Still Ripping!

Oh my GOSH! I am still ripping. I got the quilt sewn back together and what I felt was squared up to the best of my ability. I worked very hard to make sure that all the layers were nice and flat, no wrinkles. Then pin pin pin. Marked the center quilting area in a diagonal pattern with a yard stick, ruler and chalk. Quilting that went really well and fairly easy. Surprise!

Ugh, then I started on sewing around the borders. I "thought " I had done a pretty good job until I started doing the FM stars and loops on the larger outer boarder. My border started to lump. Take it out of the machine and look at the back. I couldn't believe what I saw. Wrinkles and lumps everywhere from sewing around the borders. So I ripped and ripped. Put it back on the board and stretched it as best as I could. This time I used spray glue. I love this stuff. I used it on Tyler's quilt with no pins whatsoever. I had minimum wrinkles to adjust while quilting it.

Using the spray glue for basting worked. I got around the borders with minimum wrinkling underneath. So I am now ready to get back to FM on the large border. So...what do you think?  I space out the stars with a ruler, then freehand them with chalk.  Do the swirls and loops up  to the star and very carefully do the star, come back the beginning and work my loops over to the other side of the star and on to the next star. I actually think it worked out pretty good, so far.

Rip, Rip, Sew, Rip

Rip, Rip, Sew, Rip. That's what I've been doing for days now. After deciding to remove the outside border of the "Buckaroo Stars" quilt and measuring it, I found that I needed to remove all the borders surrounding the main part of the quilt. I measured everything that I could possibly be measure so when I got ready to start adding the borders back on it would all match and be even.

Rhea's quilt in pieces. If she saw this she would probably call me nuts.

I did remember when I had originally made this quilt I had made it unusually long for a queen size quilt. I took off two rows of blocks. In doing so I ended up removing two of the stars. I had to remove two squares in different places to put the two stars back in the quilt.  My original goal when starting this quilt was to have fifty stars representing all 50 states in the quilt which meant I had to add about 30 more stars to the original pattern. While the quilt is in pieces, I noticed that I had accidentally put some of the same squares right next to each other. Something I hadn't notice before. I have taken the time to remove those pieces and replace them with other squares. It is slowly coming back together and looking like a quilt should.

While visiting another quilter's website http://lalaslovelys.blogspot.ca/  I saw the back of Lala's Lovely quilt back. It looked so neat and pretty I thought at first it was the front of the quilt.  I looked at mine and decided that I had better do some trimming of some threads and press it.  OK a lot of the threads. Not as good as hers but it does look better than it did.

ARRRRGH! The Perils of a Beginner Quilter

No, I'm not pretending to be a pirate, even though Gasparilla was held in Tampa this past weekend and the pirates invaded the city.  My arrrrgh! is because I have to do some ripping. No, a lot of ripping. I layered and pinned my daughter's quilt top this past weekend. I kept coming up with one side that just wouldn't lay properly. So...I ripped out the side and sewed it back up again. I thought maybe it was out of whack because I had stitched the length of grain of the border on the bottom and the stretchier squares on top so it made the side shorter. Nope...that didn't work.

I decided to measure both sides of the top. It is almost 1.5 in longer on one side than it is on the other. Then I started counting squares to make sure I had the same amount on both sides... why wouldn't I?  Duh... but, these squares are on the outside of the first border that goes around the quilt. Apparently since this was my first quilt I have made I added 1/2 a block to one side to make it "even". Yeah, I did. Who would do such a thing without measuring first? I guess me.

This quilt was from a book that I had bought. The original pattern called for it to be square. My daughter wanted it to fit her queen size bed in her spare room. So I decided to tackle my very first quilt. My mistake was in thinking that making a quilt was the same process as making a dress or pants. You can fudge on a sewing pattern, add piece here, if it's to short, take some away if it's to long. Not so with quilting. You really do have to use quarter inch seams. You can't fudge on them and take a little here or leave a little there. It screws with the consistency of the quilt pattern. Apparently so much that I added half a square to make the seams meet. HA.

Good thing I didn't send this off to be quilted by a professional. First off I think she would have sent it back because it was full of threads. Nope, I didn't trim off all or any of the threads. What was I thinking? I guess I wasn't. Boy would she have gone nuts trying to get the quilt to lie straight for the long arm. She would have definitely  sent it back then. I am hoping it won't take me more than a week to get it straightened out so I can get started on getting it quilted. I know my daughter is anxiously awaiting it's return so she can finish decorating her spare room.

Squares A Plenty

Here are as one can tell I have taken all the strips and now cut them down to 4 1/2 squares. I have also cut all 50 stars out and have 10 ironed on to the squares and 10 have now been blanket stitched. I used an iron on fusible to hold the stars in place and to help keep the fraying to a minimum. I don't want the stars to fray much it any.

It's very strange to see a whole lot of fabric cut down to size and have it turn into something beautiful, warm and cozy.

The Pics

Ok , so here is the link to where all the pictures are going to be posted so I dont have to post every picture and take up so much space. http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/583404561GLfOoX  This is in webshots. If this doesnt work, will figure something else out.

I got a notice that webshots is changing their name and moving, so the above link may not continue to work. So here are two pictures of the finished quilt top I made for Rhea.

Here are two views of Rhea's quilt top.

Rainy Days

Rainy Days are very good pajama days. It's a very good time to be lazy or lounge and read a good book. But, instead I decided to sew. So, (haha) I pulled out the fabric bucket that I stored the quilt fabric in for the quilt I am going to make. Or should I now say making as I have started sewing it together. All the strips are sewn together and half of them have been pressed. Tomorrow, I plan on finish pressing the strips. Then on to the planning and cutting of the strips in to squares. I wish I were a very witty person with loads of things to say, but it is past my bed time and I am not very witty. Good Night for now. I will try to post pictures of what I have accomplished tomorrow. This is the only way my lovely DD knows that I am doing what I tell her is being done. Besides that; she gets to follow along and watch as her quilt is being made.

Strips measured, cut and labled

Strips sewn together in pairs ready to be cut into squares

Buckaroo Stars

Last night I took some pictures of the pattern book and the fabric that Rhea and I chose for her Star quilt. The name of the book is called "Buckaroo" pattern book by http://www.adornit.com/. It has a number of western oriented projects.

This is the pattern book

and this is the pattern it doesn't look to complicated

 We spent more than an hour looking at fabrics and trying to decide what would be some good choices of prints and colors. http://www.thesewingbasket.com/ This is the adorable store where we got our fabric. The ladies there are very nice, friendly and very good at helping select fabrics that coordinate.

These are the main fabric choices for the squares. The long blue fabric has words on it. It will be where the dark blue fabric is in the pattern.

These are the alternate fabric choices for the squares along with the beige fabric and blue star fabric for the appliques.

I have to add the picture of Sadie laying next to the fabric. She felt she had to be in the picture. I thought it was so cute that I have made it my background pic for now

I am really excited about starting this quilt. I will doing my best to keep this blog upto date on my progress with it. I also have several other projects going on too, on which I will write about later... My paper doll quilt squares that I have finished need to be put together and quilted, also I am doing a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt which is done in hexagons and all hand sewn together.

Starting a Quilt

I visited my daughter in Texas recently. We went shopping in a couple of small towns around where she lives. I wanted to go by a little fabric shop in the town of Salado that I had visited 4years ago while there for her wedding.

While there, my daughter asked me to make her a quilt. Sooooo, we picked out a pattern and fabric to get the project started. I want her to be able to follow along with me and help keep me motivated to finish her quilt.

In the near future I will be adding photos of the fabric and book that will be used and if I can find it, maybe a link to the little fabric shop.