Threads of Mine

Ruthie’s Quilting

2020-02-09T23:06:00.000-05:00

I am not posting regularly on my blog. Check out my website:
Ruthiesquilting.com or my Ruthie’s Quilting Facebook page.

Oopsy

2019-06-10T18:37:00.000-04:00

We had a little excitement here today. Melanie was here picking up her serviced Featherweight and Cathy was here picking up a roll of batting. We were all talking and then, bang, the rod that I hang quilt tops in waiting splintered as you can see here. I guess I put one too many on that rod.

The bracket bent significantly as you can see and I've been to Lowe's for a new bracket and rod.

In other news, I attended Quilts For Kids on Saturday and put binding on these 4 charity quilts.

I actually loaded these 4 on the same backing piece to quilt all at once. What a great idea.

Jelly Roll Rugs

2019-03-15T08:06:00.002-04:00

On Wednesday I taught another Jelly Roll Rug Class at Sisters Too Viking Sewing Shop. These rugs are so cute and I love making them. 4 out of 9 students had their ropes all made and the other students just had their strips sewn together.

Everyone at least got started on sewing the rug together, but 5 had their rugs done at the end of the class. There were some curvy ones and I hope they can be ironed out. I haven't ever had a big problem with curvy or wonky rugs. My sewing machine sits down into a table, so my surface is perfectly flat. Maybe that makes a difference. Anyway, it was a fun day.

Last night I completed making my rope for the demo rug and started on putting it together.

April 13th there will be another class at Sisters Too for the Rectangle Jelly Roll Rug. We probably should have scheduled them the other way around. Oh Well.

January Week 1 Quilting

2019-01-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

I started the year off with a bang. 4 of my own UFOs have been quilted, have binding sewn on by machine and are awaiting hand sewing. One is in progress while we watch Frontier on Netflix.

Here's my Quilt In A Day Braid quilt, assembled in 2012, according to this blog.

Mary'l Love and Roses panel quilt with Hearts and Roses quilting.

This is Marietta's Double Wedding Ring quilt. It has been waiting months to be done. I was feeling very intimidated by it but I told her it would be done in 2018. I was 2 days late, but I love it and I think it was worth the wait.

New granddaughter, Gracie's pink foxy quilt.

Gracie made this beautiful cancer ribbon quilt and I quilted it with Cancer Awareness Ribbon panto.

This is a tshirt quilt made by April with Turbulence quilting.

Week 1 challenge - Clean My Sewing Room

2019-01-07T09:24:00.001-05:00

Week 1 Challenge was met and my sewing room was cleaned up.

Many 2.5" strips were cut from excess muslin backings.

My Serger, Featherweight, Bernina and Embroidery machines have a nice spot under wire shelving.

I organized all my batiks and then hours later found these lost souls. I wasn't in the mood to find a place for them, so here they sit.

This is my Civil War stash for a half-square triangle swap I'm in with Carol Hopkins. It's not very much but certainly overflowing the tote.

This fabric organizer tote is full of scraps, little scraps that need to be pressed, cut and put into the appropriate container.

2018 In Review

2019-01-03T09:29:00.000-05:00

Here are the spools/cones that I emptied in 2018. It was a very productive year for me.

I quilted 278 quilts on the longarm.

39 of those 278 were quilts made by me.
11 for Quiltmaker or Craftsy.
9 were memory/t-shirt quilts
6 were donation quilts
9 were made for family members
2 gifted to non-family and
2 for me

I completed 10 UFOs, made countless hexagon coasters, 13 drawstring jewelry bags, 5 jelly roll rugs, a project bag, a fabric notebook cover, and added 8 new UFOs to my list.

My goals for this year are: Use what I have, clean it up, make room.
I joined a 52 Week Challenge group and the first week is organize your sewing space. Here's my before pics:

Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Mystery, Good Fortune

2018-11-27T10:56:00.001-05:00

I have finished the first clue to this years mystery quilt. I'm not sure I will keep up but I'm going to try.

Last week I purchased a new-to-me 1948 Featherweight from a friend who's husband got it at a sale. Dan did a once-over on it and it sews like a dream.

Here's my Clue 1 pieces:

The whole bunch of them:

Look at these cute neutral fabrics:

A martini and potato chips! How fun!

Bloglovin

2018-08-22T10:32:00.001-04:00

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Birthday Quilts

2018-06-02T20:14:00.000-04:00

Planning to make a quilt for Bella’s birthday, I asked Kathy what she likes. Butterflies, mermaids, My Little Pony, Hello Kitty, and Peppa Pig, so a trip to Joanns for a half-yard of the last three. The rest was already in my sewing room just waiting for the perfect quilt.

I got all the pieces cut and enlisted Elizabeth’s help in laying the pieces out while I stayed with the kids last weekend. It was sewn together Sunday/Monday. Quilted on Tuesday.

I was planning to make a pillowcase for the quilt and one for her brother, Robbie, too. Then I decided to make him a quilt also. Jason said he likes dinosaurs, so the search for Dino quilts began. I saw this cute panel. What could be easier than adding borders to a panel? Perfect fabrics in my stash for this one too!

Quilted on Friday morning, bound Friday evening. Pillowcases were made this morning.

I think they like them!

Shipshewana Spring 2018

2018-04-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

Here's the email I just sent to those attending the May retreat in Shipshewana.

Can you believe it's April 9th already and here in Lafayette it's snowing again. It's supposed to be in the 70s later this week.

In a little over 5 weeks we will be enjoying our retreat in Shipshewana. It seems like it takes forever to get here, and then the time finally comes and then it's over, just like that! Here are some need-to-know details of the retreat. If you have attended in the past, much of the information is the same.

I hope you are all as excited as I am to be preparing for the Threads of Mine/The Quilting Room Retreat in Shipshewana. This Spring we are happy to have some members of The Quilting Room FB group join us again. Since we have quilters from across the United States, I will have a map at the retreat showing where we are all from. We all have the same passion and love to share our ideas. Some of the best friendships start at a quilting retreat.

Quilters Garage Sale
We will have a table for you to place quilt related items for sale. You price them and include your name. All items must be taken with you if they don't sell. (Judy Clare has a set of Red Snappers to sell for $25. She will bring them if someone might be interested.)

Directory
I'm putting together a directory which will include: name, address, phone, email. If you do NOT want your information published, please let me know by May 1st. If your information has changed from last year or there was an error in the directory last year, let me know that also.

Arrival/Departure Time
The retreat begins at 11:00 am on Thursday, May 17. The doors will be open by 11:00 am, but may be open earlier if we are done with setup.
Checkout time on Sunday is 11:00 am and we must be out of the sewing room by 11:00 am also.

Room Setup
The room will be setup much like the Fall retreats as we have 70 quilters attending. Each quilter will have an 8' table. (You may bring your small sewing table.) There will be several ironing stations around the room, so it isn't necessary to bring an iron, although you may if you wish. We tend to trip circuit breakers if we have too many irons. The Farmstead Inn provides us with extension cords, surge protectors, a waste basket and chair at each table. I prefer to bring my own chair with wheels. If you are not flying in and have room it's a good idea.

Show & Tell
I expect everyone to participate in Introductions on Thursday night at 7:30 and we will have Show & Tell on Friday and Saturday nights at around 7:30-8:00, with group pictures immediately following on Saturday. Your Show and Tell does not have to be made at the retreat. You may bring other projects to show. How about bringing a project you started at a previous retreat? These are the only scheduled events at the retreat.

Breakfast
A nice continental breakfast is served each morning in the dining area. Your other meals are on your own and there are lots of possibilities to choose from.

Drinks and Snacks
Coffee is provided in our kitchen area and also a couple other locations at the Farmstead Inn. We will have soft drinks, water and ice available. You may bring a snack to share, but no crock pots, please. There is very limited mini-fridge space. Paper plates, napkins and silverware will be provided. The Farmstead Inn is smoke-free and alcohol-free. Any room with evidence is considered in violation of this policy and will be charged and additional $150.

To commemorate our this years retreat you may purchase a pin or charm. See attachment for details.
Pin: $4 - 3/4" pin with a 2018 quilt block
Charm: $4 - 1/2" charm with a 2018 quilt block
If you would like to place an order for one of these items, let me know by May 1st.

I'm still working on shirts, bags and mugs.

If this is your first retreat at the Farmstead Inn, you will pull into the drive and continue around the building to the back side. Enter at the Conference Center entrance and we will have luggage carts at the doors for your convenience. The guest rooms will not be available until 3:00 pm.

If you have a friend attending that does not have email, please share this with them.
Any other questions, please let me know.

Welcome Back.

2018-02-17T14:07:00.002-05:00

I was looking for a quilt pattern today and knew I had a picture on my blog, so here I am. Decided to post while I was here.

What's new?

I have a new website, created by me and Go Daddy's Website Builder. My old website was done by my husband using Front Page. Boy was that a long time ago. Ruthies Quilting celebrated 10 years last July. I should add up how many quilts have been quilted on Mabel. Last year was around 270.

This past week at Ruthie's Quilting:

I made this quilt for Craftsy and I love how it turned out. It went together perfectly and I have already gone through my batik totes to pick out the 16 FQs to cut up and take to my retreat March 1.

I quilted this for Debbie this week. The backing was a thick furry purple. I failed to get a pic of the back, but it looked awesome with the Ripples quilting.

Testing my new PC

2017-11-13T10:22:00.002-05:00

I got a new laptop yesterday and I'm hoping it plays better with my iPhone and blogger than my Toshiba

Marietta's black and whites.

Cushions, Cushions, and More Cushions

2017-07-14T17:39:00.002-04:00

My son and daughter-in-law asked me to make cushions for their outdoor furniture. If I had known how much work and how expensive the foam is, I would have given them a Lowe's gift card.
Here's one seat pad. I have 7 more of these and 8 seat backs, and a love seat pad and 2 backs.

Grandma's Kitchen Block 2/25, Sticky Buns

2017-07-06T16:57:00.000-04:00

Grandma's Kitchen Block #2 was posted yesterday, but it was a busy day, so I didn't get a chance to work on it until this morning. I'm using all solids in my quilt, leftovers from Amish With a Twist, remember? Well, Pat used a stripe and a check, which she added to her mix of fabrics and suggested everyone do. I'm one to follow directions, ha-ha, so I made two blocks today, one with stripes and one with solids.

Solid Blocks 1/25 and 2/25 together

Grandma's Kitchen Sew Along

2017-07-02T15:09:00.001-04:00

I know, I know, I have plenty of UFOs to finish, but I just couldn't resist Pat Sloan's new Sew Along Grandma's Kitchen. When I saw the first post about it, I was thinking of the shoe tote with Amish With A Twist leftovers. I took these fabrics to Butler with me for Crazy Mom's workshop but changed my mind and used the Scrap Bag Challenge fabrics.

My Grandparents lived in Green Bay, WI and we only visited a few times each year, usually holidays. I don't ever remember them coming to Indiana, but they may have. Grandma's house was spotless. "A place for everything and everything in it's place" was her motto. I actually lived with them for a month in the second grade while my mom was in the hospital. My job each week was to dust the baseboards. I don't recall my mother dusting the baseboards weekly, but again, maybe I just don't remember.

Another funny memory was at holiday dinners, all 6 of my girl cousins and I ate in our slips. Our fancy dresses were removed and a napkin was tucked into our slips. I'll have to see if I have any photos of those dinners.

Anyway, back to my block.
Solid fabrics make the neatest, crispest blocks. I'm pretty happy with my first block.

Crazy Mom Quilts Workshop

2017-06-26T18:41:00.001-04:00

A week ago Saturday, my friend Annette and I drove up to Butler Indiana to attend a workshop with Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts. I used to read her blog faithfully, but I haven't been doing much blog reading lately. Facebook seems to take my online time. Maybe I will get back into the
swing of things. Anyway back to the workshop.

We were required to have the book "No Scrap Left Behind". There are several quilts that I would be interested in making but I couldn't decide which one. I actually took along leftovers from Matt's quilt that are all browns tans and creams, the leftovers from Amish with a twist three, and I also took a bag of scraps that I got from our local quilts for kids scrap bag challenge. This was a grocery bag with scraps to use to make a quilt.

After seeing Amanda's quilts I decided to go with the Scrap Bag Challenge. Here are some of my scraps cut into strips.

And here are some of my blocks that have been trimmed.

Here are the blocks in the pattern layout. We were trying to decide what color to make the big blocks and Terry suggested Spring Green. The day went by really fast and before long it was time to pack up and go home.

That night I was showing my husband the blocks and I was looking for a fabric with polkadots on it for the small squares. In my polkadot drawer and there was this pink and brown fabric and he said that's the one you need to use for the big squares. I found another with bigger circles that I fussy cut for the small squares.

Here's the top:

I quilted it and then asked for his opinion on the binding. LOL. He's pretty good with picking out colors. Since there's so much pink in this quilt we actually decided on a pink binding.

And I'm handstitching that down now.

Bus trip.

2017-04-07T08:14:00.003-04:00

On a bus with 49 other quilters from Common Threads Quilt Guikd in our way to the Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton Missouri. Pictures to come.

Beat the Blues Days 20 & 21

2017-02-23T21:57:00.000-05:00

Monday I worked on a quilt for Quiltmaker. Of course I can't show you the whole thing but here's a little peek.

Tuesday I loaded this quilt for a special friend. She doesn't know I'm quilting it so I'm anxious for next week.
Here's a peek of this one.

Beat the Blues Day 19

2017-02-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

This morning I finished this quilted wall hanging for Barbara

I how it turned out and she was happy when she picked it up thus afternoon.

I loaded this 103" x 90" top and am quilting small, medium, large spirals from the bottom to top.

Way more than 20 again today.

Beat the Blues Days 17 & 18

2017-02-18T22:33:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I quilted these 3 quilts for Darle. I'll work on the binding next week. I haven't taken full shots of them yet.

Today I went to a guild sewing day for a few hours then visited Camp Tecumseh Quilt Camp. Came home and worked on this quilt of Barbara's.

Ok, now I'm caught up again.

Beat the Blues Days 15 & 16

2017-02-18T22:25:00.001-05:00

So, on Wednesday and Thursday I quilted these two quilts for Stephanie. They were both large quilts and took a good part of each day.

Turbulence quilting on this one.

Square Spiral quilting here.

Wednesday evening was Common Threads guild meeting with a program by Margie Towry, one of the founding members of the guild. She hasn't belonged for years but does beautiful appliqué.

Thursday evening was the Blue Star Mothers meeting. Always a good time planning how we can help our deployed troops.

Beat the Blues Day 14

2017-02-14T23:42:00.001-05:00

This was a busy day, quilting and otherwise. I loaded Mary's Buffalo Bubblegum quilt and started quilting first thing. This one got custom quilting. Something I don't do very much of. I had a good start on it and took a break to browse a Facebook. There was a post on Jamie Wallens page and in the comments he was talking about doing all the SID first. I was still towards the top of the quilt, so that changed plans and did just that.

I can't wait till tomorrow t take a full photo of this one.

I got a haircut today, got some healthy groceries and even cut some squares out of some more scraps. Oh, and it is Valentines day so we had a nice dinner along with a glass of win for me.

Beat the Blues Days 12 & 13

2017-02-13T20:55:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I tackled a scrap bag. I didn't take a picture of it full, but here it is empty.

I cut many strips, 2.5", 2", and 1.5" and have several piles to cut squares. If you do this, at what length do you just cut squares?

Janet bought me this 2.5" strip holder last year. I wonder if they make them for narrower strips?

I loaded Loretta's 110" x 88" Twister quilt and got started on it.

I quilted it with Turbulence pantograph.

Best The Blues Days 10&11

2017-02-11T21:21:00.002-05:00

More than 20 minutes each day.

Yesterday I quilted this beautiful bow tie quilt which Carla made. She participated in a bow tie block swap do all the quilters had the same blocks to work with.

Siberian Iris quilting with Maple Omni thread.

I stared at Mary's Buffalo Bubblegum quilt to figure out a quilting plan. I finally gave up and this morning I got Loretta's quilt ready to load.

Today I packed up my sewing machine and spent the day with Quilters United. We make quilts for several different organizations. I put binding on these 4 today. Yes, two are the same. They will likely go to the Peyton Manning Children's hospital in Indy.

Beat the Blues Day 9

2017-02-09T22:18:00.001-05:00

I finished the center of the birthday stars and debated whether to add borders.

It is 67 x 90 so I think I'll Quilt it and call it done.

I completed step 1 of a QOV mystery quilt. Loaded a customer quilt and did one row of quilting.

I also cut about 4" stack of light and dark triangles for hourglass blocks for my leader/ender quilt.