Stripping again

I cut strips for the Kaffe/Liza log cabin quilt the last 2 evenings. I think I have almost enough cut. I had cut some 2" strips a couple years ago for some other project and had them all together in a bag.

I went through the bag and pulled one strip of each of a bunch more to add into the mix on the dark side of the log cabins.

I mailed my daughter's quilt off to her for her birthday. I sent it by Express Mail so she should get it before noon today. It feels good to be early for a birthday for a change.

A better day

It sure felt good to have no sign of a headache yesterday. I got all of the setting triangles sewn onto Fractured Pansies 2. I did have to piece the 4 corner triangles but I don't think it shows very much. Since the purple print is a sateen it ravels like crazy so I need to get this one basted soon. I also got the binding done on the one I posted on Sunday. Here you can see the 2 different binding fabrics. On the top layer both of them are there. One is the same as the border fabric and the other has random lines going in all different directions. I doubt anyone would even notice the binding at a first glance.

I also sewed together the 3 blocks I showed a couple weeks ago and put a border around them for a good sized table runner.

It sounds like we have a couple more cold days and then the warm up to the mid 60's for the weekend. I still haven't done any clean up of my gardens. I hired my grandson to bring in my hose carts, trim my spirea bushes (and clean up the mess) and put on 3 storm windows late last week. Now I need to get out there and cut down all of the asters so I don't have a hundred volunteer plants next year.

Log cabin centers

I started cutting the center squares for the Kaffe log cabin quilt. Mine will be similar to the one in the book but I don't have all of the same fabrics and I'm not going to hunt them down. I did get the same one Liza used for centers in the book though because nothing else I had was going to give the same effect.I laid the piece that was left over on the floor after cutting the 4.5" squares. After I took this picture I cut 3" squares out of the remaining flowers. This was a half yard piece and now I have to cut into a 1 yard piece to get the rest of the centers.

Here is a link to the quilt book that I showed previously. Just scroll down past the purple and yellow quilts.

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I was glad to hear from some of you other nappers after yesterday's post. I probably should have added (for the people who can't fall asleep in the daytime) that I never lay down on a bed. I always nap in a recliner. I think that lets my body clock know that it is a nap and wakes me after 40 min. I also got to thinking that I started taking naps after I began having migraines at age 32. I don't know that I ever would have done it otherwise.

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Debra from CA-you have created a Blogger account but you don't have your email enabled. you need to go into Edit my Profile and put a check mark in front of Show my Email and Save. There are several others that also don't have the email enabled, which means I can't email you back (but maybe you don't want to hear from me and others bloggers where you leave comments).

Another older quilt

This was the first Trip Around the World quilt I made prior to teaching the class. I think this one was made in 1994. I learned what not to do on this one for the proportions of the quilt. It is 87" x 121", or in other words, way too long for the bed. It is the first quilt I had someone else quilt for me. I was getting to the point of dreading the quilting on all of the queen size quilts I was making and thought maybe I would like to have someone else do it. I had about 8 or 9 done and then decided I needed to finish my quilts myself again.This one has been waiting all of those years for binding. I thought I had enough of the border fabric to bind it but in looking through all of my fabric for several years I only came up with enough to bind about 2 and a half sides. I have found another fabric that I like and will use both fabrics. If you were quilting in the early 1990's you may recognize some of these fabrics. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

I am pretty sure I will finish the binding all by machine on this one too.

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I got up with a migraine yesterday morning with all the storms and wind and drop in temperature that we had. I was already scheduled to work at the store so I made the best of it. When I got home I took a nap and then turned on the light for the Trick or Treaters.

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I mentioned the other day that I take naps. I am usually drained by 2 p.m. and after a nap (body clock wakes me after 40 min.) I am good to go again for another 8 hours. I have heard that people that nap are healthier and that you really can catch up on the lost hours of sleep at night with a nap. I don't know how much of it is true, but I sleep better at night when I have had nap in the afternoon. Of course it helps that I am retired and have the luxury of rejuvenating myself in the middle of the day. So now you know the secret to my energy level.

All fired up.

When I got up yesterday I was all fired up and I was going to accomplish something. In the end I grocery shopped, did laundry, took a nap, and I can't even remember what else. Last night I had three TV shows to watch, Ghost Whisperer, Medium and Numb3rs so I worked on journal covers that were started previously. On this first one I ran into the trouble I had when I first started making them. I made the cover too tight for the notebook to slide in easily.

This one is for the cheap little composition books that you can get for 50 cents most of the time. I solved the "too tight" problem by trimming a sliver off the top edge of the front and back covers. I like the cover to slip easily when you open the book to write in it.

Here is this size with the size that I usually make. The little notebooks cost me anywhere from $1.29 - $2.50 depending on where I can find them, so even though they take less fabric to make, there is still about the same cost in both sizes.

The braided border part is made from samples from the time period when I taught that as a class. I am pretty sure I will never teach that again so I decided to use them up. Thanks for all of the positive response to my "wordy" post yesterday. Some of you may remember awhile back I asked whether my readers just skimmed or really read the posts. About a third admitted they rarely read any of the words. Now if my glass was half empty I would have decided to only have pictures, but since my glass is half full, I know that 2/3 DO read the posts and there should always be words.

There are several of you who regularly leave comments, but you are no reply bloggers because you either don't have a Google account or you haven't enabled your email in your profile. I just want you to know that even though I can't reply personally to you, that I really enjoy and appreciate your comments.

Today I have to work at the sewing machine store, and when I get home the little ghosts and goblins will be roaming the streets. And I have to remember to change my clocks back one hour before I go to bed for the end of daylight savings time.

I cheated!

I sewed the binding on this quilt all by machine. I sewed it on the front, flipped it to the back and stitched in the ditch from the right side to catch the binding on the back. This quilt is 92" x 115.5". It is for my daughter and she has asked me a couple times why I sew the binding by hand when it is machine quilted. I decided that gave me permission to finish it all by machineThis is one of the favorite quilts I have ever made. I love paisleys and floral fabrics with big roses and star blocks. I didn't have a pattern; I just started making blocks and designed it as I went.

I started this quilt in 2004. I had the black background large print that was more than 10 years old at that time. I pulled most of the fabrics from the color in that print. I remember the time period that I made this because I had a purple bump on my lip near the corner of my mouth and it was getting bigger. My dentist recommended that I have it removed. I started this quilt while waiting for the day of laser surgery to try to keep my nerves calm. The bump turned out to be a varicose vein. I continued sewing on the blocks while the incision healed and the stitches dissolved since I didn't want to go out in public and I had time on my hands.

I had a lot of the cream background with soft red paisley and I was really happy to finally use it. I also like the one that looks like tree rings for texture.You can click on these pictures to see a larger view and really see the fabrics. The brown swirly fabric was one of the last ones I added. I know I will make more star quilts because I love them so much. A couple friends have commented that this quilt doesn't look like my style. I don't like to be pegged as using only one style of fabric. Since most of you have met me (through my blog) I have been working a lot with batiks and Kaffe fabrics. That is because I owned a lot of batiks but they were always too precious to cut into. I finally made the decision about 4 years ago that I was going to make several all batik quilts and then the Kaffe Fassett fabrics hit the market and I fell in love with them too. I found the 2 types work well together and I have been concentrating on using them.

In my 52 years of quilting I have used lots of different types of fabrics from plaids and stripes, to calicoes (1980's), to scraps left over from dressmaking, and even Amish color solids. I guess I would like to be memorialized for being able to take any group of fabrics and make a beautiful quilt out of them.

Sorry I got so wordy.

Good day for sewing

I couldn't get excited about working outside on an overcast day so I stayed inside. I sewed the binding on the quilt I showed on Mon., ripped out a small section of quilting where the tension went goofy and re quilted it, did the math and figured I had enough of the purple fabric for the setting triangles for Fractured Pansies 2 and went ahead and cut the triangles. I may have to piece the fabric to be able to cut the corner triangles but I don't think it will show in that deep purple color..

Then I made 2 more journal covers. These are really wonky looking. When I sewed the leftovers from the Strips that Sizzle strata together I thought they looked OK. Then when I got them bordered with this alphabet fabric I wasn't too sure I liked them. I like the illusion though of the purple bars over the green in the background.

I delivered Dad's shirt to him and he was really excited about it. Whew!! He didn't try it on while I was there so I told him not to cut the tags off until he tried it on and was sure he liked the way it fits. I told him it was an early birthday present since his birthday is only 22 days away.