Good Minus 31 Celsius Sunday Morning.

Woke up early because I have been sleeping on the couch since Christmas Eve and my hip is protesting.  DS may have found an apartment and occupancy is immediate so hopefully I will have my bed back sooner than expected.  I am also going to buy new girly print sheets for my bed to celebrate.  I hope it sticks this time.

I am waiting to see if DH wants to brave the cold and go to church this morning.  If not I plan to go downstairs and work on CS.  Yesterday we had blizzard like conditions with wind chill warnings so I worked on CS for most of the day.  The colours of parts 3 and 4 can't help but cheer a person up.  

Here is a photo of what I have been up to.

 

I feel like doing something quiet right now, as it is 8:06 a.m., so I think I will cut out the pieces for clue 5 then I just can sit and sew when the mood strikes.  Oh boy is my sewing room a mess.

A photo of the mess on my cutting table.    My plan is to get all my scraps cut and sorted before I start any new projects.  I do need to finish Winter's Song for the quilt show and The Thelma Wynn project should be starting up again in the new year.  Busy, busy.

Back at it,

Happy stitching.

Working on clue #3 of the mystery.

Testing my new iPad to see if I can post pictures right to my blog entries.  Here goes.

These are bits and pieces of clue 3.

It will take some getting used to, I can tell right now, but how great is that to be able to post photos right away instead of pulling from camera downloads.  This is the best Christmas gift ever!!!!!

Clues 1 and 2 above waiting to be sewn into the quilt.  I should be finished clue 3 this afternoon, 100 of the squares are sewn into clue 5 and 100 are sewn into pinwheel blocks.  I need to start the four patches today or tomorrow, then I will start clue 5.  Yeah! I am catching up.

Better get back to it.

Happy stitching.

Boxing Day Coma

We are having a nice Christmas so far.  Our DS stayed over Christmas Eve and Christmas night and may be coming here again after work tonight.  It has been great to have him here.  He is not getting along with his roommate and is finding things difficult.  He is welcome to stay here until he can find somewhere else to live which I hope will be by Feb 1.    

Leftovers for supper and soup started simmering for supper tomorrow (with homemade noodles).  Yum.

On a quilty note, I finished up Clue 2 and started Clue 3. I am mixing up the methods for construction of the hst's.  I am making some using the magic 8 method and some by using the easy angle ruler.  Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to finish them up and start on the four patches.  Clue 5 should be posted tomorrow morning so I will still be as behind tomorrow as I was today.  Oh well, it is not a race. I am finding that I do not have much variety left in fabric choices.  I sure do not want to buy any more fabric if I don't have to. 

Photos tomorrow as I am too tired to mess around with trying to add photos tonight.

Happy stitching

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I have not posted for some time because I have been crazy busy.  I finished up some client quilts and made a table runner for my mother for her birthday which was yesterday.  I forgot to take a photo, oops.   I have also started the Celtic Solstice mystery quilt offered by Bonnie Hunter.  I will post some photos this week of my progress once the Christmas festivities are over with.  My favourite day of all is Boxing Day as we do not go anywhere, supper is leftovers and we just veg out.

I have to figure out how to add a photo from my iPad to my blog before I post any pictures.

Happy Stitching

Posting some pictures of completed quilts and my beloved Charlie

It has been some time since I blogged so I thought I better post some pictures of my completed mystery quilts before I start the next one.  I have talked a friend into making her own mystery quilt.  She has fabrics in the colours from a stash her sister-in-law gifted her so why not.

Anyway, here is a picture of my RRCB, on my bed, in my own room.

It looks great on the bed.  The curtains are from Ikea and the rag rug was made by me by using the 'French knitting' method using a four pegged knitting spool.  It took mega yards of fabric to make.

Here is a picture of my Orca Bay completed.  It is a bit too small for the bed.  I do not know why I did not double check the size before I quilted it.  I guess because I still had my bed stuffed into the office and did not have any room to turn around let alone think.

You can see bits of RRCB peeking out underneath and it does not go over the bed on the far side very far.  It did turn out quite nice anyway.

Here is a picture of Charlie getting ready to go to Tim Horton's for morning coffee.

He has to take his dinosaur for the ride.  I love him to bits.

Anyway, back to house work.
Happy quilting.

It is the middle of September already!

It has been ages since I last posted.  The summer has sped by like no ones business.  The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and should continue to be mid 20's for at least another week so spending the day in the basement is not the way to go.

I have not done the machine quilting that I had hoped to do but I have not wasted the summer.  Charlie and I have gone on a lot of good walks and I have played in my flower garden more than I have in the past years.  I have enjoyed that.

One of my missions for the summer was to use up the leftover fabric scraps from last winter's 'Thelma Wynn' project.  I have been going great guns this past week and  I have managed to cut up scraps for two scrappy baby quilts and organized the pieces into something fairly nice.  I also was playing with some navy and yellow bricks to make something that looked nice and also used up all of the fabric and I finally came up with something.  I am not using the yellow because it just screamed ugly at me.  I managed to cut enough bricks for two smaller sized tops and I will see if they need a border once they are pieced.  I took a trip to Fabricland to see if there was anything there to go with the yellow flannel but there was nothing.  I think a trip to Berry St. is in order but I am in no hurry as these quilts don't need to be done until the spring.  I hope to use up most of the scraps by that time.

I bought some small colourful plastic bins to organize all of the scraps and hope to do that tomorrow afternoon while everyone is snoozing.  I hate having a mess to wade through every time I want to work on those baby projects.  I want to make baby bibs with all of the scraps that I cannot use in the quilts.  I saw some samples in Pinterest and thought that would be a great idea to use up some of the pieces.

Pictures of the tops next post.

Happy quilting.

Some photos of the garden

        Today is our 34th wedding anniversary and yesterday was my ?? birthday.  All went well yesterday.  The DH and DS gave me a gift card for Mark's so I went shopping for some badly needed jeans.  Both my jeans and capris were worn out at the crotch and had iron on patches keeping them together.  I was afraid I would be bending over at Safeway one day and I would be arrested for indecent exposure.  Everything at Mark's was pretty picked over but I did find some jeans and I found jean capris at Walmart for $11.00 so I am set.  The t-shirts and blouses in the stores right now are made of such thin fabric that you need to put on two to get any coverage and at my size I don't need any extra bulk.  Major dieting on my horizon I am afraid.  I have to get my mind set.  I think once this last customer quilt is completed I will be able to settle my mind and get things done.

        My mom took my DH and brother and I out for supper for my birthday, so that was good.  I did not have to cook.  We had an enjoyable time.  DH and I just went home after and watched TV with the dog.  DS was with friends and working last night so I saw him for two seconds, in the afternoon, in passing.  He is going through a manic phase right now, I hope he can manage it without going nuts like last year.  I pray.

        Today is our anniversary and I do not know what we will be up to.  We do not have any plans.

        Here are some pictures of the flowers blooming in the garden.  I need to do some work with moving the perennials around in the fall because it is a mess in there.

        I need to find some perennials with larger flowers, everything is small and/or spikey.

Happy quilting.

More Thelma Wynn Project Photos.

        I missed posting some of the photos of baby quilts on my previous post so I am adding another post.  Here goes.

I made most of the quilts hanging and on the tables.  The sleepers and receiving blankets, etc. were made by other church ladies.  I have also included a picture of some pansies that self seeded in my garden.  They have a very pretty colour in real life.

I now must go and see if the Red Velvet cake I made is cool enough for the icing.  Yum.

Happy quilting.

Thelma Wynn Project Quilts and a picture of our lilac shrub in full glory.

I have not taken the time to blog forever so I thought I better post these pictures before they are lost.  There is a picture of the mess on my cutting table of all of the fabric bits I was trying to make into baby quilts.  There are also photos of some of the quilts hung and shown on tables at the tea.  I was so pooped from sewing like a mad woman after that project was done that I have had trouble getting down stairs to sew.  I have organized most of the scraps into groups so that when I get the urge I can just pick up and start making something.  I have a quilt on the machine for Shirley that I must get done before I can tackle any of my own projects.  It has either been too cold downstairs or I have been too busy running around for Mom and us that I have had trouble getting motivated.  Next week it will be completed.  I need some sanity in my life for awhile.

Anyway, here are the photos.

 In the first picture I only made the quilt on the left, in the third picture I only made the centre one, but for the most part the rest of the quilts I made.  These are just a few of the 30 I made.  As a challenge to myself I hope to have made more that that for next year.  I will have a head start because we just started the project in January.

The lilac looks beautiful in real life.  I was finishing off putting the brick edging around the Daylily bed, hence the mess on the ground below.

Happy quilting.

RRCB finished and some other stuff

Here is a photo of my RRCB on my bed in my room finally.  The curtains are newly purchased from Ikea and have all of the colours that are in RRCB and Easy Street.  I am sure my Orca Bay would not clash either.  The great big black hole is MJ's giant tv that will stay in the room until he is back from Thailand or wherever his travels will be.  It is not in my way.  The dog can stay with the DH as far as I am concerned.

This is a photo of DS on his way to the airport Feb. 19th to begin his travels to Thailand.  He went from temps of -40C to temps of +30C.  He says it is so hot he want to vomit unless he is in air conditioning or under a fan.  He had a minor motorcycle accident the second week and has been healing from scrapes and bruises.  We miss him.

This mess is a future rug for my bedroom.  It is done by making the rope by spool-knitting fabric strips then sewing them together.  I started it way back when, at least 10 years ago and I finally picked it up again to finish.  It will make a good sized bed side mat.  I am sure that the dog will take it over.  I tried to figure out how to attached the coils together by crocheting them with pearl cotton but my pea brain could not come up with anything that looked decent, so sewing with doubled quilting thread was my solution.  I want to finish sewing it together soon so that I can finally work on the puzzle DH bought me for Christmas.

Well it is a bright sunny Sunday and I should be out enjoying it but I do not like going anywhere on the weekends.  Too busy with people.  DH and the dog have gone for a nap already.  I think I will either grab my ipod and sew on the rug some more or go and prep the baby quilts I have quilted so far for binding.  I am just turning the backing over and machine stitching down.  I have four quilts ready to sew bindings and four more that can be quilted.  I have two on the flannel board that are ready to be stitched together.  You cannot see the top of my cutting table for scraps but I do not have the concentration right now to figure out what to do with all of the smaller strips.  I am sure ideas will stew around in my head and I will figure something out.  Meanwhile this week I will work on the embroidered quilt belonging to Lois.  Feathers and more feathers are the answer.

Happy stitching.

Happy Valentine's Day

This is a photo of my Valentine's Day gift from my DH.  I came home from cutting fabric for baby quilts at the church and grocery shopping to find an empty house, except for the dog, and this on the counter.  DS called him 'sick' but instagramed a photo of it any way.

I volunteered to help out the church's quilt and baby layette sewing project and joined them this morning.  There were only four other women working on the project so it will be slow.  The ladies helping out do not have much quilting experience so I will most likely take on a lot of that.   They have cardboard forms that they trace squares with and cut out with scissors so it is going to be interesting.  I took some squares home and will make something up for next week.  I also have that Sesame Street fabric that I am going to make a quilt with.  I don't think it will get quilted because I have some customer work coming tomorrow.  We will see.  She doesn't need her quilt back until March so maybe I can work on the baby stuff next week.

A husband of a church member that passed away last year brought in a bunch of fabric and cut out baby items for the group to work with.  I am looking forward to seeing what treasures she had started and I am sure there is stuff there that I can help complete.

I finished cutting up strips for the Scrappy Trips project I want to work on with Kay's fabrics.  I made a good dent in the fabric which makes me happy.  I can get two tops done for the Victoria Quilts project with the stuff I have cut out so far.  I am sure there is yardage there that will work as borders.  They want flannel for backing so I will have to shop and I need batting anyway.  I should order some Quilter's Dream cotton because it is so light.

My baby's 30th birthday is Sunday.  I wish it was a happier time for him to celebrate.  This has been a hard time for us all and I will miss him regardless of the crap he has pulled over the last few months.  I wish him well on his adventure.  I hope we will see him again and that this experience will be what he needs and not a big mistake.

Well good night, tomorrow will be busy,
Happy stitching.

Photo of Gum Blossom background blocks

Here is a picture of the strata blocks I was working on for most of the weekend.  I have decided that I do not like one of the fabrics and I will not be happy until I have replaced it.  It stands out too much and the eye goes to that fabric every time.  It needs to be a bit more muted.  I will most likely shop for a fat quarter to use at the Quilt Market on the 16th as well as the fabrics for the leaves of the gum blossom.  It was fun to work on and I am looking forward to finishing it.

Back to the workshop for me.  I have to quilt the argyle quilt and am still kind of stumped as to how to quilt it.  The pantos that I see online are too dense so I think I will have to be careful and do a free hand swirl on my own.  I wish me luck.

Happy quilting

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.