You'll Never Guess What I Found for Free!!

You'll never guess what was sitting on the side of the road for FREE today when I was driving home from class!!

Can you guess what it is??

 

Yep!  It's a sewing cabinet!!!!  I pulled over and opened it up a bit and thought - OMG!!  

 You can see the sewing area and serger area and everything.

The gentleman that owned it was really nice and came running over to help me load it into my car.  he said that they had cleaned out a woman who had passed away house and this was in it - and they didn't want it - so they put it out on the road for FREE!  He said that they have a few more boxes of sewing supplies but they are going to look them through first.  I gave him my card and told him to give me a call if they wanted to get rid of the boxes.

 

Here is the sewing machine area.  I think all the odd holes are for older sewing machines?

 

It's clear this is a Singer cabinet!  Look at the thread holders.

 

Look at the hydrolic lift!!!!!!  It works really, really well and just pushes to each of the three positions (sunk completely, flat to the sewing table and raised)  with just a gentle push of your finger tips.  I mean how lucky can a girl get!

I don't know what I am going to do with this but I COULD NOT leave it there.  I'll find a use for it - don't worry.  I'm sooo lucky!

Another Tumbler!

Hi all!

I just finished putting the last binding stitches on this tumbler quilt!  I was able to pull all these fabrics from my stash and I thought that they looked really cool together and that they would make a really nice lap quilt.  

So, I pulled out my Accuquilt Tumbler die and cut them up in just a few minutes. I just love the tumbler shape!

 

Next, I loaded it onto my frame and quilted it using an all-over wave pattern in a 50 weight Wonderfil Tuti thread top and bobbin.  I love that thread!

The variegated thread looks just great across all the colours!

Now, what am I going to do with this quilt!  Maybe I should sell it?  What do you think?

New Leaders and Enders Project!

Hi all!

Ok I know that I am late to the party but I only just found out about Bonnie Hunter's Cheddar Bow ties leaders and enders challenge and I decided to give it a whirl!

I pulled out my 2" square bin and pulled out pairs that I had a little bit of fabric left over to also cut 2 squares 1.25" and stacked them together.  I also pulled out all my cheddar/orange prints and put them in pairs too.  So far so good.

 

Only one problem though - I seem to have too many leaders and enders projects stacked up and ready to start before I've finished the last one LOL!  That is the one problem with L&E projects - they take a long time to finish if you really do them as L&E!

If you want to see Bonnie's tutorial on how to do the bow-tie blocks make sure that you follow this link to her blog.

A Couple of the Jelly Roll Race Quilts

Hi all!

I thought that I would share a couple of pictures of the Jelly Roll Race quilts with you all.   A couple of quilts were already handed in to me and I thought I might as well get a jump on them!  Since I was using a wide-back and a wide batting I decided to rack them together on my frame to quilt them quicker.

 

So, I loaded them together and quilted them loosely in a large meander.  Since these quilts are comfort quilts we decided on a nice flannel backing and to quilt them loosely so that they would be more cuddly.  I used a 50 weight cotton, off-white thread top and bobbin.

 

Here they all are quilted and trimmed with the binding ready to be prepared and sewn on by volunteers.  I think the quilting adds a lot of texture to the quilts myself!  

All told I quilted three quilts in the last couple of days!  Since we did 22 Jelly Roll Race quilts all together - that leaves 19 more to be quilted! Luckily I'm not doing all of them LOL!

Any quilty plans for the weekend?

Even More Rose of Sharon

Hey all!

I wanted to give you all an update after my last post on the Rose of Sharon die and units since we have some clarification of the whole issue.

Sherry Rose of Cherry Bomb Quilts went straight to the lady herself, Sharon Pederson, and asked her the questions we have all been asking and she got some answers!  I'm not going to quote her though - you'll have to go on over to Cherry Bomb Quilts and read it yourself as it is a very good read and really clarifies things for those of use that love the Rose of Sharon.

http://cherrybombquilts.blogspot.ca/2012/04/clarification-of-rose-of-sharon.html

The article really made me feel good about using my die again!  Yey!  I actually grabbed the packaging and am sitting here glancing over at the table runner pattern that comes with it and thinking it might be a nice little pattern to do.

So thank you Sherry for taking the bull by the horns and getting the straight facts for us - yey!!

Copyright and the Rose of Sharon

Lately there has been a lot of talk online about copyright and how it pertains to fabric designers, pattern designers and die designers etc.  Who has the rights to what and how it affects us as the end users of products.  I don't want to re-hash everything that has been said in the blog-o-sphere.  I just want to add my $0.02 in on how it affects the users of the Rose of Sharon die.

As many of us know the Rose of Sharon (ROS) patterns have been around since about the 1840's.  Lately we have been hearing about how Sharon Pederson has copyrighted her die and how we would have to accredit her as the die designer and give 10% of any winnings or profit made from  from said item to her charity.  Really I thought?

So I pulled out my book The Best of Blatimore Beauties:  95 patterns for Album Blocks and Borders by Elly Sienkiewicz copyright 2000 to check out some of the patterns using the ROS images.  This book is a "best of" from her series.

 

Page 211 I found this ROS pattern and compared it to my die.

 

Looks very similar huh?

 

I cut out some of the shapes that looked like they would fit.

 

Hmmm, the smallest circle is EXACTLY the same!

 

I placed the small leaf and the medium flower on the pattern and WOW!  They are exact!  So which came first?  The chicken or the egg?  The ROS quilt units or the new copyright?

 

You might want to increase this picture to see the explanation about the block.  The pattern for this block was taken from a quilt, on display now, that was made in 1847-1848.

So what do we quilters do about this?  Does Sharon Pederson have the right to copyright images that are exactly the same size and shape as those produced in the 1840's?  If she does - shouldn't she have to give a percentage of HER profits to Elly Sienkiewicz? Or to the family of the Rev. Dr. Roberts that the quilt was originally made for?

My answer - no!  The ROS units are in public domain if I cut them with a die or scissors!  Does Sharon Pederson have the right to copyright the designs that were submitted to her for the block contest she ran a while back?  If people relinquished their rights to the blocks of their creation - then yes she does.

If I produce an award winning quilt made with ROS units will I give anything to Sharon Pederson or to her charity?  No.  I can simply say I made templates from The Best of Baltimore Beauties book - done.  Maybe I did - maybe I didn't - this sure would be hard to prove when exact images are in a book that was published well before the die was made.

This type of senseless copyrighting is not doing anything for anyone except causing needless paranoia and making quilters feel that they don't own the rights to their own creations.   So, what am I going to do?  I am going to use my dies like I use my rotary cutter or my scissors - as a tool to bring what is in my head to life.  Will I copy other people's designs/patters?  Maybe, but I would give credit to the designer like I always do.  But, I will not let give credit stop me from creating or adapting or having fun!  And, I don't think it should stop anyone else either.

End of the day - I'm just one quilter and these are my thoughts - I'm not a lawyer.

Happy Quilting All!!

We have a Winner and an Oops!

Woops!

 

I was making tea and I set my favorite tea coy down on top of the burner!  Luckily I got it off in time.

 

So, I pulled out this tea pot fabric and some left-over solid brown binding fabric and Voila!  I have a newly re-covered tea cozy that I like even more!

 Ok I have kept you waiting long enough!  We have a winner.  Sorry this is later than I promised but the weekend got away from me and I spent Monday trying to catch up.

Using a random number generator I picked #31 out of 84 valid entries!!

Béa has left a new comment on your post "Book Review and a Give-Away!":

I follow her blog by email 

 Congratulations Bea!  You are going to love your book!

Thanks to everyone who entered!