Busy, busy, busy...Quilt sales and a surprise!

Ok, I haven't posted in awhile and it's not because I haven't done anything.  I have been hard at it...I just haven't done anything pretty...I've been getting quilt backings together and batting gathered up for my projects.

  I have finished  the last two rows on my Row By Row quilt but I didn't take a picture. I finished those yesterday.  I'll take a pic tonight and show you...This has turned out to be really cute and I have enjoyed doing this little quilt.  We will get the final border instructions at our quilt meeting this Thursday.

I have put together 10 backings for quilts.  The quilt tops, batting and backing are all ready to be quilted.  I didn't even have to go shopping for this. I got all of this together out of my stash!  I will be starting to quilt these this week. I still have several ready and am still pulling fabric out of my stash for the backs.  I will have to buy batting as I don't have that much batting on hand.  I hope to show you some finished quilts soon. 

In the past two weeks, I have been very fortunate to go to two different quilting sales.  One was sponsored by my Quilt guild and the other was with a friend.  The one sponsored by the guild was for a man that his wife died earlier this year.  He contacted our guild and asked if we could help him with the disposal of her quilting supplies.
 I think she won!  She had a very extensive stash.  She had all different kinds of fabric not just quilting fabric and she was a knitter too. She even had double knit fabric.  One of our members took this and will be using this for backings to small quilts for nursing homes.  Our guild had a sale and sold most of her stash.  It was open to the guild first for two days and then open to the public.  All  of the proceeds were given to the husband and the leftover fabric was kept by the guild to make community service projects.  The husband was very grateful that we could help him out this way.
I got a pretty good amount of fabric. I bought this fabric and intend to do community service quilts with it too.  Nice fabric at reasonable prices. 
I also went over to my friend's house. Her sister (Louise) was also my friend.  Louise died earlier this year.  She lived with Sandy and her husband for the last seven years. She had a stroke and was bed-ridden.

  She was a prolific sewer.  She mostly did community service projects. She was our Community service person for years in our sewing group.  We made quilts for kids, hats for premies, all kinds of things for hospitals and shelters.  Louise was a knitter, crocheter and crafter.  I met her and her sister  about 25 years ago in a sewing class...She and I had the same taste.  Sandy is a sewer but not a quilter.  She had a crafter's garage sale and I bought a car load (my back seat was full and so was my trunk) of books.  Quilt, embroidery, sewing, crochet, knitting...all kinds of books. I have been going through and looking and enjoying these books.  Now, you know as well as I do, the more you have the more organized you have to be, (that is if you want to be able to find anything), so I have been moving my sewing room around again and making room for all the new to me stuff I bought.  I have several friends and a niece that are taking up quilting so I am getting some stuff together to give to them. I'll be donating some stuff to the guild too.  It has been alot of trouble but has been alot of fun too. Sandy gave me a few unfinished projects too.  More to add to my list of things to do but I'll be thinking of my friend while I'm doing these. I know she would like to know that her work is being finished.. I might have a few giveaways too from some of this too.   That brings me to another subject. 
 A giveaway....I love to have giveaways.  I'll be having a very special giveaway soon.
A new book is coming out by one of my favorite authors....Come back and see my post tomorrow....you will get a preview too of the giveaway!!!  Until then, stay tuned for the surprise!!!!

Finishing Up Projects and looking ahead

cI am finishing projects this year. I don't plan on starting anything new until I finish at least 10 things. Whether it's knitting, tatting or quilting....
Since it is a new year, I decided it was time to organize and clear out. I did not make any New Year's resolutions this year but I decided this was going to be a finish it or give it to someone that will year. I have been reading other blogs and several of my blog friends get so much more done than I do. One of them said she makes a monthly project list and works off of it. She gets alot done too! She posts some project nearly every day that she works on. I'm not jealous or envious or anything like that but man, I wish I was that motivated!

I started cleaning and organizing my sewing room last night. (Oh yeah, one more observation) I'm changing the name of my sewing room to my sewing parlor. It's not big enough to be a studio but I already have a plaque called My Sewing Parlor so I'm official. Ok, back to my story... I have been pulling fabric and putting kits together from my stash. I have cut alot of my fabric into strips and I'm going to finish that up too. I have bought more books than can fit on my bookshelves so I've decided to have a purge on those too. Some will go to Half Price books, some to my guild and some I will be selling on Craigslist or Ebay.

Here's some knitting that I finished today. I had to finish one of the blue sox foot and sewing it up. I did that and hid my threads. Yeah, a finished pair. The Ecru sox I had to do the same to them also. Now, both pair are finished and I can wear them just in time for the cold front coming in. I finished this scarf and hid the threads and wore it tonight. I love it, it's a real soft wool and feels great. I made two of these and I kept this one. Ok, that's three finishes and organizing too! Seven more finishes and I can start the BOM's I have found on the net. I like both of them. One is a real simple embroidery BOM and the other is a basket BOM. I love baskets so I'm looking forward to this one. I can't start it til I finish so keep a look on my blog and you'll see me finishing up some UFO's real quick. Ok, here's the pictures of my sox and scarf...til next time....

Sorting and Organizing and a little sewing

Since it is a new year, I decided it was time to organize and clear out. I did not make any New Year's resolutions this year but I decided this was going to be a finish it or give it to someone that will year. I have been reading other blogs and several of my blog friends get so much more done than I do. One of them said she makes a monthly project list and works off of it. She gets alot done too! She posts some project nearly every day that she works on. I'm not jealous or envious or anything like that but man, I wish I was that motivated!

I started cleaning and organizing my sewing room last night. (Oh yeah, one more observation) I'm changing the name of my sewing room to my sewing parlor. It's not big enough to be a studio but I already have a plaque called My Sewing Parlor so I'm official. Ok, back to my story... I have been pulling fabric and putting kits together from my stash. I have cut alot of my fabric into strips and I'm going to finish that up too. I have bought more books than can fit on my bookshelves so I've decided to have a purge on those too. Some will go to Half Price books, some to my guild and some I will be selling on Craigslist or Ebay.

Step 1 of the OC Done, Audio Books and Cleaning Out

Yeah, I finished step 1 of the Orange Crush....150 four patches.... that wasn't as bad as I thought.
I am glad to have had two weeks to sew these. I want to stay caught up with the group but I have alot of other quilts I'm working on now too.... it's nice to have time to enjoy the journey.When someone tells you that you have to make 150 blocks, your first thought is wow, 150 blocks! That will take forever! It doesn't...this was no thinking sewing...I listened to an audio book and sewed my strips together. No problem...I listened to Sue Grafton's book, S is for Silence. Good mystery, kept me guessing to the very end. She's a good writer. This was just my second audio book to listen to and I love them. I can do two things at the same time. I normally listen to the radio while I'm sewing and thought I would try this. I think I'm hooked on audio books...I cannot watch TV and sew on my machine at the same time as I am an avid TV watcher and do not do well watching TV and sewing. I can knit or crochet or do hand work but don't get enough done when the TV is on. I just don't really like it either. I go to my sewing room to relax and unwind...I don't need another noise in the room....I enjoy the quietness....I do like the books but don't think I'll do that alot either. If I have mindless sewing, I'll save them for that!

I also cut more fabric strips from my stash and added it to my scrap bins. I am steadily trying to dwindle down all my leftovers and get my bins organized. A friend of mine gave me some scraps and I plan on making some crumb quilts shortly. Like I needed her scraps but it helped her out too....Who knows, maybe I'll recycle and give some away too.
I did do some cleaning out about two weeks ago-I gave some books, fabric I no longer loved and two quilt frames (big ones) to a nursing home in Dallas. They were very appreciative and were anxious to get started hand quilting. I do plan to go over and help them but haven't had the time yet. I showed them how to set the frames up but that's all I was able to do at the time. I have some more fabric, yarn, needles and books ready to go to them now. Also, some of the ladies in my friendship group have given me fabric to go to them too. I will have to make a trip soon and will give updates when I go to the home. I can't wait to see what they have done. I gave all of this to the director and she was going to get them started. I told her I had more stuff for her and I would come check on the progress and help her too...til next time....

More Sorting and a new heighth for my cutting table

My sweet husband called me at work Monday and told me to meet him at Home Depot or as my grandson calls it "Man Land". I just figured he wanted me to look at something and get my opinion on something for his garage or whatever. Much to my surprise, he had me looking at short legs for my cutting table. He picked out some earlier but they were too long and he wanted my opinion before he exchanged them. I picked out the same ones he had in mind. We bought them and headed home. He unbolted my table legs so he could screw the new legs onto the bottom of them. He had to take them off so he could drill into the bottom. These legs came with a screw already in them but had to be replaced because it was not a wood screw....Whatever....He replaced the screw with a longer wood screw and screwed the short leg onto the bottom of the existing leg and Hoala, the table heighth is just right! Here are some pictures of the new short legs on the bottom. I don't think they look bad at all. I can stain them and I don't think anybody would really notice. I don't care whether they are the same color or not. It has raised my cutting table up to where I need it and that's what I cared about. I think we spent $16.00 for the new short legs versus $250.00 for that new table we were looking at buying. Besides that, I love this table. We paid $10.00 for it from my husband's company when they were buying new office furniture. I bought two of these and alot of other tables too and these are my favorite. I love the big drawers that they have. These are oversize and have plenty of room for whatever I want. The other desk is also in my sewing room but I'm keeping it as is. I use that as a desk (go figure) for my scrap booking and bill paying, etc. I am getting off track here. It didn't take Don but maybe 30 minutes to fix my table. Very easy, I think I could have done it but I won't tell him that. Here are some pix....

After we got my table back in place, I had to move things around. I was able to store the plastic containers that I had bought the other day under the table now....

Sorting and Cleaning Up

I hate to do it but it has to be done. I am sorting through and trying to get my sewing room more organized. I hate to have it where I can't find things. I bought another 3 drawer file (the clear plastic kind) to put my scrap strips in. I'm going through now and cutting up all leftovers from projects. I'm doing this from Bonnie's (Quiltville) scrap users instructions...I do like that. The scrap "users" instead of scrap savers system...Anyway, I'm trying to get it together. I'm not going to do this all at once. I'm going to do it like she suggested and just cut and sort for about 15 minutes each time I sew. Before long, I will have all my sorting done. I worked in my sewing room for 2 hours today and made a good start.
I bought some lifters for my cutting table to bring it up to the height it should be but I don't like them and I'm taking them back. Don (my sweet husband) said he will make some lifters for the legs of my table and install them this week....oh boy, that will help alot. I'll take some pictures once it's done. I told him that I don't care what they look like, I'm the only one that will see them. *VBS*
He made me a big board for Christmas and I love that. I had to move this around to just the right spot. I'll get it just like I want before too long. More later....