UFO 4 -Finished Quilting now onto the binding

Ok, I finished the quilting...it took me all day Saturday and most of Sunday to quilt this lap size quilt. I am very pleased with it and will post pics tomorrow.(I want to finish the binding first.) I finished quilting it about 8:00 tonight. I took time off to cook supper and let my machine cool down. I worked her hard this weekend...Anyway, I got back at it after supper and finished that part of the quilt. I ran upstairs and looked through my stash and I had just enough, I mean just enough green to bind this with. I was so excited! I put my binding on, made a sleeve for it and I'm down to the hand stitching now. I still have to make a label but that will be tomorrow sometime...

UFO Challenge and Amy's BOM

Ah, both Amy and Nancy have announced the February challenges. Amy has picked some great blocks for the February BOM. One of my favorites is the Blackford Beauty block. Oh boy, I'm looking forward to making this one. She has picked another one that I like called the Mosaic Star. That one will be a little challenging but should be fun to do. The last one, wow, it's called Key West and it is the Florida state block. I think this will be very challenging but what the heck, I'll give it a shot.

Nancy, the Patchwork Penguin picked UFO 7 for February. That for me is a signature quilt that still needs borders and quilting. Maybe I can get that one done in this short month of February. I already have the border fabric in my stash. All I have to do it sew it on and start quilting. Ah, speaking of that, I've taken a good break so I will get back to my January UFO and continue on it...til next time....

Quilting on my UFO

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the quilting of my UFO 4. I'm quilting this myself on my sewing machine and I have to stop every now and then cuz it's killing my back. I get up and stretch, go to the potty, play on the computer, watch a little TV and then I go back to it. I'm loving doing it but man, it is kicking my butt. I'm trying to finish the quilting today but it might not happen. I'm really liking how it's looking and am pretty pleased with it so far. I might have a finish in a few days at this rate. My DH still is not crazy about it but he says he appreciates the hard work I'm doing on it. More to come later....

Positive Thoughts to Help us in our Journey

Michelle over at the Raspberry Rabbit is having a stitchery and a drawing every month. The sayings are really cute and positive. I thought in my spare time, I might do some of these along the way. I have enjoyed doing my UFO with all the stitching so I thought I'd give it a shot...Check out her website, you might enjoy the journey too...http://theraspberryrabbits.blogspot.com/

Look at this one. This is the first one and I really love it...
This is Michelles from Raspberry Rabbit, isn't it pretty. I'm not going to do mine in linen. I think I'll stick to a good muslin..

Bonnie Hunter and Pat Sloan

I got home today and in my mailbox was Bonnie Hunter's new book: Adventures with Leaders & Enders. I ordered this book a few months ago and didn't expect it until the end of February. What a lovely surprise. I sat down to look at the book and decided to go on the internet to Quiltville.com and see what the messages were. I wanted to see if anyone had mentioned getting their books and I ran across a link to Pat Sloan's site. She has a podcast on her show with an interview with Bonnie Hunter. Here's a link:

http://toginet.com/shows/creativetalkradio

Once you are on the site. Look at the top right. Recent Shows, click on the one dated 01/25/2010.

Go listen to her and Pat. It's like they are in your living room with you. Fun times...Also don't forget after you listen to her show - be sure and go to Pat's blog and post about it and leave a comment so you can be entered in her giveaway of one of Bonnie's books! Check it out....

Portable Design Board

My sewing room is upstairs and my walls are slanted. I have no space for a design wall. I saw on a blog I read alot (Quilting Library) that she had a link to building a portable design wall...Sew Many Ways.

I had printed this out last week and given it to my husband and told him I wanted him to build me one of these. He said ok...I figured I wouldn't see it for a while but I was wrong. When I arrived home yesterday, he had made me one of these portable design walls out of the PVC pipe. He did a great job but I told him it was too small and asked him if he could make it bigger. He said he thought it might be too small when he made it and was prepared for me. He bought extra supplies, took it apart and put it back together within 10 minutes and I now have a five foot portable design frame. Now, I get to put some batting on it and I will have my design wall. He said he felt so guilty about my quilt, he made this to make up with me....It worked---- but I'm still going to hang that quilt in the living room! I'll take a picture and show you when I have put the batting around it...Go check out these two blogs, lots of info...

http://quiltinglibrary.blogspot.com/
http://sewmanyways.blogspot.com/

Jefferson, Tx Quilt Show

I went with two of my friends for the weekend down to Jefferson, Texas. We stayed at her lake house on Caddo Lake. I have never seen the spanish moss in the trees like that. It was beautiful...










We sewed, visited some shops and went to the quilt show. Very nice show. They have been having the show for 7 years now and is worth seeing. I think it's always in January and I hope my friend asks me back next year. I had a ball. I didn't get alot done but I did finish sewing up my Nostalgic Garden quilt. Very relaxing weekend...Now, here's some eye candy.

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.

February Friday Night Sew In

Heidi announced the date for the February Friday night sew in. Please put this date on your calendars...Friday, Feb 19..Click on the badge to the right and join us for sewing on that date. I'm getting ready now. Do you believe that January is passing by so quickly?? February will be here before we know it. Til next time....

My UFO Flimsy - Nostalgic Garden

Ok, I got to sew a little this weekend and I now have a flimsy of my UFO....Yeah!!!!

You want to hear something funny? I went to a quilt show and took some pictures. I showed the pictures to my husband and the last one of these pictures was not a finished quilt, it was my UFO flimsy. My husband said...look at that, that's awful, I hate the colors. That's just ugly. I said oh yeah? Well, thanks alot. He said, why, what are you saying? That's your quilt? You should have seen him. He didn't know what to say or do since he'd already had said so much. Oh well, I like it alot and guess what?
I plan on quilting it and hanging it on my living room wall so he has to look at it all the time!! Paybacks, right?

Here's a picture of Nostalgic Garden:

Block 12 of my UFO

Woo hoo, I have finished block 12 of my UFO and I can now start putting this quilt together....Oh boy, I am so ready. I will be sewing tomorrow as fast as I can. Here's block 12. Didn't this one turn out pretty? I'll show you pictures of the quilt top when I have it together. 10 years in the making...why didn't we have challenges like this back then? Maybe I would have been motivated to finish it then. Oh well, it's getting done now and that's the important thing, right?




I went to my small group meeting tonight. Do you remember that I showed you my house blocks that I had done for my exchange? Well, we traded them tonight and I got other house blocks. Here they are, aren't they pretty? This quilt is so much fun. I am really enjoying this exchange.









You know you always have one over-achiever in the group, right? She already has her blocks done up for the next 3 or 4 months. She gave us "samples" to show us what the blocks should look like. Of course, she is heading up the exchange so maybe she should be the over-achiever in the group....Love ya Sharon, thanks for doing the exchange. Anyway, these blocks are so cute. I'm excited about these little blocks.

Future exchange blocks:

Using the Square in a Square Ruler and the Easy Angle Ruler

I wanted to show you some things that helped me with my Pineapple Quilt. I have had these rulers for awhile now and used them in other quilts but never together. I'm trying to figure out quicker and easier ways to help me with my piecing. These helped me alot...

I made the Pineapple quilt a little easier for myself by using two great rulers. I used Jodie Barrows Square in a Square Ruler and the EZ Angler rulers. I love both of these rulers and use them alot now. I hate drawing lines on my squares as I think this takes up way too much time. I used the Square in a Square ruler to trim my corners then used the EZ angle ruler to cut my smaller squares to fit on the corners. I could have used this ruler to cut my strips then cut them into triangles along the strips. By cutting the squares, I now have left over little corner pieces from both the big square and the small corner squares. I have saved these and will sew these together to make a mini quilt later...I had already cut the squares before I started using the EZ angle ruler...Now that I have this little ruler, I plan on using it for alot more of my scrap quilts. Here's some pics to show you what I did...

Here's the block: I just have to add the last four corner pieces to finish this up.


I'm lining up the square in a square ruler...see the 90 degree mark?
Line those markings up inside your block and use the other line for your 1/4" seamline.




All four corners are trimmed and ready for the small triangles to be added to the corners.



Here's the small square for the corner pieces. If you don't like marking the square corner to corner to sew on...eliminate this by using the ruler.



Use the EZ angle ruler and trim up the small squares.





See how well the triangle now fits the trimmed block. Sew and press...


The finished block:


When I first started making these blocks I was marking the squares and sewing on the lines, then trimming. I hated doing this cuz it took so much time. I pulled these rulers out and this saved me alot of time on this quilt. Trimming up the corners with the square in a square ruler helped me keep the block more accurate. Give these a try, you might like them.

Sewing by candlelight

Last night, I wanted to sew on my sewing machine but couldn't. Our electricity had gone out earlier in the day due to storms coming through and was still out when I got home. So, I did like our grandmothers and great grandmothers...I sewed by candlelight. Wow, it's a wonder any of our ancestors weren't blind. It's hard to do that. We sure have it easy today. We have so many conveniences that we take for granted. I'm so glad I was born in the technology age. I probably wouldn't have made it way back when. I hate doing housework now, I can only imagine how much worse it was for them.... I used the candle-light but I cheated a little too. I had a book light and it was so helpful. Instead of attaching it to a book and using it, I stuck it in my mouth. My son laughed at me and said he knew I was hooked on sewing if I had to do it this way!I worked on the embroidery part of my UFO block, I'm almost finished!

Suzanne's Great BIG Giveaway and Sale!!!!!.

A blog giveaway... Suzanne Earley is having a great giveaway and sale. Go check her out. You can reach her by clicking here:
Suzanne’s Great Big Giveaway (and sale)
or click on the link to the right side...Either one will get you there. She has fabric and yarn at very reasonable prices.

Working on my UFO's -Pineapple Quilt

We went to church this morning then went over to my son's and watched the Cowboy game. Boo hoo...the Cowboys lost. We came home afterwards and I took a nap. When I got up, I found that my husband had fixed dinner; his favorite, spaghetti. He hasn't been fixing this very long and he always fixes enough for a few weeks! OMG, we'll be eating spaghetti for the next week. Oh well, I'm not going to complain...too much. He tries really hard and I didn't have to cook. I was able to go up and sew. I got my pineapple strips together and it looks really good. I have decided to put a small(I call it a racing stripe) inner border, probably blue and 1 1/2" then a piano key border. Maybe...I'm going to definitely put the small border then decide or look in my stash and see if I have anything I like for a border before I go to the trouble of the piano key border. What do you think? Small inner border with a plain outer border? No border? Small inner border with a piano key border? I would like your opinions.








I also sewed around the little red and white hearts with a blanket stitch. They look pretty cute.










I have several table runners now and I just got some bondable batting (is that the word?). You press it and it sticks to the fabric. I'm going to use this batting and machine quilt these little runners....I'll show them when they are finished. I did not work on my 12th block today. I will start on it tomorrow and see if I can finish it this week....Here's some pics. Give me your opinion please. Til next time...