Friday, July 11, 2014

45 degree tractor tire tracks quilt block

I was looking for a tractor tire track to put on my memory quilt and couldnt find one so I had my husband figure up the formula for the real 45 degree tire and then I made a pattern from that. I figured since I couldn't find one on the net, I would share mine.

     

The formula hubbs came up with is this: You figure out what size you want the "slug" or track and then the distance between the two tracks is half that and then the distance between the two tracks on the other side is 2.5 times that.

Here my plan for this border. Please note: some of the most basic details have been left out, if they need to be put in for clarity, please let me know.

I wanted a 6 inch border but I needed to make it look like tractor tracks in a 6 inch space so the smallest I could go would be a half inch so I decided that the track would be one inch, the small distance would be half inch and the large distance would be 2.5 inches but when I put it on there, that didnt look like a tractor track and so I reduced that one down to 2 inches. I added the extra for seam allowances and started to cut.

Heres what I did:


Cut a strip 1" wide, and 2.5" wide of the light tan, and a strip 1.5" wide of the dark and arrange them with the dark strip in the middle like this...


Then sew the strips together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.





Then cut the finished strip into 6.5" blocks




and arrange like the friendship braid,





Lay one right piece and one left piece, right sides together, sew a ¼ inch seam allowance and you wind up with what looks like tractor tracks, but lets clean it up a bit.


Lay a 6" ruler down where the top tips of the tracks are hitting on either side of the center line like shown in the below picture.  



Trim, 


I added an inch wide border on either side of the tracks and added it to my quilt. Looks good eh? 

Enjoy this tut! Please let me know if there needs to be more details or if ive messed something up. 

TTFN

Monday, June 2, 2014

My new craft room (The big reveal)

MY CRAFT ROOM IS FINISHED!!

I've been waiting for about 10 years for this room to get finished. It was only worked on during vacations and various off days towards the end of this construction.

Moving in this room was a mess because I am into sooo many crafts and so organizing this room into sections was hard. It still isn't done right but as the days go by, I will arrange it better to suit my needs. Also, decorating will come later. This is a 15' x 13' room plus a large closet.

Enough babble, on with the pictures!! These were all taken at night because I couldn't wait to share with you.

Warning: this post is very picture heavy.

I'll put descriptions under each of the pictures. (click on any picture to embiggin.)



 A view from the door.


 First lets talk about this amazing table. Hubbs and I sat down and discussed what I wanted in a table and he took those things and mixed them with his engineering mind and ran with them! First, Check out the rulers he inset for me on 2 sides of the desk.


Shelf space on one side of the table.



More shelf space AND he made me 2 drawers for my stuff.


He inset my machine. One of my favorite features!


I have a space to hang all my rulers. And he made the desk have its own electricity. I have but to plug it in. Check out that power strip!


There is an outlet on the other side with a switch to turn the desk on or off.


Another outlet under the sewing machine well exclusively for the sewing machine and the light. How cool is that?? The whole thing is on casters so I can move it if I need/want to. I have an amazing desk to craft on thanks to my hubbs!!


Here is the yarn that would fit in my cubbies out in the room. I didnt know how to sort it so I did it by brand and type of yarn. The stuff in the basket is some of my cotton. There are scrap balls of yarn, current WIP's, and various other things in those brown baskets in the cubbies.


 Here is the rest of my cotton and around the corner there you can see my other machine and my serger.


And here is some of the yarn that didnt fit out in the room. There are 5 bins and 4 boxes plus a few straggler skeins. I also have a full bin of fun fur type yarn and another one of ladder yarn. I think I have too much yarn, Imma put some up on ebay. Hubbs said I needed to get to knittin...LOL



Here are all my knitting needles and a few tools. Off to the right of this picture is my swift and ball winder. and styrofoam head and shirt form and I have put the extension to our landline phone up here too so I dont kill myself running down the stairs to get the phone.


Here is some of my fabric. There is a bin full in the closet as well. I havent folded everything nice and neat but thats ok. I will eventually. My laptop is there too so I can keep in touch, look up patterns, or watch a tutorial while Im up here in the room. Also, I must have my music while Im working so, Pandora is always playing. Current sewing projects are in those cream color baskets in the cubbies.


Those drawers in the closet are all my scrap fabric. My sock blockers on the door.


He built me a little box to put my thread in for now, (actually this was a reject drawer and I snatched it up to use for my thread)


Here is my design wall and the rod hanging at the top is to display my latest quilt for picture taking and whatnot.

 Here is the embroidery section of the room. The bottom 2 drawers here are embroidery thread and the top two drawers are various beads. The third drawer has all my crochet needles in it. The 4th drawer has various glues and glue gun. The box next to the drawers was some of my mothers crafting stuff I still havent gone thro and put with my stuff.

My built in bookshelves. I still need to get some magazine holders, those are on the floor because they dont fit. :( Ive got my button collections there in those tins.



I decided to put my ironing station just on the other side of the desk because I couldnt figure out where would be the best place. This will do for now.

Im soooo proud of my new room and now the rest of the house will get a thorough cleaning now that my crap isnt shoved in whatever corner I could get it in.

My craft room is far from done. I still need to work in there for a while to get a feel for how I want stuff and I still want to decorate some, but I have been blessed with a space to create and for that I am truly grateful. Not to mention I can shut the door and get away for a bit.

TTFN

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

"Barnyard Happenings" Days of the Week flour sack towels.


I've been doing some embroidery work!

"Barnyard Happenings" Days of the Week flour sack towels. 





I thought I would share my pictures with yall since there aren't very many finished pictures of these out there to reference. I do hope these help someone.


Here they are individually: (click on any of them to embiggin.)

















The quality of these pictures are as good as my little feeble skills can muster. Sorry.

I hope you enjoy!

TTFN

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Aimee's Camouflage Rag Quilt


So my friend Aimee sent me a picture on facebook of a camo rag quilt and said "I WANT" Im a sucker so I caved and made her one. 

I went with 7 inch blocks and with 1/2 inch seam allowances, these are 6 inch finished blocks. The square of flannel that is in between is cut to 6 inch squares to avoid the seams.

The whole blanket measured 55x60 inches.



Here is the finished blankie. Aimee loves it!




Here is a close up.

I went with cotton fabric and the batting is a square of flannel.

The fabric came from this store: http://stores.ebay.com/Fabrics-From-The-Heart?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

And for those of you who need some help making one of these, here is a great tutorial:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0UQgeol-Zk