Change of plans

I did go into the sewing room this morning and I did work on that quilt and got to this point...

but at about 1:30 as I was thinking about the person this quilt is supposed to go to I remembered that one time she said she likes green. One of the first groups of fabric I considered was a group of greens but I didn't have a plan. But yesterday when I stopped at a local quilt shop for thread I saw a quilt that was very simple but striking. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of using that pattern with that group of fabrics. As I said, it was very simple - strip pieced rail fence blocks - and it went together very fast! By 5 pm I had this to show for my labors.

I am very happy with this and hope to get it basted and maybe quilted tomorrow but definitely on Monday. It needs to be done before I head to my quilt retreat. If I work hard I might get the other top done too. 


For now, I am going to finish my margarita and maybe finish an owl hat too!

One top done, another started

Got the top of the Christmas Crazy Quilt put together. I had originally planned to add borders but it is already something like 76" square and I didn't want to make a huge quilt so I think I will stop here. Besides, I wasn't happy with any of the options for borders with it.

There is a need for another comfort quilt at church so I got two more cut out and started sewing one. Here you can see the remaining pieces for the one I have started and the extra one in the ziploc bag. I even got smart and added a slip of paper telling me the name of the pattern and the page number and the name of the book it is in so I can avoid confusion when I get ready to sew!

These are the next pieces I will be sewing later this morning when I head into the sewing room. 

I would love to have the top done today but that will depend on many factors! One of which is motivation and another is distractions! Wish me luck!

A little sewing, a lot of other stuff

Where does the time go? I have been so busy with so many things but not blogging. I get situated on the couch in the evening and blogging is the last thing I am feeling like doing!

My son-in-law arrived on the 16th and over the weekend we turned this...

into this!

Progress is being made on the little house on wheels again. It is looking very nice. Hopefully, they will be able to come over again soon and get a little more done. My niece was over helping with the siding but she also helped me make some crazy quilt blocks out of my Christmas scraps. All together we got 105 blocks made!

Here are six of the blocks auditioning a fabric for sashing. I tried out lots of options and this is the one I bought along with a cute print for the corner blocks. I am now working on getting the rows made and I would love to have the top done tomorrow but that could easily be sabotaged!


In my drawers of Christmas scraps there were all of these little triangles left over from another quilt. I got them all sewn together and I think there are 407, but I could be off by one or two!

I am doing some thinking of a new way to use these little babies. I have some ideas but first they must all be trimmed square! 


Here is another of my projects - garden produce! Here you see the last 'big' picking of green beans and some zucchini in my dishpan being dwarfed by one of my pumpkins! I also picked three dishpans full of Damson plums one day and had to come up with uses for them! Most of them ended up in the freezer to be pulled out later for snacking or jam.

This past weekend my husband and I rearranged 'stuff' from the garage and various outbuildings on our property. Here is how things looked early on in the process! 

As I said earlier, I hope to get a quilt top together tomorrow or the next day and I need to start getting things packed up for my quilt retreat next week. I have the Christmas fabrics cut but need the black packed for the strips between and all my paraphernalia and maybe a couple of other projects to work on. If I am really good I might get the crazy quilt top turned into a quilt and I can work on the binding at the retreat.

Confessions

A couple of days ago one of my bloggy/quilty friends wrote a post exposing her 'messy' sewing room. I commented that hers is immaculate compared to mine and she asked for pictures. I was going to only share them with her but they say that confession is good for the soul and I am hoping that showing the mess will give me accountability and will get me moving on cleaning things up! I have done a few projects this summer and have worked around the mess but it is time to clean it up to have space to get my fall projects going! 

Here is my cutting table and ironing board side of the room. On the table are some of the remains of all the projects from this summer and all of my Christmas fabrics. On the floor you can see the 11.5 yards of barkcloth I got at that garage sale. Since I took the picture I have started cutting the Christmas fabrics. I have had these fabrics for quite a while and really don't use them anymore so I am cutting it up and I plan to sew it all up at the quilt retreat next month. That will give me another bin to put my stash in!

Here is the other side of the room where the quilting machine is. You can't see it but there is also a huge basket of yarn back there for owl hats and mittens. If I need to do some quilting I move all the bins and baskets to the other side of the room and then move them back for binding, etc. The bins in the foreground are all the fabrics waiting to be made into comfort quilts for church (the first one was given this past Sunday). 

Unfortunately, I have no other space to store all of the bins so until I use up the fabric they will just be in the way so it is time to get sewing and hopefully I will be able post some pictures soon that show some improvement!

Is it going to settle down?

At this point I am not so sure. But more about that after I update you on the last couple of weeks.

Here are the quilts that I made with the kids. This is Layden's creation. He is 5 1/2 and just started Kindergarten. He was very methodical in his placement of the pieces. He chose the layout - I think he saw it more as 2 rows of 3 instead of 3 rows of 2! He chose his green background fabric and was instrumental in the choice of the rainbows for the back and sashing.

Here is little Clara's quilt. She is 3 and just like laying them all over the place! Clara chose pink because, you know, pink is her 'fravrite' color!

I drove them back home last Monday and let me tell you, driving for 6 hours or so with those two kids is no mean feat! The only time they weren't talking was, wait! they never stopped talking! I was able to kiss them goodbye the next morning as they headed to the first day of Kindergarten and preschool and then rode with their dad to pick them up and hear about their morning. While they were at school I enjoyed a relaxed conversation with my son-in-law. He works 12-hour shifts on the weekends when I am usually visiting so it was nice to have a chat without kid distractions.


I headed out just before lunch and my son fed me lunch at his apartment at college. He is starting his senior year at Washington State University.


I left there when he needed to head to class and drove up to my other daughter's house on Lake Coeur d'Alene. She had to work until 7 so I got to have a nice one-on-one with my other son-in-law. I spent the next two days at their house enjoying my daughter's 'weekend'. We had a little sew-in up in her attic. Thank goodness the weather was a bit cooler so it was comfortable up there! We each got a Professional Tote made and had a great time! This is my bag...

 ...and this is Rebecca finishing hers. 

I headed home on Friday and got busy with laundry, picking blackberries and getting everything put away. My sister arrived for a visit from Idaho just before dinner as did her daughter who lives about 30 miles away. We had a fun weekend! Saturday we did a garage sale marathon hitting 27 sales! We got some treasures - my favorite was a piece of vintage barkcloth - about 11 1/2 yards for $80! I have been thinking about making new curtains for the bedroom using barkcloth but hadn't yet found any larger pieces online.


Several months ago, our pastor asked me to make her a green stole to wear with her alb. I got it finished very quickly but then never remembered to bring my camera to get a picture of her wearing it. I finally remembered this past Sunday so here it is. I caught her as she was greeting folks after worship.

She looks happy here but today she was looking a bit tired. A hot water pipe broke under the kitchen sink at church on Tuesday evening sometime and wasn't discovered until about 5:30 in the morning when the daycare staff came in. The kitchen and bathrooms upstairs were flooded along with the bathrooms, storage area and one classroom downstairs. Luckily, the insurance company is being very helpful and we have professionals cleaning things up but it is still a headache! Tomorrow I am going to go in and help figure out which of the wet items is worth keeping or should be trashed! Luckily, we have finally gotten summer here so it is warm and dry to help with the drying and the weather is supposed to be lovely for outdoor worship on Sunday.


Yesterday I did some yard work and got laundry washed and on the line during the day and in the evening I made it to my quilt guild meeting. We had a great speaker and I got my registration forms for putting quilts in the show in October. Also, the guild president announced that she won the auction for my quilt that was hanging at the bluegrass festival!


This morning I did some more laundry (the sheets and towels are all done now) and also made two batches of peach jam and this afternoon was LWR quilting day at the church. 


I haven't gotten any sewing done since I have been home but I am hoping to get into the sewing room soon as I have quite a few project deadlines looming!

It's Relay Day!

(not sure what happened but this never got posted I guess so better late than never!)


My husband and I spent Memorial Day weekend with our kids. This involved a drive across the state and an even longer drive home due to traffic issues! But we did have a great time with everyone! We were missing the grandkids so it was great to spend 2 1/2 days with them. We are looking forward to having them here with us for a week soon. As a bonus we got to see my sister and her husband and their second son!


Before leaving I got these two baby quilts finished. I just need to let the person who commissioned them pick which one she wants and then get the label on it.

Here is a close up of the quilting - a meander with little flowers. It isn't as obvious on the front of the quilt but it adds a lot to the back!

I got this hat in the mail to my niece just before we left. I am hoping she is happy with it. 

I have had a request for another owl hat so I need to get yarn in the right colors and then I can get it going. Maybe that will be something I can work on during Relay.


Yes, our local Relay for Life is this weekend - starting at 6 this evening. As co-captain of our team I will be there at 3 to get our site set up and will probably stay through the night until the closing ceremony at 2 tomorrow. I have almost met my fund-raising goal but would appreciate any donations to help in the fight against cancer. I am walking to honor all cancer survivors and in memory of all who have lost their battle against cancer, especially my brother, mother-in-law and sister-in law. You can donate online right here.


I got the purple top basted and quilted yesterday and I am about half way around on the binding. I would love to have it done Sunday so I can deliver it to my customer but that will depend on whether I get any sleep tonight at Relay! I will post a picture when it is done.

Project with the kids

I have the grandkids this week and my grandson has been wanting to do some sewing with me. I had a lot of little pieces of fabric leftover with fusible web on it so I decided we would use them up and the kids could make some blocks for a quilt for each of them. Layden chose lime green and Clara chose pink for the background colors. We have a fun rainbow stripe for the backs. Here they are laying out the pieces of fabric on one of their blocks.

That was this morning and this afternoon we worked on washing the travel trailer. It was terrible and now it is less terrible but not great!


Tomorrow we hit the county fair for rides and fair food! Should be a fun day, especially since I have my niece, Katie here to help me out!