Orca Bay Clue One in Progress!

I have chosen my fabric colors (going out on a limb here) and have started on Orca Bay clue one!



I hate to not follow Bonnie's colors but I just did Carolina Crossroads not too long ago in red, white and blue so I didn't want to add black and do those colors again. I hope I will not be kicking myself later.

So I went with the colors of Long Lake in Wisconsin (where my grandparents built a cottage and I spent alot of summers) if you aren't looking towards the lake, lol. White/cream and pale yellow for lights, brown with some black thrown in for Bonnie's black, and green and yellow in place of her red and blue. I haven't decided which for which but will make that decision when I get to the first clue involving those colors.

Here are the first of my clue one units...I have 36 made so far and I have to stop to head out to a Deaf event with DJ. Can you believe she and I have been togther for a year already? I can hardly believe it. I work tomorrow morning but I want to keep working on this clue and get some Christmas gift progress in as well! GO PACK GO!

I Won, I Won! Thanks Bonnie K. Hunter and Quiltmaker!

Bonnie K. Hunter posted this on Monday and completely made my day"
"Our next winner is Andee in AZ!

She writes:

Wow you have a lot of comments! I am a sign language interpreter and my dream assignment would be interpreting one of your quilt classes! Not sure what else to tell you unexpected about me!

Andee, I had this same thing happen in New Mexico when I visited the Santa Fe guild! They have one deaf member, and TWO interpreters came to interpret the meeting for her. I was nervous at first! I usually talk pretty fast, trying to get it all in in the time that is allotted..but a funny thing happened…when I reached the end of my time, and was closing my presentation with my “How Many Quilts” poem….I slowed way down to be sure that the interpreters could get the full narrative to the deaf guild member, and I was mesmerized by how beautiful the hand signs are….I was nearly in tears by the time I was done!

Thanks for the special job that you do!

Your copy of 100 blocks will be coming directly from Quiltmaker Magazine in Golden Colorado!"

I am doing the happy dance here because Bonnie emailed me twice and wrote about me on her blog. So one day when I meet her I can remind her how we *know* each other, lol!

I am also getting jazzed for Bonnie's new mystery which starts on Friday folks! I haven't picked my colors (but I tend to copy Bonnie so I can't possibly go wrong) though I have checked out Angela http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-mystery-quilt.html had a nice color idea on her blog and Amy in Wisconsin likes the color combo too..so I know I can't go wrong with that either--grin! It may come down to what I have here because I plan to use stash. Who else is joining in? Come on!

Looking forward to sewing on my machine which came home today...HAPPY DANCE! Ros' machine has been a Godsend and I really like a Pfaff so it was great to try it out, but I can't wait to get back to mine. Oh, turns out the guy forgot to connect a cable so that was why my bobbin motor didn't wind. Whew!

In other news, my post observation conference was today and my boss had nothing but positive things to say after observing my fabulous ASL 1 class! He said they will be in touch soon for next semester's needs so that made me feel good.

Staycation in Prescott

Sorry ahead of time..I can't get the info to line up with the pictures which drives me nuts, but just giving up on it tonight!

DJ and I needed a weekend getaway that didn't break the budget so we planned going camping. Then last week we were talking about how cold it will be camping this late in the year and about all the stuff we needed to get to sewing for Christmas...my parents had previously mentioned that we could stay at their mostly empty house in Prescott any weekend we wanted, so the next thing you know we were camping and sewing indoors!

We accomplished far more sewing that I would have thought possible and I watched several movies and listened to two audiobooks! But before I get to all of that...check out my huge stack of Secret Santa Swap 2 gifts from Shannon! Two more gifts arrived and it was all I could do not to peak in there!

Have I mentioned I am not good at waiting? And I finally took a picture of my civil war swap strips from the last quiltvilleswap. Some of these fabrics are just GORGEOUS! I can hardly wait to do something with them.




I love the variety I have now.

So back to our sort of Staycation! I started out Friday with DJ cutting and me whipping up several doll baby buntings for Christmas gifts. I decided to break into the Mark Lipinski fabric I had to have a few years ago which has just been hanging out getting no love.

So here is the view I was looking at while sewing. The sun sets over that mountain and it takes your breath away. It is my favorite moment of the day!

We made the binding and got these two Christmas table runners bound.

Of course in and around it all I made more cheddar bow ties!

I sewed a bunch of squares together (two tops) and need to get some borders on them before I take that lil twister ruler to them!

Here is the first of the baby doll buntings.

This is Saturday's breakfast (more like lunch time by the time DJ got up and made it, but I had been sewing for hours by then!)

Of course Bug came along and had a blast.

Five of the six baby doll buntings I made. Four of them are for Randy's granddaughters for Christmas.

This quick and easy quilt is for DJ's nephew for Christmas. Really like how it turned out and since it is strips it went together so quickly!

Blurry for some reason, but this is Hannah's tree skirt. I quilted it and trimmed it.

It just needs me to cut the center out and get the binding made and attached. I also made myself one but forgot to bring the setting triangle red fabric for all of it, so it is mostly pieced together.

Here is the second one that I will use the Lil Twister on.

So today I decide to have my own little parade of stuff! DJ was still sleeping and I artfully arranged everything on the pool table (that doesn't fit at Mom and Dad's new house).

There are two of these Peter Cottontail tops. One is quilted and bound, the other one awaits.

See here it is.

DJ did do a teeny bit of sewing today. She is still trying to master curves while quilting..she isn't particularly liking it!

Sewing with Ros' Machine! (Thanks Ros!)

I had an extremely productive day in all things, laundry, cleaning, cooking, CEU earning, chatting with Christine, watching the Packers go 8-0 (GO PACK GO!), prepping for ASL class and even managed to get in some sewing at the end of the day!

First I quilted a Christmas tablerunner in the ditch...two down, one to go. I need to make the binding and get it on and two more gifts will be ready. Next I whipped up the last row of this Auntie's Anvil Mini Top. I think this is the size it is going to be. It makes me smile and that was the point of it. I haven't even started Bonnie's next mini and the third one just came out too! This one is my favorite, the second one is okay and I like the third one better so may skip right to that for my next fun mini.

Meanwhile, DJ eyed some leftover pieces I had unearthed while cleaning recently and so we decided to turn them into blocks and see if there were enough of them for her Gma Letha's southwest looking quilt. This is about what we have to work with...looks kind of crazy busy to me. Any suggestions on ways to subdue it or to make it larger or should be just go for it? I didn't pick out these fabrics for the last recipient either, so maybe it just isn't my thing. I will be HAPPY to get them out of my quilting studio anyway.

DJ and I were planning on going camping next weekend so I took Saturday off work...the temperatures have finally fallen and we were thinking we might be freezing to death to go camping...suddenly tonight DJ decided she wants to make her sister's three kids a little quilt, and this one for Letha and the tablerunners we are doing for her family...so she thought we should have a mini quilt camp ourselves instead of camping! What a fab idea! My parents' house in Prescott is free all weekend (there isn't much left in it....bedroom set, loveseat, chair, tv, dvd, and pool table, lol!) and my mom said we were welcome to have a getaway weekend up there...so that is the plan. We already started packing up a ton of stuff we can cut and sew up there in between sitting by the fire, going for a few walks and watching some movies. I am really happy to get ahead on my Christmas sewing again....I hope Ros doesn't mind her machine going on another field trip (if I don't have mine back) but I promise to take extra good care of it!

Finally a Day of Sewing at Ros' Place!

After work this morning DJ and I toodled on north to Ros' place and sewed away for a few hours before heading to my folks' place for dinner. Ros let me borrow her Pfaff (and I mean she let me take it home with me, Lord bless her!) so I can actually sew again. My machine hasn't even been looked at at the shop...so I am not too happy about that but now that I have a machine to use for a bit I can breathe anyway! So I took a few pictures (but after Alyssa left so I didn't get any of her doing her needlework) so here is BJ. She did a good deed today and sewed up a bedcovering for a friend in need. It turned out really nicely and I didn't snap a picture! You cna see a bit of it near her machine though. Ros was working on a binding here.

DJ was working on cutting and laying out the Crown quilt...it is one heck of an undertaking and my sister is going to be overjoyed to get it.

Ros did some show and tell. I LOVE this quilt, the pattern and the colors so Ros shared her pattern. I hope to find time to make it one of these days. I forget the name of it but something about 5 yards of fabric..

This is Olivia piggy. It was really cute too!

Ah here is a not all sewn, but at least set up block for the Crown quilt. It took all four of us, in the end, to figure out how all this went. I have a pattern but am adding the Crown stuff to it so it is hard to match the colors and make any kind of sense of it. The gal online who made one of these...her picture came in handy (and I am ever more inspired that she managed to put a big one of these together without a picture!). Anyway this picture is to help us get the layout right from here on out!

What did I work on you may be asking yourself...well I finally got around to sewing my brother's surgical cap in PACKER fabric (GO PACK GO!) and DJ modeled it for me. It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be so I may have to make a few more!

For a good bit of the time I was at Ros' I worked on Hannah's Christmas tree skirt from Moda Bake Shop. It is called "Fruitcake Under the Tree" and since I have some issue with following directions I mixed up the colors more than the pattern called for (was supposed to be hourclass type blocks with a light and a dark) This way look scrappier and I like it, but I like their version too. This is as far as it had come together when I had to leave Ros' place. We headed up to New River and had dinner with my mom and (step) dad. He cooked steak on the grill and we watched a movie, gabbed and I knitted. It was really nice! Then we came home and...

happily sewed the rest of this skirt together! I hope Hannah likes it...now to get it quilted, smile.

Tomorrow Christine (co-worker and friend) is coming over again and we are working on CEU's for our national certification. I have a few more to get and will be done with them for this cycle tomorrow! It is a Math workshop because Christine and I are thinking about putting together and presenting a Math sign workshop in our area. It is desperately needed...Math isn't my strong suit, but signing is so we are doing our research and getting ready. Sometimes I think my plate is overheaping not just onto the table, but onto the floor. SMILE!

Signed Up for a Sock Class--FINALLY!

I have been wanting to learn to knit socks for years now...first I had to learn, and relearn and relearn how to knit. I finally have cast on, knit, purl and cast off down! I have made a zillion or more dishcloths and they finally look pretty good if I do say so myself. Everytime I almost sign up to learn how to knit socks I change my mind because it is crazy to think of the cost of the class, the supplies, book, yarn, etc for a PAIR OF SOCKS! And most of the time here in Arizona I don't even wear socks. Not sure why I feel the need to make some, but I do and the urge hasn't gone away....so since I figure I can divide the cost of the class and the book by every pair of socks I make (that is if I ever figure out the first pair) that Math sounds better to me so I am doing it! I signed up for a class in December at http://fiberfactory.com/
The class is "magic loop socks" and it uses the book "Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters" by Cat Bordhi which I going to order. Any excuse to order another book! LOL.
I bought some yarn today and I can hardly wait to get started...but I will be waiting because I don't have a clue how to go about it!
A co-worker of mine was crocheting socks the other day and she gave me a copy of her favorite pattern which I also would love to try, but not sure that I can figure it out unless I con her into hanging with me and helping me!

Blogger's Quilt Festival--Roll Roll Cotton Boll!

Here's my entry for Blogger's Quilt Festival sponsored over at: http://amyscreativeside.com
















It is that time again--Blogger's Quilt Festival! I decided I would share my Bonnie K. Hunter Roll, Roll Cotton Boll quilt this time around. This quilt took me a bit longer than some (though not as long as some others, lol) to make. It was Bonnie's mystery quilt last year and I followed her color scheme and even her border suggestions. It was my first time making string blocks and though at first I really hated them, I really started to enjoy them as time went on. I also didn't like how the whole quilt was coming together at first (though I trust Bonnie so I just kept on sewing) and in the end I loved it! There are so many pieces in all of my Bonnie quilts and that is the reason they are so special to me. The hours and hours I put into sewing them really shows my love of piecing. This one also has some blue and white striped fabric that was my great grandparents...it was once on a homemade quilt frame and through an ill fated transport it would up all broken on the highway. All I could salvage (except the measurements) was the fabric which is heavier than cotton. I have taken to putting some of it in all my Bonnie quilts because it makes me smile so think I have something of that quilt frame in every quilt.




I think what I learned about myself while making this quilt is that perserverence pays off. I remember several times wanting to quilt making this quilt, or wanting to only make half the size of it, or to not make the string blocks but I reminded myself how happy I always am when I am done with my quiltville quilts so I just kept on sewing. My quilt wasn't done first, isn't the most perfect, and isn't the best but I love it just the same.

This quilt isn't quilted yet but is being saved for something really special..I just don't know what yet!