Tonight I sewed on the final curved borders on my quilt top.

I'm hoping tomorrow to start piecing the backing from all the leftover chunks of fabric I have and a couple blocks that didn't make it into the front.

After taking this down, I started organizing all the fabrics I got on the Shop Hop last week.  There was stuff piled everywhere. Once I got things under control, I pulled out my Christmas BOM blocks from the guild.  Our show is the end of Oct. and the ladies who organized the BOM are hoping we get our tops done and entered in the show as a separate display.  I sorta got tired of working on them so this is all I have.

first layout

second layout

3rd

I had to dig through my scraps and found a couple 3.5 inch strips that I pieced to get the last  few plain blocks with the background! whew.

This is going to sit for a day or two.

One of the patterns I bought on Shop Hop was Happy Jack.

I started cutting out 3.5 inch squares for it.

too cute.

  

Too scrappy

so I'm sewing along and all of a sudden looked at the wall and thought um no, this is too much.  I like it but my eyes are sorta jumping around.

It could be in part because Hurricane Sandy is playing havoc with the weather and I'm in migraine land right now.

Regardless, I did this.

Blue and grey, mostly medium and dark with a few fabrics that are blending OK for my eye-a dark purple, brown and perhaps a green. I know I could just go med/dark but I do like a bit of contrast. 

So I'll be spending some quality time with the seam ripper 

While un-sewing I will have to think about whether I want to put all those now defunct setting strips in the backing of this one... hmmm   I hate the thoughts of not using them up as I'm trying to use these things up not create more.
I'm certainly not un sewing all those sets-just the twosies and perhaps a few foursies that have blue/grey squares in them. 

I did put a couple borders on the UFO I had on my wall and it's now a flimsy-woohoo.

A few days ago I was on Kathy's blog. She was part of the Wicked blog hop

I found my way to Debby Kratovil's blog.  She is the block-a-day designer that I spend 2010 with.
I loved her Bat Applique project and started it immediately (if not sooner)*wink*

12" x 12" 

I finished it yesterday-if I had my HQ I would have micro stippled it, which I'll probably do when she comes home. For now it's just stitched around the bats.  The binding is completely by machine too.  My left thumb is split to hand sewing hurts and is so clumsy with a band aid on it.

*******

and yes it's raining here, light and steady and bone chillin' cold.
bleck!

Before I forget....

I did put the fast finish triangles technique on the new jack's quilts.

Very fast and easy.  I normally sew a split sleeve on the back of my wall quilts so I can run a dowel through them and hang with a single nail in the wall; putting these little triangles in the corners of even those quilts in addition to the hanging sleeve would be helpful in keeping the corners from drooping and also save time. 

I just love that trick or treat backing fabric (got it as Jo Ann's).

I also started a 2nd The Witch Is In banner.  I don't know why I feel compelled to make a second small quilt from a pattern but it happens a lot. 

Anywho...after I fused the shoes to the background and was trying to get the hat pieces in place I couldn't figure out why it wasn't fitting.  

And then I realized I had fused the shoes 1 inch up from the edge of the bottom border instead of 1 inch up from the bottom edge of the background!  

So I had to cut down the hat and do a little re arranging (the black dot on the left below the word "is" will be a spider when I get to the blanket stitching.

(I removed the bottom border piece.)

It's a little wonky looking-her legs could be a little closer together but they were already fused so that was not possible.  For about 20 seconds I contemplated just pitching the whole thing into the trash.

I'm glad I didn't-I would have dug it out this morning anyway!

 Anyone who doesn't know how it really 'should' look would never know.  

And I still just love those shoes!

**********

In other news, I finally got the blanket stitching done on H.Whiskers.

Here is the proof!  

Now I just need to finish a huge customer quilt (100x110) and I will maybe take a day and quilt this for me.  

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.  

If at first you don't succeed...

...go out to lunch with a friend and her little granddaughter, visit a quilt shop.  

And then you will be ready to tackle

"the witch".

The background is way more orange than this washed out picture, same with the outer border. 

She's a little wonky, but then again she is a witch. 

"Fixing" her wasn't as difficult as I thought.  But then I was doing regular block unsewing and re-sewing not paper piecing-much more in my comfort zone.  

I almost want to make another one......ahhhahahahaa! 

Meghan and Paul wanted to know what I was going to do with it-make a pillow?  I said I thought a little wall hanging and got some static, good nature d of course but still,  about 'another wall hanging'.  

sigh. (they're right) 

 I think I will make it into a pillow.

*******

I finished hand sewing the binding and label on Irene this afternoon.  I actually thought it was already done, oops!

I love the sun light on it.

Good Morning Day!

Let's see where to start.

I finished the binding AND the hanging sleeve on the Evening Shadows quilt. It's good to go for the show in November. 

I do need to put a proper show sleeve on Stargazing but I'm going to let that go until Monday.

Since Wednesday this is the progress on the little jack-o-tops.

The checkerboard on the left I pieced L/E style while sewing the little jacks together :) It's from a free pattern I got on the shop hop in June, for a E Reader Cover.  I DON"T HAVE AN E READER.

But I saw the pattern and thought it would be cute and fun and quick and easy-- and it was and it satisfied my compulsive need to make something, to keep pecking away at the binder of  "Quilts I'd Like to Make"  and it used 66 two inch squares that I already had cut out. 

The fact that I don't have a Kindle or Nook and have no plans to get one or the other seems irrelevant.

The deconstruction, construction has started up again (yeah).  New plumbing in the ceiling so that a drop ceiling can eventually be put in.  Since this old house was built with no thoughts that the basement would ever be used for living space the original pipes were put in way below the joists.

  CRAZY.  But now it's all fixed and hooked back up. (Yes, they're still below the joists but now they're up enough that a bulk head can be built and blah, blah, blah.....it will look nice) Sorry I sorta zone out when they start explaining this stuff to me....JUST so it looks nice and works!

 Today they're working on wiring-this is the hardest thing for me to tell them where I want outlets, switches etc. I want to just say EVERYWHERE!!

Yesterday I worked on these:

I traced the appliques for the 3 patterns in the front there (all are from old Fons & Porter magazines) and I haven't subscribed to that one for a while. 

The batik quilt to the back right; I figured out fabrics for a baby quilt. 

 I made a baby one with that pattern in '09 but of course, didn't write down the fabric adjustments. I never thought I'd be making another... but still would have been nice.

I'm not going to really consider the 3 appliques "real projects" until I fuse the fabrics, these could just languish and I'd be guilt ridden over 3 more UFOs (ha!) 

Well, I need to get moving here.  It's not raining so my walk is next.  I've been very good

( am really afraid to put this in writing and jinx it)

and have been walking every day since we came home from vacation in August, and most days twice a day; about 2.5 miles in morning and again in the evening. 

**well I did miss 2 days because of rain or some other really good reason excuse that I can't remember now**

As it's getting dark earlier, I think one 3.5-4 mile in the morning will be good.  I've lost 11 pounds.  I'm real happy to be back to my ''normal- all my adult life- after having kids 10-15 pounds- overweight self".

10 pounds according to the doctor charts

15 pounds according to my inner self who would like to be "thin" just for once and it NOT be the result of stress cuz my son was in boot camp. (yah, I got real skinny that summer but it wasn't worth it!)

  If I lose the rest, that will be a woo-hoo, but if not well hell that's OK too. I feel a lot better. 

It's been so difficult to get into the habit of walking...changing the routine is soooo hard.  And I still think it's too new to be a really cemented habit in my life.  I'd so rather stay in my jammies and sew, quilt, blog, drink coffee, daydream, not think about what's for dinner...

I'm not talking about this anymore, I think I'm gaining weight just typing about it. 

*****

And now a picture that made us laugh.

  Paul comes home from work everyday and goes to the sofa and reads the paper and within 2 seconds Otis is on his lap.  Meg and I happened to sit down and were talking with Paul. (this is unusual-we leave him alone to unwind for a bit) all of a sudden we realized Otis was sleeping ... 

...begs the question: who had the rougher day?   HA!
couldn't be our boring conversation, right?
don't answer that. :)
Good weekend to y'all


fun times, fun times, Life is Good!