Giveaway

Head on over to Bee In My Bonnet for a fun giveaway!

Too Busy to Post?

The week started out well with this little beauty arrving all the way from the Netherlands from laplandyellow. It is one of my June blocks from the Quilt Block Exchange.Here is the block I got finished for laplandyellow and will get in the mail as soon as I get to the post office.
I traveled across the state yesterday at the request of my grandson. He has been needing his Grammy and who am I to argue with that? He was very excited to see me yesterday and even more excited when he saw all the strawberries I brought with me.

Before I left I also got the last of the spool blocks doneso they are ready for craft night next week. As I made these spools I got 4 HSTs from each that I made into broken dishes blocks.

I decided to haul out all my random orphan blocks and see what I had and what I might be able to make from them. Sorting them out gave me 4 doll quilt tops to put together. I got the tops done and I am going to ust back them with flannel with no batting since I hope to sell them at a bazaar as, interestingly enough, doll blankets for little girls (or boys) to play with. I figured that makes them a little easier to wrap around a doll. I quilted two of them on the machine and got their bindings on them ready for the hand-sewing and the other two will be hand quilted using embroidery floss. I brought these all along since I get the occasional break from the kids to do a little hand-sewing.

Over the Weekend

It was a pretty good weekend around here. One of the best things was receiving this quilt block in the mail as part of the Quilt Block Exchange for June. This one is from be13cca. There will be two more coming this month. On Sunday during one of our thunderstorms I got two of mine made. One for be13cca:and one for raesha:Also, sometime over the weekend I finished the hand-sewing on the binding of the baby quilt so it is almost ready to mail.I took advantage of a brief sunbreak to get a picture. I am heading over to my daughter's on Wednesday so I will bring the quilt with me and get it mailed from there as she has some items to add to the box.

On Saturday I went through a couple of bins that have been sitting in my sewing room for months and sorted out fabric. I also cut pieces for 11 spool blocks for the group quilt and several more color blocks for the Summer Block Swap. I got the spools sew up along with their accompanying broken dishes blocks and hope to get one more cut out and sewn today. Next Tuesday I will take them to craft night and we can look at getting them laid out and ready to put together.

Yesterday during a couple of sunbreaks I did get some outside work done. Not a lot but just enough to let me know which muscles could use more work!

It is mostly cloudy today with some sunbreaks but very wet outside so I won't be doing anything out there so today's goal is to get my third block for the quilt block exchange done along with a 5.5" block for June Baggie Bingo, the last spool block and the color blocks done.

Berries, anyone?

I have been busy since I got back home but not in my sewing room so much! I came home to a bumper crop of strawberries! I have two 35" rows of strawberries in my garden. On Monday I picked one row and got about 20 pounds. On Tuesday, I picked the other row and got another 20 pounds or so! Yesterday my friend stopped by and picked the first row again and we got about 10 pounds total. Today it was close to 10 pounds probably and tomorrow I get a day off because Saturday morning a friend is going to come and pick the row!

Today I also got to go to the dentist and have two of my old fillings replaced so now my face is numb and my jaw is kind of sore. I think ice cream for dinner is a good plan!

The week in review

The hubby and I are back from our little trip. We had a great time with family, the wedding was lovely but stressful. It was great seeing the grandkids. Layden is getting so grown up in many ways and Clara is the cutest little thing walking around!

One of the fun things we did with hubby's sister and brother-in-law was checking out the many flea markets and antique shops in the Fort Collins/Loveland/Denver area. I got a few treasures as did hubby. One of my favorite things was this black shawl. Not sure if it will be a table runner, dresser scarf or an actual shawl but it looks good in the great room.
I got these two aprons at an estate sale. The yellow one is so cute and the white one is nearly new but the flower is hideous so I will take that off and embellish it some other way. The funny thing was the woman who was having the sale gushed about how much she loved the flower on that apron and it was difficult to not say something disparaging!
One option for the embellishment is to add hanky 'points' to the bottom so I got this hanky as a possibility. I saw several done that way at other flea markets.I did find some larger items but just couldn't figure out how to get them in my luggage! There was this very cute wrought iron patio set that included a glass top table and two chairs. I think my sister-in-law may go back and pick it up for her front yard this week sometime! I also saw a couple of great oak dining table chairs but again - just a little too big for the luggage! We also saw several interesting old sewing machines including a White treadle machine in an unique Mission Style cabinet.

Gone for a bit

We are heading off for Denver for the wedding today so I won't be posting much until next week. The quilt is labeled and washed and ready to be gifted.

Yesterday I spent a bit of time getting the yard ready for us to be gone for a week and my husband and daughter worked on the floor of her little house on wheels. They seemed to be having a good time together.

I did spend a little time yesterday morning in the sewing room. I got started on the quilting of the baby quilt. I made good headway so I should be able to finish it pretty quickly once we are home again.

Lucy is pretty much back to normal but she won't be happy once the suitcases come out! Hopefully she will have fun with her baby-sitter for the week.

Not as planned

My day started out pretty well this morning. The weather cooled down so I was able to spend about 3 hours outside working in the yard. Just as we were dumping the last load of weeds over the hill (what you can't see, won't hurt you?) near disaster struck. My little poodle (Lucy of Lucy's Quilts fame) went under the fence to the neighbor's pasture and had a run in with a horse. It was all an accident, the horse was just curious but she got underfoot and came out limping. So I took her to the vet where she spent the afternoon proving that she is once again a very lucky little dog. She ended up with just a few scrapes and bruises.

While she was at the vet I got to drive into the big city to pick up parts for our lawnmower and also appliance parts for a couple of customers so my husband can finish off several jobs before we head to the wedding next week.

The only sewing I managed today was shortening the sleeves of my daughter's coveralls.

I promised a picture...

Here it is - all done (okay, I still need to do the label but that is easy-peasy!)
I didn't have enough of any one fabric to use for the binding so I went scrappy, but then I prefer scrappy bindings anyway so it all worked out. I plan to run it through the wash since I had to do so much ripping so there are needle holes in some of the fabrics. Then I will buy a nice red ribbon and once we are done in Colorado I will tie it up all pretty! I really don't think quilts need wrapping!

My husband found this machine on Craig's List this week so I now own a working treadle machine. I haven't tried it out yet but it is supposed to work anyway.

I just love the design of the foot pedal! Now that I have a real working machine I will have to teach myself how to use it.

Yippee!

After a bit of struggling and some ripping, the wedding quilt is finally quilted! It was so nicely basted but then when I was about halfway done it started getting wrinkles in the top and there was nothing to be done but rip! Not a happy time but at least it was pretty easy ripping most of the time. I smoothed it out and re-pinned and went back to the sewing machine and the rest went off without too many hitches! It turned out really well even on my nearly 40 year old Pfaff!

I got the binding machine stitched on and will work on the hand-sewing at craft night tonight and once that is done I will get a good picture of the quilt outside.

2nd Top AND 2 Backs!

Saturday I was able to get more of the yellow so I could finish the borders on the second baby quilt. I really like how this one turned out and will be the one that goes to little Helen. I made the decision because there is one small square that was cut from fabric from a shirt I made for her great grandfather, my father - "Opa".I used up the rest of the extra fabric making the two backs for these quilts and luckily bought a fun bright green that is in the blue print to use as binding.

Today I will be trying to get all the quilting done on the wedding quilt and would love to get the baby quilts quilted this week as well. It is doable if I have the batting - the wedding quilt used up the last of my roll of 124" Warm and Natural and I can't get another roll for a few weeks.

I have been working on my cathedral window quilt in the evenings. It is now about 20"X22" using 59 blue background squares and so far 102 different yellow pieces.I am enjoying watching this one grow but I am wondering what I will use when I run out of my navy blue.