Restricted use of the Rotary Cutter

--> My quilting had been reduced lately, as I am not allowed to use a rotary cutter. April 27th I flew end over end over the handlebars of my dear hubby's bike while out on a short ride. The bike landed on top of me and I got the worse end of the deal. I cracked a bone in my right arm near the elbow. They do not cast you when you crack a bone near the elbow joint as it can cause your arm to become stiff and you can loose movement.  Needless to say it is painful and has limited by ability to do things, especially since it is my right arm. I am very lucky I did not break anything else.

Other than being told to rest my arm, ice it and take Tylenol, the only other advice I got was really more of a directive. I was told specifically to not use my rotary cutter. Now the first two weeks I was not using my arm to do much as it hurt to write and I could not turn it to even type, so I used the hunt and peck method. Now I can do more but if I over do my arm aches, a lot. I have sewn most of the fabric I had cut, and so am now restricted to hand work, which I do enjoy but doing it for too long makes my arm ache. Knitting is currently out of the question.

It is a good thing we are going on vacation and I will not have access to my rotary cutter and sewing machine otherwise this restriction would be very difficult to enforce on myself as it is getting very old. I want to sew, but since I am out of cut fabric I cannot. I just hope that all this is worth the wait and when we return I hope I can cut away so I can sew to my hearts content.

In the future I think I will stick to riding the tandem, no breaks and no steering, that way I can avoid sand and gravel and flipping over.

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.

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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.