I got all of my circles appliqued on the row of Joseph’s Coat that I was working on last night so now it is time to get the next row of colors ready. These are the colors that come next starting on the right side. I was going to use some pinks too, but the colors I have just do not flow right going from the darker reddish colors to the pinks so I decided to leave them out. I do not quite like how the pinkish/red flows to the lavender than bluish/purple but there you have it – this is what I have and it will just have to be!
I will be working on that for several days I’m sure as I need to cut more background pieces as well.
Today I got all the blocks of Dizzy sewed together earlier this afternoon and all are pressed. I have the border strips cut out and I will be working on that today after I get off of the computer!
Last night after I got done with the circles on Joseph’s Coat I moved back into the quilting room and sat down at the frame. I have been neglecting this quilt and not putting in time every day like I said I would. I did get in an hour of quilting last night and I hope once I get the Dizzy top finished I will get back to work in here.
Star Crazy – the area I finished quilting last night:
The next area to quilt. Then when I get done with this side it will be time to move over to the right side of the quilt and quilt out from there.
I already have over 50 hours of quilting in on this quilt and I have been working at the quilting now for 7 1/2 weeks. I am maybe a 1/3 of the way done – lots of work left to do on it. Now I guess I better get off of the computer and get those borders sewed on Dizzy and then take a photo – and take the design wall down and get my dinning area back in shape.
We had good news today for our family. My mother who had surgery for cancer several weeks ago was told today by her doctor that she is cancer free-pathology came back clear. Surgery took care of it. Also we have a new addition to the family. My nephew John and his wife Kandy had a baby girl this morning – C-section 4 weeks early. She had a difficult pregnancy and they had to have the baby early. It was feared that she would be under 5 pounds and possibly have to go to the ICU but little Zoey weighed in at 5 pounds 6 oz. and in excellent health! Much bigger than the doctors had thought.
My 87 year old mother now has 27 grandchildren and 25 great grandchildren ( one more is due in early April) – wow we just keep growing and growing and some people ask if I make baby quilts for family – no way – too many to keep up with!!
Work on Joseph’s Coat, I am sewing the circles down this evening on that last diagonal row that I was going to do yesterday and didn’t get around to it.
Dizzy is coming along but I didn’t get done with as much of it this afternoon as I had hoped to, I got off to a late start on it – I had to get the grocery shopping done, then there was laundry to do also. One thing after another and I was delayed. I will try to finish it up tomorrow. Right now the 2 rows on the end in length need to be sewed on and then the border fabric.
Several have asked about the Double Wedding Ring quilt hanging on the edge of the photo. It is queen size, a Judy Niemeyer pattern. It came with the paper piecing patterns but at that time I had no sewing machine working and I didn’t do paper piecing –I hand pieced it all! The applique is needle turn. Hand quilted as always, I got best of show with it at the county fair in 2002, here it is. It took me 410 hours to make from start to finish – and that isn’t the longest I have taken to make a quilt 
Now I think after NCIS is over I should have all the circles appliqued on Joseph’s Coat and I might move back into the sewing room and put the tv on back here and get more quilting done on Star Crazy. I haven’t put as much time into it lately as I had intended to.
by Karen on February 7, 2012
in quilts
Yup, after all that changing this and that around Dizzy is going back to how it was originally planned. Sometimes change is not good – In order to have blocks on point fit into this plan I would have to start to cut blocks down and take them apart and make them smaller – too much work. I have no more fabric in this line, no room for screw ups. I spent quite a bit of time on this last night and just can not make it work so it will look right. Thanks for all the input – but I don’t want to spend more time figuring it out. I had started this quilt with the intention of it being an easy quick fun quilt that would be using up some nice fabric strips gotten on a very good sale for a very low price. If I did the blocks on point all the way around I would have to be using white with it as that is what is in my stash – that would be changing the whole look of this bold modern looking block pattern. Not what I wanted.
So today I will be sewing all the blocks together. In the stash I found a small amount of fabric that I can use for a very narrow border around the quilt to finish it off. All the blocks pinned to the wall. No leftover blocks in this design that was only going to be the other way. I might move a few of these blocks around before I sew. I just noticed one or two that I think are too close to others of the same print.
The border fabric up close.
by Karen on February 6, 2012
in quilts
Progress with Dizzy – but with progress comes more figuring when you are not working with a set pattern 
this is what I have so far. The 4 x 5 rows of blocks are sewed together. The other blocks are just sitting there hanging out until I figure out what to do with them 
The blocks that are sewed together right now are trimmed down to 10 1/4 inches as my piecing was not accurate as I thought and I had to trim them to get them even. The blocks not sewed are not trimmed yet. So right now the inside blocks measure about 39 x 49 inches.
I’m not sure if I am cutting the rest of these blocks down a little bit, leaving them this size and make borders to fit or what. The next step is square some of these up with white (not black because I have very little of it in the stash but I do have a whole bolt of white) in the corners and see what I have. Some spacers might need to be put in there to make it work on the sides and that is where the indecision comes into play right now. On point or just add the blocks to what I have and make it just plain rows of blocks straight – same as what is there now just larger of course. Of course I could always applique all of these blocks down in some arrangement and use them all up at the size they are now! Add a big white border and scatter 
We will see, I am quitting now with it for the afternoon and will think about it this evening and maybe get back to it tomorrow. I have the black circles done for Joseph’s Coat so I will be hand stitching the circles onto the quilt tonight while I give this one some thought.
I think today I will get the circles all ready for the Joseph’s Coat quilt for the row I finished on the weekend. I have some ready and others ready for the pressing part of it. I think I needed about 18 and I have 20 here in this little pile ready to go. All basted, ready to pull tight around my mylar circler and press. As soon as I get all these circles applique in place I will start cutting out the next row. The applique goes quickly with all the ends all ready tucked under.
I finished the last row of Dizzy last night, now today I will start to experiment with placement and see what the edges would look like if I put on the point.
This was a very easy quilt to piece. What are you working on today – make sure to go over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is working on!
by Karen on February 5, 2012
in quilts
Progress report: “I’m So Dizzy” is down to one row left to make. Layout to still be determined. Right now on the portable design wall:
A little bit well need to be changed out still. The bottom row looks too dark in the middle, I think I need to exchange the block that is outlined in red to something else also on the top right hand side 3 fairly dark blocks in a row. Little things here and there. I have six block left to sew. I am playing with an idea in my head that CJ placed there – have the outside rows on point – if I do that though I will either need to cut those blocks down a little bit or add sashing in between the rows as putting them on point will make them bigger than the blocks in the rows if you know what I mean. When she saw the design wall the other day when I had run out of room I was tacking the blocks on point on the sides to put them up and off the cutting table. She mentioned it and I like the idea, but if I do that the blocks are too big – hence the idea for sashing. When I get done with all the blocks I will rearrange the blocks and see how I like the idea and decide from there.
Headache is finally about gone – just about came back good when I was sewing and discovered that 2 of my 6 1/2 inch strips were cut to 6 inches and one 10 1/2 inch strip was 10 inches. I didn’t have many strips left over and was I going to be able to fix this!! I was lucky for most of the fix but one of the 6 1/2 inch strips had to have a 1/2 piece sewed onto the end, I just didn’t have anything long enough to replace it – I figure with so much print and color going on here it will not be noticeable.
Are you watching the super bowl tonight – having a party? We will probably put the game on – but we aren’t really all that into football unless the Arkansas Razorbacks are playing (and playing well) or the Green Bay Packers (and playing well) – we like the advertisements!! Normally I can’t stand advertisements – but these are usually some of the best and more like mini-movies at times.
I woke up this morning with such a bad headache. I am waiting for it to go away before I get started on anything. In fact I am still sitting here in my robe and pj’s . It feels slightly better than it did when I first got up maybe that is a sign that it will be gone shortly?
Last night I put on an old Kevin Costner movie “The Postman” from the late 1990’s and remembered why I don’t watch Kevin Costner movies – he might be good in a few movies now and then but his “acting” in this one sucked big time! But I like to have something on for background noise while I am piecing and I wanted to get the piecing done on the row I was attaching and mission was accomplished, I got the row attached. Now I will do the circles before I move on to another row. It is easiest to applique the circles while they are on the end like this. It was a hassle before bunching up all that fabric to work on the circles in the middle. I think it is 18 or 19 circles to be made, some are already done but others to make.
I did measure across the bottom and right now it is 84 inches wide at the widest point. I want it to be at least 100 inches so more to go! I think I allowed for way too many yellows/orange colors and it will be tough to squeeze in all the colors I have left that I wanted to do. On the opposite corner from the yellows will be the greens and blues – might not be able to put in as many as I want. I will have to start watching that as I go and maybe cut down on the number of lavenders/purples that I was going to do – we will see!
If this headache clears up soon I am going to get my portable design wall up and move the “I’m so Dizzy” quilt blocks to it and also work on some more blocks. I have 16 more blocks to construct.
Is it too early to mention that I am going to the Paducah Quilt Show this year 
Mike is not working right now but he has a contract most likely coming up in May this year so we really need to take a trip before that right! I mentioned yesterday what did he think – a short trip to the quilt show? He asked when was it, I gave him the dates and he reserved us a couple nights at a campground nearby – it looks like we will be making that 6 hour drive over to Kentucky soon in the motorhome! (so much easier to find a campground than a motel room!!!!) I did remind him that if I went to the quilt show I would have to buy something LOL and he said that was ok he would be back to work soon I’m sure that if the weather cooperates and is not flooding rain like it was last year we will make several other stops and see some other campgrounds and things too. I don’t spend the whole 4 days at the show like some of you. I go to look at the quilts and the vendors – I don’t go for the classes and lectures which are probably all booked up already anyhow. I just like to look at the quilts and see what is new that the vendors have and how things work. And a nice stop to Hancocks of Paducah is normally a stop also of course (pick up some Quilters Dream batting and not pay shipping and handling!). We will be in the Paducah area for a day and a half.
If any of my readers are going let me know, maybe we can meet up at the show and say hi and put a face to the name and see if we have bought some interesting stuff!
Yesterday I got a little bit done on all four projects.
Thursday and Friday I quilted on the Farmers Wife:
The back shows up a little more:
Five more blocks on the “I’m So Dizzy” quilt – the design wall must come out, it is getting too crowded over here! I’m just pinning them where I can. I think it is time to take them down and stack them up until I get the wall up for the final design placement now.
A little quilting on Star Crazy and I need to get back to work on this one and keep trying to quilt every day, I am already going through my normal slack off rate on the 3 roller that I usually go through. I will have to watch that so that a day off doesn’t turn into a week or two away from it.
And last night some work on Joseph’s Coat – big mistake on that one. I went to start putting the diagonal row on it as I had finished piecing it only to find out I had turned a piece around on one that I had to take off, then I realize I had stitched two whole segments wrong and had to take that of – turned out 3 pieces had to be taken off and re-sewed down correctly. I finally did get started stitching the row down but I would have been further on it if I hadn’t had to take some of it apart first! Just all balled up here on the couch waiting for me to do some stitching – most likely I will get busy with it while the super bowl is on – I wait for the advertisements and get up and down doing other things while it is on
by Karen on February 3, 2012
in quilts
First before I get side tracked several have asked why the name “I’m So Dizzy” for the black/red/white quilt – if you look at yesterdays entry with the photos of the blocks if you really look at some of those blocks don’t they make you dizzy? Maybe an optical illusion or something – but I am one of those people who get dizzy on rides that go in circles but yet can read when I exercise (treadmill) read in the car ect and not get sick. Motion sickness – anyhow – look at the blocks with the white and black prints – those are the ones that make me dizzy – hence the name 
Quilt group last night – first Thursday night of the month – the very prolific quilting group – here is the show and tell – I give up on names for most, I just can’t keep track although I will try to do better.
Natalie’s quilt – this one is being added to each month, the group selects two names of borders and then the participants add the borders until they have as many on as they want.
Dee’s quilt
Lori’s
CJ’s experiment with various stitches and things from her machine. It will be turned into a tote bag she says.
CJ’s baby quilt – CJ has a blog at this link. She also does long arm machine quilting for clients. Info at her blog.
I think this one is another one that is growing by the month and I think it is Lori’s.
Another of CJ’s
Another one that is growing and I don’t remember who did this one.
Renee’s quilt growing by the month also.
I can’t for the life of me remember who made this large top – wonderful use of scraps.
Another by Renee, she is in the process of binding it right now.
Hey I did good this month, there are only a couple that I don’t know who did them and that is probably because I am horrible with names and I am still trying to remember who a lot of these ladies are! We had a fun evening and a showing of quilters tonight, must have had close to 15 people there at least – big group for us.
Tomorrow is my smaller quilting group – there will only be about 4 of us as one works every other Friday and can’t always make it and another is out of town.
by Karen on February 2, 2012
in quilts
Before I forgot – on my sidebar I added a Google Translator to make it easier for those of you coming from countries other than the US, I know I always find it helpful when I see it on sites that aren’t in English. Thank you Vivian for having mentioned it on your blog that you were doing that also – it reminded me that I had been thinking of it also.
Name for this quilt: “I’m So Dizzy” (I think)
I spent most of the afternoon cutting the strips up into pieces to have all ready for machine piecing tomorrow and the weekend – in between doing other things of course.
All the strips ready – 21 groupings ready for 21 more blocks –
What was left over – I had to dig in the stash to find one white/black to finish out with some light pieces – it mixes in pretty well – it is on the end of these leftovers – not a whole strip leftover in any of the colors.
The 21 finished blocks – so if I put 6 rows by 7 rows I will have a quilt that is about 60 x 70 I do believe. Not bad for an investment of $9.60 !! I still can’t believe how good that sale was that year. I will need to find a print for a backing – especially if I decide to try out my skills at machine piecing as I am thinking right now.
