January New FO Challenge Bird Seed Catcher

Meyer Parrot Pebbles with new DIY Seed Catcher

This is the first month to post the new FO we started for the month of January.  The project can be big or small and there is no need to actually finish it.  Since I started the Lone Star Quilt in December it doesn't count.  So instead I made a bird seed catcher.  In this case it is less to catch bird seed and more to catch the newspaper Pebbles our Meyer Parrot likes to shred.  He is 10 years old and has been with me since his teenage-bird-hood.  I recently turned his cage around to make it easier to give him kitchen peelings and scraps, which works out well, except it allows the news print from the bird cage to fall in the cat water bowl which I find rather unpleasant to say the least.  This sorted everything out and only took a couple of hours over this past weekend.

If you'd like to join in our FO Challenge feel free to get more information here with Cat Patches as our hostess it's sure to be a fun year.

Lone Star Could Warrant Visit from Resident Gargoyle

The Time has come.  Oh boy, Oh Boy!  I just, and I do mean just, finished piecing the 8th and final diamond in my Lone Star Quilt.  Now for anyone keeping track (aka me!) there are 512 diamonds in this lovely star.

Lone Star Diamonds All Pieced

Lone Star Center Detail

I will not be putting this together just yet as I'm going to wait until I have all my background pieces ready.  I've bounced around more than a few ideas about the rays that will come off of this star and my current idea is to use a New York Beauty Paper pieced block.  Wont that be a new challenge!  For now I'm looking for three colors to make up that block.  Two different colors for the rays and the background fabric color.  Any suggestions? One thought I had was that perhaps one color for the straight background blocks and a different one for the on point background blocks.  But I'm not sure.  I'm currently thinking teal, a lighter brighter fuchsia, brown and cream.

Lone Star Layout Plans

Here is the layout I plan to use.  This layout will bring my quilt up to about 100" square.  I think if I make this a bed sized quilt my husband will never let it come off of the bed much less go and live with someone else.  I would have never thought that he cared where my quilts go to live, but there have been one or two that I've theorized about giving away and he's gotten sort of a stony gargoyle expression.  I'll have to try to remember that the next time he tells me a quilt looks "good".

Foto Finish: Where you want to Live

Today the Foto Finish theme is Where you live, but the theme is optional so I thought I'd apply that to be "Where you want to live".  And thereby share a bit about my favorite place in the entire world.

This is the Belleview Biltmore located in Belleair, Florida.  It was built in 1897 from Florida Lighter Wood Heart Pine.  This lovely resort joined the U.S. National Register of Historical Places in 1979 and was given a historical preservation ordinance by the City of Belleair in 2005.  Yet this hotel is not safe.  It's very future is in the balance as the current owners have submitted a request for a demolition permit as they desire to tear it down and replace it with Condos, like Florida needs more empty condos.

Since our first visit to the Biltmore the night of our wedding, my DH and I have always talked about how great it would be to own this wonderful hotel.  It was always a far off and nebulous dream, but a dream all the same.  The thought that investors would be so callous as to destroy this wonderful soul fulfilling national landmark fills me with tears each time I read about its current state.

I have stood on those grounds, I have listened to the stories, and heard the echos of the past in those halls.  So you know what I say?  If I won the lottery I would buy this beautiful Lady of the Gulf, returning her to her former glory and give thanks everyday that this hotel could stand for future generations to love as I do.  To many people get caught up in the here and now.  If this hotel is razed it will never come back.  It will indeed be gone forever.  Yes, famous people have stayed here, but that isn't what it at stake.  If the Beautiful Belleview Biltmore is demolished, the community, state, country, and perhaps even the world will lose a piece of ourselves.  A piece we might never have known was there will be lost forever, leaving us with a void we can never fill.

So I stand up and say I love this Hotel, I love everything about it, be she bright and beautiful, or tired and worn desperate once again for a loving owner to fill the void left by a decade of loveless owners.  I love this place and I will do everything I can to keep her safe.  For more information please visit http://www.savethebiltmore.com/.

Lone Star: 6 of 8

Lone Star Piecing

Every once in a while we work on something that turns out great enough to take our breath away.  I think my Lone Star just might be one of those projects.  Because when I spread it out on the floor so that we could see I couldn't help but think, look what I did!  I now have 6 of my 8 diamonds sewn.  If I were piecing these one at a time that's 384 little diamonds.

Let me see, what can I tell you today?  Don't use the 1/4" quilters tape on this project.  It's bad!  Why?  Well, you see you put the tape on one strip, and then mark your diamond joints with standing pins and sew.  But the tape does something.  It holds the diamonds so they can not stretch, not even a little bit.  Why is this bad?  Because the second strip the one you are sewing to, will stretch!  Even with the most gentle handling the fabric without the tape will stretch a little bit and then the strips wont line up and when they do you end up with a mess that you have to seam rip apart.  If you forego the tape; as you handle the two strips, pinning them together, and lining up they do stretch a little bit, but that's okay because they stretch and move together.  I suppose you could tape both strips before pinning and sewing but that seems like a waste of tape and the directions on my package were very clear not to stitch through the tape which could happen accidently if you had it on both strips.  I am glad to have the tape as I've wanted it for a while and will just save it for other projects.  Not this one.

Now I can't stand it anymore!  What do you think about my Lone Star so far?!?!

A Ray of Spring: Mozzarella Caprese

I haven't spent much time on the Lone Star Quilt.  Though I am nearly done with the 5th blade.  Instead today I wanted to show you my little slice of heaven.  The week before Thanksgiving I discovered that while I knew my sage plant had died earlier in the summer, I did not replace it, truthfully I simply forgot.  No sage plant means no sage butter rubbed all over and in my husband's turkey.  Do you know how hard it is to find a sage plant right before Thanksgiving?  I called my local grocery store, two different home improvement stores who couldn't help me, before spending half an hour on the phone with the nicest man at a different my home improvement store who told me to call Walmart, you get the point

Of course after all that my husband finds Sage plants at Walmart.  Yes, I could have purchased cut sage but for $1 more you can have a live plant to have for next time. Of course being the man he is, he doesn't just bring home the sage plants.  He also brings home a tomato plant.  I spent 4 years in Arkansas, I know all about tomato plants.  They have an oil in their leaves which makes them stink all the time.  No one else seems to know what I'm talking about but I do not like the way the tomato plants smell.  I looked upon his new found winter hobby with distain.

Now I know, I was wrong and I'm glad I just left him alone with his little plant.  Because when he picked a fresh tomato off the stem the other day he found another fresh and ripe one behind it, and one above it too.  Oh how I love winter indoor container gardening!  No weeds and amazingly summer fresh ripe and juicy tomatoes.  If that wasn't enough DH brought home buffalo mozzarella cheese and fresh basil (yes it was the packaged kind, I don't have much luck keep Basil alive for more than a season or three - feel free to leave your tips so I can kill another plant).
I know food is hard to photograph to make it look good, but with something this fresh and wonderful I just had to try.  What do you think of my Mozzarella Caprese?  One thing I will tell you.  We ate it all gone!

Half a Lone Star

Half of a Lone Star

Is half a Lone Star a really Lonely Star?  Honestly, I don't see how it could be as I've been working at sewing my strips together steadily.  So here we are at the halfway point of my Lone Star.  As I will likely be creating a secondary design on my background fabrics; half way is a bit misleading, but I'm going to take it and enjoy it.  Look half my star!!!

At this point I am loving the way the brown and teal fabric is running around as the final "circle".  What do you think?  Anything you're liking?

Now for my confession as a serial blogger, I'd like to announce I have created over 700 posts since I started blogging in 2008.  Therefore, I am on my last 6 MG of free blogger space.  When I mentioned it to DH he miss understood at first.  Yes, I said 6 mere megabytes.  I remember when a kb would get you an email, but those days are gone.  I explained that I can have 20 GB of additional space for $5 a year.  For me that means my little hobby will suddenly be costing me money, abet not much but all the same...  DH thought it was no big deal and said I should have told him sooner (aka before I deleted my two test sites to go from 3 MG avail, to 6 MG).  Do you have any thoughts?  Have you maxed out your available free space?  Have you given it any thought?

Lone Star Diamond Progress

I now have two of the diamonds for my Lone Star Quilt completely pieced.  Each diamond will make up one section of my eight point star.  This is a big accomplishment as getting each strip just right is rather tricky.  I did the math and if I was piecing each little diamond to make this quilt it would take 512 pieces.  Using this method it will still have that many diamonds but at least it wont feel like it.  My two completed pieces are made up of 128 diamonds.  How about that for little details?

Two diamonds down, six to go.

Lone Star Quilt: All Strips Cut

Lone Star Strip Sets All Cut

Today I finished cutting all of my Lone Star Strip Sets.  Don't they look nice laid out like this?  The next step in the directions is to mark off 1/4" and use standing pins to ensure the seams butt together properly.  The thought of that will need to simmer in my mind a little because it sounds tricky.  The directions actually say that I should sew it with a large stitch length, check it and if everything looks good re-sew it with a tighter stitch length.  That sounds like solid advice.
As for getting everything lined up though, I'm not sure about that so I picked up some of this.  Has anyone ever used it before?  It's 1/4" Quilter's Tape.  I was looking for Tiger Tape that I hear about talked about on quilting shows, but this is what my local store had.  I think it will work out just fine.

Quilters Tape for Marking 1/4" seam allowance offsets

*** January 11th Update:  Don't use the 1/4" quilters tape on this project.  It's bad!  Why?  Well you see you put the tape on one strip, and then mark your diamond joints with standing pins and sew.  But the tape does something.  It holds the diamonds so they can not stretch, not even a little bit.  Why is this bad?  Because the second strip the one you are sewing to, will stretch!  Even with the most gentle handling the fabric without the tape will stretch a little bit and then everything goes bad.  If you forego the tape; as you handle the two strips pinning them together and lining up they do stretch a little bit, but that's okay because they stretch and move together.  I suppose you could tape both strips but that seems like a waste of tape and the directions on my package were very clear not to stitch through the tape which could happen accidently if you had it on both strips.  I am glad to have the tape as I've wanted it for a while and will just save it for other projects.  Not this one.

Evening Time: Slumber Party

Sunny Sleeping

I didn't sew at all today.  Though I did get another strip set cut.  Five down three to go.  Everyone here wants to call it a night and I thought I'd share what that looks like.  Any wonder why I said a Sunny moment might happen to my bias edges?

Tiny watching from nearby

Just look at them on my uncut strips.  This is where I found both of them after popping into the sewing room after dinner.  I sound unhappy about it but the truth is they are welcome.  I haven't seen both cats in the sewing room together in quite a while.

Starch

Have you ever seen the words "Handle these carefully to avoid stretching the bias edges?"  I don't know about you but they fill me with more than a little bit of dread.  As my daughter would say incredulously "Really?"  After all I made them carefully, I pressed them carefully.  Now I have to handle them carefully?  And if I'm not careful enough?  What if the cat comes through and has a Sunny moment?

Through the kind support of my neighbor Linda and my friend Vicki I found starch.  What is this something more you have to buy that will cost money?  Well yes and no.  According to my neighbor all kinds of spray starch are pretty much the same and as long as the cheapest brand (under $2 for a large can) doesn't send your nose running for the hills you're set.  So far I am still on my first can, and I'm using it for my second quilt with those bias edges.

Why talk about this now?  Now those words are in the directions for my strip pieced Lone Star Quilt pattern, so rather than face the fear of trying to handle the strips carefully I just read that scary sentence instead to say, "use starch" and so far everything is working out well that way.

Lone Star Quilt-a-long

Strips Sets Cut into Diamonds

Good Morning.  What a great day!  The sun is shining, it didn't freeze last night, I have the laundry going, and I have just finished cutting half of my strip sets for my Lone Star Quilt.  That means you can see the spunky changes my strip sets have made.

Unlike the gorgeous quilt that Sue is planning, the diamonds that make up my star will begin and end on that deep fuschia/purple fabric.  It sure is a change to see the strip sets change into diamonds isn't it?

In case you are wondering I am using a free pattern I found which you can find here.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record Fabric "H" only needs 5/8 of a yard of fabric to be cut into 8 strips not the 16 listed.  But other than that it seems like a nice pattern.  Clear and easy to follow.

The 45 degree angle for cutting the diamonds

What is a Lone Star Quilt to you?  What do you think of when you see a Lone Star Quilt?  It's clearly a traditionally pieced quilt but can be made with so many different variations as to create a truly unique and modern quilt. Have you ever seen a Broken Star?  Now there is a quilt I wish I had the fabric to make.  Here you can see the Broken Star that inspired me to make my own Lone Star Quilt.  At the ease of which this one is going so far, knock wood, maybe the Broken Star will be in my future too...

Take a look at the pattern I'm using.   I only needed to add two fabrics to my stash for the star points and it doesn't cost anything to see if it is something you can do.   Now is the time with Sue and her friend creating this great support circle for all of us.  Happy Sewing!

Steady I Go

Today I was happy to be stitching and listening to music two of my favorite things. I was thrilled for the Wii and my husband being off work to indulge in becoming a crazy exercise beast with my daughter.

Lone Star Strip Sets

I sewed three complete strip sets that means six are done with only two more to make. UGH! That 6th strip set - really got to me. I sewed in one single pair of strips in upside down and then couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. It takes a while to un-sew 42". When I was finished I was adding the new strips to the old ones and got myself all confused again and had to get out the chart. Can we all say B*R*E*A*T*H*E? After settling down with the chart and having everything suddenly start working I can honestly say I now understand why some quilt tv shows say "make a swatch chart".

A Swatch Chart, a Patch Up, no matter what you call it I have never made one. Never felt the need either... But this quilt is different and I do wish in my pattern searching I had read the words "make a chart for yourself!!" LOL. Sew and Learn right?

Now the last time I posted a picture I didn't mention, these strip sets are actually offset on one end, so the first strip hangs off by 2" and then the next by another two inches so they make steps. When I cut them it will be on the diagonal at 45 degrees doing that will make them stop looking like a dratted Bargello and instead look more like the Lone Star Quilt they will become as the squares become trapezoids that way.

Sue's Lone Star Support Group's first online pow-wow is Saturday.  To say I'm looking forward to it is a bit of an understatement.

Lone Star Free Pattern Details

Now as I mentioned I didn't want to share the free patten I found until I'd tried it my self but at the request of a follower I'm a going to share it with you now.  For The Free Lone Star Strip Pieced Pattern I am using click this link.  Please keep in mind I have already found one slight issue/error.  The pattern says Fabric H needs 1 1/2 yards of fabric to make 16 strips.  This is an error and should instead state that Fabric H needs 5/8th of a  yard for a total of 8 strips.  To verify my correction you can look at the letter layout grid and count the number of "H's" in Step 1.  This is just an honest error and I do not expect more as I continue as the directions seem quite clear.

I have been sick for the past three days with what I hope is a short lived bug so I have not done any additional work since those three strip sets I sewed the other day.  I myself am only to Step 2.  It was my intention to contact the owner of the site and share my progress and see about asking her to correct the strip requirement but even though I have combed through the entire site I don't see a way to contact her.

If you're interested in making your own Lone Star Quilt no matter which pattern you'd like to use, I found out today that Sue and Jayne are in cahoots over a quilt along, in which the sole purpose is to share monthly progress and encourage each other.  Here is the link to Sue's Post and she tells me she will be hosting this Saturday, but there are no deadlines so no rush!

Tips for Glitter Thread

I wanted to take a moment today to share with you how I loaded my Janome 1600P with Glitter Thread for quilting.  My glitter thread from Superior Threads came with an insert for use, which was likely included as their glitter thread is the only thread guaranteed to work in all sewing machines and if you have difficulties they will work with you to over come them.  This is not an ad and I'm receiving no compensation, and it is doubtful anyone from that company will know I posted this.  Instead I am merely posting my images and tips as FYI.  The insert as well as a direct email confirmation told me to use a thin bobbin thread weight thread in the bobbin so I took out my old stand by cone of Madeira bobbin thread (it's 60 wt. 100% polyester).

As you can see from the above picture this thread is not cross wound.  AKA you can't see the thread making "X"s over itself on the spool.  That means it should load from the side.  Midarm machines are not really designed for threads that but my tips should help you thread your machine and reduce the tension so that you too can use them.

Look again at the picture above.  First notice that I have elevated the spool.  This is a small spool as most glitter threads are and needs to be up higher to allow for smooth feeding from the side.  Next  note that I have bypassed the thread hook because that would feed the thread from the top and we don't want that.  Also I have caught the thread with the hook for previously used exclusively for bobbin winding.  This is because I found simply letting the thread droop caused it to catch on the spool pin under it.

Now the thread simply trails from the above hook across to the pre-tensioner.  I had some difficultly finding the sweet spot way of handling this.  In checking the manual it says for pickier threads (I doubt it said picky) you can run the thread simply through the first hole in the pretensioner instead of running it in and out and back in like normal.  I have included two angles of the machine so that you can see what the thread path I am talking about.

After running the thread differently through the pretensioner as mentioned above I ran it normally through the rest of the machine.

Now turn the tension down.  Way down.  Loose.  Never thought you'd have the tension so loose kind of loose.

Thread that that is to tight will curl. To test this stitch a bit and stop.  Cut the threads (I don't recommend using the thread cutter as the ends are to short and it will be easier to tuck in the threads it you cut them with scissors)  What does the glitter thread do after you cut it?  Does it look like curling ribbon after you prettied it up with the scissors?  Or does it lay flat?  Flat and loose is good.  Curling, any curling is bad.

What does curled thread have to do with anything?  The curl is made by tension stretching on the thread. That means the tension is tight.  Had you sewn more and more the tension would have gotten tighter and tighter until the thread simply popped and broke under the strain.

As other Janome mid arm 1600 users will understand I can't tell you what "number" I had the tension set at because the pre-tensioner makes that impossible.  What I will instead say is that I spun the lower tensioner down until I was concerned about how loose the knob was, tightened it back up to mid way lowered tension on the pretensioner and then adjusted the bottom one again.  Once adjusted I was good to go and all of the names quilted out beautifully.

Which reminds me.  When I had the tension to tight and didn't know about looking for the curl in the thread, the glitter thread sunk into the quilt and the names were harder to read.  When I fixed the tension I knew it was right because the names of the students on the Teach-In Quilt really stood out after only one pass and I didn't feel the need to quilt them a second time through to make them pop.

I hope these tips helped and that your project will turn out even better than you'd hoped.  I'd love to hear from you so drop me a line and tell me about it.