Laundry Mishap

Anyone out there have a front load washer and dryer, you know the kind that are all the rage, and claim to be so energy efficient?  Yeah, those awful machines.  I just had to have them back about 12 years ago.  And have disliked them from the first day I used them.  But, they were expensive and I felt they did the job, so I put up with them until a week or so ago.  I was washing bedding, doing my Mom's sheets first, using bleach like I alway do when washing bedding, and that load came out just fine.  Then I washed my Chocolate quilt (the one I have on my bed, as pictured in the first picture).

Well, my washer starts making some very strange, not heard before noises, and an error message comes up on the panel.  I think it is just that it got imbalanced, so I pull out a sopping wet quilt, and rearrange it in the tub, and try to start it again.  No go.  The drum won't spin, and water won't drain out of the drum.  So, I open the front of the washer, drain out all the water, and start the washer again.  

Still no go.  Do all the steps again, wring out the quilt by hand to see if that would work.  Not happening.  All it did was fill up with water again, and then just hummed when it should spin.  So, I pulled out the quilt again, wrung it out again, the best I could, and put it in the dryer.  It took 4 hours to dry.  I can't wring a quilt out as well as a washer I guess.

So, get it out of the dryer and put it on the bed, and what I saw took my breath away, and my heart dropped.  

Yep, you are seeing correctly, bleach spots, five of them in two areas of this quilt.  Not small ones either!!!!

This is the second area, but at least it hangs off the bed on side that can't be seen from the doorway.

This is a close up of the part above, and it is the worst spot of them all, as the bleach ate through the fabric, some of the batting around the stitching down to the backing.  Believe it or not, it didn't go through and discolor the backing.

This is how it looks as you walk into the room.  Not too bad at a distance.  Hubby says it give the quilt character and a good story.  He says it stays on the bed.  I say in my head, yeah, until I can get another big one made.

I will note, that I use bleach all the time in this washer, and never had trouble of it holding over to the next load, I think that the washer was going bad when I washed the sheets, and the quilt got the brunt of the disaster of the washer not working anymore.

There is some good news in all of this episode of disaster.  I was able to do away with the front load washer and dryer and replace them with brand new SpeedQueen top load (with an aggitater) washer and regular dryer.

I have not been disappointed since I have done the first load.

Warmest...

2016 Finished Quilts - Chocolat - Quilt 8

This is my horror quilt.  You can read about all the issues and problems making this quilt in these past posts.  But through perseverance, I was able to get this one done.  In my last post on this quilt, I had pinned it myself to try to do the quilting on my domestic machine.  Nope, not going to happen, so I took out all the pins, separated the backing and the batting, and shipped it of to the long arm quilter.  After all, it is the biggest quilt I have ever finished.  It measures a whopping 100 inches square.  

It looks big laying out on my lawn!!!  Makes that ladder look puny.  And it is very heavy to lift when folded up.  It fits very nicely on our king size bed though, so after it is all said and done, I really do like it and how it looks.

I bonded it with the extra leftover backing.  The red makes it pop, and brightens up the whole quilt.

Below picture gives you a pretty good look at all the different blocks used in the quilt.  If you remember it is a round robin of each block, so by the time you get to the last round, you are making a zillion blocks of that one pattern!!

Below shows the backing,  remember I scored wide backing of the Chocolat line for the backing, and it was nice to have the width all in one piece for such a big quilt.

Next are the specific facts about the quilt:

Size:  100" X 100"

Fabric Lines Used:  Moda Chocolat by Three Sisters

Pattern: Chocolat Legacy

Designer:  Harriet Beecher Stowe - Harriet's Legacy Quilt

Long Arm Quilter:  Carol Nelson

Year Began:  2007

Year Completed:  2016

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Quilting Resolution

At the beginning of the New Year, I made some resolutions.  Like everyone else, I have kept some, and not kept some.  One of the resolutions that I have not kept is the one about quilting two tops each month.  Ha! Ha! Ha!

What an over achiever statement if I ever heard one.  Especially knowing my track record.  Sounds good when I said it to myself, even looked better on paper when I wrote it down, but seriously.  Me. Quilt.  Two. Quilts. A. Month???????  I really am snickering as I write this post.

Now, to no avail, I am this week, been working on quilting  a finished top.  Yep, I have pulled out the Chocolat Legacy quilt top.

If interested, you can read all about the making of this quilt here.

The quilt top measures 100" X 100", so I have to pin it in sections.  On a queen bed.  Takes a long time and about 1000 safety pins to get it done.

I am though, very please with the backing for this quilt.  If you remember, I scored awhile back (sometime in March) this backing in the same fabric line as the front.  It is a wide backing of 104" from Moda and from the fabric line Chocolat by 3 Sisters.  What I do like best about it is how smooth it lays and is so rich in texture and shape.  I should have it all pinned up by tomorrow and quilting it over the weekend.  

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Cheddar Blocks:

Chocolate Legacy UFO Top Done

Yessiree, the top is done.  You can read about it from the beginning here.  The original program started back in 2006, and I got it out to finally complete last November, only to spend a few months working on it off and on.

I took pictures this evening, so the lighting is not so great, but this quilt is the biggest one I have ever made.  It is laying on a queen size bed, and almost hangs down to the floor on all sides.  I'm glad it came out this big, because I wanted it to fit nicely on my King size bed.

Now the challenge will be to get it sandwiched and quilted.  I found, after much searching on the internet, backing that is 108" wide and from Moda's Chocolat line.  It is red tone on tone just like below.  I am not usually a fan of red, but I think I am really going to like this one, and it "fits" perfectly with all the prints from this line.  

I have formulated a couple of quilting ideas for this top, but I will wait to see once I get it all sandwiched, before I decide which way to go.

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Sewing with Slit Wrists

Yep that's me, I have been sewing and minor housekeepping since I had surgery on both wrists,  i have had to take it easy this week, since my surgery Wednesday, so I thought I would do some simple sewing.  Since I already had the Jacob's Ladder block pieces cut out, and still had aboud 12 left to get done of the total of 44 blocks, I decided to just sit down and get them done.

Easy peasy right!  Well, it would have been, except I had a general anesthetic to get the surgery done, and I have been foggy and molasses slow in anything that requires thinking, even putting together a fairly simple quilt block.  My first attempt, I did the chain piecing, ironed each piece, and then tried to lay it out to make the final block.  I must have stared at the pieces laying on my ironing area for a good five minutes, before coming back to reality, by shaking my head and could continue sewing.  Such a weird feeling, I guess tha's why the post op instructions tell you not to make or sign any important or critical decisions for at least 24  to 48 hours.  

Here is one of ten blocks I managed to accomplish the last two days.  Remember this is the final round for the Chocolat Legacy UFO BOM that I have been plugging along trying to get done.  Actually came out better with brain fog than with my full facilities!  Either by luck, or by not being so intense in getting it done perfectly when I am all with it?

I have to wait to sew this last round on the quilt because I can't hold the big weight of the quilt while I would be sewing these last strips of blocks on the quilt already done.

Below are flowers I rreceived from my son and neighbor to cheer me up during recovery.  My neighbor tells me she likes yellow because it is a happy color.  I think she is right!

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Waiting for the Next Clue

While waiting for the next clue for the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt, I worked on the UFO Chocolat Legacy project and a custom order.

If you remember, the UFO Chocolat Legacy project is worked in the round, meaning it is started with  four center blocks and then the next set of blocks are sewn around them making a round, and so on.  I worked on the next to the last round of 36 blocks called "Churn Dash".  I am hoping to get them sewn together and sewn in the round of the quilt so far sometime next week.

I have a neighbor who has a recliner that is covered in the "leather-like" fabric.  He doesn't like the covering because it is cold and hot sit on, so he asked me if I would make a cover for him using a king sized plush blanket.  Not my first choice for taking on a customer project, but I did it anyway.

Here are some pictures of the finished product:

The seat piece is separate that includes the foot rest.  I put adjustable elastic halfway around the foot rest part to help hold it in place while sitting in the chair.

Back view.

 I did this picture to show how I did the arm rests.  I did them in separate elasticized pieces so they fit better, and can be taken off to wash.

I mulled over this project for almost three months (they were on a RV trip around the United States), and I managed to get it done the day before they arrived back.  I keep procrastinating this project, mainly because I didn't want to cut into the blanket and not have it work.  Finally I worked it out on paper and in my mind and bit the bullet and ta da!

I'll be back tomorrow with a post about clue 4 of the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.

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UFO Chocolate Legacy

This is a good lesson for having BOM's that have sat in the closet for several years before attempting to get them out and begin construction.  This one was ordered beginning January 2007.  I waited almost 8 years to begin sewing it together.  I have no recourse with the quilt shop who did this BOM, and now I have to work out all the problems that have arisen from this one.

I have mentioned in previous posts about working on this UFO.  It is a round robin kind of quilt, with each month receiving a set of blocks that are sewn around the first four center blocks.  So I am sewing along, getting to the third round of blocks, when I start putting the blocks in strips to sew around the first two rows, and lo and behold they don't fit!  They are off by 2 inches!   I know my cutting and stitching of blocks aren't perfect, but after all these years of doing this, they might be off no more than 1/8'.  I was so frustrated, so I went back and reread the third round blocks pattern, re-measured the pieces, and nothing.  Just by happenstance, I pulled out the future round of blocks patterns and instructions, to see how the quilt is going to proceed.  Guess what?  The instructions in month 5 states "Oops, we have been told by some astute quilter that we are off in our pattern by 2 inches, you have got to be kidding me.  And, get this, their solution to the error, is to "fill in" with scrappy sashing around the blocks and center piece to make the next round of blocks fit.  Really!!  Then I thought I had better look at the rest of the instructions and see what further issues there might be in this quilt.  And sure enough Month 8 has another problem, because the blocks for the rounds after making the first 2 inch adjustment are short by 2 inches, and again they suggest working in scrappy borders, sashing, or whatever clever ideas you as the quilter can come up with to make it fit.  This is just the major problems with this BOM, I won't bore you with the rest of the minor ones, as it then just sounds like whining on my part.

I think this quilt pattern was done on one of the many quilt software programs that are available out in computer land.  It looks good on paper, and surely one can trust computer math, right?  Not so, more often than not.  When I worked at a quilt shop, many quilts were designed on such software, and the shop had to deal with many errors along the construction of the quilt.  Anyway, that's the end of my ranting, here is what I am doing on completing this top.

So, I tore out the quilt down to the first four blocks that are sewn together, and added a small scrappy border, and then added then second round.

At this point, it didn't give me the additional 2 inches needed for round three, so I added some more scrappy borders.  Up close, it looks pretty tacky.  But I kept going, only because I have three rounds of blocks already done.

After days of frustration, and adjusting I have the quilt top to this point.  This has three rounds of blocks with two scrappy 2 1/2 inch borders.  There is one around the first four blocks and around the third round of blocks.  These scrappy borders are planned in the original pattern, but I also still had to add some scrappy 1 inch sashings here and there to get it to this point of construction.  Now, at this point in the construction, all the adjustments don't look so tacky.  I would also imagine that after getting it quilted, it will look even less tacky.  We can only hope!!!

The fourth round of blocks are blocks called the Churn Dash.  I will be making 40 of them.  It will be awhile before I can get the next round done.  

Yes, this will take some time to complete, as I have some Christmas sewing to accomplish the next few weeks.  So, in reality, this project will be once again put on the back burner until after the first of the year.

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Project Updates

I had started a BOM back in 2006.  2006, that's almost 8 years ago!  Oh my!!!  Moving on,  I dug it out when I had gotten out the UFO BOM Prairie Primrose.  They are both from Homestead Hearth, as you can see from the print out I have from their website back in 2006.  This UFO BOM is called Chocolat Legacy using Moda's Chocolat line of fabric.

It works like a round a round type of quilt, where you make center blocks and add a round of different blocks and then another round of different blocks until you achieve the size of the quilt.  Below is a picture depiction of the finished quilt.

Back in 2006, when the BOM started, I did manage to get the center blocks done.  There are four blocks that are sewn together to be the focal point of the quilt.

When I dug this one out, I found that somehow I misplaced month three, so I had to go on an internet on a hunt for some of the fabric line, Moda Chocolat.  I ended up using a Fat Quarter 6 piece collection from Moda Double Chocolat and some pieces out of three charm packs in the Moda Chocolat line.  Month 2 was completed, which consists of 6 of the twelve blocks that are the second round of the quilt.  Month 3 is the remainder 6 blocks of the twelve.  Here are 8 of these blocks completed, as I am working on the remainder of theses in between all the projects I have on my schedule.

Speaking of what is on my schedule, here is John Q quilt top almost completed.  After talking with the client, I am needing to add three more sections, on each side and at the bottom, to make it the size they want it to be for their bed.  I did get the sections laid out, and one has been sewn, but I need to finish the other two sections, and get them sewn onto the main piece.  I am hoping to be quilting it this coming week.

I also have a commissioned baby quilt to make for a repeat customer, some college themed pot holders for an Etsy customer, and three zippered pouches for another customer.  Whew, I am so thankful for this work that has come my way.  I am grateful that I can stay at home and work at what I so enjoy.  God is good.

Warmest...