October 2013 – Kelly's Kwilts

Update and Delivery!

OMG it’s here!!!! Lucky for me we were still home when UPS delivered and the delivery woman put it inside the door for me. Lifting that bottom box would be a major issue for me! Can’t wait for the hubby to get home and get it setup for me! I only have 1 studio die so far, but I bought the die adapter to let me use almost all of my Go dies on the Studio. This means I can put my Go away in the closet. I think I have a table in the basement that we can cut the legs down so that I can store it under my sewing table. Just have to have the hubby do that work! I think for now we’ll put it on my cutting table. I don’t know where else I can put it even temporarily. I just can’t wait to get it setup and ready to use!

I finished my scrappy table topper last night. I really like how it turned out, I can’t wait to make a larger quilt like this! I’m not sure where I’m going to use it yet, but it was pretty quick and easy! I think it will be really easy to work on the 25 patch as a leader/ender project, and boy do I have a lot of 2.5″ squares!

I’m still working on the guild block exchange quilt, like I said yesterday I got all my blocks finished I just need to cut out the sashing strips. Not yet sure if I want to use black or the gold (like in the EQ picture yesterday). I am still leaning toward the gold, I really think I’ve been using too much black lately!

Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with an update on my Studio!

Guild Block Challenge

Well, I finished the blocks I needed to make in order to put my top together. I made 4 blocks for the corners, all the challenge blocks will go in the middle. I’ve put some of them in just as an example. I am hoping to work on cutting out the sashing pieces tomorrow and attach them to the blocks. I am hoping I still have enough of the challenge fabric to do the borders, I’m pretty sure I do have enough, but I’m not cutting it up until I have everything put together. I used my Accuquilt Go to cut out most of the pieces for the corner blocks, I think it was cut out in less than an hour!

I’m really happy with how this is turning out so far and next I’ll need to decide how to quilt it. I really don’t want to think about that part yet though! I have a lot of other tops to get quilted!

I can’t wait to see how everyone else sets their blocks. It will be great if finished tops will get more people in the guild to participate next year. I really like the colors in the Hoffman Challenge fabric for 2014.

Time for me to go and see if I can finish the binding on my scrappy table topper. Hoping to post the finished piece tomorrow!

A Finish!!

I finished hand stitching the binding down last night on my table runner! This was made out of a charm pack called Blessings by Brannock and Patek for Moda. I used my Accuquilt Go and my 4″ Finished Triangles in a Square die to cut out all the triangles. It went together so quickly, and then it sat for a few months all pinned and ready to quilt. I think it may have only taken an hour or so to quilt. Why do I do that? Get it ready and then let it sit when I can have it done and use it if I just sat down to quilt it. Oh well, this one is done and ready to be used on the table.

I quilted the scrappy table topper yesterday afternoon, it only took a few hours to complete. I put the binding on, and started doing the hand work last night after I finished the table runner. I am hoping to finish working on that tonight.

Today I’m going to see if I can cut out the pieces I need for the 4 additional blocks for the Guild block exchange quilts. I wanted to make mine a little larger so I’m making 4 blocks for the corners that match. Almost all of the pieces I need can be cut out with my Go so I think maybe I can start sewing them together this afternoon. I know it won’t get quilted before the December meeting, but I really just want to get the top completed before I forget about it! We want to get more people signed up for next year!

Time to get to work on cutting, I’ll be back when I get the table topper finished.

Progress!!!

Boy am I on a roll this week! I mentioned on the weekend that I designed a quilt in EQ that I had found on someone’s website. Yesterday I spent some time cleaning up my office so I could get back to work. It took me less than 2 hours and I have a completed table topper (about 22″ x 22″). I found a backing today and got it all pinned so I can quilt it tomorrow. I’m just doing straight line quilting, and I’ll put a black binding on it. I really like how it turned out! It used up 41 2.5″ squares that I already had cut up in the bin. I just needed to cut the long black pieces on the sides, which was pretty quick! The pattern shows a 5 x 5 block quilt. I think just one is perfect for a table topper!

Today I spent a couple of hours and finally quilted my table runner (mentioned here) – again just straight line quilting as it didn’t really need anything more than that. I started hand stitching the binding to the back this evening, when I get finished I’ll post all the details on it.

While I had my tub of batting scraps out today I pulled enough batting pieces to fit my Red, White and Blue Signature quilt. So once I get these 2 quilts done I can work on quilting the signature quilt. It will most likely be straight line quilting too, just because it’s easy and quick!

Alex and I stopped at Joann’s today, I needed to pick up a frame for the wedding gift I finished over the weekend. They have a big sale going on this week and I picked up some fat quarters, a yard or so of white Kona and just over a yard of Cars fabric for a quilt for Alex. Don’t know what design I’ll use yet, but I do have some ideas rolling around in my head. I want to get some of these other projects done before I start making this new one for him.

Looks like this baby wants mama to go to sleep, I never got a nap today and I’m getting to the point that I just can’t keep my eyes open!

New Purchase

OMG! I can’t believe I just pushed the button and bought the Accuquilt Studio! I have no idea where it’s going to live, I’d love a table that rolls underneath my big 6′ wide sewing table. That would be the ideal solution, I just don’t know if that will happen. I also bought a 5″ charm square die that cuts 8 at a time, I’m hoping to be able to cut charms and put them on etsy. I’d like to also cut other peoples fabric – maybe something like drunkard’s path dies, or winding ways, etc. I just don’t know if it would sell or not. I hope this isn’t a case of buyer’s remorse already!! 🙂

I hope to start working on some sewing this week, since I designed a few quilts this week while I was testing EQ, I have a lot of ideas! I also have to fix an embroidery order for my friends bakery, I guess pregnancy brain hit me early and I didn’t do the full design on her shirts. Logo is there, but the name of her business is not!

I did finish the cross stitch piece for the wedding, just need to get to Joann’s and get the frame. I’ll get a picture up once it’s framed.

Til later,

Electric Quilt on the Mac!

I am super thrilled!!!! A few months ago someone posted on one of my EQ groups that EQ was coming out with a version for the Mac. After we got our tax refund last year I moved to a MacBook Pro laptop and this year after we got our tax refund I got a Mac Mini. Since I really only have a few programs that run in windows or don’t have a replacement version for the Mac I decided to use Parallels and run those programs under windows on my macs. So when I found out that a Mac version was coming I was all for it! This means 1 less program I need to use Parallels for, and if I ever find a decent embroidery program for the Mac that isn’t a lot of money I might be able to get rid of it!

Any way, they were looking for people to beta test and I signed right up. We just got the beta version a week or so ago and I’ve been spending time as I can on it. I like taking quilts I find on websites or in magazines and redesigning them in EQ. This allows me to make changes to them as I need, depending on what colors I have in fabric or sizes I have already cut out. I designed one recently from a website that is 5 x 5 25-patch blocks with sashing to make a quilt measuring 86″ x 86″. Of course I need to see what the different sizes are going to be so I looked at 4×4, 3×3, 2×2, and 1×1. I think I might start with making the 1×1 because it’s the perfect size for a table topper! This might be the best way for me to get sewing again!

Where have I been – Part 2

Ok, lunch is over and the laptop is plugged in charging. I said I’d explain why Alex and I stayed home from the CA trip right? We’ve been trying for awhile to get pregnant, we really didn’t want Alex to be an only child. Since we had so many issues getting pregnant with him, and after a few months of trying ourselves and doing IUI’s, we started the IVF process again. With a failed cycle in December and another failed attempt in the spring, we were finally lucky enough for it to work in July. The IVF transfer was the day before the hubby left for his trip and we didn’t want me to attempt flying after all of that. So Alex and I stayed home, I had to do all of my shots myself instead of hubby helping me. Let me tell you, progesterone shots in the thigh are not pleasant, but it’s better than not doing it at all and losing the baby. I have a genetic clotting disorder called MTHFR that requires me to take extra folic acid pills in addition to my prenatal vitamin. I also take a low dose baby aspirin and do twice daily heparin shots to prevent my blood from clotting.

So needless to say it’s been a rough couple of months with morning sickness, not in the morning as you’d expect but at night right before bed. And not once in awhile like it was with Alex, but every night! Lots of doctor appointments with the specialists and various OBs (due to my age and clotting disorder I’m considered high risk so I have to see a specialist because of that!). We’ve had lots of ultrasounds which gives me lots of chances to see that everything is ok. I’m a paranoid person when it comes to this since we’ve had LOTS of problems in the past. We have a doppler that allows us to hear the baby’s heartbeat and I ask the hubby if we can hear it every couple of nights or so.

Due to my high risk issues, we had a blood test done called NISP that checks for Downs syndrome and other chromosomal issues. Not that we’d terminate if the results were bad, but if we knew we could do research to find out what special things we’d need to get. The other benefit to the test is that since they are testing fetal DNA in my blood, they can tell the gender. So the doctors office called one Friday afternoon close to 5 o’clock. The nurse tells me that the test was negative so we didn’t have to worry about any disorders. Then she asks if we know the gender and if we want to know. Of course I say yes, but that I’m afraid to know the answer! She says “They found no Y chromosomes”, and I’m sitting there for about 30 seconds trying to remember what that means! She must have realized I couldn’t think so she says “It’s a girl” after which I immediately start crying because that’s what I wanted! As soon as I got off the phone with her I called the hubby and told him. He was just as excited! Hubby posted this picture on his Facebook page with no comments and we don’t think many people got it.

So come March 2014 we’ll have a new face in our house and a daughter in our hearts. I am hoping to start sewing again soon, now that things are calming down and I’m getting my energy back. I have a few scrap projects in mind and can’t wait to work on. Also hoping to work on cross stitch again at night while we watch tv, it’ll keep me from going to sleep too soon! If I can start working on projects, you’ll be seeing posts!

Where have I been???

Wow, it’s been a LONG time since I posted anything! I was trying hard this summer to get my hexie diamonds quilt finished for our quilt show, until they posted that quilts had to be completed by the end of September. AHHHHH! I’d never make it since I had 3 rows to finish, plus the black fill in spots at the top and bottom, PLUS quilting it? Yeah, I decided to just put it aside and work on it slow and just have it ready for the next show. Then I realized I needed to start working on a cross stitch piece for a wedding gift. Now of course it’s still not done and the wedding is next weekend! The bride works with the hubby and asked Alex to be the ring bearer! He’s going to look so cute in a tux, I just don’t know if he’s going to do what he’s asked or not!

In July the hubby went to California to see his dad for his 70th birthday. Alex and I stayed home since I don’t really want to take him on an airplane yet! (There’s another reason why we didn’t go that I’ll explain in another post.) Turns out it was a good thing we didn’t go as Alex got sick that weekend and had a 100 degree fever – only for about 24 hours though! Anyway, I found out there was a new quilt shop (The Quilt Loft) that opened within walking distance of his dad’s house. We’ve always had this deal that if one of us went out of town, the other would bring back a “prize”. So I told him where he could get my prize! So he went and picked out a jelly roll of Icicle Kisses by Kansas Troubles Quilters. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I will come up with something!

I was playing around with one of my Accuquilt Go dies and made this little table runner. I’ve had it pinned for awhile, just haven’t gotten around to sitting down at the machine to quilt it! This was a charm pack that I ran through on the triangle die (don’t remember which one off hand since we are camping while I write this post!) and just put them together into 2 rows. Haven’t decided if I will square it off once quilted or bind it with the angled corners. Once we get home from camping I will look at which die I used and also get the information for which line this was from.

Spent some time working on blocks for our Guild block exchange using the 2013 Hoffman Challenge fabric. All blocks have been exchanged and now it’s time to put it all together into a quilt. We want to have all the quilt tops completed by the December meeting so we can hopefully get more people to participate next year! I’ll do another post with those once we get home, I haven’t taken pictures of all the blocks yet!

I received an email yesterday from Accuquilt that the Studio cutter is on sale again for $399, the lowest price I’ve seen all year. I’ve been debating it for a long time, mainly because there are a few dies I’d love to have that are only made for the Studio. Plus I’ve been thinking about adding die cuts to my business, since at some point I need to get that going again. I currently only have 2 customers for embroidery work and I need to start making things I can put on etsy. Die cuts might be a good thing, quick and I could even cut customer fabrics! Plus right now is triple reward points and that will be nice, since it will give me a good way to buy more dies at limited cost to me! 🙂

Time to charge the laptop and make some lunch, I’ll be back later with more of where I’ve been!