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...

Curve it Up Sampler quilt

 It's finally quilted.  I do have the binding sewn on but it's not hand sewn to the back yet.

The front

The back  

I pieced the back from leftover blocks, fat quarters and yardage.  I shouldn't have used the yellow though, as I had to go buy more for the binding.   :)

10 of the blocks

I'm super happy with how this turned out.

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.

Aster Manor is quilted (bad weather and bad timing) so no finished photos yet...this week...

After taking it off HQ I made the binding and sewed it and the label on! whew!  

I even have about 24 inches of the binding hand sewn to the back.  

The label says "finished August 2013" so I better get busy. :)

A couple weeks ago I had been looking over my 2013 goals--it's starting to look like I won't get everything done again. 

One of the things was to finish the two embroidery pieces I have.

They've been sitting on top of my bookcase next to HQ all year, well at least since maybe March (?)

They caught my eye and before I had time to overthink anything I loaded them and got them quilted.

Now they're pinned to the 2nd design wall.  

Wonder how long they'll stay there!

I'm finishing up an adorable quilt for Libby and then my signature quilt goes on HQ.

I really like how it turned out. I'm going to quilt all over feathers on it.

The pattern is Basic Math by Debbie Grifka. 

The layer cake I used is from French General, but I can't remember the line right now.

Medallion Flimsy

I really like this pattern.  I went way out of my comfort colors

(that would be blue)

on this one.  

Oh and in my last post I said I needed 'a couple hundred' hst for the Up, up and Away quilt

...silly me it's 589. 

 I have 85 made now.

But Kathy made hers in what seemed like no time so I'm not worried.

 :)

Yesterday, the bike gang went out again!

We left at 9 am and got home at 9 pm.  We were some tired puppies!

Paul, Scott, sil Mary, bil Ed 

Scott behind us on Rt 59 a few miles from the dam

 Our destination was Kinzua Dam.  I'd never been there before and it was so cool.

 I even saw an eagle!! so excited about that!

Kinzua Dam

*******

Today I needed to really give the house a good cleaning but I still spent some time sewing.

I took a picture of the Modern stack n slash that I finally got the binding done on.

50 x 53

After this picture I washed it and it crinkled up wonderfully.  I just straight line quilted it but I didn't use channel locks just 'eyed' it. So it's not perfectly straight and I just estimated the distance between the lines too. I quilted it one way then reloaded it the other way and quilted it that way.  I really like how it turned out.  

I got another row of feathers quilted on Aster Manor.  I'm using wool batting on this one. It's the first time I've ever tried wool.  It really shows the quilting.  I'm quilting it very close, doing all-over hooked feathers and hope that is OK with wool to quilt it so densely.   

I've been working on piecing the diamond (triangles on the corners) of the Medallion blocks.  I was having trouble seeing the cutting line I drew because the overhead lighting casts a shadow on my cutting table.  I was getting a bit frustrated when it hit me that my Ott Light is sitting in the corner unused.  

So I dragged it out, plugged it in and 'wah-lah' no more shadow.

Here are my medallion blocks.  

just 6 more to add the triangles too

As I'm piecing these, I started a new Leader/Ender project.  I stopped using the L/E method a while back, it just sorta happened.  But I've been saving my binding triangles and even cut some from 2.5 inch squares to make this quilt.  I don't have near enough triangles yet but what the heck it's a start.

in no time at all I have over 20 made. only need a couple hundred more. This will take some time. :)