Finish Along

I have just read all the rules and how the Finish Along will work over at She Can Quilt.  I think this will work nicely with the list that I have already started for 2013.  I have been following that blog for awhile and love some of the things she has made and boy has she finished lots of things in 2012!  I am not sure how one person can get that much done. This will be perfect to keep me on task to get some things done that have been lingering a little too long.

I love lists and I really love crossing things off my lists with a deadline.  I like working under a litte pressure even if it is just self induced.  There is never anything wrong with that in my book.

So it looks like I need to review my list and take some photos which I was going to do anyway.  I just need to do that today or tomorrow when I have some daylight hours.  So this should be fun and who doesn't like the chance at some prizes and being able to see what everyone else is working on!

Well, this was just a quick post now to get ready for this evening.  Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve!

It was a Very Merry Christmas

We had such a great couple of days.  Not too much running around, definitely a lot of cooking!  Here is a picture of just the four of us.  I have taken a picture of us in front of the tree with the auto shoot for years. And yes I am the one running into the photo so there were several takes to get one that looked okay. We were laughing through it.  

 

Christmas Eve morning my cousin called to say there had been a change in plans and if I wanted to see my grandma we could stop by there house in the afternoon!  Well, we had to hustle to make that happen but the boys kicked in and we were able to make that happen.  I was so happy!  I normally do not see my grandma at Christmas and this year I had made her a quilt so it was perfect to be able to deliver it in on Christmas to her.  However, my plan was to go to her house over the week break so the label still needed to be done and the wrapping! 

Here are my boys with their great-grandma! 

 

Here is the quilt I made her!  She loved it.  I quilted loopy-loops in it.  The close ups didn't really turn out.  I think better photos are needed for 2013!

 

So onto the update for Easy Street!  I have made lots of progress, not totally caught up but getting there.  I am going to sew yet tonight so I should get a little closer.  I still need to do 40 flying geese from step 2!

 

 

 There they are ready to go!

 

 

 

Here are all the pieces I have done in the project box.  I just have to do the 64 geese with the teal.  I really wanted to be totally caught up by today.  I should have some time yet tonight and then tomorrow. 

Tomorrow night is the DS #2's 16th birthday.  So a few errands and the family over for pizzas. This time we are doing carry out.  All I need to make is garlic bread. That I can handle!


Well thank you if you made it to the end of this post.  I am tired from just writing it!!  I am linking up at Easy Street at Quiltville making it just under the wire.  Can't wait till the next step revealed tomorrow! 

WIP and Easy Street

I have been able to do some sewing either I am not finding enough time or things just really seem to take longer than I think they should.  I have always been know by my quilting friends as a speedy sewer but doesn't seem to be working that way lately.  I know that when things become a little too crazy at home or at work sewing always puts me in a better mood.  So on the WIP's....

Progress 

Easy Street, I have finished step 3!  I had all of those cut so watched a sappy Hallmark Christmas movie and finished them all.  I am still working on those fly geese.  I was trying to figure out which method to use but since I had some 2 inch strips cut I am using the Easy Angle.  They are turning out pretty well I just need to sew more of them to get caught up on step 2 and step 4. 

The shaded 4 patch

Here are the pieces in one place.

Completed Projects
Since I had holiday sewing to do and I started Easy Street none of the other projects have gotten much attention but that is ok since I did get the 3 pillows done for three co-workers.  I am very pleased with how they turned out.  Not so thrilled with the pictures since it was very gray all weekend with no sun and it is dark when I leave in the morning and dark when I get home. So a few pictures snapped in the sewing room is all I got!  Here are the three all together.  I really like them.  I gave them to their new owners and each of them loved them.  I had the fabrics nailed for each of them.  A couple close ups as well:

This one was my favorite.  I love that olive green and turquoise together with a touch of red.

I had been saving these fabrics for something special but decided it was time to use it up since I am sure there will be new Christmas fabric to buy next year! 

Now I just need buy a few more gifts and wrap them all!  All the baking and chocolates are done which is a big relief.  A snow storm is headed this way tomorrow so hopefully I can stay in and get those gifts wrapped and sneak in some sewing! 

 Have a great week everyone and thanks for stopping by!

Linking up to WIP at Freshly Pieced and Plum and June, Let's Get Acquainted, and Easy Street at Quiltville!





Easy Street Step 3 Plus Christmas

So this week I am doing a little better on Easy Street I have all the pieces cut. That will make it easy to do some piecing this week. Last week I only have 10 of the fly geese done and I don't have them all cut since I can't decide which method I want to use. It was much easier when I did RRCB and all of my fabric was cut into the strips, this time I used fabric from stash so I needed to cut it all. I watched a couple of movies while I was working away. Here is everything stacked and ready to go! 

I am excited to cut into these fabrics since I just love the colors.  I have a few projects to finish for gifts and then I will be able to devote my time to Easy Street.  Just saw someone post an alternative way to make these blocks.  Really wish I would have seen this Shaded 4 Patch way before I cut everything!  Oh well hopefully it will be happy stitching with those bias edges.

After I finished cutting these I wanted to get the tops for three holiday pillows done for gifts.  I have three employees that I really like making something for each year and I thought a holiday pillow would be fun. 

These two are pieced together and ready for quilting.  The pattern came from Stitchery Dickory Dock and thought it would be fun and most importantly fast and easy!  I had a charm pack of Fruit Cake from Fig Tree.  I had a lot of this line that I keep thinking I will make a Christmas quilt. I think I might still have enough.  I just divided them into two color groups. 

I still need to sew this one together.  This one is an old Moda line I had by Sandy Gervais.  It is called Cold Winter Noses.  One of the ladies is pretty traditional so I thought this would be something she would like.  Since none of them sew at all they really do like whatever I come up with.  I like that part! 

Goals this week:

Finish the pillows

Step 3 of Easy Street

Monday. there was no sewing since my friend and I made homemade chocolates/candies all day!  We make lots of kinds and give them as gifts as well.  Then to top it off a holiday party at night.  I really need to kick this cold I have been hanging onto as well. 

Have a good week and thanks for stopping by!

Linking up to Quiltville and Plum and June

Monday Update



I know I need more hours in my day during the month of December.  I am just so happy that this month I will have every Friday off in December!  I never plan my time off during the year and have extra to take but I so happy it works out like this.  I will have to time(hopefully) to get everything off the to do list and if not it probably didn't need to happen. 

I did sew just a little on the Easy Street Flying geese.  I was getting really tired last night but wanted to at least put a few together. My only problem I cannot find my Easy Angle.  I know I had one since I used it when I did RRCB but since then - nope don't know what I did with it.  But while I was reading on the Internet someone suggested just tested out a few with different methods to see what you like.  Now I have made lots of fly geese and tried them all but thought I could give it another round of tries so my first one was the fly geese ruler.  I had bought this when I did a Feathered Star in a class so I had this on hand.  Didn't really like it then and not sure I like it now but they did turn out nice.  There just seemed to be so many steps. 

One attempt results in 4 flying geese. That part I liked.  I can try the different methods since this time I pulled from stash and nothing is cut.  So I am hoping tonight to try another method and look for the missing ruler otherwise with a coupon off I go to Joannes tonight! 

I finished my sewing machine cover that I am giving a quilty friend for Christmas.  I relly like it!  I just machine quilted in the light fabric with two zig zag rows.  I hope she likes it.  I know it is dark but my sewing is late and in the basement so no good lighting.  It is on my machine in the picture.

We are big Badger fans here so we were all very happy that they won and will be headed to the Rose Bowl on New Years Day!  I have a friend who is Badger crazy so I found this tea towel and made this up last night. She is going to love it!  I hope to get a couple more of these towels after Christmas for myself and a couple other Badger Fans that I know.



So the last small finish was this little bag from the pattern over at In Color Order.  This one is my second and I only needed to sew the lines for the drawstring and I used ribbon this time.  This will be a gift and has a necklace in it.  It is the smallest size.  It is so cute!

I also thought I would link up at the Small Blog Hop on Lily's Quilts blog.  I like seeing new and old blogs and meeting a some new people too and since I have just started this blog I definitely qualify as small.

Also linking up at Easy Street Part 2 and Plum and June!

Easy Street Update

I have gotten a little sewing in while doing some shopping, decorations, and cooking. Bonnie's first clue was out on Friday and I was glad it was not too difficult to finish. She has said this is not as piecey as previous quilts but we will have to see.   Just had to make 192 4 patches.  That seems simple enough and it was but always takes a little more time than I think, but they are done.  Yeah, step one complete.  I love grey and used up a bunch of strips from previous projects plus some white, black and grey prints I collected over the last year.  Here is the post with the colors I picked.  I have replaced the purple with orange and am super excited to see how this one turns out.  I love all the colors and fabrics!

Now on to gifts for Christmas.  First up is a sewing machine cover for a quilty friend.  She has a serious love of batiks so I picked a few out and then took the zig zag quilt from Crazy Mom Quilts blog to start on that.  I just down sized it to 1.5 inches by 2.5 inches.  I was able to measure her machine on our sewing weekend. So here is hoping it turns out like I think it will in my head.  I really wanted a bright zig zag.  So far so good!

Next will be 3 holiday pillows.  I am just taking one task at a time and hopefully will keep checking things off the list with out getting too overwhelmed. 

I did get the quilt for my grandma done but totally forgot to take pictures of it this weekend so I need to do that this week yet too. 

Linking up to Quiltville and Plum and June !

What I have been up to

 

This post is heavy with pictures.  I kept thinking that I would have time to post some progress but no go this past week.  I should have had the week of Thanksgiving off but work just did not cooperate so I worked Monday and Tuesday, long days but had off the rest of the week off. That was great but when you host Thanksgiving there just is not enough time to sew too! 

 

So there was some preparations for the best holiday ever and my oldest was home from school.  Which always makes for a great weekend. When he was home, I was able to give him his T-shirt quilt.  He slept with it all weekend and it made the treck back to school today when I drove him back!

 

 

 

 

Dinner was great.  I love cooking for Thanksgiving.  Everyone brings something and the DH cooks the turkey on the grill.  It is alway so good. He received lots of compliments!  Our house does not have a dining room so we make due in the kitchen and squeeze around the table. 

 

 

Every year we take a picture with the turkey.  We almost forgot and had to put the turkey legs back in. 

Here is my mom with a photo of each of her grandkids. There is only my brother and I, so three very spoiled grandkids for my mom. 

 

There always seems time for a nap and a little head rub!

So on the sewing front I have picked my fabrics for Easy Street which is Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.  I did one a couple of years ago to use up some scraps and loved the fabric selections this year and she said it is not as piecey as the last couple so decided I should do this one.  I am not sure if I will be able to keep up but I am going to sure try.  Bonnie's colors were the same except for the orange, she has purple in there instead.  Since I don't have a whole lot of purple, I went with orange. I am really excited to start on this one.  I only had to buy one more yard of the grey, not bad. 

So now I need to get back to sewing!  I have a lot of gifts to make as well as keeping up with the mystery quilt.

 



Friday Finishes

I finished the t-shirt quilt for my oldest son.  I had planned on making him one for a long time so when he cleaned out his room when he was leaving for college I stacked all those t-shirts up and there they sat. He is in his junior year at college and thought I better get this done. So I cut and interfaced a lot of shirts!  I had over 30 and used most of them. 

He made sure all of the ones he wanted were in it and that each year of High School was represented in the quilt.  You will notice that there are clumps of color together.  Well, I had laid this one out distributing the color asked him what he thought and rearranging he went. The shirts front and backs had to be next to each other.  So I put it together as requested. 

I thought I would send it out to have it long armed but really didn't want to spend the money so I decided I would quilt it.  I found the design after spending some time over at Leah Day's Blog.  Lots of ideas and videos of how to do it.  I also thought tackling this one block by one block would be helpful.  I liked the way it turned out.  Still need to work on staying on the same stitching line and lining up my stitches when I start and stop.  They always seems to jar off. But you I am getting better each time I do it and once you stand back and look at it.  it looks pretty darn good!

Recently, I had just finished a quilt for our bed at our cottage.  The room has all paneling (hate it) so this definitely will brighten the room up.  I started it back in March at a retreat.  The pattern was from Moda Bake Shop and was call Ruby, Pearl, and Opal Quilt.  I had this quilted at my LQS.  I loved the daisy like flower.  I put Kona butter on the back.  I had picket up a layer cake of Terrain by Kate Spain and then a few pieces of what I could find along with some Good Fortune as well.  When I decided I wanted it bigger I added the solids in as well.  I am not real good an keeping fabric colors or names of what I use.  If I like it I buy it and use it. I love the bright colors in this one for sure. 

Let's hope I can get another quilt finished this weekend!  I have linked up for the first time at both places!
Can I get a Whoop-Whoop?
Finish it up Fridays

WIP Wednesday

Just got back on Sunday from a 4 day sew weekend so I did get alot done this last week. So here is a quick run down of where a few things are at.
Quilting the t-shirt quilt which is a large twin on my home machine. That was a little overwhelming at times but I just kept going one block at a time and it is coming along.  I have it finished for oldest when he comes home from school next weekend so will need daylight and some long arms to hold this up to get some good photos over the weekend.

I also started a cute Moda Bake Shop pattern with this Kona Solids Bright charm pack.  I love how pretty they are.  I need more Kona white to finish up the blocks.

I have 3 quilts I would like to have quilted before the end of the year.

• Grandma's Quilt for Christmas- should be able to do this year
• Summerville Patchwork
• Moda U Sampler - going on two years for this one 

Thanks for taking a look!  Linking up at Freshly Pieced!

Retreat sewing

What a fun great weekend.  I love sewing for long periods of time and with friends how great is that? 

We headed out on Thursday morning first with coffee at Starbucks.  Then we headed to the first quilt store which was Primitive Gatherings.  They had beautiful quilts displayed. They have a lot of wool and civil war fabric.  I had that stage a few years ago and since I have not been using it no buying any more.  I still love the bubble gum pinks.  However, I did find the Swoon Pattern there.  I had been eyeing that up since last summer.  Then we headed to Piece by Piece.  This was a really nice shop and they had a lot of patterns with lots of bag samples as well.  Just a couple pieces of fabric here. In the same strip mall there was an Artist shop and a wine store. So we checked both of them out. Then lunch and our ride to "The Cabin".

We have to set up but doesn't take long with five of us so we were sewing well before dinner.  Nice sewing area with a large TV and fireplace.  Then a huge bar area with a pool table topped with a ping pong top.  That makes it super easy to cut or lay out and pin/spray baste a quilt.  Love no kneeling.

Thursday night I worked on sashing my Summerville patchwork, which I was able to finish that night.  I would have could have finished faster if I pay attention and did not have to rip!  Oh well, just pay a littler closer attention!

I then started on making blocks for my grandmothers quilt as well and had a good chunk of blocks done before bed and an all day Friday Sew I finished the top! I am happy how it turned out and I know she will love it! 

I then worked on the baby quilt.  I had planned on a solids baby quilt but in my bin from last year were rainbow batiks from the Warm/Cool quilt I made the year before.  So I sashed in white and finished it up. I just quilted in random lines.  I found the binding shopping on Saturday. 

We were able to go to a  couple more stores on Saturday.  The Cotton Thimble was first up.  I had found a stripe to finish up the baby quilt. Then we headed to Antoinette's Quilt Shop.  This shop just opened in the last year and I really enjoyed it.  Great staff and owner and some really cute lines with some good variety.  I did some damage here!   They also had a Bistro in the same strip mall and a great gift shop.  I know I will have to head back there sometime soon. 

We were gone all day so we didn't start sewing until late but we did get more done.  I then started on the solids charm pack and white for the Wiggly-Whimsy Quilt. I ran out of Kona white or I may have stayed up to finish those as well.  Well, at the least the blocks.

Sunday only gave us a few hours so I made 2 drawstring bags from In Color Order. Love those!  Then I had bought two fat quarters for one Swoon Block but of course I said no extra fabric so I have to cut right but I didn't so they are sending me a new one. Hate that when that happens but at least I can get a new fat quarter!

Oh my that is one long post!  I didn't get all things on my list done but I got a lot done and am really happy with them!  This weekend should be good as well since the hubby and son will be deer hunting.  I love these two weekends every year!

WIP Wednesday

This is my first link up to WIP Wednesday and only my second post.  I have lots to learn about blogging, linking and taking pictures but figure no better way to learn than to just do it! I have been following and seeing all the great projects people are working on and what a great way to stay on task.  I also hope then I will get some things accomplished.

This weekend is a a quilty retreat with a few friends at my mom's house a couple of hours from home, so now I need to get ready to spend 4 days sewing. 

I am starting with a quilt for my grandma.  I am doing a really easy pattern from Quilting in the Rain, Rainy Day Quilt.  I had pinned this awhile ago and am using all fabric from my stash. 

I need to make a donation baby quilt by Thanksgiving weekend.  I think I will use a Kona charm pack and either white or light grey and do a simple coin quilt.  Not sure which background I will use so I may need to bring both.

I would like to finish my Summerville quilt. The patchwork blocks are done just need to sash them.

I also want to make some small projects.  I bought the drawstring bags pattern from In Color Order.  Then a maybe a sewing machine cover, iPad cover, and a binder cover.  So I will just bring some fabric and cordinates and hope to get a few of them done.

I currently have 8 projects on my list.  I know there is no way I will get all this done but you have to have a list right?  Well, at least I do and I will love checking them off too!

We'll see what gets finished.  If you have visited from WIP Wednesday, thanks for stopping by! 

First Post

I have been faithfully reading blogs for the past year and comment on occasion as well.  I kept thinking it would be nice if I would have a record of what I have been working on as well.  I really want to be able to look back see what I made and why I made it.  I want to remember the details. 

I have been procrastinating about the first blog post since I had no idea where to start.  So I figured I would just write something, anything.  That first step always seems harder than it is.

I wanted to post one picture (really just to see if I could figure this out!)  Here is a picture of my mom and I from a couple of years ago.  We have been going to a quilting retreat once a year for a really long time and recently we just added one weekend to her "cabin" quilting with some friends.  Sewing, shopping, eating with friends is always fun.

Well the first post is done and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! On to quilty posts in the near future and learning how to blog!