Some Progress and My Little Helper.

I don't know about everyone else but for me time seems to be disappearing.  I am having trouble managing it.  Maybe I am trying to do to much. Maybe I am being unrealistic about how much time I need to do things.  Honestly I think I am just getting older and have less energy. I just can't seem to get things done as fast as I used to.

That being said it has been a rough week for me.  I am still struggling with this asthma flare.  I am feeling better but not well. I ended up coming home from work early one day last week and then stayed home the next day as well. Unfortunately all I did was sleep during that time off. Having trouble breathing makes one very tired. This week is not boding well either.  May boss is at his other plant this week so I have to be at work.

Progress for this week was minimal. I managed to get all the squares for the second ribbon quilt

trimmed and I will start chain piecing the blocks tonight. It is starting to feel as though I may get this project finished. I would really like to get it done by Thanksgiving. But that is only about 19 days away so I am not terribly optimistic.

This is the first time I have done the Easy Eight Method for half square triangles.  I have done the two at a time method and do a fairly decent job. The thing is I am not always as accurate as I need to be. (Usually when I am rushing a project or getting bored with it). With the two at a time method, if you mess up, you end up with one block that is too small and one that can be cut down. So you may lose one block. With the Easy Eight method you may lose 4 blocks. It can be a little frustrating to see that pile of blocks start to diminish.

I think I know where I went wrong though.  When marking the layer cake, I drew diagonal lines, then drew lines 1/4 inch on either side of the diagonal lines.  The thing is my 1/4 inch ruler wasn't long enough and well I probably didn't get things lined up correctly.  Also my stitching my not have been as accurate as it should have been. I used my regular presser foot and stitched on the lines. 

Next time I think I will only draw the diagonal lines and use my 1/4 inch presser foot. I am definitely going to do this method again.  Just need to take my time doing it.

This past week I told my husband that I may have my two year old grandson, Emerson, organize my studio. That way I will know where everything is. He is a great little helper and has some very strong ideas on organization.  I have a very long level for my Millie.  It is hanging in one part of the studio.  At the other end, I have a couple of yard sticks hanging on the wall. I kept finding my level (which has markings on the side for measuring) over by my yard sticks. It finally dawned us that He was putting all of the measuring things together. 

Emerson loves to be in the studio with me. He loves machines and tools. He is very good about picking up and putting things away. Unfortunately it isn't always where I put them.  I have been looking for my Fiskars rotary cutter for about a month.  Some time ago I picked up a Omni-Grid rotary cutter on clearance at my local Walmart. This is the one I have been using for the last month. It is taking some getting used to.  This rotary cutter doesn't have a button or slide for opening the blade. You just press and cut. It is probably a good tool to use when you have little ones around. Especially if you are like me and tend to forget to close the blade when you set the rotary cutter down. I am starting to get used to it.

The other day I was working with Emerson's sister Aurora on a project. I heard their mother say "Emerson what are you doing?" He calmly replied "I helping". He had found a bag of 4 inch squares and had them spread out on the studio floor (fortunately it had just been mopped) and was "pressing" them with my (unplugged) steam iron.  He was getting them ready for me to quilt.  I love that kid. I should mention that he had carefully sprayed each block with what he thought was starch (in reality water) and was spreading them out to dry after pressing each one.  I helped him move the blocks up to my long arm table and when they were dry we stacked them very carefully. Later I put them back into the bag I was storing them in. 

Another thing he did to help was he clipped some blocks together with my wonder clips. Which gave me an idea. If you look at the picture of the blocks at the top, you will see that I have them clipped together.  I didn't have enough random clips sitting around the house so when we were at the flea market I picked up a couple of packs.  These will help me keep sets of blocks and rows of blocks straight until I can revamp my design wall. I was really pleased with Emerson coming up with that idea.  I think I will try and keep him engaged in the whole quilting process. He may help me improve my process in other ways.

What progress have you made this week? Who is helping you in your work space?

Three Weeks Gone

I can't believe it's been almost three weeks since I last posted.  Time is moving much faster than I am these days.  Hurricane Michael came and went leaving a swath of destruction in it's path.  I was fortunate to have minimal damage on my property. The plant where I was worked was not as fortunate and frankly we were luckier than most.

Work was shut down for a week.  I was able to go back a little earlier than some.  My boss kept me out of the major cleaning because of my asthma.  I did go back after five days to do all the environmental swabbing and other testing that needed done before we could start up.  The blanch line started up after 8 days. Dry roasted line took 10 days to get going. Peanut butter line took 13 days. We have been running all out since then.  We need to get caught up on orders.

As I said, home only had minor damage. Some slight roof damage and siding damage. The insurance adjuster will be here on November 3rd around noon. They are that busy trying to get things appraised etc.  He was very apologetic about how long it was going to take.

The real hardship for us was not having power for a week.  No power equals no water since we are on a well. Also no air conditioning, which makes sleeping very difficult in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity.  We were more fortunate than most. My daughter,TK, had power so we moved our freezers to her place as well as our washer and dryer. We lost some food from the fridge but we could have lost so much more.

I have done very little in the way of quilting these past 3 weeks. I did get the half square triangle blocks cut apart and pressed but that was about it.  I turned the binding on the two quilts but haven't stitched it down yet. It was way too hot to sit with a quilt on my lap when I was off. Then I have been so busy at work working 10-14 hours that I haven't felt like it when I was home. Plus we have a lot of clean up to do in the house. On top of that I am in an asthma flare. Which is good and bad.  My pulmonologist had not seen me in a flare and I had an appointment scheduled. So that finally happened, which is good.  The bad is I have no energy to do anything. Everything takes so much energy when you aren't breathing well.

But I am feeling much better and am getting back to work on quilts.  I am behind on my goals this year but I am still working on things and that is what counts.

How are your goals coming?

Quilting with Grand Children

In my continued effort to live a balanced life, I am trying to put down my quilting and spend more time doing things with my children and grand children. Also I am trying to spend less time at work and more time doing the things I love to do.

Currently I am sitting at home in the middle of the week waiting for Hurricane Michael to pass. Right now I have power so I am trying to make hay while the sun shines.

These past two weeks I managed to get all the 10 inch squares stitched for the second ribbon dance quilt.  I will start cutting them apart once I finish this blog.  I figured I would blog while I still had power.

The bigger accomplishment was setting aside the quilt I wanted to work on and return to working with Rorie on her quilt.  We stitched each print square to a neutral square. Rorie is too small to run the sewing machine so I had her putting the block together and handing them to me. We discussed right side and wrong side of the fabric. After a little while she got bored. But Emerson, who is almost 2 jumped into her spot.  He handed me blocks and was fascinated with how the sewing machine worked.

Rorie came back once it was time to press the blocks open though. She and Emerson took turns running the iron and Grandma worked hard to keep her fingers from getting burned. A couple of times it was a very close call.  Rorie just wanted to iron the same block until it flat and stiff.  I had to really work on pressing instead of ironing with her. Emerson was much more the get it done and move onto the next one type. He seemed to understand press and lift the iron much better than Rorie.

With all the blocks pressed open it was time to lay out the quilt. My design wall's flaws have rendered it useless until we figure out a better way to support it. So I reverted to my stand by design wall. Namely my bed. I let Rorie lay out the blocks how she wanted them to be. Once again she got distracted and started laying the blocks out into roads. She created her own little village using the blocks. I just let her play until she got bored. Then when she ran off to do something else, I laid them out the way I needed them to be. I had turn the block so that they were facing the same way. Then I made sure the colors and shades were spread out somewhat evenly.  When that was done I called her back in to approve the changes. She was disappointed that I had ruined her village but accepted the fact that I was going to have to ruin it before going to bed that night any way and that the next time she came we could sew so more.

Emerson was eager to help his sister but she was doing it herself. He decided she was taking too long so he started jumping on the bed.  I had to distract him several times while she was laying out her village.  When she left to do other things, Emerson hung out with me for a little bit, helping rearrange things. He just wants to help with everything.



I managed to get the blocks stacked up in rows and set aside until they come again to sew with grandma. The next day their Mom and I were going to visit one of her friends that had a baby. While waiting for me to get home, Emerson decided he was going to help me sew some more.  His mom sent me this picture of him. You will notice he is at my sewing desk, sitting in my chair, wearing my reading glasses and trying to thread the machine. He is too smart for his own good sometimes. My son Killian describes him as the embodiment of Joy.

As I said I am sitting home in the middle of the work week, waiting for the Hurricane to pass.  But I didn't want to just sit around. I got the binding attached to the first Ribbon Dance quilt and the Christmas Lemonade Quilt as well. Should the power go out I can turn the binding and stitch it down by candle light.  It has been a productive day and it's only 1:00 pm. Of course I could really use a nap right about now. But that comes from getting up at 5:30 am, after staying up until 11:30 for several days straight.  Add to that I haven't had caffeine in a week.

Well I better close since the storm is ramping up and we will lose power anytime now.  Keep safe and warm and Happy Quilting.

A Balanced Life?

I am taking a personal finance class that is being offered through my church's Self Reliance program.  (For those of you who don't know I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And we are very big on being self reliant) I decided to take this 12 week course because I figure I will never have my quilt shop if I don't get my personal finances under control. Once I get them under control I can start look at taking the starting and growing a small business class.  

This class is spiritually based as well as temporally based. In other words we also deal with the spiritual side of finances.  Not just handling money but setting priorities.  There is a gospel foundation principle every week. One week it was counseling with the Lord about our finances. Another week it was paying tithes and offerings. This week's foundation principle is Living a Balanced Life.  In other words getting your priorities straight. Not all work and not all play. Time with Family.

What a challenge to get right as peanut season is starting up.  Top that off with kicking off another segment of my project and I am one busy lady at work.  I haven't worked less than 9 hours in the past 2 weeks, except for the 2 days I had to leave early due to my asthma.  I definitely don't feel like I am living a balanced life. 

Part of the weekly challenge is picking things to work on to live the principle. I have long felt that I never have enough time to do what I love (quilt, sew and craft). It would have been really easy to go that route. Carve out time for myself. But after a little reflection I came to believe that was not truly a good priority. So I re-evaluated.  I chose to spend time with the grand children. By that I mean doing something meaningful, not just letting them entertain themselves.  Another one I chose was to spend time with my kids and not hole up in my room.

Now the tricky part was going to be how to do that and still get some quilting in. Yesterday, I started involving Rorie in quilting. Rorie is 3 years old and pretty smart for her age. We decided her baby doll needed a quilt. I have a bunch of 4 inch squares that I have gathered over the years.  I let Rorie go through them and pick out the ones she liked. After going through them, she chose all of them, I needed to redirect her. Since her favorite color is pink, we went through the blocks again and started pulling out the ones with pink in them. Then Rorie sprayed them with starch and I pressed them. it was a bit of a sticky mess. We have 61 pink print blocks and 61 neutral print blocks ready to start sewing.  Later this week, (when I get home from work and she is here) we will start sewing pink blocks to neutral blocks. Rorie is really excited about this project and by doing it in bites, she will stay engaged in it. 

As for my other quilting projects, I am currently marking the layer cake for the second Ribbon Dance Quilt.  I ended up buying a new ruler to do it.  This ruler is 3 inches by 18 inches. It is long enough to go diagonally across the layer cake. It is short enough to make it easier to handle in tight spaces. I had one but I can't find it.  Emerson has been rearranging my studio again.  I just need him to understand my organizational style. Then maybe him putting things away will not be so traumatic for me. He likes to put things up but not where I want them. He tends to move things around in my studio to suit his likes. So I am missing some things. I need to clean up the studio again anyway, so I am sure I will find them.

That is about it for this week.  I have some homework to do for my class and I am behind.  I need to get on top of it.  Are you living a balanced life? What can you do to bring more balance to your life?

Still Recovering

I have not done much in the way of quilting this week.  I didn't get home until very late Wednesday night and well I have been trying to catch up everywhere. But I did save a little bit about my trip for this week's blog.

I was in the Reno area last week and there are three or four quilt shops in the Reno area. Unfortunately, I was not able to get to any of them. That actually may have been a blessing. I tend to lose what little common sense I have in Quilt shops that I might not ever get back to. I did however get to visit a very small quilt shop in Winnemucca. The name of the quilt shop was Mad Hatter Quilt Shoppe. You can find thier facebook page here.

It was a very small shop and very friendly. There weren't a whole lot of quilts hanging up in the store. Nor was there a huge inventory of fabric. The fabric that they did have was very pleasing and I wish could have bought some of all of it. There was plenty to make several different quilts just not as much as some bigger quilt shops. Like I said it is a small store. But the atmosphere was friendly and inviting.  The store has open sew on Tuesdays and about every other Saturday. That is something that is very appealing to me. I miss having women close by to sew with. They also offer classes and very often the classes are on Saturday, Which is great for working women. If I didn't work I couldn't quilt. Of course because I do work I have precious little time to quilt. Classes on Saturday would be awesome.

The first quilt I noticed was on a design wall in the classroom.  It was a stunning quilt that the owner had started in a guild meeting sew along.  The pattern was simple but the fabrics used were stunning. The pattern is Lily by Jessica Darling and can be found at VillaRosaDesigns.com. A modified log cabin quilt that is really cute.  In this case the fabric choices were what made the quilt, at least for me. She used gold and brown batiks and a off white solid. I would have bought the pattern but she didn't have anymore in stock. So she gave me hers.  I will make this quilt and will most likely make it in batiks. I will have to be careful about the color selection to get a quilt as stunning as hers.

 I did buy two quilt kits.  One was a panel kit, I am a sucker for outdoor prints and this was a beautiful panel with deer on it. The accompanying fabrics were very outdoorsy prints that I fell in love with. In fact I bought some extra fat quarters of four coordinating prints. The quilt is just a throw size but I will probably make it into a wall hanging. The pattern is Log Cabin Trees Panel by CastillejaConttons.com. The fabric are from the Northcott Fabrics High Ridge Crossing Collection. Here is a picture of the panel.
I have lived in the mountains of Utah and have camped in the mountains of Idaho. So this panel reminds me of those times.

The other kit that I bought is for a bigger quilt. Finished, it should be 82 x 98.  The pattern is by Nancy Rink Designs and is called A New Age.  It features the "New Age Muslin" fabrics by Marcus Fabrics. This quilt kit is a block of the month kit. The shop owner said that she learned something new with each block. So that really appealed to me.

When I opened the kit. I was really surprised to find the pattern and fabric for each block in it's own separate bag. I realize that it was for a block of the month but I've done a couple of those before and I didn't get the blocks in separate bags.



The fabrics in this kit are neutral solids. I went with the light background. It has a southwest feel to it. I am eager to start this quilt as well.


So if you are ever in the Winnemucca area stop into Mad Hatter Quilt Shoppe. If nothing else you will have a nice chat with the owner. But you just might see your next project.

Speaking of the next project, I guess I need to take inventory of my kits and see which will be the next one.  I have a quite a few and even though I think I know what quilt I am going to do next, another one pops up.  It is a never ending cycle.

For now I am going to work on the second ribbon dance quilt and focus on that. I need to have it done by the end of November.

What's your next project? Do you buy kits? How many project do you have lined up?

Time Away

This week's blog is a little late in coming out. I have been out west the past few days.  My husband and I went to bless our newest granddaughter. This little sweetie is just two months old and managed to capture our hearts. I am so happy we got to go meet little Winry.

We spent the rest of the time spoiling her and her big sister, Viri.  And spoil them we did. In fact, Viri told her Mother that Grumpy will buy her everything. This sad little girl did not want her Grumpy to leave.  It was so hard to leave them behind.

While we were visiting, there was a small tri-county fair. We went and had a good time seeing the entries and going on rides.  For an area that has two quilt guilds, I was surprised that there weren't more quilts entered. I counted 11 quilts, 2 table runners, and 2 wall hangings.  We all had a favorite quilts.  Arianna's was the giraffe quilt.

I liked the start quilt, although the colors were a little subdued for my usual tastes. the colors still worked together well. I also liked the actual quilting. It was a pantograph in a very pretty star and swirl pattern. 

I also liked this Christmas quilt. This strip quilt that reminded me of a one sided log cabin had little fussy cut squares that had birds on them. The rich colors really grabbed your attention.

Perigrine pointed out this very colorful wall hanging that looked like it may have been paper pieced. The dark background and bright multi-colored rings were really awesome. I especially liked how the rings went right off the edge,

But Perigrine, Arianna and I all agreed this last quilt was the most stunning. Of course I didn't get a really good picture of it but I am including it anyway.  This medallion quilt may not have been perfectly pieced but it was very impressive.  When I say it was not perfectly pieced, I am being very judgmental.  We were inspecting the quilt to see how it was put together and what fabrics they used. We saw some very tiny matching errors. Nothing I would ever have noticed if we hadn't been trying to figure out the pattern.  I wish they had listed the pattern name on the entry description.


The last two items I saw were not in the quilting section.  These were listed in recycling.  They appeared to be small quilt tops that were never finished.  One was a crazy quilt that was put in a frame. The other was a bow tie quilt that was put in an old window frame.  I thought that this was an excellent idea for projects that didn't quite get finished or you inherit from someone else.

 I think this was an excellent idea for those non-quilters who have small quilt tops that need finished. Or even a quilter who didn't like the pattern enough to do a whole quilt.

With fair season going all over I encouraged you all to go see the quilts and get some inspiration.

The Devil in the Details

Not a great week quilting wise.  I worked way too many hours this week.  Which meant I was tired and frustrated by the time I got home. Which is not a good combination for quilting.  So once again most of my work was down on the weekend. And it was not a smooth quilting weekend.

I got off a tiny bit early on Friday and started planning out the quilting for Viri's quilt.  I was going to do a fairy panto but soon realized that the panto wouldn't work with the quilt pattern.  I went through all of the digital quilting patterns that I had and couldn't find one I liked.  So onto the computer and looked for a pattern to download.  I went to the Intelligent Quilting web site and found a couple of designs I liked. It was at this point that I realized that I needed to purchase the winzip program that came as a free trial on my laptop.  That "free trial" was a detail I had missed.

Finally I was able to down loaded the programs and put them on a thumb drive. Now I have ordered from Intelligent Quilting before and had no problem with the programs. Quilt path opened all of the programs just fine. This time however it didn't. It was like the program wasn't on the thumb drive. I checked and it was.  I was so frustrated.  I did some searching and realized that the files weren't in the right format. 

You see each computerized system has their own format. I had mistakenly thought that I needed a QLI format.  The QLI format is for Statdler Stitcher. I have Quilt Path which is a GPF format.  I hadn't paid attention to what format I needed or even if the programs came in that format. Details are important.  Most of the websites include several formats in the down load.  All of the ones I got in the past had GPF formats as well as QLI. Another small detail I missed.

I contacted the web site to see if the 6 or so patterns I had bought could be converted to GPF.  I didn't want to have wasted my money. But I also knew that I wouldn't have the right format in time to quilt this weekend. So I went looking for another website.  I found My Creative Stitches.  On their site, I found a similar pattern to the one I got on Intelligent Quilting.  The website said you got all the formats and so I went ahead and purchased a couple I wanted.  Guess what? They didn't had GPF formats.  I later discovered that they listed what formats they supplied on their "about us" page.  Another email was sent and I was was completely discouraged.

I swear I remembered being told that I could use different formats in Quilt Path.  So I opened up my quilting laptop to see what I could discover, only to realize I needed to finish registering the quilt path installation on the laptop.  I was finally able to do that. The program would work just fine now.  After playing around in Quilt Path and getting more frustrated I resorted to actually reading the manual. There was my answer. right there in the manual. Under the directions for "plug ins".  I was able to open the pattern and then save it to a GPF format.  I was so pleased.

So lessons learned this week:

1. Pay attention to "free trials" on your computers. If you are going to use them just go ahead and buy them.
2. Know what format you need. In my case it is GPF. but fortunately I can get around that.
3. Know what you are buying.  If I had paid attention I wouldn't have been frustrated.
4. Read your manuals. You may very well be able to use other formats. 

I managed to get Viri's quilt done but that is a story for another week.  I need to send a couple of emails and let those website know I don't need the GPF format after all.

Have a good week and read your manual.