I have been working on my Joseph’s Coat and it is coming along nicely this week, a little more and I will have one more diagonal strip ready to attach to the body of the quilt – that is what I will be working on for Design Wall Monday! Head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is currently working on. This quilt top is getting a little heavy on the design wall and is pulling on the top – I will have to stick a few more pins in it to make it a little more stable so it won’t pull. I have the diagonal row that has the brown color in three sections on the wall right now. The next step is to piece it into one diagonal strip and then connect it to the big finished section. This is as long as it gets – now on to working it wider.
The next colors to be added are these – then on to reds. The first in the line of the browns is darker than it looks here in this photo – I can’t always adjust the light correctly. I only have a little of that color and I will be starting on the bottom with it and then moving to the next and the next.
Here is another bundle of fabric waiting to be used. 10 fat quarters in this one. Thank you all for the ideas you have been passing on to me. I must admit though that I am not interested in Sampler quilts right now. I’m kind of burned out on that after making 2 Dear Jane’s! I began the Farmer’s Wife and have little interest in it right now. I do like the newer modern type of quilts that are out – The Moda Bake Shop has so many interesting looks. Thanks for all of the ideas from those who sent suggestions for the bundles I showed the other day.
I think I have 8 bundles of strips or fat quarters or layer cakes waiting to be cut into – I guess I will have plenty along with all of my scraps to keep me busy for years to come! 
It rained last night and a front came through – instead of the near 70 degrees that we have been having today will only be in the 50’s. It doesn’t look like outside chore weather to me. I think I will continue on my quilting instead 
Last night I posted some links to free quilt patterns that I found and this morning I added a new category to my side bar under the blog roll with all of them listed. If anyone knows of any more send the links my way and I will add them in this list. I still buy plenty of quilting books but it is always nice to make use of the freebies on the internet and save a little money.
I don’t know about y’all but I also check for all the web sales from the on-line quilt shops. With fabric prices raising all the time a person must find some deals. I don’t know about you but I can’t buy fabric at $10 a yard for all my projects, I have to find some good deals. The fabric on sale is still designer fabric it is just that maybe it is the fabric from last year or the year before and they want to make room for this years designs. You can find some fantastic finds – I had not planned on ordering any fabric but the other day Hancocks of Paducah sent me a 20% off appreciation coupon for being a good customer. I went to the site needing some thread and thought to look and see what else they had available and found a 106” wide backing fabric to put aside for one of the quilts waiting in line to be quilted. The fabric was sold for $6 a yard – and that is for the wide stuff keep in mind.!! I ordered 3 yards of it and 5 yards of some other fabrics that was on close out - total was less than $4 a yard. The Fat Quarter Shop has a lot of sales also – go to their sales listing and you will find fabric for $5 a yard and under.
Yesterday I got more quilting done – this quilt is moving along quickly – I have only been quilting for a week on this one and I am close to being half way finished with it already. I must have too much time on my hands of course I have sore fingertips now and will need to slow down and maybe not work on it at all today! I have begun to neglect the quilt on the big frame as well and really need to get back to work on it as well.
Sometimes I can see the area quilted better shown from the back than the front in photos. This quilt if I remember right measures about 58” x 58”, I would have to measure again to be sure.
I also got the flowers glue basted on the table runner and got started with the applique – yes I do have too much time on my hands! I tell you when you are not traveling and hiking every day quilting and piecing tends to take over my time! I don’t like how the stems are at the bottom where they are joined and will probably add another leave or two – changing it up from the pattern somewhat but it will cover up my poor applique.
I don’t know how some of you who work outside the home and have children at home get any quilting done – I know the amount of things I get finished with would not be near what it is if I had a job outside the home and children in the house.
Do you remember last week that my iron stopped working and I bought a new one? Well I should have remember that I sometimes put extra items that I am not using for some reason or other out in the workshop on several shelves. I store extra kitchen items out there that are either duplicates or too big and/or rarely used so they are out of my way – I have a small kitchen and not a lot of extra storage space.
Today I am getting the back of the car loaded with things that I am donating to Good Will. I got done with the things in the house and thought to go out to the workshop to check and see if there was anything out there that I really and truly no longer needed or wanted.
Look what I found a perfectly good inexpensive iron! I remember now putting it out there but had totally forgotten about it. (I remember the big soup pot was out there and the extra laundry basket)
I also found an extra tea kettle:
And an extra coffee pot – a little dirty from being out in the work shop with dust flying and all but it would clean up just fine if I need it and it still works!
Some of the duplicates are from when we had the big 5th wheel camper – I had bought things to just keep out there – using a smaller camper meant I didn’t have as much storage space so I got smaller items for it. Extras got put in the workshop. Sometimes I get extras if we see a small appliance that I like better and then the old one gets put away in case we need it.
Do you all do that too – forget to look and see if you stuck something away before buying a new one?
Before I forget on the subject of collecting things to donate for Goodwill — do any of you visit Victoria’s site Bumble Beans ? Victoria and the group she works with are trying to collect up quilts that they donate to people down on their luck. They have been homeless for various reasons and are helped to find a home to live in. When each family moves into their home they are given a quilt – I believe that is the way it works – she explains it all here at this site Bumble Beans Basics. Quilter Pat Sloan is helping her out with the drive to collect 700 quilts which are going to be given away close to the end of November. If you have an extra quilt that you made and doesn’t have a new home yet you might want to think of sending it her way. I have two children’s quilts boxed up and ready to send off to her tomorrow.
While I was traveling I stopped in some quilt shops along the way as I have none here at home close by. It was nice to see what was in some of the shops. I found a product I had not seen before for removing pencil markings so picked it up to see if it worked. Most of the time I do not use pencil but now and then -
The product- I found it at this site on line, I’m sure other places have it as well.
How to use:
Here is a pencil mark that I made using a mechanical pencil
Spray a small amount of liquid on the pencil mark and let it sit for 15 seconds, then gently rub the mark with a soft piece of fabric. As you can see – where is the mark!
It doesn’t say to rinse out but I did with a small amount of soap. Pressed and I can’t see the mark.
I will be using it in the future when I need it 
Grand Junction is the largest city in Colorado west of Denver. Because it is the largest city even with a population of 45,000 people there is more to see here than cities normally of this size. There is a very pretty downtown area that has numerous sculptures AND a quilt shop! Mike said go shop and look so I did 
I had heard of this shop and have frequented their online shop looking at things although I had never ordered from them, now that I have seen the store in person though and their items I’m sure I will be using them in the future – Quilters’ Corner.
So what did I get – well no fabric – really and truly I just do not need any right now. I am trying to use what I have and to also get caught up on quilting. I did get some things though – Two books that I have had my eye on for awhile and thought I better get now and not pay shipping.
And a new pressing tool ruler that you use to make Prairie Points, a bottle of Retayn to keep bleed out and a new to me item – a bottle of liquid that takes out pencil marks simply called “Marking Pencil Removal” – I will let you know how that one works – I was curious enough to buy it.
The town:
An apple core sculpture – don’t know why it is here and any significance but it was cute.
A water spout area for kids to run through.
An extra large bike – you see bikes here a lot. I have seen more than the usual also – the bikes for two are popular it seems and I saw quite a few of them. Also I saw a lady younger than I am using a 3 wheel bike for adults that has a basket on the back of it – it is actually about the only bike I would use for me – osteoporosis makes me hesitant to ride – kind of afraid of tipping over and breaking a hip – I’m too young for that! I haven’t ridden on a bike in years as we have no place out in the country to ride where we live. If you want to ride you really need to take you bike to the town to the trails to ride.
This evening we had another rain storm and we could see a rainbow through the skylight in the camper – I was going to go outside and get a better photo and was fast enough and it was gone – it is actually a double rainbow but I don’t know if you can make out the second one above the brighter one.
Next post will be about Colorado National Monument which we will be seeing tomorrow (Sunday the 18th)
I had been very much leaning towards the darker of the two colors for binding the “Going in Circles” quilt until I read Wanda’s comment to me – she said that the darker green would tend to draw your eye to the vine not to the whole quilt, where as the aqua color is in the inside border and scattered through out the quilt in the patches (as is the darker green but not in the border). Wanda’s blog is Exuberant Color and she does have a good eye for color. Then I asked Mike my DH and I must say he has a good eye for color as well and has in the past helped me with color decisions and he always seems to pick the right color – he immediately said the aqua. So yes I am going with the aqua even though I had been leaning towards the darker green. Thanks for you opinions – it does help! I will leave to go work out at the fitness center in just a little bit – I think I need to put in a little extra time today to make up for all the cake I have been eating!!
I did get my nieces Signature/Wedding quilt on the frame the other day and last night I sat down and did a little quilting on it to get started. This fabric on this quilt is all from Connecting Threads and I must say it is soft to work with. The needle is gliding through.
What I have done so far – I finished this first row of little blocks all the way across the bottom of the quilt. I’m not sure how much I will do today as I will be doing the binding on the big quilt and also want to get in a little piecing on Joseph’s Coat.
It isn’t near as hot today still in the mid 90’s right now but too hot to do much of anything outside and Mike is working late tonight so I do believe when I get back from exercise I will be machine stitching the binding and then it will be time for hand stitching the binding – piecing Joseph’s Coat, and maybe a little quilting – I think it will be a busy day today.
Yesterday I got quite a bit done in the evening on quilting on Going In Circles so by 9PM I was ready to put that aside and work on something different so I got some of my Joseph Coat pieces together and pieced a little bit more. I didn’t sew the two bottom rows together and need to do that, instead I started to work on the 3rd row from the bottom instead. When I get this entire layout finished that is up on the wall I will move to the next orangey color. I have so many orange/red colors though that I am going to have to watch it and not use too many at the beginning of the quilt so that I can spread my color selections out through out the whole quilt. I can see I will have to get the design wall back out though as I will obviously be running out of space quickly.
I had mentioned that I had gotten the Inklingo pattern to use – where you print the templates out directly onto the fabric – this gives you a seam line printed on to your fabric which is very helpful for hand piecing – no necessary as there are other methods to mark seams – but it is helpful and I had wanted to try the method out on this quilt.
This is what it looks like printed on your fabric, you try to use the color that works best for each piece of your fabric (each color of fabric) try to use the lightest color that you can for it to show up on your fabric without showing up on the front side. To me is looks a little darker than the photo does. With the photo the markings look lighter. It is dark enough though for me to see to sew.
The melon shapes do not waste fabric as the background odd shapes did. The background pieces I am cutting out squeezing as many as I can in each yard of fabric. The melon shapes I am printing out. You do this by ironing the fabric to freezer paper – front side down- printing on to the back of the fabric. Then you take the fabric off of the freezer paper and you can cut with scissors or rotary blade.
I don’t really think it is necessary to print the template on the background piece – the melons is plenty – I use that to sew and don’t need it on both pieces.
I failed at tea dye yesterday with the green tea to add a shade of green to the other piece of background fabric that I have so I will just leave as it. I’m not going to try to do it again. It will work out fine having two shades of the same fabric for the background with the way I am working this quilt. I think I had way to much water for the amount of tea I used. I have tea dyed before and it worked, but it was a long time ago and a much smaller piece of fabric. Also that time it was a regular piece of white cotton with small flowery print and this is batik – I think that might make a big difference.
I think I might get my nieces quilt on the quilting frame (the 3 roller) later today just to have that job done even if I do not plan on starting the quilting on it until later in a week or two. My elbow pain is gone so I will really have to watch how I lean into the frame when I start using it again and watch so that I don’t press my arm against the rails to hard now that I realize what I was doing I should be able to prevent it.
I wonder how many of us have the Clover Needle Threader that I am showing photos of today. I got this notion about 7 years ago. Sometimes I use it a lot – other times it gets set aside and I forget I have it until I have trouble threading some of my needles.
Lately the needles I am using seem to have a slightly smaller hole than they usually do – this batch of needles that I have seem to be bending a little more frequently also – I think I got a hold of a bad batch.
This is how you use this little contraption:
Put the needle in with the eye of the needle in the slot,
Cut yourself a piece of thread the length you always use and place it across the slot indicated on the side,
Then press that lever down on the side – left your needle out carefully and you will see a little loop formed – pull it out taking the thread with you until you have enough out – then knot your thread as you always do and your ready to sew.
Is it worth the price of just under $15.00 – I think it was $12.00 when I bought mine – yes it is worth it if you do a lot of hand quilting and hand piecing – especially if you use small needles like I do. I have only come across one thread that I couldn’t get in the eye of my needle and I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. I use Roxanne Needles – betweens size 11.
What are you working on this Wednesday. I will continue to piece on my Joseph’s Coat that I haven’t touched in the past week – I don’t know why I haven’t – I guess I have been busy with other things but today I will take time out of hand quilting and do some hand piecing instead –as you can see it is no different than the last photo – I will change that today!
but other than that I will get busy getting a top ready for September when we travel. Go on over to WIP Wednesday at Lee’s Freshly Pieced site and see works in progress. I decided what easy quilt I will make when we start to travel this fall once again. I needed to come up with a fairly easy pattern – straight pieces preferred – for hand piecing. The other day on the Moda Bake Shop featured where 4 patterns for pillows – I liked one of them and thought – perfect for a bed quilt – all you need to do is make more blocks – a lot more of course, but nice and easy so it doesn’t take a lot of concentration in a small space. I have seen this pattern somewhere as a bed size or couch size quilt but I do not know where I saw it. These pillows are also found at Natalie’s site Piece n’ Quilt.
Do you see the pillow – the 2nd from the corner of the couch – this one – I will use my “Lollipop” fabric and some white Kona Cotton that I have. I plan on getting busy today and cut pieces and get things organized in a take along box to stick in the camper so it will be ready for me when we travel.
Using this layer cake -
The editors of the former Quilters Home Magazine have formed a new blog magazine called Generation Q Magazine. It is in the beginning stages but what I have read has been interesting, you might want to check them out. I have put them on my Google Reader so I can keep up with them and see what they are going to do with it.
This wonderful wall quilt was stolen at the Salt Lake City Utah Spring Market– keep an eye out for it, hours and hours of work went in it. Made and designed by award winner Deborah Kemball. You can see the information for this quilt and 3 others that were taken at the same time at this link: I love this quilt – Deborah needle turned appliqued this and it is echo hand quilted throughout – tons of tiny stitches went in to this work, embroidery stitches as well. I bought the book after seeing a photo of this wall hanging and it just made me sick when I heard that it was taken – Deborah must just feel horrible about it after all that work. I plan on making a wall quilt using this pattern one day and I can only hope it will turn out half as well as Deborah’s did. The pattern is called “Floral Sampler”.
Do you ever have one of those moments where you feel like you need to slap yourself upside your head and say “what was I thinking” LOL – I’ve been having one of those moments the last couple days while I look at Joseph’s Coat on the wall – I’m still planning on making it like I am but what was I thinking when I thought I would take it along to piece in the motorhome!!
This thing is going to be huge – I need design wall space to plan my colors – not a “camper bed which is somewhere between a double size and queen size” with no walking space around it 
Joseph’s Coat will remain home when we start to travel this fall when Mike is done with his contract job.
I need to come up with a different project to take along with us when we travel – something easy, and portable – no design wall required – something where I can spread it out on the bed now and then to look at it – blocks that can be put together easily.
I have a layer cake that I got back in May when I visited my daughter in Wisconsin. It is by Sandy Gervais called “Lollipop” (this link shows just some of the fabric in this layer cake) I think I have a project in mind and if I get all the pieces cut out in advance I can do that – I am not positive on the pattern though and might decide on something else – right now this is the pattern I am thinking of – It is called “Chopsticks” from Jaybird Quilts
I’m going to keep looking though over the next couple of days – I want something easy, fairly good size pieces with easy seams to work while in a small space. Something modern and cute. Considering the designs – something for kids – I need to get out my books and box of patterns and get started looking and planning while I work on the things already started.
I always bring along a hand piecing project to work on while on the road and I think each time we have taken a fairly long trip I have gotten done with or close to finishing one.
“Pave the Way” is just about finished. I have worked on it a lot over the last couple days. I will finish the quilting today and then I need to trim it off and put the binding on. The quilting to do is just on this last final corner area.
It will be nice to have another finish. One project I should bring along to work on in the motorhome is the borders for the Red & Green quilt – it has been put aside for awhile as I have been taking a much needed break from it so I could start new looking at it. My mind was kind of numb thinking on what to put in the border! I could glue baste a bit and have it ready for stitching. I always bring more to work on then I really need to. We are so busy hiking trails, looking at museums and enjoying the scenery that I don’t get near as much done on quilting/piecing that I plan to do. But it is always better to bring more than you need just in you get done with more because of bad weather outside or whatever.
If anyone has a link to a nice easy quilt top for the Lollipop fabric send me a link – I would love to see your ideas.
To my readers in Norway I have seen the bad news there and the tragedy is just horrible, why some people feel the need to hurt so many people is beyond me, I can’t stand the violence in the world and it sickens me when I hear it or read it. I never can understand what makes some people do these horrible things. I do hope that none of you lost anyone that is in your family or people you know.
