Sunday, January 27, 2013

A long night!

But I got lots accomplished! Kristen's lap quilt has the binding sewn on and now only needs to be handstitched down and the final borders are on my quilt! I wanted to take it with me to the camper to start working on but we're leaving tomorrow and there is no way I can get it sandwiched before we leave.Especially since I am going to have to add to the fabric I had for the backing. Oh well......there's always next week! I really can't wait to start handquilting this one!

A good day!



 I love this pic! It just looks peaceful to me. You can see just the top of Ninja's head to the bottom left. Her favorite place to sit and watch birds.

The first border is on my quilt and the second one made out of those string blocks is almost ready to go on. That will be tonight's project. So tonight it will be a finished top! I decided I'm going to hand quilt it. I'm almost done with the little lap quilt for dd and I really need to keep a hand project in progress. Hand quilting makes me happy. I'm going to use pearl cotton and do big stitches on it. I did a small dresser scarf from blocks I made too small and I love the way it looks so now the quilt on my bed will match.
My new iron came yesterday too. I was expecting it Monday but I checked the tracking one last time yesterday and saw it was out for delivery. I waited by the window and watched......NOT because I was that excited but because our mailman is careless with our packages. He either sets them on top of the mailbox so they fall or throws them on the ground. He set the iron on the mailbox.
Over the holidays we got lots of packages as I prefer to shop online. I found packages throw 3 feet from the box, under the tree behind the box, and left out in the rain. Doesn't even cover the ones delivered at 10pm....
But my new iron is great! I sent my son out to grab it as soon as I saw him put it out. No chance for it to fall!
I happily spent the rest of the afternoon working on borders and pressing them with a nice hot iron that never cut off on me!
Dh even ran the kids on all of their things so I could have a day of not having to go somewhere! He's so sweet!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Yucky ice!


Another oldie.....

This is the picture that sent me searching this morning. These are my grandparents Willie and Virl. It's my Grannie that is responsible for my journey into quilting. Without her influence growing up I wouldn't have known how to start quilting. She loved to sew! She also loved flowers but sadly I do NOT have her green thumb....
Paw died when I was in 4th grade but Grannie lived to be 94. They were stability for me and I loved them dearly. So this is my stroll down memory lane today..


Looking at old pics this morning.....

 This is Miss Daisy. She has always been fascinated with the sewing things! I now have to unthread my machine when I walk away. I learned that the hard way......left home for a few hours and came back to thread draped over every surface in the house. EVERY! It was in the den on the couches, in the kitchen on the island, the bedrooms. She had quite a good time I think. She doesn't eat it just likes to drag it behind her! Silly cat!

Thimbles, thimbles, thimbles.....


I have a love/hate relationship with thimbles. I love them for the simple fact that they protect my finger from needle jabs. I've decided that there's not much that hurts worse than jamming a tiny little quilting needle in your finger. For that reason alone the thimble could be my best friend! These are just a few of the ones I've tried....so far the little black one is the best. There were more but I lost them!

The only issue with the black one is that they wear out. At $6 a pop buying 2-3 of them a year is to me money wasted that I could have bought fabric with! I know, I know! After the last post and seeing the boxes of scraps I don't need fabric but dh doesn't NEED to smoke either and he still does! That really is another whole post though....

Anyway back to thimbles. It seems the metal ones are either too big or too small. They won't fit my finger or they fall off. The plastic ones aren't bad but not comfy.

I found a new one to try though and maybe, maybe it will be the perfect thimble for me and last longer. I am hoping so!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

A new toy and some organizing.......


I am posting this on my early birthday present........a new tablet!
Hubby and the kids surprised me with it two weeks ago. I have been busy learning to use it and downloading fun apps. I found all kinds of apps for  quilting.



 Today I tackled my scraps. Boxes and boxes of them.

 My son and I built a new table to hold       file boxes.......file boxes full of color sorted scraps! The top of it is now my cutting table. Plus we had some quality mother/son time!
Still waiting on the new iron though and it looks like it will be Monday before it comes......

Saturday, January 19, 2013

New iron coming!

After using my Grannie's old iron for a week it went haywire again. Luckily all that happened was the smoke alarm started going off. No fire and no burned fabric. So I am back in the market for an iron. I wanted one that was heavy, one that had a good point on it, and NO auto shut off. Three stores and three strikes. No one it seems has an iron that doesn't have auto shut off! So I came home disappointed but with a plan. I remembered seeing a dry iron online and hearing good things about it.
This is what I ordered,
http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/store/product/detail.jsp?productId=42277&categoryId=100875&parentCategoryId=10294&activeNav=1031&_requestid=5275987

It should be here sometime next week and I am excited! I'm ready to start on the wedding quilt for oldest dd and her fiance and a good iron will be nice. I am sad though that I won't be using my Grannie's iron. I wonder if anyone can repair it?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Devotion.....

Reece....our mutt that isn't anything she was supposed to be. A year ago I saw an ad on CL for Great Pyr mix puppies. We were ready for another dog. The kids missed having a big dog and so did I. So against my better judgement I called and they sent me pics of the puppies. Adorable balls of fluff. The kids and I loaded up and off we went. Well the puppy I liked the best wasn't the one that liked the kids best. Reece was that puppy. She absolutely loved the kids so home she came with us. She was a stubborn little thing but we finally got her house trained. Then we started realizing she wasn't as big as a pyr puppy would be......her looks were changing too. This is her at a year old and I see no pyr in her. I see a lot of some type of collie. She loves rounding up the chickens! She also still loves the kids to pieces! When I took this picture right before Christmas she was watching them out front getting wood. She never even heard me come in the room she was so focused on watching them. I called her four times before she even acknowledged me! I think she would have gone through that window if she thought one of them was in trouble.....
She's such a good girl except for the fact that she knows she doesn't belong on the couch!

Monday, January 14, 2013

Aren't these beautiful?

I am in love with these colors! I need to add some blues I think and maybe another red and yellow. These are definitely going in a quilt together! Just as soon as I make a wedding quilt for my oldest daughter and the future son in law. I have the pattern picked out. Stars of course because you know I LOVE star quilts. But then again that flying geese quilt Bonnie Hunter posted awhile back would really look good with these colors in it. Decisions....decisions...decisions! Good thing I have months to decide!

Guess what I am making?

Can you tell from this picture? No? Ok I will tell you! String blocks! I thought after making them for Brit's quilt I would never do them again but here I am. These will be the last border on my CW quilt. I finally got the top together. It's NOT perfect! Not even close. There are a few blocks that I may have to go in and turn right otherwise they may annoy me every single time I crawl under that quilt. We'll see. I'm kind of just glad to be this far along with it and since we got the new camper dh took "his" quilt with him and I have no quilt on the bed.

Yes I've been a bad blogger.....there is so much going on here and I just haven't had time to blog lately. I am going to try to change that though!
Here's my CW quilt. All of the blocks were made on my treadle sewing machine but I put the rows together on my 66 with a motor.