I'm back and I hope you missed me!

Hello everyone, yes, it's been a long time since I've posted. So much has happened and I'll catch you up to date.  My computer stopped and I had to get it fixed. My computer at work will not allow me to post on my blog so I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even get my mail...it was crazy!  I guess you might say if it could break, it has at our house this summer. We had to buy a new washer,  get a new microwave, get a new hot water heater and repair our air conditioner. Between all of that, my Mother In Law has moved in with us and we have moved furniture in and out and around everywhere.  My sewing room is squished up with furniture and I can barely get in it. I can't get to my quilting machine at all as there is so much furniture around it.   We have been converting our double car garage into a big sewing and craft  room and we were getting ready to finish it and my husband had an appendix attack. He had to have his appendix removed and that put a stop to the conversions.  Once he was on the recovery from that, he was helping my oldest son do some wood working at his house and he cut two of his fingers with the table saw.  Not completely cut off but had to have stitches and lots of time to heal...He played his first round of golf today and they did really well. That was really the only thing he was concerned about, was how it was going to affect his golf game!  To say the least, life has changed at my house and I haven't had alot of time to sew or do anything else.  I have still been keeping the grandbaby and now we are playing soccer and flag football with the other three grandchildren so it's still busy on the weekends. Next week, we are getting new wood floors and moving furniture around for hopefully the final time.  After that, we will be  getting back to working on the garage and I'll be getting my new sewing/craft area and I can get some quilting done.  So, hopefully things will calm down and I can get some good sewing time in. 

 I have only done a few things. I haven't been sewing every day like I used to. I have completely finished two small quilts, 2 tablerunners, I've made  3 quilt tops and a pillowcase for a travel pillow.  I'm starting to feel like sewing again and hopefully I'll have the opportunity to do so too. 

 

This is a quilt top I did for the Quilt Across Texas Shop Hop.  I love this and I'll be quilting this with the shapes of Texas and stars once I can get to my quilting frame.

This is a bad picture but it is a Project Linus quilt. This pattern is called Warm Wishes and it is very easy. It is a free pattern given to Project Linus by Quiltmaker magazine.  I love this easy pattern.

Here's a close up of the fabric I used. So cute, I know some little person will like this.

I did this quilt a while back but I just quilted it over the weekend.  Every block was free motion quilted a little differently.  It was fun to do and I was inspired by a class I took from Craftsy. com. Leah Day was the teacher and I really enjoyed this wonderful class. It was how to quilt a sampler quilt and I watch her videos all the time...Lots of inspiration!

 

Here's a few close-ups.

 

Here's a little travel pillowcase I made.  I'll post the directions later this week and try to give you a tutorial on this too..

 

 

I didn't get pictures of the other things I've finished but will later this week.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.  Until next time, happy quilting!

 

Pillowcases, D9P QAL, D4P and heart pillows.

I have been sewing a little this week.  I've had two meetings and kept grandchildren two nights so when I had a little free time, I sewed but didn't blog.  Now that the grandbaby is asleep, I'll show you some of the things I've worked on this week...
Tuesday was tatting night and I went to it.  It was a good time and I tatted a little and knitted a wash cloth...

On Wednesday night, I made the two pillowcases for my granddaughters.  I made one for each of them....both of them are alike and match the quilts I am making. 

Thursday, I went to my quilting group. When I got home, I sewed up these three heart pillows.  I stuffed them today but will hand sew them shut tomorrow for my slow stitch Sunday. We are making these in my quilting group to give to the breast cancer center next month.  I need to sew some more and I plan to, but these are all I had time for. I'll make more next week.

  Friday, after work I kept kids and didn't sew.  I got up early this morning and started sewing before the grandbaby woke up....I made some purple blocks for the  Rainbow challenge. I'll be using some of these in the second quilt and some in the third quilt. 

 

I made some of these too. These are to go into another ongoing project for the Rainbow challenge. I started making these last year and these are fun and easy to make too.

Later today, when Carmen was napping, I finished sewing up enough blocks for the second quilt.  Here it is up on the design wall ready to be put together. I was going to make these two quilts just alike but decided not to do that.  Alot of the blocks are the same and the borders will be the same but the blocks are not all set in the same positions.  They won't know it or care so I decided it wasn't important. 

 

 

Now, I have 28 blocks leftover for the third quilt. I guess I'll make some more. The third quilt is just going to be a small quilt. I'll put those up and decide how big I want it to be when this one is finished. 

Tonight, after I put the baby to bed, I finished putting the last strip onto my D9P I've been working on.  This is just a scrappy little quilt and I think I'll put one more row on before I call this one finished.  I'm not sure if I'll put a border on it or not...what do you think? One more long row and a border or just the row? 

 

Ok, that's it for now. I've got some knitting to do so until next time, happy stitching!

Playing with pinks and my DP4 quilts

I'm trying to get things done that I've put off for awhile. My husband asked me to make him a pillowcase to fit a little travel pillow earlier in the summer. I didn't put it off on purpose, I just forgot about it.   Anyway, I had some leftover fabric from another project I had done for my brother in law from many years ago and I pulled it out and finished the little pillowcase for my husband. I gave it to him yesterday and you would have thought I'd given him a real prize...He was so pleased with it and thought it was pretty special. I was pleased that he liked it so much.  Isn't it amazing how something so small can brighten someone else's day?  I wish I had done it a long time ago now...
Here's the little pillowcase. He was thrilled and loved the fabric too.

 

 

The green fabric at the bottom are 2 1/2" strips I cut for binding on another quilt. I'll show you that as soon as it's all together. 

I pulled out or should I say I found my pinks to play with for Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  After I found the pinks I had put back, I found more.  I didn't think I had very much pink but now I'm thinking pinks and reds for Valentine's Day...  I pulled out another little project to work on for it. I'll be doing that next week.  Anyway, I've been working on pinks today and pulled out the Disappearing 4 patch quilt (one of them- I have three that I'm working on) that needs to be finished for a February birthday....I put some pink blocks together for it and it is on my design wall to work on and finish. It will not come down until I'm ready to quilt it.  The birthday is February 11th so I have to get busy!

 

 

Here's a few DP4 patches for my 3 quilts.  One for each one...Two of the quilts will be just alike. The third is for me so it doesn't matter.  The other two are for my granddaughters and I'm making them the same.

 



 

Here's the DP4 quilt I'm working on...

 

Here's the new blocks. I've pulled out some more bright pinks since that's the challenge color.

I don't know why I don't work with pinks more, I love that color!

 

More pinks and projects to work on...

 

 

Some pinks to play with!

 

Ok, the baby is asleep so I have to get off and get busy.  Go sew and show us what you are doing too!  'til next time, happy quilting!

 

 

A few finishes for the weekend.

This has been a cold weekend so I've stayed in. I had the grandbaby yesterday and didn't get to sew except for when she took a nap.  I sewed up a set of pillowcases for my friend. These go with the Love quilt that I showed you last week.  She loves penguins so these will be right up her alley.

Friday night, I finished up my Wingspan shawl.  Not sure how long it took me to knit this but I'm glad it's finished as I need to work on making some wash cloths for a friend of mine.  Here's the finished Wingspan. I just have to block it now.

 

 

Last night, I finished quilting a tablerunner I've had done since last year.   Today, I finished the binding on it and I'm so excited it's finished...

After I finished this up, I finished up another older project. I used this little quilt to teach a class of beginner quilters at my church and I decided it was time to quilt and bind this one too....

You can tell this one is older from the fabric used in it but I really like this one as it brings back some sweet memories.  I didn't quilt it too heavily but it's just right for me. I'll hang this one in my sewing room for awhile.  Ok, that's two more UFO's for me this year!  I can't tell you how excited I am to see my stack of UFO's going down just a little at a time but I am going to really work to have all of them done this year. 

I was going to work on some pink blocks for the Rainbow Scrap challenge for this year but I put my pink fabric up and couldn't find it!  I finally just gave up and worked on these old projects and my swap blocks and lo and behold, I found my pink fabric!  I don't have alot of pink and put it up so I wouldn't lose it...Ha, ha, you know how that is??  Well, now I can work on my pink this week....

The last thing I did was make my 5 swap blocks for this week.  We will swap these blocks this week and we only have one more month and the swap will be finished. I'll be able to start putting this one together.    I didn't have 40 nine patches to do this month like I thought. That swap was over last month and I got the last 40 blocks Tuesday night.  We swapped 480 nine patches!! Do you believe that?  Now you know why I was so burnt out on nine patches!  It was so good not to have to do anymore of those!  Here's my swap blocks for this month....

 

Ok, now for some TV time and knitting time.  I hope you have a good week and get to sew some.  Til next time, happy sewing.

Pillowcases for FNSI

Ooh, I just so enjoy making pillowcases. I made these three last night. These are to benefit Conkerr Cancer. Here's a picture of the three pillowcases I got finished. I've had all of this fabric in my stash and am finally able to put it to use.   I didn't have anything to go with the little astronaut fabric so I just made a regular pillowcase with no trim. The black and white is musical fabric and I hope some future musician will like it.

I'll have to pop over to Heidi's blog and see where to send these.  I hope you got some good sewing time in last night.  Well, gotta go for now, back to sewing. I have to finish something special for tomorrow!  I'll show it later!  Happy sewing....

My granddaughter and her Heart Pillowcase

Ok, my DIL sent me this picture. I made my sweet GD a heart/love pillowcase for her birthday. I thought this was pretty funny and had to share it. At least it's keeping her feet warm!

Pansy Park blocks, a sweet pillowcase and a block to exchange

Block 7


Block 8


Now that I have 8 of the blocks done I can do the middle part of the quilt. Not tonight but sometime soon. I still have to quilt my UFO #4, Nostalgic Garden. I have a few more days before the end of the month. I'm trying to decide how I want to quilt it.

Here's what Pansy Park will eventually look like..



Here's a little pillowcase I made.I have a little wallhanging to make too but I didn't have time to do that yet. I love pillowcases and they are really fun and quick to make.



This is a block for one of the girls in my quilting group. There are 14 of us that are in the exchange and each one of us gets to pick the block that we want everyone to make...This one was easy and quick. It is out of Eleanor Burn's book, Victory Quilts and Sharon wanted it in blues, yellows and reds..I think the quilt will be really cute.