Fixed and finished!

Appliqued the Dresden Plate section down last night, and fixed the handle this morning.   Instead of redoing all of hte handle, I just redid the top section where I made the goof.

Everything is now sewn down to the block.   Only thing missing is the silver circle/washer for the blade.  But everyone in the swap will be adding their own once we receive them back.    I plan to add a circle of one that is metallic silver if I can find it....if I can't find it then I'll go buy some...lol.

Wnd even better - made it with one day to spare.....lol.
Gratitudes:

1. It's Thursday.  =)

2. Seeing one of my best friends and her family in just over 2 wks at the wedding of my niece.   Looking forward to that.

Well Phooey...............

So much for making progress on a project before heading to work.    Well actually I have made progress on the swap block I'm making, but realized as I was pinning the portions to be appliqued on that I'd made a boo-boo in color placement in one part of the block.  

Net result is that I'm going to have to redo the handle on the rotary cutter "stem" for the dresdan plate flower.  Can you see the boo-boo?

Phooey........deciding on the handle color took forever.   ........lol..........  Oh well, will remake that section tonite when I get home from school.

Gratitudes:

1. Voice is about 80% back to normal.

2. I have jobs that pay the bills, even if they leave me exhausted at the end of a buay holiday shopping day in the store.

If you were wondering why..........

............I seem to do so many multi-fabric quilts, there are a couple of reasons.   The first being that it drives me totally nuts to have to work from a limited palette of fabrics - I hate the limitations......lol.   Yes, I've done it BUT it most definitely is not what I prefer to do.  

The second reason is because my 2 scrap bins are big and filled to the top to say the least, lol.   Both bins are 15" tall, 24" long and 17 wide at the top edge.   And yes they are filled to the very top as the picture shows.    

The scraps are sorted by color and are in ziploc bags.  Most common are gallon sized bags, but there are quite a number of 2-gallon and quart sized ones as well.  

The 30's prints that I've been working to use up were in 1 qt bag (full, all green prints) and a qallon sized bag that was about half full (pink, purple and a couple of solids).   I've been able to work through enough of them with the three quilt tops that I've finished to get them down to a single quart sized bag.  

With that kind of results, I'm afraid to even think about how many quilts are there in those two totes.....much less the rest of my extensive stash.    I need to get sewing!  Or else start sorting through and selling off what I don't want, and  I am starting to do that now buy getting ready to bust my stash of 30's prints.    Plaids will probably be the next category after that.

Gratitudes:

1. My voice is holding up for the most part this week at school even though I'm still fighting laryngitis.

2. For others who are willing to quilt the tops that I get made for charity.

Ever wonder how far.......

......your scraps would go when you put them into quilt tops and how long it would take you to use them up?   I know that I have.  

This past week was Fall Break for the school district that I work for, and one of the things that I did was to make the decision to downsize my stash of 30's prints.   I had it for years, and for the life of me don't remember why I collected it.   I did use some in one or two quilts, but have wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy more than those two quilts required.   Maybe I should blame it on the fact that I love making multi-fabric quilts.    

At any rate, I'm not and have not been using the fabric, so I plan to sell most of what I have.   Will keep a little bit so that if I'm in a swap and need to make a block for someone with 30's fabrics then I can w/o buying anything new.   Fabric is pulled and now I just need to get it all measured and figure out what i'm going to price it at and how best to sell it.    Any ideas on that?  

I also decided to pull out the scraps of 30's fabrics and get them made up into tops for donation. So far, I've made 3 tops from the scraps and have only added background fabrics and a purple solid for a border on one....and still have fabric for at least one more top and maybe a second one...... I'm beginning to think these scraps will never end...........

Fall Break Doings.....

Fall break was this week for the school that I teach in and was much enjoyed.   I've been able to get some much needed rest, both physically and for the vocal cords.   Am hoping that will hold true when I go back to school on Monday and have to start lecturing again.

Did manage to get some sewing done over the last few days after a quick flying trip to the Indy area to visit with one of my best friends and her family.     Have been working with my UFO's and scraps, all things that I can do w/o a lot of thought going into the designs.

First top completed with a childs quilt that was made from the leftover strip sets from a quilt that I finished after a friend passed away several years ago.   this will be donated to Sunshine Quilts.

Next to be worked on was sorting and putting away the mounds of scraps that had accumulated over the last several months.    The piles were about 15 inches tall and needless to say weren't exactly stable....lol.   These are now sorted, and put away in the correct bags of scraps.  

In putting away the multitude of scraps I realized that I was running out of room for them in the two giant totes of them that I have.   So I pulled out the two bags of 30's repro's that I have and started working with them.   I started by pulling the two sections of strip sets that I had.   By frog-stitching I made them into 9 centers for blocks.   I then added strips to either side of the sets using solids that were in the bags.   After putting the 9 resulting blocks together I added a solid purple border (from stash!).



And then just because I'm no good at resisting starting a new project when I see a pic of one that I like, I took a strip of some of the other fabrics in the 30's scraps and started making stair step blocks.   I added a pale yellow solid cotton to the prints.     I've finished 9 of these blocks and have them together (altho only 6 of them are shown here).   Still need to decide on what i want to do for the border.   This quilt will also be going to Sunshine Quilts.

i'm also trying to figure out what to do to cover up a torn spot on one of the center blocks in the birdhouse quilts.   And I also need to get the borders onto those quilts.   Once that is done then I'll have enough done up to send of for someone else to quilt for Sunshine.

Gratitudes -

1, While not fully over the crud that i've been fighting I am finally feeling better.

2. 9 weeks till Christmas vacation!  lol

finishing UFO projects

Fall break is here, and except for working at the store this weekend and next (and the grading that I brought home!) I'll be able to sew this week.  

Am starting off my weekend by finishing off gifts for the pay-it-forward swap I'm doing this year.   Made some kitchen towels and tote bags for the gals to choose from.  =)

Bags shown below are ones that finished sometime ago, but am now going to give the gals who I still need to get PIF gifts to a choice from.  

Gratitudes:
1. Fall break is here!

2. Am feeling better slowly.

Border Musings

One of the benefits to being stuck at home sick has been being able to sew and thereby make progress on UFO's that have been sitting around here.   

One of the projects that has been stuck are some blocks that were made by others in response to a challenge that I made on Sunshine.   They then sent the blocks to me to put together into tops.  there were three sets tho that have been silent tho on what they wanted to do.   However one of them spoke to me this afternoon and finally told me what to do, well for most of it anyway....

A gal on the list had made 16 lovely machine embroidered blocks using the birdhouse fabric I sent her as inspiration.   I ended up making two different bird house blocks to set in the center of 8 blocks, thereby ending up with 2 quilt tops made.   Birdhouses were made with scraps from my prefused fabs.   

At this point I'm leaning towards putting more of the bird house fabric in the border corners.   However what I haven't figured out iw what color fabric to put along the sides of the quilt.   Anybody have any suggestions for color?

Gratitudes:

1. One more week of school....woohoo..........

2. Temps are supposed to warm up a wee bit over this next week.

When the docs says stay home, a girl just has to....

............Quilt!   Well at least sew.  ;-)   And that's where I've been all weekend............at home and not allowed to talk.   The doc would be happier if I had next week off as well, but given that's the week before fall break it won't happen unless I get dramatically worse or absolutely can't talk.

However, having to stay home instead of working has meant that I've been able to get grading done (oh yay for bringing work home when I'm sick.....NOT!  lol), and have cleared two piles of fabric that had been given to me for charity quilts.   Both are flannel / Cotton mixes and I think turned out cute.  =)  They will be going to sunshine quilts for kids somewhere.   I'll be sending them on for quilting by someone else.

The first one started with a large piece of flannel with an alphabet print.   With it I paired pieced yardage from some of the lime green scraps from my stash.

The second one started with a 5" flannel charm pack by Moda.   Added yellow sashing and a lime green border with the remaining 5 flannel charms.   Lime and yellow are cottons and the four-patches are flannel.

Both the alphabet flannel, the charms and solid white flannel came from a quilting friend in Wisconsin.

Gratitudes:
1. New meds from the doc for the bronchitis and cough.

2.  Voice is better after not talking for two days.

October BOM block has been posted

My apologies to everyone following my BOM in being late to post the October block.  I'm running late in posting this thanks to being sick most of the month of September.   Sad thing the block and pattern were done weeks ago, I just haven't felt good enough to get the pdf file created and everything uploaded to my website.   =P  

This block is called "Twinkling Star" because the small gold half triangle blocks reminded me of the stars in a clear night sky.

You can find the pattern HERE.

Enjoy making it!

Gratitudes:

1. Having health insurance as I face having to go to the doc again to figure why I'm not getting better.

2. For being able to at least sleep sitting up on the sofa, instead of in the office chair w/o coughing like a mad woman.