A Bit of This, A Bit of That

I really need to get my sewing room under control and I think the only way to do that is to finish things. In an effort to finish one project, I have been working with my leftover triangles again. I got them all sewed together into half square triangles units. Got all of those trimmed up and put them together into Broken Dishes blocks and then added them to all the blocks I have made in the past. 

I saw a quilt somewhere online using rows of blocks of various sizes. It had either grey or tan as strips in between those rows. I counted all the blocks and figured out how big a quilt I could make and it was going to be pretty big so I adjusted and decided to make two smaller quilts, thinking they would be easier to sell or give away or something. I sewed the blocks together by size into strips around 45-50" long and took them to work to lay out on the floor. As I laid them out I was talking to my boss about the upcoming Shrove Tuesday Pancake Dinner and Talent Show at the church and she mentioned having a silent auction also. I offered to add a quilt so I picked up what I started and took it all home to adjust the lengths of the strips to something more like 70-80".

Here is a picture of the rows hanging on the drying rack after pressing.

 Here are the rows laid out at work. As you can see the rows varied a lot in length depending on how many blocks I had of each size.

I took a few of the blocks to the fabric store to see what I could find for the 'in between' and my favorite was an apple green. I added green to each row to make it 85" and then put 1" finished strips between the rows. Here is a picture of it on the floor for basting.

I backed it with a barn red flannel - a king-size duvet cover that my husband got at a garage sale for $5 last summer. Here it is all finished and hanging at the church. 

I did a medium stipple using a variegated green thread. Here is a picture of the two smallest rows. There are 4 little 1/2" Broken Dishes blocks and then a strip of 25 - 1" blocks.

Tuesday was craft night next door and Sally had Linnea's quilt finished for us to see. Isn't that a cool panel?

Linnea also brought her quilt from Mary from one of the previous exchanges. Mary hadn't been able to finish all the blocks and get it put together so we didn't get to see it at the reveal and then Linnea brought it one night to craft night but I wasn't there so I asked her to bring it so I could see it. It is quite beautiful in person!

I finally finished my grandson's baby quilt. He is now 7 months old!

It was made from blocks I cut out of the quilt I made for his mommy almost 30 years ago. While pregnant I had embroidered the 12 old-fashioned babies on a piece of pale green fabric. When I had them done I just quilted around the embroidery and then between the babies. It was a pretty boring quilt though she loved it. When we talked about a quilt for her little one I suggested redoing her quilt and she was open to that. She told me she likes the 30's prints so I got some and cut 2 1/2" squares to frame the blocks. When I cut the blocks I left the original hand quilting around the babies and just cut through all the layers and used them that way. I machine quilted diagonals through the small squares and added another round of hand quilting about 1/4" out from the original. The back I used was fabric I purchased in Sitka when I visited my daughter when she was in college and I thought it was appropriate since little Karl visited Sitka when he was just one month old.

I have had everything done but the label a month ago but just didn't get to the label. Finally this week I wrote out a label and got it stitched to the back.

I have pulled out my denim now and hope to work my way through that next. That would mean at least two large bins will be emptied and I should be able to get rid of some backs and batting that has been given to me too!

I am hoping my next post will be an update on denim quilts.

Dizzy! I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning...

Unfortunately, it isn't just a song for me right now, I have been dealing with a case of vertigo since last Wednesday night/Thursday morning. This means I am not feeling up to getting my sewing room in order so I can do some sewing but it does mean I can spend some time getting you all updated with the goings on around here for the last 1 2 3 almost 4 months! 

The big story is that we have the cutest little baby boy living here! Our new little grandson has stolen all our hearts. He is a happy little guy who smiles and giggles so amazingly. Then you throw in our little poodle, Ginger, and life is so fun and crazy around here! 

Here are a few pictures of them. First we have Ginger taking a nap under the blanket I crocheted for her out of small bits of yarn I had on hand. She had fallen in love with the blanket my sister crocheted for the baby so I gave her a replacement of her own.

Next up is our little man taking a nap on my lap and holding his little face. It is so hard to not take pictures of this guy every second or so!

Here are both of our babies having a nap. Ginger wearing her cone of shame following her 'little' surgery a couple of weeks ago. She does love her playmate - can't wait till they are both a bit older.

So for probably about 7-8 years I have been returning calls to the customers of our appliance repair business and scheduling them for service. Two years ago I added on the job of secretary (or administrative assistant) of my church without too much difficulty juggling the two jobs at the same time. In the last year or so, a couple of our competitors have closed their doors which led to more business for us. Our son-in-law started training with my husband in the hopes that we could have two trucks on the road at some point. The calls were starting to be overwhelming and then I added on a third job in July - the bookkeeping position at the church opened up and I took it on as an interim position while a new person was found. It was pretty intense trying to keep things running at church and also keeping the guys busy with calls. 

Something needed to change and the change came when our daughter decided not to go back to school bus driving right away this fall, so she took over the phone calls for the business and has improved the process immensely. 

Need to take a break to share this new photo that just arrived on my phone. Ginger over visiting at the neighbors and guarding her baby as he sleeps.

So anyway, she took over the phones at the beginning of September and on October 1 the new bookkeeper started at work and is doing an awesome job and I am back to just one job and I am loving it, except for the last couple of days with vertigo, that is.

I have had very little time in my sewing room since July though there has been a little activity. Most of the last month has been getting projects ready for the October quilt retreat which was last weekend - yes, the vertigo started when I was heading to the retreat - I had four projects kitted up and some other options to work on so I was set. 

We had planned for my niece to ride up to the retreat with me from my eldest daughter's home last Thursday but she ended up driving instead since I was dizzy. We arrived and got set-up by about 1 and I was feeling a bit better so I got started on the first project - finishing up a Bento Box quilt top that my eldest daughter started for herself made from Japanese fabrics she had picked out. She had started the sewing so I had the blocks done in no time and before bed I had the top together. I may rearrange the blocks to make it a little wider and less long and then add a border once I do a little math.

The next morning I was dizzy again and stayed in bed until almost 1 pm. I tried Dramamine to control the dizziness and it helped some so I was able to get the baby quilt top done for the grandbaby and get started on the next project. It was a simple one - just adding some strips around some vintage crazy quilt blocks - and I almost got that done before bed the second night. In the morning I took the drugs right away and was up and sewing by about 10! I got the vintage top together and got started on my last major project - the last of the quilt exchange quilts with the ladies at Tuesday craft nights. I was happy I got all the blocks done and was able to lay out the top so I can get it put together as soon as my head is on straight again!

I don't have pictures to post because I haven't had the energy the last two days but I will post them as soon as possible.

Aside from all that...

• I have graduated from physical therapy (I'm not 100% but I am getting there and just need to get the ankle stronger)
• our son-in-law is now a certified appliance technician (which is good since hubby's knee is giving him problems and is likely facing surgery again so isn't going out on the road so much)
• the garden was neglected again this summer (not a surprise with everything else going on) so I hope to get some time this fall and winter to get things cleaned up
• we had quite a few visitors for a night or several over the last few months (that little baby is quite a draw).  

That is a quick synopsis of the last few months. I am hoping I will now have more time and energy to sew and keep this blog a bit more timely.

A Few Accomplishments

I am not excited about getting moving and accomplishing anything yet this morning so I will share what I have been up to in the sewing room in the last month or so.

Over Christmas, when my sewing room was turned into a guest room, I pulled out a quilt 'kit' I had made up for quilt retreat and sewed up this top out in the great room on one of my Singer 301s in a cabinet. I really like how it turned out and will probably use it for the quilt exchange with the ladies at Tuesday evening craft night.

It looks especially nice against my great room's yellow walls with the Bing and Grondahl plates hanging above.

This next item is the table runner I made with the leftover One Block Wonder blocks that I used for my neighbor's Christmas table topper. 

After I had the top of this put together, I discovered one more block hiding in the sewing room and it was used on the back. Now I have a nice Christmas gift on hand or something to add to the sales table at the next bazaar.

Also over Christmas I finally figured out where to put a cool hook I found at a garage sale. Hubby got it installed and then I started the hunt for a hanging pot to put my spider plant in. Interestingly enough, nobody is selling hanging pots or any appropriate pots at this time of year. I came home from one shopping excursion and looked over my old pots outside and found this yellow one from the 70s. I had to do some scrubbing but it isn't too bad. Plant hangers are also not out there anywhere (even the thrift store) so I set about finding some sort of cord to see if I still have any macrame skills. Struggled to find cord too, but finally found this dark brown jute last Saturday and was able to whip up this hanger in about an hour. 

Nothing fancy but it turned out pretty nicely I think!

Next Saturday I will be teaching a class for the guild on the stained glass denim quilts so I had my son haul all the denim out of the attic and I pulled out what was stashed around the sewing room and started ripping and cutting it up in preparation for the class.  You see, my goal is to get rid of the denim that I have so I am offering the class for $10 per person and I am providing the fabric for the top. All the tops that are made will then go to the guild's Community Quilt program and likely from there to graduating foster kids in our county. As a bonus, the money will all go to Relay for Life. There were boxes and bags and bins full of denim. I have enough squares cut for 10 quilts so far and a couple of ladies from the guild have taken a couple of boxes of denim and ripped and cut for me also. Today I need to get started on figuring out the lesson plan for the class and how we will set up the space.

My boss asked me to make a denim baby quilt for her to give as a gift so last Sunday I pulled out some of my odd shaped pieces (I always get way too many 2" squares so if I have pieces that are 2X3, 2X4, 2X6, 3X3, 3X4 or 3X6 I don't cut them down and use them when I am feeling creative) and put together this top.

You can see my piles of 4" and 6" squares on the back of the table in this picture. Anyway, I need to get some fabric for the back and I can get it quilted and delivered. I will use it for an sample though for next Saturday's class.

I have been fighting a nasty cough for almost 3 weeks and went to the doctor yesterday and got cough syrup with codeine and prednisone in the hopes that I can get rid of it. Looking forward to the end of this one! 

I had an MRI on my ankle this week and will find out next Wednesday from the doctor if there is anything that can be done to give me more range of motion. This is one time I am hoping for surgery!

Well, it is time to head outside to prune some apple trees and then into the sewing room to maybe get a round robin project or two finished and ready to mail on.

Happy Quilting!

And the summer is nearly gone...

...and it didn't go at all as I thought it might.

Two months later and I am still hobbling around on my bum foot. I ended up in a walking boot for 6 weeks and now I just have to strengthen up my ankle. I bought myself a pair of Chaco sandals last week so I have some shoes that support my feet and can be adjusted depending on how much swelling there is.

Lots has happened but not what I had hoped. We had the grandkids here for 4 weeks of fun. They were great about helping Grammy because "your foot is hurt". They fetched crutches and glasses of water and the phone and various other things. They had lots of special things happening like spending the night at cousin Katie's house, fun Lego projects,

a Strawberry Festival, two new kitties at Grammy's

crafts,

two weeks of swimming lessons,

'working at Grammy's office,

rides on a little steam train ("we get to sit on it - while its moving?!?!?!), helping Papa prune the cedar tree

(they loaded the trailer at least 15 times for the trip to the burn pile - the little smarties figured out a way to load it and leave a 'hole' for them to ride in back and forth), Vacation Bible School, playing on Steve's slot machine, and a BBQ 

just to name a few! They had a great time and were so good. They are now back at home and started school - Kindergarten and 2nd grade!

Time in the sewing room was rather lacking over the summer but I did get the Bluegrass Festival Auction Quilt finished on time (but only barely). 

Since we had a booth for our crafts at the Festival I was able to listen as it was auctioned off for over $300. I also got it's twin quilted and it is almost finished. I also spent a couple days at my sister's and with her and my two nieces we sewed the top of a wedding quilt for our brother's son and his bride. Today my sister was here visiting and we got the quilt sandwiched and basted so I might get started on the quilting this week.

Once things started settling down from the kids and other things I started working on finishing up some quilts for the October Quilt Guild Show. I pulled out this UFO of leftover HST's. The lighter triangles were from one quilt and the rest were from two others. I had it to this point in February and then it got put away...

I had decided I wanted to put this on point using the dark read of the outer triangles and some form of sunflowers since I had found a border print with sunflowers and pinecones. I got a pattern for a sunflower with 3D petals but I just wasn't feeling it so I went with my original thought of New York Beauty type sunflowers. Since I wanted the sunflower to be about 8-10" I had to shrink the NYB blocks down to 4" finished. Then I made 4 each of 4 different patterns using the same fabrics as the darker HSTs. I used one of each of the 4 different patterns in each of the sunflowers. I was really happy with those other than I would not recommend 4" NYB blocks to anyone. Then I needed something else for those corners and found a paper pieced pinecone pattern that I again shrunk to 4" and reversed for half of the blocks. I then created the triangles to set this on point using the NYBs and pine cones and then added mitered border print and here it is:

It ended up about 60" square. I am thinking it would make a really great fall tablecloth. I am putting it aside for a bit but I can now fill out the registration form for the quilt show for it. 

I am now moving on to another Harry Potter quilt that I want to have done for the show also. I found that doing paper piecing is easy on my foot. I lower my ironing board and pull it a little closer to the sewing table and I can sew and then turn my chair to press and trim the piece and if I need to do any rotary cutting I have a small cutting mat on the sewing table. Hopefully my foot will improve quickly so I can get back to my normal sewing routines.

The garden has suffered from my lack of attention but my beets, onions, beans and Taxi tomatoes have flourished in spite of it. I am working on getting rid of all the weeds now that I can do some work down there.

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.

First Finish of Firteen ('13)

Here it is!

I love how it turned out! These quilts are very fun to make and I will be making more once a few other projects are finished! This type of quilt really adds fuel to the question some husbands ask - "So you just cut up fabric so you can sew it back together?" - because that is really all I did. Cut up one piece of fabric into little triangles and then sew them back together! I now look at fabrics in a different way wondering how they would work for one of these quilts.

I finished the binding on this one on Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon I finally got the label on the quilt I made for one of my crafting ladies so I could bring it over for the big reveal. Nothing like leaving it until the last moment. I will hopefully get a post done with all the pictures later today.

Yesterday I did another last minute project. This one is for the the round robin group I am in with my sister and niece and other friends. I posted pictures of our last reveal in November and we were supposed to have our beginning block for the next one done by the end of January. Mine is appliqued so I had my work cut out for me (literally). Here is the finished block...

The idea came from a wall hanging I saw in a quilt shop on a long ago shop hop. I managed to get some of the fabrics and it was one of those 'someday' projects. I saw the pile of fabric when I was trying to decide on my block and thought this was a great opportunity to do something about it. This should be a fun whimsical quilt once all the other folks add some borders. 

My next project is my Relay for Life Raffle Quilt. I have it all cut out and a good start on sewing the blocks together so hopefully the top will be done in the next week. When that top is together I need to add some borders to my niece's block for the round robin.

One Block Wonder

Life just doesn't slow down around here. I have been keeping busy with work and getting the business info into the computer. I was focused and finished the computer work by Friday evening! Just in time for my daughter, grand-kids and niece to arrive for the long weekend. Usually when they come I make sure I can spend all my time with the kids but this time I had my quilting class scheduled for Saturday and I wasn't going to miss it!

Here is the quilt top that the person teaching the class made using the pattern. Can you see why I was interested?

Here is the fabric I chose for my quilt. This is the one I liked best but wasn't sure it was as good for this quilt. 

As it turns out, it did work well for the blocks! Here are the blocks I had done by the end of class on Saturday. 

It was so fun to see other quilter's fabric choices and then to see how the blocks turned out. This is the fabric my table mate brought. She wasn't sure if she was going to like it since there was so much of the brown.

But this is how her first blocks turned out! She was still thinking she might add blocks from another fabric to add some green but she was going to wait until she had all the blocks done.

Here is another animal print that someone was using and her first two blocks.

Here is an interesting dragon print

And here is how the first three blocks turned out!

Here are a couple more of the beginning blocks

We had a lot of fun with our company and while the kids were stringing beads on some thread with their uncle I managed to finish up the blocks from the class. This morning before everyone left we went over to the church so we had a place to layout the blocks on a design wall. Here is one of the pictures we took as we were rearranging. 

I am not sure if this is the final picture or not. We pinned all the blocks to the flannel sheet so I can hang it on Sally's design wall tomorrow at craft night and see if I am still happy with it. If I am, I can start putting it all together.

I am definitely excited about trying this technique with some other fabrics!

While I was working on sewing the rest of the blocks, my niece started cutting pieces for my Relay for Life Raffle Quilt. I am making a twin sized Monet's Wedding Ring like this one only I have an off white for the background and miscellaneous scraps for the rings. I got the background fabric today and hope to start cutting tomorrow or the next day.

Meanwhile, I have started cleaning up the sewing room. I got a lot of the mess on the sewing table sorted out so tomorrow I can put some of the piles away where they belong and sort some more! Once it is cleaner it will be much easier to finish up some projects! Wish me luck!