I am back home in Maricopa as the Grand Canyon now has 2 feet of snow! I was really missing being home as well. I am back at my old job, driving a school bus, but hopefully it will only be temporary and I will be back at the canyon after the snow melts in a couple of months.
In the mean time, I have let the Farmers Wife blocks (1930's version) slip through my fingers. I had made 15 blocks by the time I was ready to leave the canyon in December and I have not had the time to get back to them since. That is my goal while I am home, but my plate has been so full . . well you know the story.
I cam home, was off for a couple of days and then right back to work, off for 3 weeks, visiting my daughter in Seattle, and then Christmas and New Years vacation and then right back to work driving the school bus. I did have my Granddaughter over for a weekend, she is 8, and we worked on her 1st quilt.
She went shopping in my stash and came up with these colors. No pattern needed, just sew the strips together. Now keep in mind, this is the first time she has sat at a sewing machine (and grandma has a magic ruler that makes every thing straight even thought the seams were not quite) The back is flannel and we had enough left over to make a machine pillow case, which she made. Not bad for her first quilt!
I believe in my last blog, I mentioned washing and starching the fabric for my 1930's Farmers Wife quilt. As I got to sewing, I found that I did not have enough fabric, in the smaller prints, to be able to do this quilt, so I purchased more. But because the fabric was out of print, the only fabric that I could find were triangle cuts and charm squares <sigh> so I purchased them and now that I was home, could wash them in the washer... AHHHHH! This was the most stupid idea I think I have ever had! I found that when I was using the fabric I had washed at the canyon, I did not like the smell of the starch.
And this is what you get when you wash a jelly roll... Take it from me, don't do this!
I have a couple of 3 day weekends coming up and will try to get back to this project.
In the mean time, I did the New Years Day mystery quilt. Almost have the blocks together and they are the next on the list, in fact, they are sitting on the machine bed. This is what the quilt is supposed to look like (shades of red) when I get it done.
I think I also mentioned that I was going to the Canyon to make money to purchase a long arm quilting machine.. yeah, that didn't happen because I bought a 5th wheel RV. Still have the RV, just on the quilting machine. One of the things that I decided to do while I was home, was to start to de-stash, and that includes books. I will get to the fabric later, but right now, I have decided to do the books. I had two full bookcases full of quilting books, they need to go as I will never use them and only bought them because, well, I didn't have them. Some are older, some are newer and I kept the ones that I just couldn't part with and that was 4 full shelves. . . getting there, trust me, I will totally de-stash sooner or later.
If you are interested in any of the books, they are for sale on Amazon
Click on the products tab and it will show you all of the books that I have up for sale. I am trying to make enough money to put a down payment on the long arm machine, so come on over a pick up that book that you didn't know you wanted!
I am always trying to reinvent myself, so I invested in a Silhouette die cutting machine. My Christmas present to myself! I am in the process of setting up an Etsy store for my crafts made with this machine. My daughter has one and is very happy with it, so I figured that I would try it as well, if nothing else, we both have the same machine and something crafty in common as she will not touch a sewing machine, My Etsy shop can be found by clicking this link My Etsy As I said, I am in the process of setting it up and getting the listings written, lots of details to attend to in this process.
My daughters store can be found by clicking this link Geek Vinyl Just as the name say, geekie stuff like Star Wars and Dr. Who and all sorts of other kool geekie stuff.
So not much in the way of quilting in this post except, don't wash your pre-cuts!
I am in hopes that that next one will be full of stitches and new ideas for you.
Till then,
Happy Crafting and Quilting!
