Friday Night Sewing with Bonnie!

 Arrived home from a long day at work to these goodies from Andra for Hawaii Sunset!  Whoo hoo.  I must say both her and Amy have PERFECT flying geese and mine are not nearly that good.  Hope they can make they work.  I need some sewing time with those girls to see just how they are doing it so they come out so good.

Here are all the parts all together waiting for me to have time to get to it.  I think it will be into January or February before it sees the light of day again.  So much to sew, so little time!

Next I got on cutting out Easy Street step two (I woke up at 2:11 AM because I was hot and my first thought was "I will be Bonnie's post with the clue is out!" and I checked out what we would be doing.  More flying geese.  I think I did better this time, I followed Bonnie's directions and sewed them a little differently than Hawaii Sunset (they are either the same size or close to it).  Kathy also was working on her clue two and truth be told, I cut the strips and she cut the triangles!  I love that!

By this time Bonnie was on QuiltCam and she was working on Moth in a Window blocks...I commented to her and she told me to leader ender mine so I decided to multi-task.  I do better to just keep on doing one or the other more so than leader ender, but I got these two blocks done and went back to my geese.  This dark fabric is from one of my Dad's old shirts (I put some of it in my bow tie quilt and the three mourning crosses quilts I made) and I had this sudden epiphany that I could use leftover bits to make more of these blocks!  The only bad thing about that is that means this quilt will either be mine, one of the kids, my sister's or Margie's...I can't go giving it to just anyone.  I am thinking for now it will be for us, and maybe one of the boys will wind up with it eventually.  I showed it to Coleman and he thought it was pretty cool!  The other option is I could make a pair of quilts put one of each of these (and make two of the others with Dad's shirts) and give one to my sister.  Sure wish I could just sew 24 hours a day so I could make half the quilts I dream of making!

 Anyways, here is my clue two done!  Lovin those purples.  I found a few more I had forgotten that I put fat quarter size fabrics into the strip drawers in the back so it was a bonus to add some more variety.  Linking up with Bonnie   http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-2.html,

And I could not resist showing you clue one and clue two together with the paint chips.  Boy that lime didn't photograph so good.  It isn't that pukey in person.  

Kathy is now done with her clue two, so here is a picture of hers.  She is changing up the colors since this will be a gift for her sister.  Blues and browns and tans...Trying to convince her to start a blog so she can link up with Bonnie too!  Thank for a fabulous Friday night Bonnie (and Kathy!)!

A Boquet of Hexies

 Last Sunday during that awful Packer game that I am trying to forget, I sewed up this little hexie.

Here is the boquet I have so far.  Two to go, I guess I better think about making the rest of the top so I have something to attach these to! 
I am workign til 4 today (on break now) and then I will be watching Bonnie on QuiltCam as I sew up clue two of Easy Street...at least that is the plan!

Sunday Sewing Day :)

Today Kathy and I went over to Megan's to show her how to do clue one of Bonnie's Easy Street Mystery. It is her first mystery!  Ayla wanted to be crafty too so I let her work on knitting my dishcloth.  I taught her mom a year or two ago and she taught Ayla.  Funny how easy it is for the younger set!  She took right to it with the wrap to make the hole and all!  

  

Working on twosies that quickly became foursies!  Kathy helped with the ironing and some of the cutting too.

While Megan (below) worked on her four patches for Easy Street, I worked on light and dark four patches for Tobacco Road.  That is the only mystery of Bonnie's that I haven't done, so I figured I would just do it at my leisure.  I pulled my two inch strips and just went for scrappy lights and darks.  Kathy had already made 18 of the four patches, now we have what we need for the whole quilt.  

Megan decided to do half of Bonnie's amounts and make a smaller quilt for her first mystery so she was well into that when we left to watch the Packer game.  Don't even ask how that went, it isn't over yet, but it isn't looking good!  Despite that I made two Packer green and gold Moth in the Window blocks while watching the game.  Bonnie posted about her Moth in the Window http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-moths-have-flown-coop.html and even mentioned misplacing the block I sent her (I know it will turn up with others she has put in the perfect place, lol!) and that got me motivated to add to my blocks.

 So after those two, I had seven.  I wanted more!

 I did four more.  Pretty happy with how they are coming out even though I was set up downstairs and using my mini iron which really doesn't get hot enough for these homespun fabrics.  Thinking I should dig out my Dad's leftover plaid shirts and see if any of them would work in here too!

Well I better get busy with my handsewn hexie...I haven't started it yet and the game is 3/4's over.  Then I better get some prepping in for teaching this week.  Back to work tomorrow!

Riding Down "Easy Street!"

Bonnie's mystery has begun!  Kathy--sewing buddy invited Barb, Becky, Kathy and I over to sew the first clue together.  It was even more fun to be working on the mystery as a group than it it normally is at home.  None of us finished the first clue yesterday while together, but it was fun gabbing and sewing along.  All of us are copying Bonnie's colors this time except for Kathy who has changed it up a bit.  Today at home I finished up Clue one and Kathy is about 30 four patches shy of done.  

I also got my box of quilted quilts back from Joanne!  I trimmed them all up and attached the binding on to Coleman's so far.  Also cut up the leftover backing bits into strips for my color coordinated buckets.  Whoot, whoot!
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-11-26T12:00:00-05:00&max-results=2 if you want to see how others are coming on the mystery!

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!  

Handsewn Hexies and a Pack Win!

 I sewed up the greyish flower with the purple center today by hand while watching the Packers beat the Lyons.  I then had enough time to trim and glue the remaining three flowers.

With any luck these will be done by Christmas and I can get to making the Hexagon Flowers Doll Quilt by Kathleen Tracy of Sentimental Stitches.  

Sunday Funday!

 Can't recall if I posted my sock again here or just on facebook!  Here is the first sock I did over a year ago now I believe....and the second sock that I had started..I have now ripped out most of the errors and have started working on it again...slowly.  I pretty much forgot everything I knew so I am kicking myself for putting it down.  Pretty sure I will be taking another class on this personal footprints method.  Meanwhile I signed up for a Crafsy class and was going to start that, but felt guilty for not finishing these..so am working on this first, I think.

 This morning I whipped up two pillowcases (following Weeks Ringle's free pattern) with the batman fabric I bought yesterday on sale at 35th Ave.  These will be for Mac for Christmas.  He loves all things comic so every time I see fabric with comics I get the urge to make him something.  Hope he likes them.

I also forgot to post a picture of the grey pinwheels so here they are and I can link up with SoScrappy's blog.  

Packer game on soon, so I will be handsewing my hexies.  I need to grade papers but just can't quite seem to get there...have been reading lots of books lately, but need to switch gears!

PHXMQG Meeting was Today!

We had our PHXMQG meeting today, and 24 people were there.  It was a great bunch, a mix of friends and friends yet to be made!  I won this cool pattern which I really love!  Polka dots always make me smile.  Can't wait to try it out...thanks go to Jona who got some freebies at Quilt Market to give away as door prizes.  I have never heard of this designer, so I will be checking her out!

 LOVE it even more when I see the quilting in this picture.  Seriously amazing!  Pictures borrowed from Patty Young.

 Here is our whole group except for me and Alyssa who were snapping photos!  Oh and Gina who left before we took the picture.  A very diverse group of talented quilters!

 Here is BJ with her quilt.  It is bright as always.  I can't recall the pattern name, but BJ told me we all bought it together recently.  I need to go find it...cute!  BJ and Jacki drove up early and we went to 35th Ave. on our side of town, to the Good Egg (AAA had to come because someone (and it wasn't Ros who was out of town, lol) forgot her keys in the car's ignition!) then we went to SAS for a quick stop.  And I mean quick, we were out of there in a flash, grabbed some drinks and hit this meeting.  I haven't taken pictures of my purchases yet!

 It made my day that they were both there and that they seem to be planning to join the PHXMQG!  That will be so awesome...they are both fun to hang around and put up with me with style.

I had asked on the PHXMQG blog if anyone wanted to make disappearing nine patches to give to Erin to make quilts and send on to the Hurricane survivors.  Bonnie met the challenge with these seven blocks (to add to my six) and BJ cut some out so on December 1st I will be mailing them out!  

Our meeting was a good one, we did tons of planning and brainstorming for the next year.  If you want to check out that blog www.phoenixmodernquiltguild.com/2012/11/november-meeting-minutes.html to see what we are up to!  If you are in the Phoenix area, consider coming to our next meeting and seeing if the group is for you!

A MODERN Win!

Over at Sew Mama Sew! http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2012/11/winners-handmade-holidays-more/#comment-666014
I won this fabulous modern book!  I can't wait to get my hands on it.  I am so excited, other than fabric my favorite thing in the world is books! (and coffee, and chocolate, and ice cream..do you sense a theme here?).
I am getting more and more exicited about sewing more modern style things with the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild gals sharing all of their stuff on their blogs and at our meetings.  It is so refreshing!  I am also loving my Weeks Ringle class and getting to see all of her modern quilts in a personal quilt show!  Don't get me wrong I still love my scrappy stuff ala Bonnie Hunter and Quiltville but I am really starting to think about what to make next MODERN!  We have a meeting this Saturday for PMQG and we will be deciding what we will be doing for the next year.  I am rather hoping we wind up with a BOM of some kind in the modern style or a challenge BOM.  Not because I can do much with that but because I would love to see what they do.  It is a talented bunch and I am out of my element in terms of creativity there.  I am still such a pattern follower!

Cheddary Challenge is a Flimsy!

 Can you hear me hooting and hollaring and HAPPY!  I took my time and managed to get the last row to fit and attach to my Cheddary Challenge quilt!  It looks bigger in this picture than it is, but it is a good size...largish lap quilt and since it is for me that is just fine.  So many memories in these blocks and I plan to really treasure this one.

And at long last I finally remembered to take a picture of my Easy Street fabrics so far.  Copying Bonnie this time though I keep thinking orange would look good with these colors!  :)

Craftsy Class--My First Explorations!

I think I mentioned that I am taking some online classes at Craftsy.  I have finished watching and am now rewatching Weeks Ringles' "Designing Modern Quilts" and loving it.  She is a great speaker and shares her process and tons of her and her hubby's quilts.  It is so very cool to get a one on one class (with lots of others in the Craftsy forum) from her!

 Spent some time today doing my Craftsy homework...Weeks calls them explorations, and they are but they are also homework.  This first block is fabrics and colors that I use all the time, that I like.

 This second picture is of colors or fabrics I don't care for.  I thought this block was harder to put together because if I don't like something I don't buy it.  However some of my fabric was given to me and some of these were leftovers in charm square packs that I didn't care for so I didn't use them.  Glad they came in handy.

 So in looking at my two blocks together I can see that I like darks!  I like fabric that reads as solid or is solid.  I knew already I liked argyle, and polka dots (though none made it in, I have lots) and modern fabrics.  Not sure that there are enough mediums though.  My second block is really muddy and the only two or three fabrics I like are the reds and the chrome yellow (in the right quilt--Hawaii Sunset for example).  The rest are really not ones I care for.  Weeks challenges us to add something to this challenging palette and see if it is workable.

 I added a few cherry colored fabrics and an aqua and decided I might be able to do something with it, but I don't know!

 After doing this exercise I remembered I had a bag of "ugly" fabrics that were given to me for a challenge by two different people.  I never did this challenge because I really didn't like my first fabrics at all (my partner did good on picking out the uglies!) and I wasn't sure about the stack on the right Ros gave me.  I just reread the directions and they can go in the back of a quilt, so I am thinking these ones from Ros will go in the back of the Cheddar Challenge.  They will always be a conversation piece and I can cross that challenge off my list!

Exploration # 2 was matching up fabrics to a painting of one of the masters (they gave us several to choose from) and though mine is not done, here is what I have so far.  The painting is "La Grade Odalisque" and has really warm tones for the skin and the complimentary cool colors of the silk drapery and bedding.  

I had a dream the other night with my first quilt designing idea--it was no good, but I thought it was interesting that Weeks has my mind thinking of these things even as I sleep!  

Some Grey Going On!

 I made the second of the grey blocks for Jack in the Box, my SoScrappy Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Here is a picture of all the blocks but not the pinwheel border.  It is still pretty small so trying to decide if I should make more blocks or add sashing or what...

A Little Bit of Sewing

 I made some disappearing nine patch blocks to donate to Hurricane Sandy folks.  Hoping some other sewers I know will also make a few and I can mail out a box of them to Erin over at  My Patchwork Life.  She plans to sew them up. get them quilted and send them on.  I want to help her at least a little bit.  http://vesuviusmama.blogspot.com/2012/11/taking-action-wanna-help.html for the specific post with a tutorial on how to make these fun and easy blocks. 

I did sew up another hexi flower in the car on the way up to see my sister (and way back) yesterday.  No Packer game this week, so I plan to be at my machine all day tomorrow!  

Today we had a family party...it was Megan (Kathy's niece) and her daughter Ayla's birthday party.  They had it at the park..it was a bit chilly today (I don't get to say that often in Arizona) and Ayla liked her big girl quilt we gave her.  Megan was equally tickled with the fabric and quilt book we gave her.  

Sunday Sewing

 Sunday Sewing included finishing up this Lil' Twister Tree.  We didn't actually have the pattern so we used pictures online to help us out.  If we do this again we will use the smaller ruler (this was the medium and it is too big really for a wall hanging and too small for a lap quilt) and I will be sure to have enough of each color. We just used leftover 5 inch squares from charms and cut up the rest of my fat quarter shop leftovers from Designer Mystery BOM (that fabric went really far!) so we ran out of yellows and had to grab some more.  Ya, they are all at the top!  LOL.  It also seems to me that there should actually be more green in it since it is a tree.  So eventually may do a smaller one, but it will look different.  All told, we are happy with it anyways.  Kathy and I worked on it together and that was fun.  We make a good team on these kinds of projects!

Linking up with Kathy for slow stitching on Sunday!

 During the Packer/Cardinals game I sewed up the red and white flower above by hand.  Seven done and 5 to go!  It is Packer bye week but I am going to try to sneak it a flower at some point anyways since this project is finally seeing progress!

 Princess Stitch had to put her paw of approval on the quilt top so here she is!
Also linking up with Angela for the SoScrappy Rainbow BOM Challenge!

I did manage to cut and sew one grey block for the SoScrappy Rainbow BOM.  I can't believe this is the last color.  Next, I will be laying them all out and seeing if I need to make more blocks to get it to size.  Still have another grey block and pinwheels for the border to go.  I never did make the "neutral" color so I may need to pick another color or two after it is up to round it all out.  

I am already thinking about what block I will do in January when we start all over again.  Maybe I will just copy Amy again!  LOL.  She picked this one Bonnie Hunter's Jack in the Box) and it has been an great block to work with each month and has really become one of my favorites!  

I signed up to take two Crafsy classes last week too.  One is Weeks Ringle's "Designing Modern Quilts."  I really have no talent for designing any kind of quilt, but she sure makes me think I could!  She shows her quilts and explains various aspects and element of them and how they came to be.  It is like my own personal trunk show!  I am really enjoying it, am even taking notes on it!  I may even try to do the explorations (homework) she assigns...I took the class mainly because she was the first modern quilter I found, the first book I bought (Modern Quilt Workshop) and I just adore her and wish I was as talented as one of her pinkies!  In any event, I am learning things I can use in following other people's pattern about color, balance, etc.  It is a good class!  

The other class is about knitting socks.  I am GOING to get good at socks.  That I know I can do--eventually.  The good news is, when you buy a Craftsy class you can watch it as much as you want forever so it is there to reference down the line.  Works for me.

They also have a block of the month with videos and different techniques each month for the blocks.  When you are done you will have a sampler quilt.  A few of my local friends started it almost a year ago, but I just didn't make the time to join in or to really check out the forum.  Now I want to give it a shot...that is a free class you can get just for creating an account.  Anyone feel the urge to join me?  We can pick a start month and urge each other on each month!  http://www.craftsy.com and search "block of the month."