Working Quilter

I envy those hand quilters.  You can take your quilting along with you were every you go, even when you are hand piecing your blocks.  I work for the government, so I really cannot put my sewing machine on my back (or roll it) to work and sew.  By the time I get home I just want to fall into bed.  My weekends are going to quilt meetings, church meetings and  grocery shopping.  Only time I get to quilt is when I go to my quilting bee or I really need to get a quilt done on a deadline.  While I am going to learn how to hand quilt.  I think a but a sandwich together and teach my self and stitching.

So with that said, I miss placed my UFO I pulled it out last week to do.  I have others, but I really wanted to do that one since it has been in the box since I first started quilting.  So I am off to look for this missing UFO.  It has to be somewhere in the house.  It was sitting on the dinning room table all week, and now I can not find it.  Do you thing the Quilting Fairy took it so I could start on something new?  Yah, there is a Quilting Fairy, she is the one who finish your quilts, when you cannot remember that you did it yourself.  O.K., O.K. can can fantasize can’t I.

Looking for UFO
The Slow Quilter

Look What I Got In the Mail

Check these charm packs I got in the mail today!!!!! 

I order this 32 – 5 inch Charm packs from Marcia’s Crafty Sewing, this picture does not do it justice.  You will have to stop pass her blog and see it yourself,  http://marciascraftysewing.blogspot.com/2012/01/charms-packs-of-quilters-blenders.html.  She also sent me a free gift, her her Photo Quilt Note Cards and Post Cards, these will be great to send one of my quilting friends, or give as a gift, maybe even in your next fabric exchange.  So if you haven’t been over to her blog, stop on by, she has some great stuff.  I am even think of sending one of my quilts to her to quilt for me.  She is a great quilter.

Charming With Crafty  

The Slow Quilter

Organizing Your Quilt Magazines & Books

We all subscribe to lots of different quilt magazines or we pick them up at our nearest news stand and we also order quilting books.  All of this is to keep up with the newest technique in quilting, or we see something we would like to make.  So over the years I have boxes of magazines and bookshelves of quilt books.  I have magazines that date as far back at 2008 (that might not be that far for most quilters).  It was time for me to get organized when it came to my hording of books (I also had boxes and boxes of novels).   

Now as I said before in my bio, I love to read, so my box of books were numerous.  Not only did I have boxes here at home and had about 5 or 6 boxes of books at work.  The ones at work, I was able to give it to our book store, some of them I mailed to a co-workers daughter who read the same books I did.  I am now down to one box half full (I like to sometime re-read my books)  I got a Kindle (before they cut the price) early last year and already I have over 140 books that I have read on it, so you can see I read a lot.  The books at home went to thrift stores (after I look through them to pick out what I want to keep).  OK, I just can not give all them up, but it was still a good clean up.

Now for the magazines.  It took me a lest a week or two (I am too busy on the weekends to knock this out), I look through all of them and pulled out the pages I wanted to keep and put them in plastic covers and but them in a binder.  I have several, put it is easy for me to look through to find a project I would like to do.

I do have to book shelves (one is in the basement) and that is were I keep my quilt books for easy reference and also any recent magazines that come in.  It looks like I have room for more books, yah right, I have some on the cutting table.

So I hope this will help you to get your magazines and books organized for the new wave for new magazines and books come in this year.

Booking Right Along

The Slow Quilter

Wee Bee Quilters

I am in a Quilting Bee, which the name is Wee Bee Quilters, this is our first meeting of the year, which we met at our Presidents house, Marlene.  Our regular meetings are held at a recreation center were we can set up our machines and sew.

This is also the time we get together to exchange gifts from the holiday, since we do not meet in December.  This pin cushion and trash bag was made by Lynora  Williams (she was my secrete Santa).  I have always wanted one, but did not want to buy one, and never had the time to make one.  Thank you Lynora, I really love it and you will see it at the next meeting getting used. 

We also love to eat and we all brought food for the meeting, pouched salmon, chicken salad, black eye peas salad, all kinds of salads, thank God someone brought some fried chicken.

We also had show & tell.  Some of the quilts I did not take pictures of because they are a part of the Red & White, Too exhibit that will be on display in February.  But here is one by one of our most well know blogger, Sandra Ealy, know also by the name Yatude and her blog name sistah stitch alot.  If you have not been past her blog you need to stop pass, (she has not been blogging lately, but she is back).  The other quilt is by Yvonne Nickens who hand quilt this beauty.  The stiches were so straight and even it looked like it was machine quilted.

Last but no means least in this gathering of quilting friends and well know blogger is Linda, from Eat, Sleep, Quilt.  What are you looking for, money?

In writing this post tonight, I was looking through my pictures to post, I do not know what I did to bring them up to edit, I discovered that I had this thing on my computer called Windows Live Writer, which I used for this posting.  I am able to write this post and insert my photos without having to edit them and then it will post right into my blog.  Have any one of you used this wonder program?  Do you have Windows Live Writer?  I will have to explore this new thing and use it more, because it sure has cut my time in uploading photos for my blog.

Happy Quilting

The Slow Quilter

Felicia

"The Quilt Holes"

I was just felling this today, and I know that most of you have read this before, it is a lovely poem by an unknown author.  Enjoy.

"The Quilt Holes"

 As I faced my Maker at the last judgment, I knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls. 

Before each of us laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles; an angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that is our life.

But as my angel took each piece of cloth off the pile, I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares was.  They were filled with giant holes.  Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult, the challenges and temptations I was faced with in every day life.  I saw hardships that I endured, which were the largest holes of all.

I glanced around me.  Nobody else had such squares.  Other than a tiny hole here and there, the other tapestries were filled with rich color and the bright hues of worldly fortune.  I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened.

My angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together, threadbare and empty, like binding air.

Finally the time came when each life was to be displayed, held up to the light, the scrutiny of truth.  The others rose; each in turn, holding up their tapestries.  So filled their lives had been.  My angel looked upon me and nodded for me to rise.

My gaze dropped to the ground in shame.  I hadn't had all the earthly fortunes.  I had love in my life and laughter.  But there had also been trials of illness and wealth, and false accusations that took from me my world, as I knew it.  I had to start over many times.  I often struggled with the temptation to quit, only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again.  I spent many nights on my knees in prayer, asking for help and guidance in my life.  I had often been held up to ridicule, which I endured painfully, each time offering it up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze of those who unfairly judged me.

And now, I had to face the truth.  My life was what it was, and I had to accept it for what it was.

I rose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light.

An awe-filled gasp filled the air.  I gazed around at the others who stared at me with wide eyes.

Then, I looked upon the tapestry before me. Light flooded the many holes, creating an image, the face of Christ.  Then our Lord stood before me, with warmth and love in His eyes.  He said, 'Every time you gave over your life to Me, it became My life, My hardships, and My struggles.

Each point of light in your life is when you stepped aside and let Me shine through, until there was more of Me than there was of you.'

May all our quilts be threadbare and worn, allowing Christ to shine through!

God determines who walks into your life...it's up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay and who you refuse to let go.'

             I think this was a most heartfelt poem.  Do you think you could make this quilt with your life experiences?  This is your challenge for 2012.

The Slow Quilter

Felicia

 

Surfing the Blog - We All Doing the Same Thing

Hello I am back.  I needed a couple of days off from blogging to clean up my house and feed the kids.  Since I usually write my blog before I go to bed at night, I just fell in a just did not think about trying to blog.  I also left my UFO on the table to get to hopefully this weekend (I do plan to get to it).  While at work, I have been surfing the blogs and have come to a conclusion that we all are writing about the same thing, completing our UFOs, flimsies, and WIP.  If not that, we are trying to organize our sewing rooms.

All of the above is great, but do you know what, when we finish a couple of UFOs between now and March, we will be hitting the quilt shows, buying more fabrics, and starting new projects that most-likely will end up to be another UFO in the stack of our others.  Organizing our sewing room is laughable, since by the time we pull out fabrics to match with what we brought, we usually do not but it make in the right place and then we start to organize again.  We are quilters that go around and around in a circle, but we LOVE IT.  It is the creativity in us all to touch that fabric and create that great quilt, and we will complete that quilt some day soon.  I know most of you might have already, I am still working on mine.

One of my quilting friends (Charlene) sent me an article that I think you will all have fun reading if you have not read or seen it yet.  It was in the 2011 Aug/Sept. issue of Quilter’s Home Mag.  The article was call “The Happy Procrastinator Presents: How to Finish a Quilt” by Megan Dougherty , check out page 26-27 http://issuu.com/newtrackmedia/docs/qh_aug_2011?mode=embed&layout=documentview.  She is a great writer and funny.  I also check out her blog the Bitchy Stitcher http://thebitchystitcher.blogspot.com/ if you have not stopped pass please do so.

Until I Blog again

The Slow Quilter

What Is In The Box?

As quilters, we have a lot of stuff, our stash as we call it.  We have fabric stored in binds, boxes, shelves, still in bags we brought it home in.  Some of us have small spaces, the lucky few have large spaces, those of us who still can't get those grown children out of the house so we can turn their room into the quilting/sewing room we are dreaming of.  Then there is the "box".  You know the box that is under the cutting table or under the sewing table or maybe up on the shelf, you might even have a closet that you store fabric in.  What is in the "box"?  It is those flimsies, the UFOs, the UFQs, those fabrics that are not scraps, but big enough to use in another quilt or applique.

Well it is time my quilting sisters to pull out that "box", reach in it a pull out something, be it that UFO, that flimsy or even the UFQ, it is time to finish what you started.  LET'S GO AND DIG OUT THE BOX!!!

Now that I have gotten that out of my system, here is the box that I pulled out.

I reached in a pulled out the first thing I got my hands on.  God this thing has been transferred from box to box for the last 7 or 10 years, when I first got the quilting bug and was still learning.

This is what I found in the package.  Six square n' Square blocks, 10 fusible circles, 10 black squares and 8 triangles.  So what in the hell was this going to be?  Yes, I know it was to be a quilt, but what kind.  I know I lost the quilting magazine to this some time ago, that is why it is still around.  This is why I call this a real UFO.  I have no idea on how this is to be but together.  Do I even have enough square n' square blocks?  Do I need to make more?

paper piece square n' square

fusible circles

These are questions that I will have to figure out as I look through the many quilt books and magazines that I have to figure out how I want to finish this.  Let you know tomorrow what I have come up with.  This will not go back to "box".  It is time to take control of the "box".  I will conquer the "box" it will not control me.  I have to come out of the "box".  OK, OK, I am going on again.  But I really need to clean out that box, I need to make room for more fabric.

Do you have a "box"?  Tell me about yours.

The Slow Quilter

Felicia



What is a "Flimsy"????

Before I start this blog, I just like to thank those of you who commented on my  "Rules of Quilting".  The Rules of Quilting came from a joke web site http://quiltvisionusa.com/Jokes, I did not make them up on my own (wish I had).

So, I was finishing the binding on my quilt Saturday, and did not post anything, hope this will make up for my laps.   All outside activities were cancelled yesterday (Saturday) no UHURU Guild meeting and no church meeting because of the freezing rain and snow, so I got to stay in bed and but that binding on in-between watching my grandson, and falling to sleep.  I made several calls to see what some of my quilting friends were working on (I think I have friends that don't quilt?).  I was talking to my Bee/Guild member Linda from Eat, Sleep, Quilt, I was telling her about my UFOs (UFQs) that I have to do, and she said that the quilts I had were "flimsies".  I have never heard this quilt term before.  I called a couple of other quilt friends, and they never heard of this word "Flimsy" either.  So I did a search and found out that this term meaning "an un-quilted top" has been out for about a year or two.  Well, this just lets me know that you will always have something to learn in the quilting world, if it's not a new technique, it is a new quilting term. SO ALL YOU LONG-TIME AND SHORT-TIME QUILTERS, add "FLIMSY" to your quilting vocabulary.

This is Wickedly Easy B&W Queen size "FLIMSY" which I am hopping
to send out to have quilted and it will not be a flimsy any more.

This is another Flimsy, a Jelly Roll quilt race that I finished in 1 hr. or less
Hopefully, I will hit the lottery and be able to get this one quilted also

This is a true UFO, and I will let
you know more about what is in this
pack tomorrow.

This is my finished "UFQ"  (it was never a flimsy, since it was quilted, but never finished) Wickedly Easy Flannel baby size quilt- One down and ???? to go.

Now you can relate your new definitions to what you have laying around the house.

The Slow Quilter



UFQ - Fininshing One

Rules for Quilting
 1.  Always buy fabric no matter how much you already have
2. Sew All Day and All Night absolutely no cooking allowed
3. Use a lot of spit for tiny droplets of blood, this always makes the quilt personal
4. Always start a new quilt before the last one is finished, this requires you to go back to step # 1

Now rule 4 is why we have UFQs (Unfinished Quilts)  I like this initial better then UFOs.  We have these UFQs because we either get bored with making the quilt we started, or get side track by starting something new.  I fall in both categories, I always want to start something new before finishing what I started.  It is only in quilts, or I get so caught up in my reading I just don't get any quilting done.  But I am on a mission this 2012 to complete all of my UFQs before 2013.  I have not as yet counted how many I have but, as soon as I find them I let you know.

The fist quilt I got my hands on (only because it was under the cutting table), was a crib size Wickedly Easy which was done in colorful flannel and only had to have the binding attached (see yesterday blog). 

After pressing the binding in half, I rolled it on tube (this is a paper towel tube) you all know about this, If you have a long binding it is easy to wrap it around a tube so it want drag on the floor. I have cats, so they would run after it, or it would get dirty with cat hair.

I know you might not have seen this. I have a extra thread holder I use this to sit the tube on so it rolls off the tube while I sewing the binding on.

 Now all I have to do is sit back and sew the binding on.

P.S. To any of my blogger friends, can you give me any tips on uploading my pictures.  It is taken forever for them to upload.  I'm not sure if is my computer, or that the pictures I am using.

Until Next Time

The Slow Quilter



Starting UFQs??

Hello Again:  Sorry I did not blog yesterday, but when I got home from work, I just went straight to bed.  Maybe I should call my blog the” Busy Quilter”, because I am always doing something that keeps me out of the sewing room.  I did come home today and cooked dinner, watched my grandson, clean my daughter’s room (looking for my grandson’s shoes) the room is a mess and sit down for a few to catch my breath.   As I was sitting there, I thought well let me get started on one of my UFOs.  What a great name for a unfinished quilt.  Ya, I know you know what a UFO is, but I got to thinking why do we call them UFOs.  When I first heard this term I thought is meant Unidentified Flying Object.

So I looked it up and found a great definition by Janet Wickell, at About.com Guide. “They’re not objects flying around in the sky (unless we toss them around because they're so ugly).  A UFO is an Unfinished Object--the remnants of those quilts we start to make but never seem to finish”.  Why don’t we just call them UFQs (Unfinished Quilts).  Well that is what I think anyway.

So the first UFO I got my hands on was this quilt I started last year at a Scrap Bag Retreat given by my Bee/Guild member Carolyn Burgess (Lady Scrapbag).  The pattern I got from a friend (Charlene) who had made 4 or 5 of these quilts call the Wickedly Easy by Annie, it uses fat quarters.  I finished the top and a friend quilted it for me.  I only have to bind it.

These are the scraps from the quilt that I will be using for the binding, they are 2 1/2".

I have already sewed them together for the binding, and just have to press them out and sew it on.  I will get to it tomorrow, then take it to the Guild meeting on Saturday to sew it on.  This is a crib size quilt, I also made one in black a white queen size, which I taken plan to send out for quilting.

Finishing UFQs

The Slow Quilter

We Are Quilters Hear Us Sew!!!

Sorry Helen Reddy for stilling the lyrics to your song “I Am Women”, but to all my quilting friends this title describes us to a “T” or is that to a “Q”?

We are quilters hear us sew

Our numbers too big to ignore

And we know too much to go back an’ pretend.

We’ve been down there on the floor

Basting quilts and even more

No one’s ever gonna stop us from doing more.

Oh yes I am wise

But its wisdom born of learning

Yes, I’ve paid

For fabrics and much more

But look what I’ve made, a quilt that looks so great

If I have to spend, let me spend it on more fabric

I am strong

I am invincible

I am Quilter

Ok, Ok, I should not quit my day job, but when I’m left with my thoughts anything could come to mind.

I have finished my quilt for the exhibit next month.  I will not show you my finish quilt, but you already saw the work in progress.   You will have to come to the exhibit to see it.  The exhibit “Red And White, Too”, an exhibit inspired by Joanna S. Rose’s Red and White Exhibit in New York last year, and being presented by Ms. Carolyn Burgess (Scrapbag).  Ms. Scrapbag has collect quilts form local D.C., Virginia, and Maryland (and maybe even further out of town) quilters to show our own red and white quilts.  The exhibit will be held at Art Enables – located at 2204 Rhode Island Avenue, N.E. in DC.  It will run from February 6-24, 2012.  So if you can please stop pass and support your local quilters. 

Singing A Quilting Song
The Slow Quilter

Too Busy to Blog – No Time To Quilt

Yes, it is only 8:00 pm and I just don’t have time to blog.  I started cleaning my room this morning, got a call from my girl Charlene to make a Jo Ann’s Fabric run.  I did not buy fabric (good for me).  We did stop to eat, and made some other stops.  We left home around 11:30 I did not get back until after 4:00 then had to make a quick run to CVS for my mother, come back home make something to eat for my 2 year old grandson (his mother works nights),  let him run around for a hour or two stick him in the bed.  I need to finish my binding on my quilt, had to look for my Fons & Porter binding tool, could not remember how to use it, had to look it up on the web and print it out.   Now I am on my way back down stairs to finish this binding, and then have to come back upstairs to make up my bed and finish cleaning my room.  Well I most likely will not finish something, so I just might have to play sick tomorrow and stay home from work.  Let you know tomorrow.

Quilt for Me
The Slow Quilter

A Day Of Rest

Sunday is a  day of rest, the day you give to our Lord and Savior.  I went to church this morning just to do that, but before I got there, I stop by Seven-Eleven for a large coffee, went back home to pick up my mother (who was not ready, when I stopped by).  After dropping her off at the church around 9:30 (I missed the early morning service) I decided to stop pass the Giant Food store to pick up a few items for dinner this evening.  I made it back to church by 10:15  (I also missed Sunday School class) and was able to find a parking spot in front of the church (it is really hard to find a parking space anywhere near the church some mornings).  I got to the choir room to warm up my vocals along with the other choir members.  We had a guess Pastor (this is church Revival month), I will not get into the what the sermon was about, but it was stirring.  We had 3 people join the church (it most have been a good sermon).   After the service, I talked to a few church members then collected my mother.  I dropped her off at the house and when to the beauty supply store to pick up a few items so I could get my hair done (yesterday I went out looking for a wig, but could not find one I liked, I am just tired of doing my hair, and just wanted something I can throw on my head).  When I finally got home, I fixed dinner, watch a little t.v. ( this is mystery Sunday on Hallmark channel) while I ate.  After eating and during the commercial breaks, I worked on my quilt sewing on the binding (I will hand sew the binding down tomorrow). I but up the food and washed up the dishes .  As I am writing this blog, I am getting my hair done by my son's girl friend LaKsia.  When she finish I am going to bed and start my rest tomorrow since it is a day off from work for the holiday (MLK Birthday).  This is a day of rest for me.  How about you?

My God Bless You
The Slow Quilter

The Cutting Table Is Clean

Well, friends I have finally cleaned off that cutting table.  Rulers are back in their holders, cutting mate is ready for my next project, and I brought three binds to hold some of the fabric on the table.  This is not all my fabric, the rest is in my sewing room, up in my room, still in bags under the sewing table, down the the basement, I might even have some under the bed. What?  Don't you have fabric all over the house.  My fabric stash is so large, I might have to have some of my friend come and shop from my house.  Or even you can win a fabric pack from my later this summer when I go through all this fabric.

Look at what I found on the table when I cleaned it off.  I got this fabric when I when on a bus trip in October 2011.

Great fabric right?  I had planned to use some of the in a cube quilt (tumbling blocks),  Some might make it, others not.

I also found scrap fabric from cuttings.  You know all those scraps that you usually will save to put into another quilt that you have in a bag under your sewing table that you keep saying you are going to use and never do.  I do have one friend who is using her scraps and asking everyone for theirs, Linda from Eat, Sleep, Quilt, she is really a scrapper.

Some were odd shape cuts, so I cut them down to 2 1/2" squares, if they were strip I make sure they are even a put to the side to use maybe as binders.  Let see how much I can collect by the end of the year and if I make anything.  Linda you might be getting my scraps.

Time to sign off now.  Until tomorrow.  Oh before I go here is another old joke:

A little old lady was running up and down the halls in a
nursing home. As she walked, she would flip up the hem of
her nightgown and say 'Supersex...' She walked up to
an elderly man in a wheelchair. Flipping her gown at him,
she said, 'Supersex.' He sat silently for a moment
or two and finally answered, 'I'll take the
soup.'

Happy Quilting
The Slow Quilter

Pants Falling Down

 Do you remember the song from American Idol, “Pants falling down, falling down, pants falling to the ground”?  Well that song was stuck in my head early this morning as I was getting off the bus for work.  As I stepped of the bus and started walking, it felt like my pants (I had on jeans) were falling, I stopped to check and they were just above my knees (thank God for long coats).  Lucky for me no one was around and I just pulled them up and kept on going.

This is not the first time this has happened to me, as most of my friends know that I have a problem with keeping my pants up.  One such instant, I was on a bus trip to one of the quilt shows, and my pants kept sliding down.  I got so tired of pulling them up, so I had some yarn and my crochet needle and starting to crochet myself a belt, I finished it just as we got to our destination.  You would think by now that I would have at least brought myself a belt.  I really do hate to wear belts, and I have brought two since, put it’s hard to keep up with them when my sons or even grandson seems to always have my belt.  I would rather, have them wearing a belt then to see them with their pants half way down their butts.

Most quilters were once-upon-a-time garment sewers.  We learned from our mothers or grandmothers, on even in school.   Once we got the quilting bug in us, we would rarely even think about stopping to sew a button on a shirt.  Although we are now venturing out with quilted garments, we would rather send our clothes to the cleaners for alterations then alter them ourselves.

I did over the holidays make the effort to take up my dress pants, put did nothing with my jeans (you should not have to take up jeans), so I guess this is another thing that will keep me from cleaning off the cutting table so I can sew up my jeans.  

On a side bar:  For those of you who do not know me, I am a black woman with no hips or butt to think of.  A car could roll over me and never feel a bump, so how am I supposed to keep my pants up?  Dame that belt!!!!

Happy Quilting

The Slow Quilter

Getting Old & Forgetful

Three sisters, ages 92, 94 and 96, live in a house
together. One night the 96-year-old draws a bath. She puts
her foot in and pauses. She yells to the other sisters,
'Was I getting in or out of the bath?' The
94-year-old yells back, 'I don't know. I'll come
up and see.' She starts up the stairs and pauses
‘was I going up the stairs or down?' The 92-year-old was
sitting at the kitchen table having tea listening to her
sisters; she shakes her head and says, 'I sure hope I
never get that forgetful, knock on wood...' She then
yells, 'I'll come up and help both of you as soon as
I see who's at the door.'   

Hope you like this little joke.  It reminded me of this morning when I was going to work.  When I got to the bus stop, I realized I had forgotten my hat.   That was not a big deal, but I had not combed out my hair, I still had curls in it, but I was not going back home to get it.  Then I realized I had forgotten my cell phone.  Well, I just could not go to work without my cell phone, so I went back home to get it (I picked up my hat too).  So what does that tell you?  We are technologically depended.  My thought was I needed my cell phone more than a hat (it was cold outside), since you cannot find a phone booth anywhere.  Well, I could have asked to use someone else’s phone.

My two best friends, Pat King and Charlene Marshall (my quilting buddies) know what I am talking about.  We always talk about how often we are forgetting something.

Well, I have finished quilting and squaring off my quilt block.  I have already cut out the binding and sleeve so all I have to do when I get home tomorrow is but them on and then I am finish.  Still have not cleaned off the cutting table yet, but I will soon.  Since we have a holiday coming up (MLK) I will have plenty of time to get the table cleaned off for my next project.

Have a bless day

The Slow Quilter  

Cleaning the Cutting Table

Hello again, I received a lot of feedback on my blog, and I like to thank you for visiting me.  Please don’t stop coming around to see what I am doing or saying in the weeks to come and please don’t forget to join or leave a comment.    Do I sound needy?    Well I am.  It is always good to get feedback.  One feedback was from a dear friend, guild member (UHURU Quilters Guild) and Bee member (Wee Bee Quilters) Carolyn Burgess, better known as Ladyscrapbag and who is also a school teacher.  Her comment was on my spelling.  Even with spell check, I am a bad speller and proofreader.  So please forgive me for the grammar and Carolyn please don’t hit me with the ruler.

In my last post I was to clean off my cutting table so I can get ready to finish up some of the UFOs I have.  Well that never happen last night.  As I also mention that I am a procrastinator when it comes to starting projects that are time sensitive.  Well before the cutting table looked like it does, I was working on a time sensitive project for an upcoming showing on a concept from Ladyscrapbag (Carolyn) after a trip to New York on the Red & White Quilt Exhibit last year.  A lot of us signed up to also do Red & White Quilts, back in March, quilts where to be completed by December 30^th (just needed a finish picture and measurement).  My original quilt idea never made my slow quilting skills, and as you know it I did not start my project until December 26.  Yah, I hear you, why did you wait until the last minute?  What can I say, I am the Slow Quilter.

Well to make a long story short, I had finished the block for the required measurements an incomplete photo.  So my problem was how to quilt it.  If I have not said this before, I love to quilt and putting blocks together, but I do not like to actually quilt.  I am good with stitch-n-the- ditch and outlining, put quilt designs I am not good at.  I would rather send them out to have them quilted.  So that is what I did last night, outlined the quilt.   All I have to say is “Thank God for monofilament thread”.  Only thing I have to finish on the quilt is attaching the binding which I will do on Thursday.  We need to turn in the quilts by January 30^th.  Will it be finish then?  Yes it will be.  I do plan to add a little sparkle to it when I finish it.

The is a 3-D folded Mariner's Compass pattern by Cheryl Phillips.

What In A Name

I am The Slow Quilter.  I was tossing around names to name by blog to describe me:  the Fabric Whisper, the Turtle Quilter and even the Cat Quilter.  I am a procrastinator at heart.  I wait to the last minute to complete projects.  I have a lot of time to finish projects, but wait until just a week or later to get started.  The Turtle Quilter would be a good name, I collect turtles and they are slow also.  The Fabric Whisper is also a good name for me since I let the fabric talk to me to let me know what it wants to be; quilt, bag, pillow, something (yah right. I have a room full of fabric; they haven’t been talking to me lately).   The Cat Quilter, just because I owned two cats, one died this past November and I miss her very much.  Well I settled on The Slow Quilter and I hope to take you through a journey of using up the fabric I have, the gadgets I brought, UFOs to compete and the insight of why we are quilters.

My New Year’s Resolution this year is to complete one UFO a month, if possible maybe even two.  First I will have to clean off my cutting table.  Let’s see how this week will work out in clean this table off and finding my first UFO to start on.