2018 Online Quilters Meet & Greet!!

Bibliophile Files has been delayed until next Tuesday so that you can enjoy the following ...

Hello and Welcome to sarah did it! - my little home away from home on the internet.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that if you are not a sdi! regular, you've made your way here via the 2018 Quilters Meet & Greet at Benita Skinner's Creative Space. Z and I are happy to have you stop in. In fact, we hope you'll stop by again!

I made my first quilt during my senior year of high school - anyone with time in their schedule could take the year long class. The standard quilts at the time were samplers and I chose "country" rose and green as it was the late 80s. What was I thinking?? My quilts now are mostly brights with purple my favorite color, followed closely by green and yellow. In fact, you won't find much pink in my stash at all nowadays.

I didn't get back into quilting until maybe 2005 and that was thanks to my tatting and rubber stamping hobbies, a long convoluted story that I won't bore you with. Let's just say I don't tat much any more and my rubber stamping supplies are still in the boxes from my move from FL back to NY in 2008.

In March of 2011 I taught myself to English Paper Piece (aka "hexies") which is now my most favorite kind of sewing/quilting. I love the design options but I really love the portability - I can work on a project at lunch, during a conference or meeting (it actually helps me focus), while watching tv or even while camping, I now have a hexie club that meets at our LQS once a month and does demos at local events. I also travel a bit to do trunk shows, bed turnings and classes.

I host several EPP related linky parties on my blog. On the 17th of each month (my birthday!) I host HeLP for Hexie-aholics. Anyone with an EPP project of any shape or vintage is invited to join in. Several times a year this coincides with my Feline Friday Linky Parties, which are hosted by my tuxie, Zorro. The other linky party is for Wednesday Weather Reports and I'll explain more about that below.

I was asked to pick a favorite quilt and that's about as hard as picking a favorite child cat but in the end I chose my "Owls in the Mountains." For years I would only work on this quilt while hiking and camping in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

I started with a FQ bundle, added a few more fabrics and fussy cut owls for the centers, making rose stars until I ran out of fabric. I then ruler-quilted the finished quilt on my Bernina 430.

I was thrilled to win a blue ribbon this year at my county fair!
You can find more pictures and posts on my blog here.

My second favorite quilt is really more of a project. Every day since 5/17/17 I've recorded the temperature at 1pm. I have a color coded temperature scale and make one EPP piece to record the day's weather.

Nope - still not done.
I need to finish the thermometer that goes on the right and then get this baby quilted.

For the first year I used 1.5" hexagons and made rosettes, 1 for each week. When I started the project I put the word out on my blog and invited my friends to join in. It's been fun to watch them link up their weather reports each Wednesday and see how similar or different our weather is. We've had quilters from Japan, Australia, Canada, New Hampshire and New York join in.

It's not to late to join in!!! There's not even a rule that your quilt has to have hexies - any temp quilt will be a fun addition.

June

July

August

For the second year I've switched to 1" elongated hexagons and each month is a column, shown above as left to right or 1st to the 31st. This will result in a smaller sized wall hanging or doll quilt in the hopes that I can continue the project for years to come without making a bunch of large projects. I would really like to someday do an exhibit somewhere to show how the temperatures change. I can already tell you that the summer of 2018 has been *much* warmer than the summer of 2017, including several days in the 90s and more red days (80s) in the first 6 weeks of this project than in all 52 weeks of last year's project. If you would like to read more about my temperature quilt project, check out this link.

There are lots more hexie projects on my blog so feel free to stick around and have a look see :)

Now that you know a little more about me, don't forget to return to enter your name for prizes.

To win more chances for the prizes be sure to head back to the Meet & Greet to find links to more fantastic quilters.

Thanks for stopping in, Good luck and I hope to see you again soon!

HeLP for Hexie-aholics & Feline Friday - 8/17/18

It's two of my favorite days wrapped into one!! Hexie Linky Party and Feline Friday!!

Bonus - can you believe that HeLP is 6 years old today?? Yipp! It was started on 8/17/12!! In that vein I will send a little gift to a drawing winner. I just realized the linky-versary as I am typing this so I don't have the prize well thought out yet but I'll update the post with a picture next week.

RULES: Anyone that links is in the drawing. Since it's HeLP and Feline Friday, you can link once for hexies and again for felines, for 2 chances. Links must go to a specific post and not your blog in general. Posts must contain English Paper Piecing and or your cats. Links not following the rules will be removed from the linky party. Thanks for playing along!!!

Most of the previous week was spent finishing my Owls in the Mountains quilt:

Break Time!!!

I did receive some assistance.

The quilt has been mostly quilted and bound for a year but the dense curves meant I needed to add more quilting to the rose stars.

I used "rulers" to add circles. I didn't take a final closeup pic but I also did a couple circles around the owl in the centers.

Great napping spot, Momma!

Finally done!

I have yet to figure out how they choose which quilts to hang open or folded at the fair. My owls must be napping as the quilt is hung sideways. It's hard to see in the picture but I did get a blue ribbon on this and my other 2 quilt entries. One of which is the red/white in the bottom left.

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday Weather Report #15

So, I'm having a week...not just a Monday, but a week....Saturday can't get here fast enough. Then I can put my foot up again and get back to some hexies :)

I'm working on school taxes this week. There is always something goofy but I think this year takes the cake. I generally have a three day weekend plus several weeknights to work on them. This year I only have 2.5 weeknights because they were printed really late. I was up in the middle of the night working on taxes last night so I'll blame my addled brain for not remembering to take a picture this morning of my rosette. I had really thought that repeating "take a picture take a picture take a picture" in the shower would remind me but no such luck. I think when the water goes off all ideas go down the drain with the water.

And I was sew excited to share because it was a yellow-all-the-way week and that's the first monohcromatic week since we started on 5/15/17. Next week I'll have to share several catch up photos.

In the meantime, this was what I was doing last Saturday...I was asked to do a demo at our local Farmer's Market!! Many people were thrilled with the concept of the Temperature Quilt (on the left) and they can't wait to see how it looks next spring when it's "finished".

I've pretty much decided to do another temp quilt next year (maybe for several coming years?) and I think it would be really interesting to eventually have an exhibit where the quilts were hung side by side to compare them all. I don't relish making and storing a big quilt for each year so I may have to rethink how I'm going forward next year...

As soon as those tax bills are dropped in the mail tomorrow I can get back to quilting my owl quilt - our exhibit goes up Friday evening and I'm running out of time. Eek! I've finished the curved cross hatching and borders and the binding is on.

I still need to add more quilting to each star to "flatten" it to counteract the curved cross hatching puffing up the stars. It's ok as is for the exhibit if need be but I've got some simple ideas that would add some fun detail. I've got lots more pictures to share on this project...hopefully next week.

An InLinkz Link-up

Feline Friday - 8/25/17

Brrr, Baby, it's cold outside!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Solar Eclipse Day!!

I survived the fair. I help at several different booths and that often leads to lots of sitting and that means lots of hexies.

I also went to the doctor last week for my ankle. He said I need to rest it as much as possible for the next week so that lead to more sitting and more hexies...

I'm thrilled to say that, as of this morning, I've finished the center/color section!!!  Woohoo!!!!!!

Not bad, considering I started this little doll quilt on July 28th.
Tonight I'll cut the cream for the borders and get started on those...

Another part of my "sitting" was to work on the owl quilt. As you may recall, I made the top and bottom border wider than the sides to square up the quilt. I quilted piano keys in the narrower side borders but I felt that the top and bottom needed a little more than just the piano keys since they were so wide.

I decided to use the same curved ruler to create scallops and then I used another new ruler to create a line of bubbles along the scallops.

I think this has eaten up enough of the border to now add the piano keys.
If you don't mind my saying so ... this quilt is looking GOOD!!

Oh please, let the sun on the shoebox be an omen for good weather!

And most importantly today, Solar Eclipse Day, I have my pinhole box prepped! The Weather peeps keep waffling about what the weather will be but it's sun and blue skies right now at 12:37 so I can only hope this will continue until we reach max eclipse at 2:35. Happy Viewing!!

Feline Friday - 8/18/17

Purrrrrrrrrfect!

An InLinkz Link-up

HeLP for Hexie-aholics - 8/17/17

Hello and welcome to a quicky Fair edition of Hexie Linky Party for Hexie-aholics!!!

I'm not quite finished with the last weather rosette so this is where we stand. I've pre-placed some of the background fabrics for future weeks - which means I have full authority to move them elsewhere.

I'm still working on ruler-quilting the owl quilt. I need just another 15 minutes to finish quilting the neutral bits. Next up is piano keys in the turquoise borders.

Hmmm..another project to work on. We are thinking of doing something with this for Hexie Club so I'm *obligated* to make a sample block or two. Now to pick fabrics...

What are you working on? Any paper shape or vintage project is fair game!!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Ruler quilting

Jo commented last week that she hoped I would post some closeups of my ruler quilting project. I hope these prove interesting...

I'm working on cross hatching in these odd little background pieces (1 hexagon + 3 third-hexagons). And I'll add that I am more than half done already. Woohoo!

In order to make sure the center of my curved ruler is lined up properly for each pass, I'm using the bone folder from my old rubberstamping days, to temporarily create a crease to follow. Because I'll next be stitching "around" the blue third-hexie there on the right, I'm drawing a line between the 2 red dots.

Hopefully, you can see that the center line etched on the ruler lines up with the creased line in the background fabric. I'm stitching 4 passes "around" each third-hexie and each pass is about .5" from the last, thanks to the quarter inch wide ruler foot and the quarter inch etchings on the ruler.

Something to be very conscious of when FMQing is to puddle your quilt around your needle/work space. If your quilt is puddled then you are only moving the portion of the quilt within the very center of the puddle instead of trying to move a very large section of the quilt. I can definitely feel the drag when I am trying to move too large a section of the quilt or even the edge of the quilt.

Can you see my puddle?

The flat area in the red circle is my puddle. 

The other important part of FMQing is to have snoopervision  =^..^=

Zorro - it's not polite to stick your tongue out at the viewers!

Linking to Design Wall Monday and Monday Making.

Wednesday Weather #7 & ruler quilting

Another busy holiday weekend at Casa Grande!!

Saturday I went to the Angelica NY Lavender Fest & Farm Market - Despite the rain it was a fun event and I came home with some veg, a purple gayfeather, a few gifts and a pile of what I call silly socks. I didn't think to take a picture but imagine purple socks with sprigs of lavender, bright blue Nefertiti, bright yellow with Klimt's The Kiss, moose on snowy mountains and skunks on green grass. I told you they were silly but who wants to wear boring grey socks with bright colored summer tshirts??!!

Saturday night was a grad party and then an after party with my coworkers. OMG - you should have tried the home made cinnamon peach moonshine. It was smoooooooth!

LOVE my new green walls!

A late night rescue call meant a late start to the day Tuesday. I skipped my walk (not a smart move, esp cuz I also skipped today's walk for another rescue call last night) but I did have company while I screwed around online on my iPhone.

Before yesterday was out, there would be a total of  4 rescue calls and a massive power outage during one of those calls. I had left my Bernina on during the call and rushed home as fast as I could to unplug it before the power came on. I was too chicken to plug it in again last night for fear of damage or the power going out again.

Luckily I had made some progress on the ruler quilting but this is how it stands for more attention tonight. I'm still not perfect with the ruler (ie stitch length while FMQing curves) but I'm having fun and it looks fantastic.

I love my large table with 2 drawers I can pull out to support large quilts as needed while it's also "puddled" around the needle allowing for easier movement, instead of dragging the whole quilt around. I puddle whether using rulers or not.

And last but not least, it's time for last week's weather report. 'Consistent' was pretty much the word of the week (70-77-75-76-78-75-75F) and we are looking at a lot more of the same in the next week.

BTW - would anyone be interested in a weather linky party each Wednesday?

Happy Hump Day!!!

Linking to Midweek Makers and Let's Bee Social.

Design Wall Monday - 7/3/17

Last week I ordered a curved ruler, planning to do some crosshatch quilting on my owl quilt.

In preparation, I watched and re-watched some videos on using this particular ruler and some others.

Eventually, I just had to jump in and do it...

After using this ruler over the weekend, I've decided that it was a fantastic purchase!

You might be able to see the pegs on the top which make it a little easier to hold on to.

There is also a strip of velcro on the bottom of the ruler. The velcro grips the fabric nicely and also helps to remove the cat hair, which is probably more Blue's than Z's  :(

It took me a while to get into my rhythm but after that it's just plain fun.

Oh, alright, I'll admit it, it's a little painful wrangling the large quilt thru the arm of my Bernina but with my nice, large sewing table to support the quilt as a whole, it's all good in the end.

I don't have family BBQ plans tomorrow so I plan to get my chores done tonight so I can play at my sewing machine all day tomorrow!!!

Wishing all my American friends a Happy Fourth of July!!!!

Bibliofile Files, normally scheduled for the first Tuesday (tomorrow) will get bumped to next week (7/11/17). Hmm...how many more books can I get finished in a week??!!

Linking to Design Wall Monday and Monday Making.

HeLP for Hexie-aholics - 3/17/17

There are lots of photos to share for Feline Friday and HeLP today so I've separated the posts, altho they will share one linky party. Be sure to check out Feline Friday HERE!

On Sunday at ~8pm I put the last stitch into my owl quilt!!! Woohooo!!!!!!

I attempted to take some photos of the top last night (it is daylight until after 7pm!) but it was still too windy from this week's snow storm.

Good Morning Sunshine!

I spray basted the top to the batting last night.

And spray basted the back this morning.

I was trying to use just the fabric leftovers from the quilt so while I had planned an extra 2" on each side of the quilt, I actually cut it much closer than that. The light colored fabric above is the owl fabric that I fussy cut for center of each of the rose stars in the quilt.

The quilt finished at 72" x 75"

Meet Lola - my neighbor's dog. 

I meant to count the number of pieces in the quilt but forgot - I'll have to add that Monday...

And  now, it's your turn to share a project for our Linky Party. What hexie projects have you been working on or planning to work on???! Do Share!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Design Wall Monday - 3/6/17

Can you taste it yet?
I certainly can!

What am I possibly talking about? Well I can taste finishing this quilt...

I've got probably 13 half-hexies to finish attaching and then I need to attach the top border to the mothership. Then this baby will be in the finished pile. Woot Woot!

I've got half the half-hexies sewn in to the top and bottom borders.
The top border isn't attached to the quilt yet so when my back gives out from
painting ceilings and sitting at the table to work on the mothership, I can move to
the couch to work on the border.

Funny how the parts of the quilt sans papers lay so much flatter.

The models are not sure if they are friend or foe at the moment.
This may or may not have something to do with the 'nip fest last night...

I've removed the papers from the sides to reduce the weight of the quilt.
I think I'm going to wait to trim the sides straight until after it's been quilted.
I'm also removing the papers from the top and the bottom as I fill in the half-hexies.

Design Floor Tuesday - 2/28/17

I've been spending most of my spare time (other than bedroom renovations) working on the owl quilt. 

I layed it out this morning to count how many more hexies I need to finish the bottom row and fill out the top when it gets attached.

I know you said not to play with the papers, Momma - I'm just holding it for you

The magic number is 12. If I just add the 12, the half hexies to top and bottom and trim the sides straight then the quilt will be 70" square. It doesn't appear square to me yet, despite my model's best efforts.

My dilemma is if I want to leave it square or add another couple rows to top and bottom to get it to be rectangular.

I've got 27 inches of fabric left so I am sure there is enough fabric left to keep adding hexies.

Momma says I'm a poser.
I say I'm practicing to be a spokescat.

Adding the hexies is not the actual dilemma but the concept that the center will always appear rectangular cuz it's a different color. I am currently wishing I had put a single row of a different fabric across the middle of the top and bottom borders just for the effect of drawing the eye up and down the neutral center. There is NO way that is happening now, I'll just file that idea for another quilt.

Momma also says I'm a pretty boy.
And I agree!!!