Book Titles

I have been experimenting with the fonts on my sewing machine.  I only have 3 fonts, so my book titles won't have a lot of variety.  Also, one of the fonts is a cursive script, which is very hard to read.  I probably won't use it.  I have 7 books titled now, 6 are a "set" of travel books, the block with 6 red books:

Notice that one of the books is put in upside down, thus, I had to put the title on the other way.  I might take needle and thread and make the "h's" and "l's" a little taller.  At least the font is read-able, if not too fancy. It'll do.  One sad thing is that when I was snipping threads, I also put a teeny tiny cut in the red fabric.  Just above the capital W in Werewolves.  I treated it with "fray-check" and ironed on a tiny piece of interfacing so it won't "grow", and I am gonna try to camouflage it with thread by making the W a little wider/longer.  Not sure if that will work.  The only other thing to do is dismantle the block and make a new book, which I probably would do, except I used scraps for this, and I don't think there is any of this red fabric left.  I am mad at myself for being so careless!  (Where's the naughty chair?)

Ok, back to work now!

30 Finished Blocks

I have been steadily working, almost non-stop, and I have all 30 blocks done now.  I did a couple of substitutions from the originals, but it all worked out way better than I expected.  Here are the rest of the blocks:

This first one is actually two substitutions, since I skipped block 15, and block 30.  I made a double-block because after I enlarged the wizard (originally a 5 x 5 in size) to 165%, and made a photo frame around it,  it was rather large.  I wanted more space on the sides.  The tri-Wizard cup was enlarged only 125%, and turned out smaller than I expected.  So together, it seemed a perfect solution to put them together, and added a few books and trimmed it to size.  Wonderful!

  

And here they all are!   I have to add sashing strips between the rows.  Before I do that, though, I want to add book titles to some of the books.  So that is my next project.  This is fun!

Project of Doom

Well, I can't help myself.  I started a new quilt.  This is a Harry Potter quilt called the Project of Doom.

I know I'm not done with quilting the X Marks the Spot quilt, but I set it aside for now.  (It has to be finished for a wedding gift at the end of August, so I'll be getting back to it soon....)  When I saw this Harry Potter quilt, I was intrigued. I'm not a huge fan of Harry Potter although I have read the books and enjoyed them for the most part.  But I AM a huge fan of quilting and this looked like an exciting project. It's totally paper-pieced, and I haven't done a quilt like this before.  I "tried" one block, and I was hooked!  I HAD to do the next one, and the next, and "just one more" (you know how it is....) and before I knew it, a week has gone by and I have 16 of 30 blocks done!  Nothing else is getting done, but I'm having FUN!  Here's what my "sewing room" looks like--it's a MESS!  (capital M!)

We all know that MESS is directly proportional to FUN!  Looks like I'm have a Ton 'O Fun!  (I am!)

So here are my first 16 blocks:  (Be sure to click on each one to get the larger view.)

  

 These blocks will be arranged in rows of 5 across (6 rows) with a wood grained fabric between them to simulate a book case.  Here's all 16 in an arrangement that will probably not look this way at the end!

Embarrassing Fuzz

I haven't been blogging in the past month or so, but I have been quilting!  I've been free-motion quilting the "X marks the Spot" quilt, trying to finish it up by August so I can give it as a wedding gift.

Today I sewed quite a bit and was pleased with the front, but when I looked at the back!  OMG!!  The tension was so off, it was a mess of loops and "couching" stitches.  I tried re-threading, and all the usual "fixes" with no luck.  Since the machine was making an unusual squeaking noise, I decided a drop or two of oil in some advantageous spots might help.  I unscrewed the throat plate and took it off. Whoa!  It looked all moldy down there.  Everything was covered in gray fuzz.  Upon closer investigation, that's what it was, FUZZ!  I am embarrassed to say that I have not removed this cover since I got my machine over a year ago!

I got out my little brush, and my tweezers and proceeded to remove clumps of dust, lint, threads, and other debris.  I cleaned it out as best I could, oiled a few moving parts that I could see/reach.  Did this solve my problem?  YES!  You bet it did!  New lesson learned:  Don't wait til it squeaks to clean the machine!

Finished!!

Well, I am finished with Anna's birthday quilt!  I put the binding on today.  From start to finish took less than 4 months (I ordered the fabric on Jan. 9.)  I have to remove dog hair yet, but otherwise, totally done!  It always feels wonderful to finish a quilt, and as always, I will love/hate to give it away!  Here it is:

The Painted Lady.  Happy 13th Birthday, Anna!

Variegated Thread

I finally got my jewel tone variegated thread!  There were so many choices at this sewing store in Madison--I didn't realize variegated "jewel tone" thread came in so many options!  Some thread had more blue in it, some had more reds, some more greens or yellows.  Some changed colors every 1 or 1.5 inch, others had longers stretches of color so it changed in 3 or 4 inches.  Of course then we have rayon, polyester, cotton, silk and embroidery thread to consider.  Ok, no silk, rayon, or embroidery for me.  I got two opposing opinions on polyester vs cotton thread.  One said if it's cotton fabric, ALWAYS use cotton thread.  Another said that's an old wives' tale, polyester thread is better--less "linty" and almost never breaks (unlike cotton thread). So I bought 2 spools of "jeweltone" variegated thread, one with more blue (cotton thread), and one with brighter colors (polyester).  I brought them home and made 2 samples and decided I like the brighter tones better.  (The blue-sy thread seemed too light.) Thus I am using POLYESTER thread for this portion of my quilting.  Here's how it looks!

Using polyester variegated thread to echo the butterfly.

Also you may notice that I decided against decorative stitching after all.  Keep it simple.  I want the butterflies with the echoing to get the focus. You can notice my half circles in the framing strips.  I am also doing a very simple X in the sashing strips for the same reason.  I love these fabrics and don't want to hide them under a lot of quilting stitches.

Echoing

While I am looking for jewel-tone variegated thread, and trying to decide on which decorative stitch to use, I am echo-stitching around the butterflies in this part of the quilting process.  I am using a burgundy colored thread for the black-framed butterflies, will use the variegated thread in jewel tones to do the mint-framed butterflies.  I think this is a fun way to quilt, and easy too.  The echoing around the butterfly causes the butterfly to be slightly poofy and raised.  I think this looks really nice!    Take a look!