Saturday, January 26, 2013

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.









Friday, January 25, 2013

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.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

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!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

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.


Sunday, January 20, 2013

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.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

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.

Friday, January 18, 2013

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.