Hat Trick Schnibbles :)

 I have really been wanting to get myself back into Sherri and Sinta's Parade of Schnibbles fun and even ordered the vintage/retro pattern Hat Trick in order to do so.  This past weekend I had to choose between the wedding quilt I have been putting off (usually I am done way ahead but the wedding invitation got lost in my mail pile on my desk and I opened it literally on the day of the wedding last December..so since I was late with it already I just kept putting it off--that is my story and I am sticking to it!) and this fun Schnibbles.  Well you know I did the wedding quilt.  Tonight I made a last minute decision to just try to make half the Schnibbles with some fun sewing fabric I have been collecting for a bit.  I am so happy I now can put it in the parade.  This will be a fun little quilt for my sewing room too.

 Check out the parade of Schnibbles coming up soon on Sherri and Sinta's blogs the first of the month!  And if you haven't already bitten the bullet, join in next month!

A Whole Lot of Everything Going On!

 I spent all day today sewing and a bit of yesterday too.  Finally got part of the Lazy Sunday Mystery cut and  ironed...still have more to go for clue two, but progressing.

 Becky came over and we worked on our lace sock from the Craftsy class.  I should never have put it down..it was like starting all over and I really was ready to wall the thing!  Becky seemed to breeze right back into and luckily for me she is the kind of friend who will put her own work down to help..so she got me back on track.  Putting in the heel was crazy and getting the lace pattern going on all three needles was beyond me for some reason.  Now I have done two repeats of it and have caught on again!

 I decided to turn this little tiny log cabin into my in marker for work.  We have a board and we put a little wood shape with our name on it in the cubicle we are terping in.  Mine was an umbrella...it fell once and the handle broke off, it has bugged me ever since.  Everyone will know which booth I am in with this little marker...doesn't even need my name, lol!

 Last night I started on the nine patches (while Kathy cut for me--YAY!) and today I sewed about seven or eight hours on this larger version of Cindy Lou Who Schnibbles.  I like how it turned out and hope that my cousin Kai Len (married last December) will like it for her wedding quilt when she gets it.  I can also call this one my second NewUfo for April (the first being Wild and Goosey)!

Here is a look back at my smaller Cindy Lou Who Schnibbles...it was a bit more coordinated and not as scrappy, but I love the effect this quilt has :)  Now back to sock knitting!

Happy Friday Folks!

 I put in a full day at work today while Kathy ran errands and got me a new cell phone.  After work I went and bought myself some purple yarn for lace sock making (I need to get back on that...Becky and I are going to work on them again soon) and took Coleman clothes shopping.  When we got home I gabbed with my daughter Hannah on the phone for awhile and then finally got to sewing up a paper pieced block that I had started this week.  This one is all in modernish fabrics, mostly Denyse Schmidt.  It looks a bit crazy busy since the lights were not as light as the other blocks I did but it sure was fun to play in those scraps!

 Three blocks done so far, I really need to get back to other things, but so fun it is!  A long while ago at quilt camp, my friend Becky made a little tiny log cabin and shared the pattern with me...finally I gave it a go!

Not sure what I am doing with it, not sure what Becky did with hers, but cute and teeny tiny!  Tomorrow is a relaxing day at home..I either need to cut and sew Hat Trick or a wedding quilt for my cousin--before I get to paper piecing anything else :)!

Paper Piecing at the PHXMQG Meeting

Last Saturday the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild met and Allisa taught us how to paper piece.  We had the choice of making either a coffee cup or a pop bottle.  I got Allisa's mug rug in the swap last time, which was a coffee cup, so I opted to do the pop bottle as you already know.  Here is everyone else and/or her creation!  Enjoy the paper piecing parade!

 This one is Allisa, our teacher.  Thanks girl, I am now addicted to paper piecing!  WHOOT!

Wild and Goosey Block 2

Managed to sneak in a little sewing before work this morning so block two of Wild and Goosey is done.  Seriously LOVE it :)

Improved Grape Pop!

I forgot to post my new and improved bottle of grape pop!  Here it is, not bad for my first time on paper piecing!

Wild and Goosey Block Two in Progress

I am hooked on these cute little blocks!  I eeked out some time to sew before work yesterday and I plan to do the same tomorrow morning!  My work schedule changed a bit and I have mornings free on Tues and Thurs for another week or so (til the semester ends) and I am trying to get something accomplished on those mornings instead of just lazing around!  I was dying to finish this one off last night, but I worked late (even though I got off early) and then I had to make a summer salad for a work party and I rode my bike and by the end of all that I had to prep for teaching!  So no sewing happened even though I was up til 1 am.  Good thing I am a night owl!

Block number two....one more section and I will be ready to put this one together.  I am sure I will be immediately starting block number 3--I am trying to get myself going on a wedding quilt I need to get cut out too.  Yes, another new start, oy vei!

Sweet Sunday Sewing :)

 Kathy decided to add another Rainbow Block of the month to the other one she is doing (which she is doing two of each month) so at the end of the year she will have three rainbow quilts.  She is all caught up already which is amazing!
I finished sewing the rest of my green spools and they outnumber all the other colors now even with nine of them in a pillow!

 Today's spools above and previous ones below--that is alot of green!

 Here are all the stacks I have so far separated by color.  It is working well to try to get the rainbow bom color done each month..really pushes me to do them, not sure why I didn't think of that last year for the bow ties!

Kathy bought a GIGANTIC TV today and we did some TV shuffling.  Coleman also just inherited a huge (old heavy on wheels) TV for his room from my parents' move...put that all together and his old flat screen TV is in the sewing room (now with cable and dvr YIPEEE) and the flat screen living room TV is in our bedroom (though not hooked up yet--lol) and we now have two extra older not as huge TV's just hanging out.  To think my great grandparents just had one TV at their house and no cable, ha!  I did manage to bike five days this week too so I am getting back on the wagon and trying not to be a couch potato! The day just flew by and I didn't even start another Wild and Goosey block or watch Bonnie's last QuiltCam that I missed.  Maybe I can do that after work tomorrow :)

BOM, PHXMQG and Paper Piecing Make for a GREAT Day!

 Kathy and I started off our day by heading north to 35th Ave. for the BOM and black bag day.  This is the block for this month...ours is of course in black and we have to make four blocks each.  This block looks MUCH easier to do than last month's!  Kathy cut the fabric last night and we plan to sew them today.  We met up with Ros (briefly) at the store and with BJ and Jacki who also joined us for  lunch in Chandler before Kathy dropped me at the PHXMQG meeting.  BJ surprised us with a starfruit pincushion--each!  I owe you BJ!  So thoughtful of her to make extra while she was doing her swap pincushion!

At the meeting, Jill and I traded mug rugs (she was unable to trade a few months ago but wanted to participate) so she got a granny square one, and I LOVE my new hexie flower mug rug.  She used a rainbow variegated thread on the edges and it really is so pretty.   It is so funny, I have wanted to make mug rugs for forever, and now that I did and traded with several people I now have four different ones!

 At the meeting, I participated in the Emerald Challenge.  I was so tickled to hear I was not the only one frantically working on a challenge piece (or the pincushion) literally at the eleventh hour!  There just aren't enough sewing hours in the day.  Here are the participants with their items and a close up of the items too.

Lora with her thread catcher, Nancy with her pincushion, Me with my pillow, Tracy (Kirstin's mom, lol) with her pincushion, Becca with her pillow, Christi with her wallet and Jen with a quilt!

So many shades of emerald.  Way to represent girls!

 Now I just need to finish the Spoolin Around quilt this pillow goes with!

These are the pincushions we received in the trade (not the ones we made).  Nancy, BJ, Christi, me, Barb, Bonnie--she got mine, Ann Becca, Lora and Tracy (Kirstin's mom, lol!).  

 This is the one I got from Becca!  It is heavy and each side has a different fabric on it.  It has lots of personality!

Our program yesterday was learning Paper Piecing.  My friend Allisa (who also just replaced our treasurer) taught the workshop.  She did a great job and spent time with each of us individually (some of us more than others, lol it was my first time really!) helping us catch on.

 I have done this at least once before but I remember giving up because I kept putting the fabric on backwards.  We had six new people at our meeting and I was lucky enough to be sitting across from Sarah (one of them) and she had the seam ripper that I forgot and spent some of her time helping me (as did Jacki behind me!) until it finally started to make sense!  Sarah is also a Bonnie Hunter fan--I knew I liked that girl the minute she said hi!  She and I kept repeating a phrase about lining the seam allowance up where you want the fabric to go--which I now can't recall, but it helped alot!  You can see from the picture that I caught on and was tickled to death.  However, I didn't have a color coding of the bottle and it wasn't until I was COMPLETELY finished that I realized I was supposed to have white on the triangle parts at the top of the bottle.  I do believe I will rip it apart and fix it later on but Alissa (and Sarah and Jacki) taught me well because I came home and did more!

 Bonnie's newest Quiltmaker block is Wild and Goosey and I figured I would just do one tiny corner of the block (it takes awhile!) but I couldn't stop there...

 By the end of the night I had completed the block..posted it on facebook and had fallen in love with paper piecing and the block!

 While admiring it I suddenly realized one of my geese was flying the wrong direction!  So don't ask me how I was able to sleep last night without fixing it, but I did and this morning after helping out a friend with some ASL Linguistics homework I got the geese flying in the right direction!

So once again I have started another Bonnie Hunter project!  I am seriously her number one fan!  I am guessing this counts at my NewFo for April!