Design Wall Monday - 12/31/12

Here it is...the last day of the year!! I wish you all a very Happy New Year's tomorrow!!!

My sewing date was cancelled yesterday so I decided to work on my birdievision quilt. Most of the bits were cut and piled on the cutting table and putting it together has eliminated most of a pile. Wootwoot!

This morning my little QCO helped hold down the quilt for a photo.

I obviously still need to add the black borders to the sides. I know the quilt police prefer to put the sides on and then top/bottom, but this way I didn't have to piece the top/bottom pieces thanks to the wider batik fabric. I love that the black also has the red and grey in it to pull all the colors together.

I now just have to decide how wide I want the grey border with black cornerstone. I had originally thought to do 4" finished but the center blocks are 5" finished so I am also considering that. The cornerstone shown is a leftover 5".

Feline Friday - 12/28/12

The best part of Momma's tax job is that they are delivered in some nice boxes and I'm always the first to check them out...no matter where or how she stacked them.

After the pile came crashing down from the stool it was precariously balanced on, the pile was moved to the floor for futher investigation!

Pepper, Midgie and Squeaky wish you all a Happy New Year!
Don't forget to spend New Years Day doing what you want to do all year...we will be napping and snacking and Momma wants to be sewing. Who woulda guessed that?!

Feathered Lightening

Based on a photo I found at Vicki's blog , I designed my own quilt which I have called Feathered Lightening. I made a lot of progress over jammy weekend but I still have to finish the borders. The first border is just the purpley-magenta fabric but the next border will be more of the gray (Yes, I need to go get more and Mom isn't helping cuz she offered to go with me so we can also stop at William-Sonoma. The store is 50+ miles away...) with gold cornerstones.

I didn't trim down the setting triangles, liking the extra size it gave to the quilt but with the first border on, I'm not so sure I like the way the two-colored setting triangles stack onto each other on the sides. They are opposites on each side so it's balanced but I'm just not sure. So far I've got one vote to keep it the way it is. I'll get back to it this weekend or on New Year's Day and make up my mind then.

Almost Wordless Wednesday



The 12 Days of Christmas
I've wanted to make one of these for at least a year ... and I might make another some day...

Progress!
It's all one piece now and I'm starting to fill in the right side.
I still have a considerable # of hexies to go but having just the one piece makes it feel so much closer to finishing...

Design Wall Monday - 12/24/12

I spent an incredibly relaxing weekend in my PJ's sewing - I cannot remember the last time I was able to do that. I won't show you everything I accomplished in today's post because the next set of taxes have arrived and I won't get much sewing time for the next week.

I did work on Easy Street and the pieces are piling up.

I have everything cut and just need to finish sewing the bits from last Friday's clue. Since we got snow over the weekend and Bonnie wasn't sure what to call them...I'm going to call them half snowballs.

Pepper, Midgie, Squeaky and I wish all our friends a Merry Christmas tomorrow!

Feline Friday - 12/21/12

I didn't put up the big tree this year and decided to put all the bird ornaments on the tree in the quilt room. Pepper doesn't seem to mind, altho Squeaky can't hide under the bigger tree. You can see I still need to make a tree skirt...I'm waiting for the 40% off after Christmas sales because I was already gifted LQS gift certificates :)



On a sad note, someone hit the neighborhood stray last weekend. Given the road construction and how skittish (= fast) she was, I really have no idea how she got hit but I no longer have to worry about her in the cold. I also won't get to see her little paw prints in the snow. Since the neighborhood boys were not being nice to her right in front of several of us checking on her, I brought her home to my garden. RIP Bootsie.

Hopefully everyone else has had a good week preparing for the holidays. Only one more Feline Friday until the year is over...not sure how that happened?!

Merry Christmas from my Felines to yours!

yet another Easy Street update

With more parties this week than one person should be involved with (6!) there has been little time for sewing which means I have just this morning finished sewing and trimming my flying geese.

Tonight I will take my nephews to watch Polar Express at the local theater. We are supposed to wear our PJs and will receive cocoa and a bell before the show. I'm not sure who is more excited: them (age 4 and 7, both having already memorized the movie) or me for getting to spend time out with them...

Almost Wordless Wednesday

An idea I saw online and an already scheduled trip to a notsoLQS landed me some awesome new fabric...

and a new project! I should be able to make great progress on this during 'pj sewing weekend' I just wish I had bought a smidge more fabric. Oh well.

Easy Street Update

I finally got started on step 4 this morning...all the bits were cut and I then I got about half of them sewn up after this picture was taken.

I have loved every single one of Bonnie's mysteries (even the ones with string blocks) but I am loving this year's for the colors and how quick it seems to be going together.

I have very few plans this weekend (can't tell you the last time that happened) and I am looking forward to doing nothing but sewing in my PJ's all weekend! I can work on Easy Street and get caught up on Grandmother's Choice now that I purchased Blockbase. Trying to redesign blocks down to 4" was just insane having to draw them up first. And then maybe I can make the new PJ's with the flannel I bought back in August. LOL. I might need them if it ever gets cold around here...

HeLP for Hexie-aholics - 12/17/12

Recently, needing a change, I resurrected an older hexie project - The Bathroom Floor quilt, so named because it's inspired by the bathroom floor in my office.

I'll be doing the borders as Seminole Piecing - a favorite technique I haven't used in a while so I'm excited to get to that point.

The highlighted/yellow in the diagram below is what's done already - still a lot to do...

Alrighty my fellow hexie-aholics - share what you've been working on. We don't care if it's new or old but please make sure you link to the specific post and not your blog as a whole. If you need help linking, Bonnie has a great tutorial on her blog.

Feline Friday - 12/14/12

Earlier this week one of my co-workers made an emergency trip the hospital and I offered to feed Miss Kitty until the family arrived from out of state. She's a beautiful cat!

TGIF!!!
Don't forget that Monday is HeLP for hexieaholics!!

More Busy Work

Before *I* forget again - don't forget that Monday is HeLP for Hexie-aholics - get those hexie projects ready to share. Any project, new or old, will be greatly admired by all.

I'm still working at finishing up some some small projects...


This little twister wreath was made with the itty bitty twister and is only about 10.5" square.
It's already quilted but I had to square it up...and it had been *really* off.
Now I just need to make and apply the binding.



Ok, so it's not the right red but I really liked the fabric and it was handy :^)



This was a summer sew-a-long.
The backing and binding were already made but I needed to sandwich it = done!



The colors aren't quite right in this photo but I promise they go quite nicely with the front...



Almost Wordless Wednesday

If you think the buffet is always this clean, I have a bridge to sell you...



Still needs the table top tree on the left side of the buffet.



This is most of my Santa collection - I prefer pencil santas but they are hard to find nowadays.



Busy Work

Since I am caught up on the Easy Street mystery, I am trying to finish up some small projects this week. Mostly they just need the back pieced and the quilt sandwiched.

Yesterday I pieced this backing - I just need to press the binding in half.
Now I can put all the fabric pieces away!!

Design Wall Monday - 12/10/12

Unbelievably, I am 100% caught up with Easy Street!! Not quite sure how I managed that...

Quilt Cam was helpful in concentrating while I sliver trimmed all the flying geese. Not sure why but they were all a sliver too wide with usually perfect height. I almost got a photo of Squeaky checking out the video feed but the camera wasn't handy enough. Darn.

Man...I can't wait for Friday morning...

Feline Friday - 12/7/12

Last Sunday was Cookie Day with Mom. We made Candy Lassies, Sugar Cookies, Ginger Krinkles, Stained Glass Windows, Pineapple Cookies and something else that I can't remember. It was a long day!

We also had Squeaky to provide Moral Support! And yes, she had her little tongue sticking out!

Inquiring minds want to know ... what have all you other little kitties been up to this week?

Almost caught up

I was able to finish cutting the 128 triangles for step 2 this morning. As you can see I used quite the variety of purples. I also included a purple with silver on it (5th from the left) which make me think of Denise! Hey this almost caught up business is fun - I'm just not getting anything else accomplished...

I received another squishy yesterday from my friend Erin for helping get her addicted to learn how to do hexies! It's a well known fact I can usually be bought with choco, even tho I told her it had been totally unnecessary.

Foiled Again

Have you ever made plans and they got foiled, really foiled? Well of course you have...

Yesterday was such gorgeous weather and I still needed to get my Christmas lights up but when I got home it was raining...I told myself I'll just do them in the morning...

While watching Bonnie's Quilt Cam last night I was able to press all my foursies (woot woot!) and get started on the seam pinwheeling. I told myself that I would start cutting the purple triangles needed for the goose units in the morning and then have something to blog about.

This morning I realized at 7:30 (I had been hitting the snooze since 6) that I had to have my car at the repair shop in a hour. I had no time to hang lights or even look at purple fabrics.

I did receive a squishy earlier this week! Lucky Denise had won a couple copies of the most recent 100 quilt block magazines and offered to send one to me! Isn't she great?! When the package finally arrived (oh, I was just being impatient) I opened the package to a lovely kitten/tea card, pattern copy of a mini quilt made with 3/8" hexies, a color wheel card from Quiltmaker and a gorgeous FQ of cat fabric (oh, how am I gonna cut into that? Maybe it will be a mini quilt backing) but no magazine. Denise feels awful that the magazine was no longer in there but I think I have deciphered what happened. The clasp is torn right off the envelope and the edges were all bent up. Someone put a huge chunk of packing tape over the end of the envelope to keep the rest in but without the usual post office label that something was received in an open or damaged condidtion. I just hope someone is making pretty blocks instead of the magazine sitting in some dead letter file somewhere...

UPDATE - The blogiverse is a wonderful place - I have already received an offer from another online friend to send me her extra copy of the 100 blocks magazine.

PS - it's currently not even half of yesterdays high of 70F (and dropping fast) while tiny snow flakes are drifting down from a gray sky the color of my foursies :)

Heat Wave on Easy Street

Why yes…I did walk to the post office this morning without a coat. I know it’s December and all but we have broken a 20+ year record with a current high of 67F.

But don’t worry, while we normally say if you don’t like the weather in Western NY to wait 5 minutes, if you can actually wait until tomorrow it will be cold and snowing again - they promised us!

Just another 15 minutes of stitching and I'll have the foursies together. Pressing and pinwheeling seams might take just a couple more minutes...

Do you know how hard it is to take an interesting picture of black on white and gray fabrics on a white table next to a white Bernina? Impossible!!

Design Wall Monday - 12/3/12

I didn't have a lot of sewing time this weekend but I still think I made some decent progress on Easy Street...

I need 24 more twosies - the strip sets are sewn so I just need a few more minutes to subcut them.

I also have all 256 triangles cut for the flying geese units and I have assembled my dark purples. I find it quite strange that purple is one of my fav colors and I really don't have many purple fabrics...I need to remedy that problem!

Easy Street Guessing Game
Last Thursday I posted a guessing game on my blog. Viewers were supposed to guess how many twosies I had already trimmed based on the photo. I gave a little clue that I had talked about my counting "technique" before and here is is again - I use the thimbles and buttons to count. After I count 5 subcuts I lay a thimble on it's side on the cutting board or after 10 I stand up the thimble. After I get to 100, I take away the thimbles and put out a button. Therefore, I had already cut 172 twosies when the photo was taken.

The closest guesser without any clues was ANudge with a guess of 192!! Unfortunatley, no one guessed without clues as to how to guess...

Yard Sale
Don't forget I have some yard sale items on my blog. I didn't have time to update the list of items this weekend but I think Bonnie said there will be a collective/online yard sale next Saturday so I'll definitely get the list updated by then...

Feline Friday - 11/30/12

What is that I see? Can it possibly be December on the horizon already?
Of course, y'all know that means the Christmas tree will be coming soon and then I can hide underneath it! Woot Woot!

What are all you frisky felines looking forward to?

Easy guessing game

I know I still owe a little gifty in the mail for someone but I thought today's photo might be fun for another guessing game... I have blogged about this technique before but it's been a while and I did add a new little twist recently.

Last night while watching Bonnie's Quilt Cam, I worked on cutting twosies and making more strip sets.

Can you guess, from the photo, how many twosies I have cut already? Game ends Monday, 12/3/12.

Closest guesser gets 5 FQ length strips of black on white fabric.
A perfect guess will get 10 FQ length black on white strips.
Good Luck!

Starting down Easy Street

While I wait for my favorite piecing thread to arrive in the mail I decided to cut strips for Bonnie's 2012 mystery quilt - Easy Street.

My grey is a bit on the green side but I love it anyway.

And it appears I have plenty of black on white prints. I haven't used these (or the other box of white on black) in years and years so I don't know why I have so many. Let's just say I am thrilled at the prospect of using up a few of them.

Hexie ornaments

We have a monthly hexie night at the LQS. Generally we bring show-n-tell, a snack or drink to share and our own project to work on. For our December meeting, I suggested that we have some kits to make Christmas ornaments, based on the papers only kits that paperpieces.com sells.

These are the four ornaments we decided to run with. These are all made from my scraps and were shapes I already had. See...it's nice to have a paper shape stash too! I'm still playing with backings since I would like to take the papers out and I'm open to any suggestions.

I think the star in the upper right is my favorite because of the cardinal fussy cut for the center. My least favorite in this shot is the white star but if you go turn off your lights you'll see why I tried this fabric*.

Have you tried making ornaments yet, all y'all hexie-aholics? Would love to see your designs. We'll be doing hearts in a couple months...



*LOL - it's glow in the dark Fairy Frost ;^)

Design Wall Monday - 11/26/12

I was so excited for the sun to come out and get some pictures this morning but then I had to create some shadows so it wasn't all washed out (and that made the chickadee fabric upside down - sorry). I know, I ask too much. And now I suffer as we are back to grey skies. At least we got a little snow over the weekend!!!

I picked up the black batik on Black Friday as well as a dark grey batik I'll be using for the outer border. I think 1 more strip set and I should be able to get this center part finished. Then there will be a narrow black border of the same black (which incorporates all the other batik colors - a great find) and then a grey border with black cornerstones. It's not a real big quilt but I hope to make it my camping quilt so it's big enough.

I had this quilt on the floor over night and maybe a couple pieces were moved from 12 little feet walking over them but then I took my shower this morning and came downstairs to this:

I am 99.9% sure it's from Squeaky as she loves to take a running leap with a twist - I guess you could call it her signature move.

Did you notice????

I now have a yardsale tab on my blog - I'm trying to move out some things that I mostly have never used. Rulers are posted and I have started on books. Patterns will be next. Who knows what will come after that...

Feline Friday - 11/23/12

Uhhh...it's empty...where are the treats?

Santa has been asked for a proper cat tower cuz this little girl loves her stacked boxes...if you can't find her, look in the boxes!

More treats please!! I did pose for your picture for 1.5 seconds...


TGIF - Momma and Grandmomma are off to the Black Friday Sale at the notsoLQS. What have all you pussy cats been up to lately?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

No matter what you eat or drink today,

I hope my American friends enjoy your time with family or friends!

Happy Thanksgiving from Sarah, Pepper, Squeaky and Midgie

Almost Wordless Wednesday

I hope it looks as good in fabric as it does on paper/in my mind...