DaGMT Day 29 - Phew

Machine quilted my lazy daisy project today.

And I'm done, spent, kaput, and finito.

I can't say I actually was able to pound out 90 minutes of sheer sewing every single day, but I did it more days than I didn't, and I think I averaged well over an hour a day for the month, so I am calling DaGMT a success, at least as far as my commitment was concerned. Two UFOs were totally finished, one other quilt was started from scratch and completely finished, another awaits quilting, and two just need bindings. That seems pretty good for 29 days to me. All while running out of piecing thread, exploding one bobbin into several pieces, and taking a machine to the shop for a spa day. If that doesn't say commitment I don't know what does.

I loved being joined in this little experiment by so many of you. Even if you didn't post daily, I knew you were out there sewing your little faces off and can honestly say that there is nothing like that to keep me honest.

If you haven't checked out the flickr account lately, please do. Just click on the button at the top of the left column over there <------. There were lots of photos of lots of projects that were worked on during DaGMT submitted, and those projects definitely will inspire you. One such project has already made it onto one of my pinboards on pinterest, and is definitely going to be my next scrap project. Thank you Laurie Thompson for your inspiration.

I also plan to attempt a Jelly Roll Race at my guild's retreat this month, assuming anyone wants to race me, after seeing Judy Damon's 1600 quilt, which is quite honestly the most fabulous one of these I have ever seen.

See? You never know what participating in these things will do for you, do you?

If you participated, I'd love a final comment from you totaling what you got done in your alloted time in the comment section. I think we don't appreciate exactly how much those 20 minute slots add up unless we share!

Thank you for reading, commenting, and generally putting up with me during this month. I promise I am now going back to only two or three posts a week, and that is plenty! There is only so much of me that even I can stand.

DaGMT Day 28 "Things I made today"

A short list of things I made today.

1. Two more blocks for a fallish twin sized version of Kickin' Stash. (see above)
2. A kickass chart for cutting border strips for all four layouts in the pattern.
3. A grocery list.
4. Some fabulous salmon for dinner.
5. A widower out of a male deer.
6. A call to 911 to report my crime.

Wasn't I impressive? How did you do?

DaGMT Day 27 - "Are we there yet?"

By now either you have religously been sewing along with me and hitting refresh for the latest blog installment every three minutes, or you are so over me it's embarassing for both of us. Two more days and my experimental quilt a long will be over and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Except me. I have 6 more days of February break. Have I mentioned my joy?

Anyhoo....I really am thrilled by the participation and I thank you for sticking it out with me so far. If you've enjoyed it, please let me know. If not, my name is Eugenia Rodemacker.

Promised photos of my quilted, and as of two hours ago when I flipped the last side of the binding while instructing my children to please for the love of God play together nicely for 20 minutes and let me watch the news and accomplish something completely bound quilt. I hope you can see in these photos the detail of the quilting. Sue Fors, who has been a ridiculously prolific DaGMT participant, did the quilting and I just am amazed by how perfect this machine quilting design is for the quilt design itself.



If you look right in the center of this photo you might see the cool "cosmos" flower that repeats a bit in this quilting pattern and was the reason I chose the pattern. Very cool and very pretty in person.


So that was twenty minutes. What will I do with my remaining 70 for today, you ask? I plan to spend the evening cutting out about 8 more blocks-worth of patches for several more Kickin' Stash blocks to add to my second group quilt, since I need more fallish colored blocks.

"But Beth," you say. "Won't sitting around cutting out those patches be terribly boring? I mean, after all, you just spent two days binding. Your brain may turn to mush."

Yes, I assure you. Yes it will. Because I will be cutting these out while watching The Bachelor, the one trainwreck show I admit to being unable to resist, even though I am a modern, educated woman with three daughters whom I will murder if they attempt to degrade themselves by going on such a show. It's terribly embarassing, but there it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ThCjgaGkV4&list=UUp0hYYBW6IMayGgR-WeoCvQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Today, however, I found this clip from Ellen, probably from yesterday, and I watched it and was immediately reassured that I am not completely crazy, perhaps, because Meredith Vieira apparently cannot look away either, and she is way smarter than I am, even.

While watching, I came to several conclusions, all of which stem from the fact that she is ME, just like the narrator in "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" is ME.

1. She apparently finds all thing to be better with wine.
2. She knew how to open a box of wine and was not ashamed of her skill.
3. She drank Franzia knowing she would find it appalling, and then told Ellen it was straight up awful. (I was screaming "OMG THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE!" I mean really, you want to be polite, but it's Ellen. You know you don't have to be totally polite.)
4. She can't resist watching this trainwreck, although she did say she watched this season because she liked Ben. FTR, I never liked him. I am just too weak to look away.
5. She called him annoying more than once and made me laugh because she said it in the exact same way I would have. No excuses. No benefits of the doubt. Just flat out proclaimed him annoying and I was bowing down to her fabulousness.

So I'm off to watch while cutting, knowing in my heart that Meredith and I will be saying all the same things at all the same moments, hating ourselves for being so weak, and yet unable to gain strength.

DaGMT Day 26 - "Woo hoo!"

Woo hoo! Three hours of sewing today!

Not so big woo hoo - all three hours spent in some form of binding creation or flipping. If you are keeping up, I believe you may know by now that I am not a huge fan, but the good news is for every binding finished, that's another UFO biting the dust.

Which was my whole point in this challenge anyway. So another Woo Hoo just for fun. Woo Hoo!

No photos today because once again the camera has up and hidden itself in a secret location, but finding it is a big fat priority for tomorrow as I love this quilt and need to share Sue Fors' fab quilting on it.

Can you believe she actually had time to work on one of MY things this month?

DaGMT Day 24 - "Blast from the Past"

There is nothing like a sewing machine that runs properly. While I didn't get as much sewing done as I might have liked today due to, well, the same excuse I could use all week of too many children in the house, I did get the borders on my Lazy Daisy project, and you'll have to take my word for it that it looks really cute because I am too lazy to go take a photo right now.

But what I did take a photo of were some cute little dolls Paige and Eva and I made out of toothpicks and embroidery floss. A friend taught me to make these when I was about 11 and I figured I could make some with them today and it would count toward the DaGMT because it can be classified as "Fiber Arts". Fiber, anyway. Arts might be pushing it.

Let's face it, mine was the best. But I had experience and 33 years as advantages.


Theirs were pretty cute, too, though. They loved doing the hair part the most and even included multicolored strips to be like those feathers which are all the rage and which I will not allow them to get.

DaGMT Day 23 - "Lazy Daisy"

I was reminded today of why I don't do BOMs very often.

As you may recall, if you have been reading regularly and have a short term memory larger than an ant, that yesterday I pulled some old orphan blocks I'd found at my guild meeting a few years ago out of my UFO pile, and made a third to go with them. Today I tried, using my silly little Elna machine, to put them all together in a runner.


Cute, huh? But not without frustration.

First problem: The blocks which I assumed were 12 1/2" square in fact were 11" and 11 1/2" square. Mine, I would like to point out, was perfectly 12 1/2" square.

I'm perfect so rarely that when it happens now and then I feel a shout out to myself is in order. I appreciate any humoring of me you can muster.

Second problem: I don't own a lot of pink fabrics. So what was I going to do for borders/bindings/etc?

I decided to use a fabric I love but that had a bit of yellow and green in it along with the pink to make the blocks kind of tilty, then I cut all the blocks down to 14 1/2". Weird size, but hey, now they are all the same.

Then I made some cute candy striped sashings. Tomorrow I'll get to the top and bottom borders, which will also be the cute candy stripes. It was all I could do to get these suckers on without throwing the Elna across the room.

I also made a trip to Wegmans, visited a friend, joined Pinterest, celebrated our three new goldfish surviving the night, and worked a bit on the directions to KS. Come on now, you know you are impressed with my productivity during vacation week numero uno.

Just a few more days til DaGMT is over. Here's hoping you are on the road to accomplishing all you wanted to and more!

DaGMT Day 22 - "Machine Snobbery"

Yesterday my machine decided to puke out on me. You can imagine the joy and wonder of that moment around here.

Thankfully, I have a spare machine that enjoys hanging out in the darkness of my utility closet, being used as a playground for spiders and generally gathering enough dust to stuff a small pillow.

Quite honestly, it's barely good for more than that, but I keep it because I've been told I can't call myself a quilter if I only own one machine. Whatever.

This machine is an Elna 1010, the beginner beginner machine I got when I was already an advanced beginner but too cheap to pay more than $150 for a real sewing machine, and somehow it lasted me for about 5 years. Today I barely lasted an hour on it, as it is lacking, in no particular order of importance because all are equally missed:

- A light. Now there must have been one, and it's probably just burned out, but for the life of me I can't even find where it goes.

- A thread up/thread down button. When I got my new machine with this feature I thought for sure I'd never use it - way too fancy for me. I spent the morning smacking at the front of the Elna with my finger attempting to lift the needle, so I guess I do use it a lot.

- A needle threader. I no lie spent at least 40 minutes just threading the needle without it.

And can we all just take a moment to hail the almighty drop in bobbin?

Anyway, I wouldn't want to quilt anything on this thing, but at least I can piece, albeit not without issue as we have determined. So today I went through my UFOs and found two of these blocks I found on an orphan block table at a guild meeting, and decided to make one more.



Tomorrow I hope to whip them into a runner.

I've also been working on the writing part of Kickin' Stash, which I have decided will have to count toward my 4 hours worth of makeup sewing I have to do this week. The thing won't write itself, after all.

DaGMT Day 21 - "Done is Better"

My friend Cath Hallsworth says that a lot. Kind of like I say "perfection is overrated" or "please stop licking your sister" a lot. All are wonderful mantras to live by.

Today I finished flipping the binding of Paige's quilt, which took me easily two hours and the realization that I truly do need reading glasses.

I also survived yet another day of February break.

Both are equal reasons to celebrate.

DaGMT days 18-20 - "My myriad of excuses"

So I've been hosting 10 members of the MN part of the family since Saturday afternoon, and this is what I have accomplished in the sewing world:

1. Dropped "Kickin' Stash" cover quilt off at machine quilter on way out of town to the local hotel 20 minutes away. (Don't ask. I think it's a Helfter thing.)
2. Flipped approximately 18 inches of binding on a twin sized quilt. More might have been done, but there was a constant fear of beer spillage on it.

That's it. What are you going to do, fire me as the founder of this project? I think not.

Here are a few highlights of my weekend to prove I was not just sitting around drinking beer. Although let's not get the wrong idea - that did happen.


Hanging with Paul Revere and three out of four Helfter cousins.


What could be at the bottom of that pile of 6 kids? A $50 bill? A loose football? No, just two boxes of pastries from Mike's Pastries in Boston's North End. My husband is also at the bottom of the pile, opening said boxes. Love this photo.


Took 2/3 of the girls skiing today for only their second time ever. Video footage to prove they didn't totally suck below.

Video of Paige removed. It seems I actually took footage of the sky instead. You will have to believe me when I say she was really pretty good, and learned to turn fairly well.

Eva skiing like a maniacal wacko - I took this video to prove that she needs to turn more. She looked at it and said "Look. I did tiny turns all the way down. I like going straight down because I like going fast." Oy vey.




Not sure how I am going to make up all 4 hours I now am behind in the next week, but I promise to to try.

DaGMT - Day 17 "Spinning Wheels"

I really should take up spinning wool. I hear it's all the rage again, and it would only be one step away from taking up churning butter, which my middle child has suggested would make for a fun winter break activity. I suggested she instead get a job at Sturbridge Village some day and leave the butter churning to the machines God has given us for the love of Pete you 9 year old from 1834 trapped in 2012. She asked if there might be a need for a French chef at Sturbridge once she finishes college. She is an enigma, that one.

Anyway, although I got several things accomplished today, there was some of that dreaded "project so close to done you can taste it...and YET...." wheel spinning. Although Judy was as fab as always and brought me some of the fabric she had after my post yesterday, it was cream on cream rather than white on white, so I couldn't use it. We were both sad and forlorn about the whole thing. Unfortunately it was only noon and I was about to head off to meet with two teachers for conferences, or I'd have gotten out the blender to drown our sorrows.

Then I was off to visit machine quilter #1 with my baby sized "Kickin' Stash" sample, followed by a trip to the fabric store for backing and hopefully another white on white. I did find another white on white which I did not love but by this time I cannot be bothered to care anymore and finished the top, and got the backing put together for my trip to machine quilter #2 tomorrow.

It's lovely to have minions.

Side note - Someday I will invent a machine that creates both backings and bindings magically. I will swim in molten gold forever, and you can all join me because you will have all sorts of time freed up from having to do these mundane quilting tasks. Or you can churn some butter with your free time. Your preference.

I also put the binding on Paige's new bed quilt, which matches the cover girl one Eva will have, except it is in pinks rather than teals. As we can see Eva may be lording her famous quilt over Paige, but Paige is rather enjoying actually being able to touch her quilt at the moment.



Tomorrow I am off to spend the weekend at a local hotel with all of my inlaws for the weekend, and I do not know how I will do as far as project accomplishment from now through Monday evening. But since I started this, I feel I must at least attempt to set a good example. I may need to use creative definitions of sewing, so stay tuned.

But before I go, see that new button right under the DaGMT one on the left side? That will lead you to my friend/twin separated at birth Kelli Fannin's blog - "Seriously....I think that needs stitches" (www.thatlookslikeitneedsstitches.blogspot.com). She's a quilter and nurse and we met when she entered a giveaway of mine last year and I chose her to win because she is me, minus three girls, plus one boy, plus a nursing degree, minus a few years from the look of her photo....but other than that we are the same person. Her blog is way fun, and she's actually doing a giveaway right now of some layer cakes by Moda. Really cute ones too. So check it out and enter!

DaGMT Day 16 - For the love of seven inches

Seven flipping inches.

That's how much more of a certain fabric I need. Anyone got any? So I can get one flipping border more on by tomorrow pm?



It's a P and B Textiles from 2004. I know, dream on.

I fancy myself a planner. But this is my reality.

DaGMT - Day 15 "Holy ^&*&*@!$ *(^#!"

You know that moment in the day when you realize you will be accomplishing nothing for the remainder? Today that moment for me coincided with the moment I released my inner truck driver when at 10:30ish am, I discovered that a quilt I designed is on the cover of the newest issue (April/May 2012) of Quilter's World magazine.



I almost died of shock, then I shook so hard I couldn't breathe, then the expletives were flying as I danced around the house screaming. Someday, like maybe next week, I will look back on this behavior and think "What a loser I am", but for today I'm happily a huge geek.

For a brief moment, it was a little sad that I so covet the quiet house in the morning that there was no one home to share my joy, but thankfully my husband answered his phone and did a remote happy dance with me. My apologies to his coworkers; I know it isn't pretty. Also, the children would have been horrified by my language, not to mention my dancing skills, so it's probably best that they were not exposed to the whole scene.

This quilt, "Quite Contrary", was born last April at my guild's annual spring retreat at Lake Shore Farm in NH. I quite literally put this thing together from scratch from 9:30pm to midnight on Saturday evening while suffering from moderate to severe corneal damage after burning my eyeball with ClearCare solution. I designed it thinking it would be a freebie on my blog, but Maria Peagler posted these words that changed my mind "Free is not a business plan." So I said, "What the heck? I'll shop the thing around and see what happens."

Holy happenings! Never in a million years would I have thought this thing would end up on the cover of a national publication!

Will I be pouring ClearCare into my eyeballs to inspire future quilt greatness? No. But I'll admit it's slightly tempting.

Mini Oscar speech: Thank you to Melissa Heys, of The Completed Quilt (www.thecompletedquilt.com) who is truly a fabulous and amazing machine quilter who always manages to fit me in and make my simple designs breathtaking. Thank you to Renae Mathe for whipping up a sample to make sure my directions made sense. Thank you to Carolyn Vagts and the entire staff of Quilter's World for being so easy to work with and making my entire month.

But mostly, thank you to my daughter, Eva Catherine Helfter, who only threw seven fits rather than 20 when I had to ship this quilt off to QW for almost a year rather than immediately putting it onto her bed where it was meant to reside. Every now and then over the last 10 months she has said to me "WHEN am I getting my quilt back? I NEED my quilt! My other one is so BABYISH!" Well Kitty, now your quilt is famous, you can lord this fact over your sisters until the end of time, and I think you can get over it.

Oh, and I also got "Kickin' Stash" (loving this name, and I think it's going to be THE ONE) cover quilt put together and four out of 12 border strips on.



I'm so glad this good hair day wasn't wasted on an overall crappy day.

Bring it, dual February breaks coming up. I feel like I can take you on now.

DaGMT Day 14 - "For the Love of Pete"

No clue who Pete is, we just say that a lot around here. And it's the day of love, so we had to put love somewhere in the title.

I had way too much fun laying out the "cool" blocks for the SNY group quilt. Had to leave one space open for one more block which I have been assured by Jenny Day is arriving TODAY, but I just couldn't wait any longer to start putting at least one of these group babies together.

I love it so much it is almost unnatural.

Since it isn't totally together yet, let me direct you to my FB photo album of some of the blocks that will be included in one of the quilts I am whipping up. If you haven't seen them already some of them are just to die for. Plus I've added more for the occasion.

https://www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns

Hopefully tomorrow I can show you the whole thing put together, but right now I need to write some scavenger hunt clues for my children for this evening's Helfter Family Valentine Goodies Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza and Chocolate Fest.

Mom of the Year.

DaGMT Day 13 - "Ah, the difference three days can make"

Three days ago, this quilt was a pile of scraps, hanging out in a bin, unpressed, unsorted, unloved.

Today it is a baby sized quilt top. Turns out my fun new block really is way too much fun to make.

Yay me!

DaGMT Day 12 - Typical Sunday

Lots of cutting, a little piecing, not nearly as much as I wanted to accomplish, but whatever. I may not be as prolific as some of you who will remain nameless today, but I am accomplishing a heck of a lot more than those of you who aren't participating, aren't I? Oh yes I am.

At the very least all the blocks for my baby quilt are now done, and the scraps for the border are cut, and I WILL have a photo of a top tomorrow if it kills me. But we all know that would be a horrid tragedy and a very abrupt end to DaGMT, so let's hope for a non-violent finish to the project tomorrow.



I would like to give a shout out to the American Girl company and their fabulous book "Doll Play", without which I would have accomplished absolutely zero today and with which I was piecing to the sounds of my children creating "Camp Nature Lovewell", where their dolls could partake in such activities as yoga shows, smore making, fashion shows, and making macaroni postcards to send home to their parents. What I remember of Camp Beechwood was a lot of Off bug spray after 4pm and hideous plastic swim caps in rainbow colors to designate your swim level and being way irritated when I was demoted from Yellow (Intermediate) to Red (Advanced Beginner) the summer between my 3rd and 4th grade school years, not that I am still bitter. Where was the yoga show where I could have shown off my flexibility and planking, all at a decidedly intermediate level? But seriously, how cute is this postcard?



Here's to surviving the weekend intact.

DaGMT Day 11 - "Really? No one commented on how awesome yesterday's title was?"

Or maybe none of your husbands tend to refer to themselves as being in the process of "kicking a$$ and taking names" as frequently as mine. I was so impressed with myself I'm thisclose to naming the pattern "Kicking Scraps", but perhaps I am my only fan.

I'm thrilled to report that moving the sewing machine to the Auxiliary Studio was a huge success as far as allowing me to actually get things accomplished today as compared to last weekend. It was not a huge success as far as keeping the main floor of the house looking neat and tidy, but let's not kid ourselves. It rarely is anyway.

No photos today of my progress. I'd like to hope I can have much of a top completed by tomorrow which will be much more exciting to post a photo of. But there has been much chain piecing and block creation for this baby sized scrappy quilt, and I even got some help from my firstborn, who has discovered that cutting apart my chain pieced segments before I press them is for some reason highly exciting. I'll take help any way I can get it, so whatever.



I also spent part of today with the girls at Orchard House in Concord MA, home of The Alcott family, for two reasons: 1. Eva eats history like it is part of the food pyramid, and she was claiming starvation, and 2. We agreed to show Ike Laroue a good time.

Tonight it's out to dinner with friends and hopefully some more scrap kickin' tomorrow. Work with me, hotties. Make me believe it's a good name.

DaGMT Day 10 - Kicking scraps and taking names

Today was one of those rare days where there was ample time for me to sew instead of chasing my children around to their activities like a lunatic, and I put in almost four hours! Holy pretending to be Michelle, Judy, or Sue! Unfortunately unlike them I do not have an entire quilt top or seven to show for my four hours, but I'm terribly thankful to various other children for agreeing to playdates with mine today in order to allow this unprecidented amount of sheer quilting bliss to occur, and that in itself is accomplishment enough for me.

So there.

Anyhoo, I started today by heading out to buy some yellow dot fabric, and once I returned home I spent the remainder of my morning decimating my purple scrap pile. At first it was daunting to see how many purple scraps I had. Then it was daunting to realize that there are so many different shades of purple and not all were going to look good together and OMG I had to MAKE AN UNEXPECTED DECISION and I hadn't even had a second cup of tea yet.

I chose to go with bluish lavendery purples. Wouldn't you? They are so pretty after all, and yesterday when I was playing with all the blocks for the SNY group quilt those few that I had in those colors were always among my favorites. So there again. Decision made.



So what were my plans with the yellow dot and the bluish purpley stuff? I was jealous of how much fun everyone else had making the blocks for my SNY project, but I only got to make one. Plus I need a baby size sample AND I need a sample that has the blocks all totally and completely scrappy, so I combined all these issues into this new project. Because after all, DaGMT was all about finishing up UFO projects rather than starting a new one every day. But I made the rules and you can now all watch me break them at will.

This afternoon I did lots of chain piecing and realized that while the total scrappy/completely unplanned blocks are going to be so much quicker to make than the more planned variety which will also be an option in the pattern, wow it might have helped if I had planned a LITTLE by counting how many of each patch I was cutting. Because out of all 7 patches in each block, of which I would need 36 of each, I think I cut 17 of one, 22 of another, 9 of another, and so on. So in the end I was only able to make two actual finished blocks, with a bunch of pieces and segments left over.



I do have to say they are pretty cute blocks, though.



These photos should give you further proof that I did do a lot more today than it looks like I did.



The machine has been moved to the Auxiliary Studio, aka The Dining Room Table, for the weekend. We'll see if that allows me to snatch a few moments here and there to whip up the other seven blocks before Sunday pm.

DaGMT Day 9 - "Playing With Blocks"

WOOOOOOO HOOOOO! Today I have most of my Scrappy New Year blocks in house and I could finally start really playing and choosing my faves for the TWO quilts I will be whipping up using all of these babies. While I am still waiting on a few more participants, I just really couldn't wait any longer to show you the ones that have made the cut so far.

This first group, in no particular order and looking just so out of place against my rug, is the "cool" group I have chosen for my full/double sized layout and will likely be on the cover of the pattern. I need just 4 more blocks to get the 22 that I need for the layout, and I feel certain they will be here within days. Maybe even moments, as the mail could be here any minute. How much do we love these? They are like lollipops, springtime, flowers, and happiness all in one.

This next group, which looks slightly better against my rug, represents those blocks that were my faves in the warm pallete. While I normally work in brights and contemporary fabrics, these group projects serve to challenge me to work outside of my comfort zone and these blocks are speaking to me to whip them into a lap size setting which will use 18 blocks. So I am hopeful 8 more are in my future, because I probably don't have enough scraps to make 8 more in these colorways. These just scream fall, hayrides, hot cocoa, pumpkin picking, and best of all Back to School to me.

If you participated, sent me the blocks, and don't think you see one of yours in one of these groups, please let me know. I will search my envelopes and make sure I didn't miss you!

You have all made my lives so much easier by helping to create these newest quilts. Are you feeling like you work for the EPQD sweat shop? I hope the fun you've had will offset that somewhat and you won't report me to the authorities. I love all the notes I am getting in with the blocks and am so amazed that not one negative comment has come my way regarding the making of them. Wow. Maybe I'm good at this design stuff after all.

I am SO excited and you must allow me to get back to my machine to start adding my other mysterious touches that will make these into my new pattern!

DaGMT Day 8 - "Ruination of my rotary blades via paper piecing"

I'm not a paper piecer by nature, as mentioned in yesterday's post, but having taken a class from the Diva herself, Carol Doak, about a decade (!) ago, I feel like I at least have the tools to do it somewhat properly, and now and then I whip something up.



My row for the Summer Picnic project is done. It's supposed to be limes and lemonds in various stages of slicing/wedging for squeezing into your fun summer drinks. But in looking at it, they could also be done in multicolors to represent beach balls. Whatever strikes your fancy. I'm just glad that part is done and I can move on to the writing of the directions and soon after that be allowed to stop thinking about summer for a while.

Show of hands if you own the Add-A-Quarter ruler, please. I do not, I just use my 6" x 1" ruler which has 1/4" markings on it and have never had a problem. I was told by the Diva that this was not a good alternative way back when, but 10 years later I'm still using it. I still can't figure out how the other ruler thing would improve my life drastically from my current ruler, and I truly am interested in knowing if you own it, use it, and recommend it, and why.

I only mention it because every time I paper piece I remember the Diva telling me it wasn't going to work as well, so I was thinking it a lot these past days. Kind of like every time I play Solitaire on the computer I hear Laura Brannigan singing "Solitaire" over and over in my head. Hence one big reason I never play solitaire.

I am absolutely loving seeing all your projects on your blogs, hearing about how this DaGMT challenge is changing your lives for the better, seeing the flickr group get more and more photos every day, etc. Thank you! You are making this a very gratifying first attempt at a quiltalong for me!

If you haven't joined yet, you have until 11:59pm on 2/29 to do so. But really, you'd be totally stressed out trying to get 20 minutes in in one minute at that point, so join now instead. We'd love to have you!

DaGMT Day 7 - "One week in and my sewing studio is a mess"

It had to happen. I couldn't keep it neat forever. Certain people in my home would argue that I didn't even keep it neat for 5 hours, but I beg to differ and insist that there are many different definitions of "neat". My personal favorite is "without ice", as pertaining to happy hour.

Today's project involved leaving tiny bits of scraps and paper all over the sewing area. Yes, I paper pieced, something I rarely do, but now and then I find it kind of fun. Until I remember that I kind of suck at it.

I'm this week's designer in the "Summer Picnic" row quilt project over at www.patchworkposse.com, and so far the other two designers have both stuck with the watermelon theme. Not being a huge fan of summer, I really couldn't decide what to design my row with that would reflect any sort of longing for a season wherein I usually want to commit hari kari twice a day. A straightjacket just didn't seem terribly appropriate.

I decided on limes and lemons, because gin and tonics on the deck with Mr. Quilting Hottie and often some friends while the children run barefoot through the grass and for 10 second intervals at a time don't threaten to kill each other is one of the better parts of summer for me. I adapted a kaleidoscope pattern from EQ into paper piecing and today I put together two whole and two halves of fruit garnishes. I wish I could say I accomplished more, but see "I remember I kind of suck at it (paper piecing)" above as a reminder of why I didn't get more done.

Plus I was multitasking while putting them together, on the phone with a GS leader to bemoan certain aspects of our cookie sale. They aren't bad for multitasked fruit.

>But either way, I do have to get the whole row done tomorrow or I'm in deep doo doo as far as not being on track to get the instructions to Patchwork Posse on time. Everyone cross your fingers that tonight is NOT the night the stomach bug decides to strike our home.

DaGMT Day 6 - "The hum of a machine in the silence of my mind"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's my Monday morning sigh of relief. After a weekend chock full of activity, ear infections, and having to stop every few minutes to discuss Mr. Quilting Hottie's latest ideas on how we should redo the deck, this morning I was back to being productive.

Note we are not going to discuss how the Patriots forced me to abandon my machine last night and all for naught.

I had some fun playing with my leftover scraps from Greta's new quilt, which I put the borders on last week during day one. I just love these fabrics so much, and sometimes when I finish a project and have the leftovers hanging around I just have to keep playing with them.

I'm not sure what these will have as a center, but these three strips are going to be borders for a 24" square table topper. At least at the moment that's my plan. Stay tuned for more!

Tonight is trash TV night - Will Ben get his head out of his butt? - and is also the night I cut or press to the dulcet sounds of women shrieking, so I hope to make up that extra 40 minutes I missed yesterday and then some this evening.

If you haven't checked out our group flickr yet - please do! http://www.flickr.com/groups/1861891@N25/ Better yet, if you are taking part in the challenge, post some photos of your progress! It is so fun and inspiring to see what you are all doing too!

So what did YOU work on today?

DaGMT Day 5 - "One foot off the wagon, the other buried under GS cookies"

I know you've been waiting all day with bated breath for my update, certain that I have to have improved my attitude over yesterday. Yes, the attitude is improved. How could it not be when I spent most of my day contributing to the degradation of today's youth by loitering in front of the local liquor store with a bunch of 9 year old girls? (Sorry FB friends. It was an epic update and had to be repeated.) Can you say "Cookie Mom" and "promoting beer with a thin mint chaser"? Anyway, that was a good 5 hours of my day in total. Then it was prepping to sit my butt on the couch and watch the Patriots, who currently are attempting to give me a heart attack.

So it's 9:30 and I feel I must report my first less than stellar day. Only 50 minutes were accomplished, all of them wherein I was bored silly by a binding flip and getting a backing prepared for another quilt to be machine quilted. But still, I feel that given the fact that weekends are hard for me and I still managed 140 minutes total in the two toughest days of my week, there is no need to call myself out. I'll make up those extra 40 minutes in the next few days, and with stunning results.

After all, Monday is the stay at home mom's Friday, you know.

DaGMT - Day 4 "Saturdays are the spawn of the devil"

My major accomplishments of the day were not selling the children or seeking an annulment from Mr. Quilting Hottie.

Beyond that I did flip over a binding, made another binding for a full size quilt that isn't quilted yet so I think I should get extra credit for that, and started a new design from some scraps. It wasn't pretty, but I got my 90 minutes in.

Rejoice with me, one and all. Thirty hours to Monday.

DaGMT Day 3 - "You'd Think I Was a Shoe Girl"

In reality, I probably own about 6 pairs of shoes per season. It's barely enough to qualify me as a woman. What can I say - I'd rather spend my money on fabric and apparently, this month, hot water heaters and new tires. Woo hoo!

But I do love the shoe shape for a base for practicing some fun embellishment, as is evidenced by the shoe appliques I used both in my Once Upon a Time book and my Shoeby Dooby Doo pattern. Not only are they fun to jazz up with your own shoe personality, but the shape of them is pretty simple for even new machine appliquers.

A couple of years ago before I went to Spring Market to help promote "Once Upon A Time", I asked if some quilters could help me out by making some appliqued and embellished 12" shoe blocks that I could use in my Schoolhouse presentation to demonstrate that really, the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can do with a few beads and baubles. A la Prince Charming, I returned most of the shoes to their rightful owners, but a few told me I could keep them. Today I UFO-busted and turned them into a quickie quilt.



I decided to have some fun with the quilting, and decided I was going to freehand quilt in some names of kinds of shoes as part of the quilting. Judge me if you will, but I had a hard time coming up with enough different types of shoes to do four types per block, and had to google "types of shoes". What did we ever do without google? And is it appropriate to not capitalize it? Do I care? Not today.

Witness the cute word "espadrille" quilted in. I will have you know that is one type of shoe I thought of on my own.



Sorry this one is sideways, but I am sure if you look hard enough you can see more types of shoes in there.



I also finally got to play a little with some of the Scrappy New Year blocks that have come in so far. I created an album on my EPQD facebook page and would love for you to take a look at it: www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns. I am not sure why that isn't linking like it should, but you can also get there by clicking the snowman button in the left column.

I did say under no uncertain terms that I really didn't care if participants made all four of their blocks exactly the same or used different fabrics/colors for each, but now I am so thankful to those who did all four the same because it makes my choice so much easier. I cannot believe how stunning they all are and choosing just one from some of these ladies is going to kill me.

Enjoy! Remember to keep sewing over the weekend!

DaGMT Day 2: "Circular Wonderment"

Today was a day of prepping for machine quilting, realizing I need some more backing fabric in order to actually quilt tomorrow, kicking myself in the head for not taking care of this BEFORE DaGMT started, and rallying by getting some handwork done.

"HANDWORK??????" those of you who know me are saying. "The Queen of Jewel-it doing HANDWORK?" Why yes. Yes I did do some. Get over yourselves and admire it.

All these little circles are part of a quilt I helped several other designers create last year, and I had put off the quickie embroidery accents until now. It was a lot of fun to choose the contrasting colors of floss for each set of circles and I love that the design is totally imperfect and therefore my stitches could be too.







All those stitches represent about one hour and a lot of thread changes and needle threading. Circles done: Yes. Figuring out who that very metrosexual man hosting with Kelly today on Live was while I did it: Nope. Anyone know? Whoever he was, he was wearing more eyeliner than all of us put together, I am sure.

The next thing I did also fell in the "Fun with Circles" realm and was truly just way too much fun. I used a bunch of the scraps from this project to make buttons with all these random button covers I had lying around.



Aren't they awesome? I had so much fun making them that I practically ripped my studio apart trying to see if I could find any more of the button kits. I am pretty sure I inherited a bunch from my mom, but I couldn't find them this morning. Bummer. But I may have a new favorite way of using up scraps.

SO...what did YOU do today?

DaGMT - Day 1, "Ready....Set.....SEW!"

"I, Beth Helfter, Original Quilting Hottie, pledge to chain myself to the sewing machine for at least 90 minutes a day for the month of February. This is despite the fact that they (ie my daughters, ages 9, 9, and 5) will have two Feb break weeks (because they go to school in two separate states and it would in fact kill someone to suggest that Feb break weeks should be either outlawed or at the very least streamlined), and I may quite possibly be insane."

January 24, 2012 11:05 AM
That was my official (and slightly revised) commitment to the DaGMT challenge last week. And here we are - finally ready to sew our faces off every day for a month! I was so excited last night I could barely sleep. Not really, but I'm trying to create some buzz here. Work with me.

A few orders of business before I reveal my progress in my 90 minutes today:

1. Yes, Michelle Banton and others, you CAN sign up to participate today, tomorrow, or any day until February 29. Of course the earlier you sign up in the month, the more you will accomplish, the better you will feel about yourself, and the brighter the sun will shine, but absolutely, join any time! Just comment on any post having to do with this challenge and state your goals, and you are in.

2. I have created a group flickr for us. I know. Me. I created a group flickr. AND it seems to work. I think the sun is shining brighter already. To find it and add your photos, go to www.flickr.com/groups/1861891@N25/ and upload! It's really pretty easy and I can't wait to see all your accomplishments. I'm also going to make the blog button for the challenge over on the left side of the screen link directly to the group flickr. Watch me roll, hotties!

So, what did I do in my 90 minutes this morning. Well, after my obligatory writhe on the floor in ecstasy after all my family members have left the building and therefore ceased to be able to pepper me with questions, I decided to finish a project I started last week, a new quilt for Greta's bed which only needed borders. As I do not know exactly when or how I will use this design for EPQD, I'm only showing a small portion, but you should be able to get the idea that I added 4 triple borders to a full size quilt, so therefore 12 borders in all, none of which was cut or pieced prior to this morning. Aren't I impressive?



Since all that only took me 83 minutes, and I felt that as the moderator of this challenge I need to set a good example, I spent the remaining 7 minutes fixing the one block out of 64 that I screwed up on my friend Barbara Townsend's log cabin swap block. I had to move one lovely chartruesey-orange** log from the light side to where it belonged on the dark side. And voila! 90 minutes was up. I post a photo here of the last quilt that resulted for me when my guild did this swap as I can't show Barbara's turquoisy-puce** block, because the reveal is not until June.

(**some color names may have been changed to protect the innocent)



So what did YOU work on today?