New Project

This is the project I started on Saturday at my sewing group. I really did not need a new project but am at the point with the other two quilts that I really didn't want to haul them around to work on them so I started this. I do have an intended recieptant in mind, I won't mention any names incase she is reading my blog. ( She checks in from time to time.) You probably have guessed, the pattern is a nine patch/snaowball. I like the results, even though it is bright. I took the color combination from the focus fabric, therefore the bright pink and black. I must admit, I am not much of a pink person but the more I am working with it the more it is growing on me. Who knows, maybe someday I will like pink. Not much else, I am on a long lunch break, eating, catching up on the blog, and sewing. Have a great day.

So Far So Good

This is my version on Graditudes so far. I am liking the outcome. I know it is not a real good picture but the only spot I could think of to put the partically completed top to take a quick picture.

We are having and am predicted to have alot of rain this week-end so there will be much sewing going on in this household.

I have my sewing group meeting tomorrow a.m. so I will start another top. I think I am going to start on the black and pink nine patch/ snowball quilt I have been kicking around my brain. Oh I will post pictures as it progresses. I have an idea of what I want to do and who I am making it for. That means I will have three quilts going at once and three tops that need to be quilted. I best start doing some longarm quilting also. Thanksgiving is coming up so I will have a few free days to get caught up.

I made an appointment today to start my guitar lessons. The crazy thing is, when I called the guitar shop to make an appointment for the lesson my husband was there buying something for his guitar. The salesman asked me if I wanted to talk to him. What a coincidence. Karma? They know my husband very well at this shop and recognized my by my name. The salesman at the store was wondering if my husband was starting to take his personal calls at the store now.

I am going to close and will keep you posted on the progress of the quilts. Good evening to all.

Out with the old

Well, I decided this is the day I would take my Elna in for repairs. I have been using my old singer for a while now and decided I really needed to get the elna repaired so I could use it for up coming projects. I figured a week at the shop and whiz bang I would be back in business with the computerized modern machine. Guess what, I wore the machine out. The service man asked what the problem was, I told him, my feed dogs quit working and he said "Oh! I know how to fix that." Then he took the machine out of the case and said, "Oh my! You certainly use this machine a lot!" I had to reply with a yes. I sew almost everyday, hardly a day goes by that I don't sew, sometimes just 30 minutes, sometimes for hours. I use my machine a lot. He thought the dogs were clogged with lint, I said no, I had cleaned the machine thoroughly. Guess what, I wore the machine out. The drive underneath that causes the dogs to go up and down was completely worn so the dogs did not come up to move the fabric. He did some adjusting, got them working but wouldn't work like that for long. I could have had the machine repaired for about 300.00 OR
take a trade for 300.00 and buy this new machine. Guess what I did, I bought the new machine. Now I get to become accustomed to a new brand of machine. I bought a Pfaff 2027. I think I will like it, not much different from my elna but the components are metal, which should work better for me. I really don't need anything to fancy, same stitches, but it does have IDT: integrated dual feed. I will keep you posted on how I like the machine. I will get used to it just like I did the elna and we will become good friends.

Binding done on three

This is a picture of the Lovers Knot that I wanted to try. My daughter told me I can't call it a Halloween quilt just because I used black Halloween fabric. I used a spring green that I had around, didn't want to purchase any new fabric. I did quilt it with pumpkins, does that count? This quilt will go into the charity box. I made is shorter than the pattern said, it is soooo long and not very wide. Next time I make the pattern I will make a double or larger, then the width will match the length much better. Whoever receives it will like it and that's all that counts. This is the quilt for my niece. I will sign and date it today and get it in the mail. Nelmi, if you are reading this here is your gift.
Here is the completed Leaf Season. I keep checking Judy's site thinking she might post November quilt a few days early but no luck. I really like this pattern, I have liked all the patterns Judy has posted, but this one so far is my favorite. I will make another in the future.
All for now. I have to get things done for the morning errands. Hope you all have a great day. USC will play Oregon State Beavers this Saturday. You know where I will be, either watching or listening to the game. FIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Top Completed

Here are the pictures of the completed "leaf season" top designed by Judy Laquidara. What a great pattern!!!! If you have ever thought you might want to venture out and make a maple leaf pattern I suggest you try this one. I really enjoyed making this quilt top and the instructions are very easy to follow. This is a bit of a close up; here is a picture of the whole top. As you can see I am not to good at getting the quilt squared in the picture. I tried many times and could not, this is the best I could do. I did make the quilt bigger than Judy's instructions. I made it 96x96, I wanted it big enough to fit my bed.
I am really excited to load this on the longarm and quilt. I wanted to wait until today so I could get a picture to post. I used all fabric from my stash. Not all the black is the same fabric, therefore different values of black. The cream color in the back ground of the leaves is not the same on all of them, I had to use two different fabrics for that. The green leaf fabric around the boarders is fabric I had left over from making my bedroom curtains and I thought it went nicely and added punch to the quilt. I was fortunate enough to have enough Moda Marble black for the inner boarder and outer boarder. I do like this quilt.

Well I best be going, I have many things to do today and one of them is load this on the longarm.Have a great day.

Compete and a Pink Pause

I have to give Bonnie, from Quiltville, the credit for these first two pictures. I used her pattern for Trip Around the World for my Very Pink Pause. I needed to make a bigger sized pink TATW for a gift. The pattern I have, you use 51/2 inch blocks and I didn't want that size blocks, so I decided to check Bonnie's website and read her instructions for TATW. Her pattern is very easy to follow and uses 41/2 inch squares. This is what I have so far, all from my stash. I need to go get fabric for the border, didn't have enough of a darker pink for the border so I will go and purchase some border fabric. Here is the completed portion of this entry. The scrappy TATW is completed. I am very happy with the outcome. Once again I have to thank Bonnie at Quiltville for her patterns and their easy instructions. I will be very pleased to see this quilt on my bed. The finished size is 99" x 99". I have put it on my bed before I quilted and was very pleased with how it fit and looked.
Here is a picture of what I have completed for Judy's leaf season. This is coming along nicely. I am enjoying the opportunity Judy gave us (me) to finally make a maple leaf quilt. I am truly trying to use only fabric from my stash, therefore mine will be a bit more scrappy than Judy's. That is half the fun of quilting though, to see how quilts look different just because of the different fabric choices.
Well I best be going. I want to get a lot done before the USC game at 5:00 pm. They play Arizona today. You probably already know who I am rooting for FIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Stand By

I had to go to my old stand by. This is my first sewing machine I ever bought. I saved my babysitting money and money I made working at the Libby Dam when I was a kid and bought this sewing machine the summer before I started my senior year of high school. That would have been probably August of 1975. I was so proud of this purchase and still am very proud of this machine. I was 17 and couldn't wait to have a new sewing machine. I was so tired of using my moms sewing machine, having to wait for her to be finished with it, along with having to share it with my two sisters. This was my machine and no one could use it but me unless I gave them permission. I used this machine exclusively, it was the only one I had, until about 1997 when I bought my Elna. I put this aside to use the new improved computerized machine. I have sewn exclusively on my Elna until tonight. I have been experiencing problems with the feed dogs on the Elna but ignoring the problem. I learned how to pull the fabric just at the right speed to get a good stitch and all was well. Well I am tired of that, I have decided to go to the Singer and take the Elna in for repairs. It is weird to sew on a machine that is not computerized but so thankful I kept the machine. My husband wanted it to make some sort of string winding gadget for his guitars but I couldn't part with the first machine I ever bought. I will sew on this until the Elna is repaired then I probably should take this baby in for some TLC.

Loaded and quilted

I finished the scrappy TATW top, I figure I used 192 different fabrics, they show up twice in the quilt, in 2 different blocks, so that means a total of 194 different fabrics in this quilt. The quilt measures 99x99, which should fit my bed nicely. Did it make a dent in my stash? Not as far as I can tell, maybe a ding. It has left me with 32 ends, of the sets of 6 fabrics, that I now will decide what to do with. Do not worry; I will decide, I am thinking 6 or 9 patch with setting blocks which will come later. Judy's October quilt will be my next project. I started the quilting before the USC game. (They won) and continued to work on it during commercials and half time. I finally completed quilting last night at 11:00 p.m. I used the woodlands panto by Lorien Quilting. I really like this pattern. I had it all set up already on the longarm, that is why I choose this pattern but I do think it turned out nicely.
The picture above is of the completed quilted top and the one below is a closer view. I will trim and sew on binding during the week. I will do this along with working on the October quilt. I want to get the binding on before Sat so I can stitch down while watching the USC/Arizona game.
Well I best get busy if I want to accomplish my goals for the day. House work, quilting and of course cooking dinner. I hope and pray all have a great day.

P.S. I don't know how I did it but when you click on the first picture it takes you to Judy's October quilt so enjoy!!!!!!!!!

Friday is here

Well this is a new one for me. The picture is on the opposite side, I must have checked the wrong box for placement, too early in the morning. Nothing to really write about but just wanted to post to let you all know I am alive and well.
This is a quilt I made about six years ago. It was made before I got my longarm so it is quilted on my sewing machine. I like this quilt because I love the colors of fall. I went to a class given by a lady in a Bible study I was attending at the time and this is the quilt pattern we all made. It was so much fun to see everyones fabric choices and how the pattern looks so different when other fabrics are used. I embroidered, by hand, different leaves in the yellow squares to quilt them. I did a decrotive stitch along the seam allowances on the stripes and nine patches.

I have completed the Judy L quilt, and am still working on the scrappy TWTH. The baby blanket was well received. That always puts a smile on my face and joy in my heart. I will post pictures of the completed Judy L top and scrappy TATW later. I have to cut two more sets of six fabrics for the TATW. It is getting close to top completed, four more 36 patch blocks, and one more border. I guess I best get started. Good day to all.

9/11

Let us all say a prayer today for our nation and the heros that selflessly give their lives for our freedoms. Five years ago today one of the most tragic events of our nation occurred. I think about this day often, I pray for the families and loved ones of those lost on this tragic day. The lives that were needlessly lost as we all went to work that day just like the day before. We live in a world were people will and do evil acts, but we also live in a world were there are so many acts of love and kindness. I choose to dwell on the acts of love and kindness but we can not turn a blind eye to the acts of evil. I am forever grateful to all our service personal, our firefighters, our policemen. They give so much, as do their families. This is a day that I truely will for the thr rest of my life proudly bear our Red, White, and Blue, a day when I will remember what it means to be an American, to love our freedoms and cherish every moment of my freedom. Evil people perputrated evil acts upon us and our nation, because of our freedoms, they took advantage of these very freedoms to cause terror to enter our minds and hearts. Let us not allow this evil. Let us be vigilant to keep our country free, our minds free of the fear they want to inflict on us. Let us stand united and proud to be American.

A Finish and Fun

I finished the quilt I was working on for a friend. It is such a beautiful quilt. I just love the fabrics she choose and the placement of the fabrics. This is a beautiful TATW. She had me quilt it in a leaf design, so I choose Woodlands by Lorien Quilting. She really liked the outcome. My friend gave me a partialy used spool of thread to use for the quilting and we were hoping there would be enough to do the quilt. There was, and this is what was left when I took the quilt off the machine.
I call that close, sorry for the blurry picture, I guess I was to close.
We started back up with our sewing group today. Here are a few pictures of the activity. The pattern today was for a table runner from Timeless Treasure. You can find the pattern free on their website. The pattern definately was designed for the fabric illustrated in the directions.
A few of use had fabric that was not the recommended fabric, made the cutting and sewing a bit more interesting but all turned out well.
We had a great time and will get togeather again next month. I believe the decision was turning twenty quilts. I don't know if I will do that, I really don't want to purchase another pattern book right now. I might work on some of my own thoughts for quilts. I have to (or should say want
to) make a quilt for my daughter and soon to be daughter-in-law. I have designs for these quilts ratteling around in my head. I will share as they come to life.

Well I must go now, cooking diner and sewing on the Judy L quilt. Good evening to all.

Making progress II

Well I didn't pay attention to how the pictures were to be placed on the blog template so this is what you get because I don't know how to move things around.

I have finished the baby quilt and it will be ready for the shower on Sunday.

My progress on Judy's challenge is coming along nicely. I haven't had alot of time to work on it, worked three days and finally last night had a chance to sew.

I started quiling a quilt on the longarm, had about four rows done, thought I had checked tension, but guess what, tension way off. I spent four days ripping out what took about 2 hours to quilt. I am slow at my quilting, I take many breaks, I play a game of cards on the computer between rows. I know, I should just quilt and not play but I am really in no hurry. I will be happy to complete the quilt but that will come in time.

I have to pack another box to send to sonny boy. It sure does cost to ship books. Think this will be the last one, I hope any way. If I progress further on the quilt I will post again later. I do have a question, are the pictures sent to Judy of the completed top or completed quilt? Have a great day one and all.

Plans have changed

I had to change my plans for the week-end. I received an announcement for a baby shower for a friend. The shower is next Sunday, she is expecting a girl (so they say), soooo I had to get busy on a gift. Why go to a department store and buy a quilt when I am drowning in pink, due to the cancer quilt I have been working on. I decided to make mom-to-be and baby a quilt out of pinks. I do like this TATW pattern, it is easy and goes togeather quickly. I hope the new expectant mom likes the gift. I will get binding put on tomorrow and sew down during the week so it will be completed by Sunday. If I don't get it done during the week, there is always Saturday as I watch the USC game. Fight On!

In response to questions regarding the previous post, the car did not sale, we did recoop our monies. Family decisions were made and the car went to a relative that was in need of a car. All ended with a gain for all persons involved.

Plugging along

Just a quick post before I get ready for work this morning. I have been plugging along on my scrappy trip around the world I am making from the pattern on Bonnies Quiltville. This is a fun pattern but my time doesn't allow much sewing so it is taking longer than I thought it would. I really want to make it big enough to fit my queen size bed, I think my husband will like this quilt, therefore I want it big enough to use. I am following the layout used Janice, I like what she did to make the quilt larger.

I still plan to make Judy's challenge quilt. I wnat to get started on that this week-end. I am glad we have a long week-end, with no plans on this end. My plans are to clean, organize, and quilt. I have a top for a friend that needs to be quilted, my cancer quilt that needs to be quilted, and hopefully the TATW along with sewing and finishing up Judy's challenge. We will see what the week-end brings.

I officially blew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here it is. The fabric purchases I said I was not going to make this month. Blame it on anything you want, I was weak. I purchased the piece on the left for the table runner project I will make in my September sewing group. I should have stopped there, then I would have felt okay with the purchase but NO I had to check out what fabrics were on the rems rack (purchased three and a small amount fusible interfacing for a future embroidery project) then the biggy, the orange flower fabric. I am such a sucker for orange and this is such a neat retro piece. I can just see the neat bright quilt my daughter and I will tug-of-war over. Oh well cleansed my soul with this confession and now I will move on and try again thru September. Good evening to all.

Happy Birthday Yvonne

This is the birthday quilt I made for my sister Yvonne. Her birthday was on July 18th but I did not want to post the picture until after I gave her the quilt on August 19th. I was not sure if she would read my blog and I did not want her to see the quilt before her party.

Her children gave her and her husband a birthday party on August 19th to celebrate their half centry birthdays. The gifts were to have something to do with 100 but I did only 50 candles on the quilt, so I figure the other 50 could be represented by the miles we traveled to get there from our property in the Yaak. It is a bit of a stretch but it works for me.

It was hard for me not to post this picture until now, I really like the way it came out. I used Tonya's letter technique, made birthday candles, and used free embroidery downloads from the internet. Yvonne seemed to like the quilt. Happy Birthday Yvonne. (The back on the quilt is the same celebrate fabric I used on the borders.)

New Beginnings...........An Ending........

I have decided to start a new project. It will be a trip around the world, the pattern is at Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Custom Quilting. I can not link to this today as blogger will not let me just link with one word. Once I link everything after that is linked also. Sorry about that. I saw on her site where one women had super sized the quilt to queen so that is what I am going to do. I have come to the conclusion my husband like scrappy quilts so I plan to use this one on the bed therefor it will be scrappy. I went through my fabric and cut one 2.5 inch strip from 108 different fabrics. I sewed the length of the width of the fabric, so that means I will have two matching 36 patch blocks. That will be okay. It will work out fine. I could make my pattern different by starting my first strip with a different fabric square, which I might do, even though I did not do that on my first two blocks. I hope you undertstood all that rambling. All will turn out great.
This is the final picture of the quilt I made over the fouth of July week-end. I had posted a pictue of just the completed top. This is a picture of the completed quilt. I used muslin on the back and quilted it with some sort of mock feather/flower pattern. I can't remember the pattern name off the top of my head and am to lazy to go get the info to post.

I will be to busy this week-end to post, we have alot of family activity going on. I hope all have a great week-end and I look forward to seeing what everyone is up to. Good Day.

Bring on the fire.............

camp fire that is. These are a couple more campfire quilts that I have made. I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of them so I thought I would get that done before I pack them for camping. This green one is odds and ends of a quilt I was going to make and then changed my mind. I decided to use up the nine patches I made and make a green quilt, using up green fabric I really didn't know where else it would fit.
This goofy quilt is just using up ugly fabric that was given to me. I just wanted a practice quilt and this is the result. Maybe I will be lucky and this one will get quite a few embers landing on it and small holes. I am almost embarrassed to show it, but I guess not that embarrassed because here it is. Now you know ugly quilts can be made and quilted.

Reason for pictures. I try to take pictures of all the quilts I make. There are a few that I wanted to get them done and in the mail, that I forgot to snap a picture before boxed and sent. Picture lost forever memory only in my mind. Oh well, life goes on.

Quilt is Done

Here is the picture of the Trip Around the World I was working on and posted the blog about making the panto for the quilting. It is okay. I like the center but the borders are a bit unusual, I wanted to use up this fabric, I couldn't think of any other place I would use it, soo it goes into this trip quilt. This is a designated campfire quilt so all in all it is good. As promised here is a picture of the back. Remember back on July 13, when Judy L, posted about quilt backings, wondering what we did with ours. Well here is an example of what I do with mine. Once again, fabric I want to get rid of, (didn't pay much for or was given to me) and find suitable for the front of the quilt. I piece if need to whatever it takes to get the back the proper size. I sometimes think the back of the quilt is the most expensive, I guess because I am using one large piece, therefore I know how much I paid for that piece verses using smaller pieces of fabric on the front not keeping in mind how much I paid for each piece of yardage cut into smaller pieces then sewen back togeather. Oh well, who really sees the back. If the quilt is for a gift or special to me I am more picky on the backing but for this purpose I am satisfied with this back. I almost feel like it matches the front, a bit weird but looks good.

I"m in the Pink

This is what I have done so far. I have the borders left to put on then I will call this done. As ususal I cut way to much fabric so I will make another pink quilt. I am thinking of embroiderying (if this is a word) out the breast cancer fairies again and doing another quilt with them. I will use a different design though. I do think I like what I see so far. I am off today so I hope to get the borders done today. I need to think about how I am going to quilt it, I do want something more than a meander. Oh well, enough for now, I must get my morning going, I do have many errands I want to get accomplished today. Good day to all.