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.

Have to get back to it.

My DH and I went to Fargo for a few days shopping and re-charging.  He really needed to get away from his phone and laptop.  We stopped in Mayville on the way and I found some ground snow fabric for my Winter's Song quilt.  We found most of the bargains at Walmart of all places.  Target, Kohl's and Gordman's were a disappointment this time around.  I did find some fabric at the Hobby Lobby that was not too bad and I went to a quilt shop in Grand Forks on the way home.  I found some more fabrics for my Blue Ridge Beauty that I intend to start as a leader/ender this winter.  My DH was the most successful in finding clothes on sale.  I just came home with t-shirts.  We spent enough and the car was full but it seems like there is nothing to show for it.  We did buy a small cheap microwave for our DS. 

I was happy to get home and see my dog and play with my fabric.  I washed all of it and ironed it and it is ready to be put away.  I did not wash the 1 1/2 inch strips that I bought in a bag for $6.00.  There was around two yards of fabric in that bag.  Good deal, nice neutrals for a yet unknown project down the road. 

I am so looking forward to retiring.  I just have a few quilts left to do for customers and then I am free, so I better get at it.  First I have to measure the floor downstairs because puzzlemats are on sale at Walmart.  We had to throw the old ones out because of the water backup.

Happy Quilting.

Another Hot Summer Day

Just taking a break from quilting a customer quilt.  I love the two quilts she has done from a book called Stratavarious quilts.  I am going to order the book and make a smaller version of my favourite.  It has a strippy back ground and then huge appliques and thread work to enhance the piecing.  Love it.

My DH is on his way home from a work thing in Vancouver so the dog and I will pick him up at the airport just after 6:00 p.m.  I have had a busy couple of days organizing and doing laundry while I had the house to myself.  The dog broke a dew claw so we have been careful not to over do it until it heals.  It has been way to hot to walk and I am too lazy to walk at 6:00 a.m.  The dog is still in bed at that time anyway.  He gives me a 'hey do not disturb' grunt when I get up at that time and he is still in bed. 

I have finally finished piecing the body of my Orca Bay quilt.  I have to decide on the inner sashing fabric and then I will piece and attach the border blocks.  I need to measure it on the new bed before I decide if I am finished or it needs another border.  It looks great, very striking.  I looked at completed ones on the website and was drawn to ones with coloured sashing and not just a white strip. 

We are going to Fargo in a couple of weeks so I am going to hit the quilt shops hard.  I need fabrics to finish up a couple of UFOs so I will be armed with samples and yardages.  We are looking forward to the trip as we have not got away together for several years.  We have a dog sitter so we are happy.  I had to get a rush passport renewal since mine expired in March.  Crap.

I am so happy that I have decided to retire from customer quilting.  I still have a few customers that want things done before I am finished and I keep saying yes to more.  Will I ever learn to say no.  I am going to take my time because I hate deadlines and pressure.

Our son moved to his own place a couple of weeks ago and is slowly settling in.  It was good for him, he has calmed his heavy drinking down as well as it was taking a toll on him and I am glad he made the decision on his own.  We have been very worried about him.  He took his separation badly even though he was glad of it in a way.  There are always unexpected changes around the corner.

I had really good news from both the Gyn and Family Drs.  I do not have any cancer cells, but a kidney stone and a couple of gallbladder stones.  The kidney cyst will be monitered every six months to see if it goes away on its own or grows, but it is really nothing to worry about.

I better get back to work.

Happy stitching.

How life changes in a matter of hours

My husband answered his phone and the next thing I know he says our DIL is coming over with her parents and she is pregnant and she is leaving our son with us and having an abortion.  She had him come to our house on the pretext of having supper here and blindsided him with all of this.  My husband took him back to the hospital in case of a relapse and he stayed for a few days to get himself together.  He is with us for now but wants his space and is looking for an apartment.  She wants to keep the house and I am sure that she and her family will screw our son over royally.  My heart is breaking over this but what can one do.  I think my son is happy it is over.  She was too demanding and controlling and he could not take it and drank to blot things out.  I hope it works out all right for him and he does not go into an alcoholic tailspin.  I can only pray we can all heal from this.

On the quilty side, I am almost finished the never ending quilting on the holly hock quilt and have done a little bit of stitching pieces for my Orca Bay.  I have been to tired and sad to work for any length of time.  I cannot give anything right now to anything.

I pray we heal and soon.

Haven't posted for awhile

I haven't posted for awhile because there has been so much going on and I have not accomplished any quilting.  A customer quilt is taking forever because I am so up in the air about things right now and can't keep it together for more than a few minutes.

DS was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in April because he had a major breakdown.  I have been on pins and needles about him ever since.  He is on medication now and he seems to be coping but it is rough on his marriage and that is troubling us as well.  I hope he can manage to straighten things out and work things out with his wife.  They have been together for 14 years so it will not be easy.  Thank goodness they don't have children yet.

My health has been not the greatest.  I had an ultra sound April 25th and they found a large mass in my uterus.  I then had a D&C on May 16th and have not stopped spotting since.  I even had a three day period, two days after.  My own doctor's office then called to tell me that during that same ultra sound they found a cyst on one of my kidneys so I am waiting for a CT scan appointment to look into that.  I am more than worried.  I have wasted most of the week worrying about crap, having a major headache and taking my mother to the eye specialist so I am backed up again.  I wasted today as well working on my own stuff and not getting very far with that.  

I am anxious to getting back to just quilty things as well as trying to get some gardening done.  The weather has been crappy these last couple of weeks so that has been on hold.

Off to walk the dog.

Happy stitiching.

MPQ Quilt Show

I took a flying visit to the MPQ quilt show.  I quickly had a look at the vendors and only bought four fat quarters of neutrals for my Orca Bay.  I am not interested in starting any new projects so buying fabric for the sake of buying fabric does not interest me right now.  I had a quick look at the quilts.  There was nothing shown done by me so that goes to show that nobody likes my work and is embarrassed to show it.  I apologize to everyone that I have quilted a quilt for.  Some of the quilts done by some of the long time quilters are not that great and I think some of the stuff I have done is better but that just might be my jealousy speaking.  One of my customers had two quilts done by Green Fairy Quilts in the states.  The work is very nice.  I wish I had a stitch regulated machine to be able to do some of that detail work.  My machine is too jumpy to do that type of work.  Anyway, I have come to the definite decision to stop taking quilts for hire and only do my own from now on.  I can no longer take the pressure and the humiliation.

I forgot to take my camera with me but there was really nothing that I cared to take pictures of.  I also felt and got the brush off from some of the quilters in my satellite group.  I am going to quit.  They don't like me so why carry on.  I know this sounds like a pity party but I have no one to tell so the blog gets to listen.  I am happy using up my scraps and making quilts for the family and for charity, I don't need anything else.  I picked up a brochure from Quilts of Valour and I am going to start to make some quilts for that cause.  I can sort through Kay's fabric to find stuff that is not feminine and they said a maple leaf theme works well.  I have a lot of my own fabric that can go to the cause.  I am sure that I can figure something out.

Anyway, that is my two cents worth of nonsense for the day.

Happy stitching.

Very warm day today and spent it in the basement.

The temperature got up to 24 degrees today and it is March 19th.  We normally have tons of snow left, slowly melting at this time of year and it is much much cooler.  Not complaining.  I can take it.  It has been overcast for most of the day and we were to have a thunderstorm but it hasn't happened yet.  The dog will be thrilled if it does.

I have been downstairs working on Shirley's quilts and have tamed my fears of doing the feather meander type of quilting I have been doing.  It has gone better than expected but I am beat right now.  I hope to be able to finish it all tomorrow.  I can then bury the threads and give them back.  Yeah!!!  I can then quickly quilt the quilt for the silent auction.  I bought the fabric for the border and binding last week and finished sewing it on and making the binding on Saturday.  I also did the final border on my Crabapple wallhanging so that is ready to quilt when I have time.

I will finish the last batik quilt for the customer that lives out of town and her daughter will pick it up in April.

I can then dedicate time to quilting Sandra's lovely hollyhock applique quilt.  I pretty much know what I will quilt on it.  I am going to love doing that quilt.

I finally went to a MPQ meeting on Saturday and re-joined.  There were three women who had met Bonnie Hunter in Sarasota this winter and they told their stories and showed off some of the Quiltville quilts they have made.  It was great to see a completed RRCB and Orca Bay.  That inspired me to start working on my Orca Bay again.  I finished cutting the black triangles that I needed and I have started to sew some more of the red strip pieced squares.  I still have a lot of work to do on them and I am hoping to just use up all of the red fabric that I have instead of buying more.  I am sure I can squeeze them out.  What a blessing to have received those "scraps" from Rita.  I have used a lot of the blacks that she passed on to me and scrounged some red strips from the 1 1/2" pile that she gave me.  I am close to being able to start piecing the blocks.  Yeah.  Still a lot of construction left.

Time to finish making supper.

Happy stitiching.

Holy Snow Day Batman.

It has been snowing non-stop since last night and boy has the snow accumulated.  It starting to really blow with 50 - 60 km winds this afternoon.  My DH snow blew the walks and driveway but will have to do them again because it has drifted in again.  The dog and I just got back from a walk around the park and the path has really drifted in.  Good exercise any.  I am in my pajamas at 4:30 already because my pants are soaked and I didn't want to put on my jeans.  I am not going anywhere tonight anyway.

I tried to work on my customer quilt but I could not stand at the machine for long today.  Hopefully my gift will have settled down a lot by tomorrow.  I hope my doctor can do something for me.  This is getting old fast at 55.

Anyway,  I did sit at my work desk and started to sort some of the fabric that Rita gave me.  What a lovely selection.  I am sure there is enough there for me to finish my Orca Bay quilt and enough blue and beige squares to get a start on a Blue Ridge Mountain quilt.  The squares are 2 1/2 inches and the pattern calls for 2 inch squares so I will have some trimming to do but I don't care.  I may change up the pattern and use 2 1/2 inch squares and see how that works.  There are larger HST's in it that would have to then finish at 4 inches and that might look large.  I will have to do a mock up or see if there is a sample using those sizes to see if it looks too big and unwieldy.  I think it should be ok.  Maybe I will. Why not.

Well I should go feed his Lordship and start our supper.

Happy stitching

Gifted scrap fabric

A lovely long-time customer of mine brought over a pile of scraps for me today.  See photo.  She has been cleaning out her fabrics and donating the larger pieces to MCC and she gave me these because she knows I love to work on scrap quilts.  What a treasure of fabric.  I am going to have fun sorting through them.  My mind is overflowing with ideas right now.

There are fabrics from every colour of the rainbow.  Lots of narrow strips for strip blocks and tons of charm and 2.5" squares.  I am going to have fun fun fun.

Here is a good picture of our big boy.  Finally one where he is looking at me and not hiding or glaring.  It is hard to believe that he will be eight this summer.

Here is a picture of the 1600 quilt top that I am making for Jeff and Jackie's silent auction.  I still have to buy the border fabric and quilt it.  I am just quilting something simple and allover.

I have used the blue batik as the inner border and am going for something green for the outer border.  I better get to the fabric store soon.  The social is in April and March is tomorrow.

Back to work for me.  I just wanted to post the photo of the fabric before I sort it and put it in their bins.

Happy stitching.

Sit and Stitch with the ladies

Two of my quilting friends came over this afternoon for our monthly sit and stitch.  We had a nice visit and the coffee cake I made turned out good for a change.  I think that between the three of us only three or four stitches were made.  We spent most of the time catching up with chit chat about everything and anything. 

The girls had a tour of my workshop and we had a show and tell of all of my quilt tops waiting to be quilted and most of my UFOs as well.  Darlene is inspired to start using up her scraps now.

After panicking to have my bathroom painted and put back together, no one even went in there.  Oh well, it needed to be done anyway.

Back to work tomorrow.  I have a quilt on the machine that needs to be finished and another one started.  I have a customer dropping off a couple of quilts this week as well so I need to catch up.

Happy stitching.

Long Weekend Stuff

I am hosting a sit and stitch tomorrow with just two other women that I quilt with, therefore, I decided to paint the bathroom as it was past due and I would have been embarrassed to have anyone enter the room if I hadn't painted it.  Three tiles along side the tub broke off last year when we installed the new floor tiles so I finally glued them back on.  I finished the second coat about an hour ago so I am patiently waiting for the paint to dry.  Once the paint dries later today I will caulk along the tub and do a general caulk cleanup as well as elsewhere in the bathroom to make it look cleaner.  Our bathroom takes a beating since it is the only one in the house so that is the reason for the panic. 

I am just having a breather before I tackle anymore projects.  I would love to go downstairs and sit at my machine and sew bits and pieces together but I think that is out of the question for today.  I also need to find something to work on tomorrow when the ladies are here.  Little Brown Bird will most likely come out of hiding again.

Bonnie Hunter is hosting a thimble link up but my dimestore thimbles will not be worth the trouble to show.  I could take a picture of my great grandmother's gold thimble that my mother passed on to me but the batteries are almost toast in the camera and we only have one spare until I get to the store.  I am not sure that I want to share my blog with anyone anyway.

Well I must get back to work at cleaning up and deciding what to bake for our coffee break.

Happy stitching.

"Conway Ladies" meeting now to be called the "Scrap Bags"

     Just got home from our Conway ladies get together.  Sandra was the host this meeting.  She has a lovely condo in the south west of the city.  We had a lovely day sitting and stitching and catching up.  Our group has changed memberwise from the original bunch.  We lost some members to reasons that have not been divulged which always happens and we have picked up a few new women these past two months to fill the gaps.  Everyone has known each other for years and most of them belong to other satellite groups together already.

I worked on a "Little Brown Bird" block, but I was having trouble seeing what I was stitching.  I think new glasses or some magnifiers are in the near future.

When I got home I visited the Quiltville Quips and Snips blogspot and Bonnie Hunter has kindly pointed out a Sew-a-long in another blog to her followers.  I think I will join along.  The blocks are only six inches and machine pieced so I should be able to keep up (I hope).  I just spent the last half hour copying the instructions out.  The blocks are from a book called "Farmers Wife".  I will do it for fun out of scraps and try not to use any of the fabrics too often twice.  By the looks of it I will be able to use up a lot of my 2 1/2 inch strips and squares.  Yeah!  Good leader and ender projects.  I should kit up the blocks and have them next to the machine.  Good idea, she says to herself.

I should get moving and go downstairs and clean up the mess I left last night.  I want to finish quilting the quilt on the machine in the morning then I will need to go out and buy my son a birthday gift.  My baby boy will be 29 on the 17th.  Where does the time go.  I am not old enough to have a 29 year old child.  LOL.

Happy stitching.

What project should I work on today?

This morning the dog and I woke up to a windchill temp of -41 below.  Brrrrrr.  Needless to say the dog and I have not gone for a walk today and he really is restless.  He has asked to go out ten times today just because he is bored.  I am not dressing up to walk ten feet and he turns around and runs home because his feet are freezing.  The temps are going to warm up by Sunday and next week doesn't look that bad so we can get some major walking in.  I hope.

I eventually made my way downstairs and pieced one of the crabapple blocks together.  It looks very dull so I will have to find some nice sashing fabric to bring some life to it.  I wanted to see if two blocks across would be too big for the wallhanging space I have and I think it will if I want to do a checkerboard border.  I am going to play around.  I am not going to buy any fabric for it either.  I must use up the stuff I have and not bring anything else in for a while.  If I get frustrated with this project I will cut the sashings for the hopscotch butterscotch quilt.

I am definitely not in the mood to quilt a customer quilt.  I may start picking out some of the quilting on the RRCB so that I can make the backing bigger.  Yes, I screwed up.  I pieced a backing and did not make it long enough.  What a twit.  I am going to make of strip of the left over blocks and add them to the backing.  I did not know what I was going to do with them anyway and this is a good place to put them.  They are the uglier ones anyway so they won't be seen.  I was not going to make pillows with them or another quilt so this is a great way to use them up.

I did quilt one of my customer's quilts yesterday afternoon and that went quickly because I just did a large meander.  This quilt is going to Africa with an exchange student that has been here for a few years.  It has all Canadiana type images on the fabric pieces such as maple leaves, bears, deer and pine trees.  It is quite a clever idea for something like this.  I have two more batik Magic Tile quilts from the same client to do and they will have simple all over designs quilted on them.  One will be ferns and the other will be swirls.  My legs and back are sore today so I think I will cool it with the standing.

Anyway, enough wasting time and back to work.  My DH will be home from his business trip tonight so I should make an effort to have the place tidy as well.

Happy quilting.

Finally figured out what to quilt on my RRCB

I have started quilting my RRCB but had to quit because of my granddog.  She kept visiting me and pawing at me because I was not paying attention to her.  I was worried I was going to kick or step on her while I was working.  Any how, I am quilting a sort of free hand flower design that starts with a fat question mark and has pointy fat petals all around it.  I think one of the names of the design is flame flower.  It was going very well until I was so rudely interupted.
I was also doing a bit of piecing on the crabapple wallhanging.  That is coming along slowly but surely.

I must go and feed my starving dog and try to keep the visitor away from his food.  What a challenge this has been to my sanity.

Happy quilting to all.

Trying to figure out how to quilt my RRCB quilt top

I took a few minutes off from dog wrangling yesterday and pinned my RRCB mystery quilt top on to the frame.  I had pieced a border sometime last year from chunks of pink fabrics that I did not want to see in another scrap quilt.  I did not leave myself much wiggle room but it is my quilt and I am ok with it.  I have been tossing around ideas for quilting.  It is so busy and there are so many seams that I have decided that something custom will not work because no one will see the work and I have also ruled out a panto because some of those blocks have a lot of bias and I know that I will need to have control over the fabric and the machine at the same time, so front of the machine allover something it is.  I have been playing around with ideas and most likely I will have feathers and curls all over or who knows what the machine will do.  I went down again today to have a look but I am too tired to stand there today.  I don't know if it is from not getting a proper sleep because of the dogs or it could also be the weather.  It is unseasonably mild here today and has been overcast so it makes me sleepy.

I did sit at the regular machine and played around with my 1 1/2 squares and ninepatches to make a scrap crabapple wallhanging from one of Bonnie Hunter's books.  I am only going to make five blocks and just do a wallhanging for the hallway quilt hanger.  I have plenty of greens for the base of the trees.  I think that is how I am going to spend the rest of the afternoon.  I do not know if I am going to do a checker board border or not.  I will see how it goes.  I think my best bet would be a pieced border because it uses up alot of scraps and I do not have much in the way of yardage kicking around.

Back to work and happy quilting.

Baby Sitting the Grand'dog'ter

They were just peacefully sleeping, Nala on my lap and Charlie tucked up next to my legs while I was reading a book on my kindle.    DH had to take a picture and of course the super sensitive alert beings were ready for the attack.  Four more sleeps and DS will be home to take back his puppy.  What a lot of work it is when a dog is not fully trained.  She has had numerous "accidents" of both kinds.  Charlie, the old curmudgeon, is on his last nerve.  We cannot leave his food down for him because she will gobble it and he will eat on his own terms.  So it has been rough on the poor old man with her random attacks on him.  She wants to do nothing but play. 

I think the kids will be driving from Orlando to Largo today to see his grandparents old home.  I hope they take a drive down the coast for some real beachy scenery.  Why go to Florida if you don't see some water.

I have not done any sewing since Thursday but hope to get down to my workshop sometime today.  I am not going to take any customer quilts to next week (if I have any customers left).  It is too hard to do anything with two dogs wrestling at my feet.  I think I may finish sewing the border sections for the Hopscotch Butterscotch quilt so that it will be ready for the sashing and borders.  I will make a trip to Northwest and Fabricland next week when I drive DH to the airport.  I have a lot of fabric shopping to do in order to finish most of my UFO's.  I need border and sashing fabrics for almost everything and I need need need to find more blacks and neutrals for my Orca Bay.  I love the look of it and want to finish it.  I may even buy more red.  Good thing I have some quilting money burning a hole in my pocket. 

Well off to sweep up black and golden hairs from my floors.  I am going to have to do a major clean and disinfect on the weekend. 

Happy Quilting

My List of UFOs

  The following is my list of UFOs that I am vowing to complete this year.  2012.  I do have one that is a priority and must be done and quilted by April, so that will be my number one entry.  The rest are on a wish list.

1.)  Bali pop 1600 quilt for Jeff and Jackie's social silent auction prize. - final border, binding and backing fabrics to be purchased and sewn on.  Simple allover fern quilting to be done.

2.)  Orca Bay - I need to purchase more neutrals and blacks to complete the triangle for the flying geese sections and for the border.  Backing will be determined, most likely a pieced backing with left over fabrics.

3.)  Winter's Song - collect more snow fabrics.  Most blocks cannot be started until I have enough snow selections.  This will be a long process as top is large and there is a lot of applique to do.

4.)  Hopscotch Butterscotch - this is a leader/ender project from one of Bonnie Hunter's books.  I have all of the pieces ready and have been slowly working on putting the blocks together.  This will be done soon and ready to quilt.

5.)  Fern wallhanging - applique two more blocks and determine sashing and borders.  Quilt.

6.)  Trash quilt - A good chunk has been completed.  I am still piecing chunks together and making six inch wide border sections as well.  This will be an ongoing project and definitely not a priority.


I also have a wish list of quilts that I would like to do and have been collecting fabric for them.  They are as follows:

1.)  Blue Ridge Mountain - collecting a variety of blues and beige tones.

2.)  Crayon Box - I won a pack of sample squares and I am using those as the center blocks.  I have been collecting bright coordinating fabrics to go with them. 



I also have a list of completed tops that need to be quilted.  Hopefully this year.  They are as follows:

1.)  RRCB

2.)  Two Scrappy Trips tops - however I may need to take them apart and make them bigger for DH's new bed.

3.)  Autumn Leaves quilt. - It is king size and if the kids still like it I will quilt it for them.  If not I will remake it smaller for one of our beds.

4.)  Christmas Pineapple

5.)  Christmas mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter

6.)  Cardinal wallhanging

7.)  Winter scene with cardinal wallhanging.  I may do it on my domestic machine.

I am sure there are more projects lurking around but this is enough to put on a wish list of things to get done right now.  The rest will most likely never get started or completed, but never say never.

Off to have breakfast.


 

A couple of photos of my Orca Bay Progress

   I have put my Orca Bay away until I can go shopping to buy more black and neutral fabric.  I really need more variety as I discovered when I was trying to make up a sample with two Ohio Star blocks.  It was difficult to try to piece and not use the same fabrics twice.  Here is a picture of my pile of hsts when I was piecing them and also a picture of the two blocks sewn together. 

   I also have a picture of the 1600 quilt top that I put together yesterday afternoon and evening.  It goes fast, which is nice.  I am making it as a silent auction prize for my DS's friend Jeff and his fiance Jackie's social.  DS is best man, so I thought it would be a great prize to donate.  I have auditioned a piece of dark blue batik (you can't see it in the photo), and the dark green that is showing for the inner border.  I prefer the dark blue.  I will go shopping for the outer border (I am thinking a medium green with all of the other colours in it) sometime in the next few weeks.  I think a flannel backing would be good for this as well because it is not a bed size and it will be good for a cuddle quilt.  I hate quilting batik backings anyway because the tension goes screwy since the weave is too tight.  I want everything ready so that I can have it on hand to quilt between customer orders.

My DIL dropped Nala off with us for a couple hours to dog sit while she went to brunch with her Baba and parents.  Charlie did a lot of puppy tuning.  She was constantly jumping on him so he had to discipline.  When she got back we went to the off-leash and the dogs had a great time.  She was very good, very social with the other dogs and came back when called.  The dogs are pooped now.

That is all for now.  I must go downstairs and get some more pieces of applique ready for my Winter's Song quilt top.  I do need to go fabric shopping for that as well.  I would love a trip to Fargo right now.

HSTs pieced and waiting to be pressed and dog-ears removed.

Orca Bay sample and the bottom half of the '1600' quilt to that I pieced together yesterday.

 

 

 

Update on Orca Bay Progress

     Instead of working on customer quilts today I ended up taking the Christmas tree down and packing up all of the decorations.  I always look like I have been in a cat fight after wrestling with that tree.  I am going to take it to MCC this week, if I can, because it is too big for this house and the kids do not want it.  I love that tree, it looks gorgeous with all of the lights and ornaments and I will miss it (except for its size).  I am also donating the tree skirt that I made for it many many moons ago.  The cats used to enjoy laying on that tree skirt under the tree.  At least they never climbed it, the tree that is.

     So after taking down the tree, I went downstairs with the intention of pinning a quilt onto the frame and guess what, I sat down at my desk and started working on Orca Bay again.  I did finish piecing 30 of the red string blocks.  I do think that I will only make a small version of the quilt.  It should be large enough to have on the couch as a cuddle quilt.  If I don't like the size I can always make it bigger.  I did sew all of the qsts and hsts so I could make it bigger if I wanted to.  I just need more blacks and neutrals and I can always look for them at a later date.  I may work on some of the triangle pieces tomorrow and piece a few of the Ohio stars to see how they all work together.  I cannot believe that I am this far behind on completing the parts of the mystery.  I guess because I ran out of fabrics and I was quilting up until Christmas week.  Oh well, I will plan my time better for next year's mystery.  I do enjoy working on them.

     I am also going to post a list of my in progress UFOs on this blog, when I figure out how to do it, to keep track of what I am doing and accomplishing.  I will explore other blogs to see how it is done.  I wish there was a continuing education course on blog creation.  I can't be the only one around that can't figure out how to set up a blog the way they want them.

     I have so many projects on the go and so many quilts that need to be quilted and I need and want to finish them.  Right now I am working on the mystery quilt, the Winter's Song applique quilt, and I have cut strips for a charity quilt that I want to get started on.  I am going to finish the mystery first.  I also have a Bali Pop that will be made up for a silent auction at Mike's friend Jeff's wedding social.  I am going to make the 1600 top with a sashing and border.  It will be quilted with a simple all over freehand design.  That needs to be done before April.  No problem.

That is all for now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! IT'S 2012!

I have slowly been working on the Orca Bay Mystery and am no where near being able to put any blocks together.

My progress on the various parts are as follows:

Part 1:  hour glass pieces - done
Part 2:  blue strings - done
Part 3:  black and neutral HSTs - finally done
Part 4:  red strings - 30 partially done
Part 5:  wings for hst's - half way cut - I have run out of blacks
Part 6:  Ohio stars - not done - all red centres and black squares cut but have run out of neutrals
Part 7:  not even close to starting
Part 8:  a distant dream.  I may just make a smaller version.  I will see how it goes.

I wish I had had more time to work on my parts and keep up with the pace of the mystery.  I also do not have the variety of fabrics on hand to keep it as scrappy as I want.  I will make up all the blocks that I can with the fabric I have and see if I want to make it bigger.  I will then go on a fabric hunting mission.  I have not found the variety or even fabric that I like and would want left over in my stash so it has been hard to collect.  I have not been to Northwest fabrics or the Fabricland in St. James yet.  That may be a road trip later in the month.  It has been fun working on regardless.  I love how the blue and red strings look.  They will make my quilt sizzle.

I am not going to post my completed parts on Bonnie's blog because I have no clue how to do it and I have not taken any pictures worth posting anyway.  One day I will figure the ins and outs of this blogging business.


LONGARM BUSINESS PROGRESS

I have three tablerunners to finish quilting for a customer and I will work on the next one today.  Hopefully I will be able to finish it in one day.  The smallest one took forever to quilt because I kept having to change colours of thread and I was having trouble freehanding the circles for the holly berries.  What is with that?

I will be seeing my next customer on Wednesday when I go to Darlene's for coffee so I will pick up her quilts then.  I also have a quilt that will be coming in next week so I better get cracking.  I am not going to call any of the other quilters on my waiting list until all of the above quilts are quilted.  The pressure on me is too much these days.  I mentioned to Darlene that I am going to wind down my business again for awhile and just take the occasionally customer quilt, when I can.  I am finding that it is not fun anymore and more of a chore to quilt for others than it should be.

That is all for today.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get those tablerunners done and out of my hair.

'til the next time,