A Little of This...A Little of That!

Randy gave me this audiobook for Christmas so I have been listening to it while I sew (un

less DJ is hanging with me and then we were watching Firefly). The story is alright but not great. Good thing Randy doesn't read my blog, lol.

I started out by finishing up the Mourning Crosses quilts. I wanted to get three made for sure and I accomplished that! They all need the last outer border which I ordered from Thousands of Bolts last night. Can't wait to see how it looks on these! For the second and third quilts I put my Dad's shirts in a cross pattern...second block in the tow and bottom row and the first and third block in the middle row.

So that is what three of them look like so far. I can't wait to finish them up and send them out.

Made and attached a border to Lil' Twister Valentine too. And I cut and made my bow tie blocks with my Dad's shirt fabric too! The golf block and the plaid next to it are really from the quilt I made him...the leftovers pieces of fabric I had from that. But all of it reminds me of Dad.

While digging around in the flannel bin I again came across a bunch of these blocks sewn into long rows by the kids (about ten years ago) and decided to pull some apart and turn it into a doggy size quilt. No sense in it sitting in the bin any longer.

And decided to jump on one more bandwagon...Christmas Through the Year. This is the first thing I made for it. Two dolly buntings (I made about four or five of these and gifted them last year, so here are two more for this year!) are ready for Christmas. Feels good to get a jump on it! I just hope I can keep it up each month!
Back to work tomorrow, but a little bit of this and a little bit of that meant A LOT got done today!

Saturday Quilting and Sewing with Pink Lemonade!

I made four more mourning crosses blocks with my Dad's flannel shirts in the center. They kind of are all wonky because I am not lining up the stripes or anything, but I like it. Only a ton more to go since I am for sure making two more of these little wallhangings and maybe three more. I decided I am going to add some of Dad's shirts to my bow tie quilt so I don't need to make a fifth one! So that will be coming soon. I made two bow ties today from my basket but no pic yet.
DJ helped me out by doing the spray basting on three of my little quilts. So I quilted this one with pink thread. Just went in both directions on the big squares.
I dug in my leftover binding drawer for binding and had the EXACT amount to do this one. The binding isn't civil war fabric but the color went and so I just went with it. I am glad I did because when it was done I realized that this quilt matches the Double Delight on the bed in my room (yes I finally put it on the bed!) and so it is hanging over the bed. Will get a photo of it all when the bed is made!

I also quilted this one across in both directions though I didn't easily find binding for it so this is as far as it went. Figured I should finish it for Valentine's day. One of my co-workers saw in on facebook and texted me to ask if she could buy it. That made my night though it isn't baby size which is what she was looking for.

Went and saw "The Grey" today which was a bit too gory for me but it was a decent story. I knew DJ would like it and it would be easy to interpret. We tend to save some of the movies for when they are out on DVD so she can watch the captioning and I don't have to interpret in the theater. This is 2012 and it is RIDICULOUS that all movies are not just open captioned. Hearing people would get used to it (just as they get used to other handicap accessible things) and Deaf people could enjoy what everyone else takes for granted. I am just sayin!

Home Town/ Around the Block Schnibbles is Quilted

Haven't even seen this baby quilted in person, but Ros blogged about quilting my Home Town/Around the Block schnibbles so I snapped up the picture to show off! She does a nice job with these little ones and I always want to keep them all!
Well, I am working all day and night (with this quick hour off) so there is all the quilty fun I am having today. I hope to get in more tomorrow!

Ruth's First Quilt is Done!

Ruth came over for a few hours today and finished piecing her quilt. Next she basted it (all by herself!) with basting spray and pins, quilted it and bound it. It is really cute and I think our co-worker who is expecting is going to be tickled! I guess she is doing the baby's room in pink and brown so this quilt will be the highlight of the room--at least in my opinion!

While Ruth was working on her quilt I did several more blocks for Mourning Crosses. After Ruth left I got the sashing and first border on it. I was working with the fabric that I have in my stash and I need to get more black fabric. I really didn't have much to choose from. The border/sashing has cute little cherries on it, hardly seems like mourning fabric but it was available! I decided to go ahead and cut up some of my dad's flannel shirts that have been sitting waiting to find their way into a quilt or two. This is the perfect one for them...so I want to make several of these so I can give one to Margie (my dad's lifetime girlfriend) and my uncle Jim...maybe my sister and my uncle Rick if I get real ambitious. I had thought I would do one for me too, but I think I will just incorporate the fabric into the cheddar challenge quilt I am doing instead because I plan on keeping that one and I have memories of Gma Nan in that one already!

And another photo of Ruth's quilt though just before trimming I think.

Sew, Sew, Sew :)

Sometimes I am in the mood to putter and not to really do a huge project. So I went ahead and did a few (not so) leaders and enders for my Cheddary Challenge quilt. Then I laid them out in a different arrangement and smiled!

Then I whipped up some of my leftover charm squares that seemed Valentin

e-ish (some of them are actually from a Christmas packet) so that I could play with my Lil' Twister ruler again.

So today after having brunch with DJ and her grandfather I cut it out and carefully pinned it up and viola it turned out!

So since today I got this great new book in the mail I had to play along with the yahoo group I recently joined that makes small quilts. They picked this quilt out for January and so I started at my leftover parts box and picked out some hst's that I could use for the first few cross blocks. Tomorrow I will try to do some more. I think I am on a small quilt kick. So much fun to make!

I didn't strictly follow the colors since I was using leftover hst's but I will be adding more black to the next blocks so it should balance out okay.
Now to watch a movie or two and knit on my second sock :)

Pink Lemonade Flimsy Done and my First Sock!

My first sock is finally done and I am continuing to work on the second one. I love it!
I haven't weaved the ends in yet, but I have plenty of time to do that while I finish the other one.
I saw that Lori posted the last bit for Pink Lemonade so I decided to cheer myself up after that awful Packer loss. Seriously a sad day here! So it took no time at all to cut what was left and do the four corner blocks. And only a little more time to sew it all together. Not sure how I will quilt it but Lori will post some ideas and I will see if I can copy any of them...lol! I have decided I really, really enjoy making small quilts like this. They go quickly and give fast satisfaction and they look so cute on the wall! I am getting quite a little collection and may have to dedicate a wall for them all sometime soon. At this point I just change out one in a spot by my sewing area, but I think there are getting to be too many for that! YAY. I don't think I am ready to give away any of these little ones yet either!

I was just organizing my pictures and updating my flickr too and I am amazed at all I accomplished at the sewing machine in January. I hope I get half as much done in February!

Teaching Ruth to Sew

This morning I went to Ruth's house to teach her how to sew on a machine. She treated me to breakfast and bloody mary's and then brought out this beauty! I think she said it was her hubby's grandmother that hand pieced it and they got the top and had someone quilt it for them. It is really stunning with so many colors and such personality. Gorgeous! Seeing this up close made my day!
We started with something simpler though...a Bonnie Hunter "Streak of Sunshine" quilt. Ruth had picked the fabrics on her own and we cut the strips and arranged them in an order we liked.
Ruth sewed them into strips.
Then we cut them again and arranged them, did some unsewing and resewing and got this!
Ruth added the narrow border and we got the outer border cut but ran out of time to sew it on because I had to get home to the Packer game! I think it looks great and our co-worker Chelsi (who is expecting her first, a girl) is going to love it. That Ruth would not only learn to sew but put in the time and money on this for Chelsi's baby is really special! I hope I have nurtured a new quilter. One can never have too many quilting friends!

Now to watch the Packers and finish knitting my sock!

Orca Bay Clue Seven is Done--Mostly!

Fabulous mail I received today (and my Fairy Tale charm packs from a few days ago). I am stocked up on thread for awhile.
This afternoon after Becky's grad party (congrats Becky!) DJ and I finished our Hulu marathon of "Once Upon a Time" and then started "Terra Nova" which we like too while I sewed and sewed and sewed and OMG sewed the rest of clue seven. I did these flying geese in sets of ten, sewing, ironing and cutting off the dog ears...127 flying geese (which I think may be too big but I am not really going to double check and depress myself at this point). I still have to do the four hourglass units to officially say clue seven is done, but go with it. I need to feel progress.
Look at that stack of geese coming along...
All of my pieces look like they may turn into a quilt top finally! I honestly feel like putting this one away for awhile til its UFO number comes up. Usually when I get to the end I can't wait to finish, but I have a feeling I am going to need to adjust those flying geese and I just can't even think about that now.
Here is what it is looking like when I lay it out. I love the colors and I am not sure I have the yellow squares going the right way. Just wanted to get an idea.
Tomorrow I heading to a co-worker's house to teach her to sew a baby quilt for another co-worker. Then I will be home to watch the Packers play! Might get back to finishing up knitting my socks..it has been awhile.

Pink Lemonade Little Quilt Step Two Done!

Last night I made my ten half blocks and today I got them ironed and laid them out to get an idea of what things will look like. I don't know if this is the cheddar background I will use yet, but it is the biggest piece (other than solid) that I have onhand.
I am liking how it looks so far. I am almost out of double pinks since I used TONS of them in Double Delight I think it was so I will put that on my shopping list lol.

Speaking of shopping I grabbed up two charm packs online the other day...with doing a year of Schnibbles it is always good to have some extra charm packs on hand! I can't remember the line at the moment but it was fairy tales and I thought it was cute.

Clue Six is Done!

Something came up for June so I wound up sewing at home today..but since I had hauled all my stuff down I set up shop in the living room and we finally checked out Randy's Hulu and started watching "Once Upon a Time" which is pretty good as I had heard. Meanwhile I sewed for FOREVER finishing up the light blocks of clue six (Ohio Stars) and then ran upstairs to iron and trim them and while the iron was heating up I cut out the half blocks for Pink Lemonade. You can see some of that to the left in the picture above. I got all ten of those sewn up though they aren't ironed so pic will wait til tomorrow on that.
Then I whipped up (hahahha as if...whipped up) all the dark blocks. I did put yellow in the centers and I hope I got them all right. Funny I did block by block on the light ones and did plenty of unsewing because I was grabbing from the wrong pile all the time. When I did the darks I just did assembly line sewing and it went much smoother for me. I like the immediate gratification of doing each block but it sure slows me down!
So happy they are done (though the darks need ironing and trimming up--they are done lol) and since I already have about half of clue seven done I can proudly say I am on clue 7.5 of Orca Bay!

Pink Lemonade Little Quilt

Lori over at Humble Quilts http://humblequilts.blogspot.com/ is posting this little Pink Lemonade reproduction quilt from one that she has (or has a photo of). I have been watching several blogs as people are following along...like I did with her last three little quiltalongs! I always think I will find time later, I save and even print the steps and figure I will fit them in somewhere. Then at midnight last night (after a day of prepping for teaching--done and housecleaning) I though I would "just cut out the pieces" after all I have a good selection of fabrics perfect for this that I rarely get to play with. Then I thought I would sew just one block...the one I had the half square triangles all made up in my orphan basket (only those had the right colors!) so I did that one--it has different pink background fabric but that is okay because so does the original.

DJ was playing a videogame and since I was happy to sew on she was happy to play on..so I kept on sewing! Sort of happy accident I cut too many of the colored fabrics so some of them got sewn too for the next step they will become half blocks.

I had to lay them out on top of some cheddar so you can see where it is going. These blocks make me smile. I love simple, quick and easy, and I love them. Thanks Lori for getting me on it! Now off to take CJ to two doctor's appointments and then stopping at the college to do a few things and then I am off to June's to sew Orca Bay. Gotta go pack the car!

January UFO Challenge is Met!

Worked all day, had a healthy dinner when I got home (trying....lol) and then I quilted and bound this baby all by myself tonight. Wasn't easy because I went around all those snowball blocks and used my new machine which doesn't have a wide throat! But it is done and bound in all different scrappy colors (which you can't really see in this pic) but I was happy to use up leftover bindings from my drawer!
Here is the crazy backing that says "love" all over it. I think DJ's six year old niece in Virginia will love it!

Cheddary Challenge Progress

Whenever my little basket of scraps gets low I fill it back up...I am really enjoying making these little bow ties and admiring them on my design wall all year long!
Today I finished off my ninth block and put it on the wall.
It isn't very big yet, but I love the variety of scraps. Bottom row in the center is the "ticket" in at the National Storytelling Festival that I had to pin to my shirt all weekend. Several of the blues in there are my grandma Nan's scraps that I inherited now that she is gone. The Mary Engelbreit black with flowers reminds me of sewing with June and loving her dark background fabric so I had to buy this similar fabric. So many memories and so much enjoyment from Bonnie's Cheddary Challenge! The purple is my daughter's favorite color (and looks like I need to scare up some more purple!).
I can't wait to check out all of the links on Bonnie's blog tomorrow so I can see how everyone else is coming along with this challenge!