Last Post of the Year

Knit pillow for DS is done. I made each of my kids one when they were younger. Surprise, Surprise he remembered his, had lost it during his divorce and wanted it replaced. That is a drill sergeant for you. LOL His original one was oval, but I couldn't find any pillow forms that shape and I am terrible at making them.....so he gets one a different shape. Like the original, it is yellow on top and black on the back. Hope he likes it.

Now onto next years projects.

End of 2010

Looking back over the year, it has been a basically good one with a few losses. A couple furkids were lost by other family members, and a couple friends were lost also.
As for my list of projects, I completed 6 of them with 3 others going into the new year. Plans for next year in addition to the 3 projects not done, are to do 2 Quilts of Valor, and 3 children's quilt's for Linus group or family. To be decided later.
Lots of baking to do this week and visits with the family Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A lot of work, but lots of fun as a result.
Merry Christmas to all.

December update

Like most of you, can't believe Christmas is almost here. I am never ready, but then I work best when under a deadline. Next week will be a busy one.

Working on the backing to the hex quilt. Hope to have it done early next month so I can get the project to the quilter. Still thinking about how I want to bind it.

New EPP project is coming along nicely. I now have 1/8 of it done. I am doing it in 4 sections so it won't be too big to work on comfortably until I put the sections together. I am really liking how it is coming together. The background and center of each block will be the same throughout, but the pinwheels will be scrappy.

Merry Christmas to all. Have a joyous and safe holiday and a wonderful New Year.

New EPP Project

Finished the first block to my next EPP (English Paper Piecing) project that I started on the Branson Trip. I was able to get about a third of it done on the trip despite very little elbow or leg room on the bus. It will be fun as always to see it come together as each block is done.

New Bag

Made a new bag from materials designed by Mark Lipinski that I really like and have been getting a little at a time. It is a winter design with snowflake type pattern. I also made a purse organizer. I followed the instructions for it, but if I make it again, I probably would make it a little deeper.

November

This is shaping up to be a busy month. DH had eye surgery and will have the other eye done in 2 weeks. Then there is Thanksgiving and only a month to Christmas. Yikes

This is my next pattern that I will start to hand piece while on a trip later. Not nearly as ambitious as the 1/2 square triangle blocks will finish to 2". Large for me ;)

Back at the house with lots to do. All the unpacking and sorting through years of accumulation before we can even considering selling the house. It is a 4-bedroom colonial and much larger than we need with the kids all gone. Don't know yet if we will get another house. Not in a big hurry on that.

Changes

It is time to leave the lake. Always a sad time as it is so peaceful here. Lots to do if we are going to sell the house next year. At least we hope too. There have been good and bad things lately. One friend lost a puppy and another one will be losing her 2 1/2 year old Dachsy to cancer. It could be a few months or a year. You know how those things go. On the good side, a niece is expecting a baby. Fortunately, the good usually out weighs the bad.

Should be done with my Hex Quilt next month (I hope), and looking forward to starting my next project.

I plan on doing a Quilt of Valor one starting in December or January. This is an approximation of the design.

Beautiful October

I so love this time of year with all the fall colors and cooler temps. It is also the season of cider mills and donuts. Delicious, but bad for the waist band. This is a bag that I put together this morning for Halloween, another fun part of this season. Can't really tell from the picture, but there are spiders climbing on the handles. The lining is multi-colored spider webs.

I've been really busy working on my hex quilt, and hope to have the piecing finished by early November. We will see. All depends on how much life gets in the way.

Labor Day Weekend

Just a note. It has been a good weekend. We ate out at a fundraiser for Cancer. We have several activities here in our park labor day weekend to raise money. One of the ladies here in the park got my Ribbon quilt and one of our DIL's got the baby afghan. She doesn't know if she will save it for someone having a baby or use it as a lap blanket. It is mint green and she loves that color.

We had a very nice barbecue with most of our kids, a couple grandkids and friends (13 people in all). Our son in Fort Knox was able to make it home and be with us. That made it even more special. The weather was perfect. Today is just a quiet day which is always so welcome after a lot of company.

Possibilities

Out of the Scrap-Basket Surprises book that I did the ribbon quilt, is another one that I might try sometime in the future. It is called Belize. All the quilts in the book are jelly roll friendly, using 2.5" strips. What do you think of this one? As always, there are more projects that I would like to do than time to do them in.

Ribbon Quilt Finished

Finally got the ribbon quilt done. Sent it out to be quilted. The lady usually has a one week turn around, but it took 2 weeks this time. She must be getting a lot busier. I know at least 4 quilt shops that use her services. She is very reasonable in her pricing. I love the look of this quilt. It is great as a scrappy quilt and would probably look good in 3 or 4 colors.
Instead of the traditional binding, I just folded the backing fabric over to the front. It looks nice, but I think I prefer the traditional binding. These are pics of the quilt and the backing fabric.

Now to move onto my Downey charity quilt. I also have a child's quilt that is at the quilter's that I will need to finish and mail off when I get it back.

Happy Quilting

Baby Afghan

Used up some pale green yarn to make a baby afghan. I personally prefer bright colors for baby things, but had the yarn. It will be donated to a fundraiser for Cancer that we have here at the lake every Labor Day Weekend. I made up the pattern from a design I had bought some time ago, but lost the pattern. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. It is done in crochet with single and double crochets.

Hex Quilt - July

This is my progress on the landscape hex quilt. I have completed 2 sides of the quilt, therefor, my diagonal rows are getting shorter. It always feels good when I reach this point of a hand pieced quilt. Hopefully the piecing of this one will be completed by November of this year. I'm looking foward to starting new projects.

As you can see, I now have some sky with clouds. I have been making minor changes to the pattern as I go.

Ribbon Quilt

This is the pattern Christmas Ribbons done in batiks. It is a very easy pattern. It only took me 7 days working approx. 1 hour a day. This one is a small one measuring 47 x 31.5. It would be beautiful in lots of reds and greens for Christmas. As you can see, it is a great scrappy quilt. I'm thinking it would also be a great 2 or 3 color quilt. Now I have to move on to a baby quilt that I need in 3 weeks.

Christmas Ribbons

This quilt pattern is from the book Scrap-Basket Surprises and is called Christmas Ribbons. Since I'm using batiks and not Christmas fabrics, I will need to call it something else. Party Ribbons and Celebration Ribbons perhaps. Anyways just found out that an out of state niece is having a baby girl and her shower in our state is in three weeks. I had already started this one, so it will have to be her baby's gift. I have the blocks partially done and should have them finished and in rows by the end of this coming week. Then I can get it layered and quilted the following week. Thank goodness it was already in the works. LOL

Scrappy w/ 3 cuts

Here are the instructions for the block I picked up info on yesterday. Start with assorted dark fabric squares 8.5 square. Make a cut 3.5 x 8" and the second cut 5.5 square leaving a strip 3.5 x 5.5. Sew them together so that you have a different fabric in each segment. Do the same with assorted light fabric squares.

Second step is to put a lt and dk assembled square right sides together, making sure the 5.5 squares are together. Draw a line diagonally across the light square, and sew 1/4" on each side of line. Cut on the drawn line, and you will have 2 half square triangles. One side darks and the other side lights. Assemble as desired. The quilt at the shop was assembled in such a way that there were light and dark diagonal strips.



This would be a great way to use up your stash.

One Block Wonder

Some friends and I have been discussing stack and slash quilting. Another variation of it is the One Block Wonder which I fell in love with. One block wonder is the name of the book and you do the whole quilt with just one piece of fabric. I decided to use that technique for a jacket that I made from a sweatshirt. Once you do this technique, you really look at fabric differently.

When trying this technique you need fabric with images close together, you don't want a lot of background. You end up with hexagon shapes as you can see from the pics, but when assembling you are doing it in columns so it is all straight stitching. I fell in love with this technique and have acquired some fabric that will go perfectly for it. I'm thinking of possibly making place mats and table runners from it. One of the things I like best is the surprise you get as each hex is formed.

If you ever get a chance to view the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, do it. Saw the one in DC years ago, and was as moved by this as I was then. So many names, so many lives. Don't know if I know anyone on the wall, but it is quite possible that some old schoolmates are on it. Even though it is a replica, those viewing it were as silent as those at the DC monument. While you are looking at the names of those that gave all, you are also seeing yourself.

I once saw a picture of the memorial, or should I say graphic, of a man and his grandson at the wall. The man had his hand touching the wall, and in the wall you saw a soldier who would have been the son/father of the two. Even thinking about it gives me chills.

The crazy quilt style was a small quilt that I did for my youngest granddaughter, Sarah. I did it by the stack and slice method. The border fabric is dolphins in many different colors. I used the fancy stitches on my machine to stitch along all the lines as my method of quilting that one.

The red, white & blue quilt was a mystery quilt from a magazine. I gave it to Sarah's brother Steven. I'll have to do a mystery quilt again in the future, they are a lot of fun.

I hate summer

I hate the hot humid days of summer. Unlike most people, I very seldom complain about winter. Spring and Fall are my favorites.

This kind of weather makes it hard to do hand piecing. The thimble gets really tight when it is like this. Looking forward to weather in the 80's next week.

This picture is a piece that I did from a design my daughter did for a college design class. I gave it to her for Christmas 2007 and she and her partner got it framed and hung it in her home. I really liked the lines of the design.

The picture in my heading is my beloved Taz. We lost him New Year's Day 2000. I often called him Tazman.

I love it when it is cool enough to have windows open. Yesterday was in the high 80's or higher. Didn't hear final temps. However it was about 85 indoors which is way to hot for me. Definitely put on the air as soon as we returned to the lake in the evening. I can't sleep at night unless it is in the low 70's. Prefer the 60's.

Won't have a lot a time for quilting today. Saw a new pattern yesterday that I will be drawing up in my EQ7 program. It is a Cozy Quilt Designs pattern called Butterfly Blooms.

New pics of long term project

Finally got pictures of the landscape quilt. Even at the house I can't get it all in one shot. You can see that I now have the sky and am starting clouds. There is also some snow on the mountain peaks. Sometime soon I will have to get an actual measurement of the size of the quilt. It has reached it's full size vertically and horizontally. Just have to work the upper right corner.

Bride Doll

I've made many bride dolls as gifts for people in the family that have gotten married. It is my wedding gift for them. This one is the first and only one I have kept for myself. It got second place at our state fair. They are fun to do, though I have slowed down on them considerably since I started quilting.

Cathedral Window

This was my first big project, I had done one small one before this. I do tend to jump right in. Something like fools rush in etc. LOL

I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I used a blue batik for the background and about 10 fabrics for the windows. The 'X' isn't really visible when looking at it unless you know what you are looking for, but it sure shows up in photos.

March Update

Another month another 600 pieces or so. It is coming together. Sometime this summer I will reach the top of this piece and the rows will get shorter. Right now there are 145 pieces per row.

Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll be adding another piece to my daily routine.

So glad we are into Spring weather. This and Fall are my favorite times. Looking forward to heading back to the lake for the summer.

Next Project

This is a picture of my next major project. I had to tape together parts of 9 pages to get it all together. It will be done by paper piecing 1/2" pieces. Yup, I'm crazy.

I'm better than half way done with my current project.

March update

Another month, another 600 or so pieces added. I'm getting there.

Starting to plan my next big project even though this one won't be done until much later this year. With any luck I might be done in October. We will see. Finally started on the sky. It is in the upper left hand corner. You have to look hard to see it. LOL

Haven't gotten much done on my Monet's Wedding Ring quilt this past month. Hope to finish piecing it in the next week or so.

Weather in the high 30's and low 40's, spring is coming.

Hex Quilt - January

Another month, another few hundred pieces. A little over 600 this month. It won't be long before I'll reach the top left corner of it, reducing the # of pieces in each diagonal row.

If you look closely, you can see some snow on the mountains.

Monet's Wedding Ring

I've finished the 9-patch blocks for the quilt. A lot of pieces to this one. The next block will take 506 of 2 colorways each and another 200-300 of background. I forget exactly how many. The quilt consists of 3 blocks to give a double wedding ring effect without doing curves.

This is a picture of some of the 79 blocks done so far. Lots of cutting to do this week for the next block. The background fabric is a dark blue Fusion, and as you can see, the rest is scrappy.

New Year's Resolution?

I've added a list of some projects I plan to get done this year. In reality, you can add 6 more to it since I have been piecing my backings. Each project is one that I have fabric for in my stash or a kit that I already have.

The first one is Monet's Wedding Ring. I am doing that one with an on-line group. We have a schedule set for it, so hopefully it will keep me on track and off to a good start. You can see a picture of this pattern at the following site. http://www.judymartin.com/Scraps-Poll-Results.cfm It is on the page after Week 3.

We are in a January thaw which feels really good after the deep cold we have had here recently. It almost feels like spring even if it is only in the 30's.

December update

December has been a busy month, and, as you can see, I didn't get much done on my main project. Only about 4 rows. As happens in December, a lot of time is spent finishing Christmas projects, shopping and wrapping and sending Christmas cards. Then there are the wonderful days with family that don't leave time for any sewing.

We had just a touch of snow this year. Just enough to give the feel of Christmas. We have been very lucky so far and haven't had much more than an inch at a time and many times just a dusting.

With the new year, I have plans on assembling some of the kits that I have had for some time and never gotten around to. That alone should keep me busy and out of trouble. LOL