More organization?

I'll blame Connie.  Yeah, that's it.  It's Connie's fault.  She is getting more organized and counting her unfinished projects and I then feel the need to get more organized.  Well that's not quite true, I felt the need to see how many unfinished projects (UFO's) I had.  My earlier post found around 15 and then today while I was cleaning up the sewing room, I ran across about 14 more.  Some of them are only ideas it's not too bad.  Of course I could blame Missouri Star Quilt Company (MSQC) also since I watch their videos and think..oh yeah, that would be nice to try.  Then there is Rose Hall from Custom Quilt Kits I could blame because she does a lot of my precuts (already fused) for me and it's just so much fun.  I can see an AccuQuilt pattern and contact Rose to see if she has the dies.  She is very reasonable on costs and it has increased my "to do" stack,  In reality though I can blame no one except myself since I see something and want to recreate it.  I don't always have the talent to do so but if I don't stretch out my wings I"ll never fly.

I am happy to report that my sewing area is straightened up again.  Of course my living area is messy now but it will get cleaned up soon.  When I was cleaning I think I found my backing material for one of the table runners that I had Rose do for me.  It's a Happy Birthday runner and is an AccuQuilt pattern.

http://www.accuquilt.com/go-birthday-treats-table-runner.html

Here is the fabric I ran across.  Since there are cupcakes on either side of the table runner, this might look cute for the back.  What do you think?

I think I've also mentioned before that I am doing a zipper quilt wall hanging for someone who was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I think I am going to use this fabric for the back of it and the pink for the binding.

I just have to figure out how I'm going to quilt it.

That's the end of my break.  Now I have to rip out the border on Dan's t-shirt wall hanging.  Sigh.  That will take a bit.

Getting organized

I had lunch with my quilting friend Connie today and she helped me come to a conclusion....we have too many UFO's.  She also helped me make up my mind about Dan's t-shirt wall hanging.  I'm in the process of taking off one of the borders and redoing it.  That will take care of the two small cuts/holes in the fabric.  Nothing can be done about the small gaps in it where my basting glue didn't hold it well enough.  I am NOT going to go and unstitch everything to redo it.

In the counting of how many UFO's do you have, I am putting that at the top of the list.  This is my quilting weekend (yippee...an extra day) so hopefully I can get it done or at least mostly done.  Then my plan after that is to work on a couple of zipper wall hangings.  That would be the zipper quilt pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I have a couple of wall hangings done as far as the top (or flimsy) and just need to finish it.  I think I have enough batting to finish one but will have to get more in order to finish up some other projects.  Connie made a list of what she knew she had to work on (I won't tell how far in the double digits her list went) so lets see how much I can remember.  Wall hanging = wh when I make the list.  This list will not be in alphabetical or priority order.

1,  Dan's T-shirt Wall hanging
2.  Breast Cancer zipper wall hanging
3.  Animal print zipper wall hanging
4. Birthday table topper
5.  Inspired by Tradition wall hanging (yes I do mostly wall hangings)
6.  rail fence wh
7.  tea pot wh
8.  snowman wh
9.  quilt pattern magazine BOM from last year
10. Custom Quilt Kit Baltimore Album wh
11.  Baltimore Album style table runner
12.  Dan's medieval quilt
13.  African blue zipper wh
14.  Hexie BOM
15.  Quilter's Facebook  BOM


I know there is more but that's all I can think of right now.  I'll make sure to add to the list.  How many UFO's do you have?

Doctors Visit and mini wall hanging

Went for my follow up visit with the doctor and was pleased with the results.  My wound in healing nicely but I still have to keep the gauze pads on it which means that my skin is still going to hate the tape.  I don't have to use as much tape nor gauze now so that is good.  He took out the stint, or wick as I called it, but the wound is still about half an inch deep so the gauze has to stay on.  Can't go swimming but can at least take showers again.  I go back on September 18th for him to check again on the progress.

I'm afraid that the only quilting thing that I managed to get done was the mini wall hanging for Janine.  She saw it when she came up for a visit and asked for it so she would have something to hang up on her door for Halloween.

It needs a little ironing but I will let her do that since it will just get wrinkly again in the mail.

Speaking of wrinkles...Dan's quilt gave me a wrinkle.  The basting spray didn't hold as much as it should (perhaps it is time to get more) so the t-shirt squares aren't laying as flat as I want them to.  The lighter colored ones shows it up more but I could live with it.  I can tell him how to adjust it after it is on the wall.

THEN after I was putting on the binding, I noticed that there are two small holes in one of the borders fabric that I didn't noticed it.  Now to make the decision to see if I have enough fabric to replace it.  DO I want to replace it?  Well of course I do.  Will  I replace it?  I'm not sure.  I have to think on it.  Can I repair it without undoing the binding and the border on that one side?  I'm not sure.  I have to think on it.

I guess that means I will stop typing and go to bed so I can start to think on what I am going to do.

Stay tuned.

Back to sewing!

This was my gaming weekend but I still managed to get a couple of things figured out as far as quilt projects go by.

Dan's T-shirt quilt, as he calls it, is in the binding stage.  It took forever to find a backing fabric that I didn't have to piece more than once.  But I finally found something that I liked so I was ready to layer it.  Or at least I thought I was.

Can you see a problem with my layout area?  Yes I do 99% of my quilting on card tables.  In this case, for some reason the two card tables weren't the same height so I had to try and get them close.

It wasn't too bad but then I discovered that the wall hanging/quilt is wider then the tables also. Sigh.  Eventually I got the project layered out but didn't discover that my spray basting was almost empty and didn't hold as well as it should have.  I could have gotten the squares to hold a little better but without a car to run to get more I had to make due.

Here is a picture of a corner of it.  It shows you the back which is a red/black marble type thing of red Stonehenge material and the binding against the red border.

Hopefully I will finish it this week and get it in the mail to Dan.  Then I need to work on the wall hanging of a breast cancer zipper quilt.  I'm not sure how to quilt that one.  Might have to get some more batting also.  These projects are eating up my larger pieces.

Updates

Not much to report this time.  Most of the time since my last post was dealing with an abscessed mark on my skin.  I scratched a bite of something which became infected which went to Abscessed.  So I went to the doctor on Thursday.  I'm now on antibiotics for three more days.  Today was the first day that I was able to take a shower and wash my hair.  YAY!  I was really feeling grubby.  I have a drainage stint in yet (I call it a wick since it was explained that way to me) so we'll see if I get it out on the 26th.

I did manage to get a little farther on the small wall hanging for Janine.  I just need to do the bindingj and I even managed to get that pinned today.

I think I've found the fabric that I want to use on Dan's wall hanging (t-shirt) but will have to lay it out to see if it will be large enough.

That's about it for this weekend.  I'll chat with you all later.

Sunday progress

Went for my morning walk today and then came back and contemplated on what I was I going to do for the rest of the day.  By saying my morning walk, I mean I walked to the store to get my caffeine. Still no car (and probably won't have one for a couple of months) so I walked.  It was a 30 minutes walk there, a couple of minutes to pick up something for breakfast, and then the 30 minute walk back.  I've come to discover that my apartment appears to be about 30 minutes from most of the places I need to go.  LOL.  Could be worse.

After I got back and looked around the apartment I decided that today was going to be the day I started on the sewing area.  I didn't finish it but it is about half done.  Here is the part that I'm willing to share so far.

My work area.  The white bag under the table has my used batting in it.  The bag behind the blue starch bottle and the blue bag next to it have fabric set aside for specific projects.

The main part of my U shape craft area has my sewing machine covered up by a small little quilt that Heather sent me.  Heather lives in Canada and gets to see wonderful Icebergs float on past her area.  Then my original sewing table is holding some flimsies waiting to be finished.  For those who don't know what I mean, flimsies is a term that some people use to indicate the top of the quilt.  So in these cases, the wall hangings or quilt tops are done and just waiting for me to sandwich them together and quilt.

Another flimsy that I finished today (YAY) is the t-shirt quilt for my friend Dan.

Those squares around 13.5" inches.  I have to think and search for the backing fabric now.  Didn't have enough of what I wanted to use and the store doesn't have it any more.  Not sure if they won't carry it any more or just ran out.  I'll check back later if I can't find something in my stash.

When I do t-shirt quilts or wall hangings, I have specific things that I will only work with.  For instance I don't put sashings (frame the blocks) in nor do I do a lot of quilting on them.  I'll just be doing a stitch on either side of the seams.

I think this turned out pretty good.  I chose red to help pop out some of red n the shirts.  The binding will probably be a black print that I have in mind.

So now that I've had my break by typing this, it's time to get back to work.

Hope your day has gone well.

Congrats to Janetta and Shelley!!!!!!!!!

I was going through my facebook pages the other day and noticed to my delight that two friends had won ribbons at a fair with their quilting.  I was told I could post their award winning photos so here we are.

This is my friend Shelley from Utah.  This year is the first time that she has entered anything into competition and she had earlier entered this in the Home Machine Quilting Show that is held in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Then a friend convinced her to enter it into the Ogden County Fair.  As you can see it won a blue ribbon.  Congrats Shelley!  It is a wonderful quilt.

Shelley wasn't the only friend who ribbons at the fair.  Janetta Kilough, perhaps best known for her purple heart quilts, designed this and won Best of Show!

I think she did a wonderful job don't you?  I will have to check with her but I think she might be selling this pattern also if anybody is interested.  Contact me and I can put you in touch with her.  Here is her smiling face (and I'd be jumping up and down if *I* won).

I mentioned earlier that you might know Janetta's work from her Purple Heart design.  If you are not familiar with it, one of the blue winners in the fair was her design.  Now Janetta didn't quilt this.  It was made by Jeanette Kennedy Asiala and quilted by Shelley.  I just remembered that I forgot to ask Jeanette Kennedy Asiala if it was ok to post this.  Must do that now.  If she doesn't want it up I'll take it down.

*I* think she deserved the blue ribbon on it.  Let's hear it for all the wonderful talent and my friends.

Way to go ladies!

Keep on stitching ladies!

I've been a bad girl....and I'm not sorry!

I should be saving up for a different car before winter comes but sometimes you just HAVE to be bad and do stuff you know isn't the best option.  Today was one of those days.  I woke up tired and I think that is my excuse.  It might not be a good excuse but it is the excuse that I'll use today.

By now you might be wondering what I did that was bad.  For my quilting friends you might think it was material.  For my gaming friends you might think it was another game.  You both would be right.  I pre-ordered the D&D Players Handbook, 5th edition.  In my defense, my players want to try it out and I was able to get it at a discount.

For my quilting, I did something that I don't do very often.  I ordered a kit.

This was just too cute to pass up.  I'll make it and then see if I like it enough to make it again.  I know at least one friend who would like it.

I also  ordered a book which should be here any day.

I think this will be a fun read. 

Well lunch time is almost over but before I have to get back to work, I want to show you a picture that my friend Connie sent me.  She didn't make it but it does show a different type of border that one normally sees.  I hope she will teach me how to do the French braid (I think that is what it is called) one day.

So the next time you want to change up your border, think of doing this braid!  Thanks for sharing the pix with me Connie.

Now it's back to work for me.  I hope everybody has a good day/night.

Manic Mondays

It's another manic Monday at work but overall not too bad.  The students are starting to arrive on campus and that means it is busier.  My eye is looking better today, see?

It's not as puffy as it was and the redness has diminished.  That made it easier to see to work on Dan's t-shirt quilt.  I have the 14" squares sewn together.  He decided to mix up the t-shirts so he has both gaming and military t-shirts in there.  I sent him a picture of the layout and he liked it.

He was thinking about putting it above his bed so it need to be four wide and three deep to fit in the space.  I am thinking of putting a red border on it to bring out some of the reds on the shirts.  Then the binding.  Won't work on it tonight.  My eye has been used enough for one day  I'll give it a rest tonight.

Saturday eye strain

My big plans to get progress done on the t-shirt quilt has been put on hold.  I didn't like the red material after I washed it.  I didn't like the weight of it.  I managed to get some Kona red so I'll see how that works.  I will wash it tomorrow and then hopefully get it cut out later.

I am also not quilting today since my right eye is swollen.  That has happened before and I should have remembered the signs.  I have been laying down most of the day and putting cold compress on it.  I can see out of it but it feels like somebody hit me and is stiff etc.

I'll catch you all up on things later.