Another Finish (Not a Quilt)

The master bedroom has (had) a built in vanity that I've never really used, and when I had a few weeks off for the Christmas/New Year holiday, I started thinking about getting rid of it and trying to figure out what I would do with the space if the vanity were gone.........I decided I wanted a floor to ceiling cabinet where I could keep some of my vintage quilts. I made some phone calls, got some recommendations for carpenters, and made some more phone calls. The first carpenter that I called came over the same day, drew me a sketch, and gave me an estimate. It seemed like he understood what I wanted and could do it for a reasonable price. I gave him half of the money upfront, and he came back the next day to take out the vanity. He was going to build the cabinet in his shop, and install it at the end of the week (right after New Year's day). When the weekend came, he called and said he didn't have it painted yet as it had been raining all week. I had to go back to work on Monday and told him I'd give him a call the next weekend. It rained some more, and he still didn't get it finished. This went on for several weeks with various excuses from rain to illness to family problems, etc. In the meantime, this is what I'm looking at in the master bedroom:

And I'm running out patience, and my phone calls aren't being returned at all. Sometime near the end of March, I called from a different number and got an answer (not the one I wanted). The cabinet had gotten wet in one of the rainstorms and was ruined. He would have to completely rebuild it. Did I want to pay for more materials? My answer was no, I've already paid for the materials, and I want a cabinet or I want my money back. He said he'd try to have it finished by the following weekend.

A couple of weeks and several phone calls later, I finally had my cabinet. But it was nine inches to narrow for the space! It had to be rebuilt again. Last weekend, I got a finished cabinet that fits the space. Even after all the stress and unpleasantness, I like it! It's not exactly what I asked for, but it will work. Here's the finished cabinet:

And here it is with all the shelves filled with vintage quilts. I was at a loss with what to put in those little shelves on the lower right. They weren't part of my original plan, but I put some awards I've won for quilts I've made in them. I need to get busy and win more awards so I can finish filling them. LOL.

Another Finish (and Just in Time!)

I got Serenity's quilt finished in time for her first birthday. It was two weeks ago, but I'm having compound problems posting pics that I've taken with my smart(?) phone. Maybe the phone's too smart for me! All I want to do is send a pic from the phone directly to my blog. Since the phone's platform is Android and blogger is a google software, it should work. And, it probably does, if I could just figure it out. For the past two weeks, I've been sending pix out into cyberspace somewhere. To top it off, my phone is showing a message on the notifications screen that it's waiting to retry sending the selected pix. I finally did it the old-fashioned way and sent these to a folder on the computer:

Here's the story on this quilt. At the baby shower (Feb. 2012, I think) all the guests were given a square of fabric and some markers to create a square for a memory quilt. I should have gotten it finished sooner, but I got frustrated because some of the guests had written and drawn close to the edge -- which I needed for a seam allowance; also the fabric wasn't 100% cotton, so the few squares that I attempted to heat set (to make them color fast) started shriveling up on the edges. On top of all that, the obstetrician induced labor a couple of weeks earlier so no way was I getting it done by the time she was born. I basically decided it would make a good first birthday gift instead.

So, if you know an easy way to send a pic from your phone to your blog, will you please leave a comment and let me know!

Lake Jackson Quilt Show

Not too much to talk about--I am still making string geese, but the progress is slow. There was a quilt show in Lake Jackson over the weekend, and I got to go on Friday, although I was in a hurry and didn't have much time to spend looking. I did see lots of nice quilt entered in the show and even remembered to take a few pictures.

 
I liked the scrappy sashing on this one. It's the same technique I used on the last swap quilt I assembled--I don't think I ever posted a pic of it on here....

 
Here are two with lots of hand work. I have the pattern for the redwork one saved (somewhere). It's from an older American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.

This is the Fire Escape pattern. I've made a couple of these and still like the graphic quality of it.

Nice and scrappy Lemoyne Star

 A medallion-type setting with a closeup of some of the detail.

I guess that's all the pictures I took. There were a lot more quilts there and lots of nice ones. The judging was already done and I thought I had shots of the category winners but must have accidently deleted them from the phone.

String Geese - Adding the Side Triangles

I have over 60 geese made--time to add some side triangles. Do you remember the original vintage quilt? It had peach-colored side triangles and I wanted that same look. Unfortunately, the peach color I have is pretty anemic looking. :(

I have probably over three yards of it, it's not likely I'll use it for anything else, and the whole purpose of this is to use up some of the leftovers that are just taking up space.

The first thing is to trim the geese even with the foundation papers.

Untrimmed



Lay your ruler along the side even with the paper and trim.

 Here's one that's been trimmed on all three sides:

You can remove the paper foundations after trimming the geese, but I prefer to leave mine on until the side triangles are added. It gives more stability to all those strings which are now cut on the bias. The papers are a little tougher to remove after adding the sides, but it's worth it to me to have the stability of the paper when sewing.



I used my Easy Angle ruler to cut the side triangles, but if you don't have one you can cut 4-7/8" squares and cut them on one diagonal to get two right triangles. With the Easy Angle, I cut several 4.5" strips, stacked them, and used the ruler to cut my triangles.  

First, remove the selvege edge!

Sew a triangle to one side and press away from the string center.

Now add the other triangle:

This is what they will look like once they are sewn together:

I'm really noticing how beige my peach looks.........I think it will just have to do since I already have it on hand (and I've already cut a bunch of 4/5" triangles from it).

String Geese Update

I counted the completed "geese" and there are 20 done. Pretty good considering I didn't spend very much time at the sewing machine all week. I am setting a goal for tonight to get 20 more finished while I watch Downton Abbey. When I get to 54 I'll be at the halfway point! Maybe I need a Downton Abbey marathon.... 

What I'm Working On

I'm string piecing flying geese. What a great way to use up some small strips of fabric! Bonnie Hunter posted a pic on her blog of a fabulous vintage quilt here earlier last month, and I just loved it so much I couldn't get it out of my mind. String piecing is the perfect "mindless sewing" project for the hectic holidays, and I for sure have plenty of small pieces that need to be used, so why not??

The problem with seeing the picture on someone's blog is that I didn't have any idea what size the geese needed to be, so I decided to just wing it and make my geese 4" tall and 8" wide. That way it wouldn't take so many to make a reasonable size strippy quilt like the one in Bonnie's picture. You could cut squares to sew the strings to and then cut each square into four triangles, but I want to be able to use the shorter strips that keep left behind on other string piecing projects.

Here's a tutorial on how I am making mine: For the foundations you can use just about any paper or lightweight fabric like muslin. I like the advertising inserts from the Sunday newspapers. The slick shiny ones. They hold up to the small stitches and are pretty easy to tear loose. Whatever you use, cut it into squares 1-1/4" larger than you want the width of the geese. Since I wanted 8" wide geese, I cut my papers 9-1/4 x 9-1/4".

Then slice the squares from corner to corner to create four equal triangles.

Select a string and lay in right side up on the middle of the triangle. I pin the first string to keep it from slipping.

Add another string face down on top of the pinned one aligning the edge.

Shorten your stitch length a little (I use 1.8) and sew a scant quarter inch seam down the aligned edge.

Now open the strip so that both are right side up and press the seam. Here's what mine looks like after pressing.

Continue adding stips by aligning a new piece with the outstide edge of the last one added.

Here are some finished geese--not trimmed yet. See how great these are for using up short stips of fabric?

I generally don't trim mine until I have sewn all the geese, but I just flip the piece over so that the paper is showing, line up the ruler edge with the edge of the paper foundation, and trim the excess off with the rotary cutter. The seam allowances were already figured into the size of the foundation, so they don't need to be added when trimming.

If I use six rows of geese like the original quilt maker did, with three inch sashings in between strips and five inches for the borders, my quilt will be 73" wide. If I use 18 geese per stip, my quilt will be 82" long. (18 x 4" + two 5" borders) Six rows of 18 flying geese means I need 108 string pieced geese. That is why I opted to make mine 4" x 8", bigger geese means less needed for a quilt top.



Stay tuned for more--once I can find the right color solids to complete the flying geese and add the solid stips, I'll write a post about that step.

First UFO Finish of 2013

I finished a really old UFO yesterday--not a quilt, but the curtains I started over ten years ago.

Finished and hung. (Sorry about the TV screen--too heavy to move just for a pic.) Anyway, I'm happy to have something finished!

I still don't know why blogger is getting harder and harder to navigate. It took me a day to get these pictures from my phone to blog land. I originally tried sending them to the computer and loading from the desktop file to my blog. Forget it. Finally just sent them directly from the phone to my blog web address. I probably need to do some research on what changes and "enhancements" have been made to blogger. I'll do that in my spare time.