I Didn't Forget!

It's just been a busy week. There've been some pretty flowers to brighten an early Saturday.

Lots of glitter and glitz.

And a bit of quilting too.

I need to go try and catch up on some laundry now that most of the glitter is off me, and then get back to quilting. See you next weekend!

Whoops, forgot a title! Oh well!

Well I finally finished the binding on this baby quilt. Now to get it delivered.

Pixel was very helpful in making sure I stayed seated to work.

Mercedes made sure I celebrated May the Fourth. I think she just wanted the cookies I was giving her for wearing the BB-8 head boppy thing.

In other news, our area is experiencing a bit of flooding. Nothing horrifying, just the sidewalks and parking areas down by the riverfront. I took these photos as they were closing the sidewalks in preparation for the high water.

So I've had to find temporary haunts for playing Pokemon GO for the time being. But better than getting wet feet.

That's all for now. I have to figure out what the next UFO I tackle will be. And the parts I had to order for the crochet project I started a while back have gotten here, so I might dig that back out. We'll see what sounds good as the week progresses. See you next time!

A Day Late

Apologies for missing Sunday. Saturday was so busy that blogging completely slipped my mind. I spent the day displaying some miniature scenes at a "makerfest." That's a term for a group of people who come together to show off their various talents/projects and talk about how the made them. The makerfest itself was part of a larger arts festival which included a car show and live performances by local dancers, singers, etc.

Last week's progress on the quilt was slowed down a bit by getting ready to display at the show, but I still got some good work done.

The Freemont, CA row is ready to be sandwiched. I'm very pleased with how it's turned out. I'm planing on adding some more texture details to the sea horses with the quilting.

The Grantsville, MD row is also ready for sandwiching, although in this picture threads need cleaned up. I did that last night, so it's truly ready to go.

I decided to added appliqued eyes to the Morris, IL row instead of just embroidering them. The fish are large enough that I was able to trace around quarters to make the applique templates. This row is already sandwiched and waiting on me to finish blind-stitching the label on the back. I started that last night and am almost finished.

Two other rows are also sandwiched and in the stack to have their labels stitched on before quilting.

I did work on a couple of other projects last week as well. In the effort to reclaim some of my safety pins for sandwiching rows, I started the quilting on some things that have been waiting for attention.

These are the halves of what will be a large tote bag/diaper bag. It matches a quilt a friend and I started for another friend's baby. The link will take you to the post with the quilt top if you're interested.

This is the pile of safety pins I reclaimed, just from those two sections.

I also started on one of the twin chevron quilts. I still need to finish the quilting in the white sections, but I did enough work to get all my safety pins back from it and gave my shoulders a good workout.

I'm hoping to get caught up with all the rows that are ready for quilting this week and then get started on a few more. I have family who've been collecting patterns for me and they'll be mailed soon. If I can be finished with what I already have before the next round gets here, I'll be ecstatic.

That's all for now. I have a busy day of sewing and laundry waiting on my presence. See you next weekend!

Been A Busy Week

Happy Father's Day!

Monday started off with me driving a transport of 25 dogs from downstate IL to the local no-kill shelter up here. They were confiscated from a mentally challenged man who didn't understand how to help the animals being dumped on his property and breeding to excess.

Tuesday Artie need to see the vet. He had an that wouldn't stop tearing and weeping. It was obviously irritating him and just didn't look good. Squinting was the word of the day, which made him jumpy too.

Some medicated eye drops have done the trick and he's back to normal now.

The rest of the week was divided between sewing/quilting, cleaning, laundry, studying Spanish, and getting organized for the Row by Row Experience nations-wide shop hop.

The chevron quilt fronts and backs are now completely finished. Just need to get them sandwiched and start quilting.

Also I put together a little pin cushion using a pattern from a Missouri Star Quilt Company magazine. Scraps from the flag wall quilts came in handy.

The Dresden tea cozy halves are sandwiched and basted now.

I've quilted around the applique with invisible thread. The rest of the quilting will be in variegated purple.

Friday I had a sewing day with a friend and we started a quilt-along. We're using the same pattern but I'm making a runner with metallic fabrics and she's making a huge quilt... doubling the size of the pattern!  These are the centers of the blocks for my runner. I still need to finish piecing the turquoise and brown ones.

That's it for now. Here's a picture of Victor checking out his toy that I picked up last weekend at the expo.

And a picture of Pixel for good measure.

Have a good one!

Quickie Update

I'm currently exhausted from getting sunburned yesterday and taking a turn around roadtrip with a friend to a bunny expo, patisserie, and quilt shop.

Here's when the chevron quilts look like right now. The first quilt's top and back are finished.

The second quilt is pictured here with just the rows pieced, but it is actually just waiting on borders now. Also its back is two-thirds of the way pieced.

I'm off to go find some more aloe and have a late dinner with FH. See you next weekend unless the rain washes us away.

Many Irons

In a complete contrast to last week's frustrations, many things have been going right. So much in fact that I had to make the decision to leave out pictures of the gardens' progress. Otherwise this post would take up lots of time and be saturated with photos. There are enough project pictures to choke bandwidth for anyone still using dial-up as it is...

Let's start off with miniatures! I have a few more quilt bolts for the shop. In this top picture, the dark brown bolt is a leftover from a project. The others were purchased to fill in the yellow, orange, and brown selections.

 In this photo, the bolt in the middle was bought specifically for the quilt shop. But it's from a line of fabrics that I purchased yardage of in other fabrics to make a quilt... so I don't feel very guilty about it. ;-) The other two are project leftovers.

Also the mini group project this week was hydrangeas. I made one of each color offered. The pink one still needs leaves though.

We "cheated" and used a punch for the flowers and the punch was 6-petaled and not 4-petaled. So we all have mutant hydrangeas. Made our lives easier for the two hour long meeting though!

Next up is me trying out my new prairie point guide with some extraneous fabric from my stash. I wanted to figure out the folds and cuts on fabric that wasn't purchased for the quilt I'm practicing the technique for. The results are pretty spiffy!

I did get the scrappy border on the other flag wall quilt this week. I'm very pleased with the results.

My healing shoulder got a bigger workout and I finally got this baby quilt quilted and halfway bound!

It's only been waiting since last fall... the baby in question is at the proto-crawling stage and loves to get hugs and kisses. He's a very happy boy. I can't wait to see his reaction to the different colors.

Now I'm working on a pair of quilts for twin boys born almost two weeks ago. The nursery is decorated in navy blue and white with chevrons.  I chose a larger quilt design and cut the squares half the size required. I'm getting two quilts for the same yardage this way. The blocks stored in the bag are actually in the order for the layout. The other stack is for the second quilt.

 And here's the layout for the first quilt. Not the best picture as it was taken last night when the light was bad. The second quilt's layout will be the same except I'm turning the blocks 180 degrees so the bottom becomes the top. I want the tops to be slightly different but these colors were difficult to get balanced. 

And that's it! Today I'll be piecing the chevron quilt tops and hopefully piecing the backs as well. I'm hoping I'll get to the quilting on at least one of them into the coming week. I also have that quilt to piece which require six width-of-fabric rows of prairie points! There are a few other UFO quilts waiting on their quilting too. Let's see how far I can get this week!

Cloth and Sandwiches

FH and I spent parts of this weekend trying to clear some of the natural detritus from the yard. After I tore up my shoulder and back, I obviously couldn't do yard work and he was too busy trying to keep up with the indoor chores and working full time. So now we're playing catch-up. One thing we wanted to do last fall was lay down landscape fabric in the beds that didn't have much growing in them to cut down on the weeds. We finally got to start that job today!

The lowest bed is waiting to see where the hostas are going to pop up. Then we'll work around them while they're small. There's a whole other set of tiered beds like this that needs work on the other side of the deck. Not to mention the giant bed of lilies that turns into a jungle come mid-summer. But it's a start!

Remember that air dry clay that wasn't Model Magic? I tried playing with it last night to see how well I could sculpt with it.

It's difficult to see, but there is a crack that goes clear around the tree trunk about halfway up. Methinks this clay's not meant for finer detail.

And then quilt sandwiches. I now have many sandwiches ready to be quilted: 2 large lap/full-sized quilts. 2 baby quilts, diaper bag panels, and 2 runners.

I actually missed the picture of one of the larger quilt sandwiches, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

That's it for this week. Hopefully I'll get finished with some minis in the coming week. I'll probably be inside working on them tomorrow since it's supposed to rain/snow/sleet tomorrow. Ugh. I think Mother Nature must be going through menopause or something. Anyways, ttfn!