was superb at free motion and I am convinced to this day it is because of the vertical bobbin. I perfected my free motion feathers and started teaching free motion quilting and designing my own quilting patterns. I quilted for Dina Pappas, and had my quilting acknowledged in her first book, Quick Watercolor Quilts!

I sold the 1630 to buy a longarm quilting machine and have since sold that and bought a mid-arm machine and 2 Bernina 180’s. The Bernina’s do the decorative stitch quilting in our book, Crazy Shortcut Quilts (Krause 2007). I borrowed one from my daughter Sarah and bought one from Dina when we thought that the electronics were toasted on Sarah’s machine. Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe fixed her up and now both are humming right along!

The Kenmore

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I started sewing maternity clothes for myself in 1981 and baby clothes for Sarah in 1982. I made my first quilt for Jontie Hall in 1981. The old machine was tucked away for many years and I pulled it out again to take some quilting classes in the early 1990’s. My teacher constantly ridiculed any machine that was not a Bernina (me and 1 or 2 others in class) and I resent it to this day. I could not afford another machine and stuck by the Kenmore, making modifications and sacrificing quality but doing my best. I was trying to learn piecing, machine quilting and heirloom machine quilting (feathers) and then ribbon bobbin work. There are some things that the Kenmore did (and still does) exceptionally well, and some that it just doesn’t – free motion and bobbin work. It is my work horse and it is still set up for piecing and some decorative stitch quilting.

Crazy Eights Quilt

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I am sashing the squares to a reproduction quilt that was made by a group of quilters. The fabrics are by Chainteclaire and designed by Darlene Zimmerman. The squares were randomly cut by the ladies at Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe in Anchorage, Alaska (http://www.seamslikehome.com) and machine quilted by them in part and finished by me. It’s gorgeous!

The Kitchen Floor

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We are stripping out an old vinyl kitchen floor. By hand. Inch by inch, layer by layer, using chisels and a 2″ metal scraper, on our hands & knees. The vinyl is anywhere on the older side of 25 years and is so worn that it only comes off in layers – I’ll post some photos this week. The top layer, a dirty lime green and dirty white pattern, comes off in brittle chips some of the time but sometimes we can get a whole 4″x6″ chunk and then we celebrate! Under that is the glue that adhered the surface layer to it’s composite backing, and this comes up in ribbons when it’s wet – I’ll get to the wet part soon.

Under that is a 1/8″ layer of some type of composite backing and under that is the glue layer and then plywood. The top brittle layer chips off easily even if it is in small bits but the underlayers are a nightmare. I’ve learned that soaking them helps. We layer small sections of old rag towels, about 2′ square, onto the exposed underlayer and pour boiling water on the towels and let them sit and soak for about 1/2 hour. Then we begin scraping. I can scrape away about a 2′ square section in an hour, and I can only do about an hour a day, every other day. My arms, back and my scraping hand hurt afterwards so I give them a rest.

Rabbits

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We have a lot of rabbits! We have one that live indoors with us. He uses a modified cat litter box for his potty and he’s very, very tidy about using it. He has the run of the first floor of the house, but he’s afraid of the stairs going to the basement so he just stays upstairs. He’s a grey and white spotted lop that was rescued from a cat’s mouth at just a few weeks old. We’ve made a *lot* of modifications in the house because of the rabbit’s need to chew and our American desire for electricty that runs through cords that rabbits like to chew. For more info about indoor rabbits as pets, please visit www.rabbit.org

There is a lot to learn before jumping into having a bunny as a pet.

We also have many rabbits living on our undeveloped property about 7 miles outside the downtown Seward, Alaska area. They have burrowed a huge nest under a firewood storage shed and they have the run of the property (2 acres that we own and they invade the neighbors’ property too). We feed them, but because they run free they are at the mercy of predators like dogs, wolves, bears and eagles. And yes, we’ve seen them hunted and killed by the neighborhood dogs and by the eagles. Bears will sometimes get into the rabbit food but although there are wolves around, we’ve never seen them – just the tracks. So this is one of the hard parts of life. We love the rabbits but we lose a lot of them and when we get attached to each of them it’s hard when they don’t show up to be fed anymore. Basically, we’re idiots.

Commercial Fishing

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Tom owns a 42′ seiner (the F/V Dolly B) and he fishes for salmon in Lower Cook Inlet. It is hard work. At age 44 I started working for him and I’ve never worked harder in my life – and believe me, I know what hard work is.

What a life though! I made it through 2 full seasons, and now I only fill in when we have crew shortages. I do a lot of the dock work and help keep the boat clean. Dock work means that I pitch fish upon delivery and then clean the boat (2-3 times a week), buy groceries and have them waiting for the boat at delivery and any other tasks that the skipper wants.

In the fall we do any maintenance and then we dry dock the boat until spring. In the winter Tom mills lumber with his friend Mark and they build stuff. Mostly cabins and sheds. And rabbit hutches and feeder stands.

The old house

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This house, in the older downtown part of Seward, survived the 1964 earthquake in good style, but it’s seen a lot of changes over the years.

Tom grew up in this house and he and his brother Steve, along with their dad Perry, hand dug a full basement in the 1970’s when Tom & Steve were teenagers. The motivation that kept them working was that if they finished, they’d get a pool table in the basement. Now the basement has a small bedroom, huge “game” room (with pool table), laundry area and huge pantry area. The ceilings are not tall at about 6’6″ and the lighting isn’t great, but it’s about 800sf and that adds a lot to the house.

Upstairs we’ve pulled off the 1970’s paneling and 1″ tongue and groove backing boards so that we could insulate the outside walls. There was *no* insulation in this house until last year! This is still a work-in-progress because the interior walls are unfinished. We need to replace 3 windows and then add OSB and sheetrock to finish up. Right now we’ve got insulation & vabor barrier up – my favorite decor! Hehehehe.

Quilts in the works

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In the latter part of December, 2007, I’m working on a quilt made of feedsack reproduction fabrics. I’ve had the fabrics for a long time and thanks to the folks on the Yahoo! group “Stashbusters” I’ve been inspired to finish this quilt. The more I work on it, the more I love it!

I’ve also got a black & white fabrics quilt in the works (just set aside for now) that has small bits of pink, yellow and blue fabrics interspersed. I’m using my 20wt Sulky threads on that one and some basic decorative stitches for the quilting.