Chatbug Karen

I am quilting a friend’s quilt. I have it on the longarm and have chosen a pattern to put in the blocks. If I make a mistake, there will be threads to rip out. I hate ripping out! I have been practicing on a dry erase board and think I am ready to do the stitching on the longarm. Why don’t I just DO IT?
I am skeered!

I have been doing as many other projects as I can think of. I even washed out the refrigerator!

Just wanted to let my mom know that I found the scissors I had been looking for! Found them while cleaning out my sewing stuff while procrastinating.

Will this make me want to iron my husband’s shirts more often? I doubt it.
This new ironing board cover looks better than the old one and it doesn’t have sticky stuff all over it, yet.

I finished this quilt and got it back from the lady I hired to do the longarm quilting on it. She did a beautiful job quilting it but now that mom bought a longarm, I can quilt them myself. It is so much fun quilting on that machine! It is always better when you have your own equipment. Whether it be earring display cards, sewing machines or computers, having control over your own work is so much better.

A friend asked for help making pillow case style dresses to donate to her church group. Her church group will be taking them to Africa! I hope the little girls like these two that I made.

My sister has been visiting for the past week. When she comes, we usually have projects we sew. This time, we didn’t have a set project and got some of our UFO’s finished. I quilted a table runner but I don’t like the way it bunched up the material. I am ripping it all out. arghh.

My sister made these cute little girl and matching doll dresses.

She would like to think of something to make for little boys. I thought of camo panties for little bitty guys. I also thought plaid Bermudas would be awfully cute. Do you mom’s with little boys have any ideas?

I think my least favorite part of creating quilts is putting on binding. It is one of those things that has to be done so I better get over it! LOL Hey! I am a sewer. Hmmm, that sounds like someone who works with human waste. I am a crafter! Some people worry about their golf gps finder, I worry about the best techniques in making quilts.

I have wondered what the difference was between straight of grain binding and binding made from cutting fabric on the bias.

Fabric is made by weaving threads. Threads go up and down and are woven with threads that go across. Cutting on the bias means cutting at an angle across the threads.

When fabric is cut on the bias, it is bendable. That makes it easy to curve it to make wavy bindings. There is nothing more beautiful, in my opinion, than a scalloped edged quilt. The scallops make it necessary to have a binding that will bend and flow with the contours of the edge of the quilt.

So, curves are a great time to make bias binding. It is also a good time to use bias binding when you think a quilt will be used a lot. A child’s quilt or one that will get washed routinely, will hold up better with a bias binding. That is because when you fold straight of grain binding, you are folding that binding along one single thread. That thread is going to take a lot of abuse and begin to show wear.

Straight of grain binding is easy to construct. I would use it on wall hangings and things that won’t be handled a lot.

I seem to be stuck on a certain purse I am making. I made a purse that I have made a zillion times before but for some unknown reason, it came out too narrow. My machine may have made the seams too wide or something. Couldn’t have been the one pushing the pedal could it? Ha!

So, I made the bag wider and it looked nice. Then, I decided to add a zipper. For some reason, I always have trouble with zippers. I cannot put them into a purse that is made by turning the bag inside out. I just can’t wrap my head around which way the zipper goes. Of course, I have tried, but it just means I use my seam ripper over and over. Well, I finally got the zipper in.

The bag has a zipper and it looks nice. So I decided to add a bottom to it. I bought heavy mat board, used a utility knife to cut it to size and discovered I don’t have enough fabric to cover it. The bag still looks nice but is without a bottom until my Etsy order arrives.

I put a pretty, cane handle on the bag but it makes the bag pull to one side. Please tell me why I started this project.

I got so caught up in new sewing projects that I completely forgot to post pictures of my completed, revamped sewing room.
What started out as covering up some black sponge painted walls turned out to be a major overhaul of the room.

You might remember the picture of the horrible mess I had when I put all my fabric and supplies into my spare bedroom. I needed a bluetooth barcode scanner to know what I had and where it might be. Suffice it to say, it was a while before any sewing got done in my house.

Once I had the paint on, my husband decided the carpet needed to be changed. Not one to argue against getting something new, I helped him tackle that project. I moved the bed and cabinet back in and then sorted through all my bins of fabric. I bought some small totes and separated all my fabric according to color. Now, I can find things easily and it doesn’t destroy the whole room every time I try to find a fabric to use for a project. I love my organized room.

We finally had a few beautiful days of great weather. I thought it would never quit raining.

My sister has been visiting and we have been sewing. I started making Personal Creations birthday gift items. I am taking handbags and re-designing them. It is so much fun. The fabrics I have chosen are so much prettier than how the handbags started out. I never know what they will look like until they are finished. I think I could get into abstract painting. It is fun to create new things with old products.

I finished the stroller bag. I made a long, adjustable strap that can be draped over the stroller handles. Also, I found some cute vinyl monkey fabric and so I made a couple of things to go with the bag. I made a pacifier pod, a bag to hold dirty diapers and a changing pad.