They fit....They fit.....They fit.....

Final pillow was finished last night, tonight I vacuum packed them (and re-packed them) and then managed to get them into my carry on suitcase.   Had just barely enough room to get my clothes for the weekend in it.   But didn't have to take and expand the case, so I don't have to pay to check it....woohoo.........gonna be lots of room in there coming back this way.   Still need to dig out a tote bag so that I have something to carry the few things I don't have room for in the suitcase, but that's easy enough to find....I think....lol.

Can you believe that 6 - 16" square pillows that are about 4-5" thick in the middle all fit in this suitcase?  Those space saver bags work miracles!

Gratitudes:

1.  Long weekend seeing old friends coming up.

2. Cheaper to park at the terminal this weekend than in the off airport lots.....that'll save me both money and time when I get back home.  =)

Pillows Finished

Finished off the last of the pillows for the reunion last night.   Here's hoping that they bring a good amount of money for the auction.

I've got them into the space saver bags for transport in my carry-on suitcase.    Still going to be a tight fit, but thankfully I don't need to take a bunch of clothes with me for only 2 days (one day there and one day of travel back).   The case will be a tad empty when I head back this way....lol.

Gratitudes:
1. Pillows are done with a day to spare.  =)

2. A new commissioned quilt is a good possibility for the next paying job (well other than the umpteen scrub tops that I still have to get sewn up!).

Donations.......

Over the years I've finished off many quilts that I have just stockpiled into totes and not actually used.   Some of them I've planned to sell in order to help pay off some of the bills or just to get money for fun stuff.........but haven't found a good place to do so yet.   There is a possibility of an outlet for this but whether it will come to fruition or not is yet to be seen.

In the last few weeks there have been a couple of calls for donations of assorted types of items from different ministries and charities.  

One of these was for an autumn  fundraiser for The Cat House on the Kings - a no kill cat shelter.     To them I will be sending a little quilted wallhanging of a "sunbonnet kitty".   I made this from a swap block many years ago and even hand-quilted it (rare for me to do that!).

The two table runners at the top of the picture will be going to the group that has been collecting stuff for the survivors of the Texas Christmas tornado.   At the present they are collecting holiday decor for them as they are starting to return to rebuilt homes.   The donations will help people start to decorate for the holidays that are coming.

The pumpkins were made from blocks I received in a swap many yrs ago, the Noel runner was made from a remnant I found at Joann's many years ago as well.   I do hope that someone likes them.

Gratitudes:
1. Loving my job here in Tx!

2. Fall weather is coming.  =)

More F2F blocks received

3 more wonderful blocks were received from Esther over the weekend.     Wonderful fabrics, and great placement/fussy cutting on one of them.   All of them are stitched wonderfully.   They will be beautiful in my planned quilts!

Gratitudes:

1. Fall is coming!

2. Reunion is coming, will be good to see long time friends in person again.  =)

Reunion T-Shirts, part 2

Two more pillows were finished over the weekend for a total of 4 out of 6 finished.   And the front for the 5th one is finished and it will be sewn together this evening after I get home from work.

I will be using space bags to squash the 6 pillows enough in order to get them into my carry on bag.  I really like the bags I found, but am going to redo how many I put in each one in order to make them the flattest I can.   And that means a max of 2 pillows per bag.  

The 5th pillow is in the works and ready to sew the front to the back sections.   Will finish that tonite after getting home from work this afternoon and then will start on the final pillow.

Gratitudes:
1. Wonderful rain the last couple of days and cooler temps.

2. Fun weekend coming up.

T-Shirts for Reunion, part 1

This year is my 40th HS reunion.....it doesn't seem possible in many ways that is possible to have been that many years since graduation.    But that's beside the point.....  A few months ago when planning started for the reunion, I said that if someone could get me some HS t-shirts I'd make some t-shirt pillows for the silent raffle.  

Well the t-shirts came 10 days ago or so....and I'm now in the midst of making 5 or so pillows.   Also included in the box were 2 embroidered hats, that I'm still thinking about how to use.   At the moment I'm thinking they will end up appliqued on the backs of a couple of the pillows.

I've finished two of the pillows and like how they turned out.    Am currently working on the next two of them and have enough for 2 more pillows.  

The real fun will be trying to get these compacted enough to fit in my carry on suitcase..........lol.....that could be real run.    And yes I thought about getting the forms after I get to CA next weekend, but I had 60% off coupons that needed to be used and that saved me a bundle on them (the cost of the material is my donation......).

Gratitudes:
1. The edema I've been fighting is somewhat better, I'm learning that I've become super sensitive to salt (was always sensitive), hoping that watching that even closer will help.

2. Another bill has been paid off!

More Setting Blocks

I worked a bit more on using the leftover PP'd block patterns from this pattern.    I had made the quilt for myself years ago in many blue and shirting fabrics.   My friend Susan quilted it for me on her Long arm.

McCalls was generous in the number of block patterns that they supplied, and even after making a quilt that was almost king-sized.   It is those extra patterns that I'm using now to make blocks that I'll use to fill in on the 2-3 Am Hero quilts that I'm in the process of making using the F2F blocks that I'm receiving and all of the RWB blocks that I've accumulated over the last several years as I've tested my block patterns.

Todays work included two strips of HST's, a large HST that just needed trimming to size, and a diamond block.   All of these started with scraps that were already cut to the approximate size that I needed for the blocks.  =)

I also started working on the tshirt pillows and then realized I'd forgotten to put the interfacing on the back of them.....ooops...........

Gratitudes:

1. Good friends here in the Dallas area.

2. The new job that I'm enjoying.

Playing with scraps and designs

Had time this morning before church to get another block done for the American Hero quilts that I'm working on.    Played with one of my designs to see what else I could do with it.    End up with three more designs to make.....and an idea for a fifth one.  

Meanwhile here is the block I finished this morning.   Tentative name is Southwest Wings because the red reminds me of the stylized western sun you see in art in the Southwest US.

This afternoon I'll start working on putting these t-shirts into pillows for silent auction goodies for my 40th HS reunion.

Gratitudes:

1. A lovely rain storm went through this morning, so the humidity should be a little less now.

2. Church and small group today....good times to come with friends.

One of those quilts..............

Ever have one of those quilts that just doesn't want to come out square no matter what you tried.....

Well, I've been working on one of those quilts this week as I've put together these flag blocks into what will be an American Hero quilt.  I could have sworn that the blocks were all trimmed to the same size........ummm, that would have been nope.

So once I trimmed enough blocks to make the middle columns and the blocks for the two outer columns were double checked to be the same size, I put the columns together.   And then proceeded to sew the columns together to form the top.   Sigh...........as it turns out the left hand one is longer than the right one.....so gold was added to top and bottom of the right column.  

Is it square, that I don't know 'cause I'm not about to try to figure it out...lol.  At the moment it is 54" wide by 78" long which is just a little smaller than the 63" by 87" that they want the quilts to be.   So I'm going to add one more border using the striped fabric to the right to bring it up to size.  And yes, the type A side of me will try to match the strips so that they flow correctly around the border.   =)

Gratitudes:

1. My platelets are up to 127K which means I get to stay off of the prednisone.

2.  I don't have to get bloodwork for 2 months....woohoo.............

More F2F blocks

Blocks were received this week from Lynn and Sandra in France for the F2F swap and I love them all.   I'm looking forward to putting in the quilts I have planned for American Heros.

Gratitudes: 

1. The TX weather hasn't been horrible since I've been here....maybe I'm biased after having lived in Phoenix for almost 30 years.

2.  The edema I've been fighting has been a little better this week.

Scrappy block fun....

Used a few of my scraps today as I made a couple of blocks that will evenutally end up in American Hero quilts.    The scraps I worked with today came out of the pile of scraps in the wire basket on my cutting table and what was in front of it.  Those  are all from quilts that I'd been working on before I moved.   Haven't found the bins of scraps yet so I haven't been able to put them up where they should be.

the first block I made was this one.   I saw the block that was my inspiration for it on someone's blog but can't remember whose blog it was.   oops....

The striped fabric was leftover from embellishing a couple of kitchen towels.  Still have a bit of it left so it will be seen again.  The blue and red were also out of the scrap basket, but have been used in multiple projects/blocks.   The WOW used for the background was one I picked up on wmy rob-by-row hopping this summer.   Which is good 'cause I haven't found those fabrics yet....sigh....

With the scraps of the striped fabric I made this little 2" by 6' finished strip of flying geese.  There will be at least one very scrappy sampler quilt made for American Heroes this year using these blocks and some of the F2F blocks that are being made for me, and probably 2 of them.  

How will it (or they) turn out?   Who knows....I have a bunch more PP patterns to use up before I will have finally finished all of them from the pattern.

Years ago I had bought a PP'ing pattern made by McCalls (well actually several of them, but this is the only one I've actually used).   The quilt that is normally on my bed is from this pattern, and there were a bunch of extra pattern sections leftover.   Have never been able to get rid of them, so the plan is to slowly get them made up and into quilts.







Gratitudes:

1. Good friends moved the boxes I needed moved out to my storage room and wrangled the washer and dryer into it as well.

2.  That I know all is in God's control even when the issues with the edema seem out of control to me and is draining and frustrating to me.

I might have a scrap problem.........lol.....

If you watch the quilts that I make, you'll notice that they are generally "multi-fabric" quilts.....aka scrap quilts.   And I freely admit that I basically have to be forced to make quilts that only use one or two, maybe three, fabrics is all in them.   They are boring to me to say the least.    As a result, I tend to keep all the scraps that I make while sewing.......along with buying scrap bags when I see interesting looking scrap bins at quilt stores.    

A couple of examples of my 'multi-fabric' quilts - the first being the wedding quilt I made for my nephew.   There was something like 80 different greens and that many creams for the background.

 Because I pp'd the blocks I ended up with a lot of bonus triangles that I made into HST's.  Those HST's were then put into the quilt below.   All of the remaining background fabrics that went into the quilt came from the fabric that I'd had left over from the wedding quilt.      So I ended up with two quilts for the price of one.

In the last two rounds of row-by-row hopping I ended up with 3 bags of scraps - two the size that a quilt pattern would be in, and the third one a sandwich baggie size.   One of my quilting buddies will attest to how much I can pack into a bag.....

The two larger bags are shown as they were packed, or better described stuffed.   =)   Yes, I've learned that if you neatly fold  and/or roll them that you get a lot more into the bags than most people do.

These first two bags were mainly repros and a Kona cotton solid green that was precut into squares.  there are 21 squares so that is a good start of a quilt.   The bulk of the remaining fabrics were large pieces of repros.   Some pieces were even fat-eight's and fat-quarters.    Most of what I got were reds, blues and shirtings.   there were a few purple, black, and green pieces.

The sandwich baggie ended up with lots of smaller pieces and an eagle panel that will be the start of a quilt, maybe one for American Heroes.

All in all, lots of fun stuff to play with in the future here.   Now to decide what next to work on.

Gratitudes:
1. The edema I've been fighting is much better thanks to starting to walk.  

2. Have help coming tomorrow after church to get things moved out to the storage room.  =)

Hmmmmmm, will it work?

Now that the contest quilt is together I've a few days to work on other projects.   Some that need to get done (floor "mats" to protect the cream colored carpet here, Christmas gifts) and others just because I want to work on them....lol.

One in the latter category is a quilt top that will be going to American Heros.   Blocks are done, now comes the fun of choosing the fabric for sashing.   And of course, I still can't get to most of the fabric in my stash because that room is still in a state of disaster.  =P

The pic below tho shows two of the blocks with fabric that I picked up a  couple of weeks ago.   It's a golden tan color, with a floral print.  I think it looks ok and makes the flags pop out.......what do you think?  The stripes on the flags are all from scraps, the blue which has little stars on it was from stash as well.

I have enough of the flags to make one full quilt and part of a second quilt.  =)

Gratitudes:

1. It's Friday and I get to "play" at home this weekend.

2. Loving the new job so far.  =)

Contest quilt top finished

I finished sewing all of the top together that uses all of my blocks from the Modern Quilts block design contest.   Next step is to get it layered and pin-basted so that I can quilt it.   It has to be totally finished before Nov.14th and a pic uploaded by the 15th for the final contest.  Voting will run the 16th through 30th of November.   Even with the coming travels, that is a doable time line.

This won't be the final shape, but I will quilt it like this before trimming the corners back.  I plan on binding it in the same fabric as the background and sashing.

Final size of the top is 45" wide by 58" long.   All good 'cause the rules said it had to be 60" by 60" or smaller.  =)

Now to think about how I want to quilt it for a few days while I get some other projects caught up and done.

Gratitudes:

1. The edema in my feet and legs is much better after my walk around the neighborhood yesterday evening....now to find a way to deal with the aggravation that the heat causes the ezcema!

2. Storage room door has a new door handle/lock on it and has been rekeyed.   I can now put all the stuff in it that I need to get out of the downstairs!  Woohoo.....

Final Row-by-Row hopping goodies

A 2 or 3 wks ago I visited 6 more shops here in N. Tx and had a great day out seeing some of the area where I hadn't been when I lived out here before.

Ended up with some really nice row patterns, and yes some fabric came home with me along with a purse pattern and a cute little handmade wooden box that I found in an antique shop.

Most of the fabrics I bought were either WOW's or COC's (Fat Quarters or Fat-Eights).   All ones that I didn't have in my stash and that will add more variety to my scrappy backgrounds.  =)  There were also two very stuffed scrap bags and a great license plate from the hop.

Gratitudes:
1. 4th week of work is almost done and I'm loving the job.

2. Records finally made it to the new hematologist and I have an appt with him next week.

F2F Blocks Received

In the F2F swap each person receives blocks one month out of the year and September is my month.  

I chose colors of red, blue and gold on a background of either white or cream.   I will be using the blocks that I receive, along with blocks that I have here, to make a couple of American hero quilts.

The first three blocks arrived yesterday from Claire in France and are lovely!

Gratitudes:

1. For a new doc's office that isn't giving up on trying to get records from my doc in WY

2. for the hope that this edema will eventually ease as either I find a doc who knows how to treat it or the temps get cooler.

Final Row-by-Row Hopping

Saturday I made it by 4 quilt stores as I headed south in I-35 - stops were made in Waxahachie, Killeen, Round Rock and Buda.    Row patterns are shown to the left.  

Pics below show the goodies I came home with.  Among the goodies were some Fairy Frosts so that I can finish my quilt for the contest, 4 scrap bags, a couple of FQ to make "pie" potholders out of, and some sky looking fabrics (both yardage and a scrap bag).

Gratitudes:
1. First three weeks of the new job have gone well and I'm enjoying the work.

2. Safe travels to Austin and back this past weekend.