Elmer's! Who knew!

Besides Sharon Schamber that is! Dearest quilters, my life is forever changed as a quilter. Why, you ask? Because I don't have to pin ever again and I can still be deliciously accurate and play with Elmer's School Glue, just like my youth.
In my class with Sharon Schamber we used Elmer's School Glue Gel (regular works, but gel is better and also notoriously hard to find) to put our whole Piecelique project together before sewing even a stitch. She mentioned that she used ESG (Elmer's School Glue) to glue together everything before she sewed. I didn't think much of it at the time, but this past couple weeks, in my streak of finishing, I've been putting on a large amount of pieced borders and I'll be damned if ESG isn't the best notion I've ever used in my life!
You just run a thin line of glue along the edge of your fabric, lay the other fabric on it, heat set it with your iron and voila it holds better and more accurately than pins and you can ease and stretch with more 'ease' (haha, listen to my wit) than you would believe! I eased 6 inches into a pieced border and it lays flat! Glue is my hero! Don't forget to heat set though or it won't work. The best part is that it all washes out so if you get it all over your quilt, it doesn't matter! Washable glue! Oh joy! The other awesome discovery I made is that if you get it all over your iron, it doesn't matter, not even a little! I ironed WHITE fabric right after smearing gobs of steaming, oozing hot elmer's all over my iron. A few white flakes was the only repercussion! Amazing. After many glued borders I now have some sort of fossilized brown crud on my iron, but no matter how I try, it doesn't transfer to my fabric.
Anyway, had to share. I'm experimenting with glue for mitering tonight and will report on results before retreat this weekend.
Happy gluing!

Slow connection...

Hi quilters, my internet connection at work was miserably slow all day, so I was unable to post with pictures, so look for some pictures of my favorite new notion and its myriad wonderful uses on Tuesday. Happy weekend quilting!

Glitter, glitter

So here is a brief tutorial of glitter usage--it is washable but you have to heat set it and they recommend pre-heating your oven to 250 and turning it off and then putting it in there until it cools down. I haven't quite managed fabric in the oven, so I've used a mid heat iron and a press cloth, but it does flatten it a little, so the oven is next for me.
First: gather supplies. Ultrafine ArtGlitter Institute glitter (bought from www.ltquilts.com or LTQ in the flesh of course!) in the colors of your choice, project to glitter, dries clear fabric glue, and micro tip if you desire fine lines.
Next, if you are still a little scared, draw your design out first, but I prefer to just go for it and let the glue fall where it may.
Then you pour a liberal amount of glitter over the glue. Feel free to dump the whole jar or vial, we'll recover 98% of it (and the rest you can just roll in a little or "douse yourself with a pinch" as they say at the company). Go ahead, dump away....I'll wait....Ooooo, doesn't all that glitter just make you feel better!? I do. If you've had a really bad day, do this before going to the grocery store so you will sparkle publicly.
And finally, shake the excess off your piece onto a piece of paper (the bigger the better, or at least have a couple sheets handy. Shiny paper, magazine style, seems to work a little better. Then fold your paper and return the unused sparkles to their vial or jar to await the next project. And voila! Glittered! unfortunately the sparkliness is hard to capture in a photo and this is a pearlescent glitter so it's not quite as sparkly.
Happy glittering!

More finishing...

Wahoo! I finished a large quilt...I've graduated from just finishing my small projects. I finished my blue French braid. Although technically speaking, it's a team LTQ project, but I did quilt it and hand-stitch the binding down. It is currently in the window at the shop, and therefore not ideal for pictures, but I will post some shots of the quilting once it comes out. I used metallic silver and even did some border feathers.
I also finished my smalll one block wonder; well, I have three sides to hand-stitch down, but that is manageable.
Sorry for no pics...I'm going to do glitter demo on Tuesdays blog.
Happy quilting!

Oh the shame!

Well dear quilters, I said that I would report the numbers, and true to my word, I will. I keep three lists--tops to finish piecing; tops that are finished, but need to be quilted; and quilts that need binding...And yes, I move them from list to list when I cross them off. It makes me feel better. I have 37 tops that are incomplete (some I haven't even started sewing, but I bought fabric specifically for them). I finished three this weekend--so I was at 40. I have 26 tops to quilt...I've started three of them and almost done with two. And I think I had seven quilts to bind.
Shameful, I know, but I can't help myself, I like hopping from project to project. It takes a fairly large supply of projects to keep me happy, but I'm going to try to whittle down to 5 or 6 in the works at any given time.
A few of my tops I also intend to give to charity because my tastes have changed or it's not a technique I'm interested in anymore, etc...In any case, there are too many fun projects in the world to waste my time on stuff I absolutely hate.
This is one I finished this weekend, quilting it as we speak and about half done. It's for my little nephew whose dad is in the army and a hunter, so I thought this was fitting. It's got tiger skin minkee on the back. It's his xmas present.
This is the first one-block wonder I ever started. After I understood the concept, I realized that I didn't like this fabric for it, so I've let it fester in a baggy for a long time, but I sucked it up and finished it this weekend and it looks okay. I'm using it as quilting practice (on my home machine) and quilting it very densely, so it's taking forever, but it is about half done.
And my grand finale: the double wedding ring...For those of you who don't know, every bit of this quilt has been nothing but a pain in the ass, from running short of fabric to most recently having my cat soak it with urine and poop on it. So, when it was just in rows, I had to wash it, which frayed all those delicate curved edges. Lovely to sew on, let me tell you. Anyway, the piecing is done, and I've got the back all put together and ready to go, so I'm going to quilt this monster, bargain with a friend for binding, and wash my hands of it...I'm so glad my sister will have it so I don't have to constantly refrain from setting it on fire.
Happy quilting!

New quilting toys!

Well, I finished another table runner...I was gearing up to quilt my rhapsody quilt because I got a new toy to quilt with called the quilt halo (not online yet, but will be soon--but I have them in the shop)...It's basically a weighted grippy ring that you lay on your quilt and use instead of gloves to grip. I liked the idea, but was curious to see if it actually works. Well: I love it! I love my machingers too, but not like this. I think quilting is a whole pile of personal preferences, but just let me say that I did the "pebbles" pattern below with my halo, and, unbeknownst to me, my feeddogs up, and look at them! I was using holoshimmer thread, which can be a royal pain in the arse, and yet it turned out great!


Here's the entire thing below: a Twisting Star that I made for my mom for halloween.

I did ricky doodles in the border with holoshimmer...A great use of machingers since I had no spare backing so the halo was not ideal for a small border.

And last, but not least, a Sharon Schamber variation of the baptist fan. Also using the Halo, but also using Superior's new thread that changes color in the sun: Sunbursts or something. They're only available in cones at the moment, but it's pretty fun to quilt white on white and then be able to have it change in the sun. It's subtle, but cool...I used the green and the orange in this.Below is my other finished project...Also a runner for my mom because she remodeled her kitchen. It's Moda's Dandelion girl. I did machine applique with Rainbows and quilted with Brytes. I also did piped binding (meaning, joyously, that I didn't sew a stitch by hand).




I haven't yet had a chance to try out my second new toy: the Super Slider...Yeah, you can laugh, it does sound like a sex toy. But it's not: it's just a teflon sheet that has a hole cut for your needle and you slap it on your machine and it helps your quilt scoot around. Well, I tried it at my class in Billings and fell in love, so I got some for the shop and am looking forward to more testing this weekend.
In case all of you are wondering why I'm on this finishing tear (for me, three table runners is a tear, okay)...I foolishly made a list of all my unfinished projects (uncompleted tops), all my unquilted tops, and all my unbound quilt...Let's just say it wasn't pretty. I don't have the numbers, because I couldn't bear to count, but I'm going to. I did this to have something to cross off so I could be proud of myself when I finished something. So look for those depressing stats onTuesday. I'm getting there though. I vow to finish more this weekend. Not saying I won't start anything new...But I'm trying to finish one for every five or six I start :)
Happy Finishing everyone.

Busy busy...

Well dear quilters, I don't have much of interest to report. I've been busy with my lime green French braid quilt, though I did finish (yeah, another one bound, baby) another table-runner. Whittling down my pile of UFOs (while making a new, much larger one). So here she be:
I've got all my braids (maybe, might make it wider) done and am trying to decide on what my little betweeny strips (they just don't seem like sashing) are going to be. Each braid only took about an hour to sew...My kind of speed.
Happy quilting, all, hopefully on Friday I'll be more interesting.

Dahlia!!!

Hooray for me! I got my dahlia set in its background (it's pieced, not appliqued). I love it. Surprisingly easy to set in, wish I'd done it that way on my mini dahlia. The pic doesn't do it justice. I'm going to put a pieced border on it, so when it's down for that I will take a better picture. Unfortunately, I was a long-arming fool today, and I have to leave work early to pick up my mom's cat whose face looked like a bloody watermelon when I went to feed him this morning. And for those of you who don't know, I don't have internet at home, so when I'm not here, I can't blog! Lame! But I can quilt. And I intend to. Happy quilting weekend, everyone!

As promised...

There it is--hand-stitched binding, done by yours truly on a quilted tablerunner. Woohoo. Below is a closeup of one of the "feathers" which I think turned out fairly well. Note: when using Ricky Tims' watersoluble thread marking method for the first time, do not quilt with white thread. Very very hard to see .
Not too shabby eh? Below is my project from the Piecelique class I took from Sharon Schamber. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot. I'm going to quilt this bad boy next. Think of the embellishing possibilities!!!!! Glitter and Angelina and threads, Oh My!

The Christmas/wintry number below is from French Braid Quilts. Man are those addictive. This one was a joint effort: I chose colors, Karen and I both cut, I made two braids, she made two and connected them and Vicky did borders. Yay teamwork! I'm going to quilt it (honestly!) and someone will hopefully be merciful enough to bind it for me.

And last, but not least, I'm sure some of you haven't forgotten the Giant Dahlia of old. Well, I'm finally marking and cutting to set in the circle...tonight's project. I folded and crisply ironed my background and my dahlia into eighths and measured my dahlia. It's 53" wide (that's an average--I'm not good enough to have it be 53" everywhere)...So, I'll be cutting my circle a whole INCH smaller. Why? Because when you lose your quarter inch seam, the opening gets bigger and the center gets smaller, hence the inch instead of the half inch you normally adjust things for seam allowance.
That's all folks! Happy quilting! Sign up for retreat now, October 3rd-6th! We have five spots left! 406.932.6078