Sorry for the delay, more posts (and humor) soon!

Sorry for the delay...

I promise to return to regular posting in the near future. I also have some goals of creating some patterns for sale and some online tutorials to go along with it all. In the mean time relax and enjoy the humor of life.

As we all know, life happens, and we go along for the ride. My wife strongly suggested that I not continue using her sewing room. That was OK because the last child was moving out, so I could have her bedroom and a Janome sewing machine that was my Mom's. About the time the room was settled the first child moved back home with his wife and son. So the sewing room was put into storage mode as other rooms were consolidated. It was fun having them here. Now they have completed the purchase of their home I have a sewing room again.

My wife also helped me purchase a fancy new sewing machine with many bells and whistles. She offered one of her old machines in trade to help get the price down then gave me the coupon book for monthly payments. It is really more like a computer with a sewing machine attached. I had an hour long class at the sewing store and have sewn a few seams since it is home.

Thanks for reading. Mark this blog to come back to and tell your friends. No pictures today but more soon.

Gifts given 2015

I made a few gifts that were given in 2015. I made a firetruck quilt for my grandson. I made the quilt top and my wife quilted it. I made two table runners that also went out as gifts. One went to my secret santa gift at work and one went to a family pass around gift. To an end of using more scraps than I create, which I don't think is possible,  I make the smaller inset blocks from the scraps that came off the ends of the stars. Making half square triangle as I go and them finding a way to use them in the end product.

The fire truck was going to be smaller with three fire trucks.  But, I started with the ladder and it grew from there. So it ended up as one large truck for a twin size bed. After this photo I added the light bar above the cab and my wife added extra quilt lines to embellish it. Fun to make personal projects.

It wasn't my fault, really!

It was my wife who said I should start a blog and she thought it would be a video blog. I may grow into that someday. But my first attempt caused a few problems. I posted it below, not sure if it will play.

My wife saw this video and then didn't say anything for a few minutes. Then she asked where I got the scraps. Then she admitted it may be her fault that I used the pieces that she had cut for an applique project. Something about bias strips... Well earlier that week she used one of those strips to show me how to start up stitches after putting in a bobbin. So I thought they were all extra stuff just in the way around the sewing machine. I was doing a good thing by using them up. If you have read my first blog about the time I cleaned up the sewing room, you may remember that she said all the  projects were in clear plastic bags. So if it wasn't in a project bag it was available and even in the way. That is what I thought, these were stems that went with flowers to be appliqued. It wasn't my fault, she even said so.

From those strips I made a few different projects, all of which have a special meaning at Christmas time. She did buy me my own fabric for Christmas, I think she wants to keep me away from her projects. But she bought me the good stuff, Stonehenge is one of my favorite brands. I also got my own scissors, an Ott light and my own pins. Below the pieces that grew out of my mistake.

 

My wife loves me, and knows how crazy I really am...

A gift from my wife

 My wife left me a present. She gave me 200 half square triangle blocks! When she quilts she uses a pattern to start with and then makes changes. I look at life, I see patterns and translate it to fabric.

See the single triangles at the bottom.

My wife is currently working on a quilt which will have 25 blocks. Each block has two points of a star in each of the four corners. So she knew that she would be throwing away 200 triangles that I would probably pull out of the trash and try to make something out of. Yes, that is the crazy part.

Strips with the triangles at each end

The block she is making, on left, is a log cabin style with four strips getting a point on each end. She went to the trouble of double seaming the triangle before she cut them off so that I get a block from each end.  

Block ideas

I am not sure how I will put these together but will update later with finished projects. You can see below a few block ideas that I have had already. I think she is trying to keep me busy and away from the scraps that aren't really scraps. So, I used something I should not have. That will be addressed in another post, but it was not really my fault...




This posting was started in October and I am just finishing is now. Life happens, and with Christmas even more happens. I didn't want to publish this post until the quilt above was finished. Though it is not quilted - here is the finished top form the scraps that my wife gave me.

 

Welcome...

Welcome to my blog and welcome to my home away from the sewing machine. This blog will also show you the evolution of my welcome banner. As with most everything I do I started with my wife's scraps (there is a whole 'nother blog about using the wrong scraps...). I found the ends of some strip piecing in the scrap drawer. There were a few so I started sewing them together into 4 patches. That was to simple and boring so I sewed the right sides together on all four sides and cut an X. I put the those together with some gold fabric and got the block on the top left. By the time I got done I had a bunch that you will see in the next few blogs as well.

I put the blocks together as you see on the right above with a few extra white blocks to leave space for text. I love lettering and fonts which you will also see in the next few blogs. I guess I do have a bit to write about. I used my silhouette cameo to cut a stencil for the lettering and painted the letters with fabric ink. I didn't want so much white space around the letters so instead of stitching on top of the letters like last time I let the letters stay on their own and stitched around them. This made the letters stand out a little and softened the white space.

So now it is almost done. (photo bottom right) I still have to add the binding and the hanging sleeve. But there is not enough time to sew before work today.  Since my wife hasn't taught me to hand sew yet, I haven't put hanging sleeves on any of my projects. I have at least three more pieces to finish from this set of blocks. Last night I started something totally new, I saw a Greek key design and wanted to translate it to fabric.

I have also discovered a new problem... I set out to use up my wife's scraps and the hand-me down scraps from my mom. But now I am generating scraps of my own. I also started quilting one inch squares so we can't throw away anything unless it is smaller the one inch square.

This is the fifth post to this blog to other posts are listed on the right.

I dropped the feed dogs...

Today (Monday) was the start of a perfect day. I have the day off and my wife has to work. That means I get to use the sewing room.

I have a wall hanging that I started earlier in September. I knew it needed to be embellished and I thought I would use text to fill in the lighter blocks.

The whole piece has relied on serendipity. I started with a few charm pack blocks. I placed two on top of each other, right sides face up on both, and made a cut across on an angle. I traded one side top for bottom and sewed them together. I mixed the blocks with two others and made the next cut across. I kept changing this until I had something like stained glass. I added two sided pieces to the blocks and joined them in a cross shape and added the background. The background is a variety of strips with the idea that a strip continues behind the cross.

I laid out text vertically and cut stencils with a Silhouette cutting machine. I used fabric markers to color in the stencils on my wall hanging. THEN, I dropped the feed dogs and did free motion quilting in the letters. I was only going to color in the letters this morning, but once I got started I couldn't stop and the next thing I knew it was noon. Some time later I had the binding finished and all before two o'clock.

I think the real reason my wife doesn't want me in the sewing room is because I am not getting any house work done...

This is the fifth wall hanging I have done based on the cross. I will share my earlier ones in another post. At some time in the future, I hope to start publishing patterns for some of my wall hangings.

How did a husband learn to sew?

A few years ago in 2007, my wife and her committee at church coordinated a QOV (Quilts of Valor) event. Over three days people got together to cut and sew quilt tops. I attended with a large group of experienced and inexperienced people working together for a good cause. I started Friday night with the simple task of cutting fabric. I didn't know what I was doing but I was in good company and there were plenty of people to guide me.

At some time on Saturday there was a sewing machine available and I was encouraged that I could put strips together and even make four patches. By some time on Sunday I had put a complete quilt top together, with the help of others around me.

In the days that followed there were left over block of various colors. With a love of puzzles I took on the challenge of putting groups together to create patterns that would become additional quilt tops from the left over blocks.

So in a weeks time I had gone from an unskilled sewer to someone fairly confident with the machine. And that my friends is how a husband learns to sew.