A new project

 Someone talk me out of this! Who am I kidding, you all are enablers!

I love my Scrappy Pinwheel quilt - pattern by Kim Brackett. I made this back in 2011 as I won the quilt guilds block one month and came home with 11 of them. I added more scrappy ones and made this quilt. It is currently on my bed. 

In 2012 I made scrappy ones with the RSC and donated these 2 quilts to a family that my sister was mentoring one of the girls. I also made 2 single irish chain quilts for the boys in the family.

I am not sure where the instructions were, I know the pattern is in a book and they got permission from the author to use that pattern as a monthly guild block. I took a photo of a block on my quilt and used that to figure out that middle part. It took me 2 tries to get it correct.

I just used scraps from the cutting mat to sew these 4 parts up.

With the leftover triangle cuts I made these blocks.

I was thinking a scrappy blue one with a solid yellowish background. I could also use a light print and pull colors from that. I have a few yard cuts of those that would work well... if my math is correct. 

We will see what happens.

Today Emily is riding a horse. Aidan is at school with the second to last engineering day with CF and NASA. Their presentation to the NASA engineers is next month. Tomorrow she will drive us to Grandmas to get some driving time, so I need to go with her. It will be a family game day. She will be getting her license in a month and needs a few more hours of drive time. That should add another 3 hours or so.

I snapped this photo the other day when I let the girls out to roam in the backyard for a few hours. They are happy and providing between 3-5 eggs a day. Not bad considering 3 of them are 4.5 years old and the other 2 are a couple of years old.

Linking up with the RSC.

 

RSC Saturday.....

I got one pinwheel made this week. The other two..... well, it appears I sewed the triangles wrong...... so sewing that day stopped. I do like how it looks though with the white in the middle. Hmmmm, this might become a RSC block that I do monthly with a consistent white pinwheel. =) Sometimes those mistakes make the greatest quilts.

This morning.... I prepped the other 8 pinwheel blocks that I need and some more scrappy houses in teal.

My plans today.... once I can get the kids moving, dressed, packed and have their rooms cleaned up..... will be driving them to Grandma's with a stop for haircuts on the way. When I get back... cleaning the house, sewing, writing a note for the animal care while away and packing for the beach for a couple of days. Not necessarily in that order =).  I would love to get my UFO for the month quilted today... not sure it will fit into the plans but we will see. It has been a very busy but productive week... just not in the sewing room. My programming work week went well with the kids at swim camp and Grandma picked them up Friday since I was working in the pool store that day. Today... is prep for vacation day and tomorrow Grandma will take the kids over in the morning and Greg and I will join them tomorrow night after working the last day of the sale at the store. Busy, busy, busy as always at my house. I did lots of prep work last weekend so I have plenty of hand work for sitting on the balcony overlooking the ocean the next couple of days. =) I do love listening to the sound of the waves rolling in on the beach.

Head on over to the RSC Challenge and see how others did with their teal this week.

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.

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.

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.

Feeling Grey....

The last month of color for the rainbow scrap challenge and the grey to black color way was chosen. I was a little nervous thinking I didn't have much of this. I actually found some grey bits hanging out in the stash. Yea!

I spent the morning walking through the Ocala, FL quilt show and it is amazing some the applique and hand quilting on those quilts. Some very talented ladies are in that guild. I'll do a separate post on that next week with my purchases. Must help out the economy, right? Thanks to MIL I had a bunch of birthday cash to spend today.

After I got home to a nice quiet house I decided to do a bunch of prep work. I have all my remaining pinwheel blocks all cut out and marked for sewing.

 I have my next Midget block all cut out and ready for hand piecing and I selected the fabrics for the Grandmothers choice block for the week.

I did go ahead and put one pinwheel together..... I think it came out pretty cute. Of course sewing with the grey got me thinking..... a blue and grey quilt would look really neat. =) Next week it will be decision time with these pinwheel quilts. Time to think of borders..... I've been making little pinwheels with the extra bits thinking they would look good going around the quilt. The other idea is just strips of different colors going around the pinwheels....... Lots to think about.

Head on over to SoScrappy and see what others are working on.

Saturday in Brown

I got to work with some brown this week!

First I cut out and pieced the top of the blue/brown irish chain. The blocks are 9 inch finished and with the strip piecing this went together in two days. I think it will just get some straight line stitching through the chains and the big squares and finish with the blue homespun binding.

Then I cut out the parts for the birds in the air blocks. I was curious so I just had to make a few. Here are my first three. I'll do the other 9 next week.

In between my sewing this week I made some basic pinwheels with the corners from last weeks brown pinwheel blocks. I seem to have an oops in there! I've been working through all my colors in between other projects.

Head on over to Angela's blog on Saturday and see what others have been working on for their brown challenge.

I have a plan for next week - brown and thanksgiving............

RSC Saturday in brown.....

I actually have been waiting for brown as I have this nice container full of brown goodies to sew with this month.

First up is pinwheel blocks. I seem to have gotten carried away and cut out enough for 5 blocks this week.

I am also planning a blue/brown homespun irish chain quilt that I will be working on this month using these fabrics.

Head on over to Angels'a blog at SoScrappy and see what other brown goodness is being worked on this weekend.

Feeling Orange

I can't help but think of the episode of The Big Bang Theory when I think of 'feeling orange'. That Sheldon is a hoot.

I got to sew some more pinwheels this week in orange.

I've also found most of those 'bonus' triangles from making the pinwheels. I have an idea for the use of them and have the basket of HST and pairs next to the sewing machine and sew a few in between doing other things. They are growing fast. I did not trim them up and will just do that after they are all together. I plan to put these in the border of one of the quilts and will offset each side with a strip of cream/white and have them staggered around the border. That is the thought but we'll see if it happens when the quilt is closer to the putting together stage.

Here is a picture of all the blocks I have made so far this year with three leftover from what I won from my guild in VT a few years ago. I think I want 20 blocks in each quilt so I have a bit more of these to make.

Head on over to Soscrappy on Saturday and see what other orange goodness is happening this week.

Saturday sewing.....

I got the kids tired out in the pool and down for a nap so I could sew this afternoon. I got the other 2 pinwheel blocks done for the scrappy blue challenge

and was able to finish the 9 scrappy log cabin blocks. This is probably how they will be laid out, but I will probably move things around a bit to spread out the colors. Aidan helped by selecting the lights and dark colors as I was sewing them.

Scrappy Green Saturday

I was able to do a little bit of sewing this morning and got these 2 green pinwheel blocks put together.


This is the bunch of blocks I have so far... the 2 reds from last month and the 3 that I had left over from the guild blocks I won a couple of years ago. I am thinking this may become 2 different quilts ... but I'll decide later this year on that one.

I did finish the last 4 Jacobs ladder blocks and now it looks like this with the blocks laid out on the floor. Looking at it.... I am thinking I want at least 2 more rows... maybe 3.... so back to the sewing room to cut more of these I think. I need to measure things out and rethink this one. I may just call it done at this point and add a border...... Hmmm. Something to think about today.


Next week..... I'm planning to work on the birds in the air blocks. I hope things will settle down a bit into a routine now that we officially opened our store on Monday.... my son's 4th birthday! Now that is a date we will not forget.

Go on over to SoScrappy's blog and see what everyone else is working on this green Saturday.
Happy Sewing.

Scrappy Pinwheel quilted and bound!!!!

I got back to sewing and managed to get the scrappy pinwheel quilt pinned, quilted and bound in three days! Turns out I can do binding in the recliner while the kids are in the room.



I changed my original quilting idea once I started quilting. Instead of round circles in each pinwheel, I just did some flowers with loops to fill in around them. Very basic but I was able to get it done pretty quickly... and with the list of things I need to get done in the next month that was important! I decided to do a scrappy border, something which I've never done before but I think it goes well with this quilt.
I'm off to pin the Vermont quilt now and hope to get started on quilting it this evening after the kids are in bed... if I'm not too tired. Miss Em decided to be wide awake for quite a while in the middle of the night so we didn't get much sleep with her being up off and on from midnight until a little after 4AM. Of course big brother wakes up at 6:30 so not much sleep for me last night.
Happy quilting and we'll see if I can post a completed quilt a little later this week!

2 Tops... finished and into the 'to quilt' pile!

Scrappy Pinwheel blocks that I added a bunch to from my BOM winnings in November turned into this lovely quilt! I looked up the pattern by Kim Brackett and decided instead of a plain border fabric I wanted some 'mountains' to make the pinwheels stand out.

A close up of one of the corners.

Over the weekend I finally got the Vermont cut out and onto the center of this quilt so that I can show the top at my guild meeting this Wednesday. This is 66x66 and I'm not sure how I will do the quilting on this one. Probably block by block decision and I'll just play with it.

Typical me... at least 4 tops need to be quilted in the next few months and I pulled my extra blue's out of the bin from my parents anniversary quilt and have one set of the big 8 inch triangles all laid out for a small baby or lap quilt. More on that project coming on soscrappy Saturday!

Borders completed...

Well, this is the quilt on the messy floor right after Miss Emily got up from her nap on Saturday. I decided to do 9 squares for the 4 corners and attach them to the top and bottom borders. I brought the quilt and borders to my really fun sewing Sunday afternoon and the girls suggested a small frame border around the pinwheels before the border. I like their suggestion so will be adding that soon and then the borders to get this completed soon.
Yesterday a big Thanks to DH for staying home with the kids so I could pop to the hospital conference room to sew with some of the ladies from the guild. R and I were able to get a few of the award blocks done so I only have 7 or 8 total to do now! I figure it takes me a little over an hour to do one so the rest are very manageable to get done by the end of the month. Oh, there is a pattern for a version of the sugar house created by guild member Susan Bruce. The block in the link will finish at 15x15. The ones in the award are closer to 5x6 I think.
Still need to draft up my BOM quilt center....but plan to really get that done and onto the center of the quilt this week.
Just need to prep for a few meetings this week - do the taxes for VTMUG and file (hopefully today) and then create my agenda and organize my notes for my quilt show committee meeting on Thursday evening. Lets hope the kiddo's nap together and for a good amount of time again this week so I can get some things done.

Pinwheel border and one award block completed...

I have 2 of these borders completed.. just need to sew the other two together and figure out how I want the corners to look. Progress is being made so that is a good thing.

This is one of the award blocks for our quilt show. I have a bunch more to make and some are signed out to the guild members to make and return to me by the February meeting. I'm meeting with Roberta on Sunday to see if we can get a few more of them made up. I'd like to have the 13 kits I have all completed by the end of the month. Very pretty log cabins but they are all paper pieced and take some time to do.


I did attempt to make a new years resolution to do something crafty every day and so far I've been doing pretty well with either sewing a little, cutting fabric out for my borders or doing a little knitting at night after the kids are in bed. As always, so many projects and not enough time in the day.

Croup and a sick house......

Well, the boy has the barking cough and couldn't breathe most of this weekend.... called the Doctor Saturday afternoon after his attack during a nap (had 2 the previous night) and he did a quick diagnosis on the phone, gave us some instructions and then called back in a bit and asked us to bring him to his office and he'd meet us there. The 'yucky' medicine (as Aidan calls it) worked great and my trooper of a boy took the 2 droppers of it for 3 nights without spitting it out like we thought he would. He still has a bad cough but is sleeping through the nights again with a humidifier in his room. Lets hope the girl doesn't get it bad like he did... we have the dosage amount for her just in case.

I did get the hand quilting done on the Cardinal quilt well before the guild meeting last Wednesday. I just did around the four cardinals and called it a finish.


Yesterday, I wanted to play with fabric while they napped so I put my scrappy pinwheels together. I don't want a plain border on this... thinking a scrappy 'mountain' look like on some of Judy Martin quilts. Excuse Miss Sophie's tail in the picture.


Off to get a few things done and fingers crossed that they continue to nap, maybe I can start some flying geese for my guild challenge quilt from last year.
Happy Holidays and may your quilting be finished in time!

Midget block #3... and a few other things.

Well, I decided I can't wait so I made 3 more of the scrappy pinwheel blocks this weekend. I now have 20 and will put them together this week to form the top. I'll just need to add a border... but I'll pick that from the stash after I get the top together. I hope to get this one quilting in January. I'm going to have a hard time giving this one away I think.


I also made my kayak block as an extra block for my guild challenge quilt from last year. My kayak is red and G's is blue so that explains my color choices in this block. Now I just need to find a map of the state and get it into the size I need and then make my center block. I hope to get this quilt put together and quilted in December.


I finally finished my third midget block. I started this last Sunday and finished it yesterday afternoon while the kids napped. A 4.5 inch block with over 54 pieces.... what was I thinking? I have a feeling this project will take a back burner as I need to help kit up the awards blocks and do a few before the quilt show in April.


After holiday colds have hit. I seem to have a terrible head cold - day 2 and not much sleep last night from my cold. Emily threw up milk this morning all over the carpet (isn't that a lovely smell?) and I've been wiping three noses constantly today. Thank goodness they are both quiet and napping right now. Think I'll pull up the recliner, cover with a quilt and knit a bit while watching some of my NCIS LA shows that are lining up on the TiVo.

Photo's!

These are the 11 blocks that I won at my guild meeting last week.
And...

These are the 7 that I made. I can't wait to see how this one will turn out. This is called Scrap Basket Surprise Pinwheel block by Kim Brackett.

I have a lot of the extra triangles from making this quilt that I think I'll square up and make into a little doll quilt for Em. Stay tuned to see how that venture turns out!

I Won! I Won!

I had a feeling that since I really liked the BOM for my guild this month and had started to cut out scraps to make my own, that I would win the blocks this month. I had this feeling Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday while cutting out my scraps. Well, I went to the meeting last night and saw lots of beautiful quilts by Kim Diehl and guess who won the 11 blocks from our monthly challenge? Yup, it was meeeeeeee!

Thanks so much to the ladies who made the blocks this month. I'm looking forward to putting them together with a few of mine and making up a pretty scrap quilt. I will probably give this one away to either my friend Kelly as a raffle for next June's 'Lacing up for Cancer' walk or as a donation to the 'Friends of the library' in Milton next fall. They'll both get a quilt next year but I'll toss a coin to see who gets this one... assuming the kids will let it out of the house!

Grad quilt top completed!

I was able to get the YBR top put together on Sunday afternoon while the kids were napping. It currently looks like this:


I saw a beautiful batik at the fabric store on Saturday that I am going to use for the backing of this...it is a creamy background with pretty prints in it of purple, yellow and teals. I'll plan to quilt this one sometime next spring.

I also did a scrappy pinwheel block last week for my guild BOM and decided I really liked it so have been digging through my scrap box of fabrics and cutting out a bunch so that I can make a scrappy pinwheel quilt. The pattern is from a Kim Brackett book. I'll just work on that as I can. This is the one for my guild BOM.

I also did a scrappy 90x4 inch row for one of our guild charity quilts for next year. It is currently two 45x4 rows, I just need to combine them before friday.
>


The next goal is to finish that Cardinal quilt this month so it can be hanging up after Thanksgiving in the dining room. I need to machine stitch around the wings (never done this before so that is the hesitation I think) and then I am going to just machine quilt it instead of hand quilting it like I had planned.

I've also been gathering a bunch of 30's prints that I will use to make Emily her 'big girl' quilt for her twin bed that she'll get next spring. I plan to make a Judy Martin pattern - a log cabin with tulips in the light part. Her Daddy asked me to make her a quilt for her bed in 'girly' colors so that is what I came up with. I need to make a sample block sometime soon to make sure I can cut it with the rulers I have and have it come out correctly.....if not I'll be ordering her ruler to make the quilt.

Another possability is to do the new Bonnie Hunter 'Cotton' quilt mystery. I've saved off her last 2 but still haven't done one of hers... I am thinking this might be one that I do along with the clues but we'll see how the next few weeks go.

I also need to make my last 2 blocks for my guild BOM's from last year. I plan to make a block with 2 kayaks and then I think my 'center' block will be a state of vermont block. I'm thinking that in the middle with a plain blue border around that and then all the 12 inch blocks around that. That one needs to be done by March... so may bump up in the priority list.
Lots to do... so think I'll eat that last piece of birthday cake and then jump into the sewing room and get some things done.
Happy sewing.