Discombobulated

As happens with everyone - everything is happening at once and I'm all discombobulated with what to work on next! There is no focus at my house....

---The last day to buy doe tags is tomorrow so my day job has been busy with hunters.
---September dog licenses are due today as well as all the people who are super late and got court tickets so my day job has been busy with dog owners.
---School taxes are due today so my 2nd job has been busy with an extra ~3 hours a day to keep up. Most people mail their taxes today, depending on the postmark to keep them "on time" so that big bundle will arrive on my desk Friday which could take 4 or 5 hours to process.
---Tonight I have to take down our hexie club quilt exhibit and tomorrow I need to make an apple crisp for the hexie club meeting on Friday - we are celebrating our third anniversary!!!!!!!!
---Saturday I'm working all day at the LQS for their 5 year anniversary party.

I don't mind each activity in itself but with all this in 6 days by the time I get home at night, I'm whooped and just need something simple to work on!

On Monday, I was trying to think about what I can finish before the 2 trunk shows (now just 8 and 20 days away). The doll quilt needs some sit down time at my Bernina so that is on schedule for Sunday. That brought me back to my plus quilt. I started pulling fabrics which created a mess while I decided on fabric combos.

That reminded me of a small project that was barely started but could make a good example for the second show. You can barely see the small plastic box on the near side of the mess...it's a stack of 2" squares of graduated hand dyes bought at a quilt show a year or so ago. Each graduation has 6 shades and there were no color repeats in the box. It's perfect for 3/4" rosettes! I had made the yellow one eons ago but decided to pull this out to work on piecemeal when I have short threads from other projects in the next few weeks. Well, that was the plan cuz here it is Wednesday morning and I have 2 done already.

Last night I cut out 4 sets of plus block and got the olive green set made...7 more to go...

This morning I pulled out my very first hexie project. I SWEAR it's the perfect doll quilt size by chance!!! It's still just a top because I had this grand idea of a fake trapunto effect under the center of each black eyed susan but ran out of ideas after just 4 of them. In the end it isn't a very exciting effect.

Today I'm going to decide if I should:  --come up with 8 more designs, --rip out the 4 designs and just leave them blank or --pick my fav design, rip out the other 3 and do them all the same. I'll add this project to Sunday's Bernina time.

I still need to stitch the facing on a topper and work on filling in the triangle edges for Value Proposition...any body know where I can purchase about 10 extra hours a day?

Design Wall Monday - 9/28/15

Today's post has it all...my *actual* design wall, some hexies and some machine sewing. LOL. That should pretty much please every one...

Yesterday I pulled out the fabrics for the side panels of my latest hexie doll quilt. Each was a half yard but I found it interesting that the fabric on the right, from a distant store and the fabric on the left from the LQS were different sizes. 18.5" from the LQS and 19.5" from the non-LQS. A big difference in my eyes...and so appreciated.

Any way, I cut a 23" long piece of the fabric and simply sewed them side by side. I felt that this would make it more stable with less puckering when appliqueing the hexies to the top.

I have a few more papers to remove and then I will spray baste the hexies so that it will look something like this next photo. I am still debating with myself if I should put a strip of batting behind the hexie part for a fake-trapunto effect.

Once the hexies are spray basted and machine appliqued in place, I will place the whole piece on the doll bed and determine how wide I want each side panel and them trim them off. I could have spent forever debating how far off center I want the hexie strip before assembly but finally decided that this might make my life simpler. We shall see...

I have 2 ideas for the backing and it all depends on how much of the fabrics are left after I size the side panels. I can replicate the front fabrics or have them opposites. I mean that the floral will be behind the floral and the cream behind the cream or the floral behind the cream and vice versa. I'll put the plum behind the hexie piece. After quilting it I will bring the backing fabrics to the front to replicate a binding. Is that what's called a facing? It will have the stitched binding look but I am really looking forward to the fact that it will appear to have the 3 fabrics in the binding.

And, you can see here that Squeaky (otherwise known as Honey Bear or Dolly) is just thrilled to pieces that her fall dolly bed quilt is getting closer to completion!

Feline Friday - 9/25/15

RIP Midgie

9/14/99 - 9/22/15

I will forever miss my tiny lap warmer and QCO!

Read Midgie's gotcha story here!

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