Leaders and Enders

No time to sew today, but I did have time to trim up some leftover triangle squares. I don't have a plan for these yet. Something bright for sure.

triple rail fence

The baby is sleeping and there is laundry to be folded, there's a lovely warm rain falling outside, I have time to post one picture, here's the mockup of triple rail fence blocks.

anyone want some dump cake?

my best good friend makes a dump cake, it is wonderful. You dump one can of crushed pineapple, one can of cherry pie filling, one box of cake mix in that order in a 9 x 12 pan. You put slices of butter on top of the dry cake mix, and bake it until bubbly and yummy and done. My BF uses 2 sticks of butter, I only use one. it is great with whipped cream. I like it because there are no eggs, my DH is allergic to eggs, and I'm always looking for something sweet he can eat that doesn't require eggs. Last night I made one with chocolate cake mix and 2 cans of cherries, no pineapple. It smelled so good. I call that one a chocolate covered cherry dump cake.

triple rail fence fabrics

I had not planned on buying fabric last Friday. I was at work, brought my lunch, the weather forecast was 103 or so degrees, heat index much higher than that, so I was planning to stay in. It was just as hot or hotter as predicted by 11:30, wouldn't you know it the fire alarm went off in my building. We all went outside, thinking it was a drill and we would soon be back in. We waited. And waited. The fire truck showed up, like it normally does for a drill. Inspectors went in, but nobody waved us in after checking the building. Rumors started to flow that there was an actual fire, maybe from something warmed up in a microwave that shouldn't have been. You should have seen us all out there a 100 or so people, some of us, me included huddled in the shade of one scrawny tree. Eventually other people joined us, some had left for lunch before the alarm went off and were returning to find the building closed. After a while my boss came around and told us to find a cool place and come back in an hour or so. Where do you think I went? to the fabric store of course! Here's what I picked out for the triple rail fence. I just love these colors. Next step will be to do the mock-up to see how the strips play together.

Morning after the sew in

I just love taking pictures in the morning when the sunlight is just right. I finished the BOM, and did some more handquilting on my sister's baby girl quilt. I plan on quilting a little on each square, binding it for her, and she will fill any areas she wants to on her own.

sign up to win a go! I just did

at www.cvquiltworks.blogspot.com

Friday night sew in is tonight!

I know just what I will work on: a BOM for my guild, and my pink and brown quilt. The BOM is a red white and blue one which is already cut out and coming together nicely. Once that is finished, I can get back to the hand quilting on my pink and brown quilt. Binding the two pink and brown ones will be my next finish, I will be so happy to have those completed. Pictures tomorrow!

First Rail Fence Mini quilt Finished

It's finished! after much seam-ripping, measuring, ironing, needle sticks and finger burns we have a finish! It's beautiful I must say. On to the next lesson. I will take a break for a while and hand quilt my pink and brown quilt. It has been neglected while I worked on the rail fence. Lessons learned: how to use starch, how to properly hold a rotary cutter, how to use my rulers, quit when I'm tired. It's not a race after all, but a process I enjoy very much.

Numbered Stacks

After laying out all my blocks as they will be sewn together, I then stacked each row of blocks in order with the first block to be sewn on top. My quilt has 9 rows instead of the 11 the book calls for. Somehow I wound up with one less one-and-a-half inch green strip. It doesn't make sense to me to go back to the quilt store for that little amount of fabric. I'd end up buying something else and blowing my budget, so 9 rows it is. ok so with 9 stacks next to my machine I started sewing, after each row, pressing and starching, then back to the machine. I don't have time to sew the whole thing all at once, so whenever I can get a row put together, I do that until I get another 10 minutes or so of sewing time. Let me tell you, I'm as organized as I can be, but I still find ways of goofing up a project. Today I went to put the next blocks on and started with the bottom instead of the top. It looks the same, each corner has a solid block, but stack number 3 did not have the right block in it. Fortunately it didn't take me long to figure out I had stack number 7's block, not 3, so I finished working my way backward through the stacks. Good thing I can count backward.

How many layers of starch is too much

I'm really liking the way the fabric looks after it is starched. Is it possible to overdo the starchy thing? I have read that 3 layers of starch are recommended. I started out starching my first stack of blocks, then decided to starch as I press each seam. If it is too much maybe it will wash out.

Rail Fence Quilt

Not much sewing time since last week. We took a short vacation, then it was time to get caught up on laundry and get school registration out of the way. Tonight I readied my stacks of squares next to my trusty Pfaff, and sewed together all my first and second blocks all the way down. then it was time to starch and move on to the third row. I really love how this miniquilt is turning out. When I started sewing quilts two years ago, I thought I could just throw the pieces together and square them up at the end and have a decent looking quilt. Boy, was I wrong. The measuring, the starching, the pressing as you go, it all makes such a big difference.