Long Post

Wow! I actually thought I'd have a post up before now, but since I didn't get one up, you'll get a long one now. Last week DH and I went away for a few days alone. He had planned on bringing his scooter, and I was going to bring my Featherweight, but plans change. He opted to not bring the scooter, so I didn't bring the Featherweight either. I haven't sewn in well over a week! I did, however, bring a cutting project with me.

I am making a quilt for DD#2's bed. I had all the strip sets sewn into tubes like this

 

I needed to get the strip sets all cut into triangles, which takes a while.

 

When you use 2 inch cut strips, the Easy Angle 4 1/2" ruler is exactly the right size to use for this method.

I always have to undo a couple stitches at the top of the triangle, but then you get this squares with diagonal lines. Four of these make a block, you can make X's or O's out of them.

Here is my bin with all the triangles cut, so this project is at the block assembly stage. It will have to wait a bit, as I have other projects with higher priority than it, but at least its ready to go.

While we were gone we went to LOTS and LOTS of thrift stores. Thrift store shopping and antiquing is really the only shopping I enjoy. It's a treasure hunt, and you never know what you will find.

An industrial Singer treadle? I can just imagine the click clacking of the treadles in a room full of them. This stayed at the store.

A Singer 201 that had just been serviced and came with a lovely bunch of attachments? Ah, this one came home with me.

And what other quilty thing did I do on our getaway? I got to see Bonnie K. Hunter in person!

 

DH and I drove up to Cottonwood, AZ so I could crash the Quail Country Quilter's guild meeting and hear Bonnie's lecture. Her lecture was all about the Scrap User System, which I already use, but it was still fun to hear her in person. I also bought one of the elusive seam guides that she sells, since I didn't want to wait for her next book to come out, and I already have all the ones she currently has out.

Since I have been following Bonnie for years, long before her first book, it was funny to me that so many of the women in the guild had never heard of her. I had several women ask me if I knew she had a website, and I just smiled and said that I did. I know she ended up with some converts to using leaders/enders, and maybe even a couple to the scrap user system. I am glad I found quiltville so early on in my quilting. Scrappy quilts are my absolute favorite, so her methods work well for me.

I know some women have trouble using their strips once they've cut them, but one of the things I've done that helps is buy several quilting books that are for jelly rolls or honey buns. I even have a book that uses all 2" cut strips. Now I have lots of patterns by several designers that all use my pre-cut sizes. I've never bought a jelly roll, and don't ever plan to, but I have plenty of 2 1/2" strips to use in a jelly roll pattern.



It was fun seeing Bonnie's quilts in person. I have seen photos of all of them, but I was amazed how different the colors are in person.

      
I couldn't help it, I just had to look for millennium fabrics in her quilts, and I found several, but here is one.

Of course I also kept going, I have that fabric, and this one, and this one.... Fun, fun stuff!!!