Socks and Books

Christmas socks done! I will put a few beads and names or initials on them as time permits. They are the same, but different. The cuffs are all different - experimenting with configurations. And the second from the left has one of the wonky trees in it. I did use the other trees - one's on the backside cuff of another sock - and one (oops!) I managed to get upside down - so it's an upside down tree on the other side of a cuff.

Here are the backs - Plain Jane, but they will go against the fireplace or wall where they get hung (and I actually remembered to put hanging loops - an important feature!).

I used Harley to quilt the fronts, more for practice than anything - it would have been faster to just do these little things on the regular machine. But - I'm learning with each thing I do, so not a wasted exercise.

I ordered a few more books from Amazon last week - surprisingly (given that I just had them sent regular post and it's getting to Xmas season), they arrived yesterday while we were at work so I picked them up this morning at the post office. I ordered them sight unseen, but after a quick look, think they all look good. They are all for longarm quilting:

1) The Ultimate Guide to Longarm Machine Quilting by Linda V. Taylor

2) ABCs of Longarm Quilting by Patricia C. Barry (smart ass Joe asks - "so what happens when you want to do the D, E, Fs......?") and

3) Mindful Meandering - 132 Original Continuous-Line Quilting Designs by Laura Lee Fritz

I'm looking forward to being able to spend some quality time with these - and all my other - new books. The opportunity cost of sewing is not reading and vice versa. I need several of me - one for work, one for sewing, one for reading, etc.

Straight On

I asked Joe, me darlin' hubby, to hold Elaine's Place up for me so I could get a straight on pix. I don't like it much better. This will be the last of it on the blog, unless I get to Denver and Elaine herself models it. It was a good idea, the execution just needed a bit more thought.

Elaine's Place is finished

Well - for better or worse, here it is. Elaine's Place - her house, imaginary picket fence, garden path, blue birds, flowers and birdhouses.

I went looking for my embroidery floss to use for stitching the buttons on. This is the rats nest of floss.
Why do I have so much? At one point I decided I should try cross stitch. I started a set of four pictures. The macaw was finished in about a year when Craig was a baby - so about 28 years ago. It took me another 8 or 9 years to finish the butterflies. I started the third one - I haven't looked at it for so long, I can't remember what it is! No need to rush these things! Somewhere around year 10 I figured I should frame the ones that I had done. They are up in the "guest bedroom."

Christmas Socks

Moving right along here... on to the seasonal stuff. There won't be much of it. Not enough time. But I did promise the sons that I would make their girls Christmas socks. And it turns out Carol needs one, too. And now she has a new special friend, so I may find it in my heart to make an extra one for him. Due to time constraints, I'm going for simple but effective.

At the last quilt show we were at, we saw a quilt of "wonky trees" that looked pretty simple, so thought as an experiment I'd try a few. The result is above. I think they're OK. I stacked three blocks, one of each colour, sliced them up, rearranged, stitched, then squared up again. They are 5 inch blocks so will end up 4 1/2 inches when stitched into the socks.

I did get Elaine's Place finished, but it's up on the bed and I'm down here, so I'll do a pix for a future post before I "post" it. I still don't like it - but I guess we all have to have a least favorite, lessons learned kind of project once in awhile.

Conclusion of Canada Scramble

Well here it is - Canada Scramble all finished. Nothing fancy on the quilting - just swirly things - keeping control of the machine is my main challenge at the moment. I'll work my way up to complicated quilting designs!

We dropped it off to Margaret this morning, so here she is modelling Canada Scramble.

And here is a bonus "weather pix" - we had a Chinook blow in this morning. Here is the edge of the Chinook Arch. If you're not familiar with this - a Chinook wind is a warm wind that blows down from the mountains. We get them here fairly regularly in the winter. The City relies on Chinook wind to keep the roads clear of snow. In years like last year when it was really cold for a long time - the snow didn't melt and people got pretty cranky about the roads not getting plowed as much as they should have!

Harley's Debut

I didn't purchase leaders for Harley's frame - the fabric that is attached to the rails to make it easier to load the quilt parts on the frame. It would have been ANOTHER $100 for the leaders. The "instructions" that I downloaded from the Pfaff website had directions for making leaders. They are rectangles of fabric. How hard can it be????

Well - not hard. I picked up some gridded fabric pictured above (the store leaders have a one inch grid printed on them). It even sort of goes with my room! I got out my lil ol' serger and quickly zoomed around the edges of some leaders - and attached them to the frame. I even made one for the batting rail, which is not something included in the instruction book. They worked very well so for under $20 I got my leaders and some left over fabric - maybe it will find it's way into a quilt! I think it's sailcloth.

So - now on to the "first quilt." It took me quite awhile to load it up - a learning thing - when I've done it a few times, I expect it will get quicker.

The actual quilting didn't take too long. But... of course - first time nothing works out perfectly. I totally forgot about tension and it wasn't until I started rolling up the first "row" that I could see on the back that the tension was very bad. I adjusted the tension, kept going and finished it. But then I went back and pulled out the first row and redid it. Much better.

I didn't try anything fancy - just a freehand sort of wavy line. It will take me awhile getting used to the speed and idiosyncrasies of the machine. I will also have to learn how to "bump" over bulky seam joins, etc. I didn't expect perfection first time out, that's for sure. I'll have close up pix of the quilting on my next post.

Canada Scramble - Before Meeting Harley

I finally got the "disappearing nine patch" stitched together. I didn't think I'd like it (I've noticed there are quite a few things I don't think I'll like) but I think there are two lessons here:
1 - finish it first before deciding, and
2 - pretty much anything looks good in a fabulous border!

It's sort of like I love pastry and I'll eat just about anything wrapped in pastry!

I started out with the name "Oh Canada" - but I reserve the right to change my mind and I've changed it. "Canada Scramble" is much better, I think!

Here is the "scramble" - I more or less randomly put the fabric combos together and other than putting the prints in the spots that wouldn't be cut (mostly - I missed on a few at the beginning) because I wanted the prints to show, it was pretty random. If you are doing this block and you want to have more of a "non-scramble" - you will have to be consistent with the fabric placement.

So - the plan for the weekend is to introduce Canada Scramble to Harley - it will be my first long-arm quilted quilt. Wish me luck!