The quilt is in the mail

On Wednesday, just before I left for work, I gave Topsy this quilt I had made for her. I actually finished it a while back, and just when I did, Rob brought up having her here and so I decided not to mail it. Then, it got moved into the pile of quilts, right next to a quilt in the same colors and it was lost for a while. I hunted and hunted and had given up. Rob asked about it on that last morning before Topsy flew out and I tried one last time. And, there it was. Not the first time I looked. But, the second time I looked, I could see the subtle differences in piecing between this and the other quilt and suddenly it was found again. It was a block of the month in 2009 and I can't find my link to it again.

I washed it and blocked it and added the label yesterday. And, then I folded it in tissue paper and got out a huge ziploc and today, Rob will send it overnight. She should have it tomorrow. Of course, it's been a year since she moved to her new neighborhood. So, we aren't calling this a housewarming anymore.

Waiting until I could give it to her in person was worth it. It was a gift I gave to me. The gift of giving...okay, so I can't explain that part, except there should be some joy in doing things for other people. And, I gave myself that joy.

While the quilt was drying, I was making labels. To make labels, I soak fabric in bubble jet 2000 and let it dry. Then, I press it to freezer paper and tape that freezer paper to a sheet of regular paper...I don't know why it's this complex, but my printer will pull the fabric right off the freezer paper if I don't have that extra sheet attached to it. I use double sided tape right along the top edge of the plain paper to stick them together. Then, they feed through the printer perfectly. I have a bubble jet set soap that helps set the ink and after a quick wash in that and an air dry, I iron the heck out of them with a hot iron. Then, I can write on them with a pigma pen.

I was very creative with my printer this weekend. I ran out of note cards. (please tell me I am not the only person that still uses note cards and prefers a monogrammed one) All I could find was thank you cards at a couple of stores, so I decided to make my own. I bought 7 sheets of 8.5x11 solid green paper and 14 sheets of green printed 12x12. It was all on sale half price, so I spent about $5.50 total. I ran the solid paper through the printer to monogram it, then cut it in half one way and folded it in half the other using a bone folder to score it. The template for the envelope took about 45 minutes to get right, but once it was made, the envelopes were cut with a rotary cutter and a pair of scissors to cut out some points and then they were folded. I didn't glue them. I'm going to get some adhesive seals to use on the back. Of course, I would have picked one of the ones that was off center to photograph. My first one was on white paper and it looked fine, but then when I printed on green the first time, it was a quarter inch to the right. I corrected that and saved the template for next time I need note cards for $5

Marie asked for links to the Mariner's compass blocks. Here they are.

module 1

module 2

module 3

module 4

module 5

module 6

(hope that works, Marie. They're at equiltpatterns.com.

That is all for me today, except that I ran by the quilt shop on Saturday and I am now on the schedule to teach a machine quilting class, half on April 7 and the rest on April 21. I don't know if I'll have enough stuff to fill that time, so I'm trying to remember any quilting anecdotes from my past and am going to write down clue words on the inside cover of my notebook...I'd hate to start the class and suddenly go blank and start stuttering because I don't have anything to say. Isn't that a common nightmare?

Everybody have a great Monday. Lane