Grandmothers Choice - Jack's Delight block

This week's suffrage block went together fairly easily. It would have gone better if I had paid a wee bit more attention to the directions. I saw the triangles side by side, not up and down for sewing them together. Oops. A little unpicking and I soon had this block.

I've also pulled the fabrics for last week's parasol block but have yet to prep it. Hopefully this one will get done this week. How are you coming along on your Grandmothers Choice BOW blocks?

Easy Street Progress....

I was able to sew 4 of the A blocks today and just had to lay some out and see how it will look. This is the results so far. I really like it. The maroons are looking like the browns in the picture.... I'll have to take one outside once it is all done and sewn together.

Tiny Tuesday

Today I did Midget #79 - Diamond Cross. It went together fairly easily although if I did it again I would just ignore her cutting for the paper piecing and do it my own way. The background pieces were a bit small, but it may have been the way I did it.

All 81 of my Midget blocks. It has been quite a journey and maybe I'll call it done around December this year. Making one of these little guys each week really adds up to a lot of blocks done.

Last Saturday in pink....

Well, after not feeling great yesterday (I got the bad sore throat and feeling icky that my kids had last week) I am well enough to play in the sewing room today. I have been working on my Easy Street mystery since Andrea issued me a challenge to get it done. I have 2 more b blocks to sew and then all the A blocks need to get sewn. Unfortunately, I told the boy I would quilt his quilt this weekend so this is on my living room floor and needs to get ironed and pinned for quilting.

 I hope to quilt it tomorrow during Em's nap. Daddy is taking the boy to a birthday party during that time. I should be able to get it done in a couple of hours.

Since it is the end of the month, I get to show my orange peel blocks! They are so fun to do and now that the light bulb went on and I started using some glue to hold them in place it is working much better. These are just using standard needle turn applique. I have been marking around the template with the chalk pencils and then fold the square in half and position on the line. I hope to do about 30 a month (lots more in July when I will be away for 3 weeks without a machine!) and that should give me a decent size since these little guys finish at 3 inches. I think I have 8 more in the hand work bag and those will be finished up over the next few days.

For all my pink this month - I got my pink scrappy X quilt completed that I started a couple of years ago with this challenge. The pattern is from Bonnie Hunter but I did an oops when putting it together and they did not form the X. Oh well, it is still cute.

I also made some snails trail blocks.

and some crumbs.

The reason I get to sew today is that today is Double Kid Saturday at Grandma's house. She will tire them out moving all this mulch into her yard. BIG Thanks to my MIL for taking the kids every Saturday so G or I get some hours to ourselves.

My lunch break is over - back to the sewing room. Linking up to SoScrappy today. Head on over and see what others are working on in pink.

Easy Street step 7 Done....

I was able to sew the last three triangles together this morning. Here is all 12 of the setting triangles and the 4 corner triangles. I think they look good together as big squares!

Onto step 8 during nap time.

A finish... and some finds.

I was able to get the pink scrappy quilt all quilted on Sunday. I had planned to do feathers in the pink scrappy parts but it was just not working. Instead, I just did straight line quilting around all the sashing and then attached the binding. I finished hand stitching the binding down on Tuesday night.

Since I got two quilts quilted so far this year, I decided it was time to really clean and organize my sewing room. Right now it looks like a tornado went through the room but I am starting with refolding my fabrics by color in the closet. I have found a few things I completely forgot about and have a kids shoe rack hanging to hold FQ bundles. I also added a sweater holder and have tucked some projects I completely forgot about in there. If they are in sight I might work on them... right? The top one is a double irish chain in green and cream - 90x70 and I think it needs to be wider. I believe there is enough to add a solid border but not sure I'll have enough for binding. There is oodles of a green check for the backing - this was started sometime in the early 2001 range and was meant to be a duvet cover for my bed. DH is allergic (darn it - I love the down feather bed and duvet) so it has moved onto a new home. This will just have to become a quilt instead. The 4th row down has a Joann's BOM from 2000! I have 4 blocks done but got stuck on the applique. Since I have done a little applique in the last year, this one might get worked on some this year as well. I seem to have purchased 3 extra blocks from this set - just so happens Mom wants 3 pillow covers for camp. I think the blue and yellow will work perfectly out there.

I still have a couple of big bins full of scraps that need taming of some sort. I also have a 3-4 containers of other things that I need to figure out what to do with. Here is a picture of my status so far in the closet - some progress. Ignore the top shelf of yarn, I haven't taken that out to sort yet.

Notice there is not a picture of the sewing room - that is still not under control!

Tiny Tuesday - Endless Chain.

With a little prodding from Ellen, I finally decided it was the week to make this one. I had been avoiding it since it had some weird directions. I decided to modify them and drew some lines to have all 16 pieces paper pieced and avoid the hand sewn inset seams into paper pieced parts. It made it much easier and now it is DONE! A very cute little block that will finish at 4.5 inches. This one has 80 pieces in it and was a good one to use up the little bits leftover from the other midget blocks.

Slow stitching Sunday....

Today will be a prep work day and a day of quilting for me. That should give me some binding to work on later this evening.
This is the quilt that will get pinned and quilted today. The binding is all set and waiting to be attached when I am done.

Then I need to prep some more of my orange peel's for the week. I have finished the 14 that I prepped a couple of weeks ago and need some more for the hand work bag. I am using silk thread for this and love it so far. It is so fine the the stitches just disappear. I have a light and dark color for blending and should be able to get through the year with these two colors of silk thread.

Head on over to Quilter Kathy and see what others are working on this slow stitch Sunday.

Snail trail in pink....

Another Saturday in Pink this week. I made my second snail's trail block so have my two pink ones done for the year. This is a really fun block to make and I can see myself finally making one of the Judy Martin patterns that uses the snails trail - I think it might be Shakespear in the park? I have wanted to make one of her quilt patterns for a while now and I do think this might be the year. Once I organize up my sewing room I think I will put the blue and creams aside so I can prep for that quit.

Tomorrow I plan to finally quilt this one. I put it together in Vermont a couple of years ago.

 I added the borders last year to make it a bit bigger.

This year - it is time to finish it. I was able to get a log cabin quit quilted last Sunday so I really think I can get this one quilted and bound this Sunday. Next weekend maybe Aidan's quilt will finally get quilted! I want to take advantage of these few Sunday's I have off with DH and the kids before the busy season starts again and I am working every Sunday.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what others are working on in Pink this weekend.

Easy street - step 7 - triangles!

I got to start piecing triangles yesterday for the Easy Street mystery. I love how this is turning out so far. I put the triangles together and it does make a really neat star in the middle. So far I have the 4 corners done and 6 of the setting triangles. Six to go before I can start step 8!

The kids have been out playing with the bubble wands this morning and then got so excited because the tree's started moving. They wanted to fly their kites! They got them for Christmas and this was a shot of them flying Emily's with Daddy last week in the back yard. Now we are out front in the driveway and they are riding their bikes. I make them go in and rest after a bit of playing.... they both did have fevers yesterday and I don't want a recurrence. I have to say - I am enjoying the cooler weather we have after the front went through. 60's is much nicer weather for January than the 80's we've had the last week. Makes me want to prep another quilt for quilting so I can snuggle under it while attaching the binding! I do see sewing time for me during naps today =). I do love nap time.

Easy Street Progress....

I think I have all of step 5 done now. Here are my 64 blue and maroon - tall geese.

Here is the start of step 6. I still have a bunch more of these to make and then 19 green squares cut into 4 triangles each. If I can get the kids settled without too much trouble tonight I think I can finish off this step today.

All my steps so far are in this blue bin.

I can't wait to start putting this mystery together.

#20 - Woman's Suffrage block

The block for week 20 is called Memory Wreath.
This was very simple to put together.

I've been trying a few new things in the kitchen - mostly to try and save time in meal prep. I also found I love potatoes but they just don't last down here in the very warm and humid Florida weather. I've been baking them in the oven while I am cooking something else. ( the half of the bag that I didn't use for mashed potatoes or potato salad.). Then I just store them in the crisper and pull them out when I want some quick hash browns in the mornings with eggs (dice with skins on and add onion, pepper or whatever is in the veggie bin), or quick twice baked potato or potato skins in the evenings. 

Is there some time saving thing you do in the kitchen that you would care to share with me?

Thanks for stopping by.

Tiny Tuesday

Today I made #73  Dogwood. I decided to add some blue to the midget blocks today. The picture shows pink but I think I have a bit too much red and pink in my quilt blocks so far so the next few will be adding blue, brown, green and purple. =)

Quilting for a slow stitch Sunday...

In order to get some slow stitching this week I had to work on a UFO. Yup, I finally pulled the scrappy log cabin that has been pinned and waiting patiently in the closet for quilting. Note to self, if there is no deadline the quilting seems to go easier with much less thread breaks!
I had already prepped the binding whenever I finished this top so after it was quilted and trimmed I attached the binding. Now I have some hand stitching for this evening and I'll be able to cross a UFO off my list for 2013 this week.

Now some people have dogs or cats that come running when you lay out a quilt or blocks for a picture. Me, I have a 3 year old daughter! She ran up, sat at the end and said 'Cheese, applebees.' I have no clue where she got the applebee's part but she has been adding that to cheese for the last 6 months.

This is the cat - same room - saying 'just leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep here!'

 

Hooking up to Quilter Kathy's Slow Stitch Sunday. Head on over and see what others are working on this week.

RSC in pink...

I got a little bit of sewing time yesterday and was able to iron some of my pink bits and came up with these three 6 inch blocks. I don't have a plan for these right now but can see making some crumb blocks each month and then turning them into something in December.

Yesterday was the hubby's birthday and my niece's birthday. One is in college and one had the option of having the day off from work or working. He chose to go to work (slow at the store vs. a full day with 2 active kids.....yup, he is a smart guy!) I took the kids shopping Thursday and they picked things for him but I wanted to wait and wrap them today. They decided to hide his presents so he would not find them until his birthday. It seems they didn't think he needed wrapping and just pulled out his presents from hiding and gave them to him in the morning while I was in the shower. Then they joined hands (they are 4 and 3 remember) and sang him 'Happy Birthday'. It was so darn cute!
The only thing left to do is make some low carb chocolate chip cookies (yes, they do exist) so we have something to put a candle in later tonight. His birthday meal of brats, coleslaw and a low carb pasta salad (Dreamfields) will make my life easy and him happy.

I think I need to pull a UFO for next week... and that pink scrappy X quilt needs quilting. Lets see if I can get two for the price of one! UFO and RSC. I do love that my manager gave me Sunday off again this week. I plan to sew!

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what other pink goodness is being worked on this week. There were lots of new people linked up - so fun to see.

Old Maid's Ramble - BOW

Maybe it was just me but I think the directions were a bit off on this one when putting it together. I just looked at the shading and figured it out.... after picking out the middle geese so it would work. You need two of each shading for the side parts not 4 of the same.
Other than that... this one went together quickly during nap time. It was so nice to sew after 5 days away from the sewing machine. This is another one that would be an awesome scrap quilt.

Here are 18 of my 19 Woman's Suffrage blocks. I still need to redo the outer part of the Kansas Sunflower block. 

BOW - Mother's Choice

While I was away I was able to work on this hand pieced Mother's Choice block from Barbara Brackman's BOW this year. It went together very easily. I think this one is really pretty with all the light and dark colors. The points are not perfect but I'm calling it done. I could actually see this one as a little wall hanging in blue and yellow with maybe 4 of these and then some pieced borders.......

Tiny Wednesday...

I was able to finish this hand pieced midget block yesterday but was unable to create a blog post with my phone. It went together very easily after reading some tips from Angela. This is block # 77  Rising Sun and will finish at 4.5 inches.

For now, it is good to be home and I can't wait to sew something on my sewing machine tomorrow.

Slow stitch Sunday

I actually prepped these blocks last week so that I would have them with me this week while I am away at a conference. I see slow stitching in the hotel room or sitting by the pool if the rains hold off. I am taking a bunch of different projects with me so I will have options when the mood strikes.

Orange Peel blocks - I am doing these as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge of 2013. My template is from the book Remembering Adelia.

Midget Blocks - I prepped a hand pieced one to work on this week. These are from the free for now Midget blocks at sentimentalstitches.com

Sufferage BOW - Mothers Choice is all prepped for hand piecing. This is from the Barbara Brackman BOW that is going on right now.

Lori Smith's Quilt Square Along Blocks from a 2012 BOM are being hand quilted and I have one in progress. I did finish off this one last week. It seems whenever I pull this out in public they say it is beautiful and then ask if it is a pillow!

This is a shot of almost all my blocks from last year. One is in progress. I know I have a log cabin one somewhere and one more that needs to be prepped for hand quilting. I hope to continue on with one a month this year until I have enough to make a good sized quilt. I think I need to get one more pattern of 6 and that would give me 24 blocks for a quilt.... a good size I think.

I think that should keep me busy and give me some options if the mood to stitch happens.
Head on over to Quilter Kathy's Slow Stitch Sunday and see what others are working on this first weekend of 2013.

First 2013 Saturday in PINK!

This is the first Saturday in 2013 and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is once again on tap for me this year. I have a couple of thoughts on some blocks to work on through the year and have a feeling other things will pop up as well.

For this first Saturday in Pink I made a pink Snails Trail block. I plan to make 24 blocks - 2 each month for a 4x6 setting. I just found this tutorial that will yield a 12 inch finished block. I will be making 2 at a time from now on..... although I did get lots of cream strips sewn together for step 6 of the Easy Street mystery while making this block.

I also prepped some orange peel blocks to work on this month. They are 3.5 inches finished so I will need oodles of them each month to make a good sized quilt.....or maybe this will be a two year project? Time will tell. I just had to make one to see how it would go. I expect my ends will be much better by the time I am done with this project.

Head on over to SoScrappy on Saturday morning and see what others are working on this weekend.

Dinner tonight

Looks yummy, right? I had a craving for Olive Gardens Chicken Giardino so I made my version of it with what I had on hand. Veggies - red pepper, green beans, carrots, zucchini and mushrooms and a couple of grape tomato's that needed to get used. I think it came out pretty good... lets see if the kids will eat it. I also have some nice fresh Plant City, Fl strawberries for desert.

Sufferage - Cheyenne - week 18

This one went together so easily and I think it looks really nice. Hmmm. This would make a really nice scrap quilt block......

Midget Wednesday.

I'm calling it done. It is not pretty or square but I'll deal with it whenever I attempt to put the quilt together. This one may not make it in but it is done.
#72 Brides Stairway. Should be 5 inches and 4.5 finished. Oh well.

#78 -Stepping Stones.  I figured I'd start with one that looked easy. Not so much. I believe the cutting instructions are incorrect. Adding a 1 1/8 square to the end of a 1x1 5/8 rectangle? Then I had an issue with understanding the brown  and background piecing. Good thing Angela blazed the trail. I went and peeked at her's and was able to figure it out. I think I should stay out of the sewing room for the rest of the day.

I pulled a few applique and hand pieced blocks that are coming up in the Midgets for me. I will pull fabrics and attempt to prep them by Saturday so I can take them with me for hand work next week.
New Year and 2 Midgets done already!

Baby Quilt Completed!

Woo Hoo! I got it done before Wednesday. I have to say, I had the perfect day today.
The kids slept in until a little after 7AM. I got to machine quilt in the morning and attach the binding without interruptions. Took a nice walk in the forest with the family and wore the kids out for nice long naps.

Attached the binding by hand in the afternoon while watching some recorded shows in peace and quiet.

Leftovers for dinner = no cooking for me!
I should have stayed out of the sewing room this evening.... I attempted a midget block - brides stairway and I have to say - it won. I'll try it again tomorrow but for tonight I'm calling it a day.