It's FRIDAY!

Did you ever think it wouldn't get here?  I know I did.  Yet today hasn't been too bad.  I know what I will be working on this weekend which always helps to keep me on track and I got paid so while I don't have a lot of extra money I have enough to go to JoAnne's or some place for therapy.

I fused the Ravens and heart to the white background last night and started to stitch them down.  What was I thinking?  Stitching at night black embroidery floss on black ravens?  Whew!  I didn't finish even one but I started to mess it up a bit and knew it was time to stop.

As you can see, I had to dig out my clip on magnifiers to put OVER my regular glasses (cheaters) that I wear.  It always makes me feel old.  LOL.  At least I didn't bring out the over the neck magnifier.  I've had to pull that out before.  Talk about looking weird when I have to use all three!  See that cork stopped vial?  That's my needle case that I got from It Is What It Is.  It's made out of a horn.  I have my three needles in it that I'm using for this so when I cut my embroidery floss I can separate the floss and thread three needles at a time.  It goes a little faster that way.

I'm having trouble matching up that Kona red though.  Tonight after work I'm taking a swatch with me and see if I can get a better match than the one I already have. Wish me luck.

Everybody have a great weekend!

Making progress

I should have finished this table runner  awhile ago but I'm afraid of messing it up. With that in mind, I am only working on it a little bit at a time.  Tonight was to cut out the pieces and lay it out for an idea of how it will look.

That will give you an idea.  It will have around a 2" red border and the binding will be in black.  It's called Well Wishers from The Quilt Pattern Magazine.  I think that I'm going to use a French knot for the eyes.  The person who I'm making it for said that they would like to see a white eye.  According to the legend of the Ravens the white eyes reflect light of the sun.

What do you think?

Extended Weekend clean up and quilting

Welcome to my extended weekend.  I wanted to start quilting but as usual I have to clean up before I can start to be messy again.  Last night I decided that I was going to stack up thins on my couch so that I can go through them later and slowly put them away.  It worked out pretty good.

Now I have a chair to sit on and notice my other chair is for when I'm lazy and prop up my feet while I stitch.

I did that last night so this morning I got out the vacuum cleaner and did a quick swipe around.  I should have known not to do that yet.  Bolstered by my success last night I went to the next room and started to clean it.  THAT will take more than one day because that is the room I keep my fabric and stuff in.  But where do I put it in order to clean it and semi organize before putting back?  Yep, you guessed it.  I put it on the bed or couch in the room I just cleaned.  It didn't go too bad at first.  I separated out my fat quarters from my yardage from my scraps and put them on the bed. n These were just the fabrics that were "laying around" and not already in a bin or something.

THEN I started to come across my stash of UFO's.  Oh dear.  THEY needed to be a bit more organized so that took awhile.

I went to Dollar Tree and picked up some of their large bags.  For three bags for $1 I can't beat it.  They even have extra large bags which you get two in a box for $1.  I like to keep my UFO's in them because then my BOMs are all in one place or I can match up certain fabric for a special project and keep it with the pattern so I don't use it before hand.  I think I counted around a dozen UFOs there.  It would have been more but I gave some UFO blocks to a friend so she can have something to work on while going to doctors etc.

The next portion of the sewing area had some things that needed to be shredded so I brought out my shredded and took a break to do that.  Oops.  I had forgotten that it makes a mess when I empty it into the garbage bag.  Notice I said that "it" makes a mess and not "Bonni" makes a mess.

I still haven't stitched down anything but I am still happy with the progress that has been made.  I will put away the fabric on the bed before I go to bed to sleep so that will also get done tonight.

Tomorrow will be back to cleaning the room again and perhaps, if I'm lucky, I will also get to stitch something.  I feel brave today because I took down my winterizing stuff for my window.  It warmed up today and even though I know it will get cold again, it was nice to have the window clear and I could look out it.  Hopefully it won't get REALLY cold for the rest of the winter.

I hope everybody is having a good day.  Here are some simple rules (that aren't always easy to keep) that might help you be happy or have a good day.

Everybody have a great day.  Tomorrow I might be organized enough to post about a new BOM that I will be doing (or attempting to do).  It reminds me of Grandma Chamberlain's Blue Willow plates that she used to always use.

January 3, 2015

See?  I typed 2015 on the first try today.  I must be getting used to it by now.  LOL.  How is everybody doing?  My day has been predominantly good.  I have a new friend (online) who is just starting out in quilting and I found she doesn't have a stash.  REALLY?  I didn't think that was possible.  So I'm going to be sending her some fabric so she can continue to make quilts for families who have lost their parents or children.  That will help me clean up some of MY stash that I'm not using as well as (cross fingers) help me get a bit more organized.  I think that I might send her some lap quilts that I have that mom had been using also.  I have so much from mom that I don't need to keep everything.  While going through her things I found this on her bed and snatched it (grins).

It's mom.  The pink flowers and the pink and white squares.  I know she didn't do them but it is still her.  I've found that it is quite warm and like it across my knees when I'm typing on the computer.  My computer sits in front of my window.  Even though I have plastic over the window for winter, it still gets cold.

 Today's positive/thoughtful thought for the day came from somebody who posted this in a facebook group I'm on.  Let us remember that we don't always have the answer or our answer isn't the only one available.  Quilting is a good example.  How many ways are there to do applique in quilting?  They all are right.  How many ways are there to cook something?  How many ways can you think to get from one city to another one?

So let's respect what other people say and think and don't dismiss it just because we didn't say it.  I believe by doing that new ways of thinking (perhaps even better ways) will open up to us and perhaps introduce us to future friends.

Another thing that I thought I'd share is this picture.

A friend of mine put it on her facebook page and I immediately fell in love with it.  Wouldn't that make a delightful wall hanging?  I might try to do it for next year.

What do you think?  Now I'm off to rest my eyes from the computer for a little bit.

Have a great day.

Happy New Year - January 1, 2015

Happy New Year Everybody!

Do you have your projects all set up for 2015?  Here are some Free Blocks of the Month (BOM) that I have found being offered in 2015.

Sycamore Hill Quilts -     https://cburdy.wordpress.com/

Jenny of ELEFANTZ has a new one.  If you love redwork you might want to check this out.

http://www.elefantz.com/

I have some more somewhere but these are two that I will be working on.    I did manage to work on my January 2014 HEXIE blocks.  Yeah, you read right.  2014!.  It is now sewn onto the background and sometime this month I will quilt it and hang it in the office.  The hexie pattern is about 24" across.

Now that I'm actually putting the hexies onto the background, I need a place to store the templates.  Since they have a hole in them, I am stringing them up.

Some of you might remember that I am trying to be positive so todays tidbits or chuckles come from a  book that I got from mom.  It is called A Gift of my favorite things by Perry Tanksley.

"Instead of so much talking about losing weight, I've decided to just keep my mouth shut."

Another tidbit in that book is:  "If fate throws a knife at you, remember, there are two ways of catching it--by the blade or by the handle."  I don't know about you, but I'll take the handle any day.  :)

Everybody have a good night and count your blessings.  I don't know if  they are big or small but I do know that everybody has some blessing that they can count.  I am blessed with having so many friends.

Thanks Friend.  I'll talk to you tomorrow.

New Year's Eve

This is the end of another year which means I haven't done as much as I wanted to do but did more than I expected to do.  It has been a tough year but I survived.  I was reading on facebook a story and they had this saying :

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. 
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. 
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. 
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. 
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. 
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. 
I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Good-bye.."

With all that has happened at the end of the year, I thought it was a good way to end 2014.  I'll be here in 2015 so it's not my final good bye and I certainly hope not yours.  

Thank you to all who have read my ramblings of life and given me encouraging words to continue on.  I look forward to travelling through 2015 with you.

See you in 2015!!

FARTing next month!

What?  You don't know what I mean?  No I don't mean THAT kind of farting.  I mean
planning a FART (Fabric Acquisition Road Trip).  In my CQ-4-CBees group, this post came through.  I thought that I would re post it here.

So I while I dream of HIPS and FARTS and hope to a PhD by the time I go back to work.  THat might require me to pull out some PIGS though.  (grins).

BOM = Block of the Month
DSM = Domestic Sewing Machine
FART = Fabric Acquisition Road Trip
FOB = Fear of Binding
FQ = Fat Quarter
HIPS = Hundreds of Ideas Piling Skyward
HST = Half-Square Triangle
LAQ= Long Arm Quilter
LQS = Local Quilt Shop
MAQ = Mid-Arm Quilter
PhD = Projects half Done
PIGS = Projects in Grocery Sacks
SABLE = Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy
STASH = Special Treasures All Secretly Hidden
TGIF = Thank God It's Finished!
TOT = Tone-on-Tone
UFO = UnFinshed Object
WHIMM = Works Hidden In My Mind
WIP = Work In Progress
WISP = Work In Slow Progress
WOF = Width of Fabric
WOMBAT = Waste of Money, Batting, and Time
WOW = White On White

Next(?) project

It's been one week since I've been home from work and do you think that I have finished a project?  Of course not.  I have started different things but not completed them.

Here is the start of one of the projects.  It is the zipper quilt, or in this case a wall hanging, made out of various blue fabric from Ghana.

If I don't get anything else done before I go back to work, I want to get my snowflake wall hanging done.  That would be snowflake Hexie BOM.  I made mine larger so each month can be a different wall hanging.  I haven't put them all together (read that to be I only did January and February) so I hope to get the January one finished to be able to hang up in January.  It would only be a year late.  For me that's almost on time.  LOL.  Pictures to follow another day on that.  I have it spread out on the ironing board but I will take a picture when it's ready to be quilted.

Everybody have a good day/night.

May you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season

This will be a short post.  I just wanted to wish all my friends and followers a safe and joyous holiday season.  I am not going to be posting for a day or two but thought I'd share some nice holiday pictures I found on the web.  These came up on an image search so if anybody knows the originator of them or asks me to take them down I will.  In the meantime, may they bring a smile to  your face like they did mine.

So believe in whatever you want to believe in but no matter what...

Have a safe and wonderful holiday...

And when it is all over, sit back and have a warm drink....

Or take a nap...

and look forward to 2015.

Quilting with Mom - December 23, 2014

I told you before how mom would be kicking my butt saying to get crafting and don't let your time off work be unproductive.  That being said I figured I had better listen to her before she kicked my butt.

So with Ms. Edith sitting in the chair watching me, I managed to iron out my 2 1/2" strips and she is holding some for me.

This bear was made for my mom and I reclaimed it after she died.  Because she was made with so many pink flowers she was named Ms. Edith after my mom.

So I starched my fabric which I have never done that before.  The next time I use the start I probably should do it before I run it through the AccuQuilt GO!  It still worked out nicely.  These are the blue fabric that Lyndon brought back from Ghana for me.  I have a little more but I'm not using them this time.  I am thinking of doing a zipper quilt because I liked how that looked in a wall hanging in my office.

With using the AccuQuilt GO! 2 1/2" strip die, it didn't take long to have my fabric cut.  Then I just had to cut them into the 5" segments.  The dark blue will be used for the zipper instead of black.

Next was off to the sewing machine to sew the 2 1/2" blocks to the rectangles.  I decided to just chain piece everything and only do six rectangles of each color in order to get an idea of how I wanted to lay it all out.

Snip snip and back to the ironing board.  Now they are all laid out for me to play with the layout later.

I'll talk to everybody later.  Time to run some errands.  I hope everybody has a great day.  Anybody who is travelling for the holidays please be safe.

Let the Vacation Begin!

That's right.  I'm on vacation!  I am taking Monday and Tuesday off so technically I don't have to be back at work until January 5th.  Not bad right?

With the news that I'm vacation, my brain started to think of what it wants to do.  It sounds like I'll have a lot of time to work on stuff but everybody knows that it will go fast.

I have a project that I'd like to start on.  It came from The Quilt Pattern Magazine December's issue.  It's called The Well Wishers.  This would be for a present (I think).

I think that tomorrow I might start the search for my fabric.  It is official now.  While typing this post I was on the phone and will now make this up and know who I will give it too.  Don't you love how it  things seem to come together?  The red in this needs to be a particular shade so my friend is going to send me a swatch so I can try to match it.  I think I might do the border in red then so it will stand out a bit more.  I haven't the foggiest on how I'll want to quilt it though.  I'll keep you informed.

I have some other things that I will want to work on so I think this weekend I will start to make my list of what I want to do.

Why was I going to start this weekend?  Yes it is because it's the weekend but also because between Lyndon giving me my Christmas present and the donations that were given to me from work, I have a $100 visa gift card that I can use.  Here's one of the best parts.  They even wrote on the card that I'm to use it for myself.  hehehe.  I love my work!