Lazy Sunday

      Just having a lazy Sunday sewing in the basement.  I should be working on the Argyle flannel quilt on the machine but I am stumped on how to quilt it so I am leaving it so I don't have to remove any more quilting stitches from it.  I will try to tackle it fresh on Monday.  I have been obsessed with sewing the blue stratas for the Gum Blossom wallhanging that Rita gave me her excess scraps and strips.  I have been able to make all the required 6 1/2" squares with everything she gave me.  It was great fun picking apart the off cuts to work up the blocks.  I have a few that I have to re-do corners because I will have seams meeting to closely and it will be lumpy so I will work on that this afternoon and put the blocks up on the design wall and start sewing the background together.  I need to shop for the greens for the large applique leaves.  I am still torn as to how I will do the applique.  Needle turn or raw edge?  I am thinking raw edge because I have so many other needle turn projects on the go that I would like to do something different.  We will see.

      Back to work, Happy stitching.

Pleasant Saturday afternoon sorting fabric.

I spent an hour or so sorting all of the batiks into colour families.  I moved most of Kay's fabrics into a large bin and organized the batiks into the large plastic drawer bins that held Kay's fabric.  I had to put some of the fabric into a couple of smaller sweater bins which is ok because they all are in the same area.  I am happy with the way I have found room.  I had a better sense of what is there while organizing and I can see an autumn toned quilt in my future.  The creative juices are flowing again.

I need to use up all the bits and pieces of batting I have lying around to gain some more fabric storage space.  I was wanting to sort the fabric into the wire Ikea drawers that are in Mike's room right now but I think this will work until I have painted the dressers in my work room and sorted all of my longarm and sewing tools into a better organized way.  The furniture style downstairs is 'Early Salvation Army'  I am looking forward to a more cohesive look down there.  It looks messier than it is.

I spent an hour or so pressing all of the Blue Ridge Beauty twosies blocks as well.  Right now I am sick of the fabrics, I hope that I will start liking it once I have it all together and am not just looking at the small bits but seeing the quilt as a whole.  I will have to wait on a border before I finish it.  I do not want to buy any unnecessary fabric right now.  That is not a project for anyone so it can sit.  There is quilt cam tomorrow afternoon so if I am able I will do some more sewing of the twosies then. 

One of the next projects on my wish list is to cut up Kay's fabrics into 2 1/2 inch strips and make a bunch of Scrappy Trips tops for charity.  Most of the fabrics coordinate so I think that would be a super way of using them up.  I also want to start working on Gum Blossom.  That might be something to fart around with tonight if I am bored.

Anyway,  Happy stitching.

I feel like I just won the lottery!

I dropped some quilting off to a longtime customer this morning and she gifted me with two large boxes of batiks.  I am overwhelmed.  She did not want to donate it to MCC and she also did not want to give it to her quilting friends so she gave it to me.  She is 77 and feels that her quilting days may not be forever.  Did I say I am overwhelmed.  The fabrics are beautiful, I do not know where to start, I feel like a kid in a candy store.  She even had a pile of equilateral triangles cut, enough for a huge quilt.  I think I may sew them together and make a raffle quilt for someone.  Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.  I am a lucky girl.

Here are a couple of pictures of them:

I also have pictures of my Hopscotch Butterscotch, Orca Bay and My Winters Song (in progress) wallhanging.

 I can see from the photo that the beigy coloured snow is not right.  I thought I needed to replace that fabric and now after seeing the picture I know I do.  There is a Quilt Market in February I am going to and will look for better fabric choices.  I cannot believe that after I have received all of those beautiful fabrics that I would have to go and buy more but I do. 

Off to play with fabric.  Hee hee hee.....

Happy stitching.

Experiment to try to post pictures from Ipad.

This blog post is to see if I can import the photos I took on DH's Ipad.  They are photos of some wall hangings I quilted for Rita and a baby quilt for Sandra's newest step grandchild.  I hope it works.  I have to take some photo's of my completed RRCB and the finished Orca Bay top and the Easy Street top.  I still have to quilt them but that probably won't be until sometime in the spring.  I have taken some customer quilts and am expecting a couple more which will be highly custom.  One is a Piecemakers calendar quilt from many years ago.  I have made one too so I will practice on this one and I also have a large Judy Niemeyer quilt for Diana.  Those should keep me in the basement for a few months.  My retirement is more like semi-retirement right now.  That is ok, it will keep me in fabric, batting and backing for a bit.

It did not work because the file is too big.  The pictures show up huge in the email so I have to find out how to send them to me in a more manageable size.  I am so computer illiterate it hurts.  That is why I rarely post because I don't know what I am doing. 

Anyway,  my sewing and quilting update is that I completed my Easy Street top and is waiting to be quilted one day.  I have finished my Orca Bay which is also waiting to be quilted.  I am going to post a personal longarm quilting to do list and also a UFO progress list.  I have a bunch of boxes with bits and pieces of things that I am working on which are all at a stand still for some reason.  I am either collecting fabric for them or something else has my interest right now.  I have a Blue Ridge Beauty as a leader ender project at the machine right now and I have got quite a lot accomplished with that one.  I also will start working on a Tu-Pelo Trail as my next leader ender.  I have quite a few nine patches done and just need to add to them.  I goofed and cut 3 1/2 inch hsts for the BRB in error so I can use them for Tu-Pelo Trail.  That is a relief, I will not be wasting any of that fabric.  I just need to cut more coloured hsts since I realized in time and did not keep cutting up blue triangles.  I may even just do them all in blue and neutral and call it a day, but I do like the look with a variety. That is enough for now in the mean time I will figure out how to post those pictures.

Happy stitching

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013 !

Happy New Year!  Here's to a better year than 2012.  Cheers!

We had a quiet uneventful Christmas and New Year, thankfully, and now on to a fresh new start.  I just finished undecorating the house and tree but I have left up a few snowmen that do not look Christmassy.  We bought a new narrower artificial tree and were very pleased with how it looked.  The branches fluffed out very full and I was able to hang all of my many Christmas decorations.  I love all of my ornaments and look forward to visiting them, like old friends, every year.  I still hang all of the antique baubles at the top of the tree and I will carry on that tradition as long as we keep putting up a tree.

I have been having fun with the 'Easy Street' mystery quilt and have pretty much kept up with the steps.  Bonnie Hunter revealed the last two steps, which included the grand finale, over New Years and I just love it.  I most likely will go downstairs and carry on with putting together the blocks this afternoon.  I am still on the second last step, which is putting together the side and corner insets, and then I will carry on with the blocks.  As much as I swore that I would not buy anymore fabric this year, I must find border fabric.  I do not believe I have enough of any colour to use as sashing and border and I think piano keys would be too busy.  I could play around with it to see and use up all of my left overs.  If it looks crappy, I can put it in the backing.

I want to sew together all of the large print black and white fat quarters that I have for a backing for 'Orca Bay' because I think they would show through to the front if I used it for a backing for 'Easy Street'.  So many projects on my wish list this year.  I have been sewing four patches together as leader and enders while I piece 'Easy Street' and that has been a help.  Maybe I will get that put together this year.  I have such plans.  I hope that things go well and I can get some of those projects completed this year.

Well time to get cracking,

Happy stitching.

Haven't posted in awhile so here goes.

I have been in a bit of a funk so I have not felt like posting.  I have been busy.  I have been trying to finish up all of my customer work.  I still have customer quilts to complete, my bad, because I just cannot make myself get down there to work on them.  I have run out of ideas and the will to quilt other peoples work.   Enough of that.

I did quilt a pile of panels for the ABC project and make one rag quilt for them as well.  I delivered 8 quilts in total to the guild meeting.  It felt good to do it and give them away.  I also won a door prize at that meeting which consisted of two Karen Kay Buckley patterns and some civil war fabrics from Grubers in the states.  How lucky am I?   I know have quite a pile of those types of fabrics in my stash that I will have to decide on a quilt for them.  That will be after I finish the mystery quilt and catch up on my other projects.  I should make a sidebar list of my UFO's to keep a tally.  I seem to keep adding more projects instead of completing them. 

I also made a snowman rag quilt and matching pillow to be donated  to the church for their silent auction that was held yesterday.  I saw it all wrapped up with other stuff so that you could not really see it.  Oh well, I hope that whoever won the bid enjoys it.  I hope it was a good bid.  All the other stuff I donated ended up in the silent auction baskets as well.  I am glad that they all have new owners.

I am almost finished quilting Dixie's quilt and then I will have to take a day to bury threads.  Maybe if I motor I can have it to her Wednesday.  I still have a couple of customers that want stuff done so I will call at the end of the week.  I have appointments to take my mother to next week that will cut up my days.

I am finished step one of the Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I was a little worried about my gray when I was cutting the strips because it looked so blue, but once I had them sewn together my worries went away.  It looks good and it goes well with my other colours.  I still need to square them up a bit but I was sore and tired from working in the kitchen at the church yesterday so I just finished piecing and pressing and pretty much called it a night.  I will have to start taking pictures and adding them to my blog posts to illustrate my comments like other bloggers do.

Anyway, I should hop in the shower and start getting ready for church.  It looks cold and miserable out there again today.  A big gust of wind just blew by stirring up a bunch of loose snow.  BRRRRRRRR.

Happy stitching.

RRCB revisted

        When I originally put together my RRCB I made it only large enough for my twin bed.  That was 4 x 5 blocks but now that I have a double bed  I need the quilt to be the same size as the original pattern.  I had it almost quilted but miscalculated the backing fabric so pulled it off the machine and put it aside to finish some customer quilts.  Therefore I have been busy unquilting it enough to add backing and take off one border and one sashing to add on the ten blocks that I originally omitted.  I think I may unquilt the whole thing because the design I used does not show up well and I am not happy with the thread colour either.  I have just finished making another 20 string blocks and have one medallion block to make.  I had made all of the medallions except for one but have all of the pieces ready to go except for the brown and pink hsts required.  If I did not have those blocks done I don't think I would have kept going with this.  My project for the rest of the summer is to unquilt the RRCB and add on the ten extra blocks.  Hopefully I can get the quilt on the machine before the cold weather hits.  I did buy a couple of yards of a pink print to add to the backing and another queen batting when we went to Fargo.  I have enough extra border seminole so that can easily be added on.  I always have to do things the hard way.

        I finished quilting Rita's music themed wallhanging and will bury threads tonight and give it back to her tomorrow.  I also took in two more quilts today from a new customer who has been waiting patiently for me to call her.  One is a bargello and that will be easy.  It is quite large for a bargello but it should work up ok.  The other one is a small wallhanging that she has already finished it like a pillow, with the batting and backing.  The edges are irregular as well.  I have not idea how I am going to pin it on and quilt it.  Yikes.  If it can't be done it can't be done.  A challenge I am not sure I can handle right now.

         I have completed the body of my Orca Bay and have sewn the border pieces together.  I just have to cut the black sashing strips and sew it together.  I may have to add another border to make it fit the bed.  We will see.  That quilt won't be quilted until late fall or winter some time.  No rush.  I may even participate in the next mystery quilt if it takes my fancy but I have enough projects to keep me busy this winter.

        That is it for now,  Happy stitching.