Simply Done
I was motivated to make this quilt (Crazy Shortcake – details here..)by a contest that was posted on the Jolly Jabber blog. All the entries are posted here in this Flickr set.
If you go to the Jolly Jabber Blog, you can vote on the 9 items entered. (I voted for the dress – LOL – I have a hard time voting for myself 🙂
There were some very nice creations, I hope you have time to take a look.
I’ve been playing with electrons again. This time helping a gal fix her blog ring. We’re getting to know each other via email and blogs, and every day I learn something new about her. She has a very funny email address and whenever she emails me I laugh out loud; she has pet rabbits living in her studio (just like me); she’s quite generous and kind and she’s got some cool stuff in her Etsy Shop called Littleputbooks.
If you have never been to Etsy, well, all I can say is “pour a cuppa, you’re going to be there awhile”.
My friend Holly Knott has a shop there too. But don’t just stop with these two, use the search engine and take a look around the Rodeo Drive of the internet.
I can hardly believe my eyes, but I have a bobbin disaster. I am using a bobbin thread (new brand) and it is blowing out the sides of my bobbins. All of the bobbins in the photo used to be the same size before I loaded on this thread! I have a stand alone bobbin winder that I have used for years (even when longarming, so it has seen plenty of use) and I’ve used bobbin thread for years (a different brand) but I’ve never seen anything like this before! Yikes!
I did get a decent bobbin wound by using the winder on the sewing machine, and don’t ask me how or why it worked because I have no idea. I wound the thread off the bobbin you see to the far right in the photo – and this is what was left on it after the other bobbin was full.
I have a good set up for hanging small quilts for photography. It’s a rolling clothing rack (about $12 at Walmart) and yards of stiff poly fleece (this is not the soft jacket style fleece) draped over it and 2 chunks of rigid foam insulation (my favorite building material!).
I used silk pins
– they have almost no head – to pin straight through the quilt, fleece and into the chunk of foam.
There is very little distortion to the quilt (it would be better on a flat wall, I know this, but I don’t have the space) making it a good compromise.
I was surprised that the whole lap sized quilt was able to be suspended by just the fleece, so the pins really just perform the task of keeping it straight and keeping it from falling off while I am trying to take the picture.
Holly Knott shares her very helpful tips for quilt photography here.
Yesterday evening I cut, pressed,
layered and pinned my quilt squares. (about 2½ hours)
This afternoon I added the decorative stitching (also about 2½ hours). I’m going to take a short break and then cut sashing strips.
I’m calling it Crazy Shortcake (so far) because I am using our Crazy Shortcut method on the Moda Layer Cake fabrics – Crazy Short-Cake 🙂
I am cutting fabric for a new quilt! Yayyyyyyy! I’ve been up to my eyeballs in html, webs, blogs, rings and mud (cleaning up electrons and rabbit ranges). Now, it’s Fabric Time. (say that like the commercial would say “Miller Time” – -lol)
The Fat Quarter Shop (I am still not sure if this is a good thing or a dangerous thing) had my fabric order to me about 20 seconds after I clicked “Buy Now”. Hehehehe
That Moda Layer Cake stack of fabrics has been sighing to me all week – “come quilt me” it whispers…”forget that computer stuff, come play with faaaaabbriiic”.
So, the ring is fixed, the word is out, the web is updated, the bunnies are taken care of and now it’s time to play. I know exactly what I want to do with this quilt – it’s partly tried and true with partly testing out a few new ideas too. My favorite!
Oh, and I know who’s going to get it too!! I just love that part, thinking about who I am going to give it to while I am making it. It makes me happy.
I have created a new blog ring for quilt designers and I invite every quilt designer, pattern designer, quilt book author and anyone in the business of quilting (who blogs) to join the ring and have some fun!
Go here and put in your blog address and then install the code in your sidebar and Whoopeee!!! We’re surfing again!
I am sorry to say that the blog rings on RingSurf are not working. I have been testing them on & off all day and finally have contacted them and am awaiting a reply. I know that the rings have been down for about a day so far and I can’t wait any longer for them to fix things without posting about it.
I love surfing the rings – I find some great blogs that way! Update: I created a tutorial on how to create a new blog ring here and here. It’s easy and I enourage everyone on ringsurf to change over and replace their ring on alt-webring.com Click Here
Audrey, my granddaughter, is back with me this weekend. I put most of the quilting stuff away and got out the camera. Knowing your priorities is a good thing. We’re going outside to look for some mud puddles to stomp in. See you later!
I am, at times, overwhelmed with what is available for free on the internet. Squidoo is interesting to me because they give you a nicely formatted place to share information on subjects that you are passionate about – and they give you a choice of donating any profits from the page you create to charity.
I am pretty passionate about some aspects of quilting and I like to share information for free and I am a firm believer in helping others. Squidoo.com looks like a good fit for me. Unlike a blog, where after about a week a post is lost in Label/Archive limbo – my topic is always there, easy to find and always available for anyone looking for it. That’s kind of neat 🙂
If you are passionate about a subject and you want to share it with the internet world, head on over there and create what they call a ‘lens’. Here’s mine on different machine quilting systems.
