Egg Carton quilt progress

Although Bonnie Hunter was my first quilt designer crush I have another crush on Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.
The pattern called Egg Carton quilt is in her book titled Scrappy Firework Quilts.

I love 1 1/2" strips, squares and small units of course. And after lots of seams you end up with a much larger unit. And Edyta uses batiks and cottons in my personal color pallet. Yummy!!

This is just half of the blocks I made. I have enough for two smaller quilts.

When I am not sewing I am crocheting. And here is Lucky claiming my place in the recliner last night. Sleeping upright until I snapped the photo.

We are surviving minus 15 temps with minus 45 wind chills. I have filled the bird/squirrel feeder with generous amounts of high calorie food. House is snug with rugs at the doors blocking any cold air seeping in. We have lots of quilts and lots of food. Parts of our small town lost power last night. Our power has been flickering but has remained on. The snow heavy tree branches and high winds are not powerline friendly!

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Little Pyramids Table Topper by Edyta Sitar

Our guild is planning on doing a Friendship Triangle exchange as found in Edyta Sitar's book of the same title. Three of us are planning on getting the "fires" started by having a quilt made or at least begun to show what we want to do!!

 I had made all those Thangles a few weeks back with a common batik background and used every batik strip I had received in a Yahoo swap last year! I have the little center area all done. It only took one afternoon!!!

 I was a bit anal about my triangles...meaning NO REPEATS!!! And I had enough made that I just clipped one triangle off the Thangle unit and set that unit aside.
The end result is pretty but I need to make another one with more darks and less mediums. Do you all know that we quilters tend to buy mediums more than any other shade??? I really do try not to anymore. Another lesson learned from watching TV quilt shows.

 My work area stayed pretty neat while I worked. Yes, I hoard telephone books now. I really love making string blocks. And when I just want some mindless sewing to do, I make some string blocks. Just for fun!!!

 It made the assembly a bit slower but I trimmed the dogears off and removed the papers one HST at a time. Again, me being anal about where a fabric was going. The topper has eleven rows of eleven HST's. So I just did each row as I went. It worked for me.

 I quilted this little beauty after I finished quilting the Cinnamon Triangle quilt. This was another quilt inspired by Edyta Sitar.  It is 34" square.

 And here are the two tiny beauties together. Yes, there are string blocks in the corners. I am finding all kinds of places for my growing collections!

 Cinnamon Triangles is all done. It is quilted, labeled and bound.

 I am pretty sure I will be giving this to GD #1 for her November BD. But until I decide on that for sure I will just slip this one away for future determination.

21 baskets all waiting to be put into their envelopes and mailed back to the swappers. DH took me to the PO on Tuesday. I had four heavy canvas bags. He really made that trip so easy on me. Thanks James!!!
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Log Cabin quilt with 1" strips

Here is my Edyta Sitar inspired Log Cabin quilt. I made this with 1" strips. So after both sides are sewn there is only 1/2" showing! The blocks in the corner are just some string pieced blocks. The border fabric was a leftover from eons ago. I found it in the bottom of a basket where it must have been waiting for 10+ years!

The quilt is a sweet 24" square. A perfect size for a kitty!

 I quilted each and every log. Despite it's small size it seemed to take forever to quilt it. But when I was done I was more than pleased with the end results.

 Pearl approved!!!

 A sewing machine cover???? front view

 A sewing machine cover? back view

  And here is the result of my Thangles journey. These are all batiks. I actually used every single pin in that pin cushion when prepping these for sewing!!!
I am now working on some Reproduction fabrics with varied backgrounds. After sewing just one line on the paper I am not too pleased with how these fabrics are behaving. They were pressed prior to sewing so there should be no stretching involved. Perhaps I had the stitch length too short. But the Batiks behaved well with that same setting.
I will let you all know the results of some tweaking the settings.

 I am the Hostess for the blue 2 1/2" swap on the Yahoo groups connected with Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville group. Here is the result of major pressing,cutting and packaging. A good collection of washed blue scraps and of course some blue strings for my collection!!!! WHOOHOOO!!

 I enjoy watching the Smithsonian channel. And so does MaggieMae. Honest, I found this show through the guide today. We have watched it maybe 3 or 4 times. As soon as I change the channel, here comes MaggieMae. She loves King Fishers! It must be their song on the soundtrack. She tries to get inside the TV!!! I pray that she does not knock the TV off the stand. I really like the fact that TVs are lighter. But it does make them much more of a tip danger for children and pets.

This is Macy's favorite place to nap. She has it sooooo rough!!!!

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T-Shirt Quilt & how do I clean my iron????????

There was an unexpected result from all the ironing on of interfacing. I used three pressing cloths. The interfacing NEVER touched the iron. The t-shirts and their respective designs were never touched by the iron.

Is this iron/minerals from my water????? I have never had this happen before. I have been ironing since I was a child and I am now 62. Guess there is a first time for everything. This is a $$$ Rowenta Iron. It has a stainless steel plate. So what happened????
Maybe the more important question is: How do I remove this?
I tried running the iron over a dryer sheet. It smelled good but nothing happened.

Sarah Martin had the tip that worked for me and my poor iron!! See below!!

I wrote back to her:
Sarah,

It came off with the white vinegar!

You are fantastic!

I am thinking there must have been starch on the muslin pieces I was using as pressing cloths. They were cut offs from backings. I did not use any starch today but it must have been on the pressing cloths.

You are one fantastic lady!

Thanks so very much.

I owe you something for that great tip.

 I bought a 40 yard bolt of Pellon 911FF interfacing. I used a 50% off coupon and with free shipping the entire bolt cost less than buying 20 yards at retail price at Joann's.com. I am so glad I did buy the whole bolt because I used gobs of it making these t-shirt squares stable. And the bolt end said no pre-shrinking needed. And it was right. I did do some research on the internet and some have had wrinkle issues with using this technique'. I did a sample and it does not ripple, shrink or distort. WHOOHOOO!! So I pressed away and have a great size stack of t-shirt squares.

 I stabilized some blank squares to add some embroidery if I need more units to make whatever quilt size this is going to end up being. Right now I do not know.

These shirts belonged to my former son-in-law who passed away last year. He was a Police Detective and a  great father to my Grand daughter Arika. It was very hard to cut in to his shirts. But it was also a labor of love and respect. This quilt will be much loved no matter how it turns out.

 Yesterday I had some retail therapy. I attended a Gathering of Quilters. The speaker was Edyta Sitar owner and co-founder of Laundry Basket Quilts. All I can say about her is WOW! She uses all the colors I love. And has some great books and fabric for sale.
I can feel the urges of becoming a fan of hers as I am of Our Bonnie Hunter. But I do not know if I can afford to be in love with two quilt designers at the same time. HA!

 I bought this quilt kit for GD Zoey. She loves purple and loves cats. Her BD is late in November so I have plenty of time. And she also has this LOVE of Minkee. I found a pre-cut hunk of purple Minkee and bought that too! And the wooden sign that says "Quilting Queen".

 I did not need but had to have this group of fabrics. Brownish/pinkish gorgeous fabrics with a pattern called Radiant.
I left the quilt show after I could no comfortably longer carry everything I had bought.
HA! Time to go home!

 And some more pink and gray fabrics that I did not own...what can I say?
And some Civil War fabrics. After Edyta's lecture I was on a tan/brown high and had to get some fabrics. She mixes batiks with regular cottons. The same as I do. They do play well together.

I also bought this quilt kit for newest GG child due in September. BUT...the panel was NOT in the kit! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!! I did call the seller after I got home and was touching all my purchases but had to leave a voice mail. Darn it! I guess I should have looked through the sealed bag before I left. But who woulda' thunk???? It may be a blessing in design. But dog gone it!!!!!

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