Distractions

Well, I didn't get to work on the backs on Thursday evening as I was getting thing packed to head over to my oldest daughter's house. My other daughter and I surprised her with a visit to help celebrate the completion of her work to receive her BS. She has had several delays, not the least of which are two babies! We were at the house when she got done with her presentation and her graduation cake was just coming out of the oven, the frosting was cooling and the dishes were done! She was completely surprised and my grandson was very pleased also!

We came home on Sunday with a stowaway - my grandson is here for the week and we are having a good time but it does cut into sewing time! I am going to try to get some done on the backs today - I did press the fabrics so far!

This little quilt is my Plain Jane mini from Kim. It is so cute. I picked it up at the post office on my way out of town on Friday. While I was at my daughter's I got most of the top done for the quilt I am sending to her and today I got it quilted so I just need to finish the hand-sewing on the binding.

135 blocks, 8 mitered corners, 2 completed tops

You know how you procrastinate when you have a task to do that you don't really relish? And then, you get into it and it really wasn't as bad as you made it out to be in your own mind? Well, last night and this morning I finished up the two Road to Jericho quilt tops by adding the borders. The fact that the borders are three strips and then are mitered were the parts I didn't like. It all worked like magic but I dreaded it. As you can see they turned out great. This is the smaller one at about 74" X 92". The other is about 82" X 92". Tonight I think I will work on getting the backs done and then I can schedule some time at my friend's house on her new long arm machine. If that goes well I have SEVERAL other tops to turn into quilts before the quilt show in March!

More Organizing

One would think it was spring and not the dead of winter with all the cleaning/organizing/rearranging I have been doing.

This is a picture of the bookcase that has been the home of our VHS tapes and DVD's for some time. I am not a big fan of videos being on display all the time so I have long been trying to come up with a way to hide them. I suggested a year or so ago that we put all the DVDs in one of those 'wallets' that they make for CDs and DVDs. My husband didn't like this idea and resisted mightily.

When our grandson was visiting after Christmas it became apparent that we needed to get them put somewhere else for his safety - he was climbing the bookcase to get to his favorite movie so he could watch.

So I bought a couple of 'wallets' and a label maker and got started on the project. I made a label for each disc so that we would be able to see the name of the movie or TV show easily and also see how long it is. I had to buy some more holders once it became clear how many movies there really were on those shelves! But, so began the process of reducing this...
...to this.


Now I can work on repurposing the shelf space for something more attractive like some of the tiny sewing machines my husband has purchased lately along with more quilts and maybe even some books!

Rearranging

I think I mentioned back in December that our daughter and her cat arrived back at home. They are currently living in our travel trailer and she is working with her dad fixing appliances. She and her dad will start building her little house on wheels sometime this spring I think. She moved back from Alaska where she went to college and spent an additional 2 years exploring and working. She also took a 3-month cross-country bicycle trip from San Diego to Florida two years ago. All this information is leading up to the two bicycles and bike trailer that need a heated space in which to be stored. My husband has vetoed using his office or shop as that storage space and I vetoed the great room (where they are right now). We were discussing this problem while I was surfing the web and I realized that if I moved my computer back to the sewing room the bikes could be stored in our son's former bedroom (they can easily be moved out to the deck or garage when company comes).

So, I moved the computer today and vacuumed the sewing room. Things are pretty good but I do have some more tidying to do before I will be totally happy with the situation. I had been planning this move regardless but the bikes in the great room kind of spurred me on. I like being able to just roll over to the computer to check email and such while the iron heats up or whatever and I have a TV in here which I missed in the other room.

Well, now I need to head back into the old computer room and do some vacuuming, etc. Maybe I will have some quilting pictures to show soon.

I haven't really gotten much sewing done this week so I thought I would take up Laura's challenge and answer the following questions:

What style of quilt piecing do you lean towards?
I do almost anything, depends on my mood. I enjoy some hand-applique but I don't really like doing machine applique. I enjoy both hand and machine piecing. I have grown to like (I think love is still too strong a word) foundation paper piecing but find that English paper piecing is too much prep work. I do love a good wonky crazy quilt block to use up small scraps.

Who are your favorite fabric designers?

I really couldn't tell you. I don't pay attention to the names most of the time. I prefer a good scrappy quilt and seldom buy a whole line of fabrics to make one quilt. 

How do you quilt your quilts?
I have been known to tie, hand quilt, machine quilt or send it off to my long-arming friend for the quilting.

Who do you make your quilts for?

My husband, kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, sister, brothers, SIL, BIL, friends, swap partners, various charities, and sometimes, I keep one or two for myself.

Can you list how many projects are you working on right now?
Are you kidding? There are always several going at once. I have a t-shirt quilt that needs quilting, a baby quilt, a wedding quilt, several swaps, a birthday quilt for me, a scrap quilt or two, a crazy quilt, several gifts. I just work on whatever seems most pressing at the time!

What are your quilty plans for 2009?

See previous answer and probably 20 or so other projects! Oh, and a quilt show in March that I am putting together with a friend.

All right-y then, now it is your turn!

Look at this!

Two posts is one day! I hope that isn't too much for anyone!

I just wanted to share a quick picture of my work for today. I decided I wanted to get all my Road to Jericho blocks put together into a couple of quilt tops today and I did it!

I have the blocks together but I haven't decided if I want to add a border like I did on this and this. Right now they are 60" X 78" and 69" X 78" so I have to make a decision. I have lots of black, as always and lots of scraps to do the middle border like I did in the other but I am just not sure.

Any opinions?

Finished Top

I finished off the Christmas quilt top yesterday. During the course of the week I trimmed all the HST to 2 1/8". They are the leftovers of several Christmas quilts I made a few years back - the corners that were cut off in the making of the snow ball blocks. As I usually do, I went ahead and sewed a second seam so they were all together and just needed pressing and trimming. Friday I started sewing the squares together. By that evening I had them all sewn into strips and then realized I needed a few more pinwheels. I cut some new ones and had to add them in randomly so they weren't obvious on the ends of several strips. Then I had them all laid out and discovered that half of the pinwheels had to spin in the opposite direction so I had to do some un-sewing and re-sewing while we watched a couple episodes of House that night. Saturday I got the strips together the right way and got them all on and decided to just add the two plain borders instead of adding another pieced border. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out - even after all the stumbling blocks. I also got the back for this done along with the back for another Christmas quilt (my border round robin top) and the back for the Recipe for Friendship top. I am going to have to get busy and get some quilting done soon!

This week was a busy one - we finally presented the Christmas program at our church school on Wednesday evening. It went well with only a few glitches but nothing goes smoothly when Mary and Joseph are in Kindergarten and you have 12 year olds that would rather be anywhere but there! The kids did a great job and I was so relieved to be done!

I think today I need to get some groceries and then I hope to get my Road to Jericho blocks put together into a couple more quilt tops. My friend has offered the use of her quilting machine so I might just go over this week and test it out on one of the tops I have finished. My husband really things I need to get my own long arm machine but I have no where to put it until we get rid of our piano.

Yesterday I got an email from Alaska Airlines about a Winter Clearance Sale so I checked it out and ended up getting our tickets to Denver for our niece's wedding in June (that is another quilt I need to get going on). Then I got to thinking about the quilt retreat over in Coeur d'Alene in February and bought a ticket to fly over instead of driving. Last February I wasn't sure I would be able to make it over due to snow in the mountains so I figured I would get a cheap ticket now and not have to think about that this year. Now I just have to rethink my packing so I can get everything into one checked bag and a carry-on! Which machine to bring?

My Holidays

I have been very bad about posting this holiday season. There have been many contributing factors. Let us start with the snow, and then there was some more snow, and then some more. Then we drove across the state to yet more snow! On top of that I had Grammy duties to attend to so I didn't get much time for posting or sewing. I did get this little cutie made over Christmas, in between diaper changes, reading stories, holding a sleeping angel, etc. It is about 6.5" square.

Our trip back home was mostly uneventful but included bringing a 3 year old with us. Lots of fun but boy can he wear his grammy out! Luckily he likes to go shopping so I was able to hit one LQS for their end of the year sale plus my birthday shopping spree. They had fat quarters 20 for $25 so I picked up 40. I also got the tan/gold batik for the sashing of this Christmas quilt. I still need a border but haven't decided what that will be yet. Probably something using up some of my Christmas scraps and stash - strips? squares? The blocks for this are some Grandmother's Flower Garden pieces I had originally planned to use for ornaments but ended up appliqueing them onto squares of Christmas fabric. I got this much together this morning and will start looking at the borders this evening or tomorrow.

This is what I put together using the charm pack of Recipe for Friendship fabrics that I got for my birthday. I added another charm pack and the red and green yardage along with black Kona that I always have on hand. I like how it turned out and plan to use black for the binding.

For added excitement around New Year's our son called on Friday morning because he had gotten his BIL's truck stuck in a snowbank at the side of the highway and had to be towed and then that evening he called - very disoriented and distressed - after having fallen on the ice while going for a walk (he decided driving in the snow and ice wasn't a good plan!). He ended up with a nasty concussion but the folks at the emergency room said he would be ok. Still doesn't remember exactly what happened or how long he might have been out, etc.