Vacation Sewing

Why is there always so much "overtime" required before and after a vacation to take the actual vacation? It seems like I've just been go go go all week to make up for a few days off. Maybe after today I'll be caught up...

Sew...my vacation...was 5 days camping in the ADK Mts (which included a 3 day weekend and holiday), 1 day at home, 1 loooooong day at work and then a 3 day weekend. Three day weekends are a summer staple at my job = lucky me!! I'll share pictures of the Mts next week. I have to do that ASAP cuz before I'll be camping again before the end of the month and we don't want to get things all confused...

All y'all know that I took hexies camping but I am going to save them for the Hexie Linky Party this coming Sunday. Instead I'll show you the UFO I pulled out over the weekend.

The way that Dad constructed my cutting table allows
me to hang my 20 trips blocks from a pants hangar

It took a while to get my mojo in motion. Because of the bronchitis I didn't do much on any given day and lying around like a log lump was about my top speed until Saturday afternoon when all the sudden I was inspired and pulled out my looooooooooooong ignored Scrappy Trails project. Feel free to check the TATW label to see my other blocks and the funky layout I've created.

I finished 3 more blocks over the weekend...

yes - they all have a yellow down the center!

I have another block in the works and you can see the 3 others waiting for their final stitching in the background.

I think I only need 2 or 3 more blocks to finish this.

And what's a girl to do when she's stitching but work on leader-enders as well!! I stitched up 3 sets of pieced hexies for Mickey Depre's project over the weekend as well!

Not a bad vacation weekend once I finally got my act in gear!

Design Wall Monday - 7/27/15

Dang! How did it get to be almost August already??!!

On Saturday part of our hexie club did a demo at the local Farmers' Market. We handed out many free kits and several people tried it right then and there. There is at least 1 new hexiologist in the world because she came into the store while I was working Sunday and bought a bunch of supplies to make several Christmas presents. Woo Hoo! She has been invited to attend out monthly meetings so I hope she comes.

I spent the rest of the weekend working on projects for the fair. This girl loves a deadline and with the fair in less then two weeks we are definitely in deadline mode! I'm pretty sure this is the furthest behind I have been in years.

I started these blocks in Bonnie Hunter's class last October. I have all the star blocks sewn together and the 2 end borders are almost done. I think the table runner will be about 15" x 48" when it's done. I picked a green for the background but I have yet to pick binding fabric yet.

You can see the green for the runner in the rear left, under the remaining 2" of gold.

And I spent a lot of time stitching this dolly quilt (for the doll/cat bed!!) - it's too bad my math skills stink and I didn't have enough hexies basted to finish last night. Maybe if I blow off mowing the yard yet again, I can finish tonight. ..

Bonnie show-n-tell pictures

Cathy, Bonnie and Sarah

This is one of the 2 minis made with Sister's Choice blocks made with 1.5" strips instead of 2.5". I just noticed today her color placement of the 9patches and star points. I might have to try that someday too. I was particularly intrigued with the border: really just a 3.5" strip plus a 1.5" square rotated every other strip. 

Love this Star Struck "mini" version - made with 1.5" strips instead of 2.5"

This is the pieced backing that I loved - it looks like a zipper!

The lady in the blue top made them and she suggested that you start with 2.5" strips as well as coordinating the side-by-side fabrics in the pieced back above. 

I would guess, depending on your quilt size, that 2 strips sewn side by side, subcut into 2.5" twosies and then sewn end to end would be the easiest way to accomplish this great backing.

Backing on a much larger quilt. I would guess this would be a great way to use 2 lengths of yardage for a backing. I couldn't really tell you anymore what the front was but I do remember that it coordinated nicely with the zipper backing.

I thought this was a nice setting for people who didn't care for the full Grand Illusion mystery pattern. There was another quilt that had replaced the center turq/yellow 4patch with a single fabric square which really changed the look of the overall quilt.

 I have my blocks started but they slowed due to the bustle of the holidays and then stalled when the final pattern didn't appeal to me.

And to think, I was this close to putting all the bits away and to the orphan bins just to get some countertop space back...

This is the new pattern I fell in love with called Fourplay. Check out the next photo, it's all four patches and sashing except it only uses 1" strips!!! I have an Omigosh quilt started so I can't start a Fourplay until I finish OMG. I best get those 1" strips out and get back to work!!

BTW - I really think the wide brown border sets off the busy center. I googled the pattern and it appears this quilt was based on an antique quilt which also had wide brown borders.

Sorry it's out of focus :-( 

I really like the color placement in some of these blocks - there are a lot of ways to manipulate what the eye sees with such strategic placement.

Design Wall Monday - 6/8/15

Yesterday was a lovely drive followed by a class with my fav quilter followed by another lovely drive and then some sewing at home time before collapsing in bed. Ha!

Yipper!! Yesterday was the day my friend Cathy and I drove 2 hours down to Jamestown, NY to take a Sister's Choice class with Bonnie Hunter!! Woohoo!!

Funny thing is, she remembered me from the class last fall in Amherst. Couldn't remember my name but she said my face was familiar and asked if I had changed my hair (yes!).

I brought three things for show-n-share but didn't get any pictures of me and my quilts so you'll have to check Bonnies post for me with my Value Prop, Sister's Choice (still deciding borders) and my ruby colored Blue Ridge Beauty from my last class with Bonnie. She loved them all! You'll also have to check this other post about the class in general to see pictures of me and Cathy.

By the end of the class I had finished the following: 5 completed blocks (shown with 1 test block since I had reduced the size. I asked Bonnie to sign the test block/2nd from the left), 10 more 9 patches and 6 leader/ender D4P puss in the corner blocks. Phew!

After I got home I finished 4 more blocks and made some more tilted hexie fabric blocks. I'll need to cut more yellow for the star points so I can make more blocks.

Having made a SC quilt top already I decided to make a table runner with half size blocks (5" finished) - we'll see if I decide on a runner or doll quilt since someone had shared a doll quilt with a gorgeous border. I'll share that photo another day since no matter what I make I'll be using their border idea. LOL.

I have a picture of Bonnie with Cathy and myself but my iPhone isn't playing nice. Maybe tomorrow I'll share that photo and some photos I did get from show-n-share.

It's raining cats & dogs today and we even had a tornado warning (not the norm for these here parts!) so I guess I won't be mowing this evening. Instead I'll be making tiny Sister's Choice blocks for my "Baby Sister" project :)

Design Wall Monday - 6/1/15

I spent all of my rainy, chilly Sunday in my quilt studio. And I do mean ALL of my Sunday...I forgot just how slow and tedious it can be to sew 16 rows of a quilt together. In between rows I worked on my green rainbow scrappy blocks and played a "couple" of games of Spider Solitaire on the computer. LOL. I also spent considerable time drying off his highness every time he wanted back in the house for him to ring the bell to go back outside 5 minutes later. Little furry stinker =^..^=

I made cheese & choco danish to go with my tea (I told you it was chilly, right? Sunday's high was way less than Saturday's low). It was yummy but I think next time I would make only half the filling or make two danishes as it was pretty sweet. It was a super simple recipe: cream cheese brick + 1/4 cup sugar + a glug of vanilla, spread it over croissant dough, braid the sides and bake. I will be making this again!

Here is my quilt, accordian folded to make it easier to sew the very last seam. You can see my green RSC blocks in the background/on the design wall, amongst all the other goodies - mostly hexies, of course. I'll post a better pick of these and my D4P blocks soon.

And finally I had the last seam sewn and pressed open. Just before I collapsed on the couch with a little fluff ball I folded it in quarters for this shot. I'm not quite sure it's big enough tho - it's for Mom&Dad's bed but I want to sneak to their house and try it on for size. It's a secret! I know it's correct for the mattress but then I realized it might need to be bigger to fit 2 people under it!

Either way it's good enough for show-n-tell at a Bonnie Hunter class next weekend in Jamestown, NY. I started the red/white quilt at a class I took with Bonnie back in October.

See all y'all back here tomorrow for The Bibliophile Files!!

Grand Illusion progress update

Whoo Hoo! In between cookies and gift making this weekend I finally made some progress on my Grand Illusion mystery quilt.

I finally finished Step #1!! OK, so I still have to press open and pinwheel the seams but they are cut and sewn.

And it's not like I've been slacking on the other steps:

I've been having trouble getting the diamond pdf/template to print the correct size so the strips for step #2 are ready but I am at a standstill. Me thinks I'll have to improvise :)

I have also been cutting strips for Step #3.

And don't forget I already have those 80 pink/turquoise HST done for step #4. LOL!

I'm hoping I'll get some free time Wednesday or Christmas Day for some "fun" sewing so I can make some progress. I'll have to start working on taxes the day after Christmas so probably won't get much sewing time over the weekend.

And just because I though this was hilarious...this fabric was the perfect color for my mystery quilt! In small pieces you can barely tell they are onions.

Blue Ridge Beauty with Bonnie Hunter!

My class with Bonnie was this past weekend. It was a long day with driving 80+ minutes there and 110 minutes home since there was a bad truck fire on the expressway. I stopped at Viddler’s, an awesome five and dime in East Aurora but I was so tired, I wandered and left empty handed - not my norm when I get a rare chance to visit Viddler's. When I got home I put my things away and didn’t do much of anything the rest of the weekend. It’s a good thing Zorro made me take that break on Thursday – I could have used him again Friday and Saturday. LOL.

Ummm...that paragraph sounded like a real downer when what I had was a great day. Sorry L

Lots of space for everyone to sew, do demos at the front and 5 ironing stations at the back

 

Class started at 9am on Saturday. I got there about 20 minutes early and looked for free table space since the room was already pretty full. A lot of the students had taken 3 or 4 classes with Bonnie! Many people sat 2 to a table but I was lucky to get a table to myself. Whoo hoo – room to spread out which is nice when strip piecing.

We started with making 4 patches. I think Bonnie finally convinced me to layer the two strips and cut them as pairs without pinning! It worked well in class so it must work at home, right?

The 2-toned green bit on the left is my leaderEnder - a Christmas quilt for one of my nephews.

After lunch there were door prizes from the host guild and then we had show-n-tell back in our class room. I asked Bonnie to pose with me so I could put our picture on the quilt label. I guess I better get the back done so I can quilt this baby and put that label on!

No I don't know who the guy was in the painting behind me.
Class was in a museum and there antiques all over the place.

 

And then we moved on to half square triangles using my near&dear friend the Easy Angle. Bonnie demoed her 2 step method of flipping the EA back and forth but since I taught myself my own 2 step method years ago I just couldn’t get hers to work with any speed. It really didn’t affect my cutting accuracy so I just did it my way and zipped along.

 

Pretty soon we were putting blocks together and then Bonnie pulled us all to the back of the room to show us the best way to lay out the blocks. It was quite fun to see all our blocks thrown together into a riot of rainbow colors when we were more or less just making a 2 color quilt. The beauty block is easy enough I could see making another scrappy version some day.

 

Did you find me on Bonnie’s blog or Facebook? I’m there several times, including my hexie jacket on Facebook! I haven't seen a post on show-n-tell but maybe that is coming…

I think I've finally recovered from 3 very long days last week, a lazy day and another long day yesterday. Now that I'm typing this post I'm in the mood to go home and sew. I  should be home about 7 or 730 so my fingers are crossed I'll still be in the mood to make more Ruby Beauty blocks...I know a certain person who is going to want my quilt and I would kinda like to keep it under wraps and give it as a gift...

Feline Friday - 9/19/14

Wednesday night Momma got lectured by someone named Bonnie.

 

Thursday Momma took something called a staysewcation day. I’m not sure what a staysewcation is but I do know that before the sun broke she was out of bed and in her studio. She stayed there until after the sun broke and fell down again…

All. Day. Long. It was pedal to the metal with the iron hissing and the rotary cutter zip zip zipping along too. I tell yah, it was hard to get a good nap in cuz she kept doing belly checks too – something about my belly is nice and soft but I only let her check it when I’m sleepy.
 

Any ways … round about lunch time I told her it was time to take a break. I didn’t know if she was gonna make it the whole day or not…luckily she did!

Thing is, she’s gonna get classed by that Bonnie person tomorrow. Who knows what Sunday is gonna be like??!!

 

More JTAAW photos

Edit - Thursday at 5pm - I was just about to write tomorrow's FF post when I realized this was sitting here as a draft...no wonder no one commented on it yesterday. oops...

I hope these are the close up photos all y'all were looking for on Monday...

This is my version of Bonnie's Jared Takes an Wife - except mine is an Asian wife due to the Asian fabrics :)

I left the sashing out of the quilt center, enjoying the secondary pattern created, but then decided the quilt needed to be bigger so I switched the fabrics around on the outer "border". The quilt is now 72" x 84".

I switched red for part of the black star points (and that is partly because after adding the black that I did add to the outer border there is only a 6" square of it left!) and I altered the star center fabrics.

Last time I posted on this, people spoke up that it should be yellow in the centers. I cut some yellow and some green and tried them both. The yellow center with yellow star points was just too much for me so I relegated those to the corners and used green centers on the sides of the quilt. Howz that for a good compromise?

Sorry for crinkly quilt photos - between the grass that needs trimming and little furry feet, it was the best I could do...

Design Wall Monday - 8/18/14

Thanks to good swift cyber kick in the butt from Frances yesterday, I made some progress on my "Jared Takes an Asian Wife" which is my spin on Bonnie's quilt. I would like to complete the quilt (at least the top) before I take a class with Bonnie in mid-September.



This was my status as of May and it hadn't changed a wink.

 

Yesterday I fiddled in EQ7...

The center 4x5 layout is completed and shown above with super model Zorro

 

The green/neutral corners have been done since May.

 

I have very little black left so there was barely enough to do the interior star points on the outer round of blocks - I think the red star points really makes the whole thing sing.

 

All the other parts are cut except for the star centers. I know where I am leaning but what do you think? Yellow centers like the left side of the layout or green like the right side? Red was a last minute contender.



The yellow and red are direction in case it makes a difference...

I had originally wanted to make the quilt bigger before adding a border but since this 6x7 layout is 72"x84" I probably won't add one. That's subject to woman's prerogative tho!

Jared takes an Asian wife

Since Bonnie will be in WNY in just 111 Days, 6 hours, 43 minutes and 22seconds, I felt I should finish at least one project for her usual show-n-tell. The project I have been thinking about the most lately was Jared Takes a Wife...except mine is made with Asian fabrics. LOL. When last I worked on this quilt, I was stumped for borders. I know, you're laughing and asking what else is new!! Ya see, I had changed the pattern by taking out the sashing so the sizes were off and I didn't know if I wanted a plain border like Bonnie or a pieced border.

When I pulled it out this weekend I decided the quilt needed to be bigger than what adding a couple of borders could accomplish. I only had enough of the black fabric for 5 more blocks which wasn't going to cut it for my idea so the next round of 22 blocks will have some of the fabrics re-arranged.

As you can see tho, I've already made the 88 corner blocks. I was even able to use some of the same (scrappy) greens so I am hoping that will pull together the inner and outer blocks and people won't realize there was probably 5 years between the start and finish of this quilt. Once I get this round on and see how big it is, I'll decide about the borders. Good way to stall making a decision on borders, huh??!!

Orca Bay

Did you hear the news? Bonnie announced her new mystery quilt today!!! It's called Orca Bay and based on the colors of this photo from Cordova, Alaska.

If you have never done a Bonnie mystery I will be honest - there are TONS of pieces to cut and sew back together. However, she writes the directions so that you never know what hit you until all the pieces start coming together into a beautiful design. She uses the easy angle and companion angle rulers to eliminate some of the math. I use my easy angle all the time so I really suggest you buy one too. The quilt will be split up into about 8 parts. She announces the next step on Fridays, starting 11/18. Even if you don't have time to work on them, it is the holiday season and all, at least print them and set them aside. Work on it 5 minutes a day if you have to but don't feel obligated to work at the same pace as Bonnie. I never do. When I get far enough behind, I pick a step to work on instead of doing them in order. How does that sound as a great reward for procrastination?!

If you have done a Bonnie mystery before - there isn't anything more to say - you know what we are in for.
Anyone else out there going to do Orca Bay with me?

Of course, I'll be using scraps and my strip bins but I can also start shopping for more variety in 1 day 23 hours 23 minutes and 27 seconds!

UFO Thursday

Last night I pulled out Bonnie's last mystery quilt beacuse I am still working on the 600 half square triangles...only 400 more to go. I only had time to cut some strips of my red and neutrals but it's progress in the right direction and it felt good to work on a UFO.

Putzing and begging

There hasn't been much meaningful time in the CasaGrande studio lately - too many other activities that need attention. You know, like laundry, mowing, meetings, melting in the heat, garden sitting and making sure the hammock is positioned correctly under the maple tree for reading!

I've putzed with 2.5" neutral and purple strips to begin a "Red Rover." Turns out I don't have as many purple fabrics as I thought...how did that happen? I have two drawers of just neutrals FQs so there is lots of variety there. I think it was Bonnie that got me hooked on neutrals and they are about the only FQ that I regularly buy without a specific purchase. It's fun to look for new and different fabrics or more of a fav that is just about gone.

I've also been putzing with my Omigosh quilt - as you can see my box is pretty full. I've sewed together strip sets and started to subcut them but need to make some room in the box for them so I've also been pinning together subsets until I used all my pins. Subutting. I have tomorrow off so maybe I can actually get something substantial done. It's supposed to rain so it will be nice to stay inside with the pitter patter of the rain through the open windows.

OK, so here comes the begging...anyone want to send/trade 2.5" purple strips or any-color 1" strips? My friend Val already gives me her 1" strips and it has added a lot of variety to my Omigosh but I'll need close to 1,000 tiny 9- and 4-patches so this is a long term project that just begs for variety. Would a cutie kittie change your mind?    TIA.

Birds, UFO's and cats, oh my...

I know this isn't a great photo since it was taken through the screen but look...this goldfinch has a mohawk. Yeh, I know it's just a few feathers out of whack but it was funny to watch him this morning without a care for his hairdo.

I wasn't super inspired to work on anything yesterday so I pulled out a UFO. These blocks are from Bonnie's Sister's Choice pattern and they have been a great "in between" project since I have a plastic box already stocked with precut green and neutral parts. I have 26 blocks done and I started adding sashing (mixed neutrals) and corner stones (the purple is hard to see on the right side of the photo) last night. I'm not sure how many more blocks I'll make but that box still has a lot of parts. Of course, then I'll just need to decide what to do with all the left over half square triangles.

And last but not least...Pepper was working on his suntan. I can tell he is lonely without his mommy, Tula, but I am enjoying the increased attention he allows me. Someday I will let another cat adopt me but not just yet...

Pillowcases

I'm pretty sure my cousins don't read this blog so it's probably a safe bet to post their Christmas presents. The girls are obviously into horses so I'm sure they will enjoy these pillow cases. They are pressed and ready to be wrapped.
In the background - I finally found the directions online for Carolina Crossroads, Bonnie's first mystery quilt. It will be quite some time before I'm crazy enough to start it and I think the directions were taken off her website because they will be in her next book but it's nice to have them "just in case."

Carolina Christmas

Do you hear the angels singing? I'm in heaven...

Bonnie of quiltville.com has announced that the next mystery quilt will be starting on Black Friday (commonly known as the day after Thanksgiving). Given the title, you can guess that Bonnie is using Christmas colors but I am thinking of using red, white/cream, blue and gold. Then again, who knows - I'll have to think about it.

Only 16 more days until we start...

Orange Crush

Well...it doesn't have borders yet and it clearly needs ironing but I finally purchased a curtain rod and clips to hang quilts in the living room so here it is. Thanks Dad for helping hang the rod :)

Isn't it neat how the blue fabric matches the walls...even tho I started this quilt back when I lived in Miami and long before I dreamed of buying a house in NY or painting the walls "colorado springs" blue.