Sufferage block - Everybody's Favorite

Just under the wire again this week with my block. This one is called Everybody's Favorite and went together very easily.

 Emily wanted to have her picture taken too so this is a shot of all my blocks so far.

It seems that a bunch of us skipped the Kansas Sunflower block with this BOW challenge. I'm issuing a challenge to get that block done by Christmas. Anyone else up for the challenge?

Easy Street progress - step 1

I've been busy sewing away in the sewing room and have made a bunch of progress this week. Most importantly, I started the Easy Street mystery over at Quiltville.com. My color choices for this mystery are blue, green, maroon, brown and creams/white. The first step was for oodles of four patches in brown and creams. I have 122 made and need 70 more. I doubt I will get to them this week but at least I have some made before the next step is released on Friday. Oh, I made one of the bindings for the pinwheel too.

I would have made more this afternoon but I scheduled a trip to the doctor. I've had a terrible head cold for 2-3 weeks (yup, I did teach my kids to share - darn it!) and it has morphed into a sinus infection on Sunday/Monday. I've tried the home remedies - the sinus wash- for the last five days and after starting to feel a little better yesterday it is back to painful in the teeth again so it is time to visit the doctor. I did find some kleenex that have a cooling effect this morning. Ohhhh, I LOVE them. I think I will be getting another box or two this afternoon since I'm sure my first one will be gone by then. As I told my kids - at least I am set for the holiday - I'm going to be rudolph for a bit.

Quilt Square block for November

I almost forgot to do my QSAB this month! These are little quilt squares by Lori Smith and this one is from her pattern Quilt Squares #6. This one went together very easily but it does have tons of little parts and pieces. 95 pieces to be exact. This block will finish as 12 inches. I think I am going to like quilting this one with just straight lines through the squares. Now to go find a plaid back and some leftover batting and this will be ready to put into the sewing bag for hand quilting.

Tiny Tuesday - Sunbeam

I looked at the next one in line and ..... it would just take too long to do today. I had printed out some of the new ones and really liked #130 - Sunbeam. I machine pieced this and then hand appliqued it onto the background while waiting to pick up Aidan at school. I think it came out pretty cute!

Slow stitch Sunday

I have to say I am really enjoying all the hand stitching I have been doing this year. This week I finished off the hand quilting on one of my Quilt Square Along blocks. I need to prep a few more as I am down to just one block ready for quilting right now.

Head on over to Quilter Kathy's and see what other hand work is going on around the world.

RSC progress

Instead of working on my Birds in the Air blocks I decided I really needed to work on getting those pinwheel quilts into a top. So, instead of playing with fabrics and starting the mystery on Friday I spent some time in the sewing room making these into tops.

The first pinwheel is the really scrappy one with the pieced border. I had to get a wee bit creative on the final border to get them to fit. I still need to sew the top and bottom border on.

The second pinwheel has the sashing and cornerstones attached. The sashing is from the leftover backing fabric from the red irish chain quilt. It was the stonehenge line cream fabric. I am thinking a small yellow/cream inner border and then if I can find enough of the cornerstone fabric (in the stash or at Joann's tomorrow) I will finish it off with that.

I have not been out shopping - I never do go near a store on Black Friday - but really do need some backing and I'm too lazy to piece two of them for these quilts. I'll just buy some and hopefully spend some time on Sunday evening pinning these two for quilting sometime next week.

I need to get a baby quilt started and completed sometime in the next little bit too. I have the fabrics - she wanted bubble gum pink and lime green and loves monkeys. I found a green monkey print for the back. Limey butterfly's and pink dots and I am throwing in some cream with pink flowers. I was thinking double irish chain but may just do some nine patches and spools....... This will be for one of Aidan's teachers who is expecting a little girl in January. I was thinking to give it to her on the 14th on their last day of school in December but it may wait until January and give me a little bit more time. She is due later in the month so I should be ok.

I've already been thinking of the challenge for next year and have some notes in my projects tab. I have really enjoyed doing hand work this year with my midget blocks and quilting my little quilt squares that I decided to do some applique next year for the challenge. I am planning to do the Orange Peel block - but I am cheating and doing it the easy way. Just applique the peel onto a colored fabric square. Anyone want to join me? I am still deciding if I want the colors to be the background or the peels.... thoughts?

Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday and see what other Rainbow Scrap Goodness is going on.

Friday..... Easy Street Mystery

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving in the US. We had a nice day at home with some family for company. After everyone left, it was time to put up the Christmas tree since it was one of the few times my whole family would be home together. The kids decorated the tree as you can see here.

You can tell how high they can reach!

After I redecorated the tree a little. I know the angel is off kilter but I can't reach up there to fix him and was too lazy to get a chair to stand on.

The monsters last week while I was trying to get a Christmas picture of them.

My ulterior motive for getting the Christmas tree up and some house decorating started...... so I could sew on Friday! Bonnie Hunter posted her first clue for the Easy Street Mystery! I am sew excited since I am actually planning to work along with the mystery this year. I have saved off the last few years but have yet to make any of them. This year, my present to me is that I get to sew along and enjoy the mystery.

My fabric choices are a little different from Bonnies. I am going with blue, green, maroon, brown and creams as the neutral color. I hope it comes out ok.
What are you sewing on today?

Little boys breeches block

I managed to hand piece this block Tuesday afternoon while the kids had naps and I rested and watched a few recorded shows. It was a long night with Miss Emmy and I didn't have much energy to do much else. Got to love how they share their colds with everyone, namely Mom and Dad. Hopefully she is feeling better after her nap and will sleep through the night tonight instead of being awake a few times between 11-2 and then 'my belly hurts' from 2-5:30 in the morning. I have a feeling we all will be in bed early tonight. The good news, we did go to her review this morning of her evaluation from last month and they agreed she could use some speech therapy. Now it is just waiting for a phone call from the therapist and she'll go to school twice a week for a 30 minute session to help her out. Hopefully we all will be able to understand her a bit better and reduce some frustration on her part for us not understanding her as much as we should.
The block is not perfect but I am happy with it being done. Everything is a learning experience.... I think I need to start pressing after piecing the parts before I put it all together. It could also use some pressing into submission at the top there... but that will wait for another day.

Tiny Tuesday

I did a bunch of hand stitching while waiting at the doctors office on Monday and managed to get #66 Twist and Turn completed late Monday night. This one went together pretty easily as long as the prep work was all done. I decided to do mine in green instead of the red used in the picture. It's a little wonky, but I'm calling it done.

Slow Stitch Sunday

I've been doing some slow stitching this weeks since the kiddo's have been a little under the weather. I have noticed that my stitches are getting a little smaller and more evenly spaced on this one. Maybe less seams or I am just getting better with practice. This block is 12 inches finished so each of the stars is around 4 inches.

A close up of one of the stars.

Head on over to Quilter Kathy's to see what others are working on today.

Another Irish Chain quilted.

I did manage to get the red/tan Irish Chain quilted and the binding sewn down to the top of the quilt this afternoon. I forgot to put the label in so I quickly cut a square and ironed it in half and stuck it onto the back and resewed the binding part down. I must say..... I really like how quickly the straight quilting in the chains goes. Some day I can see doing it by hand but for now most quilts will be machine quilted.

Now I get to sit back tonight and work on my favorite part - hand sewing down the binding. Now which movie on the DVR shall I watch?
Two quilts down, two to go.

Pinwheel progress....

Well, I fear my free day of kids is not going to happen. Emily is now down for the count with the dreaded cold and fever. She usually tolerates a fever much better than her brother... it was probably 2 degrees high yesterday and she was just playing good with her brother. It was a long night last night though. Hopefully they can rest today and feel better tomorrow. Grandma is coming over for a bit so I can get out and do some much needed shopping.
As for me.... since they were playing good yesterday I did get a chance to sew the rest of the pinwheels together and worked on the borders. I think I am going to add a little 1.5 inch strip of purple to frame the pinwheels before adding the pieced borders to the sides. I'll check the size at that point but it should be at least 60x80 and big enough. I'm thinking a colorful binding on this one. It really needs a good pressing. I left it laying out on the floor last night and the cats got to it. I have no clue what they did but somehow it was all into a ball this morning. Silly cats....

Did anyone else see the $99 batting at Joann's next Wednesday (regular price $274.99) as one of the doorbusters? It is 25 yard roll of Pellon Natural cotton batting. I got a roll of warm and natural batting about 5 years ago and it is almost at the end. I hope it is similar as it is time for a new roll... now if I can just get to Joann's and pick it up or con the hubby into picking it up while he is at work on Wednesday. It is so convenient that there is a Joann's Fabrics just 2 doors down from our store =)

I was so hoping to get these pinwheel quilts all done and quilted before Bonnie Hunters Mystery started next Friday. I am going to actually jump in this year and give it a try. I've picked out from my stash and am thinking various shades of green, blue, purple, brown and then creams. The purple might get changed out but I'm not sure to what - maybe maroon. Thoughts?


Head on over to SoScrappy's blog and see what others are doing for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week.

Little School House block

It is cold season at my house. Aidan has been battling a cold for about 8 days and it has added a fever in the evening the last few nights. Emily started with the sneezing and coughing a few days ago and today has a fever. It will be a movie day again at my house today with the kids. I hope that a lazy day will have them feeling better real soon.
While they were watching the Polar Express this morning I sneaked into the sewing room and was able to cut out and piece this block. It is number 11 in the Woman's suffrage BOW that Barbara Brackman is hosting this year.

Here are all my blocks so far. I still need to go back and do that one Kansas Sunflower block. Maybe sometime in December once I get all my Pinwheel quilts completed.

Quilt Show pictures..... a bit late.

Here are some of the quilt pictures I took at the Ocala Quilt show on November 3. There were some lovely quilts and I was amazed at the hand quilting. The stitches were so tiny and even and perfect. Some day I hope to get there.
There was one little section of quilts that I just loved.... and have since ordered the pattern for the penguin. You'll see it in the following pictures. I took a picture of the quilt and then the card with the quilt information on it. Does anyone else do that?  I have to say, I think my favorite quilt that I think I could make was the Tennessee Waltz. That one is being added to my 'to do' list. It was hand quilted too and gorgeous. Sorry the pics are at an angle - to get the whole quilt I had to stand from the side and take the picture on my phone. This is a very photo loaded post. I'll show some more in another post in a few days.....
Enjoy the show!

Tiny Tuesday

#65 is called Pride of the Prairie in the sentimental stitches series of Midget blocks. After having to applique the C parts twice.... oops, they go in the opposite corner as the D blocks.... I was able to get this little 4.5 inch block finished today. I of course had to take some breaks to have a tea party, read some books, make some muffins and go pick up the boy from school.  Now I'm off to save off the next two blocks that she put up yesterday. I am so happy she is starting to post more of the midget blocks in this series. Have a great Tuesday.

Saturday pinwheels

I got all my pinwheels sewn this week. I'll plan to do the birds for Thanksgiving weekend.

Since I have all my blocks done for the two quilts it is time for some decisions. Oops, took these before I had the last two blocks done. There is another purple one and a red block to add to the mix. I tried to spread out the colors evenly between the two quilts.

I have 40 of these 12 inch blocks in total so will make two quilts with 20 blocks each for a 4x5 setting. They will go to sisters so I want them similar but not exactly the same. For one, I want to use my leftover scraps that I have been making into pinwheels. No, I did not trim these to a uniform size first. I decided to just sew them and see what happens. I took the ones that were at least 3.25 inches and then pulled a jelly roll of neutrals. I just picked strips and sewed them onto two sides of the pinwheels. They turned into these which trimmed up to 5.5 squares and I am planning to put them in a border like this.

To get the size I want I think I will add neutral sashings and maybe some various colorful cornerstones to one. It might turn out something like this.

I am thinking I might do a single cornerstone color on the other one and have a plain border that coordinates. I'm still undecided on that one but should have a plan and hopefully a top or two done for next week. I would love to get these three quilts (the red/tan irish chain) all quilted this month.

Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday and see what others are doing for their rainbow scrap challenge this month of black.

I hope to post my quilt show pictures from last week sometime this weekend. I did go search out one of the patterns and have it on order from my local quilt shop. I can't wait to play with it next year =). My niece loves penguins and it is a wonderful design.

Have a great weekend.