Its That Time Again...

Well Casey will be arriving home again in the morning. I have been busy for the past two weeks while he was at work. But now its time to put things away for the week. I got the jelly roll quilt half way put together...lol! My it was a lot of strip piecing. I swore that I would never do another one, but when I started getting the rows done it transformed into a awesome quilt! I will do another one, maybe even a couple of them. I got my rail fence all sandwiched together and I started hand quilting it. I love that quilt. It is so pretty. I love the colors! I'm so slow at hand quilting, I think its because I'm trying very hard to make small stitches. All that practice has finally paid off. My stitches are much smaller and more uniformly spaced. I am using a burnt orange thread to quilt with. It looks really good on the back of the quilt, the back is a chocolate brown. Something I learned while making this Rail Fence quilt is: SQUARE UP THE BLOCKS! I had never done this prior to making this quilt! I had to take a picture of all the mess that had to be cut off! I actually followed the reciepe for that quilt to the T, well I didnt wash the fabric prior. It came out so good, no puckers, the seams matched perfectly, and it looks fantastic! I am going to start following directions! Lesson learned. I still haven't got my churn dash quilted, but that's okay, I'm working on it, slowly but surely! If I get it done before spring that would be great! It will be nice for my bed in the summer time. My son adores his Scooby Doo quilt! I am happy that I made that for him. Now I only need three more! lol! Well Millie's is going to be the jelly roll quilt. I think I will attempt to machine quilt that one. Maybe in a little flower design...I don't know but something besides stippling. I really want to go fabric shopping. Casey said that he would take me...uggg! I hate it when he or my children are with me. I need concentration...lol!

My Name is Carol and I am a.....

Quilt-A-Holic...I admit this with pure joy! I relapsed today! I put all my sewing stuff, quilting stuff, away for when my dear husband arrived home. However he got a late start and will not be home until 5:00 p.m. I searched the house high and low for something to occupy my time and found nothing, as I had spent all day yesterday cleaning and organizing. Not even one load of laundry needs to be done. So I caved! I remembered some fabric that I had bought and got the idea to make it into strips for a jelly roll quilt for my three year old daughter! I had ordered this book "Jelly Roll Quilts" and I have been looking for jelly rolls. However a jelly roll is around $40.00 with shipping. The tight ass inside me says "$40.00 for a roll of 2 1/2" fabric strips, good grief, I have that in my stash, make my own and save money"....So under the temptation of the book and the fabric in my stash....I had to cut the strips! I got out just the cutter, mat, fabric, iron, and ruler. Well cutting the strips killed about 15 minutes...So I thought, "I wonder how they roll the strips into such cute little rolls...???". I googled it and made two jelly rolls out of that fabric. I had five different fabrics and even though its not 40 different fabrics I don't care! I am going to make this quilt anyway. Its a scrappy quilt...It might matter, but I guess I will find out later when its done...mark another one for my trial and error process....Just a few more days and I will be off to the fabric shops molesting fabric! I have been thinking a lot lately of what exactly I love about quilting. There are so many different aspects to quilting. I love fabric, the color, the design, the textures. I love looking at quilts on the internet, in books, in person. I love reading quilting books, looking at the patterns, trying to pick one, then finding the fabric! I like the sound of my cutter cutting the pieces! The hum of the machine... The smell of the iron pressing out the creases. The only two things that I hate about quilting are (1) The math! The math, oh crap the math! I am not good at math, and I get so frustrated! (2) Walking into a store, school, or gas station, with thread hanging all over me. My kids go to school with pieces of thread and snippets on them...My dogs even have thread on them! But ya know the thread things is kinda cool in a really weird way...