Officially Done

Cerulean Blue is officially done after having the binding sewn down.  I am officially done after having my husband out of town for three days.  He is back now though, and I have a three day weekend coming up to recover from the busyness. 

I spent the afternoon happily turning fabric scraps into Swiss cheese.  There were a bunch of deconstructed shirts lurking in the bin with the usual scraps and several new GO dies still in wrappers. I focused on the blue of course, so you'll see more of these scraps soon enough. 

My goal is to have the laundry room cleared out in time for the new dryer to arrive. I am HOPING that we have a new dryer by time the weekend ends.  Otherwise I'll start going door to door to borrow dryers.  I've got two friends lined up who will be happy to lend me some dryer space in case we run out of underwear before the new appliances arrive.

Happy Mail

Happiness does come in the mail.  I was rushing around  this afternoon doing some shopping.  and dashed in just in time to get the bus.  Therefore, I didn't see that there was a package waiting for me on the front stoop.  Look what I got in the mail!  The Christmas gift I ordered for myself -- surprise.  The 3.5 inch tumbler isn't out yet, but I got a drunkards path and a diamond along with an extra mat and a holder.  Now I want to go cut something, but I'm off to ice skating again (of course)  so it will have to wait.  Do you think I should wrap them up and put them under the tree?

Quilt in a Day

 From start to finish, this truly was a quilt made today.  It is just a rectangular piece of background fabric with circles of fabric scattered.  The circles were cut with my Accuquilt GO cutter and then temporarily glue sticked down by my seven year old daughter. 

They were sewn on as the top was quilted on my HQ 16.  I'll have to attach the binding tomorrow, but other than that, it is done.  It isn't huge, but I think it will be a nice size for the kids to snuggle under on the couch during this cold snap we've been having.  I'm excited to get the binding done so that I can throw it into the wash and see how the edges fray.  This is my first foray into raw edge applique and I'm curious to see how it will turn out. 

Tangential Quilter

Last night Kurt was in bed by 8 (still recovery from his business trip), so after the kids were asleep I decided to catch up on ironing.  I went though most of the scrap basket and a couple of flimsies and some yardage that had come out of prewashing.  Taking advantage of daylight savings, I thought I'd use my extra hour last night instead of this morning.

My original plan for the morning was to cut up some more scraps with the GO.  I laid out all the dies and sorted everything out into stacks.  Instead of actually cutting anything though, I shot off on my first tangent of the day. 

Part of the ironing last night was four quadrants of a spinning star quilt that I was making for our bed.  Kurt requested something warmer for our harsh Florida winters, so I've been looking into ordering some wool batting (it's not something they sell here).  I pulled the sections out and was auditioning sashing colors when I stumbled across the fabric that I bought for a raw edge applique quilt I wanted to try out. 

I had already cut out circles from scraps, they just needed to be placed randomly onto the background fabric.  Sounds like a perfect job for a 7 year old.  Sydney was happy to be my quilt designer and helper for the morning.  She arranged the circles to her liking and then went back with a glue stick to make sure they would stay in place until they could get sewn down. Then she chose fabric for the back and binding, all while singing Lollipop. 

She is a pro on the handiquilter and was anxious to get to the quilting part.  It's the first time I've used it since the new carpet though, so it still needed a little set up and adjustment.  By the time the quilt was loaded and ready to go, her 7 year old attention span had been spent and I had to go find her to help with the sewing.  I've never done raw edge applique before, so I'm a little anxious about how it will turn out after the wash, but time will tell.  I did a little spiral in the circles, staying about a quarter inch from the edge and then filled in the background with swirlies.  It's not quite done yet, because the afternoon was booked solid.  I'm debating now whether to go finish it or just call it a night.  First though, I'll go take a peek at what other people got done over the weekend. 

Landscaping

Last week a couple of the neighbors were getting new trees put in.  Last winter was unusually cold and there were lots of dead palm trees around the block.  What started as a couple of trees to replace the dead ones, ended up as a whole landscaping package with rocks and edging and shrubs.  It is done now just in time for it to get cold again.

The air has taken on a definite flavor of fall, motivating us all to pull out our jackets and long sleeved shirts.  There was not a single child at the bus stop this morning in pants that fit.  Everyone was wearing last years clothes, leaving lots of sock and ankle showing. I guess we'll do some wardrobe organization this weekend. 

Last night I used a couple of hours of evening time after the kids were in bed to continue sorting through my scraps. I still have a stack of shirts from the Goodwill clearance center that I was using to cut tumbler blocks with my GO cutter. I'm not ready to start sewing them together yet, but they will be ready next time I want to start a new scrap project. The basket is getting emptier, little bit by little bit.

Housekeeping

I'm feeling very virtuous after spending time today organizing, ironing and cutting scraps. My scrap basket is entirely empty! I dug down through the last year of leftovers and turned them into tidy strips and squares and such. When done with that, I ironed the new fabric fresh out of the laundry and started in on my bucket of cut up shirts. Yikes, no wonder I needed that afternoon nap today! I kept cutting more tumbler blocks from the shirts, but I'm not down to the bottom of those yet. Sydney wanted to help and had lots of fun turning the crank on the GO cutter.
The kids are starting to get excited about starting a new year of school. There is just one week of vacation left for them and Wednesday is the big day when they get to go in to meet their teachers and do all the registration stuff. It's also my first day of preplanning meetings, so that will be a lot of fun juggling. Kurt is usually available to hang out with them during the few days that don't overlap, but he's got important meetings those days. The kids are excited about having babysitters though, so life is good.

Happy Scrapping

I've had my new Go Cutter for about a week now, and I've been playing with it here and there. I started with my scrap basket and worked my way through the little bits and pieces. With no particular goal in mind, I just started matching up scraps to shapes and filing them away.
The most frustrating thing I found at the beginning was not having the dies for the shapes that I usually cut. I have a routine worked out for cutting scraps into frequently used sizes bases on Bonny Hunters Scrap User's system. I use 5 inch squares for the Girl Scout quilts, so I focus on those first, especially with novelty fabrics. After that I cut strips, usually 2.5 inches, but sometimes 3.5. When the fabric gets too small for that I switch to 2 inch strips and then 1.5 inches.

So after I started getting the hang of the whole GO cutter thing, I began to work out a system. By looking at the dies I had, I estimated the width of fabric that would fit nicely in each die. Then while going through my scrap basket, I looked for fabric that would work with those dies. I went ahead and rotary cut the shapes that I didn't have dies for. For the rest, I just loosely cut fabric into pieces that were a little bigger than the shape I had in mind and stacked them on top of the die that I wanted to use.
I carried out this whole experiment in fabric while sitting next to the pool making sure nobody was going to drown.
Once I got a system going, cutting the fabric went really quickly. By the time the kids were ready to be done swimming, I had a nice little collection of squares and strips and circles. There wasn't much more waste than their would have been if I were cutting everything traditionally and it does go much faster, especially if working with yardage rather than scraps.
So, if you are thinking about getting a Go Cutter, think about how you cut fabric. Do you use specific shapes again and again? Would you make a quilt because it uses the shapes you have the die for? Are you willing to invest in the dies you need to make the quilts you want?
I like gadgets, so the idea of using a cool new tool makes me happy. I can see myself having fun and making quilts to get the most out of my new cutter.

Shirts Deconstructed

I finally got around to the shirts that I picked up at Goodwill on Saturday. I have it down to a science now. A little tub or trash can sits at my feet along with a cup for the buttons. The seams and scraps get dropped down while I harvest the pieces of fabric.
I'm not sure yet what I'll do with these. I am thinking of saving it to use with the Go Cutter when it comes in, hopefully soon. I got a really good price on ebay along with free shipping on the 4th of July. I even found a tumbler die, and it all added up to almost exactly the same amount as the change from the basket.
I took the kids to see Marmaduke this afternoon and there was a great quilt hanging on the wall at the beginning of the movie. I kept looking for it every time someone walked past. It had great fall colors with two different backgrounds, one a darker beige that looked almost tea died. I so wished I could hit pause and check it out. It was a modified nine patch alternating with a sashed square for an Irish chain type effect. I get such a kick out of seeing quilts in movies. We all ate so much popcorn that nobody was very hungry for dinner.

Spare Change

You may have noticed that I have been on a bit of an organizational kick these days. It happens every summer. Trying to make up for chores that get neglected during the school year I suppose. Finding space in the study/spare bedroom for the quilting machine has been an ongoing process. One of the small items of furniture that needed to find a new home was a wooden two drawer filing cabinet. After consultation with Kurt, we decided that it could become his nightstand, replacing a rickety table that has been serving the purpose. Today I cleared off the table and in my pattern of slightly obsessive organization, decided that all of the change that he keeps in a basket there needed to be sorted, rolled and deposited at the bank. That of course led to a collection of all of the loose change in the house and an entire morning of work. Guess how much there was? It was frightening really.
I think since it was "free" money, that I should be able to spend it on something fun. I'm trying to talk myself out of getting an Accuquilt. I just got a darned Handiquilter, I shouldn't buy anything else, but I'm being very tempted.
Speaking of my charmed life, I talked everyone into going to volleyball with Kurt tonight and got my Square Root top put together. I found some possible fabrics for borders and backings in my ongoing cleaning today, so maybe I will get it ready to quilt before we go on vacation. No quilting for me in the next couple of days, I "put away" the quilting things today in order to turn the room back into a guest bedroom again. Never fear, I still have plenty of regular sewing to keep me going for a while.