What I am Working on Now

I have been very busy this week but not all I have been doing is quilting related. I have had 4 interviews this week and I am also working very hard in the yard to get it prepared for the 4th of July Flag Raising that we have every year. Everything we do in the yard from early spring is in preparation for this event.  After that we tend to let the yard go a bit. Hopefully that won't happen this year because I have been able to spend more time in the yard simply because I have not been working.

The three baby quilts are on their way to Primary Children's hospital. Melanie assured me that she would take them up for donation. I like this because these will be helping our local people here in Utah.

I was talking to my husband last week and he expressed that he thought I was using up all my fabric and then I wouldn't have anything to make quilst when we retired. I assured him I had plenty of fabric especially because I am a scrap quilter. But it made me start to think and I realized that my dream was to one day make a quilt out of batik fabrics. I have put off buying because the batik fabrics are so expensive. I order from Connecting Threads online all the time but mostly I get clearance priced fabric by colors that I need and just look at the batik and wish. Well, I took the leap and purchased 3 samplers from them along with 3 yards of black fabric to get over $50 for the free shipping. I love buying fabric this way because I don't have to drive all over the place and take all that time and waste gas to get some fabric.

These are 10" squares. I was very conservative in the size I bought but generous in the number of pieces. I will be very frugal but will totally enjoy these beautiful fabrics.

I have also made progress on the Smith Mountain Morning quilt. I have been cutting and cutting browns and blues for the star block. I have finally finished cutting the brown points.

These are one side of the points.

And these are the other side of the points.

I have cut way more than I need for the points but these are also used in one of the borders.

I have also cut all the small half squares for the center pin wheels for the star block. They finish at 1 1/2 inch.

This is a picture of the quilt from the book.

I have now laid out the blues and have started cutting them for the star block.

I have gathered all my blues and brown fabrics for this quilt but I have not even started on the second block for the quilt. I will keep plodding along with this cutting until I have everything cut out and then will start to sew the blocks together.

Well, I hope you have a great weekend. This is all for now. See you next week.

Charity Baby Quilts

Another busy week has come and gone. I have been able to have grand kids over again this week and we have managed to keep pretty busy. They like to help me with my chores and then we play.

This week my main focus has been getting the charity baby quilts finished. I have made three but I have enough fleece for 6-7 more. I guess we will have to work on these in our next quilt retreat. I made these with just the backing and no batting. I really like the weight of them and they are quite large so they should be used right up to toddler age.

The first two quilts have a teal for the cornerstone square so I used the teal with the bears for the backing.

I decided I wanted to use the green teddy bear for the backing on this one so I used green for the sashing.

On all the quilts I went with totally scrappy binding and I am pleased with the results.
I used the Pajama Quilters method for the quilting. It was good practice for me on these small quilts.

I have also started another quilt for myself. It is the Smith Mountain Morning from Bonnie Hunter's book "Scraps & Shirttails II".I have started the cutting for totally scrappy just like she did with browns and blues. I have loved this quilt since I first saw it in the book. I have noticed that she teaches this quilt in many workshops. It is beautiful! I will be taking this quilt with me in October to a conference that my husband has in Reno, NV. The last time we went to this conference I put together my tree quilt from Bonnie while he was busy with the conference.  I will show pictures later on the progress of this quilt.

Until next week, Happy quilting to everyone!

Moving Along

Hi Everyone, I have been moving along this week. Many things have been done and I am feeling pretty good about the week. No interviews this week.
First off, I have finally finished painting in the old sewing room. It only took me 2 months to do this job but I am happy to say it is done.

Notice the two little snoopers. They are curious about what is going on in this room.

Nice clean fresh closet.

Desk with lamp waiting for some girls to do homework or something else.

I have also had my hubby hang some pictures in my new quilting room. Yeah!

This was gome (trash) from Japan. I have always loved this needlepoint scene and now it has a permanent home in the quilting room.

The top is a clock I made from a quilting magazine several years ago. I think it was Quiltmaker magazine.

The bottom was a gift from my sister.

This is an embroidery of a saying, " I didn't say ti would be easy. I only said it would be worth it." I made this several years ago also.

This is the second patch quilt that I have now completed. It was free motion swirls.

I am happier with the quilting on this one. The next should be even better.

I have the tumbler quilt top on my design wall right now.

I am trying to make some progress with this next.

This is the plaid/stripe quilt blocks that I have together now. I need to get it quilted but I have not decided weather I am going to add some borders yet.

It should make a good lap sized quilt as it stands right now.

This is one of three baby quilt tops I have completed. This green fleece will be the backing for this one and the other two have a turquoise camouflage fleece.. I need to get these loaded so I can get busy quilting. They are going to be 45" X 45".

Well, see you next week.

Trying New Things

Another busy week has pretty much gone. I was kid sitting Emma, Logan and Adela Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I think they had a good time and I was still able to keep up with the house stuff.
I didn't get as much painting done as I would have liked but I do have the closet doors all painted and I only have one more wall to do floor boards.  The window sill and the entrance door still needs to be done. It doesn't seem like I am progressing in there but I am.

I have been trying new things in quilting. I follow Jo's Country Junction and she has been quilting with the Pajama Quilter. I looked at the website for Pajama Quilter but could not find much there. I was able to finally find a book with a DVD and ordered it. I hope to get it soon. The Pajama Quilter is free motion quilting on a grand scale, meaning she covers the quilt with an all over design in free motion. I watched a small video she has on YOUTube and kinda got the idea. I went ahead and tried it out on this charity quilt. I am not too happy with the results but it will do for a charity quilt.

This close up shows the quilting a little better but don't look real close because it is very wonky!

I have started and almost finished the second patch charity quilt and it is a little better.

This one I have done with swirls and I like it a little better. I was a little better with the spacing from the quilting line before so therefore not quite as wonky. Still need to watch that DVD when it gets here and then my third patch charity quilt should look a bit better.

I have also finished with all the orphan 9-patches. I have over 140 9-patches. I have set up 3 baby quilts so far and will be quilting them with a fleece backing and no batting. I purchased the fleece from a neighbor who moved to Alaska a couple of weeks ago. The price was very good and these will make great baby quilts for charity also. These are pinned in sets of 10 each.

Well, I need to get busy and get out in the yard for work that needs to be done there. 

See you next week.

May is Coming to an End

This has been a very busy month. I have been busy in the quilting room, in the house and in the yard. I guess that is the way it is for everyone.

I actually have seeds sprouting in the garden and I am very happy with that.

These are the string beans. They  look great.

This is a lemon cucumber. I planted three different places and this is the only one coming up so far.

 I think this one is another cucumber plant and it is looking pretty good.

This is a zucchini hiding behind the daffodil stocks. Last year my veggies were a bust. It is looking much better this year. YEAH!
I also have been able to weed and I am trying to keep up  them. This is a major thing to accomplish because we have been having allot of rain lately.

I have made some progress with the old sewing room. I have one of the three doors painted and I am half done with the trim. I am excited about this, the room looks so fresh and clean. Spring like.

The door in the closet is all painted and just needs the hinges, door knob and door stop put back on. YEAH!

I have completed 30 of the plaid/strip blocks and I have decided on the layout. I will set them 5 X 6.

I have cut the sashing and collected the corner stones from my 2" drawer. The neutral sashing will finish at 1 1/2" as well as the corner stones. Now I just need to start webbing the top.

Over all, I have had a very productive month of May. I hope you have also.

See you next week!

What I have been up to this week

I have not been able to do allot of sewing this week. I have three interviews this week, Monday, Wednesday and one tomorrow.

Most of my time has been spent working in the yard or cleaning house. 

The little bit I have been doing in the quilt studio has been because I am still cleaning up from the move. I think it has been very helpful to move all my stash down and re-organize things. I have found that I have way too many 2 1/2" squares that really need to be put into quilts.

I have been working on the plaid blocks that I wrote about last week. Here are few more, I think I have six lined up on the long arm.

I plan to continue until I use up these squares. I also found a bunch of 4 patches made up, left over three strips, and some two's sewn together that are left overs from other quilts. I have started to make 9 patches out of these scrappy orphans but I am not sure what I will do with them. I will just keep making them until I get a bunch made and then decide.

For Mother's Day my hubby gave me the expandable table that will adjust to any sewing machine.  I forget the name of it. I read about them from Bonnie Hunter. I set it up with my feather weight first and then decided to try it on my Janome embroidery machine because I didn't think it would fit it.

This is an odd shaped machine but it fits. I will have to take it off when I use the embroidery part but for now I am piecing and doing very well. This is going to be a dandy new tool for me in my piecing and when I bind the quilts. Yeah!

I have all my red and white blocks up on my design wall trying to find some inspiration on how to go about making this into a queen size quilt. If you have any ideas please let me know. I have some very disconnected thoughts about how I want this to turn out so I am hoping that by putting them on the design wall that inspiration will hit.

Kinda weird looking at them just thrown up there, huh?!

I have more half squares and 4 patches on the table here. I figure they will be fill ins.

Well, this all for this week. Take care and I will be back next week.

Spring is Here

We had our yearly Garden Party on the 11th and I forgot all about taking pictures. Several years ago I had some shoulder problems and was feeling down in the dumps about not being able to hardly do any yard work to prepare for the summer. I told my husband we should just sell the house and move into a condo where we wouldn't have any yard work to do. His answer was a Garden Party.

Of course our kids saw right through that Garden Party stuff and they know that it is really a Labor Party. They come any way and help us get a big jump start for our 4th of July flag raising.

They plant flowers, vegetables and even do some weeding. Some years they have taken out dead shrubs or trees. Our grand children look forward to this day. The older ones are pros now at planting the flowers.

I have swiss chard that came back up on its own. 

I planted broccoli this year (lower left hand corner of pic. I will see how that goes. The bush beans are also along the back of the house in this picture.

I have two kinds of onions this year, along with 3 tomato plants. I have also planted cucumbers and squash. 

Another new for me is okra. Not sure how that will do but we will see. They are planted on the south side of the house just around the corner of this picture.

On the quilting front I have a couple of items I can't show right now because they are for gifts but I have finished the 3rd patch quilt top as well as working on a leader enders as I sewed the rows together on this top.

This is the third and final patch quilt that is now a top. This one has allot of yellow but it is so nice to use up all of this old fabric. The left overs are going to be cut up into bins.

I am not sure what I am going to do with these but I have a bin full of plaids, strips, and checks left over from another quilt and these need to be used up. Most of these are shirts from my husband. They are 2 1/2 inch squares.

These are not all I have in 2 1/2 inch squares. I have two drawers of dark and one of light that need to be stitched up. I also have red, white and blue 2 1/2 inch squares that need to be made into a Quilt of Valor.

I have also been busy sewing together bits and pieces of batting. I hope to have at least one to fit the patch tops I have ready now. I am sewing these on my old Kenmore.

My last picture for today is about my Kenmore/Janome embroidery machine. I had it at Sears for a repair since April 5th. I finally got it back on Monday, the 13th of May. I was not very happy about how long it took them. I had called and called. It had been repaired for almost 2 weeks and it still had not been delivered to the store I had dropped it off at. Not good!

But she is home now and I am happy! Well enough for today, see you next week.