ebay and groupon and AccuQuilt! Die

I'm not a big ebay user, but it is certainly somewhere I check when making a purchase.  The other day, I found that I could purchase a $15 ebay groupon for $7.  Well, I was planning on purchasing the AccuQuilt Go! Hearts Die so decided to give it a try. 

The die retails for $29.99.  Which means that I can get it for roughly $20 - $25 without looking too hard.  However, the issues of sales tax and shipping come into play.  Ebay buy it now is about $26 - $27, including shipping.  Still a couple of dollars more than what I could get it locally.  However, with that $8 net savings with the Groupon, I'm $6 ahead.  So I bid on one, hoping to get it for less than the buy it now price.  I was outbid.  So I bid on another.  Then forgot about it.  Today, I had an email saying I won.  So I looked up the Groupon.  Here's how it panned out.  Winning bid - $16.49.  Shipping $5.49.  Total cost $21.98.  That's a good deal.  However, I applied the $15 Groupon to it, which meant that the price came down to $6.98.  Keep in mind though that the Groupon cost me $7. 

In the end, I will have a new AccuQuilt Hearts Die for a total cost of $13.98.  If I could only get such a deal on the multiple 2 1/2" squares or the 3" triangle in a square die. 

Strings!

My string bin is overflowing! 

For the past eight years, one of the quilt guilds that I belong to sponsors a retreat.  I teach classes Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.  It's a whole lot of fun!  The theme for my classes this year was SCRAPS.  I've been doing a lot of scrap quilting lately.  It amazes me what I can make out of bits of leftover fabric.  My Friday class was on organizing your scraps.  Sunday's class was on putting them to use.  Saturday's class was on Selvage quilts. 

As the ladies were cutting their scraps, several of them left me their strings.  Others made their way into my room.  I brought my AccuQuilt Go! Cutter and let everyone try it.  More strings!  My string bin was overflowing when I left home.  It still is!  I took a little down time today and pieced these three blocks.  I only had three foundations marked or I probably would have made more.  I had 20 blocks or so already made, so these will be added to those.  And I marked the rest of the foundations, so I'm ready for more string blocks when the mood strikes me.  I found that I have a lot of short strings.  And narrow ones.  I think I will have to look up a pattern that puts those short strings to good use.  The Phonebook Quilt I taught last year was great.  I'm thinking maybe a Spiderweb block.  I'm not sure when this will get into the quilting agenda though.  Perhaps I'll just start a new string bin for now.

Here are a few photos from the retreat.  I showed several scrap quilts. Here they are layed out on the table for a "bed turning".  The top quilt is one of my selvage quilts.  You can see my pink selvage quilt in process in the center of the picture.  This is probably the layout that I will use.

This is the table set up in the auditorium.  We tried some different things and I think it worked much better.  Most importantly, I have some ideas for next year that I think will work out very nicely.

My pink selvage quilt in the works.  One of the ladies rearranged it to this layout.

Here are a few of the ladies.  We had about 42 people there.  Several didn't get in the picture.  Some had already left.  I'm in the first row, second from the left.  I'm wearing a tee shirt that says "Got Scraps?"

Blue Ridge Beauty

I'm making progress on my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt.  This started as a quilt that I worked on a bit at a time as I wanted a project that didn't take planning or thinking.  It recently got to a point of being almost done.  Since I'm getting ready to teach a scrap class, this was a perfect example to use.  I finished the rest of the bocks last week.  Last night, I arranged it on the floor of the bedroom.  It's way too big for the design wall and too big to lay out on the queen sized bed.

I turned row 2 onto row one, then carefully stacked up each row.

The rows were stacked on top of each other.  This whole stack went into a plastic shoe box.  With the quilt blocks stacked this way, I'll be able to sew the entire quilt together without laying it out again or getting up and down.  I love this method of assembling quilt tops.

Today, I sewed the quilt top into rows.  I did lay it out again just to make sure I didn't accidentally turn a block.  The rows are all connected to each other.  This is one piece!

Next I will sew the rows together and then press the top.  I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do for borders.

Why do I have such a hard time naming quilts?

 I was hoping to have the borders on the blue and orange quilt this weekend.  I was successful!  I like the checkerboard border.  Now, what to name it?  I always have such a difficult time naming quilts.  I am very left-brained. 

The orange shapes in this quilt take on a different look depending on how I look at the quilt.  I'm still struggling with what to call the orange shapes - blazes?  diamonds?  reflected arcs? 

A trip to JoAnn this weekend was needed to purchase backing fabric.  It was very frustrating.  I didn't want to spend $40 on backing.  And I didn't want floral.  I looked at blues and oranges.  I found a things that were $7.99 and $9.99 a yard.  If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'll go the the locally-owned quilt shop!  If I found something that fit the medium blue, non-floral requirement, it didn't have enough on the bolt.  I finally found one that fit the bill.  And it has a nice soft feel to it.  Not exciting at all, but it will make a nice backing for the ...  um, oh yea, I don't have a name for this quilt yet. 

After shopping Saturday, I just wasn't quite ready to sew the checkerboard border on the blue quilt.  Borders are not my favorite part of a making a quilt.  I needed some low-key work.  So I pieced some Friendship Star blocks.  And some Rail Fence blocks.  I cut these with my AccuQuilt Go! cutter a couple of weeks ago.  Most of the blue quilt was cut with my AccuQuilt too.  Today, I looked at how much piecing I had left to do on this baby quilt.  Not much.  I decided to finish the blocks.  They are not sewn together yet.  I put them on the design wall and thought about the layout and borders.  I considered sashing them, but decided to use a strong border to contain the pieces.  I quickly settled on two borders with the outside border being a dark purple.

I don't have enough of this purple and yellow, but I'm planning on getting something close to this.  Actually, I have a yellow just about this color that I can use.  I'll put the quilt together and bring it to the store to purchase the border.  I may change my mind, depending on what I find.  And, since this is to be a baby quilt, I have a darling baby nursery fabric for the back. 

 

And hand-dyed fabrics.  I have rinsed and washed all of my snow-dyed fabrics.  I haven't yet pressed them.  I had used some of the dye solution after it had been diluted with snow to get some light colors.  And I put some fabric in the sink under the dripping fabric.  It seems that I need light fabrics and don't have them.  I have several yards now!



I suppose I need to figure out what I need to do next.  I'm teaching several times in the next few weeks, so I will probably do some work on those classes.  And maybe get the hand-dyed fabrics pressed.  And I should go ahead and sew the baby quilt together.  Then it will be ready for borders whenever I get to the store.  I could quilt the blue one.  I've even decided how I'm going to quilt it!  And I have a couple of other quilts that I want to put together for the class I'm teaching at the retreat.  And clean the muddy dog paw prints from the dining room carpet.  Not sure what I'll work on next, but I'm sure I won't be bored.

Progress on the Intriguing Quilt

Not a lot of progress this week.  I've decided on the border for the blue and orange quilt.  It will be a checkerboard of dark and medium/light blues.  I thought about a couple of other borders, but I liked this one.  I'll bind it with a dark blue.  I think that will help tie it all together. 

I took a peek at the latest dyed fabrics.  I've rinsed them in the sink, but they haven't been washed and dried yet.  There's only so many hours in the evenings!

Pillowcases, Quilt Shops and Fabric!

It's been a busy week!  On Superbowl Sunday, we enjoyed a vist from a bunch of deer.  Over the next several  nights, I was lucky enough to see the deer at 5:30 or so.  The guild meetings were both the same week this month.  That always makes for a busy week!  I had "Girls' Night" Thursday, so that left only Wednesday for free time.  I rinsed my latest batch of snow-dyed fabric and put some pieces in the watered down dye on Wednesday.  On Thursday, I shared my snow dyeing technique with friends.  I had four friends over, two who were quitters. I invited them to come to the studio and snow dye a few pieces for themselves. 

Today, the quilt guild had an event where they invited member to come and sew pillowcases for a charitable cause.  There was some donated fabric and some member brought fabrics.  I made seven pillowcases.  Each pillowcase takes three fabrics.  I had fun matching up pillowcase fabrics, cuffs and trims.  We ended up making 30+ pillowcases today.  The best part of the pillowcase making day?  The event was held at the community room of the library.  When I pulled in the parking lot this morning , I saw a car I recognized.  I got out my phone and typed a text message:  "Hi Dad!  I see your car".  A few minutes later, Dad stopped by the community room to say hello.

After pillowcase making, a friend and I went to the local quilt shop so we could do some quilt guild business and so I could by some fabric.  I needed some ROAD fabric.  And a friend had purchased it here a couple of months ago.  As you might expect, they were sold out.  This was for a baby boy quilt back, so I decided to just get a different fabric.  Cars!  I bought a fabric by South Sea Import from the Little Hot Rod line.  It was darling, but wasn't the roads that I wanted.  Still only mid-day Saturday, I decided to go to the next-closest quilt store.  The one where my machine is serviced.  I was still having trouble with it at the sew-in today. 

Looking around the store, I couldn't believe my luck - I found the Road fabric!  It was also from the Little Hot Rod line by South Sea Imports.  They had only about 3 yards, and I didn't need even half that amount!  while I was there, I picked up a couple of yards of Feelin' Groovy from Windham Fabrics which was really close to what I wanted for another project.  And a beautiful Robart Kaufman orange.  Mixmasters Fizz it's called.  And has a fantastic selvage with Japanese writing!   

I had a bit of time yet before dinner, so I finished piecing the rest of my 2 1/2" strips to make the blocks for my "Intriguing" quilt.  I have no idea what to call this quilt, but I've show the finished block to a couple of people and "Intriguing" is the first work they've used to describe it.  Next will be to set the orange blazes into the quilt, then to border it.  I have some good, solid border ideas (not solid borders, but ideas that I'm sure of).  I'll continue to true those up as I finish the quilt.  This will not be a huge quilt as its purpose is to learn the technique.  However, it will be big enough to use on the sofa or to snuggle with the dog.  Or if we don't like it at all, for the dog to snuggle with! 

And back to that Road fabric.  That's going to be the backing for an I Spy quilt.  I have an Eye Spy panel that a friend wants for her gandson.  The Road fabric was my idea.

Now that I have some time to sew again, I'm not sure what's next?  I think the quilts waiting in the wings are: 

Intriguing

Friendshp Star (with Rail Fence)

Selvage #3 (The Pink One)

I Spy (Eric)

Oh, said that way, that's not much.  I have a couple of other quilts that I want to put together and the new Hexagon that I want to cut, but we'll just put those on the back burner for now. 

We'll see what tomorrow brings.  Coffee with Mom and Dad after church.  If there is still some snow, I may spend some more time in the studio.  Then perhaps an intriguing project.

Scraps!

I love making scrap quilts.  The visual texture you get from a large variety of scraps is appealing to me.  I appreciate scraps and put them to use!  I'm lucky to have scraps gifted to me from some quilt friends.  It may be a few selvages or a leftover bit or even some odd pieces.  I regularly attend two quilt guild meetings.  At one of them, I usually get a bag of scraps.  One member saves her scraps for the month ang gives them to me at the meeting.  It's like Christmas!  (Thank you Marian!).  Since I'g getting ready to teach a scrap management class at the retreat, I was talking about my method of what I call Processing my scraps.  Since I had the Bag-o-Scraps, I used them as an example.  And got a sneak peak of this month's treasures.  I kept the thought of describing my process as I drove home.  I took a few pictures as I processed this bag of scraps.

Step 1:  Dump scraps onto table.  Paw through them and ohh and ahhh!

Divide into groups.  In this case, the top left is selvages.  Moving clockwise, pieced pieces, large pieces, strips at least 2" (this is the GOLD pile!), scraps, strings. 

Selvages are put away for selvage quilts, the pieced pieces will either be unpieced or put away as larger pieces.  I will probably put them away and use further process them as needed.  Large pieces can either be cut into smaller squares or "filed" in the appropriate color bin.  Strips - these will be cut to usealbe widths (1/2" increments) and then cut into squares or used as strips.  Most of what is here was cut to 2" squares.  Scraps are pieces that are less than 2" square or a string.  Strings are strips that are larger than a generous 3/4" and smaller than 2" and are at least 3 1/2" long.  The edges do not have to be parallel. 

Althought this sounds like a lot of "rules', pickingup these pieces an tossing them into the correct pile is quite easy.  The "rules" are flexible. 

So here's how I divided this group

I cut the short strips down to useable strips and squares.  That generated more scrap.  And trash.  I do throw away the trimmings that I don't use.  I left them in the bottom left bin to show you.  The bottom middle shows scraps and that large piece of purple that I wasn't ready to cut. 

Here are all of the bins stacked.  There are 228 squares in this top bin.  When I showed the bag of scraps, a member said "I throw away stuff that small".  I understand that.  But I use stuff like that! 

I'm looking forward to seeing the quilt that Marian made with those black, white and red fabrics.  And I will remember where the fabrics came from when I use them in a future quilt.