Mindless Sewing : Journal January 20, 2012

MINDLESS SEWING Journal Notes

Sunday, January 20, 2013
7:51 PM

I took a little break from blogging, but I was able to do some quilting. I had promised myself to do nightly 15 minutes of sewing and I have done that but just barely. The mad house which is my home right now has prevented me from working on my baby gift. I have been able to work on a UFO that I started in 2009 and never got very far with the quilt. A group of us started making 3 inch Nine Patches to exchange but when we went to exchange I realized I did not like their fabric and they did not like mine. I also think there were some technique and quality control issues…. YOU know 3.5 inch patches that were not 3.5 inches. We came to the agreement to keep our own patches.

McCalls 2009 / Skyward Nines

I revised my plans for my patches when I went through my folders of magazine clippings. I found a picture of a Nine Patch quilt I always admired. I decided to make it… only bigger. For the past two weeks I have been doing MINDLESS SEWING. In that I have scrap bags of left over fabrics and have been cutting them into 1.5 by 5.5 strips. I then sew them into NINE PATCHES. Any small chunks get cut into 1.5 squares then sewn into a scrappy nine patch. I currently have over 200 nine patches but I need over 200 more. So every night after dinner I am trying to sew for 15 minutes. What I am finding is that the 15 minutes stretch into an hour. I think I have made good progress.

I call this mindless sewing because I am not being 100% fanatically careful with these patches. A lot of my seams do not match up. They are kind of wonky. The strips came from previous projects I had made and some of my patches will be smaller than the 3 inched finished. I am doing a lot of fudging of the blocks to get them made. I am in a USE WHAT YOU HAVE FRAME OF MINE. I will be making up for size difference when I add the sashing to the quilt. As a matter of fact I am thinking of deliberately making some odd size blocks as I think they will add to the whimsy of the quilt. I am having a lot of fun making these blocks.

The picture I am including is the steps to making the four patches. Cutting the strips and 1.5 inch patches. Chain piecing. I am sewing many of them in the standard four and 5 patch setting but I am also mixing and matching my block depending upon the fabric available. I am starching the heck out of the fabric because I am having some difficulty keeping the patches straight. For some reason some of my fabric wavers. I think the scraps might not be on straight of grain.

Steps for NINE PATCHES

Saturday and Sunday January 19 & 20th

On my design wall I have the sheep panel for a baby quilt. I was able to work on this weekend. I have been adding borders to the quilt. Since I am trying to do the best I can this takes a little more time than usual. I bought the panel and coordinating fabric six months ago, and of course the local quilt shop does not have any more of these fabric. I have been trying to adjust the running sheep border to the quilt. I ended up cutting the ones on the top and bottom and adding the pinwheels. I used a slightly different shade of blue fabric that mimicked the swirls in the other fabrics. I have been trying to be very careful to get the panel square and the quilt top flat. So far so good. Right now I am pleased with what I have done. Hopefully this week I will be able to work on it again this weekend.

Baby Quilt for Tom and Kristen

Well this is all for now…
Happy Quilting

Nonnie

***************************************************************************************************************

https://nonniequiltingdreams.wordpress.com/ Nonnie’s Blog

http://nonniesquiltingdreams.podbean.com/ Nonnie’s Quilting Dream Podcast

 

Pod cast link for Nonnie’s Quilting Dreams

JOIN me at GOOD READS

email me at: nonniequiltingdreams@gmail.com

Nonnie’s Flicker Pictures

Advertisement

Sad PODCAST Announcement —

I will not be podcasting for several months. I have had to down size my service and am at maximum file storage for another month or two. I could not afford the upgrade to the new program (It was over $300 to maintain the program I had last year and I can not see spending the money for what is a luxury but not necessity.) I understand the need for the podcast services to make money but I can not afford to continue.

The other reason I am not podcasting is lack of time. The actual recording time was about one to two hours but then I usually spent 4 to 8 hours editing. FRANKLY I would get tired of hearing my own voice and it was boring work. Time I do not have as my grandson grows older and wants more attention. Playing HEADBANZ and board games or crashing cars is my idea of fun. I also found podcasting ate into the free time I had for quilting. What a conundrum I could talk about quilting or I could quilt. With the amount of UFOs I have accumulated the answer to me is obvious… hit that sewing machine running.

I am sorry I was not able to make an announcement of the demise of the podcast. I do hope to continue with quarterly podcast once my service site gets adjusted but I do not know when that will be. I will be continue with this written blog and hope to post more often as I quilt. I see this as my quilting journal. No one in my family wants to hear about my quilting so I look to you my listeners and blog readers to converse with. Looking forward to a prolific quilting year.

Nonnie
.
.