Relay Wrap-up, Grad Quilts, Yard Work

I made it through Relay last weekend! And making it is a good description. We started setting up at 3 pm on Friday and then took everything down at noon on Saturday. In between there was lots of walking and very little sleeping! As of today our team raised over $3900! Pretty happy about that! Personally I raised over $2000. That is a lot of owl hats, owl purses, quilts and other crafts!

Yesterday I finished the grad quilts. Here are the two denim ones.

And here is one of the two plaid/flannel ones. The other has already been given to its new owner.

As for the yard work I have been plugging away at the flower bed and finally got the weeding done there. I am hoping to get a load of bark delivered soon to get it covered to avoid doing all that weeding again next year! 

I have also been working in the garden some. I weeded the radishes, carrots and onions yesterday. I pulled some of the radishes to thin them some and planted beans and the starts of cucumbers/squash that I planted a few weeks ago and some more carrots and brussel sprouts. I also planted the boysenberry plants I bought at a garage sale a few weeks ago.

Today I got started on some more flower beds. I did some rearranging of plants to better spots and tried again to get rid of that ornamental grass that was one of my worst gardening decisions ever! I will keep trying though!

I've been busy...

My niece, who lives on the other side of the country, emailed me the other day and just asked, "Are you alive?" She relies on blog posts to keep track of me and I have not posted in TWO MONTHS! The answer is, "Yes, but I have been busy and not taking time to write blog posts." There is work and the yard and the garden and Relay for Life and crocheting owl hats and my new one, owl purses. 

Work is going great but definitely keeps me busy in the mornings. I have rearranged my work schedule so I can usually have Fridays off which has been great! After almost a year at the job I can say that I really do love being a church secretary administrative assistant and I am glad I am back at it!

In between rain showers and work I have been working in the garden and flower beds. There is still a long way to go but the weeds in the garden at least are under control. With the recent rains, the strawberries are growing like crazy and it looks like we will have a very good crop again this year. Here are two of the flower beds I have been working on. One is a small bed that has calla lilies, dianthus, iris and lily of the valley. Up until this past week it also had a lot of weeds. I got rid of most of those and moved the iris you see on the left (in front of Miss Lucy) out from under the bushes. I hope to move a few more iris into this bed as they seem to do really well there.

The other is about 6' X 40' and has azaleas, hydrangeas, rhododendrons and lilacs along with a few other bushes. My goal for this year is to get this bed barked over!

Relay for Life in next weekend so I have been doing things to get prepared for that which included a used book and plant sale a few weeks ago. Owl hats usually sell quite well at Relay so I want to have some on hand for that and I saw a pattern for adorable little owl purses that I can make out of the balls of yarn that are too small for the hats. I have almost 20 of the purses ready to sell also. Isn't that just the cutest thing?

Also, since my last post, the grandkids visited for a few days and my grandson was able to finish up his first quilt which he started at the quilt show in March. When they visit this summer I am sure there will be more sewing going on!

My daughter that lives with us is a substitute school bus driver for one of the local districts and in recent weeks she was preparing for the school bus road-e-o. Last weekend she competed and got second place for rookies and was about in the middle of the pack for all drivers. As you can see below, I got a chance to be a good mother and embarrass her as she accepted her plaque. 

I haven't been doing much sewing but about two weeks ago was reminded that it was time for graduation quilts at church and since I had said I would make them that meant I needed to get busy. It was calculated that we would need two and both were for boys so I pulled out a bunch of plaid flannel that a friend gave me and started cutting. I decided on double 4-patch based on pieces that she already had cut. I determined I would need 1020 smaller squares and 255 larger squares and managed to get the smaller ones but was a bit short on the larger ones. I pieced some of the extra scraps to make the final 25 or so larger ones. Here are the some of the small ones.

Oh, the lint that flannel creates! I worked at it and got both tops done yesterday morning and after figuring out the backs, got both basted and one quilted yesterday afternoon. The second one got quilted today. I think they turned out pretty great.

I was cutting the binding and wondered where I was going to store it until needed and remembered that I had an empty drawer in my sewing cabinet and discovered it was a great place to 'stage' my binding when I was sewing it on. 

So that is what I have been up to for the last two months. Hopefully I will be back here sooner next time.

The Quilt Show & #5 & Rearranging

Here is a close up of the quilting on finish #5 for the year. It was made from the leftover triangles of another quilt that I blogged about here. 

I was happy to get it done to hang in the quilt show which was March 16. The show went well with about 50 quilts hanging. I only had one quilt of mine hanging that had been in the show before. There were 11 local quilters who shared their quilts in the show. 

Here is a shot of the Eiffel Tower quilt my niece made to raise money for her trip with the Vivace Chorale to Paris. It is an adaptation of the Stained Glass Denim Quilt Pattern I have used so much. It is amazing to me how many people are still asking for that pattern.

This quilt was done all by hand by a local quilter. The base of the tree is hidden by the sewing machine that was for sale. The creator of the quilt saw a 3" X 3" picture of this tree and enlarged it to a queen size quilt! This quilter shared 7 or 8 quilts with us at the show!

Here are three more quilts on display. 

Another quilter shared these two quilts on the quilt rack with us. They were both hand sewn. The Cathedral Window quilt used 30 yards of unbleached muslin and 3 yards of the blue calico.

If you would like to see more pictures from the show, they are up on flickr.

I have been working on getting things rearranged in the house to allow for the new pieces of furniture that arrived a few weeks ago. I emptied out a bookcase and took it to my niece's house. I rearranged things in the great room and then started to add items to the new curio cabinet. I kept adding and found more things and added them and was rather surprised to fill it! 

I have also been working hard at cleaning up the sewing room. It was just such a huge mess! I am pretty satisfied with it right now but there is still room for improvement. I bought some bins to store fabric and batting, etc. and started filling the little drawers in the sewing cabinet and I even got rid of quite a few things. I will try to post some pictures soon but the weather is improving and I have a lot of work to do outside!

Retreat, #4 and Show

Last weekend was Quilt Retreat for me and I got a lot accomplished. I got the star blocks from the last block exchange put together and got the borders on another top that has been waiting around for several months. I also did two sets of One Block Wonder blocks and two LWR quilt tops. As a final project I worked on some blocks that I started several years ago.

Had a great visit with my sister and other quilters at the retreat and the bonus visit from my daughter and grandkids. On my way home I stopped by my son's apartment and picked up the twin bed he has been using. He decided that a nearly 23 year old, 6 foot tall young man should have a big person's bed. This was followed by a quick stop at my daughter's house and I continued on the trip home. I was so glad to be home at about 5:30 pm after leaving camp at about 8:30 am!

I arrived home to two new pieces of furniture in my house. The most exciting was my new sewing cabinet that my husband made for me.

It has 24 treadle sewing machine cabinet drawers, a shelf for my serger and it fits around my Sew-E-Z table for my sewing machine. I have only done a little sewing since I got home but I already love the extended sewing surface. I haven't had a chance to fill all the drawers yet but I am looking forward to getting things organized.

The other piece of furniture is an antique curio cabinet that my husband purchased from a customer. 

I already have one curio cabinet and really no more space in my house so we are emptying a book case and giving it to our niece to make some more space. I am also considering giving away another piece if I can get things rearranged to I'm not using the space.

With the quilt show just one week away I am trying to get more quilts finished that are close. Here is finish #4 for the year. These are my Block Exchange Blocks from this past year. The rainbow stripe fabric is the backing for the quilts I made with my grandkids so I figure this will be a cuddle quilt for them to use at Grammy's house. I used a polyester batt that I had on hand and was able to make it two layers so it is nice and fluffy. 

I started quilting another quilt yesterday and after I had some feather borders done I realized the tension was off and I have to rip it all out! I stayed home from work today as I am not feeling well so I am hoping to get the ripping done today and then maybe I will feel better tomorrow so I can get the quilting redone so it is ready for the show.

This week I have received 20 quilts from other local quilters and hope to get at least another 20 for the show. I have 3-7 people who have offered some so I hope to get a bunch. I am hoping to only have newer quilts of mine in the show so it is mostly fresh and new. I was excited this week to find out that we will have a beautiful handmade oak quilt rack made by one of our church members to raffle off.

Well, I still feel pretty crummy but I am going to try to get something accomplished today even if it is just hand stitching a binding!

Second and Third

Finishes, that is. The first was the Relay Raffle Quilt. Glad to have that one done. I hope to get the tickets printed this week so we can start selling them.

I realized on Tuesday morning that I am invited to a baby shower for a young woman who works at the daycare at work tomorrow. I realized I had this top all ready to be quilted so I picked up some flannel for the back on the way home from work and quickly got it washed and dried. Got things laid out and basted, quilted and had the binding ready for hand-sewing at craft night that evening! So here is a picture of finish number 3

and here is a close-up of some of the quilting. I have so much fun making those little flowers!

It was a busy week at work especially with the need to get next week's work done early so I can head to my quilt retreat! I realized this morning that I really need to get busy on a plan for projects to work on at the retreat. I have thrown some things together but not totally satisfied with things so far. I will do some more planning tomorrow.

This morning I got one of my shop hop quilts basted and ready for quilting so that might get quilted over the weekend. Maybe it will be finish #4! It feels really good to be finishing up some UFOs!

Relay Raffle

I am well on my way to my second finished quilt of the year! I finished this top this evening.

This will be the raffle quilt for our Relay for Life team this year. I hope to get it basted tomorrow and quilted on Wednesday but there are no guarantees!

Once this one is done I will get borders on Katie's block and then I would like to get some UFOs quilted and finished. I think I have at least 4 tops I could quilt and get finished so that is my next big goal.

Spring is on its way along with lots of outdoor jobs! Over the weekend I got 2 of the five apple trees pruned so if I get some spare time when it isn't raining I need to get out and finish up the other three. Having those done is my next outside goal.

What a Fun Night!

But then, it is always fun at craft night. Tuesday was especially great though because it was Quilt Reveal Night! It is always so exciting to see what creations we came up with this year.

I drew the #1 so I went first to reveal the quilt I made for my friend, Nadine. She seemed to like it...I was so honored to make this for her. As I cut the pieces and sewed the blocks I was given the opportunity to pray for Nadine and the success of her treatment.

Next came Linnea's quilt for Cindy. In the center of the stars are pictures of all of Cindy's grandkids.

Sally our hostess was the next to hang her quilt. This time for Mary. We got to watch this quilt come together. You can't see it in the picture but the colors in this looked so soft - almost as if it was flannel.

Then Linnea left the room so Mary could hang up some of the blocks for Linnea's quilt. Evidently Mary made two other quilts but wasn't satisfied with them so she decided on this one. She had hoped to have at least half of it put together for the reveal but there was a good bit of unsewing that needed to be done so it just wasn't to be. It is going to be gorgeous when it gets finished.

Next up was Nadine's quilt for me! It is great! Now I don't have to make my own black and white quilt with a splash of color!

Our last quilt was Cindy's quilt for Sally. She struggled so with this quilt. She was very proud of herself for actually following the pattern but some of the strips were mighty thin.

All the quilts were so awesome! 


After we finished oohing and aahing we got down the business of figuring out who will be making a quilt for whom. We each just have two more people to make quilts for now, so we figure we will just work on them both, but only one is expected to be finished by May 2014. My first needs to be made for Mary. She is fine with any size and is interested in Black and White with a bit of Red and does like Log Cabin or any more traditional quilt. I will need to look at patterns and see what I come up with. I am hoping to get it done sooner rather than later and then I can get to work on one for Cindy.