Goals for next week.....

I WILL, I mean it....I WILL

1. Finish sewing the tri-recs and gold borders on the the Quiltaholics
2. Work on finishing the gold tone quilt
3. Get the border started on the baby quilt so I can hand quilt in the down times

Treasures

Well, very little sewing has been done around here. We have been working on emptying our house in town so we can get rid of it. I have found some treasure, as the title says. I've found a lot of handwork that my mom and aunt did....some experiments in painting on fabric, some odd quilt blocks, and lots of linens and crocheted pieces. I wish I could remember how to crochet. Well, maybe not.

How many afghans can a person have? I guess I have Mom's, Ruby's, and mine, and I bet there are more than a dozen. And I have a huge, huge, huge trashsack full of mismatched skeins of yarn. I'm going to have Holly look through and decide if she wants some of the cooler stuff, and then I'm getting rid of it. (I'll try to remember to take some pictures and post them)

On the quilting front, I have added fabric to the back of the baby quilt. It looks ok, but I'm still unhappy. I have the binding picked out from my stash, and it's laid out to cut, but not done. I am going to have to finish up a few things and pack things away up there so I can pack things up more for company.

Discouraged....

I haven't been sewing a whole lot. I got the 3 quilts back from the longarm quilter, and one of them was quilted off center. The backing now does not cover the front. This has happened once before, so I was very careful to square things up, no uneven edges, certainly big enough. Well. Didn't matter. I am trying to add fabric to the back now so it's big enough to finish up. I realize this isn't the end of the world, and probably will not even be noticed, but I know. And it shouldn't have happened.

I have no idea where another quilter is around here. I have held back several quilts because I didn't think they could do what I wanted, and now I am sure they can't. And I don't like the idea of mailing tops away. Dilemma.

So I hope I didn't make a mistake!

Well, I found another discolored light block on the quilt block I was worried about. I soaked that edge in water and made sure all the edges touched, and no color ran. I don't get it.

If anyone is reading have you ever had this trouble? I went shopping but didn't find anything I loved for the 2 borders, so I can still easily replace this block.

In other news, I should be getting a call anytime that the three quilts I took to the shop are quilted. I'm anxious to see them.

Goals:
Finish this scrappy sampler in this lifetime
Finish the medallion quilt (coming along nicely...almost to the put together stage)
Work on handquilting Bub and Ginger's quilt. (Why did I ever join Pogo and start playing Canasta?)

Next project? I think I'll do and Eleanor Burns book I have. I've been collecting greens for the trees, and I think I have enough now. Or maybe that would be an excuse to shop? (Get thee behind me, Satan.)

Repairs

So I'm trying like crazy to find a fabric in my stash to border a scrappy sampler that I made. I was laying out the different fabrics to try them out, when I saw something on the matching edges of two sides of the quilt top. I hunted around, found fabric, and replaced as best I could. Now I've about decided the red in the block is running cause there is another small beige block that needs to be replaced. I may just take out the whole block and do another one. I know I prewashed!!!

This gold doesn't exactly match, but I don't think it can be noticed once it's all together. However, this is the block I might just go ahead, replace, and get it over with.
And, on top of all this, there is no good fabric for the borders. I have to go fabric shop. (Beat me!)

Mary Jo's

I was in Charlotte recently visiting my daughter and her family, and I just couldn't resist a little sidetrip to Gastonia and Mary Jo's. I wanted to take a picture just to prove to everyone how much fabric they have, but, to be honest, a camera would have just slowed me down. It took long enough as it was.

I did, however, keep on task. For once, I had a list of quilt dimensions and fabric swatches. I bought backing for 4 quilts. I was hoping to get the wide fabric, but I didn't like the designs or quality of what they had in stock.

This is a baby quilt that I made from a mystery pattern. It is made from fabric left from my youngest grandson's quilt. I got this blue fabric for the back. I used the same fabric in pink on the top.

This is the all scrap quilt, Chiclets. I really liked the pattern on this gold fabric.
I started to do a tone on tone blue for the back of the blue and yellow, but decided to go with this fabric that matched beautifully.

I got a plain white/off white background for another scrap sampler that I made over a year ago, too. I hope to get at least a couple of these to the quilter this week.

Fabric

This is a close-up of the fabric for the quilt. I loved, loved,loved the deep blue, and just worked with what they had in the shop to get the rest.



I have the center of the medallion quilt done, and I want to just continue working on it for the next few days. I need to finish some Friendship Stars, and then do some Log Cabin blocks. I'll show you this weekend.

Done!

Here is the blue/yellow quilt top that I've been working on. I need to take a close up to show the fabric. I love the dark blue. The yellow is daisies, and I don't really like daisies, but it looked good with the other fabrics. I'll post of picture in a day or so.

I have begun another quilt, and I'll post that, too. It's a medallion style quilt. I love the fabrics individually, but don' tknow if I like them together. But they're going to go together anyway!

Didn't think I was ever gonna' finish it, did ya?

Well, I did. Blue and yellow quilt top is completed. I'll take a picture in the next day or two. It's rainy and windy, and the best place to take the pictures is on our porch.

Whew!

Now...new projects....I have the fabric for a sampler out and ready to go, and am thinking about a baby quilt. I'm ready to put Holly's wedding quilt together, but I don't have the pictures she has chosen for it. We are going to visit soon, and we'll figure out something.

Finally, progress!!!

So I finally felt like doing something. I finished the binding on this quilt this morning. The only thing lacking is a label. I took a picture to show the quilting design since it really shows up on this design.

This was a mystery quilt designed by Deb at Quiltaholics. For those of you who don't know what that means....When you do a mystery, you get fabric requirements, but you don't know what the finished quilt will look like. I've done 4 mysteries. Two of them are Deb's. I will try to take some pictures of the other mysteries and post them later this week.


These are the quilts that hang over the rail of our loft in the barn where we are living right now. They were all done by my mother except for the bottom picture, left quilt, the Irish Chain. She hand quilted all four.

I'm not a slacker....

Really. I'm not. We were gone for two weeks to Alaska, and although I tried, I did not get to one fabric store. We saw one, and my husband pretended to be sad for me because it was closed on Sunday when we saw it. I did meet a lady who designs miniature quilts at a craft show. She had some beautiful designs, but I have enough to do without starting one of them!

So...goals. This is tricky as I hurt my back when we were in Alaska. It is slowing me down, and I haven't done much of anything. And I've been reading. Lots. We bought a bunch of books in Alaska, and I've read 4 and I'm almost finished with number 5.

I did work on the blue and yellow quilt. It is almost all together. So that is my major goal.

1. Complete blue and yellow quilt top.
2. Finish hand sewing the binding on the gold quilt.

I'll try to post some pictures of the two quilts I'm working on if blogger will let me.

Goals updated:

Put borders on Chiclet quilt Done
Try to get Chiclet quilt to long arm quilter didn't get there
Try to get blue/yellow top together Nopey
Cut scraps for a few minutes each time I go to the loft to sew YES!
Continue hand quilting and working on binding of brown/gold binding whenever possible Didn't get much handquilting done, but I am almost finished with the binding.

Goals for this week: NONE! Shopping maybe?

Tuesday update

I had the camera in my pocket when I went upstairs, so took a picture of my scrap storage system. This drawer is right by the cutting table. I have a drawer for 2.5 inch strips, 3.5 inch strips, strings/noodles, and a drawer of cut I Spy squares or fabric. The bottom drawer is just stuff until I figure out what to do with it. After I cut scraps, I just turn and drop them into the appropriate drawer.....

.....except for squares. They have a tins, 3.5 inch, 2.5 inch juvenile or bright, and then other 2.5 inch squares.

And I got the border on the scrap quilt! Finished!!!!!

Goals and excuses

Goals for last week:

Finish the blue and yellow quilt top - OK, I was doing really well on this, and then put a row of sashing on upside down so had to reverse sew. Then we had unexpected company and there were a couple of days with no sewing. Then we were gone all day yesterday and will be gone all day today. Real life has gotten in the way. All that as an excuse to say, isn't done.
Put binding on brown/gold mystery quilt Done and working on hand work
Finish binding repair on I Spy Quilt done
Get back to handquilting!! Worked 3 nights
Find fabric for border on chiclets quilt Done


Goals for this week:
There's going to be very little sewing going on for the next three weeks! Holly and baby Dennis are going to be here, and we are going to try to pack the town house and get stuff out of there. Quilting will take a backseat for sure. These goals are waaaaay flexible!

Put borders on Chiclet quilt
Try to get Chiclet quilt to long arm quilter
Try to get blue/yellow top together
Cut scraps for a few minutes each time I go to the loft to sew
Continue hand quilting and working on binding of brown/gold binding whenever possible

I give up!!!

I have looked everywhere for the Bed of Roses fabric for a border. Every place I call or write tells me that I should have bought more fabric in the beginning. Nobody seems to listen when I tell them that these fabrics are scraps. I've already made 4 quilts with these fabrics! (Maybe more, bu 4 I can identify right now!) But, Bed of Roses came out about 6 years ago, so even when I bought mine in the first place, they'd been out a while.

Anyway, I wanted to do a gold inner border and green BORoses outter border. But this is not gonna' happen. So I am using the maroon with the vines and flowers as a 2" finished inner border and the green as the wide one. It will probably be 3.5 or 4 inches. I'm not sure yet.

Eva's Quilt

This is a very special quilt that I gave to Eva today. I've been saving it for her until she could take care of it.

We found the blocks all crossstitched when her grandmother died. (Mamaw loved purple!) My mother, with some help from my aunt, put it together and made the quilt. My mother hand quilted it and did a beautiful job. I wish the quilting showed up more.

Blue and Yellow Sampler

Here's a close up of the fabric and how it will look with the border. I'm not a daisy person, but I fell in love with the dark blue and had to deal with it. At that point, I was scared not to get all my fabric at one place. I've moved on.
Top row

Notice this says 2003 BOM from Block Central. I printed it, bought the fabric, and just took it out last week. I love samplers. I don't get bored.

I got quite a bit done yesterday. I wanted to see how the first row of the blue and yellow quilt went together. It's always a miracle to me when seams meet like they should.

I also decided I'd get some extra paper patterns printed off and try to do one block a week (4 of the small squares) and I couldn't find the block!!! I was just sure it was a 12" square so I looked and looked on Quilter's Cache and couldn't find it. Then I remembered that I was looking for something other than a 12 inch and went up to the loft to measure it. 10 inch. So then it wasn't so hard. It's this one. I'm glad I went to link it because I had trouble finding it again this time!! Well, it's here, so I won't lose it now.

Pictures of the blue and yellow quilt that's together will be posted when Grace and Riley let me!

Paper piecing

Goodness! This was a lot of work. I like it, but if I'm going to do PP, I think I want something that looks more complicated! (but then that means it is more complicated.)

Quilting goals 2/27

Achieved last week:
Finished redoing all of the blocks for Holly and Dennis's wedding quilt
Did all blocks except one for the blue and yellow sampler quilt
Sewed blocks together for the Chiclet medallion quilt


Goals for this week:
Finish the blue and yellow quilt top
Put binding on brown/gold mystery quilt
Finish binding repair on I Spy Quilt
Get back to handquilting!!
Find fabric for border on chiclets quilt