When the Stars Align

So, last Tuesday, a week ago, I had gotten tickets to tour the Missouri Star Warehouse in Hamilton.  I had 4 tickets, so David and I met my Mom and Dad there.  It was an hour long tour and was amazing, but you couldn't take any photos!  We saw the shipping area with all the boxes, the cool automatic box taper, the conveyor belts, and then moved on to the cutting area where they cut all the yardage orders.  Each worker cuts like 200+ orders a day, and they only have to change their rotary blades once a week!  I'd like to get that kind of action from a rotary blade.  And they gave each of us a bundle of fabric!  It was pieces from the ends of bolts.  Each bundle had 2 large pieces of 108" backing fabric and then 2 smaller pieces, one of a white and one black.  So, all 4 of us walked out with a bundle of fabric.  Then we went to the quilting room...............30 longarm quilting machines, 3 per worker, and each machine does 2 quilts per shift and there are 2 shifts, so that's 120 quilts a day!   David kept pointing things out to me and saying, that's just like you do it, or that's like you have yours set up.  And we saw the racks and racks and racks of quilts on hangers waiting to be quilted!  They even overflowed into the next area!  Then we got to see the machines that cut and etch all the templates.  David was particularly interested in these.  We were allowed to ask lots of questions and they were so nice to answer all of them.  It was definitely worth the price of admission (btw, the tickets were free).

In the afternoon, David and I also visited the Missouri Quilt Museum.  It is housed in the old schoolhouse and is not a part of Missouri Star, but they do support it.  It was amazing and full of interesting things.  I took so many photos that I will divide them into different posts.  There was a room of Jenny Doan's (Missouri Star) quilts.  These were all star quilts. 

I really liked this one.  It's not a Missouri Star pattern.  I may have to try to find the pattern to make it.

This was Jenny's All Star Block of the Month.  

And here is the same quilt in a different colorway.

This one is called Wonky Stars.

And another star quilt...........sorry, didn't get the name on this one.  

A string star wall hanging with an impressive display of thimbles.  The museum has so much more than quilts.  There were many rooms, three floors, and lots of sewing items on display.

And this one was called Night Sky.

There were some antique sewing machines on display in the room as well.

And I loved this yellow featherweight with its unusual cabinet.  Even the foot pedal was yellow!

And there was a Cadillac!  

The next room housed antique friendship quilts.  I believe they were all hand quilted.  I took a few photos of them.  Note the dates on this one.......begun in April 1889 and finished in August 1890!

And this one with the flowers...........

A close up of some of the names..............

Stay tuned for more from the quilt museum.  There was an admission price, but it was worth it, even though they didn't give us a free bundle of fabric!

Christi

Sewing Room Catch Up

 Another UFO will soon be checked off!  This is Triple Treat, Bonnie Hunter's Leader/Ender project for the year.  You started with little 4 patches from light/dark 1.5" squares, and then put them together with bricks and squares from 2.5" strips.  This was a great way to use up a lot of those scraps and I really enjoyed making the blocks, but I can honestly say that this is NOT my favorite quilt.  

I laid the blocks out and then turned it over to David to arrange as he saw fit.  

He went through several options...........

And finally settled on one.  Of course, Cici and Esme did a little arranging too, so this might not actually be how it turned out.  

I quilted it in a basket weave pattern using gold thread (gold improves everything, right?) yesterday and am working on the binding made from scrap black bindings from other projects.  I think the quilting and binding improve it, but I'll let you be the judge when you see a finished quilt photo.  I also made a scrappy backing from fabrics that I didn't love.  Somehow, in all the measuring, I flipped some numbers.  I didn't discover this until I was 2/3 done with the quilting.  That's when I realized that the backing wasn't long enough.  Well, I wasn't going to take it off and add a little strip and then reload and try to line everything up again, so I just ripped off the last row and called it good.  After all, who will really know?  Just you and I know you won't tell.

Now this next one might be my favorite finish in awhile.  And it's definitely my oldest UFO.  I don't know when I started the barn block embroidery for the Appalachian Memories quilt, but I'm thinking it's been 8-9 years.  Attending that track meet in Nebraska helped finish up the last block.  When it came to setting them together, I didn't like the way the pattern looked.  I finally realized it wasn't the design of the sashing and cornerstones, but the size of them.  Theirs were 8 inches wide and really overpowered the barn blocks.  I made mine half size and think it turned out great.  I will get it quilted one of these days.  Ideas for quilting are still percolating.  I have a cream tone on tone backing for it and the binding is ready.

And Cats in Space is a flimsy as well.  This will be for Sarah for Christmas.  Shh!  She hasn't seen it, so don't tell.  Remember, she doesn't read this blog, so we're safe showing it here.  This was so fun to make.  I did have to breathe into a paper bag before taking the completed blocks and just willy nilly tilting them and slicing off corners to make them appear to be floating in space.  I have the backing and binding ready and know how I think I want to quilt it, so just need to get brave enough to do it.

Now this next one is not a UFO.  I just got the pattern recently and couldn't wait to make it.  The picture doesn't do the color justice.  It's called Love Stinks!  It was a blast to make!  I have the backing and binding ready, and pretty much know how I want to quilt it.

  

And I did a mystery for my guild..........the Christi Mystery!  The first clue was given at our February meeting, and everyone is supposed to have a completed top to show at our meeting this week.  It was pretty easy and I'm sure most had it figured out to be a log cabin by the second clue.  Everyone could choose their own fabrics.  I had a specific layout in mind for the 16 blocks, but tried out some other arrangements before sewing mine together...............

It was a difficult choice, but I went with my original plan, below.  

I had some scraps of the dark colors left, so added a skinny neutral border and then a pieced border from the dark scraps.  It's all quilted and bound, but I don't have a photo yet.  Stay tuned for that one and more from the meeting this week.

Christi

The Time Changed and We're Out of Sorts!

 Well, the time change sort of snuck up on us.  No, we weren't late to church thanks to the fact that I don't sleep well and woke up at 5:20 and had the weird thought that maybe I should check my phone which listed the correct time as 6:20.  We are normally right on top of things and reset all the clocks the night before, but this time, well, we had other things on our minds.

Flooring!  No, it's not done yet, but we are in the process of tearing everything out to get ready and what a mess.  Cici, Esme, and Willow are pretty much distraught at the state of things.

The tractor and wagon are backed up to the back door to haul away the old stuff.

This is the current state of the dining room.  A week ago I had emptied the corner cabinet and put all of the china in big coolers and stacked them on the back porch in true redneck fashion.  The old carpet was pulled up Saturday.  And the piano was rolled in from the living room.  Yes, it will make for some interesting piano lessons tomorrow!  (I have postponed all of the Wednesday lessons until Thursday because the kiddos are out of school that day and supposedly everything will be back to normal in the house by then.............I'll believe it when I see it.)

Willow walks in the back door and just stops.  She doesn't like the current state of the floor in the dining room.  It was very sad last night when I was making pizza in the kitchen and she had to look in the window.  Pizza is one of her favorite things!  Apparently I drop a lot of toppings on the floor.  She cried outside, but wouldn't come in.

The spare bedroom............this is very upsetting to Cici.  This was her room.  She had a special spot on the bed which is now tilted up against the wall in our bedroom, and all of the other furniture and carpet is missing.  She keeps walking past her bed in our room and tries to figure out what to do with herself.  I know she slept on the floor at the bottom of the steps last night where she could keep an eye on her bedroom and her bed in our bedroom.

And this is our bedroom with lots of extra stuff piled in.  Esme is concerned by all the stuff that has accumulated around her cat tower in front of the window.  

Well, as I have been writing this, most of the living room carpet has disappeared.  Unfortunately, the kitchen tile is not going to come up nearly as quickly.  We worked with heat guns last night and after half an hour had 2 and a half tiles up.  Stay tuned.

And stay tuned for a couple more posts............we took a trip to Hamilton last week, and I have several quilting projects to share!

Christi

Watch your step!

 We had been talking (way back) about getting rid of the carpet in the dining room and doing some kind of hard floor.  Well, when the hubs was bored because we didn't have pigs for 3 weeks, he decided it was time to do something about it.  Now, let me say that you have to be careful what you ask for, because you can walk in your door and find he's already torn something apart and is working on it.  I have learned to say (frequently), that I'm not sure yet and let's think about it.  So in all that thinking, we are now getting new flooring in the dining room, kitchen, living room, spare bedroom and hallway.  

Of course, picking it out was another drawn out affair.  We looked at Lowes, Menards, Home Depot, Sutherlands, and just weren't jumping for joy over any of the selections.  The flooring companies all have these neat web features where you can upload photos of your home and then "try" different floors in the space.  

Here are the photos we used..........

Notice my Singer 301 and a bag of show and tell in the right of the above picture ready to go to a quilt guild meeting.

And how many photos have a four-legged friend in them?

While this was fun to do, it really made me see things I didn't like.  We finally went to our local flooring place and found TOO MANY options.  They had us bring several things home to look at...........

So many choices...........I sent pics to family for input, put the photos on my piano student facebook page asking which flooring would enhance their piano lesson experience, etc.  Opinions varied greatly.  I had to inform one piano mom that we couldn't do the really light flooring because Willow would blend in and become a trip hazard.  We are getting older you know and have to worry about trip hazards!

So, the final decision was made by ESME!  We just put the planks out and let her walk on them and the one she settled on was the winner!  Want to know what she chose?  

Obviously making this decision was exhausting.  And, she's not telling yet.  You'll just have to wait and see.  We ordered it and it was supposed to come in yesterday.  We'll get on the short list for installation.  I'll post pics when it's complete!

In the meantime, the hubs occupied himself repainting Sarah's room (without her permission!).  She still doesn't know and won't until she comes home to see us.  We'll see if she even notices.

Christi