Lone Star Quilting

I've been slowly making progress on the Lone Star quilt.  At this stage, I'm quilting in the ditch again around the Lone Star in the middle of the quilt.  I thought about doing something free-motion, but didn't like any of the options that I had tried.  I really want the center to just stand on its own, so I think stitching in the ditch will highlight that.

I'm using a dark blue variegated thread for the ditch quilting along with a dark blue Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.  The back of the quilt will look interesting once its done.

The cross-hatched lines from the ditch quilting will really show.  There's also a dark blue border outside the star that will be quilted using the same dark blue threads, so there will be something visually interesting on the back of the quilt, too.

There's a small amount of color bleeding on the back of the quilt from washing out the blue marks, but I think once I give it a good through wash, it should be OK.  I'll put a bunch of color-catchers into the wash with the quilt and it should pull all that excess dye out.  I'll just have to check it VERY carefully before I stick it into the dryer.

I hope everyone has a great Easter!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Fabric Storage

A few weeks ago, Karen was folding up and organizing some of her pieces of fabric to make sure it stayed up on its shelves better.  I was able to give her a tip that I picked up somewhere along the road for a good way to store fabric.

These comic book boards are very stiff cardboard and they are acid-free so they won't harm the fabric.  This pack of 100 I bought through Amazon for less than $20.

What you can do is take your fabric and fold it to be the height of the boards (about 10").  For the fat quarters that I was folding, I folded the FQ such that I had a piece that was 18" x 10".  Then lay the comic book board across the folded fabric and start folding the fabric around the board similar to how bolts of fabric are rolled.  I use a pin to secure the free end so that its easier when I pull the folded fabric out from my bookshelf.

I've been able to put up to about 3 yards of fabric on a single comic book board.

Here's a bunch of fabrics and fat quarters I already have folded:

I was also able to fold this stack of fat quarters onto boards last night while watching TV.  These are all nice and neat and ready to go onto my bookshelf.

One of the great things about this is that the fabric will standup on the shelf thanks to the comic book board and it makes it very easy to see what colors you have.

Anything smaller than a fat quarter I typically cut up into usable pieces for scrap quilts.  Those pieces I put into plastic bins for future use.

Does anyone have any other good ideas for fabric storage??


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I know today is Tuesday already and I missed my Monday post. :-(  Work was a bit crazy on Monday as our business recently instituted daily 1/2 meetings to go over scheduled items.  As such, it meant a lot of leg work ahead of time to get updates on everything.

Not a whole lot of sewing happened last week or over the weekend, but a few interesting things.  We went to a wood working show on Sunday in Saratoga Springs, NY.  The pieces of work there were amazing and some were very creative.  Someone had made a chair that was finished except one leg, which was still the original wood with markings on it for the final shape. The arms of the chair held a small hammer and chisel and the "hands" held the tools on the unfinished leg.  Essentially, it was depicting a chair making itself. :-)

Here are two pictures of items from the show.  There was a lot more items there, but I didn't take any real pictures.

They did have a children's "toy factory", which was definitely worth the admission price.  Our niece and her dad came with us and they built a small car as well as a tool box.  After watching our niece hammer a nail in with about 50 strikes, her dad helped out on the next ones so it didn't take quite so long.

 
So here's the list from last week:
1. Finish quilting the outer border on Lone Star.  DONE!  Finally!
2. Quilt the white sections of the center star on Lone Star.  I changed how I'm quilting the center, so its just stitch-in-ditch.  I'll take some photos a little later this week and get them posted.
3. Post pictures of pool table being assembled. DONE!
4. Fold fabrics from winter sampler and put on bookshelf. Not started.

I'm hoping to get back into the groove for quilting.  I haven't had a lot of extra time lately, but I'm hoping with this little break that I'll be more energized into getting the quilting done.  It will be nice once the Lone Star quilt is done and I think all the work will be worth it in the end.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Crafting!

~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Snow Day!

Despite it being officially spring this week, we had a bit of a snowstorm come through Monday and into Tuesday of this week.  Monday evening our backyard was all green.  Well, it was sort of green.  With the last bit of snow melting a week before, it was more the fact that you could actually see the grass again and its not really green yet.

However, about an hour into the first flakes falling, we had about 1/2 inch of snow on the ground.  The next morning we woke up to this.... 6" of new snow.

We had a bit of a break in the early morning where the snow stopped.  My husband cleared the driveway before going to work because we were forecast to get another round of snow in the late morning and into the afternoon.  He said the roads weren't too bad since the plows had a chance to clear the snow off.

However, around 10am, it started snowing again.  These next photos were taken around 11:30am.

Lots of  heavy snow coming down...

The porch railing is pretty much at its max.  It looks like about 6" on there, but in the areas that were unplowed and not disturbed, there was about 10-12" of snow.

I'm definitely ready for it to be spring here, but we have to wait for the temps to warm up a bit again in order for the snow to go away!

I hope everyone who are in warmer climates are enjoying your flowers and sun. :-)


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Pool Table Installation

Last week we had our pool table delivered and installed.  I couldn't take time off from work, so I made my husband take some pictures.  He didn't take as many as I would have liked, but its enough to see what the table looks like all taken apart.

So first they bring in just the frame of the table and there's no side rails, pockets or slate on it.

Before adding the slate pieces, they position the table where you want it in the room and make sure that it is level.  Somehow with the combination of our floors and the leg heights, the table ended up being perfectly level.  Sometimes they have to put shims under the legs to make it level, but this case they didn't have to.

The slate pieces actually come in three separate pieces.  The installer positions the slate in place...

They adjust each piece individually to make sure the slate pieces are level.  They then use bondo to tie the pieces together and create a smooth surface.

This is where the hubby stopped taking pictures, so I don't have anything that shows how they wrapped the felt around the pieces of slate or installed the rails.  Oh well.  Here is the table completely finished and in-place in the room.

I was also able to get a good picture of the light we have above the table.  Apparently the key to taking pictures of lights is to turn them on and take the picture during the day.  You can get the light coming through the glass, but its not bright enough to cause problems for the camera.

We've been playing pretty much every evening, so the table is definitely getting a workout already.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I missed a lot of posting last week!  Sorry!

Last week was a bit crazy between work and trying to finish up the coffered ceiling in time for the pool table to be delivered.  I've also been feeling a bit "down" lately, so its been difficult to find time to get into the sewing room.

I have been able to make it to the gym 3 times each week for the past 2 weeks.  To date, I've already lost 4 pounds.  Yay!  I've found my best workout day is actually Friday.  There's something to be said for being done with work, not having to get up the next morning, and hitting the gym for a good strong workout.

I think I'm going to be getting a different kind of workout tomorrow....SNOW!

We're expected to get a pretty significant snow storm for this late in March.  We're actually located around the first "a" in the word "Saratoga Springs" in the picture above.  This puts us in the 6-10" range, but if the storm shifts a bit, we could be in the 5-8" range or in the 10"+ range.  We're up in the hills a little bit, so we may be closer to the 10"+ range.

So the other big thing this past week was that our pool table was delivered on Friday.  There is plenty of room for it in the room, but somehow the room feels smaller now.  I think its just because we've either had nothing in the room or just a small foos-ball table.  It looks really nice and we're definitely putting it through its paces.  :-)

I'm not even going to bother going through my last Monday list, but I have been making some small progress on the Lone Star quilting.  I have 3 of the 4 sides of the outer border quilted and the last side is almost halfway done.  There's still a bunch more quilting to do, but it will be good to be done with the outer border and move onto something else.

So here's the list for the upcoming week:
1. Finish quilting the outer border on Lone Star.
2. Quilt the white sections of the center star on Lone Star.
3. Post pictures of pool table being assembled.
4. Fold fabrics from winter sampler and put on bookshelf.

Hope everyone has a great week!


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Oy!

How did it get to be Thursday??!!

I'm not quite sure what happened this week, but I totally didn't get around to my usual posts.  I'll try to do a quick run-down here...

Last Saturday we spent all day working on the ceiling.  When I say "all day", I really do mean ALL day!  We started working at 8:30am and didn't finish until 6pm.  We didn't even break for lunch, just some snacks here an there.  We did get it done though!  Completely finished.  Everything is painted and caulked and looks shiny and new.

I love the green paint and the bright white molding.  The lamp is really cool too.  It has a bit of the Tiffany glass look to it.

Sunday was spent touching up a few last little bits, hanging the light in the room with the new ceiling detail and doing all the usual weekend chores (shopping, cleaning, laundry).  I got a little bit of sewing in, but only about an hour or two.  I'm still quilting on Lone Star, so there's nothing new to show.

This week at work has also been very crazy and busy.  Between work and going back to the gym 3 times a week, I haven't been doing a lot of sewing.  I have lost 3 lbs already since going to the gym (2 weeks now).  In order to get down to the "normal" BMI, I need to lose about 10-15 lbs.  I'm already down 3 lbs, so about 7-12 more to go.  I'd love to get lower, but I'd like to at least get down to the high-end of the BMI range for my height.  Once there, then I'll work on getting down to the weight I'd like to be.

This week we had some high temps (high 40Fs) that resulted in a bunch of snow melt and we had rain on top of it.  With all the runoff, our stream near the house was really moving.  Here's some pictures of the water...

Our dam will need a little bit of work come spring to repair the damage from the water.  The plastic pipes... there's two that should be at the top of the dam to allow water to flow through.  They both were sent downstream a bit.

Further down on our land, we have a bit of a lake happening.  The stream loses definition in this area, so it just spreads out everywhere.  We plan on using a backhoe to define a path for the stream and then be able to plant a garden in this area.

I'm hoping to get back to quilting this weekend and be able to show some progress pictures of the Lone Star quilting.  I'll also show pictures of the room with the pool table in place.  Its being delivered tomorrow! :-)


Happy Crafting!
 ~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Lone Star Quilting

I've been slowly making progress on the Lone Star quilt.  The outer border has the feather completely defined and I'm working on putting in the detail quilting around the edges of it.  It takes a while, but I know it will definitely be worth it in the end. 

Here's what it looks like with just the feather defined.  The feather is there...but its not very pronounced.

And here it is with the detailed, micro-quilting around the feather.  It really stands out now!  I have a few pictures below at different angle to show the texture the micro-quilting adds around the feather.

I love these pictures along the length of the border.  It really shows off the difference between the feather quilting and the detailed stitching.

I have the detailed stitching a little less than halfway done on the outer border.  I haven't been able to get to any quilting this week though.  Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in 15 minutes here or there to help make some progress on it.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Ceiling Progress

We made a ton of progress this past week and weekend on the ceiling.  My husband's parents came up again to help us out with the long pieces of molding that needed to be put up on the ceiling.  Due to the length, it was definitely helpful to have two extra people to hold the long boards in place.

At this stage, we have all the molding nailed up onto the ceiling.  Yay!

You can see there are a few bare spots where we already did some sanding.  We have to sand the areas where there are high spots and then spackle them.  Once we clean up the spackle, its time to paint and then the final caulking.

My job so far has been to put the tape on the ceiling while my husband sands.  You can see the painter's tape around a few of the boxes in the two pictures on this post.

So far we really love how the ceiling looks and I'm sure it will look even better once the painting is done and all the blue tape is removed from the walls.

Once we get all the painting done and the pool table is in place, we'll have some folks over to the house for a mini billiards tourney.


Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  The weather was finally pretty nice here in upstate NY.  We had some sun and the temperatures were above freezing during the day.  It was still cold enough at night that we received a dusting of snow each night, but it was gone within a few hours during the day.

I did get some items done this week, but not as much as I would have liked.  I had some medical tests that I had to have run over the past few days, which ended up making it such that I didn't want to do anything.

Here was the list from last week:
1. Finish quilting the border for Lone Star. I didn't get to finish the quilting, but I have about half of the border done.

2. Post pictures of ceiling progress (we should get all the crown up this week). Done.  Posted about it here.
3. Press and photograph Bento Box pieces. Done.  I'll post some pictures here.

4. Setup Wildflower Fields for quilting. No progress.

I really hope to make some progress on the Lone Star quilting this week.  I'm at a stage where I can sit down and do 15-20 minutes of quilting easily and then be able to stop.  I find that when I am at stages where I can do just a little bit at a time, I am able to make more progress.  During the week its sometimes hard to find an hour or two to do something more complicated.

I have a guild meeting tonight, so that means no quilting will happen tonight.  I also have to make sure I start getting to the gym this week, so that will also take up some time.  We only have one full weekend left to finish the ceiling, so we're down to the wire and need a big push to finish that up.  So this week, my list is going to be shorter than normal.  Only two things on it this week...


1. Finish quilting borders on Lone Star.
2. Post pictures for ceiling progress.

Hope everyone has a great week! 

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations