Staking Out the Mailbox

I love getting packages in the mail, don't you? I had ordered some new free motion quilting play things earlier this week and they had the grace to arrive together. Both packages were wrapped so nicely under their USPS outer garments.

First up comes from Spool, and the Bad*ss Quilter's Society. Now, I admire the attitude behind the pin, and while my language is colorful at times, (legacy of being a cow hand, rancher, truck driver, and farmer in my youth), I prefer not to use such language in the written word. especially with the kids around. Enough so that I almost didn't order this fabric from there. But I wasn't sure where else to find it and I thought both fabrics would be wonderful to do some ruler work samples on.

Inside are two 1-1/2 yard cuts of modern cheater cloth. The colorful one is Tangram, from the line Graphyx, by Mark Hordyszynski for Michael Miller. The second is design #14763 in the Color Composition line of Kona Coordinated from Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Sadly, the scale of both pieces are much smaller than I had envisioned, so I'm not sure what I will do with these yet. Especially the white and gray piece as the blocks of color change to narrow strips They are beautiful though. I might be inspired by them to do some similar piecing on a larger scale.

Then my new rulers! These are from Linda Hrcka, of The Quilted Pineapple. She's a long arm quilter who does amazing ruler work and has designed her own line of rulers. I bought the whole entire set and I'm happy to report that only one curve was a repeat of another ruler I had. The arc is the same, but the ruler is longer, so it's not an entire repeat.

I can't wait to try these rulers out! It's wonderful to now feel like I've got a good range of arcs to play with. I went shopping online for some smaller circle templates, but I just couldn't make up my mind. There are a ton of styles, sizes, and I didn't want to buy duplicates of what I already had. Long arm rulers aren't cheap and I have a post about their pricing coming up soon.

Let me know if you want the pin above and I'll pick a name from the comments who say they want it!

Giveaway is closed. Andrea R is our lucky winner!

Now, I am off to make my poor hubby a nice dinner. He works in marine construction and they not only got caught on the lake in a storm, but the boat had died and they had to paddle to the lake's marina. Thankfully, the work boat has a small cabin so they weren't out in the open during the storm. But I believe his arms are aching as that isn't a tiny boat.

Of Bindings and Open Window Weather

I'm finishing up the little charity panel quilt I mentioned last week. Simple quilting; mostly following the printed lines. I'm nearly done with the binding, but I'm not sure I made the best choice.

It was the best choice from my stash however. Guess I need to add some red and blue to my stash. This was the first time I've used the even feed foot for my Janome 8200 and it worked like a charm. I do still need to get the optional feet for it, like the 1/4 inch and in-the-ditch feet. The actual bottom part of the foot is interchangeable, unlike my previous machine, the 6600, where I had to buy a whole new foot.

I took the quilt out to the porch to sew the binding down by hand. I could have easily done it by machine, but for some reason I wanted to do it by hand. Maybe it was my subconscious telling me how nice it would be to stitch on my porch while the kids played.

Wonderful dappled sunlight on the porch.

It was even better when I sent the older two in to do dishes while I stitched! I had to wipe down the porch furniture first, since there's pollen on everything.

My sewing room has a window right by my sewing machine table. I enjoy hearing the birds and getting a fresh breeze whenever it's nice enough to open it. But it's a little vexing when it's pollen season. Look what I spied inside my free motion ruler foot! That yellowish stuff isn't fiber from the quilt. It's pollen! It had worked its way into the bobbin area too. It looks like most folks in our area keep their windows closed most of the time, despite how nice the weather is. But I bet they don't have to worry about this pollen on everything.

My little guy has recovered from his Pink Eye and Strep infections. He never got too sick feeling other than his recurring fever that kept him from sleeping well for a few nights, which kept me from sleeping too. Nobody else got sick, which is a miracle considering how contagious Pink Eye is.

Do you have pollen issues where you live? Do you enjoy open windows as much as I do? What do you do when it's pollen season?

Art and Quilting Inspiration from the Book

Even though I've been trying to set some boundaries for myself when it comes to the times I write blog posts and other "work" type stuff (and I use 'work' pretty loosely here), I could not wait to share what I found today!

There are two things that are part of my quilting 'style': ruler work and using text in my quilts. Some of my quilts are inspired by my faith and I love using text with these.

So when a gal from church showed me several pics of 'Bible Journaling' that she had found on Pinterest, I was totally into it. Journaling in a bible or in a separate journal is nothing new, but apparently, some people are combining text and illustrations together in a special bible. Since I firmly believe that creativity comes from the Creator, I just love this! (Whether you are of the Christian faith or not, I believe we possess creativity as part of the creation, however you believe or don't believe.)

Here's a great discussion from Jann Gray about how she uses Bible journaling. She's got some beautiful examples and talks about the how and whys of her practice, including her reverence for the Word in doing it.

I wish I had a picture to show you directly on my blog, but I didn't have time to ask permission to use someone else's pictures here. I certainly could have easily scraped a picture from somewhere, but that's bad blog etiquette you know.

You can see a ton of beautiful and inspiring pages by searching Pinterest for  "Journaling Bible". I have also pinned quite a few images to my Good Words board on Pinterest.



I hope it doesn't seem crass to share these affiliate links above when it comes to talking about the bible, but "the worker is worthy of his wages" perhaps and these are relevant to the post. I have had the two books on the left for several years and love them. I think one of these journaling bibles is in my future too. This one is a little lighter than my current study bible, which I love, but I find that reading through a new bible after using a well-worn and highlighted version for a while helps me to learn anew some of the old and timeless truths. I hope the pages are thicker than the average bible paper!

I am looking forward to then taking some inspiration from these pages and translating them into quilts. Painted, appliqued, stitched, however I am led to create them.

Now back to some family time and Sunday rest.

Hugs to you!

Free Motion Quilting with Rulers: Parrs Reel Ruler Foot Video Review

After posting the video from Wednesday's post, I realized I had never posted my video review of the ruler foot from Parrs Reel Ruler. Silly me! The blog post version, A Ruler Foot Alternative: Parrs Reel Ruler, was posted in December.

My final verdict on this foot is that I really, really, really wish they had made the foot a standard 1/2 inch in diameter. That makes spacing a big issue and it won't work with rotating rulers like the TopAnchor Quilting Tools. I also am not wild about it being a hopping style foot, but that does have advantages when it comes to bulky seam intersections. The hopping isn't a deal breaker. I wouldn't choose it over my Janome foot, but that's me. The price is approximately $75 US, including a sew slip mat and ruler, not sure about shipping. Wish it could be bought with just the foot. It comes in low 'reach', high 'reach', and Bernina version. I don't like the rulers. You have to cut your thread to take the ruler on and off the project- no groove for threads to slide out of the center.

Now I am off to care for my little guy who has pink eye and strep. Why did I ever send him to daycare? Besides sanity and a need to work. Poor fella.