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.