Keepin' on

I was pretty busy this weekend. I got the quilt quilted and the binding is just waiting for the hand-sewing. I also finished the blocks for the quilt for our Tuesday evening quilt swap done. I might get the top done this week but as that one doesn't have to be finished until January 4 I need to put it away while I finish up a couple of other things.

I also sewed together the triangles that I got from my friend at the retreat. I have them pressed and ready to be squared up. I will get them together in groups of threes but I can't go too much further until my fabric arrives in the mail to finish the blocks off.

Today I had a frustrating day with no internet all morning and lots of call to make but unable to get through to our health insurance company to ask a couple of questions. AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!

I did get the triangles all trimmed up and ready to go. I also got the first package of fabric to go with them but need the other two since I need to make just four more HSTs so I will end up with 48 blocks.

In between calls I also got this tote bag cut out and this evening I got the outside put together. My hope is that I will get the lining put together tomorrow and get the whole thing finished too as long as I get the right length of zipper for the top. I just love the Kiwi zipper on the front pocket!

Top Done!

I had hoped to finish the blocks yesterday but that pumpkin project took more time and energy than expected. I think I got 16 cups of pumpkin to put in the freezer for future use and I used 2 cups to make some delicious pumpkin bread. I think I will be using most of that frozen pumpkin for bread because it is awesome! There was just a little leftover pumpkin that didn't fit in a container or in the bread so I figured I would eat it - you know, it is squash after all. I took a little taste and it was so sweet I didn't add anything and finished that little bit off. I was tempted to take one of those 2 cup containers out of the freezer!

I did get another step or two finished on the quilt blocks but didn't finish them up so this morning I headed into the sewing room and got to work. I had the blocks done by lunch and this afternoon I got them together and added the border and here it is!
Tomorrow I will head to the fabric stores to find a good backing fabric. I don't think I have anything that will work and I don't want to use all the Kona solids up that I used in the quilt for the back. I think I will head up to Port Gamble to check out Quilted Strait. They moved up there this past year and I haven't had a chance to visit the new store.

I few days ago I found this quilt on flickr and I found the pattern and thought this would be a great quilt to make using some of my infamous triangles. This morning as I thought about it more I remembered a batch of triangles I got from a friend at the quilt retreat and thought it would be a great pattern to use for those. The triangles were all from one fabric line so I emailed my friend to get the name of the line. It is Odyssea from Moda so I went online and found some more fabrics from the line and since it is an older line I was able to get it on sale. Once those come I will be hard pressed to work on something else instead of that. But I do have other projects that need to get finished first so I hope I can be good!

I Almost Forgot!

Here are the two blocks I made for Pam in QBRR2010. I got them done on Monday and got all the blocks in the mail that afternoon. Nice to get a few things off my list quickly!

Busy Day!

Yesterday morning I just had to get at least one of the blocks for my next quilt done before I headed out for the day. I decided to do two to try out two different methods of putting them together. (Not the best pictures - it was from my phone) It was hard to turn off the sewing machine and head into the shower!

After my shower I got some things together to join the local quilt guild at a charity quilt sew-in. It was a great opportunity to use up some more of my smallest scraps. We are making spider web blocks seen here on Bonnie Hunter's site. Here are the 22 blocks I got finished while I was there.
I took home enough foundation pieces to finish enough blocks for a full quilt. Luckily, there is no deadline to get this one finished. I am hoping I can work a little on it each week to get them done sooner.

After dinner and a little rest time I had enough energy to head into the sewing room and do the first stage on the rest of my blocks. I got those pressed and then laid out my next step.

Once I have my coffee I will head into the sewing room and get to work. My other project for today is cooking up pumpkin. We used pumpkins for decorations at the wedding and I just can't let it go to waste so I will cook them up and get most in the freezer for pumpkin pies and pumpkin bars and pumpkin bread. I am thinking I might even get some pumpkin bread made today.

Building blocks

This past week I got my blocks done for the Flickr Quilt Block Exchange. It is fun to work on someone else's projects so you get some variety.
After I got those four done I got these two fun tree blocks done for Margaret in QBRR2010. I have two more to make for QBRR2010 this morning and then I will moving on to a new quilt that I hope to have done this week.

On Saturday I got the striped pieced quilt quilted and last night I worked on the binding. I should have that done this afternoon or evening so maybe there will be pictures tomorrow of it and several other quilts that I have the bindings done on.

I just need to keep plugging away on all the projects I am working on that have deadlines in the next 2 months. And then do some thinking about Christmas also.

October Finishes

In spite of going to a quilt retreat in October I didn't get much finished during the month. Of course the big thing was finishing the hand quilting on the wedding quilt. So here is the meager list:

October 2010 Tally

Wedding Quilt

Sharelle's quilt top

120 strip pieced blocks (with my niece's help)

Ripping and Stripping?

I spent much of my free time this past week working on ripping apart the blocks that I put together at the quilt retreat that were not the right size. After ripping I pulled out all the little threads, pressing them and then trimming them. They are all ready to start putting them back together. That project was put on hold over the weekend though because my niece Katie came over to enlist my help and opinion and my dining room floor to layout the 29 blocks she got for her birthday last August. This is the layout we came up withShe did the math and handed me pieces to sew together and we got it into rows and then I let her sew the rows together while I cut foundation squares and diagonal strips for a strip pieced quilt for our pastor who is leaving later this month. After her top was together she just didn't think she had it in her to add borders so she started making the strip pieced blocks. We took a break to watch some TV with my hubby and then yesterday she and I had two sewing machines going and got all 120 blocks made! This morning I got up and got those blocks together into a top!
As we were sewing the blocks it just didn't seem like the bin of scraps was getting any emptier! When the blocks were done and all the scraps that fell to the floor were crammed back in we could see a difference though not a huge one. We figured we should have weighed the bin before and after and maybe that would have told the story. Here is what I have left in this bin of scraps - I am pretty sure I have more elsewhere but I am trying to use up this one before I go hunting for more. If I was a more organized person I would schedule my time in the sewing room so that I made a few string blocks each day or week to slowly empty that bin but my reality is that I am more of a binge type sewer!