15 minutes

What can I get done in 15 minutes of ironing and cutting ?

Pinwheel blocks and 2.5" ironed open. 

 Cutting those strips into 4" chunks.

 15 minutes of sewing produced 10  squares ready to be ironed and cut into triangles. Also produced my 4" chunks of strips put together into 4 pieces.

  15 more minutes of ironing and cutting













 I hate it when I make a mistake, take a look at the purple and brown pieces.. one is a pinwheel and the other are flying geese of sorts. :P time to get the ripper out and put the pinwheel back to together correctly.

Finished up ironing these pieces and I do not know what I am going to do with the yet.. border on  a quilt perhaps, or a coin quilt. hmmmm Choices galore.











Now to see what else I can do in 15 minutes.. Have the egg timer all set up..

Happy stitching.

Sewing Machines revisited.

I'm now down to just 4 machines. And I won't even ask how many you have .. :D
Early 1900's Gritzner Treadle Sewing machine. Made in Germany. This sweet machine will go to my middle daughter, Catherine. Eventually. Can anyone tell me anything about this machine, I'm unable to find out hardly anything on it, and ISMAC didn't have any information. Unless I was looking in the wrong area. :P

Next up is my Bel Air 600 knee peddle. It operates by pressing a lever with your knee.
This darling machine will go to my youngest daughter Tracy.

We still have the Wilson Rotary.

And the 1980's Janome Harmony, this is my go to machine for quilting. It sure does work well.

hmmm I need to take a better picture of it, right now it is busy meandering around "Easy Street"

The Bel Air is my piecing machine now, so will be getting used a lot from here on out when the Janome is busy.

Hope you all found some time today to put a few stitches into something. :D
Tammy Jean

Its a Wednesday and Jacobs Ladder block.

Dang where is the week going? Bonnie is giving away 2 issues of the Quiltmaker magazine, both have her absolutely wonderful pattens, some tips and techniques.

In order to enter the giveaway, you HAVE to go to her page and leave a comment HERE!! so what are you waiting for head on over and enter the giveaway. Have a safe, fun and wonderful trip Bonnie.


Now what else can I share with you.. ohhhhh lets see how about a Jacobs Ladder . :D
Its for my Mom's quilt top. Its a 2 yr old WIP ( work in Progress).. Many mistakes have been made. Lots of learning and relearning of how to do things.

Draw line from corner to corner

 Lets start with the basics. 5" charm packs can be used, with this one though I have cut my own 5" squares. Draw a line from corner to corner.

Sew 1/4" on either side of line.

Line up the foot so you will be sewing 1/4" on one side of the line that you have drawn. Once you get the other corner, you can flip it around and go back down the other side of the line.

Line up your ruler on the line.

 Line up your ruler on the line and cut these apart.




But don't do like I did and let the ruler slip, otherwise you run the risk of splitting your seam.

Don't let the ruler slip.

Love it when you take pictures during the process and don't find out about the mistakes until after you are done and you are processing the pictures.. lol

It is cut a bit close, but I can still use it. If you get to close, you might be able to run a scant 1/4" or just to the outside of the line, going up til you meet the old seam line.

2 Half square triangles ready to be used.

And this is what you wind up having, 2- 1/2 square triangles ready to be used.







The Jacob Ladders pattern also uses 4 patches.

4 patches and 1/2 square triangles.

Here are a bunch of 4 patches and a few 1/2 square triangles.. Once you have enough to put together..
You will need to lay them out and then sew them together, I will see about getting some pictures of doing that. I started using the webbing technique that I learned over at Quiltville on Bonnie's blog, in the techniques and tips tab.. Found HERE!!!!

Jacob's Ladder block.

Once you have it all together, it should look similar to this block.

I learned how to cut and make this block through Youtube, Jenny Doan over at the Missouri Start Company put together a really neat video showing how to do it. The video is located HERE!!!!!

This is a sample block had to test out the pattern. :D




Enjoy and happy quilting.

Tammy Jean

Hand sewing area, new toy.

Hand sewing supplies

This little container has all my hand sewing supplies in it, including various colors of thread, although I use mostly off white or a light grey cotton thread, some new needles that I want to try out, some painters tape, which I found out when looking they don't have the 1" wide, its all over an inch or just under an inch. But I did find some stick up note tape that said it is 1" wide. Need them to attempt to get my lines a bit straighter, hoping it works lol.

Mechanical pencils, so that I can begin drawing some designs on the lap quilts.

Where I do all my hand sewing and crocheting at.

Love my rocker that a good friend gave to me about 12 yrs ago. It has been repaired 2 times. But it is very comfy. My hexie kits are set up there on the table.



The Green and black crochet piece on the back of my chair will be going to my daughter Dawn once it is long enough and attached to the other part of it. It is made out of Hunter Green and Black by RedHeart yarn.

New toy, rotating cutting mat.

This ought to make it a lot easier to square up blocks. In theory that is what happens in my mind, we shall see if I can apply it. lol






Keep on stitching..

Tammy Jean

On a Monday evening.

I took this pics earlier today, and shared them on my Damsels Creations FB page.

Cousins lap quilt finished... yeaaaa

 my Cousins lap quilt I finished up yesterday

rut roh, what is this I see up in the top right hand corner..

I laid it out on the floor and I found a goose egg.. errr.. a mistake.. errr mechanical failure to realize the block was not the same size as the others. :P Bad Tammy. 

uggggg.. where is my seam ripper. 

So I got my trusty old seam ripper out and fixed it. Carefully taking it apart, thankfully it was in an area that is easily gotten to. And not like in the middle of the quilt.


And I did resew it all back together, seams as if one or two of my seams were not correctly done. In my haste to have something else finished, I rushed through without checking to make sure it would all fit together correctly.

I can honestly say that now it can and does all fit together correctly.

Happy sewing.

Tammy Jean

Why do people think I sit around and do nothing all day?

Seriously, some people think I do nothing at all during the day. So here is a post showing what all I have been up to the last several weeks. Besides the general housekeeping, and cooking dinner and a little bit of gardening.

Besides the fact that my oldest daughter Dawn came down to Texas with her family for a week.. Enjoyed the time I had with them. I sent home with her my Singer 99k, with case, manual, thread, bobbins, it takes the case 66 bobbins from Singer.

I used it a lot for piecing so I know it runs great. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.




I didn't get pictures, ( mainly because I had lost errrr misplaced my SD card for my camera) but I had made my grandson a travel pillow, and I had a smaller one that I had gotten from somewhere with the same Tiger strips on it, that I gave him. Dawn said he used them and loved them.


Now lets see where to start, I got 2 crochet projects done, need to dig them out of the back room and take pictures of them.

I got this Circle of Comfort quilt finished and gave it to a Lady who has been diagnosed with Cancer. We have prayed that it is in Remission, it is inoperable cancer. They sure are camera shy. lol.

I got the binding all on it, washed it, snuggled up to it, and then remembered I needed to add the label to it. :P






So before my neighbor and I left to deliver the quilt, I sat down at her place and finished putting the label on it.

Wish I had remembered to get the label on before I washed it. But oh well as long as it was put on there. :D

Hand appliqued on.











Then I was asked, well what if they want to send a Thank You card, where should they send it?
Soooo I ran back to my house and looked up the envelope that all the supplies came in and wrote it down on the Get Well card I had wrote up for the young lady.

Also these are a few things I have worked on.

1" Hexigons

Jacob Ladder parts for my Mom's quilt top

Another Circle of Comfort quilt, all layered and ready to be quilted

Cousin Evonda's lap quilt top is done, but need to fix a corner square.

Still need to trim down these blocks to 7"

These are a few already trimmed down.

Messed up the borders, had to take them off, so just meandering around "Easy Street"

 I have also been making some of the other 47 pinwheel blocks that I need.. that will be for another blog posting. I have had to do a lot of ripping out of stitches, so my seam ripper and I have gotten very close again!!!!!! 2 circle of comfort quilt tops put together, ripped them all apart, decided they needed sashings, took the borders off from Easy Street quilt as they were not put on correctly ( still haven't figured out how that one had happen) Gremlins I tell ya. :D
Oh and all those pinwheels up there ^^^^ yea those, they all had sashings, took those apart also.. A story for another blog posting.

Happy Stitching out there.
Tammy Jean

What I have been working on this week.

 2 things I have been working on this week. Just put Easy Street under the needle of my Janome Harmony Domestic machine.

Easy Street was the Mystery Quilt 2 years ago that Bonnie Hunter put on over at the Quiltville blog, and it is coming out soon in her new book, you can pre order her book More Adventures with Leaders and Enders
go read her blog posting about the book and take a look at some of the fabulous quilts that can be made.




This 2nd piece is one I started about 2 years ago. The quilt has been stewing in a tub with more fabric that I had bought in the last 2 years, I also had to play froggy with the quilt because I ran out of the white on black rose pattern and of course I couldn't find it. So bought another black on white, so now to mix the blocks up a bit more.

I took the table runner off the needle, and put it in the hoop so I can hand quilt the border. I think I will attempt to do some hearts along the border. I believe that my hand quilting is a whole lot better than my machine quilting lol. All it takes is patience and loads of practice.
I will take a picture of the machine quilting I did on the table runner and post it when I am finished. Its not pretty but it will work.

What are you working on this weekend?

Friday Giveaways

As promised here is a Friday giveaway going on over at SewMamaSews
Lots of gift certificates and some fabric... ohh I love those shimmering fabrics she has on her page. They can be found here, where I found the picture.
You have to click through to enter the giveaways. Some fantastic items can be gotten at each of the stores.




hmm need to see if I can locate a couple more, that I know have giveaways on Fridays. I also need to locate some good pictures for my blog postings.lol

I knew it, if I keep refreshing facebook, I would find another fabric giveaway.
And here it is, At Maureen Cracknell Handmade.  Be sure and enter on her blog.
From Intrepid Threads. Love the fabrics in this shop as well. Now if only I had a money tree growing in my back yard, it would be soooo awesome to spread the wealth amongst all the fabric shops I come across.

And here I found out through Quiltville/Bonnie Hunter that The Quilt Show is sponsering a giveaway also.  Quiltvilles Facebook page has several things on it.

The Quilt show is letting us view 169 episodes for free til the 16th, at midnight PST. They are also letting us enter a drawing for a Bernina 550 QE along with other prizes.. Take a gander and see the great episodes they are offering and enter their drawings.

And other giveaway, but this time it is a free pattern by McCalls Quilting. 
A beautiful Summer Quilt, that will chase away those winter doldrums.

How about a book by Cassandra Ellis titled Clothe Enter at the link posted over at SewNews.com

Kevin the Quilter

Kevin is doing a block drive, you can find all the information to it here.
Just click the link and lets see how many blocks this wonderful quilter can gather.

These quilts will be QoV  ( Quilts of Valor) quilts.

The block drive started on March 2nd ( and I am just now hearing about it) and ends June 1st, 2014.
Each quilt requires 30 blocks according to Kevin, Oh and he is offering a prize as well.
A gift card to Missouri Star Quilt Company. I love their products. :D and their daily deals are fantastic.
And now he has even more prizes that have been offered to him for this unique and special drive he is holding. 

So Hurry on over to visit Kevin and see what he is up to.
He has all the requirements listed, you will need to read through to find them, or scroll down to the bottom of the blog posting.

Best of luck Kevin, May you have more blocks than you need to accomplish your goal!!!!!!

Give Aways

Lots of give aways going on around on the quilty blogs.
Here is one that I'm just loving. Mrs. Bonnie Hunter is giving away 2 copies of her new book.
And you can pre order her book also, so you can get a signed copy of it.


Give away More adventures with leaders and enders. A lot of the patterns in this book I have worked on in the past year or two.

Her mystery quilt from 2 yrs ago is in there, Easy Street, which you all know I have worked on and actually have the top done. Just needs quilting to be done on it.

There are blogs giving away fabric on Fridays also. Will have to look around and possibly post those when I find them.

Until next time..

Happy Quilting,
Tammy 

Its a Saterday, time to start a new week

Well nothing much has happened over the past week. Been thinking a lot and sometimes it comes down to, what I need to do, what I have to do and what I have done.

Not much done, Have a lot I need to do and have a lot I have to get done.

I did get 2 blocks done for my Mom's quilt, however, I put the blocks together all wrong. :P lol
It is what happens when you do not have the original block set up by the machine so you have a reference.

Dang it, I need to find my camera again.

Discouragement this week has been profound for me. Making stupid mistakes, not sorting fabric correctly and putting into the correct bins, attempting to cut some fabric and find out 1) its not the correct one, and 2) cut it out all wrong. Bad Tammy, lol.

Oh well time to slow down, take it easy and put everything back into perspective. Hopefully within the next few days I will have improvements to post about. :D

Like getting fabric sorted and put into the correct bins, like cutting out and putting blocks together CORRECTLY..

What have you all been doing this past week? Sewing, crocheting, knitting, hiking, biking, staying warm for my northern friends, walking, jogging, etc??


Until next time
Tammy

Goals for 2014

I'm a little late in doing this, but have decided I need to get my rear in gear and attempt to get things done.

1) Finish up Easy Street, all it needs is the backing, batting and to be quilted.

2) Finish up the Jacob Ladder's quilt that I am doing for my mom. Have 5 blocks done, need to finish up putting the blocks together, backing, batting and get it quilted.

3) Finish crocheting my daughters blanket for her king size bed. She has been waiting on this for over 10 yrs, about time to get'er done. Have it just about 3/4 of the way done. I'm really sorry it has taken so long Dawn.

4) I have about 3-5 circle of comfort quilts to finish. I also need to get active at the Missouri Star forum again. 1 of the quilts just needs a binding put on, 1 needs a backing, the others I need to finish putting together. These were to go to West, Texas to comfort those most impacted by the fertilizer plant blast. 

5) Begin blogging more, at least once a week with updates and things that are going on.

6) Work on my cousin's quits, Evonda's and Charlie's. Charlie's needs the binding put on it. I have blocks to finish putting together for Evonda's.

 This is a part of Evonda's quilt.

 Charlie's lap quilt. All Roads Lead to Home.






7) work on my Grandson's quilt.

8) Begin working on putting together a triple Irish Chain quilt ( something similar to this quilt) for my daughter Dawn. Getting fabric together

9) Begin working on my daughters Cathy and Tracy's quilts. Still getting fabric put together to do these. Farmer's Granddaughters 

It is the variations of The Farmer's Daughter quilt blocks.

10) Finish crocheting Tracy's shawl. I started this a month before she was to be married, 2 yrs ago, it still isn't finished. So sorry Tracy.

11) I have 3-5 items that are really close to be finished, crocheting edgings around the outside perimeters, or putting bindings on. Need to take time to get them finished.


And that is just the start of it all. First up getting everything reorganized, which I will be working on today. Almost finished with this part, just cleaning off my work surfaces.


And who knows, I may be able to get Celtic Solstice started also.

So Until next time. :D