Clean up time

It had to come sooner or later.  It appears that today is the day.  Clean up day that is.  After doing some of the projects that I did this week, I needed to put things away again and pull out others to work on.  I really should do that more often because it took way to long to clean up the sewing room.  Of course once one room is cleaned up then you have to clean up the other rooms.  I have a small place so it gets messy quickly.  As an extra incentive, I've invited Theresa over on Tuesday to work on the t-shirt quilt at my place instead of at work.  

So this is what the sewing room looks like now.

My apartment only has one more room (plus kitchen and bathroom).  The living part is pretty clean.  It won't take too long to get that done so perhaps on Sunday I will clean the kitchen.  I'm afraid that Theresa will have to take most of it as it because I doubt that I'll do a "real" clean.  Why pretend to be something I'm not?

Hmmm.  where did that one plastic container come from?  I don't remember that one.  Looks like I will have to investigate.  The real trick will be to do it without messing up the room again.

Next on the List

Next on my list of to do is.....

It is sort of hard to see what I'm working on since it is redwork so only the blue water soluble markings so I put what the pattern is next to it.  I will use my favorite red for the border and think I might keep this one.  Might put it up in the office.

Today was also clean up day in the apartment and am pretty happy with how much I got done.  I have more to do but that's ok.  Tomorrow is Saturday and I can work some more on it.  I have found that I need to put my purchases from Custom Quilt Kits in it's own container.  That way I can find them easier.  What do I have in it?  Hmm.  LOTS of things.  Alphabet letters, hearts, Easter eggs, Christmas ornaments, swags which might be used for the Civil War BOM quilt.  As I get more, I'll just put them in the one container because they already have the fusible on them.  Convenient!  :)

That's about all I have to report tonight.  It's getting late and I have a busy weekend ahead of me yet.

Everybody have a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving Day 2013

Thanksgiving Day!  A day where one vegges out in front of the computer or television and smells delightful cooking going on in the kitchen.  This year I will be spending it by myself, having told my brother that I will not be going out to his place but thank you for the invite.  I go out there about every other year.  I see Kerm every Sunday for breakfast with mom and he only lives on the other side of town so is near if I need him.

I am thankful for that as well as being thankful for all the inspiration and help my friends give me with quilting.  I don't just mean my quilting friends but all my friends because their opinions are just as precious to me as those who know how to quilt.  I am also thankful for the inspiration my first quilt gives me.

There is so much right and wrong with this quilt that it is my "learning piece".  I am thankful that it is still around for, in case you didn't know the story behind it, was started by my grandmother when she was in her mid 80s.  I inherited the cross stitched centers that she did and I put it together for her daughter - my mother.  I finished it in time to give to mom when she was in her mid 80s.  Mom was involved in the fabric selection and that made it fun to do.  It is all hand stitched.  I didn't have a sewing machine at the time.  After I had finished putting the squares together, it was decided it needd something so the sashings were added.  Yes I said added.  They are appliqued on.  It was hand tied because that is how Grandma always did hers.  It came back to me about 10 years ago so that it wouldn't be stolen since Mom is now in a nursing home.  I am thankful for this quilt since it represents my first quilt, my mistakes and triumph, and best of all...a project that spanned three generations.

What are you thankful for?

Pre Thanksgiving

Is everybody going crazy preparing for Thanksgiving tomorrow?  Or perhaps Hanukkah?  Need more recipes?  Go to my other blog to see what I've been posting.  It says it's for a healthier me but....well....cough...yeah, well I like to post recipes any way.  LOL.

http://bonni-gettinghealthy.blogspot.com/

Have I worked on anything quilting wise?  Sort of.  I bought yesterday two panels which are Christmas themed.  I might work on them this week but am not sure.  That's about it.  Today and tomorrow are all about relaxing and that I is what I am planning on doing.

Everybody have a great and safe holiday.

Tired but happy

Yep, that's what I'm feeling right now...tired but happy.  Theresa and I went shopping looking at fabric after she got off work tonight.  We started at Jo-Anne's and then went to Hobby Lobby.  Three hours later, we had come to a decision on what fabric to buy for the t-shirt quilt.  I think we both were tired after that!

I think we must have pulled out 5-8 bolts of fabric at JoAnne's trying to see what we liked.  Much to my surprise what we liked the best wasn't what I thought it would be.  We left Jonne's with 2" strips of two different fabric so that we could think on it.  I'm glad that we did because it certainly came in handy when we went to Hobby Lobby.

I believe that she will get the border fabric from JoAnne's.  It looks like this....

It looks pretty wild by itself but it will be the border so just picture only using 2" of it at  time.  It does a great job of pulling together all the colors of the t-shirts.

Then we went to Hobby Lobby and immediately started to pull bolts off the shelf.  Once again what I thought I'd like the best wasn't what I did like once it was all put together.  In both stores we had taken the t-shirts with us so that we could audition the fabric.

Yep, that's what it looks like so far.

We laid out the border fabric and then started to look at background and binding fabric.  At each place we also asked whomever we saw what they thought of our fabric choices.  We got the impression from one person that she didn't like our layout design but we didn't really care.  No way was either one of us going to unstitch that and rearrange them.

So what did we decide on?  After careful rearranging and looking at fabric, the final choices are:

Ok. Ok.   I can hear you complaining about that picture.  Of course I took more pix.  Here are a couple of better examples.

Did you get the idea of what it will look like?  The blue is the background.  The pale yellow with a slightly darker yellow in it will be the binding.

Do you like it?  I think I do.  From Theresa's expression, I think she does also.

Mom's table runner

Wow!  I actually had a productive weekend!  You've seen most of it if you go back a couple of posts but last night I pinned the binding on mom's table runner.  That should be done today which will put me ahead of schedule.

It should be finished today and then I can work on a Rose of Sharon block.  Not a bad stitching weekend.

Sunday Progress

Even if I wasn't on vacation, I would love today.  Why?  Because it is a Sunday.  Sundays has always been "my" day.  I see mom in the morning but after that it is "my" day.  Sunday afternoons is my day to do my applique.  Today is Sunday and I am loving it.

I managed, so far, to finish up my secret Santa/Christmas exchange gift and here is what will be in the package.  Hope my person will like it.  :)

That meant that I had to work on another project and next on my list is mom's birthday present.  Her birthday is December 10th and I promised her a table runner.  I am to the quilting phase and found my fabric and was getting ready to iron it when I realized that I hadn't washed it yet.  A trip to the kitchen sink and yep...I hadn't washed it out.  Can you see how red that water is?  I know it's hard because of the soap bubbles.  Four washings later and the red fabric is now on the towel rack drying.  In the meantime I'll find another applique project to work on.

What are you working on?

Start of Holiday Break

It's brisk outside and I'm on vacation.  LOVE those two things.  I have a couple of days off of work and hope to get some stitching in.  So far I've helped Theresa finish putting together all the t-shirt squares and on Tuesday after work we will start to hit the shops to see what kind of material she'll want for the border and backing.  How did she do?  Here it is....

At lunch on Friday Theresa put together half of the t-shirts.  As you can see, she is LOVING how it turned out.  She was like a kid at Christmas seeing it come together and her enthusiasm made me smile too.  It's so much fun to watch somebody get caught up in a craft that I love and am trying to learn also.  Of course it also is great that she is enjoying this because my teaching techniques are nil.  One of my biggest things is to show her that it doesn't pay to sweat the small stuff.  But..LOOK AT THOSE ROWS!!!!!  Almost ALL the points match up!

Theresa gave me permission to work on it since we are running out of time to get it together but don't worry Theresa it will get done.  I'm sure it looked like a lot to her but it actually it wasn't that much to do.  After joining two of the blocks together the two halves were all ready to be sewn together.

I will admit that I took this "messy" picture just to see Theresa's expression since it looks like there is SOOOO much more to do with it.

One long seam later, I had it ready to lay out on my bed to give a better look to it.

It doesn't hang down in the back of it (only four blocks wide) but she wants to put a border on it.  Originally she wanted a very wide border but now I believe she is thinking of a 2" border which I think would be a good size.

Did I mention that she is doing a WONDERFUL job on this?  Look at those seams....the points are matching up so nicely!!!!!  So much better than what I could do for a first project.

Well done Theresa and keep up the good...no...GREAT..work.

Tick Tock...time is going fast

I can't believe it is the 19th already!!!!!   I have stuff to take pictures of, stuff to sew, stuff to plan...stuff stuff stuff.  I must make sure to keep them all straight otherwise they will get in the wrong pile and I don't have time to do them over.  LOL.

Today (at lunch) and tonight I am helping my friend from work do her t-shirt quilt.  Today was a big day for her.  She actually got to SEW!!!!!!  I brought in my sewing machine and watched as she slowly and carefully held her breath while sewing.  I am guilty of that too.  I told her to relax and soon she had one row done.  When we started this, she didn't want pictures taken.  When she sewed her first two blocks together SHE looked at me and said "Well?  Aren't you going to take a picture?"  I smiled and turned my phone around so I could and she quickly grabbed up the first two blocks that she had sewn.  I think she is very proud of this.

I was just going to take a picture of it on the table but she held it up and looked so cute I had to use this picture.  :)  When she held it up she said "My FIRST sewing project".

She kept at it and by the end of the lunch she had one row done.

I'm staying at work later tonight with her also so she can work on it more.

More pictures later as she makes progress.

Veterans Day and old projects

For those of you who are vets, are serving and plan to serve, I wish to say thank you.  One can never say that enough.  Work had a ceremony and I hope to have some pix perhaps from that later on.

Today I did not do any quilting but I did watch Theresa finish cutting out her t-shirts for her quilt.  There are some that we are going to combine but that will take some careful thinking on how to do that.

I did find an older crochet project.  I think that the weather is telling me to pick it back up.  We had some snow today, but it really was more like freezing rain turned to snow.  We didn't get a lot of accumulation but on some of the trees it looked really nice.  I can appreciate it now instead of whe there is 4" on the ground.  LOL.

As you can see, it didn't amount to much so far.  I don't think we are even suppose to have 1".

Almost forgot to post the crochet project.  Here it is.

These are NIU's colors but I wanted it to be mostly black and white.  Just thew in a splash of red to break it up.  I am crocheting with two yarns at the same time (either black/white or red/white).  I'm not sure how large it will be.  I have plenty of time to decide.  I haven't gotten very far on it yet.

Back to crocheting for a bit.  Thanks for reading and everybody have a great and safe day/evening.

What's on the Design Wall

I'm afraid not much.  Of course I have my works in progress (Inspired Blocks, Rose of Sharon block, Animal Babies block, Mini Block). Those are Works in Progress for me.  Oh my.  I'm getting greedy aren't I.  Still I need to plan on some more Christmas presents so the patterns in the running are:

I don't have a lot of time to work on these so let me start by talking about them.  They all are smaller projects.  The Penguin just seems so cute that I want to make it.  I think it should go together rather rapidly and be quite adjustable to different color schemes.  In this case the blues might be more mauve.

Winter White is a new pattern that I've not made before and it's a little different.  Perhaps that is why I like it?  This one might be for the office so I should take it off my gift list.  I'll keep it on there just to see if I'll ever do it.

The leaves and berries table runner might get made too if, for no other reason, because I have the berries almost all done.  They are left over from another project and I cut them out with my AccuQuilt GO!  I used the Grapes of Wrath die and cut out a lot of circles and find that they are useful to keep some on hand.

So what's on YOUR design wall?

Sunday Stitching

This was my crafting weekend and I always wish I could get more done but that is the way it goes.  I did do good and did finish the project that I wanted to.  In addition to that I managed to work a bit on mom's birthday present and fused the first block of the Rose of Sharon BOM.

That will be talked about on that page so check it out in a little bit.  I will post there next.

This is the table runner that I'm doing for mom for her birthday.  She will be 94 on December 10th.

I was going to make it "pointed" on the ends but she likes them square so square-ish it shall be.  I still need to quilt it but before I do that I think I will try to set aside some time to practice some more FMQ.  I was thinking of doing small FMQ around the squares.  I need to practice small (and large for that matter also) before I try it on hers.  She won't be able to tell the difference but it will be seen by many so I want to do the best I can.

That's about all I did today.  More to report later as the holiday deadlines creep up on me.

Finishes and Starts

I finished my test project but can't show it to you quite yet.  When I can I will post it.  What I CAN show you though is Theresa working on her daughter's t-shirt quilt.

Theresa hasn't sewn or quilted before but by Christmas she should have a t-shirt quilt to give to her daughter.  That's what we're hoping for.  She brought in her ironing board to my office and her iron.  We are doing it during work lunch hours so that it will be a surprise.  We got Theresa past putting on interfacing on the back of the t-shirts

and now are on the cutting stage.  She says that the cutting stage is the worst because she is afraid that she will make a mistake.  I have confidence in her.  She also hates that I am taking pictures but I told her when her daughter looks at her with disbelief when she says she made it, she will be able to produce proof.  LOL.

I brought in my cutting mat and put it on my old desk.  It's extra wide and worked out pretty good.  She is learning to make sure that the blades are "in" when not using the rotary cutter.

She was able to cut out three of the t-shirts during the lunch hour so I'll have to remember to bring in my cutting board again for her to use.  Wait until she hears that she gets to do the sewing also.  LOL.  At least the top.  We'll talk about how we're going to quilt it but I think it will just be straight lines where the seams are.  It will be kind of like stitch in the ditch but not a true one.  I believe the lay out will be three across and seven long to fit her daughters bed.

Well that's enough for a post for today.  I have some more cutting to do so that I can put some borders on mom's table runner.

Talk to you later.

Rose of Sharon page is up

Hey everybody!  I've started the Rose of Sharon BOM from Custom Quilt Kits and I up a new page for it.  Just look at the tabs at the top and go check it out.

Psst.  This might be the shortest blog entry that I have done here.  LOL.

A Change up on projects

I am having trouble with a pattern so needed a break.  Of course, as all crafters know, it's getting to be crunch time to finish up or start projects for gifts and/or sales.  That means I can't be still so decided to switch up on what I am working on.

This time I picked up a crochet hook.  Gasp!  Shock!  Disbelief.  Yes, I know.  I don't crochet.  I have problems with keeping the edges even so my solution?  Let others do it.  There is one thing that I can do and that is pot holders.  I can even make the pot holders larger and call them hot pads.

I thought I'd start with the yarn called "Mexicana".  My mother crocheted me a scarf in this and I just love it.  Goes with most anything that I'm wearing.  She also taught me this pattern and made pot holders with it and it goes with a lot and doesn't show dirt much.

Now, to show you some just fun pictures, have fun watching this.