Sunday, September 27, 2015

On a mission.....

Now that I have decided to make my "star" quilt just a lap quilt  and not a queen-sized quilt and have figured out how many more blocks I need, I think I am on a mission to get this one finally done.  

These stars have been done for a very long time and put away in a box.  


I pulled them out to show them to a friend who suggested I NOT put them away again.  

In that box were some fabrics that were pulled to make some more stars. 


There were nine sets of fabrics, so I cut them out; and here are those nine. 


I've done some figuring and if I am correct, I will need 12 more blocks. 

So, last night I matched up backings with star fabrics. 


For fear that these would get messed up, I decided to cut these out this afternoon. 


Well, once they are cut out, the rest is pretty easy, so I started to sew some of them together. 

Here's the layout (these are 5" finished stars)

T

From the star fabric you cut 1 - 3" square and then 8 - 1 3/4" squares. 
From the background you cut 4 - 1 3/4" square and 4 - 1 3/4 x 3" rectangles.  

You stitch the (in this case navy) small squares on the diagonal onto the rectangle background to make your star points. 

Here is the back of that star block when it is finished.  I do not cut away the background but do maintain two layers of fabrics for the star points.  



So, as of this post, I have five of the 12 blocks made.


Seven to go!!!  

I think I see a UFO finish in the near future.  

Friday, September 25, 2015

Moving right along.....

Finished the Babes in Farmland II quilt. 



A charity quilt made by a member of my guild is on the long arm now.

For something else to do besides long arming, I have cut our a few more of my stars to add to the pile.  I promised not to put my stack of stars away to not see the light of day for another year or two, so I plan on making a few more stars to make the quilt just a little bigger.  I cut out the fabrics that I had sitting in the box just for this purpose.  The next ones I will be digging in the stash.  


You can see all the other stars that I have completed here.

These stars measure out to be 5" finished.  

The more I look at these, the more I want to see this in a quilt.  We'll see how far I get.  

Saturday, September 19, 2015

8 minus 1 = 7

Got to work on my new work station today  while working on the long arm.  Love it!!!

The one thing that bothers me though is that I stacked the 8 quilt tops back on top of it that need to be quilted, so I put the first of those on the long arm today. 


I had left over focus fabric from a previous commissioned quilt, so I bought some sashing and border fabrics and put this together the other day. This is the first off the pile.  Quilted it in daisies. 


Top is done. 


Love how the daisies show up on the minky backing. 


The binding will be next before I get another top done on the long arm.  

I did load a quilt guild charity quilt on the  Millie and will get that one done next.  That one needs to be done before the next guild meeting anyways.  I may even put the binding on that one for them, too.  
Happy quilting everyone!



Friday, September 18, 2015

IKEA IDEA (IKEA hacking)

I am in need of getting my long arm area organized, so I have been pinning on Pinterest several IKEA hacking ideas for just that purpose.  I saw some that I was really interested in but IKEA doesn't carry that line anymore  So this is what I came up with. 

I bought two Kallax units that were most likely supposed to be bookshelves with the plan on laying them on end, side by side.  



Then because I really like to be organized, I felt that I needed some drawers.  I purchased two of their double drawer units that fit right in. 


Here they are installed. 


Next step was to stabilize  the whole, double unit.   

Here we used the brackets that were supplied to attach the bookcases to the wall.  This at least held the two units together so that we could further work on it as one unit.  


They had a decorative piece to cover the metal bracket hiding  it somewhat.  


Next we flipped the unit over (take out the drawers for this). Then a piece of plywood was cut out just a little smaller than the base and screwed in wherever there was a shelf "wall". 


Rotating wheels from Mennards were added.  The four outside ones are locking.  The two middle ones are not


Wheels are done. 


Flip it over. 



I then purchased butcher block for my  table top from Mennards. 

We used Minwax to finish the wood.  


Three coats of Minwax and three sandings in between each coat  to get to this. 


Then the top was screwed down to the unit.  


Then for some more storage options, I bought an IKEA towel bar.


I didn't want to attach it to the sides of the cabinet, so because the table top is longer than the cabinet I had it attached underneath to the butcher block.  To do that and not have it fall off, we drilled extra holes into the brackets so that they could be screwed in.  Below you will see the extra two holes that were drilled in.  


The towel bar was attached underneath the  top and now the rulers, templates and my Norwex micro duster are hung with plenty more hooks for added things.  


Unfortunately, I was so excited to move in, I forgot to take pictures of it from all angles before filling it, but I think you get the idea.  

Back.....


Front.....


I am still going to come up with some other organizational ideas for my pantos and my threads, but for now, this is much more organized than what I had.

This is what I was dealing with before. 

A 6 ft. folding table that was just a collector of things.


Three TV trays.....ugh!!



Just too much clutter for me to work effectively.

Heck, I even was using the grandkids little table.....and, yes, I even sat at their chairs!!!


It was definitely time to get organized.  Although,  those piles of quilts are back  on top of my new table....7 to be exact, so I loaded the 8th one on the long arm.  Maybe I will feel like getting
them done now that I am so organized.  Of course, that sounds like a lot, but they range from NICU quilts to some larger quilts. 

Ok...maybe now I will just go and stare at all that beauty before I really get it messed up.  

Thanks for looking in.







Michigan quilters, take note

  Come see us at our first Quilter's to Quilter's sale.   Don't know what that is?  Well, it will be 28 quilters/vendors selling...