Category: Quilting/Sewing

Dark

This morning, it was rainy. Thus, it was dark for longer.

Alice slept an hour longer than normal. Some of that could have been because she refused to nap yesterday. Some of that could have been the darkness.

SO. I went out today in search of room-darkening shades to fit the two windows in her room. Bed, Bath & Beyond didn’t have them. Target didn’t have them. I looked at Smith and Noble, who have custom-made lots of window treatments for us in the past. It would cost at least $66 per window plus shipping to have them custom-made for those windows.

While I do have tutoring money coming in at the moment, I would really rather not spend $66 per window for room-darkening shades.

I went to Hancock Fabrics this afternoon and purchased 3.5 yards of blackout fabric for window treatments. And I purchased fabrics for both girls’ windows (though I don’t like the selection I made for Helen now that I have it home; but at $1.29 a yard I think I can handle going back and getting something else)… I also got super heavyweight needles so I can sew through the blackout fabric.

Sum total, including the hardware to hang these things and the notions (rings and wire/strings) to make Roman shades for both rooms? Less than $66. Including tax.

I’m pleased with myself.

Of course, this is ANOTHER blasted project. Somebody please invent a way to get more hours in a day! 🙂

(Oh! and I got my sewing machine back today! Yayyyy!)

Broken

My sewing machine is broken. Well, I could probably still sew with it, but the tension might go a little weird on me because a belt popped off — worn on one side. Not worth the risk. Same thing happened last year and it was a MESS when I quilted with it in that condition.

It broke Saturday night, just in time for the holiday weekend.

I will arrive at the quilt shop tomorrow morning at 10am, with Helen, Alice, and my sewing machine. I really hope that she can fix it tomorrow… I was on a ROLL quilting my Fibonacci quilt. 🙁

Jerry suggested I camp out at the quilt shop tonight so I’m there as soon as Mary gets there in the morning. I don’t think that’ll be necessary; I’m sure she’ll see the desperation in my eyes when I do get there.

It’s due for its annual cleaning anyway, so I guess this was the sewing machine god’s way of telling me to take it IN already. I’m about 3 weeks late for that. Oops!

Layers

I bought a bunch of hunter green fabric in 1992, when hunter green was really popular. I was going to make a quilt for my dorm room with it. I started the quilt. I was not very good at this at all, and all my blocks were very different sizes. I got discouraged, went back to school, packed up the pieces to the future quilt and put them in a Rubbermaid Tub.

The Rubbermaid Tub sat under the tables in my Mom’s work area for about a decade. Then she insisted that I take it. I didn’t forget about the quilt; I just procrastinated DOING anything about the quilt because I was intimidated.

In 2002, I decided, dammit, I’m going to finish the stupid quilt. So I made 12 Ohio Star blocks, totally abandoning my original design. I added white fabrics and some more greens (though the teals and hunters of 1992 were out of style ten years later, so I supplemented with more summer greens and knew I’d have to find a way to force them to go together — enter the log cabin blocks…). Then I made log cabin blocks with all the different greens, with purple triangles in the corners. I pieced the quilt into 5 22″ wide strips that I’ll quilt individually by machine, and then attach the strips together. It will be a king-sized bedquilt when I’m done.

It’s been ready to layer (meaning — fully pieced, and just waiting until I basted together the quilt sandwich [quilt top, batting, backing] so I can quilt it) for over a year.

Today my mom and I layered one of the five strips and hand-basted it together so I can quilt it. And we also layered and pin-basted the abstract quilt that I’ve been working on. I have another hand-basted quilt in the closet, ready to go.

I feel a Finishing Frenzy coming on. My biggest goal for the year is to finish the blasted Green Albatross that I started in 1992. It’s going to be a beautiful quilt when it’s done, but GOD. Thirteen years now?! What is my PROBLEM?!

Progress

I worked some more on the quilt that was started on Friday night… Rejected all the blocks that had any light-colored background fabrics in them and made new blocks just using mediums and darks. Here’s the latest iteration…

Please STOP with the ORANGE

Trying to decide if I like the blocks with little squares in them or not (Row 2, Column 6 doesn’t jump out QUITE that much in real life, but it does pull some focus which changes its potential placements…), or the “Y” shaped ones (there’s one in Column 6 and three in Column 8 ). The “Y” ones are just very very hard to place, so I’m thinking I might make replacement blocks for them, too. Jerry’s not a fan of the ones with squares in them, but I almost wonder if the piece NEEDS those to anchor the rest of the chaos. We’ll see, though… Gotta live with it for a little while and see how I feel before I decide to sew them all together.