Hawaii Sunset is a Flimsy--Cue the Singing Angels!

 I spent some hours today making the other three borders for Hawaii Sunset and then tonight I managed to get them all attached!  The pictures are not great but I could not wait to get some and call this one done!

 So happy that Jo got me started and Amy, Andra and Angela were willing to join me in making one!  It was great fun--now that it is done!  I am astonished that I was able to do this one with magazine directions, I think I might finally be an intermediate quilter, lol!

 Kathy is coming along on her Jelly Bean block for Wanderlust.  This is a Bonnie Hunter pattern from Quiltmaker--my favorite quilting magazine.  She did not screw up the part I thought she did...she just has the center star to go.  Really super cute block!

Tonight we went to the Nimble Thimbles (and two other guilds too) Barn Quilts presentation.  The door prize was this cool metalwork quilt block!  Suzi Parron (who wrote the first book on Barn Quilts) was the speaker and she was great.  She is working on her second book on the topic now.  She showed us quite a slide show and I loved the "I'm Lovin it" quilt block on the side of a McDonalds which was really unique.  I could not find a picture of it online so I guess we have to wait for the next book to see it again!

Here is Suzi, she signed my book for me! 

A Few Things I have been Up to....

A leftovers tablerunner..not quilted or anything but just didn't want these scraps to go to waste. It is on the tiny dresser in my bedroom.

Some of this was the leftover backing from my Betsy Nest Schnibble. Waste not, want not.

I also made Kathy two little bags from Patriot fabric. Once I remembered how to do the zipper correctly they went really fast!

It isn't finished yet (blocks are laid out but not glued) but isn't my very own "barn quilt" fabulous? We are going to hang it in the backyard somewhere since I don't think the HOA would appreciate it if I hung it on the garage. I love it! Ok, off to shower and get ready for work....

A Packer Apron and Carolina Crossroads Step Three in Progress

I love these cute little nine patches...and it is a good thing because there are 80 total in this step alone! I have forty done so far and quite a few more subcut and ready to sew....still need more strips through to get to eighty.

Pinning them in tens because I always seem to lose count otherwise.

Before I started that however, I decided to make my daughter Hannah this reversible Packer/Norway looking apron. It is for her for Christmas. I have got quite a start on Christmas already!

She is a huge Packer fan (as am I) so I know she will love it. This Packer fabric was my grandmother's....she made tons of hot pads on year for Christmas and I got lots of remnants which I have been happily using up!
And Kathy has been painting my rainbow wild goose chase blocks....looking colorful!

Taking a break from sewing and watching some crime TV....hope to get back up there in a bit though :)

Joy Luck Schnibbles is Coming Along...

All of the border strips for Joy Luck are sewn together and trimmed since this picture...

The past few days I have gotten in a bit of sewing and have the edges on all the sort of snowball blocks. Tonight I came home from work and got to ironing and sewing and got all these blocks into rows. My rows need some trimming up before I attach them and then I need to finish the borders.

I should have rotated this picture but you get the idea...rows aren't sewn together yet. I have a professional workshop to go to all day tomorrow, but when I get home I hope to get this little top together.

I also have my 12 Days of Christmas block two all cut out.

Remember the barn block we saw in Colorado? Kathy and Coleman decided to make me a smaller version of the wild goose chase in a rainbow of colors. Here it is all traced out and they have cut it out since and bought the paint...they forgot the background color of the paint but I am excited to have this little birthday gift...we will hang it in the backyard! I am a lucky girl!

While I was blogging here Kathy brought over the first painted goose so here it is! I can't wait to see it.

Tonight is movie night at our house so I have set aside the sewing (will be knitting though) and we are watching Avatar. Coleman hasn't seen it yet and he is a huge fan. After that we have a few movies from netflix so we may get to watch one of those. Hope to be posting tomorrow night with a done little Joy Luck Schnibbles!

Quilt Blocks on a Barn--My First Sighting!

I finished another tribble today. And this second picture is how gorgeous the ride was in Colorado. We were stuck in traffic and took a few moving pictures.

On the way to Wisconsin we thought we saw our first quilt block on a barn. We passed it really fast and didn't get a picture or think to write down where we saw it. I even tried googling it thinking it was on I-80 in Nebraska but nothing came up. I was bummed but determined to find it on the way back. I spent ALL morning staring out the window checking every building that remotely might have had a quilt block on for about four hours. Finally after crossing into Colorado we decided we must have missed it somehow and I was a bit let down...after all I put down my knitting for four hours to spot the darn thing!

Then I took a turn driving and after getting some gas we hit the road (I-76) this time and a few miles in Kathy hollered..."there it is" and I almost ran off the road in excitement and was hollering "get a picture, get a picture!" Kathy suggested we turn around and go back for a better shot...and after the four hour search I figured that with an 1800 mile trip what is the difference if we do another couple of miles going in circles. We turned around and found the frontage road...we found the barn and discovered another block was on the back of the barn! Kathy actually got out of the car and climbed a weedy hill to take a picture with the camera and my phone (so I could post it to facebook) and I was thinking...shoot wish I had the camera to take a picture of her taking that picture for me!

The first picture is the side on the highway (wild goose chase) and the second(windwill) is from the back near HWY 144. I looked these blocks up on my blackberry later on and I believe these are Ted and Nancy Curtis' blocks in Log Lane in Morgan County, Colorado.

We didn't realize it at the time but according to http://mcbarnquilts.blogspot.com/ there are quite a few of these beauties all in Morgan County...now that I have seen the map I can tell you the next time we are travelling this way I am planning time to tour. I have been looking at Eleanor Burns' new book about barn quilts and now I am for sure getting it..and I am going to make at least one little barn quilt block. This really made our day and lightened our mood as we drove back towards home. We spent about 13 hours in the car today and we needed it! Thank Morgan County!