The Bomb went off here!

I had started folding things back up when I decided to share the explosion that had taken place, really since August there has been NO organization what so ever, just one project to the next.

The farmers table is my main cutting station and at the time which was last week I cleared enough space to trim the blue boxes, but then started the folding so now there is no room to trim Lillian's.

This is the secondary cutting/ironing table. Not an inch to spare and I tell you the kids are loving it because daily there is at least one reward session going on because I can't find anything!!

It has gone beyond horrid...............

And did anyone catch on that there isn't a single quilt on the walls? We had the second craft fair in November and sold 8 quilts, it was a blue moment but in the end it came at a time when the funds were needed the most so I will enjoy getting them replaced.

I was also asked if I would be interested in putting quilts up at the Lodge here in the and also at a little coffee house downtown! Very honoring indeed!

Lillians~

This is Nate! He is just the sweetest thing and it is too fun to watch everyone interact with him. The boys are the worst though, he isn't allowed a grunt and they are wanting to know why that is being allowed to go on?! They do seem to disappear though when it comes time to taking care of the loaded nappy!

These photo's are long over due, Lillian needed this quilted in time for a class she was taking, the final was to be on binding techniques. Thankfully I had two weeks in which to get it done

but decided at the last minute to do a different design that was a little more intricate, I failed to guesstimate correctly on the amount left on the spool of thread and ended up running out about one row of completion!! Not very smart but thankfully the thread co took care of me and it was done and ready for her!

Then the below I did yesterday for her, DH will drop it off when we get back from our trip out of town this next week which will give her time to bind it and wrap it up as it is a Christmas gift!

It hasn't been trimmed yet, will do that here in a little bit,

I'll show why next post!

On the move again!

Wow! It is amazing that it is December already! We have had our hands full, we started babysitting a this little guy who's tootsers' are on display below and I tell ya, even though he is only 2.5 months old and sleeps most of the day away I am afraid to say that he does most of it on my chest!

I mean, how can you not just wrap yourself in the scent of a newborn?

I did finally have to get him on a solid routine, and that meant I could get back to the backed up work that had accumulated for way too long!

This is a sweet victory! Boxy Blues is complete and now residing on it's owners bed! I do believe it will be loved for many years!

Before being quilted and washed it measured out to 120x108 and once washed it shrunk to 113X101, it is huge!!

I did fail to get pictures of the other quilt that was to be for the Mom's bed, it was a charm cotton top tumbler with denim for the backing, she is into the Americana style of colors so that is what it was done in with a nice coffee/tea bath to give it a softer mellower look!

Then came the nasty flu/cold/sinus bug, that little sucker didn't want to leave! Albeit there were plenty to bounce around to!

Quiltathon!

Figured since it was Quiltathon Weekend I would go full force and get this monster top done! Imagine my surprise when I started laying it out and found I was short a row and a half! Now I can be math challenged sometimes but this really got me!

Because I surely didn't want to cut more strips to get the other slew that would be needed out of this pile that I had left over. I had thought I cut way over and was hoping to have some left over to throw into a little scrappy throw.

Then under this pile I found................................

These!! Now I didn't dwell long on how they got there, I was just thrilled to find them and get them matched up, but it turned out I was still a little shy so ended up getting another 36 blocks from that pile to make up what I needed.

Now in the other post I talked about how I wasn't thrilled with it being all blue, I like blue, especially when they are made with these fabrics!! Now I could whip those kinds of patterns out all day long! ~smile~

So here we are now at 9pm, I started them out by two'sies then to four'sies, then don't know why I changed mid stream to rows but it is working out great, all the rows are ready for the final seam then I will go ahead and probably do a thin strip of dark blue to set it with an additional wider border to finish to size.

Right now it sits at 108X96 and since I will use cotton batting and wash it before giving to its new owner I know there will be some shrinkage to compensate for the extra, plus the gal said the closer to the floor the better because the daughter doesn't use a bed skirt. Know how I know? I called to ask if I could make it a little more towards laying at the top of the bed skirt, trying to save her some funds along with some time for myself! But alas, I was doomed to major huge!

Now I know this design has gotten to be pretty popular lately but before the popularity of it Mary had put together a little something of her own and she shared it, since then I have wanted to make one but in a more scrappy version. I need to take a picture of the quilt that inspired my customer, it was in all 2.5 inches strips of nothing but plaids but it was like the fourth quilt I ever made and it was one of Mary Ellen Hopkins designs and although very easy it used a lot of strips for one block! And there was no way I was going to recreate THAT in a 112X100!!

So I did a quick sketch of Mary's Boxed Squares and she loved it! In every shade of blue I could use! Now I was very pleased with being able to pull 80% of the fabric from my shelves, I went on an online clearance of blues hunt and bought one tower of 30 different fat quarters for $26!! I made that work with the rest of what I had then went to a sale at Fiddlestick's and she had some blues on for $3 a yard so grabbed a couple there but the mother load of a deal was a bolt of 24 yards of the ugliest blue that was absolutely perfect for the backing and probably the border as well as the binding if I cut right! It actually wasn't that ugly at all once she started unrolling it to take measurement, then it caught peoples eye, but it was all mine!!! Envision the evil laugh here!

Now I need to finish ironing the beast's rows to prepare for final assembly, am thinking I will finish it tomorrow though as my eyeballs are starting to go a little wonky!

Friday~

There was a gun exhibition going on in Wikiup at a gun range in the area, which is about 45 miles from us. There were to be guns going back to the civil war era up to current day weapons and I thought it would be fun for the boys to see. So we loaded up into the truck and headed out.

Now what I didn't know about was the 10 miles of primitive kept roads that lead to the range........the two photos are just a little bit of what we drove through to get there.

The total disappointment came when we pulled up and gal said get out of the vehicle and fill out some paperwork, umm, ok, we start filling out then she informs us it is $25 per person to be a spectator! There were 6 of us present so you can imagine what we did!

Went home and baked some white pumpkin pies! Now I don't really think Blakes' nose got pushed into them but there were some pickers when they came out of the oven, sticking the knife in to see if it was done wasn't good enough, needed to spoon a little out to make sure!

It should actually be called nutmeg pie with a hint of pumpkin, ever have one of those moments that you cant remember for the life of you what the rule was for fresh ground spices?

That is about all I use when I cook or bake, fresh ground pepper, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg etc so when the stupid moment hit of "is it more fresh to dry or more dry to fresh?" I chose the more fresh must be it and twisted away!

Now when Donnie did the checking he casually said out loud ~ wow, it sure tastes like nutmeg!~ That was when the bulb went off! They still tasted really really good though!!

Trying to be inspired!

I am in the process of making an all blue quilt in the following design, I chose it from one of Mary's over at Making Scrap Quilts from Stash's site MaryQuilts.com. The gal who I am making it for liked this size of blocks, the bummer is that she wants it 112x100!

Not the best of pictures but the idea is there of what I have been up to besides some quilting on the side. It will be a Christmas gift for her daughter, and wanted nothing but blues, sigh.......

On a fun note I am excited for the pumpkins arrival! We have made soup and pumpkin butter so far but now have to get more for pies, then freeze a good bunch for more soup days!

For Lillian~

These quilts were made by a complete beginning quilter! I tell you what, they are absolutley perfect and it was a lot of fun to quilt them! I got to pick colors and designs and hope she will be pleased with the outcome!

Earlene Fowler coming to Kingman?!

At the show there was a bulletin that Author Earlene Fowler is going to be coming to Kingman in May of 2009! I thought that was pretty exciting news!

The other thing I wanted to make note of was the neat little quilt covers that some of the ladies put together for the legs of the quilt stands, they thought it would help to prevent anyone from tripping. Probably pick and click a photo to see a closer looksee!

Took a trip to Target and found some cute Kittie Bling! Decided to go with Sashi~(pronounced saw-she) for kitties name, she is adjusting splendidly although there are folks in the house who call her a mangy and scraggly runt.


I see a beautiful swan under there! ~smile~

Quilt Show~Final

Little Miss ticket seller! I swear she could sell ocean front property in Arizona!!


a close up of one of the blocks in the antique quilt above.

Quilt Show~3

There are some talented ladies in this group!