Jelly roll quilt

I don't if you'll remember I posted about a friend purging her quilt supplies and fabric?  I also purchased her Bernina sewing machine.  I think the post was in February 2014.  In the fabric collection I bought there were a few jelly roll packages.  I gave them to my Mom but I kept one for myself.  I read about jelly roll clock races.  I watched a video on YouTube and thought what the heck I'll do that.  It was quick and so easy.  Sewing strip after strip after strip.  I'll add the video at the end of my post.

I loved the process and the feeling of accomplishment in such a short time.  Once I put the quilt top together and found fabric for the back I decided to put a design on the backside of the quilt.  I cut four "fat quarters" into 3 1/2 inch strips.  Did the same process of sewing them together like the jelly roll strips.  I used a nice green fabric for most of the back fabric. I cut the back fabric 4 inches bigger so I could use it as the binding.  I sewed the back together, don't know why I didn't photograph it, but anyways, I used some fabric spray adhesive to put the layers together.  First time using the spray adhesive and it worked nice and held the fabrics really well.  Much easier than basting or pinning.

One of the accessories this machine has is a walking foot and it's amazing.  I had no problem with the fabric layers bunching up.

I machine quilted it by sewing random lines across the width of the quilt.  I love the look of the random-ness of it.  Once I was finished machine quilting I trimmed the back fabric  to 2 1/2 inches and the quilt batting to one inch from the edge of the top.  I turned under the edge to make the binding and mitered the corners.  Worked out perfectly.

Here's the quilt front.  I love the simple but colorful look of it.

This is the back and I love it.  It's the first quilt back I've ever done that's not one solid fabric.  Will be doing this from now on.  Did I just say that????   Yes, I love sewing and this is a great project to do over and over and over again.  I dare you to try it, I would say this is a great  project for beginner could do.

Here's the video...

Sewing onesies!

I have a new great niece and she's the first great niece on my side of the family.  She so darn cute. 

Meet Anaya 

I bought her some onesies and they were the boring plain white style.  I thought how boring I needed to change them up. 

Here's the one I made with linen fabric and tulle overlay.  Adorable!

I used a piece of fabric the size of a quilt fat square and cut it in half lengthwise.  I sewed two side seams to make the skirt.  I did this with both the white linen fabric and the tulle.  To gather the top edge I put both the tulle and linen together and sew two stitch lines  to be able to gather the skirt.

I pulled on the threads of the two stitched lines to gather the top of the skirt.

I used a pencil to make a guide line on the onesie where the skirt will be placed.

Pinned the gathered skirt edge with right sides together. Notice the gathered edge is facing the bottom of the onesie.

Had to take the arm off the machine to make it fit.

Made a wide hem on the linen skirt.

I have this great new sewing machine, but it didn't have a neat edge stitch so back to my older machine.  I used a scallop stitch to edge the tulle skirt part.  So cute and so easy.

I used the same scallop stitch along the neck edges.  It was a good idea but I didn't like the look of it and it stretched out the neck more than I liked.

Check out the rest of the onesies on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/the.brokenwing

Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden - Chihuly Exhibit

Ever since I've been in my painting e-course I've been inspired by what surrounds me.  My brother and I went to the Botanical Garden around the holidays a year ago.  We found it to be a pretty cool place to hang out since it was so festive.  We're like, let's make this a new holiday tradition and come to the Garden every holiday season.  Well "jobi" time didn't allow for that to happen over the holidays.  But, even better I read the Garden was going to have a Chihuly glass exhibit lasting into May.  We went in April and boy what an exhibit and we weren't disappointed!  We got there early to catch all the glass exhibits in the sunlight and we stayed late enough to see all the glass exhibits lit up.  It was a fun night.  I do  think we should make it a tradition to go to the Garden, yearly.  It's always good to spend time with my youngest brother.

Daylight

Night time

Daylight

Evening light

2014 Road Trip - Churches

A common thread of my road trip was coming across churches and taking a moment to sit in the silence.   I love how it feels to sit in that space.  The churches had ornate altars, statues of Saints, beautiful stained glass windows, worn wooden pews, the smell of candles burning, and most of all, the absence of judgement.  Not to get into it too much, I love being in church but not a fan of going to church.  

My Dad told me about a church he read about and even saw a movie about it years ago.  I've been researching what he told me and found the movie and then found the church.  It's in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Our Lady of Light Loretto Catholic Chapel.  The story goes like this, the church burned down and they needed a staircase.  A man showed up and built the staircase.  It's built without nails and wood unknown in the area.  It's beautiful!

The altar is beautiful.

The staircase

Great stained glass windows

Outside the church was this tree filled with rosaries.  An amazing thing.

St Pat's Catholic, North Platte, Nebraska
This is the church I attended as a kid.  It looks very different inside.

St Anthony, a favorite Saint of mine

Touched the water in this many many times!

St Charles Borromeo, North Bend, Nebraska

Loved the interior of this church

Stained glass windows are so beautiful

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Leoville, Kansas

This window was absolutely gorgeous

Our Lady

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Boys Town, Nebraska

 Cathedral of the Epiphany Catholic Church, Sioux City, Iowa

A great tour of catholic churches on this road trip.  I will continue to walk into catholic churches everywhere I travel.  Love the silence of the space, love the peaceful feeling of the space and love spiritual love of the space.

2014 Road Trip - Sierra Blanca, Texas

This is the first Texas town to make a stop in.  It's a dying town.  Met a woman who talked about the town's business was hurt by building I-20.  The Highway was the Main Street but since the I-20 was built no one stops in the town.  

Main Street 

Abandon cafe

The woman owned a shop on Main Street.  It was a shop full of all kinds of stuff, rocks, gems, jewelry, art supplies, party supplies, second hand items, thrift store buys.  She explained how people drop off their junk and she doesn't turn anything away.  Also, no one ever steals anything.  She talked about being very happy living in her town and was gracious for the chat time. 

bottle tree

crate of blue glass

crate of purple glass

I regret not buying up some of her colorful glass!

She said to check out the old church...so here it is.  Mass is no longer held in the church.

2014 Road Trip

I took a month long road trip and traveled 4000 miles through ten states.  In the next few weeks I'm posting some of the coolest things I experienced and saw on my trip.

This post is about a house I found along side US Highway 83 in the middle of Kansas!  I drove pass this beautiful aqua colored abandoned house! 

It was so cool I had to go in.  So I made a U-turn!  It was full of beautiful original wooden floors, wood doors with original knobs, light fixtures, walls of wallpaper, and even a creepy basement…didn’t go down into the basement…shit I’ve watch my share of scary movies!  

basement stairway!

Anyways I really wanted to take the door knobs, the light fixtures, wall paper off the walls!!!!   But all I could think of was karma.  Honestly, if I had had a screw driver and wire cutters I would of ignored karma!  But I would of left $20 bill on the floor just to even out the karma thing. ha ha Okay, okay, okay, I did take some wallpaper, it was peeling off the walls and some newspapers used as padding under the linoleum  floor.  The pages of newspaper were dated 1936.  The upstairs was pretty cool, all original looking wallpapers, small size rooms and neat bathroom fixtures.  You could tell this home was one sweet home sweet home.  Sad to see a house like this get neglected.

yellow kitchen!

front porch!