Completed!

The quilting anyway, the binding is on but I haven't been able to start stitching it down yet. I am very pleased with having gotten it done though so will be content with that accomplishment!

I also smashed my finger yesterday with the hammer, felt pretty stupid as I was admiring the fact that my nails have finally grown out some and instead of keeping my eye on the tack which is where they should have been my hammer hand just went where my eye was!! Ouch!

Thankfully I had already finished cutting all the strips for the Quiltathon this weekend. I need to go refresh on how we are to post our accomplishments throughout the day but it seem like there is going to be a good group! I actually have two things that I would like to get accomplished so we will see how it goes!

The cleaning has been done, Church clothes are already together for Sunday, and the meals are planned out! Sew it is going to be a fun day!

End in Site!

Phew! I can't believe how close the end is now! I am thinking it will be able to be removed tonight!

Then in between breaks I have been getting the binding hand stitched down on the Stripes. I am liking it more and more!

The cutting table is a mess again, I
got back to cutting some more of the solids up and also the binding strips for the bows. Trying to keep one step ahead of myself!

Next is to get the grocery list together as we have to go to town tonight and we are in desperate need of some staples, that is another one of the things I miss about Scottio, he would always call on his way home to see if there was anything I needed from the store before heading home from work! He is doing great though and looking at the clock I see he is a little on the late side in calling me with his daily report! I even have the blue-tooth charged and ready so I can be hands free and keep at it!!

Quilting~Quiltathon

So I have gotten into quilting this, the bugger is it is going to take quite a bit before it is completed! I love how it is coming along but my goodness, I want to move on to other stuff already!
And I am no where near the end and I have already put over 5 hours in this, can we say forever?!

Then Judy is starting a Quiltathon this weekend, I have challenged myself to getting it completed and the binding attached and stitched down along with the Stripes. And since I am taking many a break I am doing some power cleaning in the studio because I still need to finish cutting those solids so I can power sew on Saturday!

That seems to be the way I am getting things done lately and although the quilt I want to do isn't on the invisible ufo list it is one I have wanted to do for a long time! And it is just fun to boot when a group is working on something together!

Stash Busting Report~

I seem to run a day late in getting my report in! This week was another good one, I didn't purchase anything, I did check out a sale that was going on though, but promptly deleted the sales code!

Going through the fabric cabinet the solids kept calling to me so I dug them all out and started chopping them up, I got through 5 yards, 4 of which went to be used for the backing on the Roman Stripes Quilt, which is pictured below, there is 1 yards worth of
2.5 in strips that is designated for another quilt but I am going to go ahead and finish them all up into that size strip as there are two other patterns they can be used in.

So here are my tallies, not in the spreadsheet form as I haven't had a chance to tinker with that anymore this week! I did add all the totals though so when I do get to it, things will be in right order!

Fabrics added this week ~ 0
Fabrics added year to date~1.25 yards
Fabrics used this week ~ 4 yards
Fabrics used year to date ~ 14 yards
Net year to date ~ 12.75 yards

Quilting and Leaving

The Day has finally come that my First Born is leaving home! I am going to be strong! He leaves tomorrow morning and will be attending the Police Academy in Lake Havasu for the next four months.

He is the one on the far right in the newspaper clipping. He is excited, anxious and every other emotion at the moment! We are so proud of him and know he will do just fine! But I will miss the rattling of his tail gate as he gets home!

I have been having fun this week working on various projects! This quilt is already off the frame and has the binding attached, just need to hand stitch it down. I am having fun using the variegated threads! I just received an e-mail that the one that was on back order has finally shipped so am excited to get that one done as well!



I loaded up the bow-ties and have spent a little more time on the thought process of how I want to quilt it, along with doing some major cutting of the stash, it has been a very productive week! Oh and I also quilted an absolutely beautiful Basket Weave quilt for a friend, it was so inspiring that I have pulled fabrics to make one of my own, and she was gracious enough to share her extras! Just a hint, it uses the civil war prints with black accent!

Stash Buster Report

Ok, don't laugh too terribly hard, there are a few kinks I have to still get worked out on this spreadsheet transferring business! Anyway the cruxt of it all is that I ended up purchasing a few quarter yard cuts, there is a story behind it and I will tell in a moment.

A friend and I attended another quilt show over the weekend and it was pleasant, I found 2 patterns from Lori Smith that called to me, they are from her Fit to Frame Series and my friend also bought 2, and from just checking out her site I see there is another one that is available!

They also had fabric that was just beautiful! And if I hadn't left my pocket book locked up I would have fallen without a blink of an eye. But I am glad I didn't, it felt great to be able to walk away from it as the truck was only a few steps away!

As for the purchase, I have taken the plunge and had business cards made and then delivered to a local quilt shop, now I was trembling something terrible so I brought the roman stripe top as a rue for border options, now I didn't need anything but I also didn't feel right just walking in and dropping the cards off without some kind of positive interaction with the owner, well, I did, I momentarily lost my nerve and picked out 5 amish looking solids and got quarter yard cuts, felt guilty as all get out but then I got the guts to offer my cards to her along with a showing of two quilts to show my work.

There, that is my confession, they are currently being cut up for a rail fence type quilt that will be off set with the black moda, so they won't be hanging around for long at all! That means that the pesky #3 ufo is still holding its place as this one is going to be dubbed #5!

What a mess that little bugger posted as, it sure didn't look like that when I transferred it!

Just Needs Borders

I made it! There were bits and pieces left but I was able to finish all the blocks, now I just need to get the borders on and it is ready for the quilting frame.

I am going to try a new thread, a Rainbows Variegated by Superior, they have caught my eye lately, the only hold back has been myself but I am proud to say I am overcoming it!

Since this was a stash quilt I now get to update the spreadsheet and post that usage and also the little bitty confession of purchasing a few itsy bitsy pieces.

Cruising Along

I am really happy with the way these are coming along, my only concern now is having enough fabrics to complete the 48 blocks!

The fat quarter pack had 20 different hues ranging from light to dark so I picked out 9 of the darker ones for this particular quilt thinking there would be plenty. It is looking a little on the short side at the moment but am going to keep plugging along, I confess that I have already done an internet search from QuiltShops.Com and they are still available. That would be the easy way out, and I am not going to cave so easily! So worse case scenario is I have to use some of the lighter colors, and that too will be fine. But if I am extra careful it might make it!

Onward to #3 (actually 4)

This was actually number 4 on the mental list of ufo's but I am still avoiding #3 so they got the ol' switcheroo'.

I had picked up a packet of the Kaffe Fassett line of Shot Cotton's oh let's see, about 2.5 years ago for a quilt that one of my boy's friends wanted to make for his grandmother then changed his mind. So they went into the cabinet and have been dust and sun free since. They weren't something that wowed me but knew they would get used at some point of ownership.

Then I seen Mary's Amish Strings and Stripes and knew that was what they were destined for! Moda's Marbles are already my all time favorite to use anyway so I have quite a few colors in the stash already so all I had to do was dig them all out. So I cut all the foundations and cut the black, ironed the solids but never got around to cutting them into strips. They have been moved from one spot to another for about 6 months now and I figured it was time, it would be a lot quicker to do than get into the other one first but like I said, I am avoiding it, seems like I just did that with the bias beast, aka galloping beauty.

And they are coming along just splendidly!

Completed 2

This little (big) bugger is being named a Galloping Beauty! Meaning it looks amazing when speeding by and giving a quick glance! My goodness this was a challenging one, I didn't have the outside border cut so had to dig in the stash for that, it looks a little on the odd side but it actually is very pleasing in person! I also forgot to mention that this is done with flannel so it will be nice and warm when it comes time to using!

Two: As I mentioned before I remembered why it had been put up, the bias edges were murder, and trying to get a matching intersection was not going to happen. Hence the galloping drive by.......

And Finally, I didn't recall it supposing to be this big, haven't taken an actual measurement yet, probably won't until it goes onto the longarm and I didn't cut the outer border diamonds on purpose, I won't until it has been stabilized, because I can just imaging what it would do if I tried loading it with those wonky edges! I shiver at the thought!

Now to wait for the thread to arrive for this one, it is on backorder, I need to figure out how to do the bow ties, it will have to be free-handed and that is going to be a challenge for me. I will take some shots of one I did and you will see why I am apprehensive, but it will be ppp so that will be a good thing!

Completed 1

Top 1 is now complete, yay! After stewing over what kind of layout to put them in, I discovered I needed to make a few more blocks but it was still on the small side so decided to border it out some and I am very happy with the outcome.

As much as I have been tinkering with it, it wasn't until this morning when I noticed the X's and O's that formed, I was seeing a different design that I can't now, when I sign any kind of note to my Husband I finish it with those little x's and o's so it was a pleasant surprise! Of course he picked it right up!

Quilt Show and a Class

I met my old quilting friend in Vegas on Saturday to attend a Quilt Show, it was much smaller than in years past and the quilts were ok, I took my camera but to be honest there wasn't anything spectacular enough to pull it out.

There were a few vendors that had some enticing items but since I am focusing on using and not buying it was easy to not dwell on fabrics but on the different demonstrations that were going on and that was at one booth and she did two of them! Woo-Hoo!

Then we headed over to Quiltique's Shop as my friend was wanting to check out the embroidery module for her new Bernina, they had a 30% off show coupon and it was a shot to see if it applied, it didn't, so I used mine on 2 new seam rippers, canvas and needle for locker rug hooking, pins and who could say no to a free fat quarter?

Had some lunch and headed back to the show for a class that I had signed up for, it was information on running a long arm business as I am seriously considering it. There are some thoughts going around my head on it and once they get a little more organized I will share them.

Until then it is time to get back to making up four patches and start getting the tax papers in order!

Toy's

Wowser's! Here is one neat looking little gadget for a longarm, I read about it a month or so ago as it is something new that is going to be coming out.

Well, the price was just let out of the bag and it is going to be $850 smackaroonies!! I have jaw-lash (equivelant to whip lash) and have left little dents on my table.

I currently use a handy dandy flashlight with a kid attached to the end of it and it doesn't look like that is going to change!

Spread Sheet Succes!

Wow! I decided I wanted to start keeping track of the stash usage, the only problem with that is I should have waited until this nasty head cold passed because I think I made it harder than it really should have been! Many thanks to Judy L and Ruthie, the combination of the two's suggestions got me thus far, so I am jazzed to be able to see what I am using up.

After posting this I seen there are a few things I need to fix, like I can't get the date to stay in the far left column, where those numbers came from I have no idea! It is a start though and will have to tinker around with it a bit more to get what I am after!

There is still some pieceing left to each of the quilts, the bow ties just needs the borders, I decided midway that it was going to need some length and width added and think a checkerboard border will take care of that.

Then the Diamonds is what I am calling a nightmare! Man Alive, I now remember why it got put aside, the bias edges are killing me and it is way bigger than I had originally thought, it is about 80% done, just need to stitch the rows together. Didn't realize until I got into it that there was another border that was needed so that is where I got to dig into the stash and find something to compliment it. But again with this head cold I am fretting over it and I am about 100% sure I already don't care if the points aren't all matching! It has hit the stage of needing to be over and done with!

Then I was needing some black thread for the next ufo in line and came across this thread, it is one of King Tut's new colors that will be perfect for the quilting of it(diamond one that is), and since the thread I was needing was on closeout I went ahead and got it, Sew Thankful is where I find some pretty good deals on things, I use the Presencia 60wt/3ply for piecing and they also have the 40wt/3ply for topstitching and embroidery that is really nice, and it is those that are being closed out.

So all in all I am making headway slowly but surely!

Fun Photo

During one of the work days there was a little more fun than work going on! Donnie Blake and William along with a friend went for a ride! I was busy doing something else and the laughing caught my attention, I looked over to actually see them already in the air. What was equally funny is some of the elder's faces, they were waiting to see how I was going to react, I couldn't get to the camera fast enough! This is Andy one of our Pastors sons operating the tractor, my boy's love him to death and trust him with every ounce of their being! The Kids could have stayed up there for hours but the sighs of relief when they were back on the ground was hilarious!