Row By Row quilt and a little Christmas wallhanging

I finished my Row by Row quilt this weekend.  I think it turned out really cute.  We were given  a row instruction each month last year and the final instructions were given to us in November.  We are to take it back to our January meeting and show how we finished it.  For all the ones that finished, there will be a surprise drawing.  I think there was only 8 or 10 of us doing this but this was a fun project and I know everyone will be sorry they didn't do it when they see the cute quilt it made.  Here's my Row by Row quilt flimsy ready for quilting.

Here's a little wallhanging I finished too. 

A few things in progress...

Here's the last two rows of my Row by Row quilt I was telling you about in my last post.  This was a mystery for my group but it is on the internet and here's the link to this little BOM quilt....This has been alot of fun and I think this little quilt will be really cute when it's finished.  I had just enough background fabric to do this. If we's had one more row, I would have had to use another background fabric. Wow, I was sweating it for awhile. You will see the finished product soon. This Thursday, I go to my small group and we'll get the finishing instructions....

I've also been telling you that I'm working on a little tatted bag but I haven't shown it to you. I'm still not finished with it. I've got 5 more rows to put on it before it's finished but I wanted to show you what it's looking like so far.  Yes, I'm still tatting but not as much.  There's just not enough time to do everything....anyway, here's what the little bag looks like. I didn't realize the picture was so dark until I posted it.  I'll take better pictures when it's finished. 

Ok, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you about the surprise giveaway I'll be having soon.  I'm so excited and I hope you will be too. til next time.....

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!!!!

The Row By Row Quilt, Some Kaleidoscope blocks and some unexpected visitors!

I forgot to show you these.  I did these Wednesday.  I made these two rows of my Row by Row quilt so now I'm ready for the next month.  I think she's passing us out the rest of the quilt. We have two rows left and the outside border.  This was a little mystery Row by Row that some of the girls in my quilt group did.  I say some because everybody didn't do it.  I think there might have been ten of us and most of them are different.  I used white on white for my background and I really like it.  Nearly everybody else used cream or beige so mine is different from everyone elses.  This has been fun to do and not too overwhelming.  Here are the rows....

A little closeup...September was apples and leaves.  October, the pinwheels represented  chocolate kisses and candy corn.

Here's what I worked on yesterday.  I didn't get these finished. I'll be working on these today and probably over the weekend too.  These are not for me, these are for a friend of mine that does quilting for me.  I'm late in doing these. That was one of my goals for the week, to get caught up on my obligations.  So far, this is the last one and even though I have felt bad, I've accomplished this much at least. 

This stack should make18 blocks and I have more fabric to cut out. Her instructions were to make as many as the fabric would allow.  I cut out two batches yesterday. Each batch makes 9 blocks and I think I have enough fabric for one more batch so I should get this done by the weekend anyway.  I cut 6 strips of each color (4 colors) and sewed together.  Pressed toward the dark and used Best Press on the strips. I LOVE this stuff.  I don't always use starch or steam on my quilting but this pattern recommended steam.  This is just enough to keep my bias edges straight and gives some crispness to the design. It's going together pretty well so far.  After I sewed the strips together and pressed them, then I used a 45 degree ruler to cut out my triangles.  Then you sew them back together and it creates a spider web or as the pattern called it a Kaleidoscope.  Here's what I've got so far:

Last night, I went to bed and my husband stayed up watching TV and playing on the computer.  He heard some noises on the front porch and decided to investigate.  There were three raccoons trying to get into the house...scratching on the door, playing on the porch, running in the yard and my crazy husband went out and took pictures of them before he shooed them away...No way I would have gone out there!  But, here's our night-time visitors.  I guess they were hungry or thirsty but I hope they don't come back tonight....

Ok, I gotta get busy and get something done today. Have a great day/weekend and get some sewing done.   til next time, happy sewing!

Some things I worked on this week

Ok, I have done some things this past week and I haven't showed them. My computer at work doesn't like to upload my pics to blogger anymore so I can't do it at lunch. I've been super busy this week and haven't taken the time to post....here's what I was talking about in my last post.  It's my Row by Row quilt and I finished doing the May or 5th row and added it in.  I redid the top row and took off the first pinwheel row and replaced it with the new one...I think it looks alot better.

See the blocks I took off. I changed my mind about the background color and went with white so this row of pinwheels just didn't work for me.  The pattern calls for a beige or off white background but I found this white fabric I loved and wanted to us it....I'm the only one doing white background and I'm glad I decided to use it.  Mine will be just a little different from everyone else's and I like that.  Who says we have to follow the rules?  Anyway, I like the way it's looking so far and this has been alot of fun. Only 4 more months to go on this little quilt and it will be finished. I can't wait to see how it's gonna look.

I made these two little blocks this week for the leaders of my quilting group.  I couldn't show them before now as the blocks were a surprise for them.  Everyone in our group made a heart block and gave to them.  Our party was Thursday night and it was alot of fun and the heart blocks were great.  I didn't take pics of all of the different blocks but I'll show you those when they put their quilts together.  Here's my blocks.  These were just simple little hearts with a few different stitches from my machine but I added some of my tatting around the blocks.  We were asked to do one in pastels and one in brighter colors....

Diane and Judy loved all of their blocks!

I did show the girls at Tatting on Tuesday night and they liked the blocks too.  I had done the tatting a while back and didn't have any purpose for it except to put it on something like a pillow or maybe a hankie so this worked out really well.  I have a little bit left and I'll make something else with the leftover lace.  I guess I could have put more tatting on it too but I ran out of time....

Catching up, feeling better and a finished top

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I haven't felt good and haven't done any sewing.  I have had a terrible tooth ache.  My dentist fixed this tooth back in January but it didn't work. I finally had to give up and go to the endodontist and they drilled through the crown to do a root canal.  After two weeks of tooth  and jaw pain, I finally got some relief on Thursday and started feeling lots better.  My mouth is still tender but no pain..Woo hoo, you can only imagine the relief!  Anyway, I'm not on any more drugs and I finally felt like doing something besides going to bed... 

I worked on several things this weekend.  I made a quick little quilt top out of some Brown Bear fabric I've had in my stash.  I haven't had this in my stash very long, maybe a year or two...anyway, I already did one Brown Bear top a few months ago but I really liked this one when I saw it in another magazine. I fussy cut the animals out and the fabric I have left is really holey...(I hate fussy cutting only because of the waste of the fabric) I'm going to cut up the rest of the animals and use them on my last Brown Bear panel  that I have. I'm going to keep the panel all together on this last one  and just add borders around it. I'll use the left over animals in the border or maybe on the back of the quilt. Here's the Brown Bear top I made this weekend:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?

I finished this little quilt top for community service. This is a little top I started at my small group at our last meeting. I couldn't finish it at the meeting as the kit was short two blue cornerstones and I had to cut those out of my stash.  I cut those and finished sewing up the little top.  I'll give this back to the  group and we have long arm quilters that will do the quilting for us...

Here's a close-up of the blocks, this fabric is all different kinds of mocassins.  The fabric was pretty cute and I didn't like the border at first but it grew on me as I was putting it on.  I think it turned out ok and I hope some little kid will like it.

I also worked on catching up on my row by row quilt.  I made three rows and I'll add these to the other rows I  have already done. Now,  my little row by row is all caught up.. I didn't take a picture of those but I will and I'll show you later.

I didn't do this over the weekend but I wanted to show you this cute pincushion that I made at my last ASG meeting.  It is made out of wool and he turned out so cute. It's a little porcupine.

 I planned on working on the Barbara Brackman blocks but didn't get to them .  I have fallen behind and need to catch up on these too. I'll try to work on them this week.  I did all of my sewing while watching the youngest grandchild and she demanded my time too...so, these were on my list but she took priority. I'll have to catch up on them another time.