Styrofoam queen

Yep, that is what I'm famous for these days.  Why, you ask?

Recently, I took a machine quilting class with Martha Schellingerhoud and amongst the items that we needed to bring was an extension table for our sewing machine.

Well, there was no way that my special extension table that DH made for me was coming to the class.  It is way too big, too heavy and too cumbersome to transport.  You can see how big it is just by the ruler that is laying in front of my sewing machine.

So, what to do about it?  Enter Styrofoam and duct tape.  DH had some leftover 1-1/2" thick rigid Styrofoam that he used to insulate our sky lights.   It was fortunate that the height of my sewing machine base and the Styrofoam doubled up was the perfect match up.  This is what I came up with.  Mind you, it works well, it just is not pretty.  The Styrofoam is doubled up and taped very well together.  The red duct tape works the best as the adhesive is very good.  The ladies and the teacher at the workshop thought my special table was a great idea.

Once it is slid into place, this table doesn't move or slide around at all.  To pretty up my special table, a few ladies suggested that I look into designer duct tape. You know, if anyone is on a tight budget, this would work very well for you and you could make it to whatever size you want.  Who knows, you might even be able to buy half sheets of Styrofoam from your nearest home hardware store?  This table is perfect for quilting workshops and retreats.  Red Green would be very proud of me!  :o)

When my DH saw me making my special table, he said that I would be getting comments about it.  Actually, I wondered if the ladies would laugh me right out of the room.  They didn't (thank you guild ladies) and I enjoyed my classes because I was able to machine quilt with ease.

Below are my samples of the machine quilting workshop.  They also are not pretty, but for the first time trying it out (except for meandering and straight line machine quilting which I've done in the past) they turned out pretty darn good.

At our guild's September meeting, I gave a demo on how to make a design wall using 1" thick rigid Styrofoam and duct tape.  Perhaps I should bring my special table to our next guild meeting for my show and tell.  :o)

If you are interested in how to make a folding design wall out of rigid Styrofoam and duct tape, then go here.

Have a great day!

Cabin fever .... be gone!

It truly is amazing what a week in the sun can do for cabin fever! This year, our winter has been long, cold with lots of snow and a week in the Dominican Republic was most welcome. My sister and I stayed at Punta Cana at one of the Iberostar resorts. What can I say, except it was "wonderful".

This post is photo heavy, but bear with me as there is something about sewing at the end.

We stayed in this block of rooms and if only we took our bearings when we first arrived, we would not have roamed the resort trying to find our room later in the afternoon. The resort is huge and we walked different paths throughout our stay ... some more interesting than others. I just loved the wooden planks laying on top of the sand. Lovely colour combinations.

We walked the beach the first afternoon we arrived. Again, my sister and I forgot to take bearings and after 45 mins. of walking we turned around and headed back to our resort. Mmmm .... what did our resort look like from the beach? There were no signs posted and after seeing other people on beach longers wearing the same wrist bands like we had, we figured that was our resort. Phew .... lesson learned.

We walked the resort grounds which were absolutely beautiful. Lots of photos were taken from various vantage points. We had to walk off the wonderful food we ate each day otherwise the plane would never have been able to take off.

A day excursion into the countryside revealed the reality of this island life away from the resorts.

A quick swim at the local's beach was gorgeous and breathtaking. No development here .... just a beach as one would expect.

A day of snorkelling was amazing. Unfortunately, we had no underwater camera to take shots, but the mural on this bench gives a good reflection of what we saw.

We were quite happy to sit under a beach palapa .....

... and watch the world go by ....

.... and take a few snoozes like this trio during the hottest part of the day.

When I least expected it, inspiration snuck in and surprised me.

I did get some sewing done on the beach and late at night in our room. The lighting in the hotel rooms are always the pits, but I brought a book light (the kind that you just clip onto your book) with me and it really came in handy. My light has an adjustable goose neck and it was perfect to adjust to whatever angle I needed to see and sew.

Now, don't laugh ... but I just plunked my book light down the front of my top, adjusted the goose neck, turned on my light and relaxed back against the pillows and sewed away to my heart's content. This book light was under $10 and worked like a charm for me.

My sister laughed when she saw what I was doing but thought that it was a great idea.

Anyway, have a great day!

UFO quilting

Besides working on my baskets, I am also machine quilting an old UFO that has been hanging around for a while. Nothing fancy, just a simple meander. While looking for my variegated blue quilting thread, I came across a polybag that had binding already made up. Can we say "bonus"? There is probably enough binding made for this quilt. I'm thrilled ... this binding will suit my quilt perfectly. Luckily, I had the hindsight to include the fabric leftover right inside the polybag if more binding is needed. Now, I'm wondering why it was made up in the first place and for what quilt? Usually, any binding or fabric for binding is placed in the bin along with the project.

I have only just started my meander quilting and already have encountered some puckers on the back (see the arrows). Not to worry, I have a plan for those and it does not include unpicking. A label will go on one of them and any others will have a patch of some kind. I hope to have a few more puckers as it will be more interesting than just one label and one patch.

You all know how much I love to recycle grocery items and here is a good example of how I use those cookie trays. Perfect for my pins and they are good for carting around to my different working stations.

Those trays fit perfectly inside one of the drawers in this small cabinet that sits right beside my sewing machine.

Have a great day!

Quilting tools

Thanks ever so much for all your comments and positive vibes for me to get my klosjes quilt done before the deadline for the quilt show entry. So far, I'm still on track .... yeah me!

There were some questions about what I use for batting and markers. To help you, these are what I use:

Batting - both are by Hobbs. Other brands have been used in the past, but these are consistent with the loft (no high and low spots).
Markers - you can go here to read about my workings with these markers. There are a few do's and don'ts. Just scroll down through the posts.

Thread - these are what I use for quilting thread. This thread doesn't break or snap when pulling on the quilt to make the bed. There is one quilt that needs to be fixed because the quilting thread snapped in places (I actually heard the thread snapping). Also, my thread gets waxed and if anyone is interested, a tutorial can be made up for you.

Needles - the head on these needles are bigger so that the heavy thread slips through the eye fairly easy.

There, now you know what I use for hand quilting.

Have a good day!

Sharp ruler

So ... is this ruler worth the money I paid and does the ruler live up to its' claim? Are you interested in finding out? Read on .... So far, my findings (based on two sharpened blades) are as follows:

How can this ruler sharpen my blade? On one edge of the ruler, there is a diamond carbide edge (that is embeded into the plastic edge) that sharpens the rotary blade as you cut your fabric. As the rotary cutter moves along the special edge, you can hear the blade and the edge grinding so you know that you are doing it correctly.

I could see an improvement with my blade each time the ruler was used.

Once the blade was sharpened, the ruler was stored away and I started using my regular ruler again. My plan is to keep this ruler only for sharpening my blades. As with everything else, the diamond carbide edge will eventually wear away. I bought this 6-1/2" x 6-1/2" ruler since that is the size that I use a lot for cutting my fabric. Also, this size was a lot cheaper than buying the larger size rulers and I didn't want to pay lots for a ruler that didn't work.

In order to ensure that the full blade got sharpened (this is because I bought the smaller ruler), the ruler was placed on the fabric and without lifting the rotary cutter, the ruler was moved along the width of the fabric so that the blade was sharpened all around the circumference. You do have to remember to dismantle your cutter and turn your blade over so that both edges are sharpened. You also have to remember to use the side of the ruler that has the special edge. A couple of times ... I forgot. :o)Let's face it, a new blade is sharp and there is no way to match up to that with any sharpener that you buy. Even though my blade has been sharpened, I do have to apply a bit of pressure while cutting with any ruler (this new one and my regular rulers).

Will this ruler sharpener take out nicks? My blades had small nicks and they were removed. Large ones, I doubt it.

Once my blade starts to dull, I will take out my new ruler and re-sharpen my blade again. At some point, a brand new blade will need to come out of storage and my old one will be scrapped.

I do have about 5 new blades still in their packages; but this new sharpener is easy to use and (for me) it was worth it to buy this new ruler.

BTW ..... I am not affliated with the manufacturing company and they are not paying me anything to give my opinion. There is a chance that my opinion will not agree with someone else. It is your decision if you want to purchase one of these rulers or not.

Have a great day!

A few cool ones

We've been having a few cool days lately and I have taken advantage of it and have been back to doing some hand quilting.

Often times, when I get to the sandwiching stage, there is no complete plan of the design I want to hand quilt or the design gets changed as I go along. I let my quilt talk to me and tell me what it wants and any markings that were there are ignored. Changing plans after sandwiching becomes hard to deal with.

As you see below, the cross hatch stitching was definitely a go and those lines were marked before this quilt was sandwiched. The areas around the flowers were left unmarked as there was no plan yet for that area.

When the quilt is in my hoop, it is nice and taut; but out of the hoop, it relaxes and and the areas that have been quilted bunches up making any more marking almost impossible or lopsided. In the past I've always put a book or something solid that will fit underneath the hoop and mark in areas on the quilt as I go. It was always a hassle and wobbly. Enter my lovely DH. He cut out a piece of wood that will fit inside my hoop.

It fits nice and snug.

Which then allows me to start marking as much as I want. Once all the marking is done for this area, the board is removed and I'm ready to start hand quilting.

This might sound silly to some of you; but for me it works like a charm.

Have a great day!

Another one topped up

This has been a very good week for me .... another top done. This top has been teasing you and I for a long time now and it was about time that I just bit the bullet and got this top made. It was the corner setting triangles that stopped me from completing this top a long time ago.

There will be some hand quilting and machine quilting on this one. But not right now .... it is just too hot to think about quilting. In my previous post, I was asked about the pole that is used for showing my quilt tops for photography. I use a 3/4" dia. electrical conduit steel pipe that can be purchased at a hardware store. They come in lengths of 8' and 10'. They are nice and sturdy and don't sag at all. In the photo below, my top is held up by curtain rings (the ones that have clips that you pinch open). I'm standing on a step ladder and holding the pipe against a tree trunk.

So, now you know ....

Enjoy your weekend!

Catching threads

Bonnie Hunter has a great idea for making a thread catcher out of jeans and I made two (you are only seeing one here).

Instead of using jean legs, I had a piece of denim fabric from my sister's jean skirt that was shortened and the remnant has been sitting in my scrap bin for a while now. Actually, I had just tossed it in the garbage, a few days ago, as I didn't have any idea what to make with it. After seeing Bonnie's post, I went back into the garbage and took it out and made my thread catcher bags.

The only thing different is I sewed in a rectangular piece of plastic so that cleaning out the threads and bits and bobs will be easier. The plastic helps to keep the sides open.

Now, how is that for being crafty and recycling?

See the poster in the background? My SIL gave that to me after their trip to Alaska and to the Yukon a few years ago.

Have a great day!

Fabric holders and cat fight!

When I am thinking about a new project, fabric is pulled from my stash, ironed and placed on various holders in order to keep the fabric pressed and at hand for when I’m ready to start cutting.

Here is a clothes dryer (and it sure is sturdy) that holds the bulk of the fabric.

A quilt rack (purchased at a thrift store for just a few dollars) and rigid Styrofoam boards.

Here is all the red fabric for my red/white challenge quilt.

The girls ….. you thought they were sweet and adorable ….. well …. they are, but a few times a week they fight. I still can’t believe that I caught them in action. Peace and quiet prevailed a few moments later.
Tomorrow afternoon, I will be making my way over to Debra’s place for lunch and a sew-in. She will have lots to show me! :o)

Have a great day!

Is it done?

DH is giving me a hand for taking a photo of my Humble Pie quilt top. A couple of years ago, he rigged up a pole system and all I need to do is clip on my tops for taking photos.

So, going back to my question: is it done? Nope! In those borders will be some applique.

Have a great day!

On the floor no more ....

Yes, I’ve learned my lesson and will not be putting my blocks, top, etc. on the floor anymore. I don’t need to have one of my girls cough up hair balls on my work. A few days ago, a hair ball was on the landing on the stairs going down to my studio. No, I don’t need to find surprises on my work.

So, what to do? Walls in my design studio are almost non-existent except for one area where there are sliding doors and I have a piece of batting type of material clipped in front of the doors and that is used all the time. Problem though, it is not tall enough and you all know by now that I make mostly large queen size quilts.

DH came to the rescue. He went out and purchased some rigid Styrofoam boards 24” wide x 86” high. My boards fold up like a screen (accordion style) to store out of the way when not needed.

Tape the seams as shown.


A piece of flannelette sheeting is pinned in place (with an exception).
Because the boards are to be folded, pin the sheet in place until you reach the seam that was taped on the backside. Smooth the sheet as shown by following the arrows, pinning as you go. Now try closing like a screen to see if it works. If not, make adjustments until it does fold properly.

Here is my Lover’s Knot on the board.

Here it is all folded up.

I use a LOT of pins for sticking my blocks in place and you will need pins if you plan to close it up with just single blocks on the board or if you move the design wall around from place to place.

The added bonus to these boards is turning it around and placing another flannelette sheet on the backside and another design wall is ready to use. Two in one ….. now how is that for space saving?

I hope that this helps anyone out there that has a problem with lack of design walls.

BTW …. my girls love to play hide and seek behind my board.

Have a great day!

Quilting frame

Before Xmas, I was in Fabricland (a chain store here in Canada) and looked at their quilting frames. They told me that I could try it out at home and if unhappy, I could return the frame. I really wasn’t sure if I would like it and actually did make a negative comment on someone’s blog about these frames and now am eating my words.

So home it came with me and I have to say that I do like it for straight line quilting. My plan is to do those first to secure a quilt and then use my oval quilting lap hoop for any of the other fussy hand quilting.

That is ….. if I can get Hank out of the frame to quilt. The girls have decided that this is a very cozy spot on a cold winter day.

To try out the frame, I’ve been working on my Dresden Plates and most of the straight stitching has now been done. Oh my …. that means half of this quilt is quilted!!! If you look closely, machine stipple quilting is in this quilt as well as hand quilting.

I'll be away for a week, so no posts until my return.

Have a great day!