It's bird weather (stash report week 46)

The winter bird feeders are out and the birds are all over our back yard.  We had one cold, rainy day last week that even brought bluebirds (our state bird) to our backyard.  We have a wooded ravine behind our house so we don't usually get bluebirds as they prefer open spaces.  The red berries on the Nandina seemed to be their reason for paying us a visit.

See that Cardinal in the background
 waiting his turn?

With all this temperate weather, my allergies are ever present.  A constant, dull headache greets me each morning - uggh.  Each morning except Friday morning, when we woke to temps below 30 and frost on the ground.  I felt great!! I love winter!!

Today we are back in the 60s.  So, after a dose of Advil, I headed out to clean out pots, fill the compost bins, and and arrange things in the shed for the winter.  Cleaning the plants led me to cleaning the basement so I would have a place to put the plants for the next 4-5 months.

We are also cleaning the basement for the delivery of a small chest freezer.  Never thought I would be excited about a chest freezer.  We're expecting 5 adults and 2 kids for a few days before Christmas and I hope to do some cooking ahead of their arrival.  Need to make room and the unfinished portion of the basement really needed a general cleaning, reorganization, and vacuuming with the shop vac.

So, no sewing or quilting today.

However, quilty friend Charla hosted us for a sew day at her house yesterday because she is an "opening-weekend-of-deer-season" widow.  I think we all ate way too much but had a great time!

Here's the archives quilt with the binding on.  Love the back with the Etchings map, handwriting, and architectural drawings!!

I got my Civil War blocks done for this month's guild meeting.

It's called Lincoln's Platform, but I call it a churn dash variation.  Hopefully next month's block will be as easy - love 9 patches!

At retreat last month, I got my "Be Merry" Christmas BOM blocks done and laid out in sections.  Last night I got 5 of the 7 sections together.

Oops - there's a little more work to do on the church.  The blue applique needs to be stitched down.

On the hexie front, I made two this week but they are for the Inchy Hexagon Flower swap and I don't want to ruin the surprise.

I've been basting lots of polka dot petals so maybe next week I will have one or two to show.

DH brought home some more Boulevard boxes so I can use the last of the black polka dot that I bought last week!

Next - to make some muslin linings so I can use them to store sewing projects.


And - I did not add anything to my stash this week!  I didn't use up anything either, but that's ok!



Used this Week: 0
Used year to Date: 65.42
Added this Week: 0
Added Year to Date: 115.57
Net Used for 2011:   -50.15
Check out more Stash Reports at Patchwork Times

New project - the Ruby Tote

Have you heard about the new sew along at Clover & Violet?

Here are my FQs - monaluna fabrics and a 12" square of green polka dot.  Help me decide which side of the green I should use - the polka dot side or the wrong side?  The green is the fabric for the embroidery design.

Still need to pull out my threads to see if I need some new colors for this project.

I wish I could figure out how to load a page from my new My Memories album.  I won the software from Jess at Quilty Habit.  All those pix that I showed you Sunday are now in a digital album!  Love it!  Even bought it over the weekend for my sister-in-law - what a great gift!!

Bindings are on!! (stash report week 45)

Our week here started out very lovely.  On Monday DS and I went to the pumpkin patch/farmer's market for the last time.  All through the month of October they open "Fort Spooky" for the kids.  It's quite a destination for field trip for the smaller kids.  Most of it is geared toward the under 10 age bracket.  There's a little corn maze, a haunted house, an old fashioned metal slide (which DS loved), a big wooden playground set with 4 slides.

On Tuesday, the Magic House (St. Louis' Children's Museum) offered free admission to anyone wearing red to celebrate the Cardinals' World Series win.  Can't pass up free!  So, after a morning at preschool, DS and I made our way there.

We had only been there on weekends, especially for the Target Free Family nights, and it was always packed to the rafters.  Well, Tuesday it was not crowded at all. DS had a great time doing anything he wanted to do without waiting (and then having some impolite kid run in front if him).

Usually, the "bubble room" is so full you cannot turn around. Tuesday, we were in there alone!  Even I got to do the bubble curtain - lol.

The Magic House is in an old Victorian house to which multiple additions have been added over the years.  Here is a shot of one corner of the house section, complete with a 3 story slide.

After two hours and a full morning of preschool, DS was worn out and fell asleep on our 15 minute ride home!

So, there's two days that I didn't get to my sewing corner in the basement.

However I did get the bindings on two quilts and will count them in the "out" column - they're just not on all the way!  I will finish those today so that I can move on to other projects with a clear conscience.

Speaking of bindings, check out this tutorial at The BunkHouse for using a fleece binding.

I did one, lone little hexie this week.












Then, I got distracted a bit - had that kind of week - my mind was racing everywhere thinking about the in-laws coming for the holidays.  And of all weeks, I missed my Wednesday yoga class so I made some time to hit the gym Thursday and yesterday.  When I'm all over the place, I need to workout and find my balance again.

One of the things distracting me is the pile of boxes that I've saved for some mod podge projects.  So, Wednesday evening, before the cold front moved in I did a bit of Christmas shopping and ran to Joann's to get black fabric for some more beer boxes. Fabric is so much easier to work with than paper.

One yard covered these 4 boxes with one strip left over which will cover another small box.  It won't be long before DH brings home another 6 pack of Boulevard.  The lids of the little boxes actually close together completely (can you see it on the 2nd box from the left?) - awesome!

To use these as quilting project boxes I will have to line them with some muslin.

One more package arrived in the mail.  I won a book at Blushing Rose.  Clare O'Donohue's books are fun, cozy mysteries set around a group of quilters in a small town.  I don't buy many books to keep as DS and I make weekly trips to the library, but I do buy hers and this is her most recent.

Look at the pretty book mark and cute notecard.  When I was younger I loved to receive pretty little notecards like these in the mail.

Here are a couple additions from the LQS that I had forgotten to show you.  I picked up the smallest twister by Primitive Gatherings thinking it would be a great way use left over jelly roll tails and binding ends.

The YLI soft touch was 50% off - can't beat that.  I love to use soft touch when I'm doing blocks with lots of seams like log cabins or pineapples or such.




Finally, something significant in the used column!  Here are the numbers:
Used this Week: 16
Used year to Date: 65.42
Added this Week: 1
Added Year to Date: 115.57
Net Used for 2011:   -50.15
Check out more Stash Reports at Patchwork Times

Fixin' this and fixin' that

Oh what a morning! Are you ever just not in the mood to do what needs to be done to finish a project?  Happens to me all the time. That's probably why I have so many UFO's.

Since I wasn't in the mood to put binding on, I decided to do some odds n ends.  Completely unrelated to sewing was the bathroom sink.  DS unscrewed the knob so many times that it finally stopped going back together.

It's been this way for weeks.  DH said he didn't know where to find my glue. This was our "suitcase."  If anyone ever watched "Everybody Loves Raymond," you know what I mean - Debra and Raymond each thought the other should put the suitcase sitting on the staircase away so it sat for weeks. Since watching that episode, DH and I recognize our "suitcases" more easily now.

Then, DS showed me his shoe - the sole was coming off! Well, while I had the glue out, right?

Here it is in the vice!  Like that thing!

Then, still in repair mode - here's my mending projects.  Guess what!  They're all mine - LOL!

For some company I turned on Pat Sloan's radio show and listend to Bonnie Hunter, who introduced her new scrappy mystery quilt today.

A pair of jeans that's needed the knee reinforced since spring.  Why so long? Well, it was soon shorts weather and, well, I hate mending!

ack a thread - how long will it take me to get that cut?

This one gets me where I live - my workout capris. That industrial seam came loose on the inseam in several places.  That one really called to me b/c I wear these at the gym and the exposure possibilities were kinda high!

Of course, my mending "ain't purty," but it's done!

While I had a machine set up for piecing, I decided to finish my Dresden plate from the QAL at Lily's Quilts from the spring.  It's looked like this on my design wall for months and months.

Sunday afternoon I put the color border on and today I got out the GO! Baby and cut four 2.5" strips to put on the outer border. 

Love it!  I think it will go in our guild's quilt show next spring.

Here's my Archives Quilt all quilted.  I did simple line quilting, keeping it modern.

I also didn't want to distort the backing too much - ya'll know how much I love the backing fabric.  So, the map, handwriting, and architectural drawings are still legible.

And then, while clicking pix for this post, I went upstairs just before I left the bread in the oven too long.  WHEWWEE - disaster averted because that's gonna be part of my lunch!

Have a great day!!

Fun at the Farm (stash report week 44)

The good weather we've been having is not at all conducive to quilting.  Time has been spent doing other things like visiting a corn maze, playing at the park, attending the last preschool soccer game of the season, and general (and much needed) yard work.

Last weekend we went to a corn maze on a nearby farm by the Big River. It was hot in that cornfield at high noon - whewee! This is shot off into the distance, toward the river.

There was also a bounce house, pony rides,

petting pens.... 

a hay bale slide with tunnel,...

a fun ride,....

a horse swing made from tires,....

, and a corn box.

Fun, fun, fun!!

Here is my lone little hexie flower for this week.  I have done some basting but been too tired at the end of the day to hang onto the needle and put any more together.










There have been additions to the stash numbers, but not by the exchange of money.  The good luck fairy snuck into my computer and left some luck behind on my giveaway comments for a couple of weeks.

Not long after the Moda designer blog hop, Deb Strain had a giveaway on her blog related to her willingness to jump out of a plane.  


Check out this post to see if she did it!


I was the lucky random number and she sent along a layer cake,...

..and a panel from her Christmas collection, Nature's Gift.


Deb Strain doesn't just design fabric.  She also sent a long a lovely box of holiday cards and a photo album organizer.  


Aren't these pretty? Love the birds, love the flowers!

Then, I won another FQ bundle from the Green Bag Lady, who just gave away 200 bags in one evening this weekend for a total of more than 18,000 bags - plastic be gone!


These are organic FQs from Monaluna Fabrics.  I think it will work perfectly for the new Clover and Violet stitch along tote.

Here are some Christmas Block Lotto blocks that were turned in at Tuesday night's guild meeting.  Aren't they pretty?


Next month I should have lots more to sort into groups for the drawings at the December meeting.

I took a day, well, a few hours while DS was at preschool one morning, to put together my Clover & Violet embroidery 101 QAL top.  One reason was because other QAL'ers were finishing up and since we started the QAL in May, well, I was anxious to see what it would like so why drag it out any longer?


The other reason was because it felt so good to sit with a large block of time get something done, just concentrate on one thing for a change - very relaxing.  I took my time and did not "unsew" a single stitch.


I understand it is supposed to be colder next week, so I vow here in blogland, to get the bindings on two quilts.  Hold me to it, will you?!  One quilt is quilted and the other is almost completely quilted.  How hard can it be since I put them on by machine these days?


Here are the numbers:
Used this Week: 0
Used year to Date: 49.42
Added this Week: 5
Added Year to Date: 114.57
Net Used for 2011:   -65.15
Check out more Stash Reports at Patchwork Times.  Have a great day!!

The Baby has arrived!

A GO! Baby, that is!

Isn't she pretty?!  I won her last week at Connie's blog, Quilting by the River.  (The good luck fairy has apparently visited me these past few weeks.)  If you visit Connie today she will take you on a tour of her sewing room!

The Baby arrived sometime Wednesday afternoon but I didn't find it on the front porch til it was bedtime for DS.  Sew, no playing on the arrival day.  Yesterday, DS was with me all day and finally, at 9PM, I got to open the dies and grab a few scraps.  

From three pieces of scraps I cut 38 two inch squares in about 5 minutes!  WooHoo!!

Then I had to try the hexagon die which cuts pieces for my 1" finished hexies. The smallest ones work with the 1/2" finished hexies.

There's a big 5" hexagon that I may try after the holidays. So here are 24 hexies that I cut in another 5 minutes - love it!!

I also got the 2.5" strip for cutting scraps and binding strips.  I may get to try that one out tonight as I am very close to finishing the archives quilt.

Since I use lots of FQs, there always seems to be little pieces lying about.  Anywhere from a fat eight to 4"x5" rectangles to a single little strip.  I can't wait to get all these little pieces cut into some usable shapes and sorted.

I plan to get the binding onto two quilts this weekend.  What are your plans, sewing or otherwise?

Top finished and win!

Howdy!


I have to share the Clover & Violet Embroidery 101 QAL quilt top.  It is finished! Not finished enough to count in my stash report, not until it is bound.

I was very tempted to let these blocks languish until more pressing projects were done.  However, we started this QAL in May and it just seemed appropo to make the deadline and join my fellow QAL'ers.  It was only 9 blocks, the sashing, cornerstones, and borders were a cinch to cut and I pinned while I watched TV Monday night after a long day of "going, going, going."

At our guild meeting last night I volunteered to be secretary next year.  Then I won the BOM exchange blocks - 5 "Union" blocks (mine makes 5)! 


Charma? Maybe. Aren't they pretty?  

They join these Ohio Stars that I won months ago for a grand total of 10 twelve inch Civil War blocks (won 8, made 2).


Oh - and our guild president is a H-U-G-E Cardinals fan. 


Honestly, she sent out an email last week and before opening it I was convinced that she probably wanted to move our meeting b/c there a conflict with the World Series  --LOL!!  For volunteering to fill the empty positions she gave us all a rally towel, pictured above.

Have a great hump day!