Forewarned is Fore-Armed

WARNING!!  WARNING!!
Not all chalk that says it is ideal for quilting is, well, ideal for quilting.

(If only I had read the fine print!!)

                                "Ideal for quilting - sewing and crafts. 

Collection of nine chalk colors suitable 

for marking light and dark fabrics. 

Test the chalk on a scrap of the fabric 

you will be using to be sure 

the marks come off to your satisfaction.

 Do not make heavy marks. 

Use the very lightest marks possible 

to be sure marks remove easily. 

Do not iron over marks."

Yes, it SAYS to 

"Test the chalk on a scrap of the fabric 

you will be using to be sure 

the marks come off to your satisfaction."

I did not.

Yes, it SAYS

"Do not make heavy marks. 

Use the very lightest marks possible 

to be sure marks remove easily."  

I might have had made heavy marks.

SIGH.

So, in addition to 

1) not quite having the tension right on my first attempt at free motion quilting

2) using red thread in the bobbin and white in the top as I stitch on white fabric

I also

3) chalked in my design with lime green chalk and stitched over it.

The lime green will not come out.

 I tried these things:
1.  Washing the quilt
2. Oxi Clean sprayed right on the chalk
3. Dry Magic Eraser
4. a "Fabric Eraser" I found in my stash of sewing things.

SIGH.

So, Be Fore Warned. 

You really should test any marking tool on the fabric you are using to see if it will wash off.

I used the chalk on this rainbow quilt, also.  

The orange chalk does not come off.

The blue chalk does not come off.

The green chalk does not come off.

But the white chalk does come off.  (my husband suggested just using the white chalk.  He knew, of course, that that would not work when marking white fabric like in the red and white quilt) (everyone is a comic!!)

Chalk on the colored squares are not so much trouble as lime green on white.But I am getting used to slight imperfections in my red and white quilt.

One thing I did correctly and am now telling you so you can
Be Fore-Armed
Color Catchers are AMAZING.



The red and white blocks given to me contained various red fabrics in various states of pre-washed-ness.  I washed this red and white quilt twice - see the pile of Color Catchers on the left from the first wash and the pile on the right from the second wash.  These Color Catchers saved me from having a pink and red quilt.

So now you are

Fore-Warned 

and

Fore-Armed

If we could be FOUR armed - would we be able to get more work done?

CathyH

I Love Red and White!!

I am FINISHED!!!!

Last December I received 13 Red and White blocks from our Seams Like Sisters Bee.
They are BEAUTIFUL!!
They are all in a quilt and
In a FINISHED quilt.

This quilt was so much fun to make!!   And it was a great stash-buster.  I used scraps of red prints that I had in my stash and scraps of batting and some white-on-white yardage that I had.  I even had red thread.  The reds I had were so similar that you almost cannot tell that there are 5 or 6 different red prints used to surround the pieced blocks I received.

An earlier post described how I made the quarter-square-triangle blocks that are in between the pieced blocks.

 I used a Quilt-as-you-go method.  I even tried some free-motion quilting on three of the blocks.  The triangles just called for straight-line quilting, though.

Maybe the most amazing thing about the quilt is the back.  I added a white Ohio Star amidst the variety of red fabrics.  THEN, when I hung in to take a photo... well ... you can see faintly see the blocks from the front of the quilt.  I LOVE this quilt!!!

I look forward to using this quilt at

Christmas.

And Valentine's Day.

And Memorial Day.

And the Fourth of July.

And Labor Day.

And anytime I want to feel loved!

Thanks, so much to Kelly, Holly, Linda, Renee, Sandy, Susan, Judy, Carla, Diane, Kathi, Priscilla, and Shirley.  You ladies just Seem Like Sisters to me!!

CathyH

August UFO - Almost Not Unfinished

I will catch up.  I will catch up.

I am almost ALMOST finished with my August Un Finished Object.

These blocks are a set of pinwheels made for me by a group of high school girls in 2001 or 2002.  They each secretly made me a pinwheel for my birthday using Green and Burgundy.

 I have their names on sticky notes. When the quilt is finished I will label the blocks with their names and find them on facebook.  I think it will bring back memories for them.  It was a joy to me to remember our time together and their effort at surprising me on my birthday that year.

I added two pinwheels and a burgundy frame, but did not feel it was done.

 It needed a little bit more - maybe leaving it on point and another burgundy square like this --->

Since I teach Geometry (etc.) I was sure there was an easy way to create that outer frame.  This is what I did:

I measured the first burgundy square - turns out it was a perfect 36" long.

I started with a background square that was 1/3 that length (12").

Framed it with burgundy.

And framed it with enough of the background fabric so the 

diagonal was a few inches more that 36".

I made two of these:

I cut them across the diagonal:

And I put one pair of triangles on the left:

And another pair of triangles on the right:

Now I need to sandwich the quilt. When I received these squares, my bedroom was decorated in burgundy and green.  I have saved the curtains and will use that as the back of the quilt.

(Sigh)
What great memories!
Close to finished on this UFO.


I'm linking up with Patchwork Times 2012 UFO Challenge.

Check out the other Finishes!!



CathyH

Decorated Bags

I should have thought of this sooner: make smaller quilts and they can be finished more quickly!!  I decorated some fabric bags with small quilts that serve as pockets.  These were gifts for ladies who helped with the Psalms study for the ladies at our church.

These were especially fun using little scraps from my scrap boxes.

Yellow and orange seemed appropriate when reflecting on Psalm 119:105 

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path"

A rainbow of colors and music notes helped frame the call to

"Make a joyful noise to the Lord"

And - well - I had a collection of bonus triangles that fit around 

"Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us"

These bonus triangles came from a Round Robin that my two daughters and I did one summer at the local library's Quilt Chat.  They were left over from this second border made by my daughter.  In fact, there were EXACTLY enough half-square-triangles to fit around the Psalm on the bag!!

Here is the Round Robin quilt revealed at the end of the summer with two other borders added:

I CAN finish things!!
I should just think on a smaller scale!

I'm linking up with the Small Blog Meet at Lilly's Quilts.
Check out some OTHER people who make pretty things!

CathyH