Craftyrat Creates

My Video Tutorials are being deleted

Hello folks. I'm sorry to say most of my video tutorials are going to be deleted in just a few days. Any of them that were published using Google Video are being taken down. And unfortunately the "download" feature isn't working for me so I can't save them. So, if you like any of them and want to see them again, the time to download them is now before they disappear. Because once they are gone, they aren't coming back. =( You can find them by clicking on the link in the right hand column that says "My Video Tutorials". Till next time.... Myra.

Accuquilt Studio Quilt-Along Blocks 5a & 5b

Accuquilt Studio Quilt-Along Blocks 4a & 4b

Accuquilt Studio Quilt-Along Blocks 3a & 3b

Accuquilt Studio Quilt-Along Block #02

Accuquilt Studio Quilt-Along Block #01

Today Ebony posted our very first block of the quilt-along. Quite a lovely design and easy to put together. It's definitely going to be an interesting quilt when done, with all the different fabrics I picked. lol 

Here's mine.

You can check out the instructions plus the information you need to join along HERE.

..till next time. Myra

Accuquilt Studio Quilt Along

Hello people, Today I'm sharing a fabulous project that is going to be a quilt-along. It is hosted by Ebony(our list mom) from the yahoo group AccuquiltStudio. She has created an entire quilt for us to make, one block at a time, like a mystery quilt. We won't know what it all looks like together until the end. You can check out her website where she is posting the details HERE. Or you can always go to my sidebar, over there ----------> and click on the badge that says "Accuquilt Studio Quilt Along".

Ebony has posted what fabric we will need. She showed a picture of what fabrics she's chosen and has given us a chart of how much of each color we will need.

I have challenged myself to ONLY use fabric from my stash, not to go out and buy any new fabric for this project. So I went rummaging through my stash and found some that will work. I don't know how pretty my quilt will be in the end because some of the fabric is quite ugly, lol. But it will be interesting to see what it looks like all together in the end. Most of my stash is old, ugly stuff from garage sales, flea markets, hand-me-downs from my mom and other people, scraps and pieces I've kept over the years. Not much new in my stash. What I picked out would definitely not be what I would pick out if I were going shopping for all new fabric, so bare that in mind when you judge how pretty it ends up in the end. lol

And I'll probably just use whatever is leftover to piece a backing together since I don't have enough of one color for an entire backing.

But anyway, here is what I have picked out. I hope you don't gasp too loudly, your neighbors might think you are being strangled. =)

Scary, huh? lol

So, if you have an Accuquilt Studio die cutting machine and would like to play along, we'd love to have you! Or if you have the Accuquilt Go die cutter, Ebony also has a quilt-along for that one too.

Till next time. Myra

Drunk Snow

When I woke up this morning(Ok, I confess, I wasn't asleep, I was awake all night. I sleep when I get tired so I don't have a set time) I looked out my front door and found this:

I decided to stay in and work on this:

I cut it out on my Accuquilt Studio cutter. It uses the large Drunkard's Path #2 die. I was just playing around and testing the die. Hadn't really planned on making anything but after I got the blocks made I decided to make it into a smallish quilt. It turned out about 35½" square. I just did some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, then added the binding. It's done. This was the last of my UFO's.

I started some English paper piecing the other day. I love that you don't have to sit in front of a sewing machine to make them. I can spend time with my family in the movie room and have something to keep my hands busy. I have a hard time just sitting like a vegetable watching t.v.(unless I'm sick) so this is the perfect project for t.v. watching. It was a little dark where my chair sits so I bought a fluorescent light to hang over my head from the ceiling with a pull chain so I don't even have to get up when I want to rest my eyeballs. Talk about lazy. lol

This is where all the magic happens:
(That crap behind the chair is old sheetrock leaning up against the wall waiting to be carted elsewhere and a rolled up rug with duct tape holding it together, just ignore please lol)

I know.. I can see you scratching your head thinking, "I was sure she would have been sitting on a throne with a bowl of grapes near by." That was last week, the cleaning lady got a little crazy with her scrubbing and this is what I'm left with now. ~sigh~

My little box of finished pieces. This was just a few minutes work.

And my handy little sewing box I keep by the chair with all my English paper piecing essentials. There is also a lamp on the table next to my chair. I used to use it to piece by but now with the overhead light I don't need it. It's still there though. The hag(Sis) uses it to work on her tan. Thanks for peeking. Till next time. Myra


 

 

Mighty Fine Day

What a beautiful day it was yesterday, in the 60's and it's supposed to be just as fabulous today. Of course, as I always say, any day I wake up breathing is a wonderful day in my books.

I busied myself working on busting down some fabric stash. Took a bunch of scraps, big scraps, small scraps, tall scraps & short scraps, scraps of all colors, genders, makes and models.. well.. you get the picture... I cut up some scraps.

These first two pictures are some 2½" strips I cut on my Accuquilt Studio cutter. Three nice big piles came out of some very old and unused scraps. Some of it will be used for some English Paper Piecing projects and some will be used in other ways, maybe a fence rail quilt, or possibly run them back through my die cutter on the 2½" strip die the other way and make squares out of them. Felt good to finally make an effort to use up some stash I've been hoarding.

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The bucket you see sitting there holds my strings, for a string quilt. Those square papers I cut on my Accuquilt Studio cutter with the 6½" die. They are from an old office depot catalog. I'll use them for the foundation of my string quilt blocks. I only ended up with one tiny little pile of trash from my scrap busting. Gotta love that. 

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And this last picture I'm sharing today is of my new ironing/pressing station. I just wasn't getting along with the other one. It was great when sewing and pressing blocks but when it came to ironing large pieces of fabric I would always have to drag out my ironing board. So, I just decided to make my pressing area larger. And I know a few of you are going to ask how I made it so...... I took a board(I actually used two because that's what I had, but you only need one, the size you want your pressing board to be), covered it with aluminum foil. Then two layers of thin cotton batting(I used some leftovers I had from a previous quilt). Topped it off with a perty piece of fabric, stapled it in a couple of places on the bottom to hold and whalla... Custom size pressing board. The only draw back to this is I had to move my Accuquilt Studio cutter over and when I get ready to lay out a quilt on the table I'll probably have to move the cutter(which isn't light). But anyway.. its all good for now. Till next time.... Myra