Super Bowl Sewing and Design Wall Monday

Ok, I watched part of the game, watched lots of the commercials and I sewed too. I was running up and down the stairs to catch the game.  I got some really good exercise. I can't say that all my soreness is gone but almost...

I pulled out the blocks that I did last year for Amy's BOM and some blocks from my Pizza Box project. I picked some out and put them up on the design wall. I still have enough left for another quilt!  Anyway, I pulled out some fabric for the sashing and thought I would do stars in the sashings.  I tried this but it really didn't work.  There was too much white in the blocks, especially the corners, so the star was lost.  Why do the extra work if the star doesn't show up? 

Ok, I took this apart and pulled out some different fabric for the sashings and tried again. I really like this star fabric and I'm glad I used it.  This top is now together and is on my design wall. I'm trying to decide if I want to make it bigger or stop here and just add some borders. I'm going to sleep on it and come back tomorrow and look at it again...

I don't have alot of room in my sewing room and can't take a full head-on view of my design wall.  I hope you can tell what it looks like.  I'm really pleased with how these blocks turned out and how they went together...

When I started these blocks, I had no intention of this being a patriotic quilt but how can it not be when you're working with red, white and blue fabrics?  Oh, I love red, white and blue and now, I'm glad it's turned out to be patiotic....

I'm going to go link this to Judy L's blog for Design Wall Monday.  I've been hearing about this for some time and just never did it. Have a wonderful week and get some sewing done. Til next time,

Amy's BOM and a Friendship Block

I didn't do alot today. I really couldn't get motivated. I did three blocks, watched John Wayne on TV and cleaned house. Kind of a blah day cause it's still so hot here. I wanted to go outside but it was still so hot, I couldn't stand it. I am definitely ready for cooler weather....

I did two of the August blocks for Amy's BOM. I am really pushing the time limit on this one. Normally, I do these blocks the first part of the month but I really procrastinated.

Here's Block 1: Maltese Star



Block 2: Friendship Star
This one took me awhile to do. It wasn't hard but sure had a lot of pieces...




This is a friendship block for Marcella in my Sew What's Group. This was a fun and easy block from Quilter's Cache website....

Amy BOM

I was able to sew up my three blocks for Amy's BOM this rainy afternoon. I love these blocks and I'm so glad I'm sewing them today. They have put me in a patriotic mood. I did not start out to make a patriotic quilt but it's turning out that way. Here are my blocks for this month.

Block 1- July 4th



Block 2 - Star and Pinwheel



Block 3 - Two Star



Happy 4th of July.

Amy's BOM, Friendship Block, a small quilt,the Jelly Roll Quilt Along Block and a little bit of tatting

I'm sorry I haven't posted this week. I've meant to and just haven't felt good enough to post. I went to the dentist Monday and had the second part to my root canal. When the medication wore off, I was hurting. It wasn't tooth pain, it was pain from being worked on...I hurt for two days. I went to work and would come home and take pain killers and go to bed...finally by Wednesday, I was feeling better. My tooth feels good and Tuesday, I'll go for my crown fitting. I haven't hurt with a root canal before and I'm glad this is over, or I hope it is....

I have worked on some things this week. Here's some of the blocks I've been working on.

Amy's BOM for June:

County Fair


Constellation


Cobwebs


A friendship block for my small group...


Here's block 8 of the Jelly Roll Quilt Along



This is a community service quilt I meandered on my little frame. I just put these 5 inch blocks together for a practice piece. I'm still practicing. I'm going to be doing some more of these for practice but they might as well be used too.



And, I'm still working on my tatted flag. I got the last portion of the navy blue done last night and I've started adding the red and white stripes...It took me longer to do this than I thought it would. I would like to have this done by Judy 4th but I've really got to hurry now.



Here's the instructions I'm working off of. I am using this as a guide only. I'm using these but changing the count and doing the ends as a split ring to climb out. I am not cutting and tying...

My garden and Amy's BOM blocks

I got up really late this morning. I don't know what happened but the electricity went off this morning and I slept in. I was going to church but so much for that! I got up about 10:30...I never get to sleep that late anymore but I sure enjoyed it. My husband made us some breakfast and I just got to relax. Love it...He went outside to do yard work and I got to go up and sew. I made Amy's blocks and several more floating four patches. I also went outside and worked out in my garden. Maybe I should say, my Mother-in-laws garden. She came out and planted it, my son and husband put in the dirt and wood and we put up the chicken wire fencing to keep the rabbits out. Now, my job is to water and care for all these lovely little plants, oh, I get to eat it too...My MIL is the gardener in our family. She loves to putter in the yard and we reap the benefits. She does too but we eat more of it than she does...I pulled onions up today and gave to my neighbor. The onions are great...here's some pics of our little garden.









Here's my blocks. I was able to do all three of the blocks today. These were fun blocks to do. I liked all three of these blocks but it's a tie on my favorite this month...I liked Road to the Whitehouse and Follow the Leader the best. Road to the Whitehouse was fun and quick and I really like the fabric I used for it. I liked Follow the Leader because of the pattern it made...

Ohio Star



Road to the White House


Follow the Leader


I hope you have a great week and get to sew as much as you want to. Til next time....

Weekend sewing, UFO 2 flimsy, Amy's BOM, Jelly Roll Quilt Along

I have had a very busy weekend sewing. I was able to sew yesterday all day and this afternoon after church...
I finished the third block of Amy's April BOM. Pennsylvania Parade is the name of it and it looks better than I remembered. I didn't like this one at first it grew on me. I'm loving all of the blocks Amy has picked out for this. This is going to be a big quilt!!! Here's Pennsylvania Parade:




Now, here's the 4th block for the Jelly Roll Quilt Along:
The block is called Stepping Down:



I finished this cute little snowman too. I've had him for several years. It was a kit I got somewhere and I wanted to have it finished by Christmas but that didn't happen. He's finished now and will be ready for this Christmas. See, he's in the strawberry patch right now wondering what happened to all the snow. I made these cute strawberry pincushions yesterday too. I want to make more and will soon. I'd like to make all kinds of fruit pincushions and I'll be looking out for more fruit. I want to make these and give these to some of my sewing friends for Christmas. These were very easy to make and I got this pattern off of Freebies for Crafters blogspot. You can get there if you click on their linki at the right side of my blog....Great website. I have made several things from this site and I visit it all the time...Check them out.




I made this cute little snippet holder too. It was very easy and quick. I'll give the directions out soon when I decide or find out how easy it is to find the stiff stuff I put in the seams. I don't know what it's called so I'm going to have to make a trip to Home Depot and look around...I'll let you know soon.



Next, I made several of these floating 4 patch blocks. I don't remember how many I made 10 or 13. Some for me and some to exchange...



I made 3 of these blocks. They are called Crazy 8's. I'm using them as my Leader and Enders and I'm only using florals. I had cut the background fabric for another quilt and didn't like it with that project. It works great for this one so I'm just that much more ahead of the game....




I also did the last 4 blocks for my UFO 2, Dear Blanche. I am behind on this one but it's ok. I'm farther along than I have been in along time so I'm still ahead as far as I'm concerned!


I had time too to finish the border and I now have a complete quilt top. Here is the top I call Dear Blanche. It will be going through a name change shortly but not til it's quilted. Someone asked me before if this was the name of this quilt or if it was my name for it. This was an exchange and was named after the person that wanted to do this quilt. This quilt came from a magazine a long time ago. It was in the April 2004 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting and it was called Pink Spring Fling in the magazine. Here's Dear Blanche with all the borders on it ready for quilting! I have decided I'm not going to quilt this one. I bought a pantograph at the Dallas show and I'm going to give it to my friend , Judy and ask her to quilt it for me....Hopefully, she can get to it soon. For now, here's the finished flimsy:




I never showed you what I got finished at retreat. I did get all 4 blocks done of my Pansy Park. I have the borders ready too and they will go on next. I did get the middle part done. Now that I have all this other stuff out of the way, I'll start working on Pansy Park again and hopefully get to finish this this week. I am so excited about this quilt. It will go on my new bed and I'm changing up my curtains and everything for it...I can't wait. This quilt will be beautiful when it's finished. Here's the 4 blocks and the middle part....












Okay, I'm ready for more...I want to sew some more now but I guess I better be nice and visit with the family a little. I guess I'll go get the quilt to bind and work on it while I'm watching TV with them....til next time..

Amy's BOM and Dee's Star

I came home and fixed dinner then headed upstairs to sew. I was able to make two of the blocks for Amy's BOM. The third block was Pennsylvania Parade and it just didn't look right to me. I checked some of my books to see if I could find it, but couldn't so I came back downstairs and looked on the internet. Lo and behold, I found the same block. I should have known Amy wasn't wrong! I wasn't really doubting Amy but I just thought the block could have gone together differently. After doing this, I didn't have time to make it, so I'll try to get it together tomorrow night. Here's the first two blocks...

54-40 or Fight:




This is Housewife:


I also decided on the block I would make for Dee. She's one of the girls in my small group and she let us decide what 12 1/2" star block we wanted to make. I don't know if this has a name or not. I just decided to put a pinwheel in the middle square and then do flying geese on the outside to make the star points. I'll try to look it up and see if there is a name for it somewhere. I just know I didn't want the middle block to be plain, as it was 6 1/2" and it was too big to be just a solid piece of fabric. We had to use the black fabric and only one batik fabric with it so...this is what I came up with. I hope she likes it. If not, I'll keep it for myself cause I like it alot....The batik is purple even though it looks more blue in the photo.

This is Dee's star but I found a name for this star off of Quilter's Cache, it's called Diamond Star.




Oh, did I tell you I'm going to a quilt retreat this weekend? I'm going somewhere new and I'm very excited about it. After the last two weekends, I decided I needed some R & R so what better than a quilt retreat. Somewhere peaceful with my fabric, friends and food. (I don't have to cook either!!!) Oh my, I can't wait. I'm still trying to decide what I want to take. I have several things in the works and my UFO's I need to work on but I want to take something that's a no-brainer. I don't want to have to think about or make any decisions. I just want to sew like crazy...Hmm, I'll have to ponder this and decide. I should have started getting it together tonight but I just had to sew some...Oh well, more to come later. Til next time...

Amy's BOM blocks

Ok, I got busy today and did my blocks for Amy's BOM....all three of them.
Block #1 is called Scrap Happy. Amy asked if anyone knew a more traditional name for this block and I tried looking for it. I found a block similar to it in Maggie Malone's 5500 block book. It's called the Royal Star and it's pretty close.



Block #2 - Double Friendship Star


Block #3-Arizona Cactus
This was not my favorite block...the middle portion was not very accurate. I suggest you make the blue 5 1/2" rectangles longer than 5 1/2". Maybe 6", then trim back as needed. My middle block was a little small.I also suggest you take smaller seams that 1/4" for the middle part...I really had to fudge on this one but it will be ok...



I just looked at Nancy's blog (Patchwork Penguin) and she picked the UFO for the month. It is UFO #2, which for me is Dear Blanche. I have 10 blocks left to do on this quilt so I better get busy this month. til next time.....

UFO #7 My Sewing Friends and Amy's BOM

Ok, this is my last post that says UFO #7 because.....it's not a UFO anymore! Here's another finished object for 2010. Yes, that's right, you heard me...my #7 is complete and I have the rest of the month to work on other things. I do have to still put a label on it and I plan on doing that. I want to make it with my computer and I'm going to try that out. I have some solution to soak my fabric in to make the ink not fade. I think it's called Retayne...anyway, I'm going to try it out and I'll let you know how it works. I've done labels off the computer before without it on one quilt and when I washed it the label faded..The words are still there and you can see it but it sure washed out alot. I'll try this stuff and test it and let you know how it works. I'm going to try it out and do all the testing on it before I sew it on.

Here's My Sewing Friends:




I was able to work on two of the blocks from Amy's BOM. Two down and one to go for this month. I printed the last block out and didn't get to do it yet. It's a little more tedious than these two and you have to do templates for it so, I saved it until last.

These blocks were fun to do.

(Please note that these are on my new design wall)

Blackford's Beauty block:




Mosaic star went together very easily the way Amy told us to do it. She suggested using the Easy Angle ruler and making half square triangles instead of the old way of set-in seams. The Easy Angle ruler is my favorite ruler of all times. I love it and think it's a great tool. She also suggested on the layout to put the block together in stages. 4 of the sections will look like a W, 1 star and the corners will be 4 patches. I layed the block out first and decided Amy's suggestion was the best way to go. So, I sewed the 4 W sections, the 4 pathches and the star together, then layed the block out. Sewed the sections together as they should go and it went together so easily. Easy Peasy....a finished block.

Mosaic Star:



Yes, Amy, my block finished at 12 1/2"! Yeah, I had my doubts too but it all came out ok...