Kyle's definition of wet; 1800 quilt :)

We had a rather quiet but eventful long weekend here. Last week Kyle tells me that the basement is wet .. okay .. we know we have there is an issue of water leakage in the basement .. we noticed it during spring thaw, but it wasn't bad .. nothing to worry about. So i tell Kyle, just wipe up the water and things should be fine - heh .. what he neglected to tell me is that the basement was bloody well flooded .. Reg went downstairs to get the broom and all of a sudden I hear all sorts of aggravated sounds from the basement .. I'm like utoh . this can't be good .. next thing I know I see that the lake that usually happened in my backyard was in my basement (@@). Bloody Hell!!!!

We ended up tossing out 2 bags of stuff immediately as it was getting fuzzy .. blasted kid! That would explain my headaches for the past few weeks .. I'm sure I'll have a few more things to toss out, but am trying to salvage some stuff .. it wasn't to bad .. but of course the water was where the tv and game systems are .. well they won't be there to much longer .. we'll be moving them to the other side of the basement .. which means moving the whole bloody place around .. **grumbles**

I was going to start cutting out fabric for the simplex star section of my quilt, but had the good sense that God gave me to scan in the fabric and play with it first .. good thing I did!! What I was planning on doing, wouldn't have looked good at all! So I made a few adjustments and at that point decided, what the heck .. scan in the rest of the fabrics I want to use and lay it all out.

Thank you Cecilia for the suggestion to "switch the brown RR blocks with the blue sisters blocks or maybe the pinwheel type blocks" - I really do like the way this has worked out - altho, I did end up moving my double x sections ... it just flows better.

i'm sure this will change a million more times before I finally settle on it - and i'm likely to change the colours too :)

I really like the look of the white / brown-ish background that I've used for the Ohio Star blocks, but i'm sure I don't have enough of that .. I could do the outer sisters blocks in greens or even the ohio star blocks in greens .. Hmmm .. won't have enough green for the sisters blocks .. maybe the ohio stars as there is only 8 of them. I have other colours, but don't want to go to crazy .. I think I have enough in it now as it is .. Maybe do the sisters blocks all purple??? I LIKE purple :D

Heh .. I get to have more fun playing .. but I will do the Simplex Star blocks as I show them here .. I should have enough material to do that - I think .. only need ³/₈ of yard for each HST colour (light green / dark green) and almost ¾ yard for the blue squares - and if I'm a wee bit short, I'm sure that I can figure out something ;)

Kyle's Bday; colour plots n schemes

Today, Kyle turned 13 years old .. wow .. it just seems like yesterday that he was born - where does the bloody time go ..


My dad came over and we grilled burgers on the grill and then had cake for his bday .. he was still feeling a bit off today so no ice cream as I keep him off dairy when he's like this, but then we opened his presents .. he LOVED his boom box and his game .. Reg and him put his box together then he vanished for a bit to listen to CDs .. we need to get the adaptor for his iPod still - we forgot that in the running around yesterday and then he played his game for a bit .. this one is harder than last years .. the pitching is different .. but he's going to have fun with it and the look on his face when he opened his presents was priceless :) .. he even said to me "mum I had a really good day today .. Thank you .. " .. l was like .. you're welcome .. with my mouth was hanging open ..

So far not a lot done quilt-wise .. did quality family time instead and consider myself coming out ahead ..

I'm going to cut the rest of the fabric for the Double X blocks and get those sections together .. then I might work on the simplex stars .. I've ideas / plots n plans in my head for colours, but it might be a good idea to continue working from the middle out block / colour wise - that way I can make the necessary colour adjustments as needed .. I KNOW that I want the simplex stars to be greens and blues .. the middle sisters will be purple; I and doing the Double X in reds .. now the outer sisters will be blue .. the blocks that i will have to be careful with colourwise will be the Ohio Stars and the outer sisters ..

I would really like the outer sisters to be blue and if I go that route, i have a paisley that is blue on pink that would work very well for the Ohio Star .. heh .. this quilt is very much flying by the seat of my pants ..

I'm not sure if I'm going to leave the corners as the solid Underground RR or use the other ones that have the split background .. I'll just have to put them next to the blocks and make my mind up then.

Well off to cut then - will post pics later maybe ....

I've a teenager **GASP**; sisters; gutters

It's been a quiet few days .. quilt wise .. I've let this layout take seed in my mind and I do rather like it .. It has been suggested"switching the brown RR blocks with the blue sisters blocks or maybe the pinwheel type blocks?" - I rather like the idea of maybe doing a double frame with the Underground RR blocks surrounding the purple sisters blocks tho .. altho this does push the blue sisters blocks off the edge of the quilt and will be draping off the edges of the quilt .. this one I have to think about .. Reg really liked the sisters blocks .. that's the only block he picked. BUT I do have the whole center of the quilt for that block .. **thinks n plots**

Tomorrow is Kyle's bday Oh my Lord .. my baby's going to be 13(!!) I'm to bloody young for this LOL. We got him MLB 2K8 for the Xbox 360 and a boombox that will allow his mp3 player to be attached and he can use it for speakers. I think he's going to like it .. he's not feeling too well today at all but is not running a fever .. so here's hoping that he'll throw off what's ailing him and can enjoy tomorrow .. wow 13

I've spent the past few days battling Mother Nature and my rain gutters .. I'm thinking that this gutter system originally had a downspout in the middle of the gutter - which is no longer there .. I unearthed the hole when I cleaned the gutters and plugged it. But cleaning the gutters didn't stop the waterfall going into my flowering shrub. I fixed the waterfall spot by using a hammer and a piece of board to whack it back into shape - the drainage went back to going to the middle spout which isn't there anymore. The water then decided to go over the top of the gutter as it's not meant to be side draining. I ended up with a nasty waterfall hitting my flower beds during the deluge of yesterday and was absolutely besides myself with watching. In the afternoon after i had 'fixed' the gutter, i was balancing on the rail with the hammer and board trying to bang them up so they would drain down the sides during the worst deluge we've had all summer .. i was beyond soaked by the time i gave up. Again it rained and at 1am i'm having kittens on my porch watching my flowers swim underwater - my poor neighbour has been helping me plot with ways to correct this and she pounced on me when we got home from shopping with an idea and we just fine-tuned it from there and i think it's going to work!!

We took a 45° tubing joint and a piece of pvc to have it drain but not into my garden, but over the garden into the grass ... I can always get a decorative stone to put there or a birdbath if it creates a hole in my lawn .. now I really do need new gutters, but since I rent, I'm not likely to pay for this myself and I know my landlord won't do it .. so a stop-gap measure will work :) I've already placed bricks there as it had dripped there already.

Kyle's Quilt - The Nameless Quilt - DONE!

Whew! It’s done!! I was beginning to think that it would never happen! I mean .. how long should it take to sew on 4 strips?? In this case, bout 2 days .. maybe 3 .. it’s all a blur at this point. The quilt was larger by 1/2“ and 1“ at each end .. not one of my measurements was the same .. and the scary part is that I squared the bloody blocks!! BAH .. I agonized and agonized on how to do the borders since the border method I chose killed a lot of my fabric .. gots a LOT of triangles of it now .. frankly i’m not sure i want to see this fabric or pattern again ..

I got the top and bottom borders sewn on last nite, but by the time that was done it was like 4am .. i had had enough of it at that point. I knew it would be about another 1 - 2 hours of work to get it totally finished. Plus I didn’t look forward to crawling on the floor to pin it .. Knew that i would have to since I would have to lay it out flat-ish :S to get the right borders on the right sides. What I ended up doing with the borders was doing vertical pieces of blue with horizontal pieces of red, green and blue of course. Heh .. they actually managed to center some what okay as well .. The green I picked rather melts into the background and you can’t really see it .. I was worried about that, but wanted to use the same green that was in the quilt itself since I had enough to do some diamonds with it. The red and yellow show just fine tho, which pleases me ..

I’m just glad that this quilt is done .. I made a LOT of mistakes when I cut it out / sewed way back when .. and I can’t see that my skill has improved in 10 years since I didn’t sew in that time .. but maybe I am more patient now??

Oh meet the man with the wing-span to hold this monster up .. this quilt covers my king size bed with a smidge going over the edges .. LOL .. maybe I could do a king size quilt in this house .. basting it will a LOT of fun me things .. ya right! Hmm maybe it should be called Crooked Diamond Dreams? Whatcha think? Suggestions for a name?? I’m still to close to the border battle I had with this one to think positively about it and I don’t think that a quilt should carry that for it’s lifespan .. after all it’s not it’s fault ;)

Now off to scan my kitty pp patterns .. then my next plan of action is to baste reg’s quilt.. which he has already reminded me of LOL .. Gotta love him!

Border Solutions - Nightmare Update

Well I have a solution; well implemented a few .. what I opted to do was use red and green horizontal stips to fill the spaces between the diamond borders with blue to fill in what I didn’t have enough space for .. it’s piecy, but it’s on the way to being done .. I have the tops and bottoms done right now; just need to sew up the sides and attach to the quilt top .. that will be what I’ll do tomorrow .. I lacked the energy to tackle it at this point and besides Pix has taken over the quilt as his bed for the time being .. I’m not about to battle another animal today .. heh .. today I wish I had NO PETS!! LOL .. specially ones that bark :S

I really feel that I’m having to manhandle this quilt like mad .. makes me wonder what it will be like to do our king size quilts .. i was joking with Reg that I’ll have to go to the school and steal the gym LOL .. i then said .. don’t laugh .. i’m not sure I’m kidding ;)

anywho, Kyle’s top will be done later on today then i can get started on doing my kitty quilt .. I need to scan in the pp patterns that I’m going to be using so that I always have a copy of them ;)

Pictures will be posted when it’s done .. I’ll need reg to hold it up so it doesn’t look so out of proportion laying on the floor

Reg's Quilt is a Mutant!

Reg's quilt mutated on me again .. altho this time it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm not even sure I can say it mutated - more like resolved itself :D. I spent today putting the seam allowance under the logo appliques and then attached them to the quilt. The detroit Tigers logo was a pain with all those twists and turns, but it looks really good - well worth the time and the effort - Reg is impressed!! so that's all that counts as it's his quilt!

I redid the Pistons logo as it didn't match what I finally did with the other 3 logos - I'm glad that I took the extra time because it looks so much better now. I do know that I will likely do all my quilt marking the same way that I did the logos. Basting spray and paper :D ... I'll just have to be VERY VERY careful about pins - or i could use the spray, but my last experience with it made me think twice about it.

At any rate - part of my problem with reg's quilt is that there are so many different fabrics in it - that made it hard to decide what would be the best colours for the borders. I usually use two; a smaller one to 'frame' the quilt then the next one (wider) to emphasize or pull out colours in the quilt. This quilt has 9 different fabrics (actually 10 including the background) so it was quite a challenge for me that way. But I finally decided on stripped wider border of a dark red and lighter green with 9 patch blocks in the corners with the dark blue being the skinny border and the binding. I've got the strips half way sewn now and will finish the borders tomorrow ..

I really like how this quilt has turned out - Reg really likes it too :D My son is turning a nasty shade of green when he sees it, so i'm going to start one for him like this - It'll be for his bday. The other quilt will be a winter quilt for him and this new one will be a summer quilt - He likes UofM, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Pistons, Indy Colts (you know sunday is really interesting in this house ;)). His bday is at the end of June, so I'll have the rest of the school year to work on it while he's not here .. Thank goodness I have a closet in this room so I can stash it away when I need to.

Kyle's Quilttop is together

Kyle's top has been put together finally. I had a devil of a time getting those corners to match up and in some cases, they are way off and it's not the type of ooboo that you can quilt out. I'm rather disappointed, but it's not even close to as bad as it was before I squared the blocks. His border is going to hopefully pull away from the crooked diamonds. His border should make up really fast. I'm thinking of maybe doing scrappy yellow blocks surrounded by blue or red. I need to make the middle border wider than I normally would to make sure that it's going to be wide enough for his bed. It'll prolly end up beingalmost 5" wide - I normally do 3" wide middle border with a 1 - 2" inner border. I have to make sure that I leave enough room at the edge of the diamonds to compensate for the binding ..I do not want to cover up the corners of it. Heh .. more math ;)

For reg's quilt I still have to change the logos to outlines and print it on paper then cut them out. Won't take long .. being a graphic artist has many advantages ;) Especially since I have the programs I need to do that very quickly without having to do a lot of tracing and erasing. I'm not sure what border I'm going to do for reg's quilt - maybe a 9 patch in the corners.

I did some hand qulting today on my Spats WC quilt. One more butterfly to do on the top, then the borders and voila .. I'm done. I'm just picking away at that one - no hurry for that - it's waited this long.

Still thinking of my Sunny Stars in the back of my mind .. they are all yellow lemoyne stars on a blue background (no inset seams) I have this in rotary cutting instructions and paper piecing - if interested drop me a line and I'll shoot them over to you .. i have them in pdf. I arranged a swap where I traded stars with other ladies from all over the world .. i have blocks from Australia, South American, South Africa and of course the US and Canada .. I'm really looking forward to making this up .. I would like to do this on point with alternating light and dark backgrounds .. I think that it might look really nice!

Okay, I'm blethering .. I think that i'm stalling from doing border designs LOL

I'matwit - Kyle's quilttop

Well last nite I finished piecing the top for kyle's quilt. Needless to say I am very disappointed in myself. I don't know if it was me wanting to get it done to surprise him in the am, or not feeling good - but twit for brains here .. did NOT square the blocks :'(. I took a few pics, but the batteries are dead in my camera right now and I'll fuss with that tomorrow - to tired tonite. My corners don't meet, the lines are all off and i have a SUPER friendly quilt top that is waving like mad .. hellasigh .. part of the problem is the yellow fabric, it's got a lower thread count I think and doesn't have the heft and weight of the rest of the fabrics I used. So there is a LOT of distortion and stretching in the yellow no matter how careful I was .. it's just a stretchy type of material and is in the corners of each block .. tell me that's not fun :S

Needless to say, I've spent tonite while watching Pirates and some sports programs, reverse stitching the top, bout a 1/3 of the way done and will finish it tomorrow. Part of the problem is my square cutter is 12 1/2" and these blocks are 14 1/2" - so instead of putting my mind to it (which I had to do BEFORE I got the block square cutter, was do it the long way .. so now, I have to unsew the quilt top - have about 6 blocks done out of 20, then square them up and do it again.

Worst of all (not sure if it's because of cmas or not) but kyle didn't notice that I was ripping his quilt top apart .. oh and this am he mentioned the lack of golf fabric in this quilt .. i reminded to him that he told me it would be fine that i used the old fabric and just made the pattern larger .. BOYS!!! Ilovemyson Ilovemyson Ilovemyson .. hellasigh ..

I'm going to put it down to excitement from cmas that he didn't notice .. but feelings are still hurt ..

I need to post those pics tomorrow.

On a good note tho, i did find one of my missing quilt tops - bad part of this, my little hip pack that has all my hand quilting supplies is still MIA along with my fabric dyes. I'm sure that it would turn up .. but i have 3 projects which i could finish in no time if I found those quilting thread!

Kyle's quilt

This was a quilt I started for Kyle oh back in 98 :|. I was actually 'test driving' a pattern for a fellow quilter and for whatever reason; school, illness etc, I was unable to finish it. What kills me is that the top was just about done. I mean all I have to do is piece the blocks together and voila, top ready for sandwich and quilting. I'm such a twit sometimes. Back in 98 Kyle would have been 3 years old, now he's 12 1/2 :O (Where does the bloody time go) and the fabrics themselves are almost too young for him, but still borderline .. there are trucks (cartoonish), and fabric with dots, green fabric with yellow pooh bear type honey bees and just a yellow streaked one. I tried to import the fabric but quiltpro is being a pita about it so I approximated. Here's the best I could do.

The next issue is the size. Kyle recently moved up to a double sized bed due to the fact that his room is large enough for now. Now I have enough of the blue and red to do wide borders to increase the size as well as add another border on. OR I could do one more row of blocks and use 1 less border. It's all going to have to come down to math. What ever I have the fabric for, he gets. I'm thinking that the wider quilt (blocks are 14/5" unfinished) so that should more than compensate for it not fitting his bed.

The fabric isn't all that bad .. granted the trucks and the honeybees could be worse, but it's not as babyish as i feared. He has actually said, i don't care mum .. i think that he just wants another quilt by mum .. been a while since he's gotten one.