Thank Goodness It's Friday!!!

It is finally Friday! It was a very busy at work this week but that is good, beats sitting around doing nothing. I have been waiting all week to get the wall hanging finished so I can move on to cutting and prepping for the retreat next weekend. Melissa seems to think I was a bit optimistic in my list of things to take to the retreat to work on. I am going to pull everything out tomorrow and make sure of what to take. I would like to go tomorrow and get a roller case to take this time, I think it will make it easier to carry everything inside. So, I am so happy with the how the wall hanging turned out! I just love it. I took it in for Melissa to see today and she liked it too. I am really proud of the binding I did on this, I think I finally have the technique down. Here are some pictures of it straight from its second washing.

That's about it for today. I will post again tomorrow with some pictures of what I am taking on the trip.

Wall Hanging Complete...Almost

The wall hanging is almost complete. I finished the binding tonight and it is currently in the wash becoming fabulous (I hope!). It has taken me a little while to finish this off, longer than I wanted it to but I have been tired the last few nights getting home from work and only worked on it a little bit so really didn't have anything to post until now. I finished the sewing and I cut the rows as I did in the chenille quilt so I won't bore you with going over those steps or how to make binding. The only difference in binding is that I only did the single fold binding and I sewed the binding to the back, flipped it over and did a decorative stitch on the front side. I am going to walk you through the steps for making the corner when sewing it on the back, something I didn't have to do on the chenille quilt because it had the curved corners and we did the double fold, one seam binding. So, with the single fold binding you place the raw edge of the binding closest to the edge of the quilt and sew it to the back with 1/4" seam allowance. You leave about 6" tail at the beginning and you start in the middle of one side. Sew the binding to the first corner and then take the quilt out of the machine. To turn the corner we take the binding and fold it to the right forming a 90 degree angle, then fold the binding back over the top of the 90 degree angle and you will have turned the corner, the raw edge of the binding should be laying on the next edge you are going to sew, sew to the next corner and do the above step again. When you get back to where you start stop sewing until you have about 6" to go. Take the quilt out of the machine. You will join the two ends with a mitre as we used when making the binding strips (I am not showing this step here). once you have the mitered joint complete put the quilt back in the machine and sew the rest of the binding onto the quilt.

Here is the quilt in the machine sewing the binding up to the corner. Take quilt out of machine.

Here is the quilt out of the machine. The binding is going straight down.

Take the binding and fold up to the 90 degree angle. The binding is now out to the right of the quilt.

Now take the binding and fold back over the 90 degree angle. The binding is now to the left and along the next edge to be sewn. Okay, now we have the binding on the back side. Now we fold it over to the front side (next 3 photos)

This photo shows the finished binding. I normally use a decorative stitch on the front this time I used a blanket stitch which I think kind of gives it a rustic/country/homespun look. Doing the binding this way is kind of a cheat way to do it. If you were making a quilt that you wanted to show or sale you would do the reverse of what I have done when sewing the binding on. You would sew the binding on to the front and fold to the back and then hand stitch the binding to the back. Since I am not showing or selling these quilts I am going to take the easy route, plus my hand stitching isn't that good so I would rather make sure the binding is going to stay on versus the back of the binding falling off because of my bad hand stitching.

This picture is showing the complete quilt before washing. Once I have it washed and dried, I will post a picture of it.

Progress

I got home a little later tonight because I had to get my hair done. I have had a gray streak running down the middle of my head for about 3 weeks now, I usually go every 6 weeks to get my color done. So, I was complaining to my hairdresser that the color isn't lasting as long as it used to and was wondering if it was because I had a darker color put on last time. She said maybe that could be it but it could be that I am just growing gray hair faster than I use to! LOL. So, I get her to put a bunch of blonde highlights in, hopefully that will take care of their growth rate. So because I got home later I didn't have as much time to spend on the flag wall hanging. I did get have of the rows sewn. The rows are a 1/2 inch apart. I sewed the line that I made with the marker and then I used that row as a guide putting my presser foot along that line as I sew. I measured from my needle to the edge of the presser foot and it is 1/2 inch. Even with this being a smaller project than the chenille baby blanket it seems to take forever to sew all of these rows.

This shows the presser foot guideline for the 1/2 inch rows.

This is showing half of the rows complete.

This is showing a view of the rows from the back side. I tried to rewrap the wreath but I still don't have enough of the ribbon. I will have to go by JoAnn's to pick some more up. I need to see what coupons I have left to use. I am headed to bed, I have told David that I need to start getting to bed earlier so 10:00 is when I am supposed to go, we sill see how long this lasts! We have had some thunderstorms rolling through tonight, hopefully they are all done for the night.

Flag Wall Hanging

Today did not go as planned. Melissa didn't come over, her daughter kept her up all night. So, I went to visit my friend in the hospital. He is doing pretty good. He isn't able to move his left arm and he is dragging his left foot. But no memory loss or slurred speech so that is good. He is supposed to move to a rehab center tomorrow. The doctor thinks he has sleep apnea and he stopped breathing in the middle of the night causing the stroke. It is really sad, reminds me too much of mom. I didn't get home until around 4 this afternoon so there was most of my day. I had a sinus headache when I woke up so been battling that all day. Then my cousin Max calls me to tell me my Aunt Ruth, my mom's sister is in the hospital because of a ruptured aorta. They have put a stint in and she is stable, she has lost some feeling in one of her legs, she is also going to a rehab center. I was kind of laying around after dinner and decided I would work on the flag wall hanging that I wanted to make. I didn't feel like cutting any of the retreat material. I've got it all layered and I started sewing the rows. This will be similar to the chenille baby blanket, same technique just using cotton material instead of flannel and also adding a layer of batting.

This is the backing. It will be face down and the layers go on top.

This is the batting. It goes between the backing and the top layers.

This is the top material. There will be four layers.

This is the four layers. When all sewn the top three layers will be cut to create the chenille/rag look. Since this is an all over pattern it isn't as important to match up the pattern. For the stain glass panels in my previous post, it will be very important to match up the pattern in all four layers in order to have the full design revealed through the layers.

Once you have all the layers, the next thing to do is pin all the layers together. This is pretty time consuming and I tend to probably over-pin my projects but I like to make sure everything stays together.

Now, you make a line from one corner to the diagonal corner using a disappearing ink marker.

Here is the line, hard to see on this darker material. I sewed a few of the lines but didn't get to far with it, I will work on it more tomorrow night. I have an idea for a project and here is the start of it. I have an ordinary florist wreath ring. I am wrapping it with this pretty ribbon. Wrapping it so the design repeats. As you can see I did not get all the way around. I will try re-wrapping to see if I can get all the way around or I will have to go to JoAnn's to get some more. I have overlapped quite a bit so I am thinking I can make it work. I hope this will turn out well...off to bed now, it is late!

Fabric Shack

It has been a busy day today. David and I went to an estate sale in the morning. We didn't find too much there. I bought these 4 little glasses. I think you would call them cordial glasses. I have plans for them which you may some day see here on the blog. I am including a close up detail picture of the Couch Quilt that I posted last night. I am really liking it and can't wait to get it all done. Melissa and I went to Milano's for lunch. It has been our favorite place for sometime but they have not been consistent with their food lately so we may have to find a new favorite. After lunch we went to the Mason Jar quilt shop which is our local quilt shop here in Beavercreek. Melissa found a backing for the baby quilt she is making and it was 30% off so that made her very happy! We picked up Clarinda after lunch and went to Waynesville, OH, the home of Fabric Shack. They have a lot of fabric. I am posting a picture of the sign and a picture of one of the rooms they have there. They have so much stuff to look at in a small space that some days it can be hard to get around the store and they are really slow at cutting what you want, so don't go there unless you have patience and time. I was on a mission to buy the fabric panels to make the chenille rug/wall hanging. You can see them in the picture. The panels have a stained glass look to them, I bought the same panel in pink and purple. In the picture you will see the panel as I bought them and then the sample of the finished project as it is hanging in the store. The finished project can be used as a wall hanging or small throw rug. I am going to make the purple one for Beryl, it is her favorite color. The pink one is for me of course! I also picked up some fabric to make Jack his quilt. I am going to make it the same style as the Couch Quilt, the material is the picture of blue and brown shades with solids and stripes. We left Waynesville and headed to Miamisburg for the quilt show. I am including some photos from the show. They had some pretty quilts there. Some were old, some were new. I thought they were going to have a few more vendors there but it was a small show. We didn't win the raffle for the quilts so we were soon off to the big JoAnn store. I picked up a few things there not much. On the way back we stopped at Hancock Fabric. I found the stars and stripes material there and I am going to make a wall hanging with that. I also picked up a couple pattern books. That was the end of the shopping day! I am now sorting through everything and deciding what will go to the retreat. Tomorrow I am going to cut the material for the Take 5 quilt which I am making with the blue/gray flannel material that you see pictured. I will also finish cutting the Japanese fabric for Mark's quilt and the fabric for Jack's quilt. So, here is my list of things to take to the retreat: 1) Couch Quilt (layer backing, batting, and top; get ready for quilting) 2) Mark's Japanese Quilt (finish top) 3) Jack's Blue Quilt (finish top) 4) Chenille Panel for Beryl (finish except for washing/drying) 5) Airman's Take 5 Quilt (finish if time) That should be enough and may even be too much but this is my priority list. That's all for tonight. I need to tidy my room because Melissa is coming over tomorrow to work on her quilt. Oh, here is a picture of Marley helping me clean up my room. :)

Couch Quilt

I finished the top of the Couch Quilt tonight. I think it looks better in person than in the pictures. Plus it is so big it is hard to get a good picture of it. I will pack it up and take it to the retreat for show and tell and to do the layering with the backing and batting. I think I am going to try to do an all over quilt on this one. I need to learn how to do that with my machine. Tomorrow Dave and I are going to an estate sale in the morning and then I am going to lunch with Melissa. Then in the afternoon we will go to the quilt shop in Waynesville and to the quilt show in Miamisburg. We are also going to stop by and see one of our friends that went into the hospital today with what they think is a mini-stroke. The doctors are still running tests so he will be in there the whole weekend. I will try to take some pictures at the quilt shop and show, post something different for a change. The rest of the weekend I will be prepping for the retreat! I can't wait.

Chenille Quilts are Finished!!

I finished the blue chenille quilt late last night so didn't have time to post. I think the blue one turn out better than the green one. I like how the dark blue contrasts with the lighter blue colors. I gave them to the captain this morning and he was really excited about them and asked how I made them. He said his wife was going to love them. Got to see updated pictures of the twins, they are so cute. Their names are Jack and Harrison, two really good names :).

Tonight I am going to clean up a little and pull the material out to finish up the couch quilt top. I am still unsure how to finish the edge blocks, but I need to get moving and get it done. I am going to take it with me to the retreat so I can layer it with the back and batting in a large area, I am a bit confined here in my craft room. My next craft room is going to have to be a lot bigger and have a raised table to do the layering so I don't have to crawl around on the floor.

I am going with my friends Saturday to the Fabric Shack and to the Miamisburg Quilt Show. I need to pick up a couple of fabric panels to make the chenille wall hanging that I saw hanging at Fabric Shack last time we were there. />This next week and weekend I am going to have to start cutting the quilts I want to accomplish at the retreat. I like to go and sew, I don't like cutting quilts while I am there. We are going to leave about noon on Friday, 11 May. We will hit a couple of quilt shops on the way up. Check in time is 3:00 and dinner is at 5:30. I am not sure if I described where we go in a previous post but it is a retreat center in Marie Stein, Ohio. It used to be a convent and now the church uses it to host these retreats. There are no TVs in the rooms, Internet access is limited and cell phone signal is about nonexistent. Perfect place for a retreat. We get breakfast, lunch, and dinner included in the price for the two night stay. We usually stay up late most nights, I don't usually make it to the breakfast, I find that they feed us way too much so I just skip the full breakfast and eat my peanut butter crackers in the morning. This is the third trip I have gone on with my friends Melissa and Clarinda.
Here is a link if you would like to see some pictures of the retreat center http://www.spiritualcenter.net/Photo%20pages/interior/interior-index.htm All right I am going to kick back and relax for a little bit before I pick up this room! I will post tomorrow night on the Couch Quilt.