Friday night sewing and Saturday sewing

Well, I didn't do as much as I wanted to Friday night but I enjoyed myself. I went over to the church and visited with my buddies and I worked on binding a quilt.  I finished  a little over half of it before I put it up and just walked around to see what everybody else was working on.  I enjoy seeing what everybody else is doing to see if I want to do it too!  One lady was working on the blocks that the Fabshophop was promoting and they were turning out really cute.  They call it the Fab Shop Celebration Sampler and you can find it here. They have alot of different blocks and hers was turning out really cute.  I pulled out my camera to take some pics and discovered that my battery was dead.  Sorry about that...Anyway, I charged it up Saturday morning and took some pics of what I worked on yesterday too.  Other ladies were crocheting and working on wool.  I guess I'm going to break down and do some wool work too.  I just love the way it looks and you don't have to needle turn it either....

Here's the quilt I finished binding Saturday morning.  This is called Fiddlesticks and I think it is a Bonnie Blue pattern.  A friend of mine quilted it for me and I just love the way she quilted it...if you click on the picture you can see the quilting...

I also worked on putting together my Cupcake quilt.  My group had an exchange (I showed you pics previously) and then last Saturday we got together and sewed on the quilt top. I put together some 16 patches and decided I didn't like them with the blocks so I then put together some big Nine Patches and cut them apart (Disappearing Nine Patch style). The alternating blocks are the D9P blocks.

I found the cutest cupcake fabric to use as setting triangles and the border fabric. I had some left over DP9 blocks and between that cupcake fabric and those, I might have enough to do the backing too.  Here's the flimsy all put together, ready for quilting...

Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt

I went to tatting and hung out with the girls for a while. I'm still working on my never-ending flag. I love it but it sure is taking a long time. I have only been working on it when I go to my tatting group so it is going slow because of that. I have been wanting to sew and finish projects instead of tatting. I didn't make the deadline for the state fair so I have given myself the ok just to relax and enjoy tatting it instead of being frantic about it. It was alot of fun at the group tonight and one of our ladies is sure to win the blue ribbon this year. She tatted a baby bonnet off of Tatman's blog and it is beautiful. I wish I had taken a picture of it but I didn't even think about it. We were just all visiting and laughing and time got away....I'll take one next week so you can see it . I left a little early so I could come home and sew.

This is what I worked on when I got home. I put the final borders on the Jelly Roll Sampler. I was able to get just enough fabric to do the border and hopefully I'll have enough for binding. Anyway, this one is now a flimsy and is ready for quilting.



This was alot of fun and easy to do. I had this Jelly Roll just laying around with nothing special planned for it until I ran across Moose on the Porch blog. I have a smidgen of fabric left from the Jelly Roll and I'll be able to make a mini quilt or something out of the leftovers, but that's another story... I want to finish some other things on my list first. Take care and happy sewing.

Unhealthy week-pincushions-Jelly Roll Block/Quilt- Finished Scrap quilt and a sick sewing machine

This week has been horrible. I started getting sick Tuesday and came home from work early. I have been off all week with this and haven't felt like doing anything but laying around. I guess it was a virus. Wednesday, my husband came home with it and Thursday my son came home sick. It has not been any fun to be at our house this week. My son and husband went back to work today, not completely 100% but able to deal... I finally felt good enough to do a little house cleaning and sewing. So, this week has been very unproductive.

I have sprayed my house down with Lysol and washed all the sheets, towels and cleaned all the bathrooms to prevent us getting sick again. After that, I was able to finally get a little bit of sewing done.

I didn't feel good enough to work on anything until last night. I started hand stitching this little pincushion. I finished it and stuffed it this morning...I had done this one before but it didn't turn out right so, I redid it. Here's the correct one. Isn't it funny how you can have the same pieces and if you sew it together wrong, it makes two different things? Well, that just about says quilting all over it, doesn't it?
I'm still going to do this one again. I really didn't want the green on top. I wanted the color that's on the bottom to be the fabric on top. Now that I know how to do the pattern, it will be easier next time. This is really what it is supposed to look like.



This is what I ended up with the first time...



Quite a difference, huh?



I should have told you earlier where I found the pattern for the pincushion. So, shame on me for not telling you. It was from a fellow blogger named Mae Britt from Abyquilt and here's a link to the pincushion. It was alot of fun to make.

I sewed the last row onto an organized scrap quilt and I'm calling this one done. I have more scraps and might make something else but this one's big enough. This fabric was leftover from three quilts I made a few years back. The quilt was called Starry Night and it was a Marti Michell quilt. I had to make three of the same quilt because one was for the girl that started the shop sample and had an accident. I made one for myself and I gave another away. I was really tired of this quilt by the time I finished working on these and I just put all the scraps away. I had some fairly big scrap pieces but not enough to do anything fancy. I saw a Moda University pattern and decided to do it. It was called La Jardin (I think-I can't lay my hands on the pattern right this minute). It really wasn't even necessary to have a pattern for this one. Anyway, I think this will look just fine quilted and bound in the lighter blue fabric. I have just enough left for binding. It's not anything fancy but I like the fabrics and always did.






After that was done, I finished up block 12 of the Jelly Roll quilt along...(I know mine is a little different than the pattern but this is how I wanted it)



and I sewed it into the flimsy...I don't have any border fabric. I'm still looking in my stash to see if I can use anything. If not, I'll check with the LQS and see if they have any fabrics from this line left. If not, I might just have to order something online to finish this one off...I really like this one and want to stay in the same family if I can. I'll show you again when the border's on.




While I was sewing this little quilt, my lovely little sewing machine and I were fighting. Ms. Bernina was being stubborn and kept stopping while I tried to sew. She kept freezing up. I kept pushing her along...turning her off and on to get her going again, and we finished up. (I guess she caught a virus from me too.) I was getting so much done today too...Ms. Bernina and I made a trip into town to the Bernina shop and my favorite repair man was waiting for me. I had called ahead to make sure he was there and he met me at the door and carried the sick little lady in for me. He took her in and checked her out while I sat in on a free demo. I looked around, purchased some fabric for the sashings and backing for the Crazy Patch Christmas blocks I showed a few days/weeks ago. I'll finish them up next. Anyway, he was able to fix Ms. Bernina up with cleaning, oiling and some sort of new sensor and I was able to bring her home with me. I don't know if I'll have time to sew on her anymore today but I'm going to try later. Have a good weekend and happy sewing...

July 11th is a special day, Rally Day, Quilts and some blocks to show

Today is July 11th. It is a special day. Ok, it's 7-11 day and you get free slurpees all day but besides that...I met my honey 32 years ago today. We always play a game to see who remembers first. My hubby said it first this year about 5 o'clock this morning when I had to get out of bed. I have not felt good today and I got sick this morning first thing. What a way to start the day, huh....Anyway, he was sweet and gave me a lovely little card too. He didn't give it to me then, he waited til later! I never get him a card for this and he always kids me about that. One of these days, I'm going to surprise him and get him a card. I always tell him, it's not our real anniversary, I don't get you a card for this, but he always still wants one.



Now, as far as yesterday goes, Rally Day was wonderful. The guest speaker was Cynthia England and her quilts were unbelievable and she was a hoot too. She is very entertaining and energetic and is a wonderful speaker. She does some amazing pictorial quilts. She seemed to be real down to earth and friendly too. I never thought I wanted to do any quilts like this until I heard her talk. She made it sound easy. I guess that's what they are supposed to do, right? So, they can sell their patterns and books but I really believed her, so, I bought her book. I might try my hand at this. Nothing major, maybe just a little wallhanging. I'm putting this on my list of future things I want to try....



She did say that it's better to see a demo on this and she has some on her website with some free patterns...Here's her site, if you want to check into it. http://www.englanddesign.com

There were over 450 people at Rally Day. I do not know how many guilds were represented. Some of the guilds were selling raffle tickets for their quilts and had them on display. I guess there were about 20 quilts on display for that. All of them were beautiful. I did not take pictures of all of them because there were too many people in the way. I think I bought tickets for nearly all of them too. You never know when you might be lucky. Here's a few pics of the two quilts I could get pictures of...




A Texas Quilt, all of these blocks were made by members for a challenge. I don't know if any of these were originals or not but it was a lovely quilt.
Click on it and you can see it closer. The little lady at the right hand side says something like, There's a new sheriff in town...very cute.
Of course, there's armadillos, bluebonnets, boots, cowboy hats, oil derricks, horses, cactus, the yellow rose,the Texas Flag, the Alamo, more armadillos on this quilt, so it truly is a Texas quilt.




Close ups of some of the blocks






I wish I could have taken pictures of all of them but there was no way. They were on display in a hallway on both sides. The hallway was about 12 foot across and when everybody was in the hallway, you could barely pass through.

The church where we met was wonderful. We have been at this same location for three years that I know of and it is great. Lots of room to move around in except when everyone is let out...

Everyone was given a goody bag and some people won door prizes. I was lucky and won a door prize. Here's what was in my goody bag.
Some fat quarters, a pattern, a pencil, some sticky notes, a little needle case, a name tag for totes, a little ruler and a tape measure. It was a nice little goodie bag. They give us goody bags each year. Everyone gets one and that way if you don't win a door prize, you still get something. Oh, did I mention that the Rally Day is free. That's right, if you are a member of a guild that is a member of TAQG, you get in free. If you are not a member, the cost is $20.00. Lunches are available for purchase at the guild meetings. You have to pay for these a month ahead to get them. I forgot and had to bring my own lunch. This is a great thing to go to and it is well worth guild membership just to be able to go to this.



Here's the doorprize I won: 3 patterns, 1 included fabric too. 3 fat quarters and two pieced of flannel kitty fabric. I will keep one of these and give the others to my guild to give away. I'm going to keep the one that had fabric. It has the two little kitties on the front. It's a small wallhanging. I thought I might make it and give it to the guild for our mini auction next year. Anyway, it was fun to win a doorprize too.



I went with two of my friends and we saw alot of our other friends there too. I enjoy going to this because this is one place I see friends I haven't seen all year. You don't get alot of time to visit but sometimes it's enough to catch up a little and make plans to have lunch together later. I love Rally Day!

I got home and was able to sew a little bit too. I finished my block. The Marti Michell block I was going to work on Friday night...here it is:


Here's the other one I told you about. The big Broken Dishes block:



Here's the sweet pattern that Cornfield Quilter sent me: It's a country star...This is on my do it soon list. thanks again, Carol!



I also made my blocks 9 and 10 of the Jelly Roll Quilt Along. Here they are:

Block 9:



Block 10


Now, to watch some TV and tat a little. Til next time, happy sewing...

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...

More Pinwheels and Jelly Roll Quilt Along

I came home tonight and made block 7 of the Jelly Roll Quilt Along. This was a fun block and it was quick and easy to do...

The corner pieces look brown or black but they are a dark purple...



I also made 6 pinwheels for my exchange. I now only have 28 more pinwheels to make. Sorry, I didn't take any pics of these but will show you these when the other 28 are done...I don't want to bore you with these little blocks. This is the last installment of our exchange and when we exchange these, we can start putting our quilts together. I love this quilt and am so excited about getting this together. I had made 14 pinwheels but am keeping those for another project. I'll show you that later. til next time...

Saturday Sewing-UFO3-Crazy 8's-Jelly Roll Quilt Along-Thomas Quilt blocks

I finally finished sewing together UFO 3- Dear Blanche Again...this is out of Eleanor Burn's book-Egg Basket Quilts. This is the one I've been trying to sew up all week and was finally able to do it. I think I'll leave this as is without any borders. 121 little blocks all together. These are all Civil War fabric and I really like this little quilt. It will look so good quilted...I can't wait to see it.




Here's a close up of the little blocks:




Then, I sewed together eleven more Crazy Eight blocks. I now have 18 of these. Not sure how many I need but I have alot more leader/ender blocks to sew. I'll eventually lay these out and see where/how they go together. More later...




I made block 6 for the Jelly Rolly Quilt Along...




Last, but not least, I did not sew these today. I made them Wednesday night and these are the last two blocks for this quilt...This is a Marti Michell pattern. I don't remember the name of it but I'll tell you what it is when I start putting it together. I have to make a patch border now for this.






Now, I'm going to the quilt store and to a friend's house to buy a quilting machine...more on this later....

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..