Too long!

It's been so long since I posted to my blog, probably no one will even read this, but I thought I'd post something anyway, and then maybe I'll get back in the habit. Since the last time I posted, life has changed for me in a big way. We have been thinking for a while that it was time for us to get back to Texas where our families are, so we started a little job search in March and both of us found jobs and we moved to Texas in July. We are living in Tomball, just outside of Houston and we are so happy to be closer to most of our extended family members. One of the reasons that I haven't posted in a while is the whirlwind of job searching, finding a new place to live, arranging the move and working 70-80 hours a week for 2 months left me too tired at the end of the day for anything. The last quilt I made was the one for Angie and I haven't finished any new blocks in my applique quilt.

BUT - this weekend I got out my sewing machine and started working on a couple of things. I have a nice quilting space that's also the guest room. One of the things I'm really going to miss is that big basement we had in Missouri. At least I still have a space for sewing, so I can't complain too much. When I get a bit more industrious, I'll try to post a couple of pictures of my new sewing area.

I hope someone reads this and I'll try to be a more regular poster!

Applique challenge

Here's my most recently completed block for my applique BOM. I wanted to post a picture because I'm happy with the way it turned out especially since it was such a challenge to complete. It's not that the shapes are particulary complicated. It's the layering that makes this block a challenge. Four of the outer leaves have stems that start out under the vine and then loop around to go over the vine. To make it even more interesting, the inner leaves sit on top of the stem of these looping leaves. Since applique usually involves stitching down the bottom layer first, those looping leaves presented an interesting problem. To solve the problem, I first stitched a portion of the stem for the looping leaves - from the part that starts under the vine almost to the point where it will go back over the vine. Then I had to stitch down the inner leaves and the four non-looping outer leaves. After that it was time to stitch down the vine, so I had to flip the looping leaves back to the center and pin them down so they would be out of my way for stitching the vine. After that I was able to move the looping leaves back over the vine for stitching into place. Lastly, I added the berries. It actually wasn't as complicated as it sounds, but I really enjoyed figuring out a way to make this block work. I'm very pleased with the result.

Brighter Days for Angie

That's what I'm calling this quilt. I can't wait to start quilting it!

Responses

Thanks to everyone for your great comments on my quilt. I have completed the top, so I'm going to start trying to select a thread (or threads) for the quilting. Mary asked how I planned to quilt it. I'm going to do a whimsical flower design in the center of each block and do a wave pattern on the HST's. I don't think I'll quilt on the white part as that is where the signatures will be, but I may change my mind if it looks like it needs it. I have a nice variegated thread that I think will look good on the HST's, but I will probably use something different for the block centers.

Evelyn, thanks for the suggestion about the freezer paper. I'll be taking the quilt top to the school next week to get the signatures. I told my DH that I wanted to be there when the students signed it and I want it to be done in an organized fashion. He was figuring he would just take it to school and leave it out for the students to sign during the day. Um ... NO WAY!!!

Linda, the pattern for Jan's quilt is in a back issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. I'll have to find out which one. I responded back to you in my comments, but I wanted to make sure you'd see the response, so here it is again.

More progress

I thought I should update my progress on this quilt. I finished the last three rows last night, so the top is almost complete. I had to stop when I got to this point because my neck and shoulders were starting to bother me after three days at my sewing machine. I need to learn to relax my shoulders when I'm sewing! If you click on the picture, you'll see it larger. Now I need some suggestions on the quilting. I'm pretty settled on the quilting designs I'm going to use, but I'm not sure about what thread to use. These colors are so beautiful, and I don't want to mess that up by my choice of quilting thread. I don't really want to use monofiliment thread, but any color thread I use (even varigated) will tend to stand out on this. I have some sample sandwiches that I can try out different threads on, so if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Back from retreat with PICTURES!

I'm back from retreat and I must say that it was an absolute blast, as usual. We had 38 from our guild at this year's retreat. That's the most we've ever had. Our usual routine is to do a small project on Friday evening. This year, we did fabric bowls and thread bowls. I had special work of my own to do, so I didn't do the bowls, but there were some lovely creations. In the middle of the picture above, you can see one of the fabric bowls and inside it are the pieces I trimmed from my HST's that my friend will be using to make a thread and fiber bowl. Sorry you can't see the bowl very well, and I'll explain more about this picture later in my post.

On Saturday, we get started on the main retreat project. Usually most people are working on the main project, but there are also those who work on their own stuff. This year's project was Easy Elegant Lone Star Quilts and there were some stunning examples. The one below is my friend Karen's quilt. She is one of the best applique artists I know, but she declares herself "piecing challenged." I think she did a fabulous job on this quilt, and I just love the way the flowers swirl around on it.


On Saturday night, we always play some fun games. The picture at the top shows one of the games we played. In this game one person on each team arranged a quilt block while the other person told her where to place the pieces. The trick was that the arranger had to be blindfolded. It was a lot of fun and we got some very odd-looking blocks (ha ha).

On Sunday we continue sewing and then have "show and tell." Quite a few of our group completed quilt tops during this retreat, so it was lots of fun seeing what everyone had done. I loved this quilt made by my friend, Jan. She had never done anything with batiks before, and she did a great job on this one. She is now addicted to batiks just like I am.



Last but not least is a picture of my progress. Okay, I know I said I would be finished with this top by the time the retreat was over, but let me just say that I SERIOUSLY underestimated how long it would take me to make 256 HST's for the sashings in this quilt. Since these needed to be scrappy, I couldn't use some of my speedier techniques for making HST's. I used the technique of two squares and sewing 1/4" from either side of the middle diagonal line to produce 2 HST's. Sewing them and then cutting them apart was fairly quick, but pressing took me almost an hour. Then came trimming them. I oversized my squares, so I could be sure that the HST's would be perfect. I can tell you that I had hand and shoulder strain after all that trimming, so I had to take a stretch break after I was done. Even though I didn't get the top entirely finished, I know I got a lot accomplished. Here are the first three rows on my design wall at home. I need to get three more rows done and add the HST's on the right side and across the bottom. Hopefully I'll have it all done in the next week. I must say that I'm going to have a really hard time parting with this quilt.


Also, Judy, Sandy Panagos told me to tell you "hello."

Ready for a retreat

I guess I'd better post something here, first because Judy told me to :-) and second because it's been a really long time. I keep waiting for pictures, but I'm at work now and I have a few minutes to write, but I don't have any pictures. So I'll try to add some pictures after I get home tonight.

This weekend is my guild's annual quilting retreat, and I just can't wait. A weekend of nothing but quilting is such a luxury for me. I'm always focused and productive at these retreats and I expect nothing less from this year's. My guild usually has a class for the weekend, but I will be doing my own thing since I'm not buying any new fabric. My first project for the weekend will be a new quilt that I started a couple of weeks ago. Here's the story. There is a girl in DH's school (he's a high school math teacher) who has been diagnosed with leukemia. She was in the hospital for 26 days and will go back in a week for a second round of chemo. She is a great girl and has been one of our best babysitters for the last couple of years. Anyway, I came up with the idea of doing a quilt for her and letting the kids at the school sign it so Angie can wrap herself up in the love of all of her friends. I picked a pattern out of the latest issue of Quick Quilts (you can see a picture of it by going here) and started trying to figure out what kinds of fabric I would use. After all, I'm not buying any new fabric, so it had to be something I could pull from my stash. I wanted to use brights, but I have a pretty small stash of those. However, I bought some Laurel Burch fabrics a couple of years ago and I somehow managed to find enough fabric in my stash to make it work. The quilt has 30 blocks and I really wanted to have 30 different fabrics as the centers. I had enough 10" squares from a swap I did a few years ago to do it. I had enough fabric left over from a backing for another quilt to use for the solid sashings (that's where the students will sign), so I'm all set. I've already pieced the blocks with the solid sashings and I've got the fabric for all of the HST's cut and ready to go through my machine. I even cut up all of the leftover scraps into 2" squares to use for my leaders and enders. This is a quilt that has to be done this weekend and I'll probably have the top done on Friday night.

The other quilts that I'm taking to work on are the two Star Fling quilts that I'm doing for my daughters and the blocks from my applique quilt. So tomorrow night I'll be cleaning my machine ( my wonderful Featherweight ), winding some bobbins, and packing everything up for my wonderful weekend away from home. Yippee!!!

Slow and steady ...

Sorry I've been missing for a while. First, my computer at work was going so slow, I could hardly stand to work on it. Then it spent 3 days in IS while they tried to figure out what was wrong with it. It's back now, and it's working great, but I have a mountain of work that just keeps growing. So there hasn't been a lot of time to post much.

Today's entry is primarily a response to Laurie's post from Monday talking about her slow weight loss. At first I was just going to write a comment, but then I figured it would get way too long, so I'm just using this topic for my blog entry today. No, it's not exactly quilt related, but, oh well! One of those sayings that has stuck in my head over the course of my weight-loss journey is "slow and steady wins the race." Well, okay, but just how slow is slow? I know all of that stuff about how I didn't gain it all overnight, so I won't lose it overnight. That's a given. But what really is a reasonable expectation? I embarked on my journey with what I thought was a reasonable goal of losing 2 lbs. per week on average. For the first 7 months or so everything was moving along just the way I'd planned it. But then it happened - the dreaded plateau! I spent the next 6 months in misery trying to get my scale to budge. I ate more, ate less, exercised more, changed my exercise routine, walked slower and longer, walked faster - all to no avail. I was stuck. Laurie, boy do I feel your frustration because I've been right there. When the scale finally started moving again, it was all at a much slower pace. I've been at this for 20 months now and I truly never would have thought it would take me this long to lose the first hundred lbs. I think if that thought had occurred to me, I might never have started.

But something interesting has happened to me over that time and I've sort of reassessed the goal. When you start losing weight, people are always asking what your goal is. I've always been too embarrassed to actually come out and tell people I want to lose 150 lbs. but there you have it. The thing is over the course of time I've realized that that is not really the goal at all. My real goal is to be a thin person - to make choices like a thin person, to be active like a thin person, to stay a thin person. I've been a fat person most of my life. My body knows how to be fat and it wants to go back to being fat. I have proof of that because I've lost 50+ pounds more times in my life than I can count, but I just keep putting it all back on and then some more. So I honestly think the slow progress is helping me in the long run, because I'm acquiring new eating habits. My body is learning how to stay at this weight. For me that is a very big deal. I've learned to celebrate the small losses and even staying the same from week to week because any time I don't gain, I've won. Ultimately the hardest battle is not losing it; it's keeping it off - FOR GOOD!