We spent the weekend at The Mount. 

It was family weekend.

During a break in the activities Paul and I drove the 15 minutes up to Gettysburg.  It was chilly and very overcast.

But we got in a short visit on the East side of Cemetery Hill.

The foliage is beautiful. This is a shot from the car on PA 76 right before going through the Allegheny Mountain tunnel on the way home.

We weren't able to head out until Friday evening as Paul couldn't take the day off and actually had to stay late.  So although that meant we missed the Friday evening activities for family weekend.  

It gave me some extra time at home.

I finished my little (36 x 36) community outreach baby quilt for the guild.  

I also got the quilting done on my two Urban runners.  I loaded them together on one piece of backing fabric. I wanted to take a picture before I cut them apart, but forgot.

I'm going to go make the binding now and hopefully finish them both today.  

Is anyone else amazed that the first week of September is gone??

I did finally get my CW Desden top together.

But I forgot to take a 'flimsy' picture before folding it up.  I do have the above picture, which was for a blog post that never happened.  

The rouge light blue block up on the wall is a string pieced anvil block from Bumble Beans I just happened on her post and thought I would try one. I wish I would have used a lighter background or darker...ohhh must stop thinking like this--it's how new projects happen.

I'm quilting a donation quilt right now.  It's for a new shelter that is scheduled to open in Nov.  

The shelter will have 50 beds and they want a quilt for each bed.  I believe they have enough pieced but are getting down to the wire on the quilting and binding.

Some have been pieced in the Gees Bend style, which is the one I have to work on so I'm quilting modern designs in the large areas-- will take and post a picture soon. 

as they say 

"I owe, I owe...it's off to work I go..."

Design Wall Monday& Curve it Up QAL

Block 11 Drunkard's Path

16 inch block

 

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My stack 'n slash has been fun.  I think it's close to being done.

I started with 5 inch charms, alternating white and batiks.

They squared up to 3 3/4".  

 I made a second set of blocks and cut some white squares to fill in and separate them.

I made a 3rd set of blocks and cut some larger white strips and squares.

Two reasons for this: 

1. I really want the color to be spread out.

2.  I was trying to make it work without having to piece another set of blocks.

This is where it is now. 

I do believe I will make that last set of blocks.  If I add a border and sew these together now it will be a bit small for a baby quilt. 

********

This weekend I needed a quick little something to go with a birthday gift card so I enlarged a bunny applique and made these two tea towels. 

One was for the birthday girl--one was for me!

and while I was digging around to find the perfect fabric for the bunnies I found this dog panel quilt all done except the binding. 

 

Imagine that! Me, not finishing the binding!!

The binding wasn't even made, what a slacker!

Now it is, sewn on and I'm half way around hand sewing it to the back.

It will be donation quilt for Quilt for Kids.  

So nice to be quilting again

forgot what a stress reliever it is for me.

Although, having a pile of quilts waiting to be quilted can be stressful...go figure.

One less to do now.  

I'm going to put the binding on it tonight. I will probably have to machine it both front and back as my left thumb is on the verge of splitting again and I know hand stitching the binding down will do it in for sure.

A while back Carol over at Brown Quilts emailed me with a project idea. She wanted to make a quilt top, send it to me to be quilted and then have me donate here in the Pittsburgh area.  

 I thought that was a great idea.  

Carol sent a beautiful top made with soft flannels.

I quilted an all-over wave-y swirl. 

Tomorrow I will be dropping it off at the Community Outreach chair for my quilt guild.  There is a new shelter opening this winter and they've asked the area guilds for quilts.  

This one will keep someone in need very warm indeed!

Thank you, Carol, for reaching out so generously!  

When I drop off our quilt, I'll be picking up some more Quilts for Kids tops that need quilting--yeah I  gripe that I'm so busy, but I'm healthy and have more than I need--shame on me for the gripes whether out loud or in my head.

Quilts for Kids

I quilted these last week.  

The one on the left I made from a Quilts for Kids kit I got from my guild's last meeting in June.  We're to have them done by the first meeting in September.  Joan, who's in charge of this project called me to see if I could quilt a few.  I think they all turned out beautifully.

I quilted each one differently.

****

About a month ago I saw this quilt pattern and just loved it.

I know --I think I'm going a bit modern here *gulp* but we'll talk about that later.

Elizabeth's directions call for 3 inch strips.  I figured I have all these 3.5 inch strips already cut in the drawer just use them.

I have 4 blocks left to piece.  (the plan is to do that as soon as I'm done here). 

Then I'm going to take them to Joann's and pick a nice solid for the background.  I really like the grey in the pattern's quilt but I'm using the grey I have for this new project.

It is for a certain somebody who has gone all British, even before the Olympics!  

It's going to be a very simply design and (gasp) very modern looking.

*****

On Saturday we took another long bike ride.  The weather was beautiful.

We went to PSU to The Creamery.  Paul's sister had never been to Penn State and although I'd been there many times while oldest son was attending school there, I'd never had their famous ice cream.  

The ride was beautiful.   

The ice cream delish and I'm not even a big ice cream fan! 

Mary, Paul and Me

State College is a beautiful town and PSU is such a fantastic school.  

I do hope they become an even better school in the future with or without football.

Works In Progress

Yesterday was a very busy day.

  It was like I drank a gallon of coffee. 

(I did not).

I loaded and quilted a 2nd donation quilt top; the one with the red binding in the picture.  I did a randomly spaced wavy line all the way across, took it off, reloaded and did it again in the opposite direction. 

I've been wanting to try this and think it looks nice. The quilt on the left is the 1st donation quilt-it was the one I did to see how the new poles and track system on HQ work

(Annie wanted in the picture since Otis keeps hogging the header photo.) 

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I also put the borders on this little spring table runner.  

(22 x 46)

I put the main part together during guild's newbie class, which was all about using pre-cuts.
I used an older April Cornell charm pack I had just sitting around waiting for just such a project.
 I found the yellow (inner border) in the stash but had to buy the outer border.
I have the binding made from the same blue border fabric.

I also made great progress on the OB-Wonder #3

I always am amazed at how a project that hogs the entire design wall shrinks so much as the rows are sewn together.  I have a tremendous desire to move all those un-sew rows on the right closer to the sewn together rows on the left.  It's goofy... and I won't do it.... waste of time... 

but I really want to.

Have you seen the t-shirt that says

yep I get that.

Oh and you might remember my Snow Bound quilt and how I wasn't happy with the quilting.  

Well, I got it out and the quilting is fine. Apparently, it just needed to sit in a dark closet for 6 months.  

I put it up yesterday and just kept looking at it and shaking my head as to why I was so bummed about it originally.

Oh and when I was getting Snow Bound out 

this quilt came out too. 

Remember My Apple Orchard?

 GUESS WHAT???   

The binding isn't sewn down!!!  

I think I must have put this away around vacation time and forgot about it!!! 

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Oh and I gave both the dogs baths!  

They are very sad to be smellin' all nice and clean....

 but that is the price they must pay to live in the house with us people.

Seventy-three (I think)

Or Why I haven't started quilting yet today....

 I posted this morning and  Mary said this at the end of her comment:

"Surely you are getting near the end of your stash of block-a-day blocks?"

I think she's asked me this before and others too and I always think  that I need to get the box

box where the Bl-a-days live

 out and take a picture, count and gag in horror refresh my memory at how many I DO have left.

So I replied that I would get my camera and go see and if I didn't get distracted I'd try to write a little post about it.

After taking all these pictures

(notice the little note beside the pile of CW 12" blocks) I counted them all and the total is 77. 

Well instead of putting them away I started to think to myself "OH my gawd, I am never going to make a quilt with this, this this (pulling blocks out and tossing them).  For a moment I almost just put them all away but then I started to sew. No use having blocks that are weird in size or looks take up space in my room or my head.  

I found a drawer with leftover backing and orphans from previous quilts.  

As I was sewing these together I also sewed the little block-a-day quilt together that I posted about this morning. I moved it and the little Christmas 9-patch to the 2nd design wall.

Because now the big wall has this on it.

And this is why the post title is seventy-three--in all this sewing I used 4 blocks... I know there are more than 4 blocks on the wall but some of them were already in the reject drawer to they didn't get counted in the green box. 

**don't be alarmed...I know what I'm doing**

hahaha

So now it's past lunch time, I'm hungry, no quilting yet but I feel good because I wanted to get my Strings & Stars quilt done this month.  

I didn't have backing for it. 

 I do now.

Oh and I forgot to put it in the last post, because I was just kidding up there, I really don't KNOW WHAT I"M DOING MOST OF THE TIME!!!!

I finally got a box that would hold the 6 Quilts for Kids quilts that I made and they are on their way.  

I'm pretty sure I've made 11 this year.  The goal was 12 (one a month) not sure if I will get that twelfth one done, we'll see.

OK time for lunch!

Design Wall Monday

These are the top and bottom rows for my Old St Nick top. The four corner blocks are up there also. They're already sewn together.

My plans for this week (besides hosting Thanksgiving dinner) is to get these 2 rows sewn together.
And machine finish the bindings on these 5 Quilts for Kids quilts.

And do some quilting too. Well, if I just get another top loaded I'll count that as good.

Paul went bear hunting.  Alas Whew! He didn't get one. While he was gone I cleaned and cooked and did yard work  (LYING!) sewed non stop almost!  (that's the TRUTH!)

I quilted and finished

18 x 36

And then I quilted and finished.

Check out other design walls at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

My strings and stars top has the inner border on now.  I just chose a fabric from my 2.5 inch drawer and used that. And the 3 outer string borders I already had made are on too!  I need to piece the rest of the 4th string border and this will be a flimsy.

After looking at the 'leftovers' quilt for Kids blocks I had up in a previous post, I decided there was too much going on. 

So I pulled out the red blocks and a few others and cut the blue batik for the solid blocks and now I can get 2 more Quilts for Kids from the leftover blocks-much better use of my fabric and much nicer to look at.

This is looking like a really busy week (again).  I had way too many 'irons in the fire' so last week and this week will be more of getting that under control before my head spins off.

So I only need to hand sew the binding on these three:

Sorry about the glare.

The binding is done on the Corn Toss runner, last night at 11pm- tonight is guild so just got that finished.

I have a lot of quilting to do-it's the time of year.  

I am so thrilled with this.  

I want these shoes~!!!

Check out other design walls here.

I'm here

slaving away  having a good time!

What a crazy busy week, appointments, lunch out with my sister, sewing.

Two days of deconstruction renovation.  They got more wiring done and now I have light switches where I need them! yeah! They made a lot of noise  and now my laundry tubs are moved and the drain is moved and I have more room in what used to be a laundry room.  But it's not a room now as they took the walls down too. Whew!  It looks pretty bad- noooo pictures! 

I spent a long time cleaning (again) after they left.  I cover everything with plastic that I can't move out but it's still a dusty mess.  I've probably cleaned the basement more times in the last 3-4 months than I have in all the years we've lived here.   ewwww, maybe I shouldn't reveal so much about me.

We went to the Penguins home opener! So much fun, but dang Paul and I yawn a lot in between rooting them on!  

I'm still working on piecing Quilts for Kids.  The leftover one is #9 for the year + the 2 NI CU one's I donated earlier this year makes 11.  I had set a goal of 1/month so I'm a little ahead. 

Wow that's different.

this one is with all the leftover blocks from the others!

I finished the baby quilt for my friend's daughter.  She had her baby girl yesterday! whew!

I wasn't able to attend the "newbies" class for guild last week as oldest son came home for fall break and visited!  (I thought he was staying at school) So it was a nice surprise.  

In the class, we were making this little runner.  I made it last night (late-apparently I can no longer drink decaf coffee in the evening; even the shot of Bailey's Irish creme( 'yum') in it didn't have any affect.  I have the binding pinned going to try to do that tonight.  

Would you believe that's the 1st time I used prairie points?  Easy peasy!

I quilted Witchy-poo and the 2 new little jacks quilts.  Witchy-poo is destined to be a pillow and the 2 little jacks I want to put those corner thingy's on the back for hanging-like you're suppose to do for AAQI quilts. I'm definitely gearing up to make one or 2 of those in the future. I think the technique is cool-for the little triangle/hanger.
EDIT: The correct term is "Fast Finish Triangles" .  

I'm also about 1/2 way finished with the blanket stitching on The Witch is In,  

I can not wait to get this on my front door.  

2nd edit:  The blanket stitching is done! woo-hoo!

Oh Strings & Stars is STILL on the design wall!  The center is sewn together I really need to take an hour add an inner border and the 2 side star borders and then I'll be able to see how much more I need to add to it....just an hour....or two.

My to do list is crazy long and I'm not starting another thing until it's caught up.