Quilting Update Part 2

I was thinking last night, I sewed something else also, but what was it?? I finally remembered this morning. I sewed another 2 rows on my One Block wonder for the French doors in my room. So here is the picture of my progress on the those long rows of half hexagons. The square One Block Wonder will be the next item to go on the frame. I'm planning to do loop de loops meandering with leaves with a variegated.

Quilting Update

Guess who has been busy? Oh that was too easy, yup I have been busy! I'm quilting a quilt for a friend. It took a couple of nights to press the backing and the top. I also had to redo the back seam because she left the selvage in the seam allowance. I should have told her to fix it before I accepted the quilt but I thought it won't be a big deal. It wasn't but I procrastinated over it. The top took some time to press but it was looking better by the time I got it on the frame on Saturday.

Block 7 came of the Caribbean Sea Block of the Month and I drafted that in EQ6 and pieced it.

Block 2 of the Washington Medallion quilt came and I started making the 50 plus half square triangles.

A Request

My friend Margaret, see her blog link on the right side or here, http://www.margaretmanning.blogspot.com/ has cancer, a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma.
My request is, will you pray for her. Also if you do fast, will you include her in your fast. She is a sweet and special person and she would appreciate all your thoughts and prayers.
Thanks,

Up Again in the Middle of the Night

I'm on call again for work, which does happen about two nights a month. I was paged about 1 AM, worked on the problem for about 30 minutes. Went back to bed and laid there until 3 AM. I couldn't stand it any more. I hate to lay in bed and not sleep. So I decided to make a blog entry. So here I am!
Nothing special to post, just my sewing for the last week!

First I have added all the borders to my One Block Wonder, on the one for the bed room window. They are looking good and I have the top and bottom borders line up, all by accident. I did match strips when I pieced the top & bottom borders.

I also started sewing the French Window panels together into rows, I have five of them done. I made a few mistakes and did some unsewing. It gets confusing with those lone rows. If I was to do it again I would lay them out horizontally.

A great find!

While checking out a blog of one of my friends I noticed her background and I liked it a lot. So I looked to see where it came from and it comes from Delightful Dots. So I went and checked them out. I love her background templates and even some header templates. So you might also, so here is the link. I like my new background. http://www.delightfuldots.blogspot.com/

National Quilting Day!

That is correct the 3rd Saturday of March is National Quilting Day. So if you are a quilter what did you do to celebrate??

I celebrated by wearing my new quilt pin, made of wood.

I taught the second part of my One Block Wonder class. Here are the girls a month ago, getting ready to cut their fabric.

Here are their hexagons all laid out. I forgot my camera so I took these pictures on my phone, standing on a chair, so they are not the best of pictures. They also don't show how really cool these lay outs look!

No sooner had I arrived home, when my husband calls me and says, clean off your computer desk, which was really a table, and he meant really clean, nothing on it but the computer, monitors and printers. He had a surprise for me.

He had been to an auction and purchased this four piece L-shape desk for me. What a surprise! I had been looking at some but they were too big or too much money. He purchased this for $200. It's in good condition. So we tore down the old set up and set up the new desk. I even had time to change my curtains in the window behind my desk to my spring curtains. Tomorrow I'll tackle the ones behind his desk.

Yes I love my dual monitors and the furniture has been cat approved.

Our 17th Wedding Anniversary part 2

Here is my other favorite wedding picture. The kids are Kierra age 11, Klint age 10 & Kinsen age 7. Aren't they just so cute?

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well I have beem productive, even if I had a cold and read a lot.
I finished my feathered star for the Washington Medallion Quilt I'm doing with my friends.

I also started and finished one of the monthly mini quilts I have on my list to do this year. I think I have three more of those to do to have a complete set of 12.

Well it's off to bed, tomorrow is Monday and it sure comes fast!

Our 17th Wedding Anniversary

Friday the 13th of March 1992, 17 years ago we were married in the Mesa Arizona Temple. So today is also Friday the 13, we always think it is special when our anniversary lands on a Friday. I had plans to post a couple of our wedding pictures and one of us today. Here is one of my favorite ones of us. I also have this picture in a little heart shaped frame I keep on my desk. She how much younger we were. I was 44 & Richard was 37. I know, I robbed the cradle.

The other favorite one I have is at work in a frame hanging on my cubical wall. I thought I had another copy of it here but I can't find it. My other favorite picture is of us with Richard's kids at our open house (reception). They were so cute. I'll add it Monday after work.

We were going to go out to dinner to celebrate but I had a cold all week and Richard now has it and was miserable by this evening. So we stayed home and had Chinese take out. Works for me. So no now pictures.

That first year was so stressful for me, can you imagine being single for so long and then to have 4 other people move into my space! It was a challenge and fun. The kids moved in about 5 months after we had been married. We lived in a two bedroom town house, a big 920 sq feet. The boys sleep in the hide away bed in the living room. Kierra had the small bedroom and I gave her my tall dresser for her cloths and put my cloths from the dresser in a file cabinet I took from her room and put it in my closet. The boys have fun memories of going to sleep while I studied for a national Oncology Nursing certification on the computer.
The next February we moved into the house we are in now. It seemed so large after that town house.

It has been an adventure, my husband told me before we married he would add adventure to my life, he sure did! I would do it all over again! He is a keeper and a good guy.

Happy Anniversary Honey!
Love,

Quilting Update

Well maybe I should just call it blocking sewing up date because I only sewed blocks. I drew a block #6 in EQ6 for Caribbean Sea sewed it and I started a Feathered Star block for another block of the month I'm doing called Washington Medallion by Susan Garman. My Quilting Friends & I are doing this together. We all had lunch together in December. Next Saturday we will all meet up at the quilt show and stop by my house afterwards.

I think most everyone has block 6 done, but I'm the only one who has started the Feathered Star from the medallion quilt. I have been the tester and they was a real struggle to get that star laid out with all the pieces going in the right direction. But I have it now it is almost done. I just set them all a link to my webshots and one emailed me back there two of the feathers are going in the wrong direction. Arg!! Lucky I can fix that and only have to rip two seams.

I also finished all my Math for Quilter's reading from the on line class at Quilt University. Lots of reading I have done most of the assignments. The costing out a quilt table is worth the class alone.

I read on one of the quilting lists that I'm on, that the longer you are away from your quilting the more you like it. Well I hated my quilting on the Mystery Quilt. The other day it was draped across the sofa and I walked by a day or two after that and said to myself my those look like feathers. The light was hitting it just right and it looked good. The pciture I took doesn't show what I saw so I won't include it.

Tissue Alert!!

I love reading and I want to recommend a very good book called Love Mercy by Earlene Fowler. You might know her as the author of the Benni Harper Mystery Series. Love Mercy is not like the mysteries at all. It is about families and friends and doing the right thing. I would recommend it, but be aware it is a tear jerker so have tissues ready. I picked up from the library yesterday and finished today. I'm home sick so I read and checked a little email, the extent of my activity for today. If you do read it I would like to know if you liked it.

Sunday Quilting Upate a Little Late

OK so it is Monday again, where does that weekend go?? It just speeds by.
Last night as I started put the second borders on my one block wonder, you'll never guess what I found under my border fabric on the back of my sewing chair? Did you guess? Well it was a piece of the black binding I needed for the Mystery Quilt. I could have sworn I had a piece left and I was right. I didn't think to look under the other fabric. All the left over pieces of fabric for the Mystery Quilt were in their appropriate colored fabric bins. So when I didn't find the black with my other blacks I thought it must be all gone. OH Well it was just have to be as it is. ;-)
Border Audition.

I made some progress on the One Block Wonder but stopped when it came to the borders. I originally want to use the climbing rose section, but it was going to be too wide, so I cut the strip section, but it looks so washed out next to the center. So I previewed them both, and I will be sticking with my first choice. It will be a little larger than I originally wanted but it will be all good. The larger size might work better.
Well I'm off to the sewing room for an hour before bed.

Mystery Quilt is Completed!

Completions of this project desires it's own post! This was a mystery quilt, my first ever, and my first ever on line machine quilting class. I'm very glad it is done! I will do this again. Was I ready to quilt feathers not on your life. Was it hard you bet! Did I learn you bet. Right now I'm just glad it is over and I can do a quilt for a friend. I'm ready for some free motion meandering.

Before this class I would have liked to done some quilting with a little more precision than the free motion I had been doing. I really felt like I didn't have enough control to draw feathers in a set size. I couldn't get my machine back to the spine of my feather. I did improve but believe me there is a lot of room for improvement. That is OK. I still can draw good feathers on a white broad, they all look like fat thumbs. I can get one side really good but the one in the opposite direction is hard.

I'm grateful that you can not see the quilting real well. I'm happy with the look of the free motion around the stars. This quilt was a comedy of something. I wanted to finish this yesterday, I didn't make. I went to wind another bobbin and ran out of thread, Mad dash to the store to buy more. Last night when putting on the binding I ran out, small mistake in the directions. I was going to wait and made a mad dash to the quilt store after work this week but when I told my husband he said you must have something you can use in a room full of fabric. Well he was right and I found another black for the binding. Up close I can tell but you can otherwise. Thanks honey for saying the right thing.

While sewing on the binding I noticed a spot I didn't quilt in the little border, so what was the easiest way to fix that? Well a picture is worth a thousand words.
Don't laugh for the 3 inch square I had to do it worked.

So now it is done. I'll keep it for awhile. If it matches my daughter's red in her house she can have it. If not off to charity it goes.