Mickey Mouse for Aunt Nancy!

 This past weekend I finally finished the binding on my Aunt Nancy's Mickey Mouse Quilt.  I know she will love it and Monica plans to squish it in her suitcase and deliver it when she gets back to Wisconsin.  Nancy has always been a cherished aunt who spent loads of time with me before her own children were born (first one when I was ten).

 She is a huge Mickey fan and has been long deserving of a quilt from me.  I hope she loves it!

This was the NYE Mystery for this past year too!

All Kind of Quilty Goodness!

 Ros worked her magic and quilted my NYE Mystery quilt for my Aunt Nancy!  See the Mickey Mouse quilting in there?

My aunt's birthday is in February so I cannot wait to get the binding on this quilt and get it in the mail!

I finished up the mug rug for Bonnie and I, will give it to her when I see her next week!  Cannot believe my bucket list wish of taking a Bonnie class is coming true in just a few days!

I decided to go ahead and put the Wild and Goosey blocks together (while watching QuiltCam--did you hear Bonnie shout out to me with her Packer fabric?) so that I could show it off to Bonnie!  I cannot tell you how many enjoyable hours of sewing have gone into this quilt (about one hour for each block, lol) and I know I have lots more to go, but it is a good start!
Since I will be off work Tues-Fri next week for the workshops (pinch me someone) I will be working tons this weekend.  I wanted to make up some of the missed hours, but I know I won't get in much sewing over the weekend.  I have to start packing too!
I hope there is plenty of sewing in your weekend, I will be reading my blogs between calls or while I am on hold, so that will have to sustain me!

NYE Mystery 2013

I helped Kathy unsew the other two rows of her quilt while she got this much of it put together with her new trimming.  It is looking much better, this pattern was not too easy imho!  Too much bias! I do love how it came out theough! 

Here are a few more photos of mine...in the Arizona sunshine.  Love that my bush blooms during the coldest part of our winter!  I am working all day today and tomorrow so not much sewing going on for me, but hopefully Kathy will get her NYE Mystery done.  We have Bonnie's Celtic Solstice and the 35th Ave. BOM to work on!  So much to sew and so little time!

*edit* Kathy finished up her top tonight!  Love it!

Our eighth annual New Year's Eve Day Mystery Quilt :)

 This is the eighth year Kathy and I have participated in the QTMystery Quilts Yahoo group quilt mystery.  This one was designed by Carol Lange.  Clue one above and two below.  Kathy is doing the Patriots themed fabric (she is from Mass.) and I am doing the Mickey themed for my mom's sister, Aunt Nancy.

 Clue three and four.

 Clue 5 and 6.  I am counting in ASL in the pictures if you wonder what is going on there.  That is 6 below.

 Kathy's 6.

 And my 7.

 Kathy's 7.

 Our 8's.  I took the time to trim my little wings off.  Kathy was printing the clues and we did really good at not looking ahead (we started about five hours after the start since I woke up with a migraine and decided to go back to bed).  I took pictures and uploaded them and monitored the emails and facebook.  I also wound up doing lots of ironing for Kathy!

 And our 9's.

 Here is where the trouble started for us!  We had to add the corners on and we tried everything to get them to go on square.  We pinched and lined up centers, we measured with a ruler, we tried Amy's method and trimmed off the little things from the triangles...some of them looked like this and others were just perfect.  I did rip this one and anyone that didn't pass my quality control!

 Then afterwards since there was SO much bias I wasn't going to try to put the blocks together as they were.  Despite all my careful quarter inch seams and ironing (seriously Ros this might be my best ironed back yet!) they just were this side of wonky.  I wound up measuring out a 1/4 of an inch from ever edge and cut off whatever was hanging, I then fudged in what was under the 1/4 inch wherever possible.  We did all this while watching Harry Potter all day!

 I was pretty satisfied with my rows once I did the trimming.

 It is hard to see the fun festive flecks of color on the black fabric from these pictures.

 Here is the start of Kathy's.  She has a few rows done now, but I think hers was wonkier than mine and she threatened to let it become a UFO! She decided that (after she put the first two rows together and nothing matched up) she would trim the blocks to 8 1/4 and then join them.  The bottom row is two sets of two she is happier with.  So she will be ripping out the first two rows and redoing things.  She also thinks it is too red.  I love how hers looks though more blue would be an improvement, but that is the fun of a mystery!

 Here is mine with the first border.

 And done!  Here is a close up so you can see the flecks better.  I hope my Aunt Nancy loves it!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Three Mysteries in the Making!

 Tomorrow is the holiday party for the PHXMQG and I accidentally signed up for the fabric swap so I decided to go ahead and join in.  Here are my fat quarters for trading.  One swap is for low volume prints and the other is for print.  I am making a shrimp dip to bring along too.

The above picture is the beginning  of the prep for the February Mystery Quilt Camp that Becky and I are going to.  We have to make a TON of hst's before we go.  Mine are now all sewed and the papers are trimmed, but only one page is cut apart and trimmed down.  I have plenty of time so I will try to do a page or two each time I am in the quilting studio so they will be done in time.  I still have to cut the rest of the clues for that mystery too...but first...the Mickey fabric and others are for the NYE Mystery that Cal is doing in my online mystery group.  Kathy and I have joined in on this mystery for about eight years now.  This quilt will be for my Aunt Nancy who is a Mickey fan--if it turns out!  I am going to look for a darker/brighter yellow tomorrow at 35th Ave., but if nothing tickles my fancy this will it.  I ordered the Mickey fabric online and had the rest in my stash.  Nancy wants a Mickey quilt, so she shall have it!

 Linking up with Bonnie at Quiltville!  And the third mystery I am working on is of course, Packer (Celtic) Solstice!  Bonnie was super sweet and gave us an easier clue since this is Christmas week--she is nice like that!  I watched her QuiltCam from Wednesday while sewing today.  So here is what I have so far.  I can hardly imagine how this will all go into the quilt!  I didn't get pictures, but Kathy finished clue two and started clue three...YAY!  I also cut her a bunch of strips while I was cutting mine to help her out with clue four.  She should be able to get caught up this week, with any luck!  These are the color substitutions I am doing:  blue=yellow, orange=green, green=lime, yellow=black/brown and neutrals.

 At the end of the night I did one more Wild and Goosey block.  This one has a gnome peeking out and I love it!  I try to get at least one done every weekend because I really want this to turn into at least a top by the time I see Bonnie in February!