Pay it Forward...

Each morning, I spend about 30 minutes reading blogs and drinking my coffee.  This morning, I stumbled upon this idea... So, I am participating.  I saw this on Joan's blog Moose Stash Quilting.

Here are the details:

1.  I will make a little something for the first 3 people who comment on this post. It will be a surprise and it will arrive when you least expect it.

2.  I will have 365 days to do it in. What's the catch? To get a handmade present from me, you have to play too! This means YOU pledge to send a little handmade something for 3 readers of your blog. It doesn't have to be quilty - just handmade.

3.  You must have a blog.

4.  Once you comment here, you must post about your Pay It Forward on your blog to keep the fun going - with the Pay It Forward badge. Also, feel free to join the Flickr group to see what else is being sent!

I am going to make a slight change for my followers...  The first three to comment will receive something from me regardless of whether or not you have a blog.  If you don't have a blog, agree to make something for 3 charities.  Or 3 things for one charity.  (Project Linus Quilts, Quilts for Kids, Your local homeless shelter, etc.)  In order to adhere to the rules set forth by those who started this, I will make something for 3 bloggers.  So, if the first three are bloggers, then I've met the obligation.  I just don't want any non-blogging followers to feel like they can't participate.  So, will I make 3, 4, 5, or 6 items?  That depends on who responds to this post!

SO... Who wants to Play?

Thursday's Sewing Night # 5

(This was supposed to post on Friday.  I am not sure why it didn't....)

Well last night's quilt night just wasn't too much to write about... Primarily because normally Wednesday is laundry night, but this week I spent Wednesday evening at a Church Leadership meeting, so last night's quilt night was more like "Quilt when you can between laundry loads night" and my productivity suffered.

I am much more productive when I can focus on one task.  I am not a good multi-tasker.  I can have many things going at once, but I need to focus on them one at a time to really be productive.

So, last night I cut and sewed ~100 more HSTs for the big "Stars and Stripes" Quilt.  One more night of sewing and cutting HSTs, another day ironing them open, and one more afternoon trimming them up and weeding out the "not-so-square" ones and I'll be ready to really begin assembling this quilt.

First, it wouldn't be quilt night without my son's ever vigiliant 

"Supervisor" watching over everything I do...

 Chain Sewing HSTs...  I think I can do these in my sleep right now!

 

With only 3 sets to go, my machine went crazy...  Turns out the thread

had come off of the lifter arm, but it took me a few minutes to figure it out!

Finally!! The LAST rectangle to be cut...

The final cuts... (I don't know how I took this upside down...)

The final HST on Betsy...

My PILE of HSTs  Half of what I sewed tonight.

 

And here they are, all 576 of them...

 On another note, I happened across a FANTASTIC FQ sale, and I filled my FQ bin to the max.  I purchased about 1/3 of these this past week for $1.20 each!!  (I know the white with polka dots in the bottom left of the photo is not a FQ, but I have it in here with the other polka dot fabric right next to it. Those will become a project soon...)

Until Next Time,
Paul

Weekend Quilting Update...

Do you ever work your tail off on something and then wonder how you have worked so hard and gotten so little accomplished?!

That has been the theme of my quilting this past week. 

About 6 weeks ago, my boss announced that he was going to retire at the end of June.  So I volunteered to make a quilt for him as a “Happy Retirement” present.  Everyone else contributed cash, I am contributing time… I am glad I am not keeping track of how much time vs. what my contribution would have been, because I’ll be averaging less than $0.50 per hour by the time I am done!

And then Last week, he gathered us all to tell us that he has decided to move the date up to the end of April…  Everyone looked at me almost in unison the second he said it.  I could see it on their faces, “Are you going to be ready?”  Within 20 minutes of leaving the meeting all of the other managers had contacted me to get their answer!

Of course I’ll be ready!  Although I am now realizing that while I may be ready in time, I am going to get VERY LITTLE accomplished on anything else between now and then!  However, I have also learned that if I work on only one project, I get lazy and start taking short cuts which is something I obviously do not want to do on such an important quilt.

So forgive me as the next few weeks I think my posts and photos will get a little boring.  This past weekend I cut and sewed about 700 of the 1,024 3” HST (Half Square Triangles) I will need for this project.  (I am actually cutting about 1,100 and I will weed out the worst of them when I start laying it all out).

 

 

With so many HSTs to do, I tried to find a quick way to get them done... I started by using “Thangles” thinking it would make quicker work of the task… What a silly idea that was.  Note to self:  Good old math and a ruler is always a better bet!  I ultimately abandoned the Thangles and I am now using my “Easy Angle” ruler and while slightly more time consuming, the results are simply MUCH better.

THIS happened with almost every Thangle.  It is a result of my machine pushing the paper with every stitch ever so slightly, but it wrinkled almost every set.  The second I pull them off the paper they flatten out and they are "ok", but the wrinkles frustrated me tremendously, so I stopped using them.

So, photos of cut and yet to be cut HSTs are not a lot of fun, but here they are none the less…

Neat stacks of Cut "Thangles" on the right, Easy Angles over on the left.

 Chaining HSTs on Betsy...

Dog Ear Pile... Wish I had actually kept the whole day's ears in one place, maybe next time.

Packing up for the day... About 2/3 of the HSTs have been cut..

So next time, I'll probably complete the cutting and sewing of the HSTs... Then I get to iron them all open!  That will be an entire day's project in and of itself.  Even if I can average 20 seconds each, that is still 6 HOURS of ironing!!

Until next time,

Paul