June's New FO Linky Party.

The linky party starts today for New FO's at Cat Patches.

I've already shown you my star obsession which came to a grinding halt when my machine died. I spent one whole day in mourning but, when I caught myself thinking about painting stripes on the bedroom walls (I still may do it) I decided I had to sew on the other machine. So I made a bunch of rail fence blocks.

Easy, mindless and of course stripes. Maybe the stars are really over. I made enough for two quilts, which won't be quilted until I get my machine fixed. (That last part was said with gritted teeth). I've been jumping on the phone everytime it rings like a high school girl before Prom. 

In case you missed them, here's some of my stars, because I love pictures in posts.

I hope you'll jump over to Cat Patches and catch up on what everyone else has been up to. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Dana

Free Motion Quilting Challenge for June

The FMQ Challenge at SewCalGal's for June is by Cindy Needham. 

I can easily say this is my favorite so far, no pressure and permission to not be perfect. 

I loved the part about DISEQUILIBRIUM. I've never heard the word before, but I'm well aware of the effect, I've always called it "circling", walk away, come back, eye it until I'm a little more comfortable. Thanks to a broken machine :( and DISEQUILIBRIUM, my house is clean, the floors are mopped and I have chased down every cobweb in the place (can there really be that many spiders?). 

I did doodle on paper (fun) before I sewed, then did this:

I'll be practicing with this a lot, especially when I have my regular machine back, it was fun, I loved filling in the different spaces and a couple of them just flowed, I didn't know what I was doing until it was happening. Remember Leah's suggestion of keeping a stack of practice sandwiches and doing one every morning? I will do this one on many mornings. 

As always, thank you so much to SewCalGal for putting this together and for coming up with the idea and BIG THANKS to Cindy Needham for this great idea.

Thanks for stopping by,

Dana

Stars and Stuff

I've been writing blog posts in my head, but not getting them done because I've been compulsively, obsessively, diligently sewing stars until yesterday when my machine broke :(

She sucked up some thread that got under the bobbin case and jammed. I cleaned her, rethreaded her and gave her a new needle, but all I get is an E1 error, which means circuit board. I've been to forums and emailed the company, but everyone says "back to the dealer", although the company (I'm not mentioning any names) that makes her always says that, sometimes after quoting from the manual, like I can't read. The forums have always helped, but not this time. It wouldn't be a huge problem except I live on an island and the closest dealer is 2.5 hours away, 5 hours to drop off and 5 hours to pick up. Plus there's the scary factor, the dealer is in a strip mall with a biker bar next door, they have a sign on the door saying not to wear your colors inside, safety first. The only time I've felt safe up there was when the police were in the parking lot arresting someone. There is another place about 20 minutes further, but I have a feeling you have to go back to where you bought it. 

We've all seen the blog posts where people are buying a new machine and want to know opinions, here's my advice: it's all about the dealer, no one really wants to think about what if it breaks, I certainly didn't, but it's important. 

Anyway, let's talk stars. When I first starting to teach myself how to make a quilt, stars looked hard and the first one I made was hard, it had inset pieces and made me crazy. The bloggers festival got me thinking again about them and I actually have learned that you don't have to do insets. So here's what I've been making.

I love making string quilts, so string stars makes sense. 

This is a twin size quilt, biggest I've ever made, the quilting was a bear. I'm pretty sure this will be my quilt for the Pets on Quilts Show, which is coming in August.

I saw these colors on Pinterest and fell in love, but while I was pulling the brights I came across a pile of pastels left over from a baby quilt, so I made two at once. Here's a link to the original post for this block. By the way, if you're interested in Pinterest, SewCalGal has a very insightful post about it today. I'm not much for Facebook, but I've been enjoying Pinterest.

Pictures make me see that the points don't match up, but I don't care. 

The last two won't be quilted until I've taken that 10 hour drive, I have other machines, but I really don't like quilting on them. I will have to do the free motion challenge on one of them, but that looks like a perfect excuse so that's why it won't look so good ;)

Thanks for stopping by,

Dana

May NewFo

It's the end of the month (really?!) so it's time to show off what you started in May, no finishes required. I'm linking up to the NewFO party at Cat Patches. Yes, I'm a day late, but Hurricane season starts today and it's announcing itself with rain and boomers, so taking pictures and doing a blog post is better than the grocery run I'm supposed to be doing. ;)

First I started and finished this baby quilt:

During the Bloggers Quilt Festival, I saw a quilt made by Teje over at Nero's Post and Patch, which I couldn't stop thinking about, the colors and fish were so cute, I had to make it. Does that happen to you? I hate to copy, but this quilt wouldn't go away. Teje's is much prettier and has more color, but this laid that quilt to rest.

Then I made this:

That's a cage cover for our cockatoo Gus, he has a huge corner cage which needs a custom cover. Gus wants the sun gone at 5:30 every night, no light, no noise or he will tell you about it. If you've ever heard an angry cockatoo, you know why I took the time. Little side story: I bought the fabric at WalMart, 8 yards of duck. After the woman had measured and cut, she just picked up this huge wad of fabric, stuck a price on it and put a rubber band around the whole thing, no folding, just a pile of fabric with a rubber band. I'm glad I see humor in most things. 

Then I made this:

Quick and easy, just trying to use those daisies and lady bugs.

Now I'm working on this:

That's half of a string quilt I'm making, I love string quilts when I start, but about now, I'm over it. 

 Thanks to Barbara for hosting this party, I do like seeing what I've done for a month, although I always feel like I've forgotten something. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Dana