Spring is Starting to Sprung!

I'm the last one to say that I have a green thumb. If a plant can be killed, I'm your man. Few plants survive a pot at my house. But this little geranium is bucking the system. It's one of the few things to start blooming in my yard.
Tess and I went out this beautiful afternoon to check out what is growing and what isn't. Of course, she always brings a toy. This time it was her cow.
I finished the binding on a new little quilt. Usually, I make a lap size quilt when I design something new. But this time, I scaled back and made a tiny quilt. I think I will add a border to the quilt, as the quilting process on my Grace frame gave me some problems with the on point design. My quilting is actually getting a little better. I still can't do anything remotely interesting like my favorite quilter, Amie Potter. But it's good enough to hold the quilt together when it is just for me.

It's Clean!

I did it yesterday! I cleaned my sewing room. Putting up those photos of the big mess made me clean it up. Talk is cheap and I could of just told you I was going to clean and then not done the deed. Honest I am, and I have photos to prove it.
I even made a chenille pot holder in the process!

My Very Messy Sewing Room

In the hopes of getting my sewing room cleaned up (I can hardly call it a studio in the state it is right now!), I am posting pictures of what a mess it is in. As I clean up sections, because that seems to be all I can handle at one time, I will post pictures of before and after. Maybe, I need to embarrass myself a little first! It really is big enough for quilting, although I don't have a design wall at present. I use to have one of those that you stick up on the wall. But I move things around so much, that it was never in the right place. Plus, it leaves the wall so sticky. Like I said, the room is big enough, but I seem to be loosing square footage everyday. I am also weeding out fabric that I used to love and couldn't live without. Now, it's "What was I thinking fabric". So here goes. I am off to do a little early spring cleaning. Wish me luck!

My Old Sewing Machine

While making my pillow yesterday, I found that the zipper foot on my newest machine, a Babylock, did not work very well. I couldn't get close enough to the piping. The foot has too much metal on the side that gets in the way of the piping.
So I got out my New Home 8000 and tried it out. Now I haven't used this machine very much. I bought it new in 1992. It was the first home machine that did embroidery. I used it when my kids were little and I was making their clothes. But, even then, I only used it to do embroidery. It has never been my favorite machine as far as being user friendly, although I think it always did beautiful embroidery. In my opinion, it was the best embroidery machine out there for years. Now, the size of embroidery it does is a joke. It doesn't embroider anything much bigger than 2-1/2"!
Anyway, back to my story. The machine would not run. Not at all. The lights came on. The needle moved into position. But when I pressed the foot peddle. Nada! Zip! Nothing! I unplugged, plugged, unplugged, plugged, pressed the peddle, unpressed the peddle,turned it off, turned it on, sat and looked at it and still nothing. Then all of a sudden it started sewing and then wouldn't stop!
Then it stopped and wouldn't start up again. Then it started. It was all very wierd!
So, during one of its working times I tried covering the piping. That worked. but like I wrote yesterday, in the end I just couldn't get the piping on the pillow. So the pillow was pipeless.
An hour later, I came back to the machine. The #@$%^!#%$^ machine would not run again.
So, I left it out and thought maybe my husband could take a look at it. I don't like keeping it out on the kitchen table. I have a sewing room. But my husband says that I am expanding my sewing world into too many rooms!
Of course, when I showed him the problem.....THERE WAS NO PROBLEM!!! The machine ran and ran and ran.
And again it ran this morning!
Th moral of this story. I think my machine was lonely. It needs to be used more often. It needs to keep its juices running. It needs to be loved! I guess some kind of embroidery needs to be done. I better get out my New Home 7000 also and get it running before it freezes up. Now that was my favorite machine of all time!

Pillow

Today, I pulled out some sample blocks I made when I was designing Almost An Argyle. They didn't work out as a quilt. But four of them sewn together with some borders turned into a rather pretty pillow. I was thinking of my daughter Jill when I made it, so I hope she likes it. This time I put a zipper in the back. I tried to make piping for it, but that's a skill I don't seem to possess. Even Tess likes the new pillow, although she does look a little sheepish!

Star Lattice No.2

Today, I quilted and bound my second Star Lattice. That's a first for me............to quilt and bind in one day!!! This quilt is smaller than the first one I made and there is less contrast between the two different blocks. They both have pretty much the same value. So, I think it gives a much different look,with more emphasis on the stars. I still might change the cornerstones at the edge. Right now, they end up being cut off on the bias and I would like the edges to all be on the straight of grain.
All in all, I am happy with this design and think I will go forward with directions.

Star Lattice

My husband Dave bought me a new camera this week. He crunched (literally) my old one in the top of his convertible Honda. It fell into the folds of the soft top! Anyway, I think I like it. It seems to take better photos than my Olympus.
This is a new quilt design that I am working on. I think I will call it Star Lattice, unless something more interesting pops into my head.
One day. I was just thinking, that it might be fun to put all the piecing into the lattice and let the big blocks remain plain and unpieced. I think it worked out real nice. Of course, I got to use lots of scraps, which is my favorite kind of quilt. I am working on a smaller version right now that is more of a planned scrappy. I am liking the first one better. The more fabrics there are in a quilt, the more interesting to me.