A Long Over Due Update.

Well I am way over due for an update.  I have been busy doing lots of stuff. As you will see in a minute. 

First up is a doll dress I made for the little foster girl.  I wish I cold show you a picture of her and how happy she was with the dress.  She watched me make the dress.  She also picked out the fabric.  She is one happy little girl. I finished it on July 26th.  I found the free pattern on line.

 

 

I forgot when I finished the back for my hubby's quilt, sometime in July.  I loaded it on my frame and it hung like this until today.  You might notice I forgot to trim something.  I think that is why I stop making progress.  I didn't notice until after it was loaded.  Ugh!  Well the debate was do it the easy way or the hard way.  I did it the easy way.  I just unrolled some quilt, placed a mat on the floor and trimmed.  :-)  Keep it Simple works.

 

 

See now the batting and top are also loaded.  That is high loft batting in that quilt, so I will be tying it instead of quilting it.  That is my hubby's request. 

 

We took a trip to California to go to Disneyland and the beach. I like to do hand work while my hubby is driving.  It helps pass the time.  I had two Yo-Yo blocks to finish doing the appliquéing down the Yo-Yos.  I used my automatic needle threader which helped thread those small eyed needles.   

 

After I finished the blocks I started making more Yo-Yo's, as you can see I made it to my red, white and blue fabric.  Would you believe the tin below should be the same color as the picture above.  One taken in natural light and the other in my sewing room, same camera.

 

Here are the last three blocks I finished that brings my total to 37 only 44 more to go! 

 

 

Happy Stitching or whatever you are doing!

 

 

What??

It has been 24 days since my last post????
Where did the time go and what have I been doing?  I know I have been busy with lots of actives.  It seems I have been busy at least 3 or 4 nights a week.  Plus work, plus sewing, plus having fun with my new phone, plus trying to decide what storage stuff I want for my sewing closet, plus reading 3 books, plus a big church food storage activity, plus celebrating a birthday, plus surviving my annual review at work and all that involves, plus going back to the gym and weight watchers.  And last but not least a new laptop to replace both my dead laptop and my dying desk top. 



Sewing room closet



Let me start with the sewing room.  This is my closet, and that is my dresser in the closet.  All the drawers are full of fabric.  It has severed me well but it was only supposed to be temporary.  When my in-laws gave up their home we inherited their bedroom set which had a king size bed.  I had a new bedroom set and I didn't want to give it up but we didn't have room for the dresser, so in my sewing room closet it went.  Well now that all the kids are gone, I want to have a guest room but first I must have a place to put the fabric. 

I have looked at the Elfa system at the Container store, but they have open baskets, and I live in AZ and have an indoor cat, so dust is a problem and so are open baskets.  I found a similar idea at Ikea  that had solid drawers with lids on them but the sales man thought the fabric would get too heavy.  So I am still thinking about what to do.  I am leaning towards the Ikea product.  I know I do not want to lift one container to the get to the one under it. 



Deciding on border design



Here I have been practicing on my Plexiglas for a boarder design.  I did quilt it the way I drew it. 

Here is another picture of my little charm quilt on the frame.  I had a design all worked out for the blocks, but it didn't work.  I don't have enough space to do what I had thought up.  So now I have another design worked up but I need to do a little more practicing on my Plexiglas to make it flow.



Mistake #3



Well this is the quilt that is driving me nuts.  My first mistake was I started it at quilt camp in September.  I didn't read the instructions close enough and I cut too much and sewed up to many pieces.  Second mistake I sewed up too many of the next set up strips, luckily I caught it before I cut more.  Here on my design wall you can my third mistake.  I sewed all these sections together and had to rip them out again. 

Here is the progress I have made once I realized my mistake.  Not much but it is a start and I will have to redesign the quilt to fit my fabric as it is cut.  Goes to prove you need to read instructions, measure twice and cut once. 

I have been doing some hand sewing when I have a few minutes and want to relax and watch TV but want to do something with my hands.                                       

So as you can see I have been busy!

Table Topper and Runner

Halloween Table Runner

I was able to finish the binding on my copy of the Halloween table runner and I have it on my living room coffee table.  Since we don't drink coffee my husband, Mr. B. likes to call it the "Pepsi Table".  I don't like that name since I don't drink or like Pepsi.  So anyway it's on that small table in the living room and it looks very nice and festive. 

Rosie's copy didn't sell at her daughter's boutique but I am going to save it for next year's boutique.

I have started the 2nd side of the binding on the Mystical Horses quilt.  I am looking forward to hanging that on my quilt rack. 

Thanksgiving Table Topper

I took a PTO day today just because I needed an extra day off.  I pieced this little table topper today.  It really worked up quickly, considering I was also watching all my taped TV shows from last week.  This is from Little Charmers IV by Anka's Treasures.  I didn't use a charm pack, I just used fabric it I had on hand. 



Added a border to Caribbean Sea



I had seen a star quilt in a shop that had a floating star border, and I really liked it how it looked and I thought it would look good on my Caribbean Sea Quilt.  Since I do need to make it big enough for a queen size bed another border won't hurt.  I will have to add some extra rows of blocks but I like how the star border looks, just in the corners. 



I am really tired tonight so I am going to call it a day!

Happy Stitching!



Fall Get-away 2010

Let me start off by saying I had a really good time at Fall Get-away or what I usually call Quilt Camp.  I ate too much, laughed a lot, and did a fair share of talking.  I also did some sewing. 



mequilter with Topsy Snowman



The first thing I finished was my small quilt for the silent auction.  Don't let the title of the auction seduce you into to thinking it is a tame event.  Those ladies can sure bump you around with their hips if they really want something.  Luckily they are all soft bumps. 

The weather was a lot cooler in Prescott than here in Mesa.  I actually had to put on my long blue jeans on Thursday night and wear a sweater each evening and morning.  I'm not complaining.  I'm ready for the cooler weather to come!



Topsy Snowman



If you would like to check out more pictures of came you can go to my album on my Webshots page.  There you can see some of the other quilters and some of the sites of the camp we go to in Prescott. 



mequilter and Painted Desert



Here am I with another project I finished the top on.  This project I started at the Fall Get-away in 2004.  It took me most of Friday to piece the borders and sew them on to the center.  Those are very small pieces.  It is from the July/August 2004 Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting. 

Those items hanging behind me are some of the auction items.

 

Painted Desert



Here is Painted Desert all by itself and basted and ready for quilting.



me sewing

Yes I did actually sew, and there I am with my sweater on. 



My Camp Projects



Home again and here are my camp projects. 

From Left to Right:

Christmas Cardinals,

Tumbler table runner,

Painted Desert.

I also started the Yellow Brick Road quilt.  I purchased this fabric in Orland Florida in May of 2009 when Richard and I were there last year.  It is on my list of quilt to finish this year.

So there you are a little bit about quilt camp and the sewing I did.  I came home on Sunday and relaxed and began unpacking.  Monday I did more unpacking and all the weekend chores, because you know how it goes, if you aren't here they don't get done.  I was back to work on Tuesday.  This has been the first chance I had to blog. 

Happy stitching!

Quilting Update

New Design Wall and Big Board Covering

I did accomplish a lot of quilting type things this week which means I did very little Genealogy.  I just really felt the need to accomplish a few quilting things.  Two items were completely unplanned for this week, well one of them has been on my to do list and once I did that I saw something else that needed to be done so I did it.  The one item on my to do list was to remove the old muslin on my big board and recover it with new muslin.  Well that sucker is heavy and once it was moved, I notice how dirty my design wall was, we use to have two cats that liked to hang out on the big board.  So I ripped the old batting off an re-covered it.  Which meant I had to move all my storage stacks that live under my big board.   As well as climb up and down the step ladder.  It also meant that I need to go buy more batting then I realized that I could get a flannel backed table cloth for only $5 and that was cheaper and worked just as well as batting.  I ran off to the local store and pinned it to my insulation.  Since it was bigger than my design area, I cut it with my rotatory cutter, by moving a small cutting mat against the wall to cut off the extra tablecloth.  It worked real slick and was easier than cutting it with scissors.  I can't get over how clean it all looks.  One corner of the Big Board had been scored brown. 

Topsy Snowman

My next little project was to start working on my quilt camp small auction quilt.  I sure hope it will find a happy new home.  The theme for camp is "Let it Snow".  I think my little quilt will fit in just fine with the theme.  He still needs to be machine appliqued and quilted and some buttons added as embellishment.  The border print was a fat quarter I picked up from an ugly fat quarter exchange about 2 or 3 years ago at quilt camp.  I don't think it is ugly at all, and now it looks great with the other fabrics.

Mystical Horse 3 borders on

This is my other project.  I designed this in EQ6 and had the center completed since Sept 3 of 2007.  Almost three years.  I have even had the fabric for the borders for at least 2 years.  Today it called to me.  This is Laurel Burch Mystical Horse fabric, her first run of the design.  I really like the print of the fabric and the colors.  I only had fat quarters of it and maybe one or two half yards.  I just didn't want to cut the fabric and I wanted to use it all, or most of it.  This is my own design.  I did a lot of the color placement on the design wall.  Yes I have tow design walls, one in the sewing room and this one at the end of the hall to the bedrooms, it is right outside my sewing room, or a friend calls it the "Lady Den".  I just couldn't do plain borders so I purchased two different colors and the black for the resting border.  I was thinking of doing mitered corners for the big border but when I drew them in EQ7, they didn't impress me.  So I made 9 patch blocks instead and I really like the effect.  I still have one more border to sew on, but the day has come to an end and I most go to work tomorrow. 
Good night and happy stitching.

Quilting Update

One of my friends told me, "Now that you do Genealogy you hardly blog on your quilting blog any more."  Well Rachel I think I'm making up for lost time today. 

Meandering with stars and moons

Yesterday I was watching this video to learn or improve your frame machine quilting.  I decided yesterday was the day I was going to finish that practice piece I have had on the frame since January.  Yep it has been there for 8 months.  I didn't like the quilting pattern the mystery quilt was showing us how to do.  I'm really glad I was doing it on some practice fabric instead of the quilt I made for the mystery quilt.  I'll do something else with that wall hanging.  So I finished the practice piece with some meandering loop-de-loops with stars and crescent moons.   Boy you can get rusty in 8 months.  It was like meet my machine all over again.

Blue Moon

Yesterday I suddenly felt motivated to finish a quilt that has been waiting for just two borders.  This is Blue Moon by Whimsical.    I pieced the borders and sewed them on tonight.  I went and purchased thread yesterday to quilt it with.  I already have the backing but I have to check if I have batting.  If I don't it isn't a big deal I can buy it right around the corner from my house.  You can see why I was practicing meandering with stars and moons, I think they will look on this quilt.  I will go around the applique, not over it.

And yes since August 1st I have made four Farmer's Wife Blocks.  I'm thinking I might make three more and put it away for awhile so I can work on some other projects.  Quilt Camp is coming up in 3 weeks and it would be nice to have a small quilt for silent auction. 

So that is all I have to report from my little corner of the world. 

Happy Stitching!

Quilting Update

So for tonight's Update I decided to show you all my blocks I have completed so far on my Farmer's Wife Sampler. I have a total of 65 blocks completed.  They are just arranged in the order they were completed.  So I will have a lot of fun re-arranging them in a pleasing manner. 
If you are wondering how I made this picture, it's really high tech.  I have all my blocks in an Yahoo photo album, I clicked on rearrange photos and it makes one large page out of the album.  I then took a screen shot of the web page, saved it as a .jpg file and here it is all for your viewing pleasure.  The software I use for screen shots is called Snagit.  I use it at work to my handouts and tip sheets.  I liked it so much I purchased it to use at home for my quilting handouts.  Not that I have taught many quilting classes lately.
This week I made three blocks, they are on the bottom right hand side.
Take Care and Happy Stitching

Quilting Update and Travel

Blocks on July 17, 2010

I'm thinking there must be a way I can spice up these quilting updates. I'm not finding any original ideas running around in my head. Isn't it interesting how some days you feel so creative when writing and other days it's like the well is dry. So here are this week's and last week's blocks. These two blocks are the ones I finished on Saturday, July 17th. I wasn't able to post last Sunday because I was in Ogallala Nebraska for work. I also didn't do a lot of sewing. I'm just to interested in working on my Genealogy. Not that I'm getting very far but I'm sure enjoying looking for documents and connecting the dots. It is amazing how much time it takes.

I left for Nebraska on Sunday morning about 6:15 AM, arrived in Denver and then drove about four hours to Nebraska. I took breaks frequently. At each stop my husband had me text him with my location and the make, model and license plate # of the renal car I had. Isn't he a good guy, making sure I was safe.

While I was in Ogallala I did a couple of tourist type things.  I ate my first ever Rocky Mountain Oysters.  The were good, tasted to me like a mild liver, it took several pieces before I could decide what they tasted like.  They were breaded and fried, so that usually makes any thing taste good.  I do like liver so that wasn't an issue for. 

Crazy Quilt seen at The Mansion on the Hill

I took a tour of the Mansion on the Hill, which was the first home built in Ogallala.  The walls where made from brick and where 16 inches deep. All the wood for the house was imported because after all they are in the plains and there weren't any trees. That would be so strange for me, and I'm glad they now have trees. This picture is from the master bedroom and is of a crazy quilt. The docent wasn't real sure of when it was made and states it is in good condition for it's age, only a couple of worn spots.

I don't know if you can see the chair real well but it is had out of cattle horns.  You should be able to double click on the picture to see it larger.  I also went to Boot Hill Cemetery

Blocks from July 25, 2010

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Here are the blocks I made this weekend.  I made these on Saturday and Sunday, that makes a total of 61 blocks. 

I almost forgot I did one other fun thing, the day I drove back to Denver to fly home I had a little time, so I went to a quilt shop,  you can tell by the pictures the name of the shop.  For those of you who don't know this is Harriet Hargrave's shop.  I took a Machine Quilting class from her a few years ago when she came to the valley to teach.  It was an excellent class.  I enjoyed her shop and her staff were very pleasant. 

Picture I took of the shop front

Well have a good week and Happy Stitching!

Quilting update and Man Cave Update

Today I'm doing a combine post.  The heat is wearing me down and I have no energy.  Arizona is usually a dry climate but around this time of year the summer monsoon weather starts to move in the and humidity goes up and the uncomfortably meter goes up.  I also have been doing a lot of genealogy.  I  have now meet a third cousin in England you has helped me find more people.  It is such fun!   I have sewn 6 blocks this week and had planned to do four more but I ended up sending all day Sunday working on my Genealogy and comparing information from my cousins.  I have a grand total of 56 blocks complete. 

Richard is making progress on his Man Cave, this pictures is from Monday the 5th.  He was replacing the glass in the large window.  This has been a great help because he now has been able to run the air conditioning unit so his cave is a little cooler than outside.  Of course without the heavy duty insulation in place, it isn't that great but better than nothing.  He has his first layer of insulation the Styrofoam up on 2.5 walls and half of the ceiling.  He is making progress slow but sure. 

Quilting Update

I found sometime to sew yesterday and today.  Which was a lot of fun, especially since I watched a good movie and the 4th of July celebration from Boston.  I had no goal to finish so many but after sewing 2 this afternoon and adding them to the album on the Yahoo group I realized I was four blocks shy of 50 blocks.  So I had a little marathon and sewed four more blocks to make my 50.  I still have a lot to go but I'm about a 1/3 done.

Here are my blocks for this week.   The blocks are Practical Orchard, #69, Rosebud, # 75, Shooting Star # 78, Postage Stamp # 68, Swallow # 93, and Friendship Block # 40.  I'm sure glad I'm off work tomorrow because it is way past my bed time. 

Happy Quilting!

Quilting Update

Last weekend I was finally able to do some sewing! I made four Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks.    I have about 4 more blocks to make to be all caught up with the blocks of the weeks.  So hopefully by next weekend I'll be catch up.  The last block on the right is a variation of the block next to it on the left.  I copied it from my friend Susan.   

Thanks for the idea Susan!

I used PhotoScape to combine this individual blocks into one picture, it is a free editing program, I found on line.  So far I like it.  I like to combine different photos into one to save space. 

Sunday Quilting Update

Well this is really a cross stitch update. I made a lot of progress on Will's Christmas stocking. That is what I did while listening to General Conference this weekend. Plus the computer was down. It's amazing what you can accomplish when the computer is down. If you look at last week's picture you can see all the progress I made. It feels good!!
It also fun when the row ends right at the opposite end!



I did make two Farmer's Wife Sampler Blocks. I took Picasa off my computer. I haven't decided if I'll put it back on. I miss the collage feature. I have to spend about a week getting all these photos organized. I had them all organized an picasa reorganized them. Now to decide on a photo editing product. But not tonight, I need to go to bed.