On the Porch

So where have I been, you ask???  Sewing like a mad woman!  And yes, I have been a slacker when it comes to blogging, but if you read on, you will understand!   

I am a procrastinator, I admit it, especially when it comes to daunting projects that I know are going to take me a very long time to complete.  However, I know I am not alone, especially where quilters are concerned!  We know we would much rather be cutting fabric up into little pieces and sewing them back together than doing just about anything else. 

But the time has come for me to snap out of it and take on some of these projects that are hanging over me (really more like NAGGING at me) and creating feelings of guilt and frustration for not getting them done!  (I am kind of being my own therapist here!)  And one of the biggest projects I've been putting off for a long while is making new cushions for ALL of our porch furniture.  It is daunting, to say the least. . . .we have FOUR porches!  And we hoard antique wicker furniture like we will never see it again, it's kind of scary!  But who can resist a bargain, right??  So here is my progress report so far. . .

Starting with a little sunroom off our kitchen. . .it's enclosed, fairly small, but probably one of my favorite spaces in our entire house (hence, I find myself wishing it was bigger at times. . .).  I hang out here a lot, it's usually where I talk on the phone, play on my iPad, and where my husband and I sit and chit chat about work.  It's also our pets' favorite hangout, they have a front row view to all that wildlife on the other side of the glass. 

The pink striped fabric is one I've had for years, but it's not an outdoor fabric, and I'm sure I will kick myself in a year or two because I know it's going to fade terribly.  But that's fine, faded is good, right?  It will just look antique!  The floral center in the back cushions is cut from a vintage rayon bedspread I have had forever.  I also have the same print with a blue background that I'm anxious to use somewhere else in the house.  The sofa/glider is old, old, old and super comfy, I love that piece, it's great for naps!  I made the cushions for it and did the ruffle around the bottom a few years back.  The flower pillows I crocheted from a Mary Englebreit pattern I bought years ago.  They've held up fairly well but I am still debating if I want to do something different there instead.

Now for the back porch. . .

Sorry, but I'm only showing cropped photos right now so you can get a glimpse.  I am still working on several things out here, it's a work in progress.  This porch is fairly good size and once again, lots of wicker!  It is outdoors, although it is covered.  But since it is exposed to all of the nasty elements we have here in Florida, all of this fabric is outdoor fabric to withstand the challenges of being outside.  I definitely don't want to be redoing all of this work in a couple of years!

Since I had both the floral and striped fabrics, I decided to keep this fairly monochromatic.  Our house exterior is blue, the porch floor is blue, it's just easier to keep it in the blue family and I will accent with color later down the road.  Fabric companies aren't really manufacturing anything in pretty florals right now when it comes to outdoor fabrics in particular.  So I am trying to make the most of what I already have, although I know I am going to run out of the floral soon, and then it will be a challenge to get creative.

This vintage aluminum patio chair is one of two we bought at an estate sale years ago for $10 each (no cushions included).  I wish I had the tables to match!  And I love how the stripe turned out on this. 

More chairs. . . .you would think we had 20 people living in our house with all this seating!  So far in the past month I've made 16 upholstered seat and back cushions and 7 pillows to date.  I'm almost finished with the back porch and getting started on the front porch next.  From there I will move on to another porch off our bedroom. . . Then I think we need to have a party to celebrate!

Finally, I wanted to include a few pictures my brother sent me of his quilt that I made (see my Brotherly Love post).  This is a second home he and his partner own in upstate New York.  I have yet to visit there, so I had to kind of guess how this quilt was going to coordinate with their décor. 

I am so thrilled to see the quilt hanging in his living room.  There is nothing better than seeing a quilt you have labored over and given as a gift being used and loved!  And I am so happy it goes with their décor and furnishings.

Doesn't he have great taste?  I think he should be a stylist or a decorator!  He is super creative and has a great eye for design.

So on that note, I will bid you all a Happy Summer and hopefully will have some more pictures of completed porch furnishings next time around!  Happy Quilting!

Floral Tote Bag

This is what I've been working on lately, nothing quilty this time around, but thought you'd still like to have a peek.  I've been preoccupied with work, home and yard projects these last weeks, so quilting hasn't been in the forefront.  But I still needed to be sewing something in my down time!

I wanted to play and experiment with a couple of things without getting involved with a huge project like a quilt.  I also have been trying to find the perfect tote bag for hauling stuff to and from work as well as for taking needlework projects along on road trips.  Everything I've seen in the stores just didn't grab me and all were lacking in some way, especially in pockets.  So what the heck, I thought I'd make my own!

The structure of the bag is based on a pattern by Ellen Medlock, but I veered from her instructions and design in several areas and did my own thing.  I was going for a vintagey floral look (what else!).  All of the floral fabrics are old home décor fabrics I've had forever.  The dot is an old Moda fabric.  I wanted the tote to be fairly sturdy and able to stand upright on its own.  I lined all of the outer pieces with two layers of Pellon Décor Bond fusible interfacing and lined the inner pieces (lining) with a layer of cotton batting.

 

This side has three pockets.  The photo of the ballerina is a picture of my grandmother as a young girl.  I added the quote in Photoshop and printed it on fabric pre-treated with Bubble Jet Set 2000 on an inkjet printer.  You can also buy the already treated inkjet fabric sheets in most fabric stores in packets of 10, I just chose to do my own since it's more cost effective.  All the buttons used on this tote are from my vintage stash.  The Dream and Create charms were purchased in the jewelry section at Joann's.

Here's a peek at the opposite side and end.  Both ends are the same.  This side has one large pocket.  I made a label of my name using the same method described above.  I layered vintage buttons with a piece of gathered lace in between.  The pocket closures are Velcro. 

Here's a look inside the outer pocket.  I made a Blooming in Chintz label for fun and sewed it onto a smaller pocket inside.



And here's the inside.  I thought I would make it water-resistant since I carry water bottles with me everywhere.  I experimented with fusible matte vinyl for the lining pieces.  It worked well on this home décor fabric and it was pliable and easy to sew.  You have to be really careful after you adhere it to the fabric, though, it can't be ironed during the construction process or it will melt.  It doesn't like to be overly handled, either.  Turning the bag inside out at the end caused it to rumple and crease quite a lot and if it was on the outside of the bag, it would be very noticeable.  But since it's the lining, it doesn't show much and no one will see it but me!

More pockets line the inside. . .

. . . and a label for the final touch.

Hope you might be inspired to even make a bag of your own!  I've been having a blast on Pinterest pinning tons of inspiration in case I decide to make more.  I also stumbled on a couple of websites that have great information. . . U*Handbag and You Sew Girl have some good tutorials for anyone interested.  Happy Sewing!

Brotherly Love

Thought I'd show you what I've been working on now that the weekend is over.  I made this quilt for my brother's birthday, which is next week, and gave it to him yesterday while we celebrated Mother's Day.  He was surprised, which is how I had hoped it would play out, since I have been really good about refraining from posting pictures anywhere he would have seen them until after the fact.

I challenged myself to use what I already had on hand, even the backing and batting, and the only thing I had to go out and purchase was thread.  Once again, it is such a great feeling to use up fabric that I've had forever!  Even the blue and white squares are actually leftover parts from a quilt I made several years ago.

I quilted it with a walking foot, doing in-the-ditch and crosshatch lines through the center part of the quilt. . .

and straight diagonal lines in the setting triangles around the outer edge.  In the outer border I did a cable, of course!  I can't resist cables when I have the opportunity to add them.

And I didn't even bother trying to figure out the spacing in order for the cable to wrap around the corner, I just let each side dead end into the seam line or off the edge of the quilt.  I think it looks fine doing it this way.  So many antique quilts were quilted just like this.

Here's a peek at the label I machine embroidered for the back of the quilt.

And for those of you that are curious, I used Quilter's Dream Request 100% cotton batting.  The threads I quilted with were Wonderfil Invisafil 100 wt. 100% polyester for the in-the-ditch quilting, Wonderfil DecoBob 80wt. 100% polyester for the straight line quilting, and Mettler Metrosene 3-ply/100wt. 100% polyester for the cable quilting and in the bobbin.  I've just started using Metrosene and so far am really happy with the way it works in my machine, a bit less finicky than Invisafil, and the final result is very similar with its matte finish and the way it sinks into the fabric.

And here is my brother, Steve, and me, with his quilt, Oswego Memory.  I am so glad I have a brother who appreciates quilts and all the other things I've made him over the years!  Happy Birthday Bro!

Happy Quilting!

Quilt of Valor

I thought I would write a quick post while I have a few minutes to show what I've been doing the last couple of weeks.  I'm sure most of you have heard of the foundation, Quilts of Valor.  If you haven't, this is a wonderful organization whose mission is to "cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor."

While deciding what to purge out of my fabric closet, I thought I would do something even better than just donating a box or two of fabric this year.  Like most quilters, I tend to hoard collect fabric!  I thought what better way to use fabric I no longer want than to actually MAKE a quilt to donate.  By creating a quilt to make someone feel comforted and happy, I would also get the satisfaction of actually making something quickly and feel like I got in some quality sewing time.  I did some searching to see which organizations are accepting quilts and was overwhelmed to find so many wonderful groups.

Based on the style of fabrics I have on hand, I chose to make something for an adult.  I had read articles about Quilts of Valor in the past but decided to do additional research.  After reading the info on their website and seeing what a huge impact they have had, I chose to do a Quilt of Valor in the traditional red, white and blue colors.  There is a set of guidelines that gives the basic requirements for donating a quilt.  According to their website, they have donated 115,900 quilts to date!  I think that is absolutely amazing!

This is a double Irish chain and I did a simple border on two sides to get the quilt to the required dimensions.  It went together very quickly and I got tremendous satisfaction from making it.  I will eventually quilt it in the upcoming months.  I hope to make more quilts to donate in down time when I need to "use up fabric!". 

I  put this little Easter basket quilt together the other day.  It was fast and easy to do and again, gratifying to see something finished so quickly.  And I cut into some gorgeous unused florals, even better!  

And finally, I made a bed skirt to coordinate with the Ocean Waves quilt I made for our bed.  I wound up using fabric I had on hand that I originally had bought for a quilt backing.  It worked out perfectly and once again, I used something out of my closet!  Yay!

I know, I know, there are some of you wondering where all the vintage floral pillows went!  And why haven't I made the new pillows out of the florals I showed you?  Well. . . . after I put the new bed skirt and quilt on the bed and saw how well it all tied with the existing floral area rug, I thought I would try living with it like this for awhile.  I am kind of liking this new de-pillowed, clean, calm and serene look!  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE vintage florals and will always love vintage florals.  But I was getting tired of the time it takes every morning to make the bed with a dozen decorative pillows!  Not to mention where they all wind up every night when my husband unmakes the bed!  So I'm trying this for now, I still may add two smaller pillows in front of the shams, it seems to still need a little something, but overall, I am pretty happy with the new look.

Hope you all are getting lots of spring sewing done!  Until next time. . . .Happy Quilting!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone!  Hope you all are enjoying a beautiful weekend wherever you are!

Finished. . .Finally!

Well, my Ocean Waves quilt is finally finished and I am really happy with how it turned out and ready to move on! 

I still have lots to do as far as decorating/re-decorating our bedroom goes, but this quilt was probably the most labor intensive part of the project, so now I feel like I can officially BEGIN with the rest of my to-do list now that this is done.  I started this quilt in mid-December and have put off so many other things these last few months in order to stay focused on this quilt.  But now I am really ready to play catch up, including a major spring cleaning of our house.

I did get my Bernina 710 back in time to finish the quilt.  I had probably done about 80% of the quilting with my old 440 and it worked great through the entire process.  But having the 710 and the extra space under the arm made a world of difference!  I could easily quilt the feathered wreaths in the center of the quilt without cramming the rest of the quilt under the machine.  It was wonderful!  And between free-motion quilting and straight line quilting with the walking foot, I had no issues with the Invisafil thread shredding this time around.  Hooray! 

For those of you that are curious, the upper thread is Invisafil (100% polyester, 100 weight, very fine) and the bobbin thread is Mettler Metrosene (100% polyester, fine).   The batting is Hobb's Heirloom 80% cotton/20% polyester.  I use this batting predominately because I really like a flat, crinkled, vintage look.  I did wash the quilt prior to binding it.  I know many quilters have made the transition over to the wool battings but I have yet to do so.  Something about wool in Florida just doesn't sound appealing to me!  But I do think the quilts that are quilted with the wool battings are just spectacular and I will probably eventually try one just to see if I like it.

All the straight lines, the two cable borders, and the straight lines behind the large feathered border were done with a walking foot.  The feathered wreaths in the white squares and feathered border were all free-motioned.  I did use the Schmetz #75/11 quilting needle and I did slow down my quilting speed.  I also lowered my tension even more than what my dealer suggested.  Part of the reason for this is that I used a pale pink thread in the bobbin to match the backing and with the tension set at 3.0, I could see little pink dots of thread coming to the top of the quilt in the holes the needle left behind.  So for free-motion quilting I set the tension down to 2.0 and for walking foot quilting, I set the tension at 2.25.  The stitch quality looks fine on both the front and back and this eliminated any bobbin thread from showing on the top side.  I did not have a single thread breakage!  Back to being a happy quilter!

And I just want to thank those of you that cheered me on for my perseverance!  I appreciate the support!  I'm sure you've all been in a situation at least once where you keep asking yourself, why the heck am I going to so much trouble and aggravation??  But the extra effort is generally worth it in the end and I will admit that I really am happy with the way this turned out.

And one last thank you. . . .I LOVE all of the comments and e-mails you all are sending me and I am just so overwhelmed at the response I've gotten from all of you!  I know I don't blog nearly as often as many popular bloggers do, but I really do appreciate your loyalty and sticking around in spite of that.  You really have no idea how broad of an audience you have when you blog, there are stats you can check to see how many hits a post gets, but as far as readership, I am truly clueless as to how big of an audience I have.  Sometimes I wish I could take a roll call!  But it is just so reassuring to have real live feedback from you and it lets me know that I am not just writing to some void in outer space!  So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading, commenting, and for your support!  Hugs to all of you! 

I may be gone for a bit longer between posts since I have tons to catch up on, but don't worry, I will update you as soon as I have something to show you again.  Happy Quilting. . .

Quilting Frustrations

Happy March to everyone!  I am STILL working on quilting this Ocean Waves quilt but I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm sure you are all sick of hearing about it, too!  I really hope to be finished with it by the end of this week if all goes according to plan.

Speaking of which, the original plan I had for this was to quilt it with my new Bernina 710 and really put the machine to the test.  I bought this machine last fall mainly for one reason and that is for the extra room under the arm to the right of the needle.  It has about a 10+ inch span, versus 7-7 1/2 inches on a regular machine, like my old Bernina 440.  Since I don't see a longarm machine in my future, this was supposed to appease me for the time being.  The quilt I'm working on is a king size and was going to be the perfect way for me to test the new machine and practice free-motion quilting on such a large scale.  Well, my plan didn't work out as I had hoped!




Bernina 710

Bernina 440

I started out with the walking foot and quilted in the ditch and straight lines in the body of the quilt.  After about an hour into quilting, the Invisafil thread that I use for quilting kept shredding.  I've used this thread by Wonderfil for eight or more years and have never, ever had issues with it previously in my 440.  However, I have heard from a couple of you and also read on various blogs where many people cannot sew with Invisafil on their machines and the 710 popped up repeatedly in these discussions.  I couldn't understand why!  I e-mailed my Bernina dealer several times to see if we could come up with a solution.  One was to switch to a different needle, a Schmetz 75 quilting needle.  This helped a little bit at first.  I also lowered the tension to about a 3 and at some point, even down to 2.75.  But once again, I began having issues and I couldn't go longer than 15 or 20 minutes without the thread shredding.  Frustration and several favorite expletives took hold and at that point, I decided to give up.  I put the old faithful 440 in its place and took the 710 to my dealer, where it still is today.

In the mean time, after finishing up all of my straight lines with the walking foot, I began to notice that all the areas where I had used the blue pounce powder with the feather stencils had almost faded away to nothing!  I was not a happy quilter!  I guess due to the time that had lapsed and so much handling of the quilt, it just didn't hold up like I had thought it would.  So I had to go back and spend two days remarking all the feathered wreaths and border with a blue water soluble pen.

In the mean time, my Bernina dealer called me and said my 710 is fixed and ready to pick up.  He replaced the thread guide on the needle clamp because the old thread guide wouldn't hold the thread in place.  He also did a lot of sewing with Invisafil, getting the same results I was.  He spoke with the Bernina people and they told him a lot of this issue is due to the rotary hook feature in the bobbin.  I don't know the technical reason why the thread shreds because of this, something with the way the needle goes down into the bobbin, I think.  But he said to use the #75 quilting needle, a lower tension, around a 3, and to sew at half speed.  He said once he did that, he didn't have the shredding issues.  So we will see, I am anxious to see if that makes a difference once I quilt on it again.

So I am still chugging along on the 440, fighting with perfecting my free-motion skills in a tight little space on a huge quilt.  Challenging doesn't begin to cover it!  All I can think about is how those amazing women whose work I admire, like Diane Gaudynski and Sue Nickels, can do such incredible show-stopping quilting on a home machine and stick with it for such a long period of time on one single quilt.  You don't realize the amount of mental concentration and physical ability it requires until you are actually doing it yourself.  It ain't easy!  But I will be sooooooo happy when this is done and I cannot wait to show you the results after the quilt is washed. 

Hopefully I will have more pictures of my quilt to show next time around.  Happy Quilting!