Quilting Update

I still have 3 or 4 projects in progress, depending on what you count as a project. I have the trip around the world top that needs quilted. I have the homeward bound to union square blocks that I need to do something with. I scrapped the blocks from the homeward bound quilt that had all the triangles, so now I have to find something to do with the rest of the blocks. I have the flannel quilt for the winter for Alex still in progress, and I still have the quilt for an hour project in progress.

When my mom came down last Friday I went to WalMart with her and picked up some more black thread because I was low, low enough that I could see the spool! I sewed more on the project after I got the new thread (still using old thread though) and I have 16 of the 20 blocks done. Only problem now is that Alex grabbed the cord to our iron and pulled it off the ironing board and the top seperated from the bottom and Eric doesn't want me using it, so we're going to buy a new one. But the parts to the last 4 blocks haven't been ironed so I'm 4 blocks short of a top right now! And then I still have to keep sewing on them.

So the no iron issue is why I haven't been doing any updates.

Quilt For An Hour Project

I have 10 squares completely sewn. I have 8 more that I have in pieces and still need to sew, but I'm running low on black thread, the white on the spool is showing. And then I have 2 squares that I need to put together but I don't have parts to any 2 complete squares! I don't know why either! I could swear that I had 20 sets of squares and all that stuff but now I don't, I only have 18 so I have to make more HST's to complete my squares.

ETA: I found the missing pieces, turns out they were behind me where I hadn't looked. *sigh* But I do have all 20 squares now. Only 10 of them are sewn together, and once I get more black thread I can keep sewing.

Khaki Quilt?

Eric has two pairs of khaki pants that have started to get worn so he isn't wearing them anymore. I had an interesting idea to make a quilt out of the pants. I also asked him if he had any of his old work shirts that he can't wear anymore. Because I think it would be interesting to make a quilt from his old khaki pants and his old work shirts.

I have no clue whether a khaki quilt would be tough to quilt or not. Or whether I should just sew together squares of khaki and then just sew a back to it and not put any batting in the middle or just do like a vertical line, horizontal line, maybe the diagonal lines and leave it at that.

Or maybe I can just make a small khaki quilt.

Alex and Mommy Pics, Quilt Pics

It's hard to take pictures of Alex and I because he likes to grab at the camera and get really close to me. And excuse Alex drooling, he just got tooth #6 in today.













5 of my quilt an hour a day blocks

My Living Room

is a mess!

I had my quilting stuff on the floor and when Eric and Alex got up, Eric just left it on the floor so Alex has been playing with my fabric pieces. LOL

Sewing Machine Not Working Right :(

I'd been working on Alex's flannel quilt for a bit, then my bobbin ran out of thread.

So I loaded it with white just to play around with something, it started sewing all funky.

When I got on the machine tonight, I pulled out the bobbin and replaced it with a black bobbin (top thread is black)

I started trying to work on my one hour a day quilt project that I hadn't worked on in a while and the thread was still skippy feeling. So I tried switching out the needle for a new one. Still skippy feeling.

It seems like I got it sewing just fine on one piece of fabric, but when I try to go through 2 pieces it gets pissed at me.

When I look at the threads it looks like one of the tensions is off on the threads but I haven't touched the tension at all. So I don't know what else could be wrong. :(

It also just felt different when I was trying to sew with it.

I thought maybe I had put the tape on the feed dogs and that messed it up so I peeled the tape off and still didn't fix it.

ETA: My machine is cheap so if I needed to replace it I could...but it costs like $80 to replace and I don't have $80 available to just go buy a new machine. I'd have to layaway it or something until the next paycheck. I just hope its something like the tension!

Looking for pattern

Okay I was going through my blogs the other night and I saw a post that was talking about copyrights and had a picture of a quilt. I think it was called like baro box or b something or other. It looked like a square, that had a bigger square around it, then a bigger square around it. And the squares were set a certain way so it looked like they were offset but it was because two colors were used in the quilt.

I don't really know any other way to describe it. I'd know it if I saw it!!!

ETA: BENTO BOX!!!! I did a search for box, copyright, quilting and the first post that came up was the one I'd been looking at!

Alex Entry

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Alex said he wanted to write a message to everybody who reads my blog. He says hi.

Haven't Been Around

I haven't been in much of a quilty mood lately. I tried to do some of the union square blocks for my quilt but I'm just not liking them. I do like the homeward bound ones so I want to do something with those but I don't know what yet. I mean I want to stick them into a quilt but I'm not sure if I should just put borders around each square and then sew those squares together or what.

I haven't worked on Alex's quilt in a bit. Having the flannel squares not actually matching up with the color plan on my paper is making it hard work to make sure I have each triangle where I need it. So I'm just matching triangles up and sewing them together.

I would be sewing right now but I'm waiting on the company that is delivering my nebulizer for my asthma.

I'm not sure if I wrote about it here, I think I did, but one weekend I had to go to the ER because my inhaler wasn't helping my asthma attack. Got put on prednisone there.

And then last Wednesday I had to go to my Dr because I was having a bad attack and my inhaler wasn't helping again. I just got Alex up, got him dressed and walked us both to my Dr's office. It's only a 5 minute walk so it wasn't a big deal to just gather him up and go. I got to my Dr's office and told them I needed a walk in because I was having a bad asthma attack. I got called back to the little room and the Dr came in, listened to my lungs, had the nurses give me a nebulizer treatment and then prescribed me an inhaled steroid (asmanex) some antibiotics (I'm not really sure what for), and a nebulizer to use when my asthma attacks got bad enough that I needed it.

I would have called Eric to come home and get me but I know the ER copay is like $100 (my visit on that one weekend will cost us $400) and it would have been a 30 minute drive for Eric to get home and then another 10 mins to get to the ER. So I just walked the 5 mins to my Dr's office and got it taken care of like tons quicker than the ER would have done.

It does seem like my asthma is getting somewhat better with that inhaled steroid but I'm still needing my inhaler too much.

Like I bought one on insurance on Aug 18th, bought one again Aug 28th (off insurance) and then bought another one like Sept 5th (off insurance again) On insurance they cost me like $6 max, off insurance they are $18 each. And you know an asthmatics asthma is bad if they're using a 200 dose inhaler (use 2 puffs each attack, so technically 100 doses) in 10 days! Or like my second one was 8 days! That is BAD. When I was first diagnosed I could have an inhaler for months without having to refill it.

For my asthma right now I'm taking claritin (I have allergy induced asthma), asmanex (inhaled steroid), albuterol inhaler and my nebulizer, both as needed.

Boy that seems like a lot of meds for my asthma. But I'm sick of not being able to breathe.

My "Twins"

Told ya I have 2 LittleFoots! Left one is Dave and the right one is Darryl. As you can tell Dave has definitely been loved on a lot. :) Darryl is the one we're keeping in good condition.

How can I fix him?

I have this dinosaur named Dave, you guys might better know him as Little Foot from The Land Before Time movies. I've had him since I was 4, so 17 years now. As you can tell he has been loved alot. I also have a dinosaur named Darryl (also Little Foot from The Land Before Time movies) but he is in better condition, he hasn't been loved and chewed on by me. :) I'd like if I could fix Dave so that Alex can play with him if he wants to. I'd let him have Darryl but Little Foot was released by Gund in 1988 to JcPenney from what I know and they aren't made anymore, so it'd be hard to get another one if he played with Darryl too rough.

This is Dave



And this is what he's supposed to look like in new condition




Now as you can tell Dave has been very well loved by me but I'd like to try and fix him so his stuffing stays INSIDE his neck and doesn't come out when he gets played with.

Does anybody know what I could do? I think it would work if I could find a brown color that matches him closely and make him a little elastic "neck" that covers his neck and has elastic at the top and bottom of the neck part. But the wear on him goes below his neck to his chest some.

And I don't know how many times my mom and I have tried to stitch him back together to keep his stuffing inside him :)

Found Fabric!

I figured out the fabric I was looking for. It's by Fabric Traditions and is a flannel! I thought it was a calico or quilting cotton! So I was looking on the wrong spot on Joann's website but I still haven't found it on there. :(

I'm looking for it right now. I told Eric I want some of it! And it's $5.99 a yard

Where do you buy your fabric?

I wonder where everybody buys their fabric. Wal-Mart, Joann's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, LQS?

Alex's quilt that he sleeps with was made from Wal-Mart fabric. The trip to the country quilt was made from fabric bought at Joann's. The flannel quilt I'm working on for Alex is all Wal-Mart fabric.

I was just looking at my LQS and there are definitely some fabrics I love on the site but at $7-8 a yard it could get pricey quick and I just don't have that type of money. I really love these butterfly prints that have been marked down to $4 which is a steal for a LQS when they used to be 8.75 a yard!



See aren't they pretty? But I'm pretty partial to butterflies as they're my favorite :)

9-03-2006

Tomorrow Alex will be 14 months. *sniff* I asked Eric if he ever wants to just sit Alex back down on the floor and tell him no walking allowed that he is growing up too fast. LOL.

I took the quilts I've made to Wal-Mart to show them to a friend there. She worked there back when my mom still worked at that store and she knows who my mom is. I actually started selling my quilt squares online when I was pregnant with Alex so she got to watch me pop out with him too. :)

The one fabric woman was amazed that I cut such small squares and made Alex's quilt. They're just 2 inch squares.

I think Susan really liked the trip to the country quilt. It has such bright, vibrant colors and I just love it myself. :)

I told her I made a Trip Around the World quilt and once I get that quilted I'll bring it to her and show it off too. :)

Are there any good clear threads to quilt with? I know I bought some stuff one time and it feels like fishing line but it isn't. It's just really slick ya know?

Another Quilting Test Square

I used a stencil I have to make this one, you can tell I'm a little new at this but I think if it were white or clear thread it wouldn't make such a big deal if I wobble a little bit.

New Alex Development

I'm a very proud mommy right now. This is what Alex started doing at Grandma's house yesterday!

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v161/ammorgan/?action=view&current=Picture246.flv

Fun With My Sewing Machine

I was watching QNN and decided to try my hand at quilting. So I grabbed 2 4" squares that I had and put batting between them. The first one I was trying to do I think its called trapunto. Where you stipple quilt around an area and therefore that area stands up and looks stuffed compared to the rest of the quilt. I said screw it after playing with it and decided to see if I could write Alex's name in cursive with needle and thread. Not bad but could use some work. I don't know how to do a cursive X on the machine without having to cross over thread.

And the second one I drew lines on one of my squares. I originally planned to do 1/4 inch lines, then I tried to sew every other line so the lines would be 1/2 inch apart instead. The squares aren't quite perfect but I tried :) And I used black thread on white fabric so it showed up well, plus I didn't want to have to unload my thread and reload it all again LOL

Trip Around the World Pictures

It's about 38x43 inches. I used 3" strips and my seams were about 3/8ths of an inch instead of the normal 1/4th of an inch. I am quite proud of it and I love how quick it all came together! Thankfully when I was sewing it together I wasn't using the smallest stitch setting otherwise it would have taken forever to rip the seams apart and fix it!

I originally wanted to make a Trip Around the World quilt for our queen sized bed and I found a pattern I loved, got it almost done and gave up on it because I messed it up and didn't want to have to resew some squares back together and unpick other squares.

I'll have to figure out exactly how much fabric I would need to make a queen sized version, unless somebody has already figured this out. :)