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..."

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...

Finishes and getting close to finished....

I  finally put a clothes line up along the fence for taking pictures of smaller quilts (been wanting to do that for a long time). 

Here's the first picture using it.

and the back.

Aster Manor it done too even the binding.  

I've had some days off in a row and have been keeping my nose to the grindstone!

When I needed a break from quilting, I blanket-stitched the last 6 Dresden plate to their background.  

This is it-seriously-no matter what I am not making anymore of these dang blocks.

Remember these?  They're from March/April.  I started them on a whim.  I really wish I wouldn't do that.

I pieced another 3  X blocks.  After I sew them on the layout will be 3 x4 and approximately 72 x 96. No idea what I will do with this one-perhaps take it to 'Camp diamond in the rough'.  

Which isn't quite so rough anymore--Paul and I've stayed over twice this month, but that's another post for another day.

I hoped the X's would use up a lot of strip scraps; alas, they did not.

I have a couple customer quilts to do and then I'm hoping to get 2-3 more of my own quilts quilted in September.

quilting related stuff

a finished customer's quilt

on this one the customer wanted 'something' in the center plain block.

I was stumped for awhile and then photocopied this embroidery pattern that I have, pinned it to the block and stitched on the lines.

It worked! She liked it. win-win.

and here is my new laser level. It's so easy to cut batting on the roll straight now.

I saw this on some one's blog a while ago and can't for the life of me find it now, so whoever you are --thank you for sharing the idea! I've used it a couple times already. It was $15 and I know I've have other gadgets lying around here that cost about the same and have been used once if at all.  This will be used a lot by me and I'm sure Paul will be borrowing it too. :)

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What?? more CW Dresden blades??

  It's the never ending quilt saga! 

The last time I blogged about this quilt was in February.  I thought I was close to done then-just sew the last row on.

Well the day before shop hop last month I pulled out the flimsy to measure it; planning to purchase outside border fabric for it. Could you believe that it was long enough but not wide enough for my queen size bed? How'd I do that?

A few weeks ago I brought it up and laid it on my bed. yep it needs another row along the side that means 6 more blocks.

  Sheesh!!

The blades are all sewn together now and I need to get them appliqued to the foundations.  I do still love it and will shoot for having it on the bed this fall/winter.

my design wall

I'm making slow progress on both quilts.  

I've cut this stripe for sashing between the rows of CW blocks

now I think I want to put the blue 1.5 inch sashing all the way around and w/cornerstones too.  (always like to use them as they make the matching up easier, in mho.)

I get super excited every time I add a block to this bunch.  I have the rest of the grey curves sewn together and just need oh, 45 minutes probably to sew them on.

Maybe today is the day.

a few days ago, just for the heck of it I sewed together the original blades I had cut for my dresden; cut before I sewed a sample block and decided I wanted mine to be bigger.  

I think these shall become smaller pillows. The top one I'm calling my 'low volume' one I love it.  The blue one I love simply because it's blue. 

I look at them here and on my design wall and think 'oh wouldn't that be a nice quilt...either all blue and beige dresdens' (Diane you do want to make a blue and white quilt one day....) or 'oh wouldn't that be cool to make one in each color-controlled scrappy'.   

And then I smack myself and come back to reality and say 'yes 2 finished pillows is the way to go.'  

heh-heh.

scattered...

just like these photos. 

Thought I should pop in and document what's going on in the sewing room.

Lots.

Too much.

This is the back of Swirled Christmas Trees 

all leftover stash pieces.

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The start of a long project I fear.  

Meghan loved the purple yo-yo quilt I quilted for a customer.

She wanted one. I said 'oh we could do it together if you like--I'll show you, it's more of a craft thing than a quilt thing....'

I bought the yo-yo maker.  I made one.  

Meghan came down a few days later while I was working on something else and started fiddling with the yo-yo's  (be still my heart).  I tried to ignore her--ie: not pounce and scare her away ya know.

Finally, she asked how this works.  I calmly got up and went through the steps, trying to keep ALL signs of over EXCITEMENT out of my voice.

I showed her how to line up the front and back. I picked up the already threaded needle and said 'and then you just sew through the holes' like this.

She blanched (not an exaggerated word for effect)

Her: WHAT? you have to sew this?  YOU TRICKED me!!

(yep, she actually said 'you tricked me')

Me, laughing:  What are you talking about this is how you make them?

Her:  I didn't know we had to SEW them!

Me: well, yah, that's how you make them, how did you think it worked?

Her:  I thought you just popped them in and out of this thing and it was done somehow.

Oh my shattered dreams.......

This picture shows the first Three yo-yo's.

409 (yes, four hundred and nine) are all that is needed.

sigh......

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My guild's Christmas BOM blocks.  I will be taking out the applique globe one and just making the pieced ones.  (they give us both pieced and applique patterns every month) I thought it was required that we make both. I was going to give up the project.

  It's not required.  

So I'm not.

I love it when I get all rebel-y.

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Thread catchers.  I started making these while I was pulling stash for the back of the Christmas swirls quilt (see above).  I had some nice pieces and had been thinking of making some of these for either the guild's silent auction at the end of the year and/or the guild's show gift boutique.  I ran out of the strapping to finish them. Hubby is going to bring some home next time he gets a delivery.  I use the stuff that they put around boxes.  It's perfect and free. And another example of how/why things don't get finished around here.

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Christmas Swirls quilted with swirls

am I an original or what????  

:)

I do love this and have the binding made-same aged muslin as the background.

I'm thinking of sewing it on and then taking it to retreat so I can hand sew it to the back when I get tired of piecing.  

Right!  Like that's going to happen-stop piecing to hand sew binding....

I probably won't work on it but I might and I do so like dragging everything with me when I go on retreat so take it I will.

Unless, of course, I finish it before retreat.

buwhahhahahahaaha.

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 My design wall.

starting at the left.  

My urban candy blocks:  no work on them for weeks.  I have all the pieces cut and they will be going on retreat with me.

The lime green and blue * asterisk* block-ain't it cute.  I saw it in a book I was looking through at JoAnn's last week and just wanted to see if I could make one when I got home...uh-huh so now what to do.

The 2 blocks with blue background are another block I saw in a book and thought would be cool to use for the strings I have.  It looks like the bottom left of the first block has a chunk cut out, but that is a little note with how I made it pinned to it so I don't forget.  Four blocks sewn together forms an "X".
These are going on retreat with me too.

Dresdens: The fifth and final row with sashing sewn on is last, if I ever get off this computer and get dressed I'd like to take the 10 minutes to sew it on to the bottom of the quilt, for pity's sake why do I put this kind of easy thing off.

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My sewing table-and hence this posts' title 

SCATTERED

holy mackerel!

and yes that is a Christmas wreath above the fire place.
It's seen better days and I had it sitting by the door to get rid of it (before Christmas) and then I didn't so I stuck it up there on an empty nail and forgot about it
until now.
*******

fun times, fun times.

Life is good.

I had leftover pieces from the last curvy block in the quilt along.  I didn't want them to feel left out *wink* so I made a curvy broken dishes block.  

yeah!

I have another Baby Life section ready for the blanket stitching.  Love these colors!

 

I had to have a little dental work on Tuesday so I had a 'free' day....I spent part of it like a slug watching HGTV while the Novocaine wore off.  Then I thought now is as good a time as any to get four more Dresden plates ready.  So I did that.

Yesterday, I blanket stitched all four to their backgrounds and then started cutting more 2.5 squares for the additional sashing sets I'll need.....

I've been blog lurking/surfing and have about 4-5 'new project' ideas, which I'm hoping I'll forget about as I am so trying to not start too many new things.

I shouldn't be starting anything new but sheesh I can only take so much

dresden pillow

has it's binding. 

I bought this book a few weeks ago.  

Thursday I loaded my Modern Misfits quilt, thinking that I was just going to put on the channel locks and straight line quilt it. 

I put the channel locks on and then had a nagging little noise in the back of my head.  I stopped and flipped through Angela's book for a minute. It was sitting right there...And then it came back to me, I had changed my mind and wanted to try these swirls w/pebbles that  she shows in the book.

oh I'm in l.o.v.e.  

It takes a little time and I have the quilt loaded longways so a row seems like it's going on forever, but now I'm almost 1/2 way done. I'm quilting with the lights off-the machine lights and most of the overhead lights.  The antique thread I bought for this quilt matches the background fabric so perfectly that I can't see it well enough with the lights on. I'm throwing in a random square or triangle or rectangle to break up the swirls.  I thought of this after it was loaded so I have no way of spacing them. 

I almost didn't do this but then thought heck it's a learning experience and it's a modern look I'm going for and...yada yada yada...Oh yeah, it's MY quilt!  

(why do I have these conversations with myself?)

I'm also not quilting swirls in the pieced blocks just the background.  I'm not sure what I'll do with those, will see when I get there. :)

modern misfits 68 x 95

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PENGUINS HOCKEY TODAY!!

FINALLY!!

The withdraw symptoms in this house have been awful.

fun times, fun times.

Life is good.

now I'm

binding and binding and binding.  

Almost done!

I made new kitchen curtains (toppers) on Monday.  They are from osenburg fabric and I love them.

   

I also quilted my Dresden pillow.

I was going to bind it too-love that look on a pillow but just wanted to get 'er done.

Now that a few days have passed, yes I do want to bind it.  I'm thinking a black binding, that I conveniently already have made.

I also had a not planned sewing session in which I pieced the backing for my Modern Misfits top

 I used leftover strips, chunks, some fat quarters etc.  And in pulling these out I had to re organize the ever-shrinking stash.

win-win.
One of these days soon I hope to empty these of their contents...strips chunks and sew new 'yardage' from them.

oh and another Baby Life quilt in the works, actually 2.  The other one is still just fused letters.  I do love this quilt pattern.  I've changed it a bit by just cutting the background piece in half (after adding a 1/2 inch for the seam!).  This way I only have to deal with half the fabric while machine blanket stitching those letters---that's a lot of fabric manipulation.  I don't think the seam will be distracting after it's been quilted.
I may even adjust the cutting of the next one further now that I have the size of the area where the words are.
I will wait and see how the blanket stitching goes on this one.

A morning trip to a quilt shop with Libby today. whoop-whoop.

Dresden

Today I finally got the CW Dresden top together.

I have to put the borders on but for now it's down off the wall.  I am tired of looking at it...taunting me...

Chloe is 1/2 quilted!  

I am so happy to be quilting again!

All over freehand feathers. 

 I'm using Essential Pro 'caramel' thread and I have I feeling I'm going to run out.  I came upstairs to finish dinner and to order another spool!  If I order one, you know I will have enough on this cone to finish!!

   

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Meg and I had massages today....oh my gosh!  

I think I need to do this more than every 5 years or so.

*******

Curve it Up

Block 5

I had a little trouble with this one but 'adjusted' the outside pieces and it is 16.5 x  16.5 so all's well.

I also have the January guild blocks done.  I came home from the meeting on the 17th and made them.  It was about all the sewing I did before Christmas.

I have started sewing the rows and sashing together on my Dresden quilt. These are now together-woo hoo.

I have the applique pieces all cut out for my final Christmas project for this year!

 I was planning on having it done for this year but that didn't happen.

My mom had a king size quilt that she had bought at JCPenney (yes one of those quilts!) It's 10-15 years old. She asked me a couple of months ago if I could cut it down to fit one of her twin beds.  After I had cut off 2 rows of blocks, she thought perhaps I could sew the leftovers, blocks and borders together so she would have a matching one, albeit wonky that would match for the other twin bed in the room!
    I didn't take a picture of the original and the 1st cut down twin is already with my mom. I gave it to her on Christmas.  Here is the wonky leftover one.  It is about 62 x 78.

I just sewed the sections together all 3 layers in tact RS together and then loaded it on HQ with a new white backing and straight stitched across the rows just to hold it together.  I did have to make new binding for this one- 1/2 yard I had in my stash.

I think she will be pleased.  I am.