New Years Eve 2013

Happy New Years Eve everybody.  If you went to a party or traveled, I hope you stayed safe.  I stayed inside this New Years Eve and chatted on the phone with my friend Dan while he was on his way to see his fiance and friends.  I love going hands free with him because I can sew and chat at the same time.  It's a good thing that he doesn't mind hearing the sewing machine go.  LOL.

I feel pretty good about what I finished up for 2013.  I still have projects that aren't finished but overall I'm pleased with productivity.  Today, in fact, I managed to finish up another Civil War block from the BOM offered through Custom Quilt Kits, Inc.

It gave me problems and it isn't the best but it was the best I could do.  I got it close enough that I told myself that I wouldn't tear it apart (again) and just will settle with it looking like that.

Not sure what I"ll do with this when it is all done.  I'll probably give it away so I don't have to look at it.  This is definitely one of those "do to learn" type things.  I'm not good at piecing but I am getting better (sigh).

Then I decided to finish laying out the applique for "Feather Fancy".  That is more because I had to make sure I had cut out all the pieces.  It will be put on a white background but I haven't figured out yet which of my "white on white" fabrics I want to use.  This will give you an idea of what it will look like.

The light green is a lot prettier in person.  The camera on my phone didn't do it justice.  It's one of the greens from the Stonehenge line.

I also have some extra "feathers" or "leaves" left over and received some in the mail today from a friend.  I'll have to find a use for them.  The red circles were extras from another project where I used the Grapes of Wrath GO! die on them.  That uses up my extra's for circles so might have to cut some more just to keep on hand.  They have come in handy so far.

Guess I'll get to bed now and think about it.  :)  Everybody be safe and I'll post tomorrow.  I hope you had a great ending to 2013.

What a Wonderful Day......

Some days are better than others and today has been a WONDERFUL day.  Today brought out the little child in me and you ask why or what happened?  I got presents!  I don't expect presents because my family doesn't give them out (except to mom) any more.  So any presents I get, I get from friends and from work, etc.  Today was a mixture.

It started this morning when I finally dragged my body up out of my warm bed to go get caffeine.  I decided to go to the gas station to get a soda since I could get another punch on my soda card (five punches and you get a free soda).  I had four punches so this would mean next trip I would get a free soda.  So I counted up my coins (payday tomorrow so coins today) and went in.  I walked up to the counter and as I was counting out my coins the guy said, "pop is on me today" AND he also stamped my card so tomorrow I can get a free soda also!  Wasn't that nice?

Then when I got home there was a gift bag outside of my door.  My neighbor had dropped off a Christmas card and a small tin of fudge AND a large tin of home made cookies!  Talk about BonBon pigging out before January 1, 2014!!!!!  I'll be putting a dent into those tins.  LOL.

Of course after starting a dent in the cookies I wanted to take a nap so I did.  I only have two days left where I can take a nap in the afternoon and I fully intend to take advantage of it each day I'm off.  When I woke up I decided to get rid of some of my white hairs to start off the new year.  That didn't take long but when I got back to the computer after completing that guess what I had waiting for me in my email box?  A gift certificate from my friend Shelley in Utah for Thousands of Bolts (and only one nut).  I love that shop so I got a chance to take advantage of their mega sale which will stop tomorrow by midnight.  It will be interesting to see what the Stonehenge looks like when it comes in since it is hard to see the colors of it online sometimes.

I ordered:

This is by Northcott and called Princeton - Order 1 yard of it.

This is from Andover and called Garden Maze.  I order a fat quarter of it.

This is one of the Stonehenge wide backs (108" wide) and I ordered 1 yard

Another one of the Stonehenge wide back (108") and I ordered one yard.  I am hoping that this will be whitish.

I hope you all had a great day too!

Almost the End of the Year

Wow.  2013 is almost over with and I wonder if I'm happy or sad about that.  Perhaps a little bit of both.  I don't think I will make New Year resolutions this year since I just break them anyway but I do have a plan for some things.  More on that in a day or two.

One thing that I had plans for while on break was to work on the teapot BOM from Angie's Bits n Pieces.  This was a couple of years ago that it was offered.  I had most of the blocks done but suddenly they all disappeared.  This weekend I managed to redo all the blocks.  At least I got them fused on and I will now be able to take one or two with me back to work and stitch them.

Of course they will look better after I have stitched them.  I am thinking that I will use the buttonhole stitch but perhaps all in the same color.  I'm thinking a dark brown.  Getting all of those fused on today made me feel like I accomplished something.

The other thing that took up a lot of time today was watching the Phoebe Allen cam.  :)   Phoebe is a hummingbird and her TWO eggs hatched within 15 minutes of each other today.  You want to see one of them come out and join the world?  They have it on YouTube also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v0YMVQIbFk&list=PLYthSoXtMUBWQxK2RUHNkLeqTvH4RZ5vh&index=1

It shall be fun, I think, to watch the cam and see the babies grow up.

I'm yawning at the computer now which means I've been on it far longer than I intended.  I will stop here tonight and will write more tomorrow or on New Years Eve.

Everybody be safe and thank you for stopping by and reading my blog.

The Day After

Sigh.  Now that Christmas is past, it is time to find the apartment again.  As you probably know from reading my blog, I am a messy quilter.  I pull out a ton of fabric to search for what I want and a lot of the time it doesn't get put back until after the project is finished or my deadline has passed.  That means it is time to, once again, find my sewing area.  I'll work on it a little bit at a time and then work on cleaning up the rest of the apartment.  Perhaps I'll even start the new year with a clean apartment.  Gasp!  Is that allowed?

I have made progress.  I have 1/4 of the sewing area cleaned up.

Guess I'd better get back to cleaning.  Looks like the ironing area is next since it looked messy in one of the pictures.  LOL.

The good news is that I finally found my missing embroidery floss that I had bought for my Rose of Sharon BOM project.  I keep them off to the side and separate so that I don't accidentally use them before hand.

OOohh.  I think it is time to take an even longer break and work on that project.  I'll talk to everybody later.

Merry Christmas - December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas everybody!   Today is my day for myself.  I will be working on the Santa redwork wall hanging and will probably finish it today too.  I'm ansy though because I want to hear from Theresa on how her daughter liked/loved the quilt.  She texted me on Christmas Eve to say she was so excited that her daughter gets it in one day.  It's terrible trying to keep a secret at this time of year isn't it?

I finished my own Christmas present this morning.  It's funny how if you wait long enough, you'll find the right thing to use on your projects.  Of course that might take years to come but it will come.  This time it didn't take as long but when shopping I discovered the rhinestones and I loved them.  JUST the bling I needed for my wall hanging.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season.  I have no idea if you celebrate Christmas or the other holidays and it doesn't matter to much to me since I consider you all my friends and that is enough for me.

Christmas Eve with Mom

My family has always celebrated Christmas with mom on Christmas Eve.  That came about after my siblings started to complain about traveling between parents and in laws.  In keeping with that tradition, I went to mom's nursing home this morning and took her breakfast.  Yes I said mom's nursing home because she claims everything - even the nursing home.  She's a sweetie though and the nursing staff lets her so who am I to say otherwise?  Just as long as she doesn't have to pay taxes on it we're all safe.  LOL.

For her Christmas present I gave her a semi  manicure.  I'm not an expert and really don't do my own nails so it was an adventure.  She was happy afterwards so that is all that matters.  I find it hard enough to do my own but to do it on hands that tremble from age and arthritis?  My hat is off to the ladies that used to do her nails.  She heard that the lady who used to do it can't do it any more but I wanted her to have fresh nail polish on for Christmas.  Here she is holding up my table runner that I made her.  Notice how she held it so that she wouldn't mess up the nails.  hehehe

Hmm.  I think her socks match the table runner also.  So now that she has a new table runner I go to put it on her table and she has a fit.  Apparently she thinks it is too pretty to put on the table because somebody might spill something on it.  I told her that's ok.  It can be washed and dried in the laundry.  Nope.  That won't do.  She took off the table runner I made for her birthday because she spilled something on it.  She went to the washroom and washed it but she didn't want to take a chance again.
BUT...she came up with a solution.  She had me hang in on her wall.  Of course I didn't put a sleeve or hanger on it since it was to be for a TABLE!  Masking tape to the rescue!  This is why I carry a lot of stuff in my back pack and people wonder why.  See?  It came in handy.  I hope it stays up until Sunday and I might have to put a sleeve on it...or just keep replacing the masking tape.

It does look good there.  Now to try and figure out what to give her for Mother's Day.  :)

Everybody get to bed early tonight....Christmas is tomorrow!!!!

Until then remember you only have to be good for a little longer yet.  hehe

The Eve of Christmas Eve

Whew!  I made it.  Finished mom's  Christmas gift 12 hours before giving it to her.  Now I feel like I could sleep for a week!  No wonder Santa Claus only does this stuff one day a year.

I will be giving it to mom tomorrow morning after breakfast.  Hopefully the car will start because the temperatures (with wind chill) -13F tonight.

I will also be giving mom a manicure tomorrow morning for the holidays.  I had to go and buy some orange sticks for her cuticles so I went to Dollar Tree and picked up a little gift package for them.  I will be honest and say that the reason I picked out the package was because of the two small Separators for polishing the fingers.  What do you call them?  Anyway, I'm not going to use them for mom but instead I'm going to use them for my bobbins.  I've been wanting to try them out and I think they will work out pretty good.

I'll write more tomorrow but right now I"m just tired.  :)

Ms. Edith

Today I received a secret pal package from one of my facebook quilting groups.  This is actually the replacement secret pal package since it seems that the post office has lost the first one.  This is so cute.  I decided to call the bear Ms. Edith after my mom.  Those are so much her colors and it came with a little hat too which mom also loves.

The green squares are a tote bag that she made.  It's folded in half lengthwise so that I could fit it into the picture.

Thank you Ms. Nancy!

Not much going on right now

I have mother's Christmas present to finish but other than that I'll be done with Christmas presents.  I helped Theresa finish up her mug rugs today so she is all set.  Psst.  Don't tell anybody but she is thinking of some quilting projects she wants to get done in 2014 to give as presents.  Hehehe.  I think we have her hooked.  She already knows that she likes Modern and geometric quilts more than applique.  That's ok.  Not my choice but it is good to know ahead of time where your talents and likes lie.  I think I'll show her how to do half square triangles (HST) next.  You can do a lot with those.

So other than that, today is the last day that NIU is open until January 2nd.  I hope everybody has a great Christmas and drives safely to and from.  I will probably post after mom opens up her present but I am also ready for some down time.

In the meantime, I've now put Christmas music from youtube on and am listening to it.   Just put in a search and you'll see everything from one individual song or a grouping that can run in the background for 4 hours or even more.

Have a great day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-9uoxZoLH8

Sunday productivity

Today has been a weird day but semi productive.  I went to have breakfast with mom, like I do every Sunday, and was surprised to see a small holiday wall hanging up on the wall.

She was working on this on her birthday my brother said.  It appears that she sewed the binding on as well as glued on the ornaments.  If she could see her stitches she would cringe.  They gave her white thread to sew on the green binding.  She did a whip stitch which is somewhat large and clearly visible but that's ok.  She felt good about being able to do it.  Of course she gave it to me to "fix up a bit".  Now I just have to figure out how many corrections she wanted me to do.

When I got home I put over some chicken and rice in the crockpot (with cream of mushroom soup) so it's bubbling away happily right now.  It's all done except for the dumplings so won't be long before I get to warm myself up with that.

While that is cooking I pulled out my Civil War BOM block from last month that needed to be done.  I finished it.

This one didn't turn out too bad.  The next one, December's Block 7, is a pain!!!!!!  I don't like working on it at all.  I have 1/4 of it done but it will need some serious blocking.  I will get it finished eventually.

I cheated and am only posting the picture of the layout.  LOL.

It's back to work tomorrow and I really could use a couple of more days off but who can't at this time of year?  Only one week of work and then our break.  I still need to work on some Christmas presents so I guess I'd better get off this computer.  It eats up so much time!

Everybody stay safe and warm.

It's all packed up.

It's official.  Theresa took her quilt home on Friday so wrap it up for Christmas.  She showed people at work and they all enjoyed it.  She did insist on taking a picture of it with the both of us so here it is.

By the end of the day, I had a couple of other people who talked to me about doing t-shirt quilts.  I'll talk to them in more detail because I don't think they want me to do it but more to guide them in how to do it.  They both have sewn before, one barely but the other is quite handy with the sewing machine, so they can take a more active role.  It is my understanding that my phone number was given out to somebody else who is looking to make some t-shirt quilts for them.  On that one I would do the entire thing but they haven't called yet and I'm not sure they will like my price tag that I would put on it.  That's ok.  If it is meant to be it is meant to be.  It's not like I don't have a lot of other things partially finished.  I can always keep myself busy.

In fact, I probably should have been busy today but it was my lazy day.  I should have been working on Mom's Christmas present but....I didn't.  I did manage to get everything I needed for Lyndon's Christmas present as well as for my graduate assistant.  Those I can deliver next week so I guess the day wasn't totally unproductive.

Tomorrow I will be working on Christmas cards so they can go out in the mail on Monday.  After that?  Hmm.  I'm not sure.  I'll have to let you know.

In the meantime, enjoy your days and evenings for they fly by way to fast.  Take time to breathe deeply and tell somebody you thought of them today.

Thank you everybody for reading my thoughts on life and quilting.  I hope that you'll be right by my side in 2014 as I continue on with my blog.

On to the next project...almost

My paychecks, like most people, might vary from time to time but I sure would like it when the "smaller:" paycheck isn't right before the holidays.  So I shall do my best to stay home and not spend.  That means I will need to stitch more, right?  Use up that stash?  Pull out UFOs and figure out how to finish them?  That's the theory and plan anyway.

While I was moving things around, I thought I'd take a few minutes to jot down some statistics for Theresa's quilt.  I ran across the receipts last night.  Of course it is an approximation because we might have forgotten something but it breaks down as this.

Hours spent on project (including planning and layout, etc.)    40 x $10/hr ................$400
Cost of non t-shirt materials......................................................................................$130
Cost of t-shirts (average $15 each plus one that she knew cost $30).........................$375

Some say that using $10/hr for labor and such is too low.  It made it easy to figure out though.  I hadn't figure up what it actually cost to make a quilt before nor tracked how long it took to do it.  This was interesting to see and gives me a better idea on what to charge for similar quilts.  Obviously I wouldn't be charging somebody for the t-shirts but wanted to add it in so that the person would have a better idea on "total" cost to them.  What would you think would be a good price to sell such a quilt at?  You can see how it quickly gets up there because you don't want to sell your products without a profit etc.

Anyway, with that being done, now it is time to finish up Santa.  I tried two different things on Santa and neither one worked.  I tried to hand stitch in Asterisks for snowflakes but didn't like how it appeared on the back so I took them out.  Then I tried putting in some lines of Asterisks that I could do on my machine since it has a stitch for that but it didn't turn out either.  I think the walking foot messed it up since the stitch is one which goes back and forth a lot and the walking foot was trying to keep everything together.  I ended up just doing a straight stitch and will think on it some more.

I moved on to the binding but the material I picked won't work.  I think it is going to be too thick.  I have some other fabric to try out on it to see if it works better.  Perhaps this weekend or next week.  I might even see about getting some small snowflake buttons to use on it.  It's a work in progress.  :)

As I was digging around to decide on what to work on next (as if the BOMs I have sitting around weren't calling my name), I ran across a panel piece that one of my Australian friends had sent me.

I've started to stitch it on for a wall hanging but my buttonhole stitches aren't showing up so I might be taking them out.  I was using two strands of embroidery floss but might try it with three and see if it "pops" more.
This will take me a bit to do because I can see me stitching around some of the toys and that cute boomerang.  It is so bright that it will be fun to do.  Perhaps I'll have it finished by next year to hang up in the office. :)

I had downloaded a free pattern from Attic Window Quilt Shop blog.

http://www.bloglovin.com/frame?post=2037628773&group=0&frame_type=a&blog=2804413&link=aHR0cDovL3dlc3RtaWNocXVpbHRlci5ibG9nc3BvdC5jb20vMjAxMy8xMi9mcmVlLXBhdHRlcm4uaHRtbA&frame=1&click=0&user=3659065

Isn't that a cute bulb ornament?  That cute little ornament was the cause for me to be digging into my stash and, consequently, messing up my sewing corner.  I'll clean that up this weekend.  I was thinking that I could do that ornament and then inspiration struck me!  Ouch!  It hurts when it does that sometimes doesn't it?

I have some African fabric that Lyndon had brought back and one of them actually looked like the pattern on the ornament.  Then the flowers down at the bottom...wait...I have some African fabric with flowers!  Maybe I can make it using ONLY African fabric?  Hmmm.  Might do that but couldn't find it all.  On the other hand, one of the African fabrics has most of the designs already on it so might do that.  Who knows what it will turn out like!  I'll let you know on the progress of it.  Before I get to carried away though I need to finish up Mom's Christmas table runner and get Christmas cards out in the mail.  

It's done!!!!!!!!

That's right.  Theresa's t-shirt quilt for her daughter is done in plenty of time for Xmas.  She did a wonderful job and here are the final pre-Christmas pictures to share with you.

 Don't you think that looks great?  It's pretty long.  Those are 12" blocks with a 2" border.  I am holding it up in the picture so that Theresa could take it and my arms are stretched as far up in the air as I can get them and I'm 5'10".  It should be nice to either curl up with on a couch or in her bed.

It's sort of hard to see in this picture but look closely and you can see how the quilting showed the "boxes" of the squares from the front.  That stitching looks pretty straight to me and it was done on my small machine so she found out what it was like to keep rolling up fabric and put through a small throat machine.  LOL.

Then, of course, you have to have the label.  We liked the label we had chosen but there was a lot of empty space at the bottom of it.  I managed to take one of the decorative "eyes" (as I call it) from the pattern and appliqued it to the bottom of the label.  Then Theresa hand sewed the label onto the quilt.  

By the way, she also helped stitch the binding on and that too was hand sewn.  She is talking about wanting to do a snowman wall hanging.  One that is perhaps 24 inches long to hang on the door or something.  I, of course, told her that I'd help wherever I could.  :)

Well done Theresa!!!

Almost done!

Wow...I can't believe that we are almost done with the T-Shirt quilt.  It has been so much fun to have to do.  This is one of the last pictures of Theresa working on the quilt.  Last night she trimmed up the quilt after doing the quilting of the sandwich.

It's hard to see but you might notice a line on my ruler.  I put a 1/4" strip of masking tape on the backside of the ruler so that she could find her lines a bit better in order to line them up before trimming.  She was nervous because she knew this was the last of the cutting and "what happens if I cut it wrong" type of feeling.  I tried to tell her that if she is a little off no problems and if she is a lot off we either buy more fabric or she will have a small border than she anticipated.  Of course she did NOT mess it up.

That smile was because she was on the last side and almost completely done with trimming it up.  After that she ironed the binding strips.  We cut them with the AccuQuilt GO! and she got to see how great that was to cut them (2.5" strips) for the binding just with one pass of the GO!  A couple of quick seams to join up the bindings and it was all ready for her to iron.  After that we talked about how to pin the bindings onto the quilt and I even made her take a stitch so that she could see how I do it.  Yes that's right.  I do my binding by hand and was only going to show her how to do it that way for this quilt.  With her taking that stitch on the binding, it meant that she had done a little bit on the quilt at each step so she could, in my opinion, claim that SHE had made the quilt.

Tonight she will finish up ironing the binding and while I sew it on she can work on a matching mug rug to give to her daughter out of the left over fabric.  I trust her with my machine and will let her have some fun with it.  It will all be finished this week and ready to give her daughter for Christmas!

Way to go Theresa!  You did a wonderful job on it!

Decorating the Office

Mom was cleaning out her things again on Sunday and she sent some stuff home with me.  I thought I could use a couple of pieces in my office and I was right.  Of course the one on the wall is just held up by binder clips but it seems to be working out quite well.  LOL.

What do you think?

Tonight Theresa is coming over to work on the t-shirt quilt.  I think she'll be surprised at how little we have left to do.  It will still take some time because I need to show her how to iron the binding and stitch it on.  I always do my binding by hand and now she can too!  hehehe

I'll be both happy and sad to see this project end.  It's been nice having somebody around to work on the projects with and I'll miss that.  Perhaps I can convince her to learn to do a couple of more projects.

Oops.  Forgot to post the picture I took yesterday when I went outside in the snow.  It was pretty watching the snow come down, knowing that I was only going out to get caffeine and that I'd be back inside all snug as a rug in no time at all.  :)

This is what it looked like although I think that Google added in the animation or picked it up as animation.  This is a picture across the street of where I live.  The snow was coming down about that fast.

This is for me....

I decided to do a redwork snowman for my office and I have to admit that I think it's coming out cute.  I will stop for a second to contemplate on how to quilt it. I'm thinking a white binding and perhaps I'll just do french knots or the asterisk that I did on Santa's jacket.  Just randomly spacing them.  What do you think?

What can I say...it just makes me smile.  :)

Mom and her birthday present

Mom turns 94 in two days so I brought her birthday present with me and gave it to her today.  In case you forgot what I was giving her it was a table runner for her table in her room.

Here it is on her table.  It's a little off center in the picture but she thought it was a perfect fit.

She didn't want me to take her picture, of course, but she just has to suffer through it since I'm not sure how many more opportunities I will have to take her picture.  Before I left she decided she wanted a copy of the picture though so I guess I was forgiven.

I probably should have paid more attention to her outfit but she looked warm and like taking pictures of animals, you can't waste too much time before you shoot because they will move.  Sure enough, seconds after I snapped the picture she was rolling backwards looking for her Sunday Morning Soda.  Finally we found it (like it is on the table already mom) and put a Happy Birthday napkin under it to protect her new table runner. It looking this clean didn't last long.  My the time I left she had it covered up with "stuff".  :)  A sign that she loved it and it would stay on the table for a couple of days at least.

Almost done!

Progress is going well on the T-Shirt quilt and I think it should be done this week.  I've worked on it a little bit but had an "oops" moment.

Nothing like going along sewing on the fabric only to discover when you flip it over to cut the thread that you have sewn part of the back ... well...back.  LOL.  It didn't take long to pick out and get it done right.

I thought that Theresa was doing such a great job on the quilt that I took the fabrics she had picked out and made her a quick little mug rug.  This also showed her how the yellow binding would look against the two fabrics.  One side is the back (the muted blue) and the other represents the border (the multi colored swirls).  It's only fair that she had a little something to keep also.

I should have made the mug rug when I was more awake since I can see some mistakes but it's all good.  I think she liked it.

We also managed to get that all important label done.  :)  I can't remember if I posted this yet or not so you might have seen it already.

I think we are going to leave the hem on it.  I had used one of the sleeves from the t-shirts and Theresa likes the fact that you can see that hem.  It just reinforces the fact that it was made from t-shirts.

That's it for this trip.  Time to take some more headache medicine and get to bed.  It will be a busy week.

Progress on the T-Shirt Quilt

I know that Theresa has a better understanding on the steps taken when we make our quilts now...especially after last night.

Theresa came to my place and we a LONG but productive night of working on her quilt.  I think she left somewhere around 11 p.m.  BUT during that time she finished up her photo  album and got it ordered in time to meet the midnight deadline AND basted together the t-shirt quilt AND started to sew it together.  Isn't that wonderful news?!

Oh yes, we also got the binding cut (thank you AccuQuilt GO!) quickly and the strips sewn together as well as her label.  I took one of the sleeves that had been cut off of a t-shirt and put interfacing on the back of it for stability and then used the embroidery feature on my machine.  It can do letters and numbers and some decorative stitches.  I can't change the size of them but I think it turned out cute.  I'll take a picture of that tonight and post it.  I am predicting that by next week we can get it finished.

I was sneaky and got this picture before she realized it.  Welcome to the joys of trying to get out wrinkles Theresa.  She did a very good job of it.  There might me a wave on the back (the blue fabric shown) when it's done but it couldn't be helped.  I doubt it will be noticeable because of the pattern. She did manage to get the wrinkles shown in the picture worked out but it took a bit.  This *is* her first quilt so we just do the best we can and she has been doing GREAT!

I think that the spray basting was getting to us.  LOL.  Two more rows Theresa and then you can start to quilt it.  The top went together rather quickly.  We trimmed off some of the excess batting to make it more manageable and then...gasp...Theresa was introduced to the joys of quilting it on the machine.  I have a small machine which makes this a challenge but she did well.  We talked about different ways of quilting it and she now realizes why I said that I wouldn't do FMQ on my machine with a quilt this size.

We meet up again on Monday after work for another session.  I think she will be surprise at how much will get done.  Before it's all done I think she will be making herself a mug rug out of the leftover backing material.  She mentioned about making one and this is a good use of left over fabric (and it's cute too).

Until next time....