Sew Day!

Yesterday Libby & Mary Lynne came over to sew.  Oh my gosh, I forgot how much fun spending a day sewing with friends is-- especially in the dead of winter when the temps are in the frigid ridiculous zone! 

The night before I moved the sewing cabinets and added a table so we could sew and gab with ease.

They arrived at 9:30 and stayed until 3. 

First Libby shared a little show-n-tell; her granddaughter is making her 1st communion in a few months and each child has a banner at their seat. Libby made Ella's 

And a new baby quilt; the plain blocks have embroidery on them but my camera didn't pick it up.

When I invited them over to sew, Mary Lynne asked if I would teach them the Interleave  technique.  

Here is Mary Lynne's. She choose the Mirrored Sine Wave pattern

  

And here's Libby's. She did the Helix Sine Wave pattern.

I finished trimming all my Metro Rings units.  In spite of heavy chatting I managed to get them trimmed without mishap.  

I also had to take apart and rotate one block in my Metro Hoops top. After I had blogged about the finish, someone was kind enough to let me know one block was turned--whew! See it down there bottom row next to the right corner.  I doubt I would have seen it although now that I look at the picture it's glaring at me!!

But now it's fixed. 

We are planning on making these sew days a regular event.  

******

After the ladies left, I did some quilting. I'm doing a paisley fill behind the appliques and in that little center square area I cross hatched -the lines are 3/8 inch apart-yikes.

 I'm still just Stitching-in-the-Ditch on on the star blocks and along all the border seams.  The plan is to do a fill in the background (light green batik) areas around  the star blocks.  

Oh and the batting and quilt are off the ground...always a nice sign that the end is closer than I thought.  I would really like to get this done over the weekend. 

Wow-an achievable goal!  The question is: Will I persevere or start 2 or 3 new projects instead?

Fun times, fun times!

Life is good.

  

Metro Hoops

is my first flimsy of 2014!

For about 3 minutes I pondered adding a border or two.  Instead I sewed a basting stitch all around the outside edge to secure any loose seams and it is officially done.  whoop-whoop.

now to decide on backing do I piece some fabric I have or buy new?  

******

Yesterday, I completely forgot to go to my guild's Mod Squad group!!  I thought about it around 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  It runs from 1 to 4.  I was doing some sewing cabinet re arranging and forgot about the time.  I was bummed to miss the meeting but real happy with the sewing room changes.

I moved my one sewing cabinet over to the corner of the room and pushed the white one (that I use) closer to my ironing board and I also spun it around so while I'm sewing I can see my design wall.  I never liked having it behind me, but I thought the lighting was better that way.  

After sewing with the new setup, I can't tell any difference-go figure.

The room feels so much bigger.

Facing the design wall and HQ I can now think about what I'm going to quilt on the next flimsy.

My lovely Jonquils & Stars top from my first ever QAL.  I do need to get backing for this it's 80 x80.  If I remember correctly, I did have a backing for it and then used it on another quilt!! oh well.

******

Today after church and breakfast at a local diner my mom and I stopped in to visit this little cutie-patootie 

She's five weeks old and she smiled for us! Real smiles, not those reflex ones.  

I can't wait for the cooing to start.  

Life is Good!

January 6th...my but the year is flying!

I un-decorated the house yesterday.  yea me.
And as I was un-decorating I was also purging! yea me again. 

I spent several days helping the oldest son get his papers in order and organized-filing, shredding 10+ years of stuff.  It was overwhelming to him and right up my OCD alley!!  Of course, it put me into an organizing mood that I need to ride for as long as it lasts.  I bought this book  (50% off coupon at JoAnn's-woot)

and read through it mostly to be sure I was going about Paul-m's re-organization the best way but I also learned some new things for our house.  

So that's what's going on here.   

I finally loaded the first customer quilt for 2014 and started working on it.  It felt good.
I also pieced a few more of these blocks together.

I was bummed when I didn't get all my 2013 goals finished.  It wasn't that big of a list and I only made and finished 28 new projects in '13.  

(as opposed to the 53 in '12).
(I know, if I stopped making new things, I'd get the UFO's done.)
It's really hard to to that though, as you all know!! And even as I write this I'm thinking about how I can't wait to make another one of these.
(somebody smack me!)

I did make a goal list for 2014; just a continuation of the '13 stuff. But of course that's not all...so although these aren't on the official goal list:

~I really enjoyed making fabrics from scraps "slabs" or "made fabric" (depending on who's book your reading) and hope to do a lot more of that this year. I did get all my scraps sorted and in bags and all the bags are inside one big bag.
Neat and tidy.
So making some of my own fabric slabs and then see what becomes of them is definitely a goal for me.

 ~I seriously need to let go of some more quilts this year.  I do have a few ideas about how to go about this but to make them work will require a couple big chunks of time, which after my house is re-organized should be easy-peasy.
(hah-ha that was funny.)

*******

Oh and my granddaughter is a month old already.
And she is still so perfect and precious and well, you know it's just amazing and um...all you gramma/grandma's/mimi's (that's me) understand!

life is good.

stay warm.

  

So much happening here!

The baby shower is over!  It was a great success. Over 50 friends and family came and showered Jenn!  

It was a lovely day.

Even the dad to be (my son, John) sporting his "baby beard" received something!

A Daddy's diaper changing survival kit!  

Hilarious!! 

If he's anything like his father; it will come in very handy!!

We got our first measurable snow.  One of the maples hadn't even finished dropping it's leaves yet! They're all gone now and so is the snow. It sure was pretty.

My design wall with more progress on Metro Hoops.  I only have eight more hoops to make!  I haven't sewn the 4 squares together that make one block yet since I have a few blocks that don't have matching hoops.  Not sure how much that would even matter but thought I would just wait until they're all pieced and decide if I can keep them the way they are or if I should mix them all up.

I just finished quilting this top.  It was pieced, by hand, a long time ago by the mother or grandmother (I can't remember) of one of my co-workers.  She inherited the top and promised it to her daughter when she got married.  Well the daughter's been married for years now!  

I did an all over of wonky feathers on it.  

Love the fabrics. 

It's definitely a scrap quilt as even some of the hexagon patches are pieced!  A few of the background hexi's are a very thin corduroy type fabric!  Cool.

I'll be excited to get it done and back to her.  She gave it to me with no pressure to get it done.  This is the co-worker who had a stroke during the summer.  She's doing very well and I know getting this will just be another positive for her.

Almost makes me want to make one, but not quite.  :)

happy Friday

I am super happy to show that my two stitcheries are finished. Stitchin Annie now hangs in my sewing room.  The pillow doesn't know where it's going to live yet.

They were on my 2013 Goals list--not anymore.  yea!

X's is together.

It is 72 x 96 right now.  I may call it done but I have a HUGE bag of strip scraps and think a scrappy string border would be good.  I would want to put a narrow blue stop border on first and not sure if I have enough blue to do it. I'm at a point here with projects (?) that the thoughts of buying more fabric just to make it bigger seems wrong, weird...a waste...I don't know.

Maybe I just need another cup of coffee!

Another fun quilt by Libby that I quilted up for her. 

The dinosaur print she used for the backing is soo adorable!

The start of another customer quilt-concentric circles ala Angela Walters.

I just l.o.v.e the texture this pattern makes.  It's a big quilt 89x89 so I'll be 'circling it' for a few days.

And here is the start (OMGOSH what am I doing) shame on me 

of MetroHoops.

I used a partially used Jellyroll and some 2.5" strips from the stash.  I'm laying these out right now with four matching 'hoops' in each block, but I know a few blocks are going to be a mishmash so I hope I can control myself and NOT start to sew the blocks together until I have them all made.

Don't these look a bit labor intensive???  

They are so stinkin' quick it just amazes me every time I make one. 

Since one of my favorite things is watching a quilt 'grow' on the design wall, it's going to be hard for me to not keep making these hoops instead of finishing up other projects first...