Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Marguerita’s Blog

The X Bag

by

I read about this bag and saw a photo posted to the website for Stashbusters at Yahoo! I wanted it immediately. I ordered it from Quilterswarehouse through a link on the designer’s page Four Corners Designs.

I just love this pattern. I put it together in a few hours, modifying the size (down) to a small purse size instead of the tote bag size in the pattern. The pattern gives specific directions for creating it from 3 types of materials (fabrics, denim and quilted fabrics) which I thought was very cool and the instructions were understandable, with good diagrams.

I chose to make my first one from a tapestry fabric and a cotton print but my next ones will be of our own crazy shortcut quilting technique. I already have a few squares prepared but I wanted to test-drive the pattern first before using up my quilted squares.

Travel the States

by

I also love to travel the rest of the states. I grew up in new england and have taken train trips from Florida to Connecticut, and from New York City to San Francisco to San Diego & L.A. and back to N.Y.C. via Kansas and Missouri.

I’ve flown into Detroit and driven to Oshkosh and flown into St. Paul and driven to Oshkosh. I flown into and explored Kansas City (twice)(both of them), Portland, Oregon (twice so far), Houston, Texas (three times so far), Las Vegas, Nevada (can’t remember how many times!), Los Angeles, California and Honolulu, Hawai’i. Wherever I go I usually rent a car or ride the bus and explore, explore, explore! And then there’s the two trips up/down the AlCan Highway between Seward, Alaska and Arizona. Hehehehe. More travel than I had thought…

Moving to Seward, Alaska

by

In 2000 I moved to Seward, after living in Anchorage since 1978. What a change! When I came to Anchorage at the end of the pipeline construction phase the population was just at 100,000 and dropping. After living in an east coast city of millions, it was a refreshing change.

By 2000 the population was close to 225,000 and getting too crowded for me. I had spent from 1990 to 2000 traveling around Alaska, looking for where I’d like to live and enjoying the rest of the state. I’ll write about the places I’ve visited, from Fairbanks in the north to Ketchikan in the south, from Crooked Creek in the west to McCarthy in the east, the roads I’ve driven, ferries I’ve taken, ports of call and bush flights, and also the places we’ve fished on the F/V Dolly B. This gal’s been around.

Photos of fishing and more in Alaska

by





I love taking photos around Alaska. Here are some of my favorite fishing pictures (and a black bear pic) – I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! The black bear is in the woods inside Nuka Bay, the 2 men on the bridge of the F/V Dolly B are Tom and his brother Steve the bay photo shows the Dolly B with her net out in a set in Resurrection Bay with the city of Seward, Alaska in the background and the up close photos shows the Dolly B anchored with the jitney in Resurrection Bay, Alaska.

New 9′ Pool Table!

by

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

by


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

by

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

by

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

by


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

by


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.