Weekend sewing!

Yes, I did get to sew this weekend but not much. I went to the church on Friday night and sewed and visited with my friends. Alot more visiting than sewing!!! Such a great time with my buddies. I got the Texas charm pack from Moda a few weeks ago. I decided I wanted to try it out with the Little Twister ruler. So, I put together a middle part using 36 of the 42 squares. I sewed those together Friday night and that's all I got done! Not very productive but I had a good time anyway. I didn't bring my ruler with me or the instructions either. I'm afraid I wasn't very organized and I'll have to improve on that! My friends were all working on various things including English paper piecing. I love it and and oohed and ahhed over some of Linda's little hexies and she gave them to me. She said she wasn't going to use them anyway so I was the lucky recipient of her already done hexies. Now, I'll make some cute little flowers out of them. I also learned how to make little boxes from old cards. One of the ladies was making these and showed me and another lady how to do them. If you have any leftover greeting cards, you can recycle them and make into the cutese little boxes to put rings or bracelets or any little objects for gift giving. Several ladies were crocheting too but I didn't get into doing any of that on Friday night... Saturday, I kept the grandbaby and she wasn't feeling too good. I had to hold her more than normal and play with her more so I didn't get any sewing done on Saturday at all.

Here's a bad picture of the Texas fabrics I put together. My husband took my camera and went to a car show with it so I didn't have it to take pics with. This one is from my phone and isn't a great pic but it will show you the fabrics...

Yesterday, I got a 3 1/2" border put on this. I used spray starch and pressed it really good then started cutting. I cut it all out and put it back together into pinwheels. The top is done and I'll show you a picture tonight. I got my camera back last night and forgot to take a picture. I had 6 blocks leftover and I put those together and used the twister ruler and make pinwheels out of them too. I sewed it back together and this is big enough for a mug rug. I had to use what was left and I'm not really pleased with it because of the color placement. The border is red fabric and I used red on the outside so you can't see one of the pinwheels. I learned alot by doing this project about color placement and hopefully my next one will be better. This was alot of fun to do and I'm going to do a few more of these. I'll show the top to you later tonight so come back and seee me this evening. Now I have to get busy and read some blogs I've missed reading all weekend! Happy sewing...

Weekend sewing and cooking

I sewed yesterday afternoon and worked on my Row by Row quilt.  I had made the rows but had not put them together. I started putting them together and found out I was missing a row.  I had not done the May flower row...I also didn't like the January row so I took it off and am re-doing that row.  I thought I could live with it and decided I didn't want to live with it....it would bother me too much so I un-sewed it.  I'll be re-doing that row and put it back on tonight or this week. I'll show you the finished rows later. I still haven't taken pictures of this but will this week.   I didn't get finished with the flower row as I had to stop and go to the grocery store. I wanted to try out a new recipe and do something different for supper. 

We like the Chipotle restaurant and I decided to try to do a take-off on their burrito bowl....I made spanish rice, Fajita chicken and red beans. I bought hot sauce from Chili's.  I cut up tomotoes, lettuce, onions and bell peppers.  My family liked it alot and so did I. My DH loved it and said he liked my version better than Chipotle...Hm, easy to fix and he liked it too.  Not bad, I think I'll do this again.

I made a recipe from a blog I read...Becoming Betty.  She had a recipe for White Chocolate Popcorn.  I popped popcorn and made her recipe.  Here's a link. I made this and was letting it "set up". (You know what I mean by that, right?  It's like Rice Crispie squares, you have to let them harden... I started reading blogs trying to catch up on the people I follow. I turned around to ask my husband if he wanted some and he was already munching down on it. He said it was his third helping...He loved this stuff.  This was also very easy to make...I can't wait to share this with my grandkids....
It was fun to cook tonight. Normally, it's a chore for me but I enjoyed making both of these.  Now, I'm doing an easy dinner tonight and sewing some more.  Hopefully, you will see pictures. I hope you get to sew today, til next time....

Saturday sewing

I got the little block from Friday night finished.  It's the block on the left with the pink star in the middle and blue around the outside.  I finished it differently than the pattern called for because the pattern measurements were wrong and I didn't want to take the time to figure out the correct measurement, I just put the rectangle around it and called it finished.  The other two little blocks went together just fine.  These are all 6 1/2" blocks.  They are  alot of fun to do but they take more time to do for me than bigger blocks.  I worked on these during the day yesterday while watching the grandbaby and doing a little housework too.  The pinwheel and 4 patch on the bottom were leftovers from the blocks and I didn't want to waste them. I'll put them in with all my other orphan blocks and one of these days I'll put together an orphan quilt.  That might be coming up pretty soon as I think I have enough blocks now to do it..I'll have to put those on my design wall soon and play some. Here are the little blocks I made:

Doesn't look like much work for a whole day, huh?  Oh well, it was fun and I'm this much closer to a finished quilt too.  These go in one of my UFO's (the 30's Sampler- Number 1 on my UFO list) and I only have about 12 more blocks to do, so I'm slowly whittling them down. 

Weekend Sewing and Cupcakes for dessert and a quilt too!

Ok, I know on my last post I said I would sew and show you what I did. Well, that didn't happen but I guess you can tell that....Anyway, life is still not  back to normal or whatever normal is...but it's getting there. 

I haven't been sewing hardly at all. I just can't seem to get motivated right now.  I have been looking at all my projects and reading books and magazines but when I have the time, I don't have the want to.  When I don't have the time, I just keep thinking of all the things I want to be sewing on.  This holiday weekend is a long weekend for me so maybe I can get a few things done. 

I was able to sew a little on Saturday. I  got a little hand sewing done and some tatting too.  After that,  I got some stuff ready for a sew day on Sunday with my friends.

For the Sunday sewing, we made cupcake blocks and we will be swapping them later...it was so much fun to get together and sew with friends. Of course, we had to have food and cupcakes for dessert.  I had a good time being with my buddies and actually got some sewing done too... We all met over at Martha's and we spent the afternoon making our cupcake blocks, playing with her dogs and eating cupcakes.

We had real food too.

Yum, those cupcakes are good!

Dee's first cupcake block...

This is so much fun!

Another one finished!

Aren't these cute?  Judy gave us all ceramic cupcake boxes with a piece of chocolate inside!

Here we are with one of our cupcake blocks.  We had alot of fun working on these together.  It's so much fun to see how everyone's was so different.  The instructions were to have a pink background with a cupcake on the diagonal. We all drew up our own pattern and we'll exchange later next month.  Some will embellish and some won't. It's left up to the individual but they were all cute!  There are 4 other ladies in the swap that couldn't make it. We will have 12 blocks each and we can put it together any way we want. We will be getting together to swap and sew the quilt up next month.  More fun times with friends to come for the summer months. We planned 3 other swaps too so please stay tuned!  Til next time, happy sewing.

Weekend sewing and the Dallas Quilt Show

I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend as I had other quilty things to do. I did work on my border for the purple baby quilt.  I had made the flower blocks last week  except for the white on the edges.  I had run out of white fabric and had to get some more before I could continue.  I put the white on white on the flowers and they now look like flowers.  I made some leaf blocks too  but I'm not going to use them...I made them 3 1/4" squares with 1 1/2" squares on the corners and these are way too big for my taste. So, I'm going to try 2 1/2" squares tonight and see if I like them better.  I don't want my leaves to over-power my flowers....Now, I have a few leaves to put into some other project and believe me, they won't go to waste. 

I tatted on my flag last night too.  I finished the last row of white and now I'm on the last rows of red.  Only two rows of this red and I'll be completedly finished.  I have been trying to decide how I'm going to do the stars and I've about decided on buttons.  This will be mine and I was thinking I would do them in thread but the more I've thought  about it the more I'm leaning toward the buttons.  I've looked online and at various shops for star buttons and haven't found anything I'm interested in, so I guess I'll make them. Some of the girls at tatting do polymer clay and suggested this to me sometime back...so, I'm thinking that's what I'll be doing.  I've never done this but there's always a first!  I'll be showing you my flag soon, I promise.

The reason I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend was the Dallas Quilt Show.  I went Saturday with two of my friends and we oogled and oggled at all the beautiful quilts.  In my opinion, this was the best show I've been to in many years.  The quilts were all great and it wasn't the same thing, over and over....Everyone is getting so good!!!  There was lots of eye candy to look at and I had a hard time deciding on which one I liked best.  I had several favorites.   Yes, I have pictures and I'll upload those later tonight when I get home.  So for now, this post has no pics but come back later and you'll see lots!  Have a great day and go get some sewing time in!

Weekend sewing, UFO 3 and Crazy 8's Quilt top

I have worked like crazy this weekend trying to finish this little quilt.  It gave me a run for my money, let me tell you.  I tried to put it together and it just wasn't working...The problem was the black cat block. I measured it and lo and behold I had cut it 1/2" short and it was not letting me put anything else together properly.  I had already sewed it in and had to rip it out to add to the block to get it to fit properly.  Since this black cat jinxed the quilt, I made it a star attraction by framing it!  I put it back together and trimmed up some other blocks and it fit together alot better.  I enjoyed this quilt top. It was definitely like putting together a puzzle because all the blocks were different sizes and had to fit togehter just so...I unsewed a few blocks here and there to put it all together.  It was a challenge but was alot of fun too.  This quilt holds alot of memories for me.  This quilt was a mystery sampler quilt put together by two friends in my small group.  One of our members passed away and these two ladies went through her stash and made up mystery packets for our group.  Most of the fabric came from her stash.  I also used fabric from two other friends that had also passed away.  So, while I put this little quilt together I thought about my three friends that had passed and all the good times I had with them.  I'm glad I pulled this quilt out and started working on it again as it really made me happy to think of my friends again.  I'm not sure if I will leave this as is or if I'll put a black strip around it, then do a piano key border....What do you think?  Please give me an opinion....

Should I leave as is?
Should I add a small black border, then a piano key border?
Should I just add a piano key border without any other border?
Any other suggestions?

Here's the quilt, what do you think?

After, I finished UFO 3, I also finished putting together the Crazy 8 quilt top.  I need to add the borders but at least the middle part is all together.. This one turned out big and I haven't added borders yet.  I still have a 6 1/2" border to put on it, so I guess it will definitely fit my king size bed. I'm through for now.  My brain cells are tired from working on the little quilt.  I wanted to do some blocks for the Civil War challenge but I'll have to just wait until tomorrow. Here's my Crazy 8 quilt without borders.

Sewing on Labor Day

I pulled out my Pfaff machine and starting sewing on the pink pinwheels again. My Pfaff is so dependable and easy to sew on. I bought it last year off of Craigslist and it has done me well. When I get Ms. Bernina back, I'll reward my Pfaff with a trip to the Pfaff dealer for a cleaning and oiling. But, I digress...I was sewing along on the pink pinwheels and my husband yelled up at me. Hey, we're hungry, can you fix some lunch? Now, doesn't he know this is a holiday? Holidays are supposed to be relaxing and doing what you want, right? Well, I want to sew. But, the guys have to be fed too and my DH only cooks easy stuff. You know, breakfast items and anything in a box with directions, like a box cakemix. He's gotten really good at making cakes. So, I went downstairs and fixed lunch for some hungry guys. There were 4 guys ready to eat. My two boys, my husband and a friend of my youngest son was here too. They were all working outside on cars. Both sons have just purchased cars that they wanted to repair, excuse me, restore is the right word, so they could drive. They were hot and sweaty and smelled like boys but they were hungry. I made lunch, made more iced tea for them, visited with them awhile and sent them back outside. Now, back to my sewing....

I was working away and almost had all the rows together and my DIL called. She and the grands were coming over, was that ok? Of course, I said ok, have to see the grandbabies. So, I stopped sewing again and went downstairs to see what all was needed for supper. She brought steaks with her and I made salad and baked potatoes. We chatted and I played with the grandbabies and it was finally time for them to leave. I went back upstairs to my sewing room and was able to finish this quilt. It wouldn't have taken long at all to do if I had not had so many interruptions or machine failures. But, at long last, here is the pink pinwheel quilt top I have been working on. It is now ready to go to Carolyn. It is for her. She is a long-arm quilter. She has so much business she doesn't have time to do her sewing. We are bartering. I'm sewing for her, she's quiting for me....this is the first one. I'll have more to come later when I take this one to her. The is called Sweet Summer Breezes by Common Threads Quilting in Waxahachie, Tx. This was a kit that she bought. I don't know how long ago it was so I don't know if it's still available. I love the pink toile nursery rhyme fabric, it was really cute.

Here's a close-up of some of the images on the fabric:

Humpty-Dumpty:



The Old Woman that lived in the shoe:


Here's the quilt top:

I'm sorry about the pictures, this turned out to be pretty large and I only had one person around to hold it....It is 87" X 87" square quilt.

Friday night sewing, Saturday sewing with friends

Sorry, no pics for this post.

So far, this weekend has been alot of fun sewing with friends. Friday, after work, I went straight over to my friend, Judy's house and worked on binding some pillows for her. During the meantime, she quilted two of my quilts. Dear Blanche and Table Manners...she finished late Friday night and I took them home with me. They are beautiful. I will take pictures and share them with you when they are bound. Hopefully, I'll bind them this week as I'm ready for these two to be finished...She did a great job and I am so pleased with them.

This morning, I went over to sew with my ASG friends at Lana's quilt barn. We had a blast. Everyone worked on whatever they wanted to. I took some things to work on but changed my mind when I got there. Sandy was cleaning out this week and brought some things to give away. I took some of the things from her and started working on them. As some of you know, I have a soft spot for teddy bears. She had a teddy bear cut out and I just had to have it. I sewed it all together but didn't have any stuffing. Next, I started working on my Placemat bags. I got one bag half way finished. I'll work on this one later this week too. Several of us made scissor fobs. I'll show you that later too. It was a fun day and we had good food and fellowship, as usual.

I came home and took a nap. It was so hot today and I was exhausted from all the fun! I got up later and found out I didn't have enough stuffing for my little bear. I had enough to stuff the legs and arms. I'll have to go to Walmart or Michael's tomorrow for stuffing so I can finish. I'll show you the cute little bear then. For now, have a wonderful Sunday.

Weekend Sewing and Mother's Day

Hello everyone...I didn't get alot done this weekend. Too many distractions. I started out sewing Saturday morning. I planned on getting my UFO 3 all sewn up but I kept getting phone calls. I sewed three horizontal rows of this quilt and that's all that got done. With all the phone calls and distractions, I just wasn't into it...

I had cut out a blouse pattern during the week and decided to work on it. I bought this pattern last week at Joann's. I haven't sewn clothing in years. I saw this and thought it was cute. I had some fabric that had been sitting around for oh, probably 6 years. I remember buying it at the LQS but I had no plans for it at the time. I pulled it out and it was just the right amount for this pattern. I started sewing on this and boy, do those 5/8" seams look big?! When you don't use something, you sure lose it! I had to make 6 pleats on this little blouse. No buttons, it was a blouse to slip on over the head. I worked on this for a little while then had to stop so I could go to the old grocery store. Ugh, I hate shopping on Saturdays and it was a holiday too! OMG, the store was packed.

I bought my groceries and came home and unpacked and the grandkids arrived. They came in like little tornadoes...No more sewing today but I sure had fun with my little sweeties.

I got up a little early Sunday morning unable to breathe. My allergies are so bad, the sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes woke me up....I got up, took some more drugs and went upstairs to finish the blouse. I got the sleeves put in and used my serger to finish the seams. Of course, I had to blow the dust off of it first!

I went to church and then went to my MIL's for lunch...I finished up hemming the blouse at her house. She was so surprised that I was making a blouse, she actually laughed at me...She was impressed that I could still make clothes though.

We came home but no sewing was done for the rest of the day/evening. The drugs had kicked in and I fell asleep on the couch. Happy Mother's Day, huh....

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..

Sewing Like Crazy and Goals for the New Year

I sewed for a little while on Friday and again on Saturday. Monday, I was able to sew all day except for fixing lunch and dinner for the family. I just can't get enough sewing time in lately. I don't even want to go to bed. I haven't felt this way in a long time and I'm sure glad the feeling is back. I guess I was burnt out for awhile but it sure is nice to want to sew again.

I'm trying to finish up some things. I finished a small wallhanging on Monday. It was a BOM from this year. (I almost said last year, oh my, can you tell I'm ready for 2009 to be over?) I will take some pics tonight. I made a table runner also. I have several more of these to make. I have accumulated several kits over the years and I'm going to finish every one of them in 2010. My goal for the year is to finish (quilting and label and binding---all the way) all of my kits, UFO's and all my flimsy's. That is one of my resolutions for the year. I want to see all of my quilts this next year so I can really enjoy them. I'm also going to load up my spare bed and change out the quilts every so often just to enjoy looking at them.

Ok, sorry, I got off the subject. I was supposed to go to tatting last night but the weather was iffy. It was snowing when I got off work and I just went home. I grabbed some Taco Casa on the way home to feed the family. I ate and went straight upstairs for some more bonding with my sewing machine. Oh yeah, I forgot to say I got my Bernina back and so far she's purring like a new machine. Oh my, I sure did miss her but we are getting along just fine now. I made my block for the Thomas quilt. (It's on my other blog-http://thomasquilt2009.blogspot.com/). It is a BOM and we are on block 9. It's a Marti Michell pattern and I'm loving this one. I put together 21 snowball blocks of another BOM I'm working on. This one is one of the 4 quilts I have going that are being made from reproduction fabrics. I have another 21 snowball blocks to put together tonight. I'll take a pic of this one too. I LOVE this one. It is an exchange quilt. I called it a BOM but it really isn't. Five of us ladies from my small group have gotten together and we are doing the quilt off the cover of the Quilt Sampler. I am also working on leaders and enders as I am working on these blocks. I did another small wallhanging last night that was for Fall. It is pumpkins and went together very quickly. I'll show you pics tonight. I'm very busy but I'm loving it. I have a list I'm working by and I'm not getting bored yet. I plan to sew every night this week. I don't even want to go to work but you know how that is...gotta make a living, right. Oh well, back to the grind for now. Til next time....