Life as a Greenmonstr : mystery

I've been busy!

greenmonstr — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:22:00 GMT

Maybe it's the weekly snowstorms that have made me yearn for warm blankets, but I have been doing a lot of quilting! I've mainly been finishing up those projects that were on the verge of being finished, just needing that last little bit of doing - binding cut and sewn on, pinning and quilting, etc. Here are the fruits of my labor:

1. For the NICU - two quilts and a bunch of loveys:

2. A Yellow Brick Road pattern - Asian fabrics - this one is for ME because I liked the fabric so much! I did let my daughter use it for the picture though. :-)

3. Finally, the McCall Mystery Quilt is finished! I sent it out to Bits & Pieces in Pelham NH to be quilted (she did a great job) and it took me a while to face putting the binding on since it's a full size quilt...It's called Crystal Butterfly

Now my sewing machine is in dire need of a tune-up, but I don't want to give it up!

Okay, Mystery Step 2 Complete - Now We Wait...

greenmonstr — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:17:00 GMT

Well, I have completed step 2 of the McCall's Quilting Mystery Quilt. Using the unfamiliar sewing machine has made it a little bit rocky though. For one thing, the guide on the 1/4-inch foot is right in the center of the right feed dogs so I was having some trouble sometimes at the beginning of the seam because it wouldn't feed the way I wanted it to...but the sewing machine and I came to terms with that. This step is interesting because there were some relatively large pieces cut that were not used in the instructions in this installment. I have my ideas about them, but we'll have to wait and see.

Here is what I cut this step:

These were the parts I cut out.

Here is what I ended up with once everything was sewn and the instructions were complete.

I'm particularly curious about the large rectangles of purple because they are quite large. Also, we haven't touched the other two fabrics. Hmmm...now we have to wait another month and a half!!

Mystery Step 1 Complete - Take a Peek!

greenmonstr — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:14:00 GMT

I was quilting a T-shirt quilt I made out of my son's old soccer T-shirts, and my Viking died again. It froze with the needle touching the fabric and the bobbin thread pulling the fabric down towards the bobbin. I had to have my husband hold the presser foot lever up so I could cut the bobbin thread and release the quilt. I had to loosen up the needle and step on the pedal so I could get the needle out just to get the quilt out of the machine. It kept balling up the bobbin thread, so I re-threaded it. I wound another bobbin. I turned the machine off and back on in a few minutes. I sewed on a scrap. I rethreaded again. Turned it off again. No dice. I gave up. I will be taking it to get fixed again. The last time I took it in to get repaired (it froze utterly and would not do anything), they told me it had just needed a tune-up. However, I discovered later that the feed dogs would not come back up after free-motion quilting until I turned the machine fully off and back on. Now this.

In the meantime, I have my mother's Kenmore sewing machine as a backup, so I set that puppy up and got into the McCall's Quilting Mystery Quilt. This was something of an adventure since the Kenmore is very different from my Viking. I had to break out the manual to discover how to wind the bobbin and change the presser foot. It was a little awkward sewing because the plexiglas insert that fits nicely around my Viking doesn't quite fit around the Kenmore, so I don't have a nice flat surface anymore. I will not lie; some of my seams are not precisely 1/4 inch, but it's okay. One thing I have learned from quilting: things will never be perfect. The same quality that makes bias a pain can work for you a little bit too. Without further ado, here is my completed Step 1:

I already had the magazine with step 2 in it but I did not look at the next step before completing this one. Once this was done, I ran for my magazine to check out step 2. HIghly anticlimactic, I would say. It's not very long. I kept thinking there was more on the next page that I was missing, because you're directed to cut pieces that aren't used in this step. It'll be interesting to see how this all goes together. Anyway, I will post the next step once it is complete.

It's appropriate that I was using my mother's sewing machine today, since this would have been her 75th birthday. She died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) at Christmastime in 2000. My kids were 9 and 4. My son remembers her somewhat but my daughter doesn't remember her at all. I wish she could have been here so they could have gotten to know her better...she was a very active, busy, creative person with a fantastic sense of humor. Happy birthday, Mom - I'll keep you in my heart as I make this quilt with your sewing machine.

Another Mystery Soon to Unfold

greenmonstr — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:52:00 GMT

Well, MQ V here on the QCA website got me hooked on mystery quilts, I think! McCall's Quilting magazine is having a three-part mystery quilt and I decided that I would give it a try as well. Now that part 2 is out, I felt I should get serious! ;-)

I had a focus fabric in my stash already, so today I went to an LQS and purchased the other fabrics needed. Such hardship! Anyway, I did control myself (mostly) and only bought an additional baseball stripe to make a table runner for the upcoming baseball season.

Here are my fabrics:

This is not the best picture ever,but it is from my cell phone. For some reason, my actual camera kept making the purple into blue, both in the Fusion fabric and the butterflies. Really weird. Today I am not impressed by technology anyway. At any rate, for those of you who may also be doing this mystery, the butterflies are the focus fabric (A), the purple Fusion is fabric B, the cream leaf is fabric C (and it is really not this white...), and the green is Fabric D.

I will post my progress...gotta get going so I can keep up!

Done! Now I'm ready for a mystery!

greenmonstr — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:10:00 GMT

Phew! I have finished the two charity NICU quilts that I started on 9/11. Took a while, but life gets in the way...here they are:

I wish my camera would capture the pattern on the white fabric (it has little off-white circles on it). It's probably user error, though!

Now I can concentrate on mystery quilt V! (and the T-shirt quilt and the tiger quilt...I guess "concentrate" is a relative term!)