Progress on the UFO Challenge

A Cheater Panel, and really not part of the UFO Challenge with my online quilt group - RBQ.

This "Little Mermaid" Quilt is just a little quilt, with a soft flannel backing and is meant to go to the Premie ward of our local hospital. A very simple and quick and small (30 inches x 36 inches) these small quilts are meant to cover the incubators where new, too early babies spend their first days. When the baby is ready to go home the little quilt that was used to protect them from the bright overhead lights of the room, then goes home with them, to hopefully get used and dragged around and carried about...
This is the second one I have done this year. Planning to get done a few more this year.

Ah, now this one, under my trusty sewing maching is finally in the process of getting quilted. The top for this has been 'together" for about a year, and the layers were basted together about 7 or 8 months ago. This is going to be the biggest quilt I have ever done completely on my own! it measures 95" x 77"! Just the size of it has intimidated me for all this time! But in my closet is another top, also part of this UFO challenge that is just a bit larger, it will be about 100 x 85-- oh my...
This quilt will hopefully inspire me to tackle the other big top in the closet... First give me a few more days and I will show you how this scrappy giant progresses...

Problems and Projects

That picture doesn't look like anything. Does it?  Well, it is a major problem and a disaster just waiting to happen...  Yesterday I was rearranging a couple of shoe boxes of quilting stuff on this bookcase and realized that the bookcase and its shelves were pulling themselves apart.   In today's world the furniture out there is made of particle board or MDF, and in the stores it looks like reasonable furniture -- trouble is, the screws that hold it together just don't - hold it together...

This morning I took everything off the shelves and now have to think on a way to re -inforce all the joints, so that the thing doesn't just cave in on itself when least expected...  Glue?  "L" brackets to hold the shelves?  maybe sort of 'frame' each shelf underneath with 1 inch x 1 inch 'sticks'  How much work does this cheap piece of furniture need to make it useable?   This is where I long for my Dad's radial arm saw -- and my Dad to use it!  His radial arm saw was as much fun for him as my sewing machine is to me.  Years and years ago, he made some wonderful pieces of furniture -- a dresser and headboard for my bedroom, a wonderful sturdy useful, bookcase/room divider, he made end tables and coffee tables, parsons tables and a captains bed.  Oh, I wish he was here to make me a new bookcase...

A few weeks back I did some digging -- here is another UFO, that I forgot to claim on my UFO challenge for 2010 - I was on a kick round about 1995 or so, doing miniature foundation pieced things... This is one of them, cute -- but now what do I do with it now it is done???

And here is a little quilt, that only took about 6 hours, start to finish, the center section is one piece of fabric, with three added borders.  This is not and UFO, but was started and finished in the last couple of days and is destined for the  children's ward at our local hospital.  I aim for 5 or 6 donation quilts each year -- so for 2010, this is Number 1....

Okay, now back to thinking about those shelves...

How to shop at the Thrift Store

On Friday the sun burst through the clouds, it was a wonderful bright and happy kind of day.  After the dark gloomy rain, the +10 degrees celcius felt even warmer with the sunshine  beaming through the windows.  So, we went on an adventure.  Second Hand Stores -- The most interesting part of going the route of second hand stores in town is that you never know what you might find -- definately not like taking a wander through the mall where you know pretty much what is in each store, the Purdy's chocolate,  the book store, the center kiosks of 10 dollar watches, and 2 for 15 dollar t-shirts, or sunglasses or purses...  Anyway, at the second hand stores - there are 7 pretty good ones, (the charitable or church sponsered ones) so it can take a good 3 to 4 hours to check them out throughly. 

Well, on Friday, I started out at the West end of town -- furthest from me and decided to pop in to a "charity" shop that is sponsored by a coalition of churches in town here.  It closed down shop a few months back due to rent and size issues and now have reopened in an industrial site, a bit out of the way, but they have so improved the set up and the feel of the store is a real fun experience.  It is bright and open and clean.  Wandering through, my hopes began to sink that I had not found a craft corner -- but then behind the sheets and draperies and towels and tablecloths I found the baskets of yarn and knitting and crochet pamphlets and pattern books.  Then just a little right turn of my head and a whole cubby hole type cupboard became visible with fabric remnants in rolls or stacks along with the jumble of sewing supplies...  What a feast!  Of course in a second hand store, the rolls of fabrics just have a price and it takes a bit of experience to be able to know what cotton feels or even smells like compared to poly cotton, but I found a half dozen pieces that I will be able to add to an African themed quilt that I have been collecting fabrics for, for about 2 years now!  In my mind, it was a treasure that enables me to really get going on that quilt -- and since it is one of my listed UFO quilts for the Challenge my online group are encouraging each other to work on in this year, it is even a better find!  These treasures are what I so enjoy about Second hand stores -- you just never know when you will find just the thing you have been looking for and best of all, at a price that often will only empty the change from your wallet -- the money you sort of forget you had.  I spent just under $8, for what turned out to be about 12 meters of fabric!!  Can you believe that!

Now if you are reading this, I must caution you if you have not before taken a wander through a second hand store, that shopping in the thrift shop/second hand shop/ charity shop is not at all like shopping at The Gap or Marks Work Wearhouse, or even your local quilt shop.  In a second hand story you may or may not find what you want today, so that means you need to come back next week.  Sometimes you never find exactly what you want and then nextime you spot something that you didn't even think you needed.   One of the essentials of a household is a crockpot.  Never had one?  The last one you had no longer works and $50 is a bit much to spend?  Walk through the thrift shop, how bout a $2. crockpot -- and it works and it has a removable insert and it has its lid!  What else might you think you didn't need, but there it is sitting on a shelf in a corner...   Make the rounds of your local thrift shops at least once a month, good exercise and very easy on the pocket book...

Oh the other thing that I have recently begun to do is to re purchase Christmas decor yearly at the thrift shops -- I buy nearly-new decorations and ornaments and wrapping paper or gift bags from the thrift shop in mid November, then after Christmas I donate it all back to them -- means I don't allocate any storage space to Christmas stuff, well, except for my small artifical tree that has its own special corner in the attic and a couple of ceramic houses that I display all year round.  It is worth more to have the free space than to spend $20 or so each year on decor for a short 2-3 week period...

Just wanted to emphasize, that thrift store shopping is not an exact science.  You have to go with a wish but not a plan.  You can't say, today I need a teapot -- you might find one, but you might have to go back to the shops in your area two or three or more times before you find just the one you want.  Thrift store shopping is an art, mostly the art of patience.  Just remember that thrift store shopping is where you might find anything at anytime for anybody...  Keep shopping!   Oh yeah, and don't forget to take and donate to the shop the things that you no longer need...  Clothes in good condition, are you financially secure enough to change your towels when you repaint your bathroom, take the used ones to your thrift shop.  You don't have to be poor to shop in the second hand store, you just have to be frugal minded and not predjudiced against having something 'pre-owned' in your home... 

With most things you buy second hand, no one will know where it came from unless you tell them.  My sister is a great 2nd hand store shopper, she had more years to shop with the master -- our Mother, so she has a great eye for finding classic style clothes and shoes.  Amazing how stylish she can dress for under $20 bucks for her 'high powered' executive type job.  Then there is just the opposite, one of my brother-in-laws has said numerous times that he wouldn't be caught dead with other peoples stuff, but when his Mom passed away, he was the one who claimed all her 1970's couch , chair and end tables , her 1990 20" tv for his bedroom, her 1985 kitchen table with swivel chairs, her particle board china cabinate and all her 1980's bedding and bath linen.... No, he would never have anything second hand!

But then if you are still reading this blog and you say that you still will not shop in a thrift shop, well, then I am happy to say -- More for Me!  Someone has to buy all that stuff new...  and that I thank you for...

Challenge 2010

I am part of an online quilt group.  We call ourselves RBQ (rather be quilting) and for a dozen people who have rarely met each other we have stuck together through thick and thin for quite a few years now.  Rather Amazing, actually.  We are all Canadians but live from one end of our country to the other, though most of us live in the west. 

Now this year we have agreed upon a Challenge for our group--a fairly common challenge amongst quilters, but none the less I have never before accepted this type of challenge. The Challenge is to complete a list of UFO's. We each submitted our list that needs to see progress. I do not commit however to actually finishing every project, because 2 of them are ongoing and who knows they may never actually be done. My Quilted Diamonds Quilt and Hexagon Stars, both of which are hand piecing projects. Every once in a while I take one or the other along with me for long car rides or other activities that really require nothing from me but to be there -- like holidays on resort beaches (which I have not as yet had the priviledge of doing) so perhaps that is why it is not yet done?

Today, I have completed one of the projects from my Challenge list. It is an "I Spy" quilt. A number of years ago, I signed up for a 6" charm swap on the internet, all fabrics to be child friendly prints. Puppies and clowns, chickens and scorpions, dinosaurs and tractors -- on my quilt, 63 squares in all. Now this quilt has been layered and basted since about August 09, but for some reason it sat in a corner while I put together and finished up two quilts for christmas, 36 dinner napkins as christmas gifts, 40 change purses for a craft fair, along with a dozen or so other small projects.

This UFO challenge finally inspired me to unfold the "I Spy" and get the sewing machine its walking foot and free motion 'darning' foot in gear...

The centre of the quilt is a simple cross hatch, which I find pleasing to look at and usually do on most any quilt with squares and triangles. The outer border is a adaptation of a continuous line quilting pattern that I saw, somewhere on the internet as an all over pattern, to me it looks like a cabbage rose so that is what I call it -- a bit finicky to keep each one at a uniform size but after a few practice ones, I seemed to have managed to have kept it nicely even--there is only one that is not quite as nice as it could be, but since it is a Challenge quilt - I Challenge you to find it!

Uh-oh, a new thing!

Years ago, well, not TOO many years ago, I discovered Print Gocco.  It was an interesting thing and I actually earned a few bucks from it because I printed and sold quilt labels locally and also miniature foundation pieced block guides in local quilt shops.  But the basic Print Gocco that I had was quite limiting.  A screen could only be used once and the size of the print was limited to about 4 inches by 6 inches.  After a few years, I closed down my little production shop and gave away the machine.

Well, a year or so ago, I heard about the Yudu.... Holleee!  I do believe I have fallen in love again!  I was browsing sites on the internet and because a friend had bought a Cricut machine I was curious to find out exactly what it was and what it could do -- then I noticed that the Yudu is sold by the same company so I clicked on over to see what exactly it could do --- now as I said, I do believe I am in love...

I have to think on it a bit, though -- it is not cheap... but it is cheaper than a fancy camera, it is cheaper than most TV's and it certainly is cheaper than a new  sewing machine, all of which I don't need.  So I will do my best to talk myself into a Yudu and perhaps in a week or so, I will be able to show off a new project or creation... Now I just have to find a place to buy one -- I mean to go look at one -- I must think on it (well thats what I tell my hubby anyway)

Back to Everyday Life

Whew, I am so glad that the Christmas mayhem is finished for 2009, and now (already?) head into Christmas 2010 -- mind you, there is alot of stuff that happens well before then. Especially is the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver -- which is only about 60 kms west of my house. All or rather most of my life, I have watched Olympic Games on TV, when they were in Calgary in 1988, I had hoped for an opportunity to go then, but that didn't work out -- and now, they are so very close but the 'lottery' for tickets to various events did not smile kindly on me... So again, even next door, and I have to watch the luge, the figure skating and the skiing events on TV...

I have started a new small project, I guess it will be a baby shawl with frilly lacy borders on it after the main central area is completed. It is a pretty basic stitch combination, a row of double crochet alternating with a row of X double crochet, which as you can see makes an interesting design. I am using Bernat Baby Soft - and I hope I have enough of it... I am also processing (in my head) a granny square afghan, but I am wanting to use bright colours so collecting them will take a bit of time, which means that project will probably be stuck in my head for quite some time yet!

Hope you are enjoying this new year so far and that it has had a good start!