Plugging Holes

Once again I am doing work, but not skilled labor by any stretch of the imagination.

   

While Lee adds the four new locations we will need to add the basement onto the whole house vacuum, I am filling in the gaps around pipes to the outside. 

   

I finished cleaning the tops of the walls and pulled down insulation to expose the pipes I needed to fix.  There were also a couple of holes where someone had meant to put a pipe and then never did. 

   

I filed the little ones with foam and then cut out squares of wood to glue and nail over the holes.

  

The plan was to use Gorilla Glue.  The glue had filled the opening so that it was almost impossible to get it out of the bottle.  No problem.  Use a pair of pliers and you are good.  The Gorilla Glue bottle may never recover, but I managed to get the four holes covered.  I did have to add a screw or two to hold everything together while the glue dried.

   

I have now done all I know how to do.  So the rest is on Lee.  That's okay.  I've got a lot of quilting to do.  I have to make a big pile of Flying Geese to use as a border for some of my Stack and Whack four patch squares.  I am making all of them at once and then I will sew them all together.  Quilting by assembly line.

 

    

 

 

This all sounds quick, but I am still a novice and it takes time.  And there are a lot of squares.

Midnight Madness

Organizing my craft room has made me want to get back into making greeting cards. I am not as good at making cards that I think up and need a lot of help in that regard. My black embossing ink pad had dried up, so I went to Michael's to buy more and to see if they had any books of ideas to make cards. I also hoped to see any items that might jump out and say, USE ME.

I found a few things I wanted and then came home and put them in their places! I LOVE doing that.

One of the new stamps I bought (hey! I know I have plenty, but they were 40% off!)was a pincushion with a few buttons. I thought this would be a good thing to have, what with my new interest in quilting. Then the brain that I can't shut off remembered I had seen a card with paper quilting blocks, so I thought I could put that in the middle. THEN I thought I could even tie it with yarn, like a quilt and give it as a Thank You card for Carolyn at the Old Trinity Schoolhouse Quilt Shop. WHEW! Say that three times fast! I had really enjoyed my class and learned a lot and she was VERY patient with me.

I would have to wait on the thank you, though. I was leaving for California in two days and the last class was the next morning. No time. So I wrote down my ideas on a piece of paper. Then I had a few more ideas and wrote THOSE down, knowing if I didn't they would run through my head and keep me from sleeping. I put the notes aside and went to bed.

About 1:00 I woke up. By 3:00 I gave up and went up to the craft room and started stamping. I embossed the cards and colored in the pincushion. The first one I used marking pens and the second one I used watercolor pencils. Then I took a small brush and wet it a tiny bit. I wiped it on my wrist to dry it a bit and then went over the pencil marks. This turns the lines into watercolor and you can spread it around the embossed area.




Next I had to remember the dimensions of one of the Flying Geese quilt blocks. I cut one piece of paper from my scrapbooking stash 2" X 4". Then I cut a different piece 2" X 2" and then cut that one on the diagonal so that I had 2 triangles. (Never once did I think that a person should not use and Exacto blade at 4 AM.) I glued these on the longer piece in a Flying Geese pattern and was pretty proud of myself! And by the way, gluing is way easier than sewing. But I don't think paper quilts will catch on.



I cut some batting slightly larger that the "quilt" block and then used some white yarn to tie knots in the quilt piece through the back of the card.





I was pretty happy with myself and wanted to blog about it right then and there. Then I realized that putting anything on the internet at 5 AM is probably not a good idea. I went to bed and read until I could get to sleep. Love the mini book lights!

Ohio !#@! Star

I have decided that I may not be cut out for quilting. I am good at a lot of things. I can repair drywall, I can tile, I can help frame a house. But those things have a lower level of tolerances. If there is a small gap, you can fill it with grout or cover it with some wood trim. But with quilting, if you are 1/8 inch off you did a bad, terrible, horrible job.

And the hardest so far for me was the Ohio (expletive deleted, thank you Mr. Nixon) Star. In this block the points have to line up on the center square and if you are off by a fraction, it shows.




After ripping out seams THREE TIMES, I finally decided to start over! I re-cut the center and re-sewed the Four Triangle Squares and put the whole thing together again. It is only marginally better, but I decided it was good enough for me! You can see the problems up close, but on a horse going at a fast canter, it looks GREAT!

I love the whole concept of making all the Four Triangle Squares at one time. In this case I cut (4) 5 1/2 inch squares from the background and the border fabric. I placed the squares of fabric with the right sides together. Then draw a line from one corner to the opposite corner, like with the Flying Geese, and then sew a 1/4 from the center up and down on the diagonal. Cut between the lines and iron towards the dark fabric. Then place the right sides together again with the opposite colors facing each other. Pin and check to make sure they line up in the center. Once again draw the lines on the diagonal and sew up and back, then cut apart. Press the seams open and then you should have a perfect square that meets in the middle with perfect points. Then trim to size, in my case 4 1/2 inches.

Lay out the square with the Four Triangle Squares pointing towards the center and then with plain background squares in the four corners. After sewing the three vertical squares into strips, the hard part is making the points just touch the edges of the center piece. THIS is where I had the trouble.




I pinned it as we were taught by putting a pin through the point on one square and lining it up with the point underneath. This, in theory would then hold it while you finish pinning the piece. Somehow I was off each time. It sometimes seems that my sewing machine pushes the top fabric away from the bottom. But they are pinned and I don't see how that works. But that is what I do, so I must be doing something wrong and I don't know how to fix it.

I learned this week in class that the ironing I have been doing is sub-standard. Not that I have aspirations as a perfect ironer, but if all the seams are not perfectly flat and going the right way, you will have difficulty. Especially if you sew the imperfectly ironed pieces together and are then stuck with redoing them or keeping them as they are. Once again, I am going with the view from the back of a fast horse and thinking they are not THAT bad. My current theory is that all this re-cutting and re-sewing and re-ironing is going to impress my poor, weak brain so that the NEXT time I make a quilt, I will be SOOOO much better...or is it SEW much better??? At any rate, that is my goal and most fervent hope.

So far the Ohio Star is the hardest one for me. I am hoping that my technical skills will have improved before I ever attempt it in another quilt. Or maybe, I will never do another one, but this practice will make me better at the quilts I WILL do in the future. I would love to make some for our new B&B. On the other hand, the idea of having a guest ruin a quilt that took so much time and effort is rather upsetting. Gonna have to rethink that...

After all that I then had to make some more Flying Geese for the border. But those went fast and I like them! I like things that go the way they are supposed to! Maybe I need to go bake something.

More Quilt Squares

I barely figured out the 4 Patch/9 Patch for my quilt. Now I am working on the Flying Geese Star. Flying Geese are basically a pattern with a large triangle of one color surrounded by two small triangles of another color. We learned a technique to make it faster and easier...ostensibly. Even though Doris and I get right to work, we never seem to finish a square while in the class. This means we have to go home and try to remember how we are supposed to do it! Even with pictures and notes and a book, it isn't easy. Hey, if it was EASY, ANYBODY could do it! At least, that is what I keep telling myself.




You cut a 7 1/4 inch square of the main fabric. Then cut (4) 3 7/8 inch squares of the background fabric. Mark all the small squares with a diagonal line from corner to corner and then mark a line 1/4 inch on either side of the first line.




Place the large square facing up and then lay a small square facing down in one corner, aligning the edges. Do the same thing in the opposite corner so that they overlap in the middle.

Pin in place and then stitch on the two outside lines. This is where it gets tricky. I can barely see the lines due to the color of the fabric and the multiple floaters in my eyes that make close work a struggle. Once you cut the two apart on the middle line, there is no going back. Suffice it to say that I had to do one over and it's still not as good as I would like.




After cutting on the diagonal line, you press it open and then place the another small square in the only other unoccupied corner with the line pointing towards the gap between the sewn triangles. Once again sew on either side of the diagonal line and then cut them apart on the line. Do this for the remaining piece. You will now have four Flying Geese.




To make these into a star you will need (4) 3 7/8 squares of the background color and one square 6 1/2 inches square of the main color. We learned how to do a fussy cut. Basically you lay out the fabric and pick the part you want to be centered and then cut it out. This leaves weird holes in the fabric, but most patterns should allow for this. If not I'll be buying more fabric!




I sewed the top and the bottom geese to the center and then assembled the sides. Then I stitched the sides to the center, ironing the seams each time.

So this is what I ended up with. I hope Someone can make it magically become a scoosh bigger because it isn't QUITE 12 1/2 inches square. But at this point, I am not doing it over. I figure there has to be a trick to making it fit or no one would get past their first quilt. RIGHT????