Week Catch Up

In 2006 I went on a retreat in Lancaster ,PA with one of my online groups and one of the women, Sharon had started this quilt called Women of the Bible ( apic of the finished quilt is near the bottom of the page) Now even though I have fabric dye and white kona, I decided against making mine in her fabric choice. I'm making mine scrappy with what I have here. Some are applique (grrrrr) most are pieced. Paper piecing works best I'm finding. Look at the Joseph's Coat, there are 49 pieces in the 6" block.Yikes! I never did a Dear Jane or the Civil War quilt because of all the tiny pieces. I believe I'm over that now. There's a really good Bible study that focuses on each woman for a week at a time. I've been do it on and off for a year or so and only had 8 blocks to show for it. Well I started it again the other week and am almost caught up for restarting in January. This week we read about Moses's mother. But I am going to cheat a tad and try and get the blocks for July and August done now so that when it's packing and moving time I'll be set *VBG* and can just concentrate on the readings






I'ts going to be a Christmas present and the study guide for my mil eventually. My setting won't be like the original either- to narrow and long
Ok I was cleaning out the memory card and found a couple more pictures from the gardens so I swear, these are it :)






Some kind of begonia - I never saw one like this before. Very lacey looking flowers.....



Finally, before hubby left I grabbed 5 or so quilts for him to take to Buffalo and I found Nancy on them:

Both she and Moose are lost without hubby here.....

Quilts/blocks/ animals

With all the cold weather - the quilts have been working overtime. Better the quilts than the furnace I say. Here's handsome hubby and Moose enjoying Hubby's quilt.



This quilt must be real comfy. Here's hubby and Nancy watching the boob tube.





I have the first row of Aunt Kathy's quilt done. I love the little embroidered animals holding ribbons. I also have embroidered hearts to alternate with the 9 patches. I still need to embroider 20 or so more blocks. Thank goodness for my little brother machine *VBS*



When I mad ethe lazy/shooting star Breast Cancer quilts I had a million bonus hsts. I started making these blocks months ago and put them away. Last night looking for a pattern in an old Quilters Newletter magazine I was that they called it Split Rails. I've also seen it called Sawtooth Rails. I have these blocks going in non pink and whites - just random lights and darks.



I've been missing most of the week because Monday I was going to a quilt show meeting for the guild and managed to get into a car accident with a teen about DD's age. Poor guy was pretty shaken up. Only damage to both vehicles was his license plate wrapped around the hitch to my truck-lol. I pulled it off and stepped onto the sidewalk and some ding dong - talking on her cell phone hit his car which hit my truck again! Still no damage to my truck- but the poor kid lost a bumper. They really make cars like tin cans these days-imho. Next day I was so sore. Whiplash I'm sure but by Wednesday I had xrays to make sure nothing was seriosly wrong. there wasn't :)
but put a big damper on sewing this week.
Lots of people needing blocks for love quilts. I've done 2 of 3 requests. Need to mail them Monday. I want to finish the last request and mail all at once.

Tomorrow I clear off the table and pin baste Buffalo Troubles for hand quilting. And baste the Feathered Star for my friend's bday on Thursday. Wish me luck :)

Sunday Sewing

Nancy is a little jealous that Moose has become the blog star. I mean she is my cat and Moose owns the men of the house. So I snapped a pic of sleepy Nancy last night.




My mother in law called yesterday with some bad news. Our aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer. They think in very early stages as she goes every 6 months for a mamo. Ok that part is great news- but again a friend/family member with this fucking horrible(excuse my French but it's my blog) disease and I'm so upset.I mean I've lost a good friend and a woman that was like an aunt to me in the last 3 months, had another friend diagnosed in October and now this? So what do I do? I start a love quilt of course. A few years ago we made a quilt for another friend of hearets and 9 patches. Perfect I have a ton of strips and instead of all hearts I'm using Stitchitcheap's breast cancer bears and hearts as alternating blocks. I'm half done with the 9 patch blocks and only have 10 of 35 bear/heart blocks. I keep forgetting to change the fabric in the hoop and restart the embroidery machine.


So after the congregation meeting at church I came home and brought all the pinks and whatever I had left from the jellyroll of Quilt for a Cure. I'm getting tired of pink and white/cream quilts not being made for little girls, if you know what I mean.




Some more blocks. Not too bad for an afternoon/evening's work.




Of course as I was editing pics for the blog I came across this one:

I didn't take it, it's one of those famous self portrait's of DD's.
At least she made me laugh today :)

Another New Project

Our guild's BOM is a black/white and red log cabin . I love log cabins but I never seem to get a nice straight seam :( So I decided to make a paper piecing pattern in EQ yesterday. I made 4 for the lotto of blocks for Friday's meeting. But I need to switch out a couple of the wall hangings from Christmas to winter. Or something different. So I have 8 made and 8 more in progress....I started playing with layouts. We have this one:



Or maybe this way :



I really need to get them all finished to get the "full effect"

Christmas is all packed away except the Nativity and 2 wall hangings. Every year it seems like more and more work. I need to dig out some snowman patterns and make at least one of those soon too......

A.D.D. again today

Yesterday I tried these blocks in pinks and whites and was answering a reply to The Calico Cat how I bet they would be a great scrappy block and then had to try it :)
I made more in pinks and whites and made more morning star blocks.



Then I decided to play with UFO's


It's very heavy on the left side but today I decided to play with the stitches of the Viking and try and finish this class project. I HATE the satin stitches :( But the buttonhole stitch is nice. I'm going to look and see if I have more fusible web and even out the sides of the tree.Next will be the Chicago School of Fusing wall hanging from May I think :)

Quilter's A.D.D strikes again.....

I was working on my morning star blocks this morning and found more pieces that were cut for this quilt:

Then I was wondering what to do with the million bonus hsts you get from making it. I also found a basket of the ones from the last quilt I did of this design when one of my friends was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. But it's such a pretty design that any girly girl would like the colors of whites,creams and assorted pinks so I took a break from Halloween and made some more of the block parts and started trimming hsts into 2 1/2" size.

When taking a break and blog surfing this afternoon I found this blog. And saw some of the eq drawing. This one caught my eye because of the hsts in the center. So I grabbed my Quilt Pink tin of jelly rolls and made this:



Put 4 blocks together, you get this.



Just cause he's cute and underfoot again, here's Moose :)

Halloween Morning Stars

Since we never lost power at all yesterday, YEAH!, I started sewing together some Morning Star blocks to make a Halloween quilt for a friend. He was "supposed to" get it last New Years for his birthday. So I figured I get it to him by Halloween this year. All the talk Friday morning about the mystery top Paula did got me thinking how easy it would be to do it and get it quilted by mid Oct. Even a block a day would be easy. But you can't do just one block...so I've been sewing strips together and cutting. DD has been marking my lines on the back of the black squares. Now the yellow is much brighter in real life. Looks kinda washed out with the flash :(



This is the focus fabric. I have no idea where I got it, I do know I've had it for ages.

Hunter's Star

So remember these blocks from the other day???





So DD thought if you used a water colored bckground fabric and assorted colors for the opposite block parts you can make fishes!
I left them all orange. I made a quilt kinda like this for hubby's aunt and uncle that they have on their bed at the shore house. I think DD has one of the blocks that I made because I made too many in her sampler quilt.




She needs me to make a baby blanket for her to give to a school mate that's having a boy this fall. I'm trying to explain that buttons are not the thing to put on a quilt for a baby. I might stamp the eyes because I don't think that I want to applique a couple dozen small circles for the eyes

Monday musings

This weekend I got the name of a friend that I have for my second secret santa I'm doing. She loves 30's prints and heaven knows I have enough left over from my Cathedral Windows. I was looking for something totally different and found my templates I used for my Grandmother's Flower Garden and decided to make a nice table runner for her. I have a bunch of 2 1/2" squares all cut and ready to frame 8" blocks with these appliqued in them...so how long do you think it should be??? 50"???


I got the patterns I ordered from Nanette in the mail today with a bonus pattern of tumblers and some very cute fabric...You ladies need to make some of delightful patterns...very easy and I love they're small enough that I hand quilt them.


Today I made this after my patterns came in the mail :)




This is the block I was playing with last week :) I"m keeping the yellow parts to make an impact on the design so my star POP!. Of course talking to Leah, she used hsts there instead of the arrow head thingy I make. Which Leah THANKS! It made more sense for the person I was helping that way and yes the wonder cut will work great for this block 3 swipes of a fq gives you more than enough for 3 blocks worth ;)



When you put four blocks together- you really can see the Hunter's Star pattern :)



Hubby's home for vacation this week with the big family party on Sunday. The Honey Do list is pretty long but he's taking 2 or 3 small items per day. This morning I finally finished quilting my black and white quilt and took it off the frame. Was getting ready to load the mystery I just did and the backing was too small by 6". I would have been so pissed if I started quilting it and that happened AGAIN!!! SO I put it away to cut small orange squares - then I took a nap because benadryl makes me so tired and that itchy rash I get is back on 5 different fingers and this time my wrist -grrrrr. Hubby called and got me an appointment for the reg dr this week. I'm so tired of this.

It's all Leah's fault

While asking a simple question this morning about wondercut rulers- Leah told me how insane she is with bonus hsts. And look!! She's got me making flying geese now too with the bonus hsts-lol! They finish a mere
1"x2"...never fear she's making them too. So when the time comes and they lock me up- she might have the room next to me for the crazy quilters.....

Bonus HSTS

Last night I was reading that Scrap Quilts book before I crashed for the night. Of course I had to figure out in my head the very simplest way to make a block I've been dying to make. I figured it out and tried the directions I was going to give one of my groups. The first few blocks I tossed the trimmed parts. But the 5th block I decided to see if I could get a decent sized ( ok useable) hst out of the waste parts. I can get 3 broken dishes blocks out of each of the blocks I make. The little blocks are 2" finished-
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Get that padded room ready for me- I'll be needing it. I think Winston, My Vermont Teddy Bear needs a quilt don't you????





Now if anyone knows how to add pdfs to these eblogs, I'd love to know in case I want to post the block directions.....

quilt blocks - pets and monsters

Yesterday I got this pic via email from DD . One of the advanced classes in school was working with makeup....scarey huh?



While I love the blocks- I need more - 9 more to be exact :(
So this morning I worked on making the hsts for them. Assorted sizes like these- just no big 12" blocks.



Helping with quilt block layouts is very hard work. Kitties need a nap afterwards -here's napping Moose.




Nancy's tired too !

Mystery Blocks and great mail

Stashbuster Group is doing a Burger Queen- Have it Your Way Mystery. It's been going on for weeks..I think 6 weeks. But with all the stuff I was trying to finish before vacation I never even started. But Thursday night I tried 2 sizes of my block and liked it so yesterday all day and today I finished all the blocks. And am now ready to finish the step posted for last week. I just might be caught up by Tuesday when they post the next step.
In the pic are blocks in the following sizes

5-12" blocks
5- 9" Blocks
13- 6" blocks
and the killer 22-3" blocks. But amazing but true they are all the correct size and ready for what the group is calling "plate formation" We use 9 paper plates with numbers that correspond to what is need in that block....we'll see how that works Monday when I start that part.




This is what 40 1 inch finished hsts looks like before I cut the sheet apart and press them open. Enough for almost 7 of the 3 inch blocks in the pic above...teeny tiny !




Last week I ordered a pattern from Nanette and then found the PERFECT border fabric for it...eggs!!!LOL! An my friend sent me 50 assorted 3" orange squares so I think this week I'll order the pumpkin pattern she has in her etsy shop.




A pattern from Fig Tree Quilts on a Lone Star block with NO Y SEAMS. Jelly roll friendly. Maybe the newest jelly roll needs to use this.....




Another good book on making scrap/stash quilts. I've already tagged a few for "someday".




Lookie, a pyramid template for another project coming up :)

Mysteries and Stuff

I want to thank everyone for the well wishes on my anniversary- my best friend and I had a ball- we went out to dinner and then sat here and watched the baseball game that our children and my hubby were at. She's a wimp and went home by 9- she works for a living so she goes to bed by 11. What a concept I'm usually an hour on the other side of midnight *VBG*

Aren't they cute??? After a thorough cleaning of lint from the Viking feed dog area I decided to bite the bullet and decide what block I was making for the Have it Your Way mystery. I have about 5 different sets started :( They weren't what I was looking for....Here are two sample blocks one is 6 " finished and the other is a mere 3" finished. Cool huh? I'm using the left over blues and greens from my ocean waves quilt to make it for my niece to have tea parties on for Christmas :) I got her a tea set too! Now to make another 21 of the tiny one and a dozen more of the 6" one. The thing above the blocks is actually 12 hsts sewn together through a thangle type paper I print on my computer to the size I need. A full sheet will give me 40 1" finished hsts-very cool.