Monthly Archives: November 2016

Tu-Na Quilts: Trunk Show 2016

Here’s some of the quilts I am particularly proud of that I’ve made in the past. I’m linking to Whims and Fancies Trunk Show which showcases quilts. You are invited to check them out (click on this button below) after you get done reading here that is.

This summer I made a plus quilt for our exchange daughter (blog post still coming about it) and gifted it to her in August. You can read more about the quilt by clicking here.

I made two Little House Quilts using Amy Friend’s idea and many of her free patterns found on her During Quite Time Blog. I made the quilt below for my friend’s granddaughter. Click here to read the story of why I made it and for the links to the free patterns.

I made the quilt below for my grandson. I designed the covered wagon block. Close-up pics as well as my post explaining why I chose the blocks I did and links to the patterns (except for the covered wagon) can be found by clicking here.

I like this side by side pic so you can see the differences of these two quilts. The one on the left is definitely more girly and rightfully so since it went to a little girl.

I also made two pixelated giraffe quilts. This first one was for my granddaughter. There are 714 squares that finish at 1.5 inches of quilty cuteness here.

Nothing warmed my heart more than when she gave her taste of approval.

I used Minky for the back of both giraffe quilts. They were my first and second attempts at free-motion quilting on my home sewing machine and I loved it. My grandson’s quilt was a bit bigger with 714 squares finishing at two inches. If you look close you can see how I added an eyeball and nostrils when I quilted it. I think he was a bit excited to get it, too.

I have more quilts to show and share but time is running out to get this submitted. I hope I’ve whetted your appetite and that you’ll come back to read more.

Thanks for visiting. If this is your first visit here, welcome to my blog. You can read more about me here and here. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read and want to keep up with my adventures, I invite you to follow me by one of the methods found on my sidebar.

What I Learned Today:

There’s nothing like a deadline to motivate me to action.
I am way behind in posting about my quilting, traveling and eating adventures.

Question: What have you been up to lately? For me, I’ve just arrived at my winter home and am busy unpacking, restocking the pantry and refrigerator, and getting reacquainted with the area. I often joke about us being back again at our cabin at winter camp for seniors. First item of business this week is buying a sewing machine since I left mine at my other house. Advice and recommendations are definitely appreciated.

Tu-Na Travels: In Search of the Sun

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I can hardly complain about the weather here in North Dakota this fall. It’s been sunny and warm in the mid 70s which is unheard of for this time of year. But I know it won’t last. Winter’s coming and I hear it’s coming on Thursday. So it must be time to seek a warmer and sunnier climate.

My first clue that it’s time to migrate south was when I needed to wear socks with my Birkenstocks. I hardly wear any other kind of shoe. These came directly from Germany. I look a little wild with those striped animal socks.

We will be driving to our other home in sunny Arizona today. I’ve packed lots of fabric from the quilt hop and other sewing projects so I’ll be continuing to create this winter. I’ve got a couple of quilts that have upcoming deadlines but first I have to get settled in for a long but sunny winter.

What I Learned Today:

Deciding what to take from my fabric stash is hard to do. I want to take it all with me but I can’t because space is limited in our Prius.
No one can pack a car like my husband can. My mom can tell you that, too. He has a reputation to uphold and he continues to maintain it.
I’ve probably packed way more projects than I can get done in one winter.

Question: Do you now or would you like to in the future spend the winter where it’s sunny and warm?

Tu-Na Quilts: My Mama Always Says…

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“If you don’t want to rip, you shouldn’t be sewing.”

Over the last couple of years, my mom and I’ve spent a lot of time quilting together. According to my husband, it seems like that’s all I’ve been doing. However, I know years from now when I look back on our time together I will say it wasn’t enough.

We are working on Sew Fresh Quilt’s Modernitional Bear Paw Quilt together. Mom contributed some fabrics.

During these quilting sessions, I write down mom’s words of quilting wisdom. My plan is to share these bits of wisdom with you from time to time in a series that I’ll call “My Mama Always Says..“ I hope you will find them interesting and helpful, too.

Welcome to

My Mama Always Says..:

Where years of experience and bits of quilting wisdom guide me on my quilting journey.

So just why would mom say that I shouldn’t be sewing if I don’t want to rip out my mistakes? I don’t know about you but I make a lot of sewing mistakes. Maybe it’s because I am a perfectionist or maybe it’s because I just want it to look nice. Then again it might be that I just want it to look right or maybe it’s because I am still learning. Nonetheless, I’ve come to the realization that nothing is always perfect. So I’ve begun to hold my seam or block at arm’s length. If I don’t notice that the seams don’t meet just right from that distance, then it’s good enough.

I caught this mistake before I went any further. Can you find it? Yes, that little triangle piece was the wrong color. It still required taking 3 seams partially apart.

For those times when it’s not good enough, I’ve found an easy and fast way to rip it apart.

Using my seam ripper, I carefully slide the pointy end under the stich to cut the thread. I continue to do this on the same side about every 6-8 stitches or so. I’ve sewn two seams using black and white threads and am ripping out both.

Turning the piece around to the other side, I use my ripper to gently pull on a stitch. It will release and then I can pull the thread with my fingers. If it becomes stuck, I just wiggle it back and forth and it will release. This makes for a very fast way to unsew that wrong seam. Having a sharp seam ripper helps too. Yes, they do get dull.

If my stitches are very close together, I’ll use this method.

Opening the seam, I slide the pointy end of the ripper under a stitch or two to cut the threads. Then I gently tug on the fabric. It helps to keep one side taught with a finger as shown. This method takes a little longer but safely picks open that seam.

Recently, I showed our exchange daughter K. my latest sewing project and she pointed out a mistake right away.

I started this in the summer but, you know, life happened: quilt hops, trips, toothaches, and apples. So I am back sewing on it.

I had looked at these blocks many times and had never seen the mistake. So I sighed, picked up the seam ripper, and remembered my mom’s words of wisdom, “If you don’t want to rip, you shouldn’t be sewing.” Thanks mom. You are right, as usual.

Now it looks better. This is the after picture. The piece by the yellow arrow was turned wrong and needed to come out and be reset. It took several tries but, as you can see, I did get it back together again.

What I Learned Today:

Ripping apart a seam by any other name—unsewing, unpicking—is still a pain in the backside.
That old TV show, Father Knows Best, didn’t tell the whole story; Mother knows best, too.
No one, including mom, ever said I had to be happy about ripping out those seams.
I’d rather find the glaring error now before it’s been quilted and too late to do anything about it.
There is no such thing as perfect; good enough can be just right, too.
A set of fresh eyes (by that I mean someone else) helps in finding errors.

Question: Do you spend a lot of time ripping apart your mistakes or are you a “that’s good enough” type of sewer? What’s your “go to” method of ripping apart your mistakes?

Linking:

Monday to:

Show & Tell Monday with Bambi

Em’s Scrapbag at When Life Falls to Pieces Make A Quilt for Move It Forward

Beth at Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday (button on sidebar).

Beth at Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making (button on the sidebar).

Scraptastic Tuesday (button on sidebar).

Tuesday to:

Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for Tips and Tutorials Tuesday (button on sidebar).

Wednesday to:

Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s Be Social (button on sidebar).

Tu-Na Quilts: Blogger’s Quilt Festival Update

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You may recall that I entered two quilts in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival in September. I wrote about the Little House Quilt here and the Plus Quilt here. While both of those quilts received votes neither received enough to win in their categories.

The Plus Quilt received 34 votes. That’s more than just my family and friends voting for it and so I thank you so very much. All of the quilts that were entered were gorgeous and I spent many hours looking at them and reading the posts.

While my quilts didn’t get enough votes to win a prize, I did win something for leaving a comment on Amy’s Creative Side blog. Thanks, Amy! She notified me of the win and then I proceeded to forget all about it. I was full-swing into the apple harvest (read about that here) and had other things on my mind. Three weeks later, I found this in my mailbox.

Next Steps in Machine Quilting: Free-Motion & Walking-Foot Designs by Natalia Bonner

I haven’t had much time to read it (we are still drying apples and making lots of apple dishes and desserts) but it looks incredible and I know I will use it a lot when I quilt. The book includes many diagrams of how to sew the various patterns and I can’t wait to have time to practice some of them.

It was even autographed by the author!

I have Natalia’s previous book, Beginner’s Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, and found it to be interesting and helpful when I was quilting the giraffe quilts. This new book will surely raise the bar (or should I say “raise the presser foot”) for me as a quilter!

What I Learned Today:

I like reading quilting books just as much as my husband likes to read his sci-fi paperbacks.
Sometimes being forgetful is exciting as it gave me this nice surprise.

Question: Do you read quilting books just for fun or do you read them to learn to do?

Linking to Sew Fresh Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? and Finished or Not Friday (buttons on the side bar)