Sunday Sewing or Third Time is the Charm!

I typed this post up twice at work but the computer I was on didn't have google chrome and so all my stuff was lost.   GRRRR.  So I am now at home after a day at work and a few hours at June's place getting organized for the thrift sale.  Wowza, lots of work that is.  Anyway, this first picture is Daisy, Joe, Rosey and Zoe all eating on schedule...no more free feeding for them, they all chubbed up too much so we have changed things up a bit and it is going well.  

This is Kathleen Tracy's Simple Doll Quilt.  I whipped this up for my small quilt group challenge of the month for June.  It comes out of the book below and was made from leftover charm squares.  It will be made into a doll quilt for a gift.  

I caught up on season 7 of Desperate Housewives this past weekend with Kathy on Hulu.  When I wasn't watching that I was listening to this audiobook Randy gave me.  It is keeping my attention too.

Cut more bow ties and sewed another block for the Cheddary Challenge.  I am trying to get another row on before the year is up.  I can't believe it has been almost a year since Bonnie got us sewing these.  I have really enjoyed it--especially knowing I will remember so much about the year based on the fabrics!  This block has two of my just finished Cal Mystery quilt and one from Kathy's.  It also has several floral pieces that were leftover bits from cutting the Florabunda swap for my quiltville swap group.  I sent mine off today and can't wait to see what I get back from the others.  I don't have time to do Florabunda right now, but I will kit it up for when I do.

Also took out the messed up tacking from a week or so ago and redid A is for Adiminaby til I was happy with it.  I got the binding on and hand sewed that down too.

So "Feeling Blue" is hanging in my sewing room (with other tiny quilt peeking out from behind) and now cheers me up.

Judy pulled # 12 for the UFO for June which happens to be my Season Bargellos (all made in a Quilt University class) which is the oldest UFO I have since it was made like four years ago when I was still in Wisconsin.  In case you haven't been with my blog since the beginning, I had this great idea to put them into one quilt so DJ and I worked hard on figuring out borders (not my thing) and putting them all together earlier this year.

Here is what it looked like when it was all together...it is hard to tell but the border fabrics are actually coordinating prints that each of them has in them (just in different colors).  I hate it.  Ros liked the idea of quilting it even less when I brought it to her.  So now it is in the UFO pile and I have to figure out what to do with it.  Seriously.  UGH!.  Please comment with any suggestions you might have.

Crossing fingers this posts....

Leslie Helps with Bargello Seasons!

Leslie sent me all these great workups for my Bargello quilts..isn't she amazing? I think I am going to go with the last one...I was hoping to have sashing between them to that each quilt was taking up a quarter of the quilt...but now that I can see it more visually it looks like this might work just as well. Still have some Math to do to get it just so, but I am a bit closer thanks to Leslie's help!

My Nimble Thimbles PUP for This Year

I missed the meeting where we shared our finished PUPs, but Becky shared mine for me and everyone picked another PUP to do for next July. I only have this one so it was an easy choice to pick. I did each of these four Bargello Seasons quilt in an online class at Quilt University back when I was in Wisconsin! The reason it hasn't been put together is because I seriously struggle with the Math to make it into four equal parts to be in one quilt. So here is where I challenge those of you who are skilled at Math or at EQ to help me out!
Here are the measurements: Spring is 28.5 inches by 22.5 inches, Summer is 33.5 by 18.5 inches, Fall is 35 by 18.25 inches and Winter is 27 by 21 inches. There is a coordinating fabric (of a different color) in each of these pieces and I have extra that I could border each in a different color as well as the darker green coordinate that could sash them together after they are bordered to the same size. I am open to suggestions, if I can't get this figured out I am just going to make them into separate wall hangings, but I really would like it in one quilt!

Thanks in advance to any of you gals who are willing to help me out...if you ever need any Englishy help, call on me!

Accounting for my UFOs

Someone else posted a picture with lots of boxes of quilts in progress and asked us about how many project we had going on. So I thought I would take stock of things and post some pictures in case you didn't read my blog when I started these projects!

These are my star blocks from my online group's star block of the month challenge. I truly enjoyed the challenge, but find getting all these different size blocks to work together an even bigger challenge! I need to just bite the bullet and buy some black fabric and just put them together. I really want to use the blocks, not just have blocks, but I am a pattern girl...I follow the pattern better than I do my own thing. Funny because that isn't how I live my life in other areas!
This tablerunner is just waiting for me to find and make binding and get it on there. I quilted it on my machine already though this picture isn't current. This one is for me for under my laptop...right now there is a flag tablerunner, lol. This is from this past fall but it got pushed to the back of the pile while I was doing Christmas presents and then I just sort of forgot to do it! I plan to get moving on this one this weekend.


Bargello Seaons, this is from my Quilt University class last Spring. I love all four of these and planned to put them into either four wallhanging that I can change with the seasons or one quilt that I can fold over with the current season showing for my quilting studio. They aren't exactly the same size and I got really stumped with how to combine them...so I think I will do wallhangings so this UFO gets done! Not sure if I am brave enough to quilt them myself though. See this is what holds me back!

Walk in the Park (Quilter's Home) is all set except I need to doing the sewing/applique on the gorgeous blocks and then put it all together. I love how this quilt looks so far and I am afraid to mess it up! I think this one is the oldest UFO I have...it is from December 2007!
And of course this is my most recent UFO, A is for Adiminaby. I have it all hand quilted with little x's now and yesterday I bought the binding fabric. So this weekend I plan to get that attached so when I have time I can hand sew the binding on this one too.

I guess I can consider this one a WIP and not really a UFO since I am actively working on this Double Delight Mystery from Bonnie's Quiltville site. I absolutely can't wait to see this one together. I picked up a few more light shirting materials and another pink at the quilt shop last night since I was running short to finish step 3!

I also have squares and hexagons for I Spy (still collecting) and Flea Market Fancy Squares but since nothing but the cutting is done I won't count those! I also have my daughter's slightly started cat wallhanging. She finally was interested in sewing so we got all the stuff for the project and just didn't get time to finish it. I am hoping she will come visit this summer and we can work on it together.

This means I have five (or eight if you could the Bargello separately) UFOs and one WIP to get moving on...two should be almost done by the end of the weekend. Thanks for challenging me to access what I have and think about getting them done. I don't like to have them lined up...I am a finisher! So how many UFOs or WIPs do YOU have going on?
Wish me luck because I have to take the Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessment test tomorrow! I have been studying for it all week and hope to pass the first time through!

A Great Mail Day and Ideas for my Bargello Seasons

Today was a great mail day as my favorite magazine (Mark Lipinksi's Quilter's Home-don't you know!) arrived! If you aren't subscribing or buying this one you are missing out. It is quite entertaining and always inspires me somehow! This one has a recipe in it for Shrimp Fettuccini with Zucchini that I am going to make after I get to the grocery store. If I deshrimp part of it my vegetarian DD may even eat it, though DS won't touch anything even remotely good. HA. The other awesome thing in this month's magazine was the Quilted Notebooks! Not sure why I didn't think of making some of those--lol guess that is why someone else is getting the big bucks. I have leftover scraps of my son's Love Beads quilt (already batted, backed and quilted, then cut off as the design called for) and I have been saving them trying to figure out just what I could do with them as they are too nice to throw out. I was thinking about making a pillow of some sort, but I asked the 15 year old if he wanted a doodle journal with his quilt leftovers and he said sure! So first I will make him one, should be pretty easy since half the work is done, then I am making one for me and we will see from there. What a fun project!

I am trying to come up with ideas for borders for combining my four seasons quilts into one quilt. I have measured them all and Spring is 28.5 by 22.5 inches, Summer is 33.5 by 18.5 inches, Fall is 35 by 18.25 inches and Winter is 27 by 21 inches. I know I want to add a half inch red border to fall followed by a 2 or 2.5 inch fall border. I am pretty sure I want to add a small strip of solid fabric to summer, followed by a patchwork strip of leftovers from the bargello and the same color outside border. I have not yet decided what to do for Spring and Winter. I could try to do Bonnie at Quiltvilles Braid type border to one of them (if I can figure it out) but especially winter seems hard to figure a border on. I think I need a borders class, lol. If anyone has any terific ideas I would love to consider them! Oh Man I just realized I screwed up the summer design three rows from the right, didn't even see it til now...SHEESH. Will be fixing that!

We showed the house again tonight, we have shown the house 13 times in 23 days or something like that so we have been busy! If only someone would put in an offer. Smile.