Saturday, August 30, 2014

10 quilty little secrets


I have been seeing lots of ''quilty little secrets'' around blogland, so I thought I'd join in :)

1)  I don't prewash my fabrics.  I will make an acception with dark/bright solids.  I have no qualms about mixing washed and unwashed fabrics in my quilts.

2) I sew over pins.  I have never had a major disaster and have only had one pin get bent in half.

3) I am a fabric snob.  I love Moda fabrics.  I can't help it!  I rarely buy fabric from JoAnn's anymore - and if I do, it has to be the 'quilter' quality fabrics.  I hate that they are so expensive, but I'm worth it :)  I actually gave away almost all of my non-name-brand fabrics on freecycle.  I have one more area that I store fabric to go through and get rid of what's in there as well.  It won't ever get used, so why not have the space for more Moda (or DS Quilts, or Freespirit, etc.)

4) I iron.  I don't press, I IRON the heck out of my quilting.  With steam.  Lots of steam.  And I leave the water in my iron too.  I don't buy expensive irons, so when one starts to leak, I just buy another cheapo.  This last one has lasted me 3+ years and it was like $25.  Still more cost effective than an expensive one IMO.

5) I have a lot of UFO's.  A *LOT*.  It might exceed 20, but I'm not going to count, LOL.  I think I have adult ADD :)

6) I don't like quilting from scraps.  It just seems like such a pain.  Even cutting odd sizes from larger pieces of fabric is a headache to me.  I have been slowly working on the Gypsy Wife quilt - and I tell ya, that is the MOST challenging quilt I have done yet....  I don't know if I can keep from going crazy working on cutting the fabrics for it.  Sewing is fine, it's the CUTTING that makes me crazy.

7) I don't bury my threads when I quilt.  I pile up a few stitches and snip it off.  When I have to start a new bobbin, I pull up the bobbin thread to the top, pile a few stitches, stitch a few inches, then snip off the tails and continue on.  No burying threads for me, bleh.

8) I don't get the Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  Ick.  Too bold and weird.  And Liberty fabrics?   Eeesh.

9) I try to avoid using pink if at ALL possible in my quilts.  I rarely wear pink too.  The only pink clothing I have now that I wear is a fuschia tank top.  And that's only because it's super comfy and I bought it in all 3 colors they had because I like the comfort of it that much to tolerate wearing pink.

10) I totally dislike stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.  Yuk yuk yuk.  Don't like the way it looks, don't like to do it.  I much prefer an overall stipple or swirl.  I love fancier quilting for sure - but I stick with what I can do well.  Which is stipple and/or swirls, LOL.

karinsiggy

Friday, August 22, 2014

Be Jolly bundle leftover - a giveaway

::GIVEAWAY CLOSED::  Congrats Karen Propes, you are the winner!

After I finished my Moda Bake Shop quilt ''Christmas Ribbons'', I had a bunch of leftovers.....  today I thought I'd cut into some of the fat quarters and work on another quilt.  Then, I decided not.  LOL.  I change my mind like that :)  Mostly because I don't want to start another quilt until I finish a few that I have started!  So, to keep myself from starting yet another Christmas quilt, I am giving away the leftovers.

Here is a couple pics of what there is:

There is 3 POUNDS of fabric here - the squares are a bunch of 10'' squares - most of them there are two of each print shown (a couple prints have four 5'' squares and one 10'').  Then, there is a piece of each of those same prints about 8x22ish.  There are 5 full fat-quarters, half yard of the red sweater print, 2 large panel prints (they are over half yard each if I remember right), and then various scraps from the backing fabric I used for Christmas Ribbons, and a few smaller pieces left from the front of the quilt too.  Plenty of fabric for a large quilt if you add in a solid.

So, to enter the giveaway, all you have to do it comment here.  I will pick a winner on Monday, August 25th.  Good luck!

Just an FYI - I still have a bunch of homemade jelly rolls left from my de-stash sale!  Get 'em while they're hot!  Just $12.99 for a 40 strip jelly roll!

karinsiggy