Another one 'bites the dust'

Finished another UFO today... so cute and so cuddly!  Some baby is going to love this.

 It's one of those where you bring the backing to the front to make it the border - and no binding required.  Normally, you just use the two pieces of fabric ( flannel preferred), but since this wasn't flannel, I basted batting to the back of the front piece before stitching the front and back together.  After turning it right side out and pressing, I stitched along the seam between the two fabrics and then again along the outer border before outline stitching around each hexi frame.  Just need to add a label.

I thought that with this UFO finished, I only had one left... WRONG!  I went into my 'stash'/Christmas gift/guild batting and backing storage room to look for something last night and found an OLD UFO that I probably haven't worked on in at least five years.  Of course, it's applique' so it's going to sit on my UFO waiting list for a bit longer because, right now, I'm tired of applique'.

Next came a sinus/headache mask for myself. 

 My cousin loaned me the pattern because I was too lazy to draw one myself.  Filled it with those 'jelly' things that expand when soaked in water.   I think I'll make another one out of red fabric and fill with rice - that one will be able to go in the microwave so that I'll have both an ice mask and a heat mask - making them in different colors will help me remember which goes in freezer and which goes in microwave.

While I had the 'jelly' things out, I made a 'cool tie' for my quilting friend, Barb, who is having trouble staying cool at times; something to do with her heart rate or blood pressure - everyone else is just comfortable, but she has sweat dripping from her head/neck area.  I think the cool tie might help her... worth a try anyway.  I didn't take a pic of it... it's just a long tube of lavender colored fabric that's sectioned into thirds with the 'jelly' things in the middle section.

I brought home two charity quilts from guild meeting last night - the president brought them in and I said that I would quilt them  for her.  They're just simple blocks... I think I can do Mariner's Compass on one and maybe something swirly on the other.  Hope to get them done in time to take to the meeting next week.

Since I didn't get a whole lot of housework done earlier this week, I think tomorrow I'll plan on getting some laundry done and at least clean all the papers off the kitchen counter.  I'd like to surprise hubby with a lemon meringue pie on Sunday, but I need counter space to do that.  I also want to get my desk cleared off.

Guys are coming to install new skirting and storm door on our home Tuesday... sounds like a good time for me to keep busy on Mo'e, don't you think? 

I'm a quilter

I saw a similar one on facebook a few days ago... thought it was just too cute and I'd had to make one for myself.  I had yellow print and white half square triangle squares left over from another project and knew I would start with those... ended up making more so that it would be larger.  Then I muddled through some of the scraps that were just laying around and cut them for the triangles in the center of the quilt; I had a square of white Kona cotton that was just a smidgen ( maybe an inch on one side) larger than what I needed, so it was trimmed to fit.  Drew lines across the top so that I wouldn't end up with letters going downhill and/or uphill, then drew the letters.  Using my free motion foot, I proceeded to 'write' the letters.. going over each letter or part of letter at least three times so that it would really stand out - after I sandwiched the top, batting & backing.

Next ( arghhh, just noticed my OOPS on the bottom border lol  WHATEVER!), I outline quilted around the triangles with white thread.  I wanted it completed today but didn't feel like messing with binding;  I remembered seeing someone on The Quilt Show do hers with ribbon, so off I went to my closet and the 'tub' that holds my spools of ribbons to see if I had a yellow - yep, sure did.

After tacking down the ribbon on the upper right side of the quilt, I started twisting it and then  stitching it down with a zigzag stitch ( 2.0 x .50 for future reference) continuing to twist and stitch as needed.  Slipped off a couple of times and the corners were a little harder, but I managed it... had to go back and 'correct' where I slipped, but not a biggie and it's just for me - no comments from quilt police/judges welcome.  I still need to come up with some sort of hanger for it... I'm thinking I'll just hand stitch both ends of a ribbon down to the back of the quilt and call it done.

Had a great time on the Row by Row hunt yesterday... I managed  to keep my spending down and only bought a few things... got a pretty good deal on  some fabric 'remnants'.. three of them 7/8yd up to 1 1/2 yards.. 25% off for total of $24.12.  We made it to five shops, I think...not all we'd wanted to so plan on going again in three weeks.

Finally - the 'finish' line

Well, finished as far as completing the top of the San Antonio Star quilt.  Worked on it ALLL day ( it's now 6:32 pm so I was working on it for about 8 hours or so).

Still not a great pic, but I can only do so much here in the house ... laying them on  the lawn and then standing on  the porch to take the pics works much better and I'll do that with this one as soon  as it's quilted, if I can.  It may be winter by the time I get around to quilting it :(.

Tomorrow, I have to catch up on housework and laundry and the day after, I'm going on a Row by Row trip with three of my favorite quilting friends.  I know I said I wasn't going to do it this year, but when they asked I just couldn't say no - and I really do want the patterns that they're going after.  I probably won't be using the  patterns to make a quilt this year, but maybe after the new year, I can  take some of last year's patterns and mix them with some of this year's and make special quilts for a  couple of my kids - or gkids.

Ok, dinner's in the oven - (baked chicken) and I still need to figure out what to fix with it; I'd better get at it.

This is the next UFO on my to-do list - San Antonio Star by Bonnie Hunter.  Last night I finished making the last 45 ( of 256 total) - plus a couple of extras just in case I can't count right - flying geese that will be the border.
 The star was made by paper piecing scraps from my scrap stash 'collection' onto phone book pages and then cutting out into diamond shapes.  You'd think that this would have pretty much depleted my scrap stash, but, no, it didn't -- not even a noticeable dent.
  I'm not real crazy about it and may end up donating it to Siren ( local  homeless center); we'll see how I feel about it once I get the top finished and ready for quilting.

That's MR Prissy in the pic, too.... he's my sewing room companion - whether I want him to be or not lol.

Got it done!

Was beginning to think I'd never see this top completed.  It seems like everything that could go wrong, did... the applique' was ok and so was constructing the center... my problem was with the borders, lots of trimming and quite a bit of 'fudging'.

Again, the photography isn't that great, but the best I could do with it laying on the guest room bed and without climbing up on a ladder.   I'll get a better pic once it's quilted and I can take it outside to lay on the lawn.  The important thing today is that the top is DONE!!!

more frustration

All I had left to do on my second garden quilt was add 'checkerboard' inner border and then the four outer borders...  sounds simple, right?  Ummm, nope!  The checkerboard wasn't too bad; matched up except for lower left corner ( and I don't think anyone will notice)... The outer border on the other hand has become a real PITA.  I pin one side border on only to find that it's too long... oh yeah, the Ohio star block goes on the top and bottom border ends, not the side borders.  So I take them off... pin again... still too long.   Re-read the measurements in the directions... yep, they're right.  Have no idea why the borders are too long... I must have done something wrong in the center 'block'.  Took a nap because I couldn't quit yawning and because I was getting REALLY frustrated by this point.

Three hours later, I decided I'd get out the first garden quilt top and compare measurements...yep they match and if I lay the  #2 quilt center onto the first one, it matches up  perfectly so if I did do something wrong in assembling the center of the quilt, I did it on both.

While measuring, I noticed that I must have done some cropping on the borders of the first quilt, so that's what I'll have to do on the second one, too.  Not sure if I'll get to it tonight or not... hope to have it done by tomorrow night so that I can get started on finishing up the San Antonio Star, which I HOPE won't give me problems like this second garden quilt has.

Oh, and I found enough fabric for the backing for the  Sticks and Stones quilt so I can get that loaded onto Mo'e in the next day or so, hopefully.  I may want to put some practice fabric on  first. though so that I can practice doing feathers.

Steady on - future could be bumpy

Ok  finished the Sticks and Stones quilt top yesterday morning.  What a - not sure what to call it - I like it, but I'm disappointed that I couldn't do it like Jenny Doans did in her video ( with blocks alternating between vertical and horizontal).

It's not a very good pic... will try to get a better one once it's quilted.  It was really quite a pain to do but only because the 2 1/2" precut strips were not all 2 1/2"... a couple of the purple strips were 2 1/4" and a few  other strips were only about 2 3/8".  Of course, that made it hard to match them up with the white 2 1/2" squares and that's also why I couldn't alternate vertical/horizontal... when I did try it, the horizontal blocks were 3/4" too short - and that was with VERY SCANT 1/4" seams.
Right now, I'm thinking that I was to quilt it with feathers in the diagonal.  Not sure what I want to do on the borders.  You probably can't tell from this bad pic, but part of each border strip is solid white fabric while the rest of each strip is done piano-key style with pieces cut from the remainder of the precut strips.

So, after I finished that, I decided to work on a UFO and pulled out the second garden quilt that I started sometime last year.  Here's the first one  (again, not a great pic)... top is finished and waiting to be quilted.

 The first time, it went together pretty easy; this time, not so easy.  In the lower right side of the pic, you can kind of see the Ohio star corner block.  ( Ignore the green print - it's not part of the quilt)  I started making them for the second quilt last night and it wasn't coming out right... needs to be 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" square. For some reason, the center square was off by at least a half inch.  So, I took it apart, made new center blocks cutting them at 3" instead of 2 1/2" and then cutting it down once I had the four together and that worked.  Only one completed last night, so have three more to do today along with doing the 'checkerboard' border before I can finish assembling the top.

I really like this pattern... I did do it a little different than usual ( and called for in the pattern directions); I used fusible for the shovel ( top border) on both quilts, but then decided that I didn't want the stiffness that comes with using fusibles so I cut out the fabric shapes and glued them down before stitching.  I was able to try out a few different stitches to applique the shapes and even did some bobbin work using Ricky Timm's Razzle Dazzle threads.  Before I put the tops onto Mo'e for . quilting, there are tiny buttons to hand stitch on.  I thought I would add them after quilting, but they are so small that I should be able to sew them on before quilting and quilt around them.


I also took a few minutes to trim some strip blocks for the Strips for Siren quilts that I've been encouraging guild members to make prior to next month's sew in when I hope we can join them together and make at least two quilts for our local homeless shelter.


This weekend, about 1/2 our guild members will be going up north for quilt retreat.  I am not one of them.  I'll stay home and have a 'quilt retreat' of my own.  Once I get the garden top done, I'm going to pull out the San Antonio Star by Bonnie Hunter and see if I can get that top finished... I have flying geese for the border to finish and have at least two orange sections to  sew on between the star 'arms'.  I can't remember how many flying geese are required, but  it's something like 280.  Thank goodness, most of them are done.