More Snow?

Since Spring has sprung, my apple trees have started budding.  I was so excited!

But, last night we got an inch of snow! Hopefully all the blossoms hadn't come out yet and the trees will still blossom and give us apples.

Last year we had a late freeze and all the trees in the surrounding area lost all their blossoms.  No one in our area had apples or pears.

I am hoping that won't happen again this year.  We have yet to see.  It is very nice today. In the fifties, no wind.

Let see what happens next week.

Working Hexies Just For Fun

Here is a picture of my latest folly! Half Inch Hexies!!

I layed out the project on top, but you can barely see it here.

Please notice that the hexies are as big as the thimble, bobbins or my fingertip. I thought it would be fun to make a small project . . .just for fun so I can say I did it!  So I decided to make a dresser scarf.  That pink, grey and red strip on the top of the picture is the project.

They actually don't take long to form around the foundation papers. What takes a long time is making enough of them to cover anything! Since I am using freezer paper for the hexies, I don't have to deal with pins or glue, just iron then on to the fabric.

I will keep you posted on this project.

Next time I use this size, I will make coasters . . . LOL!

Can't even imagine doing a king size quilt!!!

Fantastic Vintage Machine!

I just finished sewing my "Bonnie Hunter" style "crumb" strips with my crazy quilt squares to make the sewing machine cover shown below for my Vintage Singer Treadle Sewing Machine.

I did all the sewing on this treadle machine.  It is still a little sluggish. But with a little more TLC and elbow grease it will soon be flying! I have been cleaning and adjusting for several months.  The stitching is great but the treadling movement is hard and its supposed to be easy. So I figure I still have more work to do on the cleaning and adjusting.

   

I didn't use a pattern for the cover. Just measured from one end to the other of the machine and from the top to the bottom.  Then I cut rectangles and sewed them together with the crumb strips.  My sewing is a little crooked because I am just starting to learn how to treadle. 

 

Now that I finished the format of the cover I will embellish it with lots of beads and embroidery.  Since the machine is of a vintage age, I think the cover should be embellished in vintage style also.

 

Quilter's Beware!

This was recently posted on Facebook and I thought I should share it with you!

Delay in Postings!

I see that I have delayed posting for quite a bit!

I have had several orders to cut and ship and of course, life gets in the way!  I apologize for not posting sooner.

Today I am finishing the last order that I have at the moment.  Since we have no mail today, it will ship tomorrow.  So today after the order is finished, I will be working on my hexies, who have been sorely neglected lately.  And, of course, I will be working on my daughters quilt.

It seems that I will not be able to reach my goal for her birthday, so many things going on lately!  But, probably a month after. . . I hope.  Either way, I am sure she will be excited to get it no matter what time I give it to her.

So I am signing off now so I can get back to finishing that order and get to the hand quilting.

Sorting, logging. . . Tiring!

Today I am not doing any quilting, cross stitch or crafting of any kind.

My husband just is finishing building a large storage shed on our property. So we went Thursday and brought some boxes from our storage in Vegas.

So, yesterday and today I have spent emptying and sorting and dumping all sorts of things.

The part I am enjoying is finding little stashes of fabric that I used as padding for the breakables when we moved from California to New Mexico. Fabric I hadn't seen in years!

It's like going shopping but for familiar fabric!  It's fun to see old friends and it makes a tedious and tiring job more fun!!!

No Power!

Got up this morning to start the wood burning stove at 4:30 a.m.  Just as I slipped back into bed the power went off.

It has been going off and on since then and it is now five thirty.  As you can see in the picture below there are no lights, just the stove. It is still dark outside.

I have a treadle machine so sewing will not be a problem, but I wanted to hand quilt on my basket weave quilt. My senior eyes can't see as well with battery powered lanterns when it is dark. Well at least for doing close up fine work like hand quilting.

I guess I will have to wait until daylight. Thank goodness for cell phones.

Quilting the Basket Weave Quilt

Today it will be slightly warmer than yesterday. Yesterday it only got to the low thirties. Today it will be in the forties. Nice day to spend doing nothing but hand quilting,

Yesterday I almost got the one section, you know the part between the poles, done. Just about five inches not done. I intend to finish that part and then get half of another section done today.

Can't quilt tomorrow, going to Vegas to pick up stuff.  So either I will not have time or I will be too tired from shopping all day! LOL!

Have to keep working feverishly, my deadline is fast approaching! Can you believe we are at the end of January already??? On my!!!!

Yes, We Have No Quilting Today!

It's been a couple of very busy days here. I have had to actually do my job and cut several orders. So I have not even touched a needle or machine for almost five days.

I am in quilting hell!  LOL! No quilting, no sewing, no applique! Oh my!

Tomorrow is my last day of cutting, I have finally caught up.

We are awaiting a snow storm and a cold front in our area. It won't be as bad as in the east but it's the kind of weather when a home made pot of soup is great! My husband was kind enough to oblige in the soup department while I cut the orders and brought in enough logs for the stove to last for two days. So we are prepared to sit out the storm.

So hand quilting here I come! YAY!!

Making Progress. . . Again!!

This is my progress so far since I rerolled the quilt sandwich.

Where the masking tape strip is located is the current row that I am working on. Lower, toward the bottom of the picture is two more rows that are faintly visible.

I am surprised that I am this far in just a couple of days.  Several other things interrupt the progress of the quilting but I try to devote at least an hour a day to this project because my deadline is in March.

Maybe it's my imagination but now that I rerolled the quilt sandwich, it seems to be easier to quilt it and it seems to be going quicker than before when it was crooked.

Strange what the power of suggestion does to the mind! LOL!  Even though it was a difficult decision, I am glad that I decided to take it apart and start again and it hasn't taken long to catch up to the point I was at before.

Beginning again

I realized after quilting two rows across the width and two cross wise small sections that my quilt was askew. No amount of tugging and fudging was going to straighten it.

So, I made the dreaded decision to rip out and start over again!!! Oh my!!

I took all my supplies and my quilt into our nearest town of Mora, to the conference room at "Tapetes de Lana", a local rug weaving enterprise.  They have several rectangular tables for use and as long as they are not booked they do not charge to use for private purposes such as mine.

I gathered the tables together in the center of the room in the shape of a large rectangle.

Then I started laying out my quilt, First the backing, which I taped to the tables. Then I layed the batting on top of that.  After I got the batting nice and smooth, I layed the quilt top.

After I got the whole thing nice and straight, I pinned the leader cloth to the edges, inserted the bars and with my husband's help rolled the whole thing onto the bars. This whole process took about three hours because I was doing most of it by myself while my husband did some errands in town.

When we finished rolling we went home and mounted the bars onto the frame.

NOW I am ready to hand quilt it. It is nice and straight and I have learned never to rush when you are mounting a quilt sandwich onto the bars.

Progress Being Made

I have not hand quilted in months. Since we can not be outside because of the cold,wind and snow, I am glad I have the basket weave quilt on the frame to work on. I realised too late that this quilt is going to be difficult to hand quilt because of all the small seams. Yesterday I only got one and half rows done and today the same.

Besides there being plenty of seams to quilt through, my fingers are painful today from the cold affecting my blossoming arthritis. I say blossoming because it is getting steadily worse each year.  But, they say exercise is good for arthritis so I keep hand quilting!

Very little progress today,but progress nevertheless.

Finally starting to Quilt!

I finally got my quilt onto the frame. My husband bought some new wood bars from our local lumber yard.

Once we got the quilt rolled onto the bars, I piled up some plastic boxes and one case of soda (LOL it's the only thing that would fit!) in the middle for support.  I didn't want to take any chances of these bars breaking. I had already wasted $30 on buying "new extension kit bars" that broke.

Even though these were a solid piece of wood eight feet long, they were 1 1/2" by 1" thick.

I was holding my breath while we were attaching the rolled quilt to the frame.  Thank goodness it held and didn't crack!  I am a happy quilter again!

Happy New Year's Eve Eve!

Today is New Year's Eve Eve and we are going to a party at the local senior citizens center!

Lunch and a dance! Am I really old enough to go there?? But I thought I just turned thirty on my last birthday! LOL!

Tomorrow we are going to the local VFW hall for a proper New Year's Eve dinner and dance. . . Not just for seniors!

Wherever you are, whatever age you are have a wonderful, peaceful and Happy New Year with family or friends!

Oh no! Not again!

I was so excited when I got my replacement bars for my quilt frame. I had to wait until after Christmas but I was happy that I had them.

When we got back from my daughter's house, I started by connecting the replacement bars to the quilt frame and using the metal bars that came with the installation kit. Small problem, they didn't send enough screws for all four plates.

It took me about an hour to locate screws that fit the bracing plates

The plates were on the bars and I started loading the backing, then the batting and finally the quilt top.

Now I started rolling and smoothing, rolling and smoothing.  Almost done!  Just have to load the opposite bar and then tighten the quilt and start quilting.

That's when the new bar cracked! Again!

Now I am stuck with no frame, again!

Gluten Free Biscochitos

Biscochitos are the state cookie of New Mexico. They are usually made for Christmas, New Years and major celebrations. They are very similar to sugar cookies but much richer.

Since my daughter has Celiac it was very hard for me to make them and she wouldn't be able to eat them. So between the two of us we came up with a gluten free recipe!  It still needs a little tweaking but it's very close. They taste great!

Merry Christmas Eve!

We are on the way to Albuquerque to spend Christmas Eve and day with my youngest daughter's family and my youngest son.

We are just north of Santa Fe. Aren't the mountains beautiful?

Anxiously waiting for the UPS truck!

Here I am waiting for the UPS truck! Why? Because my new extension bars come today!!  YAY!!

I have been working on my hexie quilt handwork. You know making individual hexies and then sewing them together to make the individual flowers.  I have already made about 15 flowers.  But I need about 40 more.  No problem! I have been working on this particular quilt on and off for about 2 years. I also need to make about 200 white individual hexies.  The white ones are going to be the path between the flowers. This quilt is for me so I can take my time with it. Right now my priority is my oldest daughters quilt, which I need to finish in time for her birthday!

I have also started sewing the blocks for another string basket weave quilt. This one will be for my youngest daughter.  I figure if I sew the blocks for the youngest in between hand quilting the one for the oldest, I should have the second quilt ready for the quilt frame as soon as I get the first one off the frame. . . maybe even before.  Then. . . I still have to make one for my oldest son!  My youngest son already has his quilt. 

So you see, waiting for the UPS truck is really holding up the parade!!  Plus, I will not be able to work on the quilt today because we are making chile rellenos (New Mexico Style) or Chile bullets as my daughter in law calls them. We cooked the meat and green New Mexico chile yesterday. Today we will form the "bullets" and fry them. YUM YUM!

We wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! Have a great time with family and friends!

OH NO! NO! NO!

I was ready to put the scrappy basket weave quilt on the quilt frame so I could start hand quilting.  YAY!

I got it onto one of the cross bars and started rolling the sandwich.  When I finished with the top bar, I inserted the bottom bar into the leader cloth and started rolling it back so it would be even.

Just as I was about to lodge it into the holding brackets, I heard a crack!!!  OH NO! What was that sound?  I looked at the top bar and it had rolled off the frame. When it fell, the middle bar cracked in half!

Oh my goodness what a setback!  I was so disheartened.  I almost screamed, cried and jumped up and down!

Now I had to undo all the rolling from the top bar. I rolled the quilt onto the bottom bar, took it off the top bar and left it on the table.  I immediately went to my cabin and called the company that makes my quilting frame.  I had bought this quilting frame used from a private party and had only used it once for the pink baby quilt that I wrote about on this blog.

Well as I scrolled through the company's website I found a manual for my frame model and found out that it didn't have the middle extension steel brackets to give the bars more stability when a large quilt is on the frame. That's why the bar had cracked. Not enough support!

Well needless to say, I ordered the extension kit (new bars) and the installation kit for the extension kit.  It includes the steel brackets.

So now I am waiting for this order to arrive sometime next week.  Can't start hand quilting the basket weave quilt until that order gets here.  I hope that I will still make my deadline for my daughter's birthday . . . 3 months!

Curtain Valances

 It seems it's been awhile since I have posted an entry into my blog. The year just seems to get busier and busier as it ends.

Well I have been busy! I feel very accomplished for this year. 

Projects I have finished:

The pink baby quilt for my neighbors grand daughter;

The cross stitch xmas stocking for my grand daughter;

The string scrappy basket weave quilt top;

and last but not least the following project . . . 

 When we were going to the flea market in Las Vegas, New Mexico, I found 2 matching curtain valances. They had a beautiful floral pattern that was partly hand embroidered with the leaves painted on. It also had a curved edging with tatting all around.  It was a real bargain because besides the beautiful handwork, the fabric was very sturdy and thick. The only decoration was the floral embroidery.

 
 I decided to sew them together on the ends that usually would go on the curtain rods.  I removed the sewing that made the casing at the top of each and sewed together at that side.

Now there was embroidery work on each side of the valance.  I wanted to make a table topper with it for my circular table.  It looked pretty good.  The only problem is that the seam in the middle was very bare and you could see the 4 seams where the casing used to be.  I washed them but the sewing marks did not come out.  So I decided to embroider a grid down the middle.  The grid would hide the seam and the sewing lines from the casing.

Here is a close up of the grid work that I put in.

 

 This is how the whole thing looks now.  Even though I couldn't get the whole thing into the picture, you can get a pretty good idea from this picture.

What do you think? Does it look like a trellis between the florals?