From Messy To Clean And Usable

I showed you this photo of my flannel board with some of the stuff removed a couple of blog posts ago.  Kind of messy around the edges and the center looked the same before I cleaned that area off so I would have a neutral background to snap my photo.  After getting the photo I looked at all the stuff I removed and decided to sort and put away or throw away  and remove the rest to make it usable as a design board or quilt display area again.
This is how it looks now – big difference isn’t it?  I have hung a few of my favorite small quilts for display.  Upper left a miniature given to me by my friend Geta Gramma from Romanian Quilt Studio.  Check out her blog, Geta’s Quilting Studio too.  The next one to the right is one I made my mother in law many years ago.  She died a few years ago and now this makes me think of her every time I look at it.  Next is a postcard made by Geta Grama.  The bird wall hanging was made by my friend Margaret.  The small blue one under the far left quilt by Geta is a piece I bought in Paducah of Hmong applique.  I thought I might stitch it into something but so far I haven’t come up with an idea for it.  The largest quilt is the one I just finished.

I like that it is cleaned off and now can use it again, beside the fact that it makes my sewing room/studio a little neater looking.  At least on the wall it is neater looking but my sewing table is full of pieces and parts of my current project which I will show you in a while after I get it finished.

Until Later,
Lynn

New Mini Quilt

The new flannel board is coming in really handy already. I started two new quilts yesterday and have the strips of fabric arranged in order for the almost identical quilts. These quilts are being made for a set of bunked doll beds I have had for a few years. Have pinned the pattern and the two blocks I have finished to the board as paper will not stick to the flannel but the insulation board and the foam backing on the headliner cloth makes it easy to pin.

I used EQ6 to design the quilt - see photo below. That is the plan to start with anyway. The colors on the printout from EQ6 are only an estimation to just give me an idea of what they will look like together. I don't worry about matching the exact fabric just use color to get an approximation. The second quilt will be pieced the same with the tessellated leaves but will have the fabrics in a different order.

I can only piece one block at a time to make sure to get the right colors in the right places. These blocks will finish .75" so am working with tiny pieces. It is slow going but that is OK. I may think differently when I get to the second quilt though - there are 40 blocks total in the quilts.

Will probably piece the background blue border in larger strips with the half square triangles but this is the only way I know how to do it when designing on EQ to make it come out looking right.

Might not get too much done on the piecing today as I think I had better bite the bullet and get outside and dig up the plants I want to over winter in the house. It is supposed to get pretty cold tonight and would hate to loose them. Saves money in the spring besides the plants are bigger to start out the spring.

Just spell checked this blog - thank goodness we have that option as there were plenty of errors. My spelling and typing can be bad at times! I try to re-read every blog to make sure it makes sense but can still miss some spelling errors.

One of my grandsons birthday is today - he is 6 and so excited for the birthday party for his friends on Saturday and his family on Sunday. Always fun to see the faces of our grandkids when they open birthday gifts and when we sing Happy Birthday to them. Can't wait to see all 4 of our grandkids on Sunday, it is always a fun time. We also want to see our daughters and husbands too, didn't mean to leave them out.

Lynn

Flannel Board & Pressing Board

Today my sewing room looks a little different. I have a new flannel board and a new large pressing board. Have had the supplies for a while but couldn't do it all myself and needed John to help me a little.

I had one of those Block Butler design wall systems but after a while it wouldn't stick to the wall and would not hold anything without pins. I rinsed it with water like the instructions to clean it but it just got worse. I had nothing behind it so all the pins were going into the wall and I sure didn't like that.

For those that don't know what a Block Butler design wall is, this is what I know. It looks like a flat batting but is tacky on both sides. One side is suppose to stick to walls, etc. and not fall down. To be fair, it did work great in the beginning. The front side is also tacky and it was to hold the fabric and blocks like design walls are supposed to. It held fabrics really well at first but always did have problems with holding blocks that were sewn.

I just got tired of messing with it so got a piece of rigid foam insulation and taped my fabric over the back with duct tape. I chose headliner fabric because I read it works better than flannel and besides I could not find any wide flannel and found this at a JoAnn's store. (Headliner fabric is used on the ceilings of cars.) This fabric has a napped front and about a 1/4 foam backing. Will let you know if I have problems with it.

I just pulled it tight as I was taping it - John helped me by cutting the 6" pieces of tape and having them ready for me to grab. We got it on the wall and he attached it with dry wall screws. We used 6 screws across the top and bottom and 7 along each side. So far things are really clinging to it. I have it about 3 feet behind my sewing machine so I can just turn around and place things or take things off when I am sewing.

The second project he helped me work on was to make a large pressing board. I followed Sharon Schamber's directions in the free video on her website and it worked great. Check out her other free videos while you are there too. http://www.sharonschambernetwork.com/free_area/free.html

I was worried after I got the fabric all stapled on that it was too loose but then Sharon's instructions say to spray it until wet and it was like magic the wrinkles disappeared and it tightened up around the board. You have to use unwashed canvas for it to shrink so that is something to remember especially if you always wash your fabrics when you bring them home - DON'T WASH THE CANVAS!!

This large pressing board sits on the top of the old kitchen island cupboard that we moved into the sewing room.

To keep it from slipping and sliding off the cupboard I had John put some 2"x2" pieces of wood along the sides.

As you can see from this photo of the backside the boards don't come all the way to the corners - they really don't need to. We set the boards in about 1/4" from the edge of the cupboard top so it would be easy to put on and take off but would still keep the board from getting dragged or bumped off. John used screws to attach the side boards and I had to check each one as he was putting it in since they were almost a little too long. I could feel the tip of one so had him back off the screw a little as I didn't want it coming through the fabric on the front.

The green you see is the felt that I spray glued to the backside to cover the wood and the staples used to attach the canvas. Sprayed the felt on some newspapers laid out in the garage then quickly brought it into the house and laid it in place. Didn't want any of the over spray getting on my floors or furniture. That stuff doesn't come off very good - at least my experience with sticky floors and kitchen cupboards one other time were a mess to clean.

This board is pretty heavy so don't think I will be moving it very often. I did have John cut 3 smaller boards 16" x 20" and round the corners. A couple of friends plan to come over and we will cover them for more portable pressing surfaces.

Now I need to get something "quilty" going so I can test out my two new things.

Until later....
Lynn