Productive Saturday Sewing!

 Finished listening to the Edwards short stories and dug Dreams of Joy out of my car (been there for like 6 months, I was on disc 8) and am most of the way through it.  I was inspired by Amy to piece a border for Star Path QOV.  I didn't add an inner or outer border as she did, but I am happy with this one.

 I also pieced the backing from the last of the Anaheim discount fabric from when we went to Disney.  It is the perfect backing for a QOV.  I also made the binding.  Now I will ship it off to Alycia and she can get another volunteer to quilt and bind it and it will be ready for a soldier.  Thanks Nancy for a great mystery!

 I took some of the quilts outside to get pictures in the Arizona sun (seriously it is 100 and something out there) but I see my shadow made it into this picture.  Doc Schnibbles for Rachel's baby in Norway.

 and the back.

 Star Path in the sun.

 Kathy worked on the parts of these Night and Day blocks and finished them off and sewed them into this tablerunner.  Found a cute border fabric in my stash (thanks June) and it is now ready to be quilted.  This will go to my cousin Tara since it matches her quilt and her birthday is later this month.  We also made a quick trip to JoAnn's to buy a Kaleidoscope ruler (half off plus 25% off for educators) to use up the other leftovers from Night and Day.  Waste not, want not.

 I bought the other three Denyse Schmidt fat quarter yard thingys too.  Figured I had a coupon and I had money from my mom for my birthday so they are now mine!  Oh, and two skeins of dishcloth yarn as I am almost running low!

 Here is what Jack in the Box is looking like now that I have added the aqua colors.  I took it down to make room for my quilt history block UFO.  We cut sashing and cornerstones for it but that is as far as it got today.

And last here is a picture of baby Caleb snuggling in the quilt DJ and I made for him on our Prescott Staycation awhile back.  His parents are good friends of hers in Vegas.  What a cutie!

Dimestore Schnibbles Done and Rainbow Challenge Pinwheels

 I was lazy after work today but did eventually get in and finish up Dimestore Schnibbles.  I like it okay now it is done, but it ranks up there as my least favorite to make!  It didn't all line up so there was lots of futzing, but it is done!

 I also sewed up SoScrappy's Rainbow scrap challenge pinwheels.  I am getting quite a stack of them in each color and am going to have a great border for Jack in the Box.  I would go mad making them all at once, but one Saturday a month it is doable.

 Kathy was sewing up more of the Night and Day bonus blocks so that may get finished up tomorrow.  She also worked on her Mystery quilt border...so hopefully we will get those done tomorrow too.

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner! It is ME!

I am still here at work wishing I was home sewing!  I am reading blogs between calls though and just found out I won this fabulous bag with the ghastlies on it!  I am jumping for joy at my good luck!  Thank you Sandy, I love it!

http://sandysshowtellquilts.blogspot.com/2012/08/giveaway.html

I hope to have some sewing progress to report soon!

Quilt of Valor Mystery Solved and Schnibble Progress

Today was my birthday!  Kathy and I went out to lunch at Benihanas.  It was practically free because we joined the birthday club and since our birthdays are three days apart we each used our certificate.  We had sushi!  After that we went over to Bath and Body Works and used another coupon for a buy one get one free deal.  Kathy picked out some Ocean Men's cologne and I got the Sleep lotion that smells so good!  A few days ago our big gift to each other arrived and we already love it!

 Today while watching Man on a Ledge and Gone we did a bit of squaring up and sewing of the Quilt of Valor Mystery Quilts.  Here is the one I did.  Still needs a border.  It is called Star Path.

 This one is Kathy's.  I like the scrappy look better.  This one was made from leftover bits I still had even after making a full size quilt and a schnibble from this fabric.  This is finally the end of it, and I still love it!  There might be enough bits left to cut up for bow ties!

Dimestore Schnibbles is slow to see progress.  This sucker is a bit of a pain.  The directions say to use a scant quarter on the pieced border strips, but then the cornerstones don't wind up in the right place.  So I am painstakingly adding in extra seams to make things line up better.  It is half way done and I am finally getting some sort of a rhythm to it.  It is not one I will be making again!  I like the look of it though..sort of like a huge window and the colors remind me of Monet's paintings.  So it is all good Carrie!  I am sure other quilters are having no problem with getting things to match up.  I will say that my normal quarter inch is finally perfect on the featherweight!

Sunday Funday :)

 Today I did lots of odds and ends finish up kind of stuff, started Dimestore Schnibbles and taught Megan how to sew PJ shorts.  Here are the blocks for Dimestore.

 I sewed the binding on Kathy's Dad's quilt.  This was the mystery we did together.

 Here is Megan with three completed pairs of jammie shorts.  The kids will put them to good use.

 Also made and attached the binding on Doc Schnibbles.  No picture, but I pieced the backing for Anita's Arrowhead too.

 Only got one sashing row and one row of blocks done on Dimestore before I decided to go see what is up with the Olympics and CNN.  Really sad that a shooting has happened in Wisconsin...that has been on my mind all day.  You just never know when your time will come, seize the day and love one another!

Birthday Times Three!

 Kathy and Tina share a birthday and three days later it is my birthday (and two weeks later it is mom's) so the four of us got together and went and got pedicures.  Tina got Green Bay Packer toes, I am going to do that later this fall!  Mom and I got similar colors which just happens to be close to Angela's Rainbow color of the month and Kathy got more of an electric blue!

We went out for dinner and plenty of drinking.  All of the family in this area was there so that was nice.  We even had a cake.  Here I am between my mom and my (step)dad.  We had a really nice night and spend the night at Tina's new place.  Then bright and early this morning we headed off to Ros' to sew.

BJ's handwork blocks

I felt like I was sewing in slow motion today.  I didn't take too many pictures..got BJ's blocks and didn't take pictures of Meridith's blocks (first time I have met her at the Huggy Bunch) and have no idea what Ros was working on in between taking care of her adorable grandson Matthew.  As you can see I had to do some unsewing, not once but twice on these blocks but I am happy with them now!  These are the Jack in the Box blocks for August.

SoScrappy Rainbow Challenge Color for August

 Friday before doing toes we stopped and picked up the three quilts Ros had done for us and then I whipped up the binding so I could give it to her later that night.  She has several of my quilts and is always appreciative of them but she absolutely raved about this quilt.  She loves it and facebooked about it and everything.  I know she will cherish it always!

Tina's Crown Quilt--she loved it!

 We arrived home from Ros' and our joint birthday gift to each other had arrived!  We got a Kitchenaid mixer (pay no attention to the messy counter behind the mixer, lol!) which Kathy and I have talked about getting for a long time.
 I then went and finished up these stars for Smith Mountain Morning (I worked on the units at Ros').

 Now all three of the different blocks are done and the border units are sewn too.  Kathy helped iron and trim them today, yay!  I am anxious to get this one together, but I have several other projects pulling at me.  The good news is I don't work tomorrow or Monday so I might get several things done!

 Squared up a few more of these and got them together.  Waste not, want not!

Olympic Progress-Not Really!

 Well I was accused of ruining a mystery on a new group I recently joined because I posted my blocks and someone thought I was guessing at the layout.  I had forgotten to take pictures like these two so I just used the ones I had put on my blog not even thinking that I could be revealing a layout.  I meant no harm, but had my feelings hurt by those who seemed to think I was out to ruin their fun on purpose.  PLEASE.  I felt like telling them my recent life story.  My heart has been broken several times in the last few months and I am doing all I can to just put one stitch in front of the other.  I am not my usual sharp self and just wasn't thinking at all when I posted the pics.  But knowing my story doesn't really matter to the masses and some people just look for something to be pissy about I apologized and let it go.  I was so excited to find the group and have a more fun way to make my Quilts of Valor donation quilts--I love mysteries but now I will finish up this mystery and quietly take my fabric and go home.  Sigh.

 We have been watching a lot of the Olympics and I did some knitting last night while the USA's girls gymnastics team was winning!

 I also unpicked my bow tie cheddary challenge and then today I took in some seams, did some trimming and made it fit.  I noticed that some of the previous row was also a little bigger and I hadn't see it before.  I am over it.  It looks better and so too bad if it isn't perfect.  My perfectionist tendencies are leaving me, my give a damn is busted.  I am happy with this one and really should do one more row on it to see if it is big enough.

This morning, I also did some fast quilting on this little dolly quilt and have put it on our ottoman for a doggy quilt.  It will serve its purpose.