A Wedding Quilt

 My brother-in-law recently married and he is the last of my husband's siblings to do so. I had a brilliant idea, maybe crazy too, to create a big quilt for my brother and his fiancee for their wedding day. I started designing the quilt in January, before they announced their engagement in February, and collected different fabrics that reflected their likes and hobbies. Music is a big part of their lives and so there is music note fabric in a few of the squares. This was a longer undertaking that involved 4 months of work and my sewing machine parked on my kitchen table the whole time.

There are 12 inch half square triangle blocks on the whole thing and a 6 inch border around it. There's 7 blocks across and 8 blocks down. I made it for a queen bed with a nice drop on the sides. Only four color palates, but they look great in the diagonal. And there is black flannel on the back. She gets cold toes all the time.

Piecing the top was ok, but getting those half square triangles straight can be challenging when they're so big. This time I wanted to try spray basting, instead of locating 600 safety pins and hoping I don't put wrinkles in the fabric. I really like the 505 spray basting! You spray it on the batting, just in case it could do something odd to your fabric. But you have time to lift and reposition  your fabric to get it smooth. It really does stay put while quilting. I put safety pins along the border of the top as an extra precaution and to keep the fabric nicer on the edges. The spray basting doesn't gum up or slow down your needle and will release the tack when washed, but will not completely wash out..hence sprayed on the batting.

I have a regular sized sewing machine that has some quilting accessories like the detachable quilting table and some useful sewing feet, but shoving a queen to king sized quilt through the arm of a regular machine is no small feat! Good thing I only do straight line quilting on that machine. Every time I had to sew a new line, my hubby would unfold it and refold it along the seam or drawn quilt line so that it sits balanced in my lap and the one side will fit under the machine. Then, he would sit on the other side of the table and pull the fabric through smoothly so I don't get muscle cramps in my arm and shoulders. That took a couple weeks of just quilting the lines.

I did want to put an applique in the corner to emphasize their love of music, and did a satin stitch all the way around the notes. Then I tried my hand at free motion quilting around those notes. It's not my favorite, or I just need more practice. Don't look too closely at it.

I hope they like it and use it well.

P&G Bounty Advanced Paper Towels and Magic Erasers Review

It's time for a product review! Cleaning may not be everyone's favorite pastime, but it's one of those necessary evils. I was asked to review Proctor & Gamble products that are available at Costco from Smiley360. The P&G bag was the freebie, but I had to buy my own product to review.

We did buy the Bounty Advanced paper towels and the Magic Erasers. I did not purchase the Tide Pods or the Downy Unstoppables, as we are very sensitive to perfumes and fragrances as a family. (And I secretly want to slap anyone that uses too much perfume in the first place.)

Last year we bought a house and still have a lot of things that are one the 'clean and repair it' list. Our blinds in the master bathroom  were kinda moldy and showing rust. I've been after my husband for months to clean those.

So we put our new cleaning products to the test. After trying out a towel or two and a cut up magic eraser, my hubby found the right combo on how to get the blinds clean. First he used a Clorox wipe on the slats. You have to have something with a cleaning solution in it to cut through the grime. A wet towel won't help much, no matter who manufactured it.

Then he used the magic eraser to follow up on the harder to scrub off dirt and stains. Here is a before picture with brown spots on the edges.

Then he used light pressure to take them off with the magic eraser. Don't scrub too hard or the finish will come off the metal slats.

Then he had a routine with the paper towels. He said after the Clorox wipe and magic eraser. He wiped down the slat with a damp towel to pick up any floating dirt, and then dried it with a dry paper towel.

After two hours of cleaning each filthy slat..they were visibly clean!

There was still some deep embedded grime on the blinds, but we didn't want the paint on the slats to scratch off like the ones in the kitchen that someone cleaned too hard. (We didn't do it!)

I use magic erasers all the time to clean deep seated dirt in just about everything. They also clean crayon off Grandma's kitchen table when a nephew felt a little artistic. The paper towels are thicker than their normal brand, and we didn't go through that many on this cleaning project. Which is a good thing!