Scrap Post (a variety of topics)

--> I have mastered posting photos to my blog.  I am very proud of myself as I have been trying for several months to get this to work and finally figured out what part of the code I have to take from Flickr to get things to post to my blog.

I have gone back and updated some of my previous posts with photos so they now reflect the quilts that I am discussing in my posts. I have been very frustrated up to this point with trying to post pictures to my blog.

I have also been very busy and am behind on posting at all. I am working to rectify this and have jotted a few ideas and shot posts in my notebook, and hope to transfer them to my blogs in the next couple of weeks.  Remember this is a work in progress, though once the end of May rolls around and I am retired I plan to be much more organized and timely.

My big project lately has been working on cleaning and organizing my sewing room and in the process I have discovered many new fabrics, or at least ones I had forgotten I owned. Along with the fabrics come ideas for new quilts and my mind is overflowing. I have discovered that I have a lot of blue fabric.  By blue I include anything that falls in the blue family including teals, and those that lean toward purple.  I also have a lot of black and whites, and white or cream tone on tones, followed by reds and I am not done going through fabrics. At the moment I am sorting and folding yards, and cuts larger than a yard.  This is my sorting method, size and color.  I am piling all the smaller cuts off to the side to deal with later.  I have one or rather two piles because of the cut of fabric that are novelty prints and that one is growing. I have not even touched my Christmas fabrics yet as I wanted to get through all the colors first. I think I could open a fabric shop, but wait that would mean parting with some of my stash before I had a chance to use it, not gonna happen.  I am having fun and think I may have actually found the missing binding fabric for my rainbow quilt.  I need to pull the quilt out and check.  I did find the binding fabric for Bryce's guitar quilt. (Pattern: Groovy Guitars by Robbi Joy Eklow) I also need to find the buttons so I can do the embellishment.  My plan is to have this one done by the end of May, but that will depend on if my thumb cooperates.

-->
My sewing room is a long-term project as I am taking time to sew, read, write, and of course I have to go to work. Work is a major inconvenience at times. I wish it were already May 20th.  My plan is to finish up my sewing room before school ends and be ready to jump into quilting full time once we return from our trip around the lower forty-eight, along with taking long rides on our tandem.  Though it may be fall before I truly jump into quilting full time because I love spending the day riding on the tandem with my husband.

At the moment both my sewing and my blogging are hindered by tendonitis in my right thumb.  How I wish I could do a decent applique stitch with my left hand.  I plan to work on it.  I do plan to try and sew on buttons with my left hand; will have to see how that goes. I can tell you that life is difficult without your dominant hand thumb.  I have been in this situation once before when I broke my right wrist and it makes it very hard to do many things.  I am improving my typing skills though, so that is a helping.  I am learning to use my left thumb and alternate fingers on the space bar and the mouse pad of my laptop.

--> Stay tuned for up-dates 

Dayna's Quilt

Blogs to check out on line

If you have not checked out the following blogs I recommend that you visit them.

First up is:

Fresh Cut Quilts Pattern Co.: The Cutting Edge-- A Review--and Giveaway!

These rulers are the newest things and from what I hear they are great. I am hoping to win one from this giveaway and plan to order myself a couple to give as gifts to quilting friends. Please let me know if you have tried them and what you think.
Pat Sloan is awesome and if you have not checked out her blog go to:

http://patsloan.typepad.com/

I love her quiltmashup.com chat also.

I also recommend you check out the Aurifil Blog Hop and enter win prizes, as well as getting free patterns for 9 blocks.

Have fun surfing in blog land. I am off to quilt.

Designing a Quilt

I took a quilt drafting class last weekend and I really enjoyed it.  I learned how to look at a picture and draw the pattern so that I could then make it using fabric.  I learned how to tell if a pattern or block is a 3 by 3 or 5 by 5 type of block, simply by looking at the picture. It was so simple once the teacher put it into words and pointed things out on the page, or the block.

The teacher, Diana Bradley, is a local quilt shop owner. Her shop, The Quilt Zone, is new but I love the industrial loft layout of the shop and the individual tables she has for classes.  But I digress. She made it sound so easy to take a picture of a quilt and transfer it to fabric.  

We covered how to determine if what the leg and hypotenuse of a triangle or square is simply by knowing the layout of the block. If the block is a 12-inch block and is a 3 by 3, then the leg of the corner square is 4 inches. She gave us the magic numbers for finding the hypotenuse or diagonal of a square to figure out flying geese and half square triangles, as well as some tips on cutting and sewing with bias edges.  We drew some blocks and looked at others dividing them and determining the legs and hypotenuse of squares, half square triangles, and triangles, and flying geese for different size blocks.

We also discussed adding seam allowances and the different secrets to triangles when cutting them. One very important thing to remember is to add your seam allowances after you draw your pattern, before you cut it from fabric.   

At first my head was spinning trying to follow her, but as we went along the picture cleared and it all made sense. At the end of class I told her to let me know if she did an advanced class, because I was hooked and ready to learn more.

I also learned that large sheets of graph paper are very expensive.

I am planning a new quilt as I type looking at the lines in my head and seeing how two different blocks might form an additional pattern.  I will let you know what I come up with and how it translates to fabric.

Quilting Friends, Classes, and Shopping

I had a wonderful weekend with my quilting friends. Friday night we meet at the quilt store for our monthly quilting group.  There are four of us who go together, Sally, Jan, Lisa, and I, but the class is actually about 16 ladies who all get together. We pay a small fee to meet there and bring what ever we are working on to sew. There is a teacher who is there to answer questions or help when needed.
This month I brought a Yellow Brick Road I am working on for advice on an inner border.  The quilt is a gift, but I cannot say whom it is for, as I do not want to spoil the surprise. I love all the suggestions and help that everyone gives. I had a fun time.

The four of us had already signed up for another session of this class which started Friday night, and three of us have also signed up for the Piecework by Hand class, which meets once a month and is hopefully going to get me moving on my applique projects. I have several in various stages and need to get them done.  Sally, Jan, and I are also doing a marathon in February to get more things done and Sally and I are doing another in March. Sally and I are taking a tote bag class in February, so now I need to find a jelly roll or Bali pop, or go through my stash and cut strips to prep for it.

On Saturday one of my friends picked me up and we made the rounds of the three quilt stores here in town.  We went to Quilt Tree where we each purchased quilt kits that we wanted as it was class sale day and they were discounted 20%. We had already signed up for classes the day sign ups opened, which was a good thing because the classes we wanted were all full by the class sale day. I also bought some new quilting gloves.  Sally bought her two kits and a machine needles.
 
From there we headed over to the newest store in town for class sign ups, The Quilt Zone. We signed up for the February mystery, which is called Black Tie, along with another friend, Lisa. Sally and I also signed up for what is called Get'er Done. It is a work session where you bring in those projects you need to get done, or want ideas on so you can get them done. I also signed up to take Basic Drafting for Quilters.  I want to try my hand at drafting a quilt.  I have several designed on paper, but I have to translate them to fabric and to do that I need to learn how to draft a pattern.  I am looking forward to this class.  While we were there I bought the backing for the Yellow Brick Road, and some Aurifil thread, an awl, a book on drafting quilts, and one of the Buggy Barn quilt books.  I love the buggy barn quilt patterns, but I give them my look with bright colors and wild prints. This book has the tractors on the cover.

Once we were done there, we said goodbye to Lisa and headed over to Seams Like Home. None of the classes interested us, but with fabric on sale we had to look around and I found a wonderful fabric to use for applique backgrounds, so bought the 2 7/8 yards that was left on the bolt at 20% off.  I also bought some of the stuff you can use in potholders to keep from burning your hands, Insulbrite. (Thank you hm for giving me the name.) I cannot think of the name of the stuff at the moment, and a couple yards of cute Christmas fabric at 40% off. Sally also bought some Christmas fabric.

From there we stopped to grab a bite to eat before heading home.  It was a fun day with one of my favorite people.

When I got home I started reorganizing my sewing room, but that is another story, for another day.