Progress Report 12/29

Well I did it - made my four posie blocks - now I can stop.  I like ém.  Think I'll offer them as the BOM for Jan at our guild.  That way I won't have a new UFO - LOL.
Here they are.  There is only one piece I don't like.  Can you guess which one it is?  Fat quarter to the first correct guesser.

Last Design Wall for 2010

Scraps are being used up in this rolling nine patch that I am working on to have less seams and pieces to cut.
So far I have two - I usually like to make four and  fiddle with sewing order.  I'm liking these even though they will probably be my first ufo for 2011!

LOL - ever the Serial Project Starter.   You can see what others have on their design wall by going over to Judy's Patchwork Times

Final 2010 Stash Report

Well I use almost a 1/2 yard of scraps so that much went out.  And I bought nothing, so yes, I can definitely say this year my stash was reduced by a smidgen - at least the buying frenzy has gone.  Maybe it's because I didn't go but to one quilt show, no quilt runs, and hardly any stores.  And I resisted buying online also.

I hope to be able to post a Grand Total in 2011.

Blessings in the New Year and may your stash diminish as your quilts pile up for warm comfort and sharing,
AngieN

My New Table Runner!

Our quilt guild had their Christmas Potluck Meeting - it was great.  The attendance was low, but then we were in the middle of all that rain, so we weren't surprised when only about 1/2 of the normal number (around 80) were there.  We always have that steal game.  So after our show and share (we always have that), we got a ticket and the game began.  And here is what I won: 

I love it!  The pointsettias are fusible applique and stitched with gold metallic thread.  Just right for the season.
The potluck was great also.  So much yummy food!  My favorite in the desserts was the sugar cookies someone brought in that were shaped like spools of thread.  So clever! and delicious.

Dec 19th was another First

December 19th marked William's first piano recital.  The teacher wisely placed him first on the program as he is her newest pupil and didn't give him a chance to get nervous. He played We Three King and another cheerful short tune. He did very well for having studied less than a year.  This event started the Christmas week nicely.

A Newborn

Yesterday, Dec 20th was our baby's actual due date (I know that is approximate) but we're using it to mark his progess.  Little Alan Vincent is no longer a preemie.  We can now call him a newborn.  And today his mom dressed him in newborn clothes as he has outgrown preemie clothes - right on schedule.  At left: holding hands with grandma in hospital. Then home at 9 days at a tiny weight of 4 lbs, he's now closing in on 6 pounds five weeks five days from birthdate.

The Runner Done

Actually, I finished this Sunday night as our favorite program wasn't on and had an hour to finish it.  Yep, this went together in a snap, but I did have to bury a few threads today, so I went ahead and call it finished today.  Took 2 fat quarters and cut four 9" blocks.  Made then the Rotary Cutting Revolution way (I love Anita Solomon's techniques). Assembled three and the fourth just cut it with no stitching (I'm loving this kind of construction).  The fourth block was used to make the points.  And here it is finished: 
It measures 10 x 40 and is for a family member for valentine's day.  I continued the flower theme in the block quilting motif:

Design Wall 12/20

I think I went a little crazy this weekend.  With all the posting about cleaning up my sewing area, finding ufos, and moving books and sorting them - I had this great urge to do something new again - and found myself making a new project - LOL.  Actually, I picked up one of the blocks I made from the rotary cutting revolution book and before I knew it I had the makings of a table runner.  I'll post a photo just as soon as Google gets back online - must be a ton of people using it right now, cuz it keeps saying service not available right now.

Okay finally got it to load.  Were any of you having a problem uploading photos.  I had to log out and log in several times before it would do it.

Stash Report 12/19/10

Happy to report used one yard, so I'll have something for the design wall tomorrow.

Stats:

Used this week:  1 yd
Bought this week:  0
so my stash is still decreasing.  Woohoo!

What are your stash numbers?  If you want to see more, go on over to Judy's Patchwork Times (button on left side bar) and check out what others have done.

One step has been taken!

Well, all your advice has paid off - some progress has been made.  I've gone from:
The books are now in another  room on a different shelf unit, but still accessible to the sewing room.  Gosh I have over 200 books - I must do a weeding!  And I've just ordered 2 more - LOL!  Any way I decided to put the 15 UFOs I'll be working on for Judy's challenge on the shelf.  That way even if I haven't made  a lot of progress, I'll know I can just go around the corner of my sewing area and find the project I am suppose to be working on and not panic that I can't find it.  The added bonus is that I was able to unearth my grandparents' antique rocker, and I can now enjoy it while I do some hand sewing.  That is until I move it in April when I take on watching little Alan while Momma Em goes back to work.  Looking forward to that! 
And here's the rocker:                                      Big change from this:


My UFO 2011 List

My progress this Thursday is I found the 12 UFOs plus 3 extra for the upcoming challenge.  I didn't have to look far - they were all on the rocking chair!  I'm doing Judy's UFO Challenge for 2011.  You can find the button for this on my left sidebar.  Here are the ones of the many I have that I am going to work on in 2011. I'm suppose to finish one per month as she calls them (number that is).

1.  Floral charm square exchange to make a lattice quilt - least done on this one.


2.  Women's Voices blocks made by Dorothy


 3.  Mod quilt I need to QAYG.

4.  BOM quilt only 3 blocks made so far - 9 to go!

 5. Mary Ellen Hopkins - design your own quilt - I started with the cat panel block and came up with this top I call it "Watching all the Birds go By"

6.  Charity quilt top I made making blocks I saw in a Connecting Threads catalog.

7.  My Carolina Christmas blocks - I'd sure like to get this done before NEXT Christmas!  Please call this number early, Judy.

8.  My daughter's quilt that I"ve worked on this year until I put the wrong fabric as a backing when making a row by QAYG.  I wasn't thinking!
 9.  A Judy Sisneros pattern and kit  needs to be sanwiched and quilted.

10.  Here's my coverlet - sure would be nice to finish it by July to go on our bed.

11. A quilt I wanted to finish for Leo that I'll now finish for Alan.


12.  My grandson, William, arranged these blocks when he was 3 years old for me to quilt.  He's 8.

If I finish a UFO early in the month I"ll work on these:
   A.  Here is another BOM set I won - these are made from Christmas material.

B.  The Shop Hop Blocks


C.  Two fabrics I must make into something this year - maybe not a quilt project.


Listing UFOs or Not

Over at Judy's blog, Patchwork Times, she is hosting a UFO challenge.  First step is to find your ufos and make a list of 12 of them you want to finish in 2011.  If you're fortunate enough not to have 12 to finish, you  divide them into steps so that you can work on one part each month.  On the last day of the month, she'll draw the number we're suppose to work on.  Thing is I have so many, it will take me longer to do that than to finish one - LOL!

Here's my dilemma - my sewing room is a big mess.  My stash is in all kinds of places.  I can't find anything most of the time.  That may be why I've become a Serial Project Starter because it's easier to begin something new than to find that project I was working on.  Sighhhhhhhhhhhh!

Can't be that bad?  Check these out:

My primary stash on left - yep, I'll have to find a place for my books other than a shelf.  Right is rest of that wall with shelves of magazines, odds & ends, some orphan blocks.Continuing to the right is my cutting table, ironing board, and machine and under it 9 boxes of strips, scraps and projects.  That's 2 walls.   The third wall is mostly windows but there are 3 boxes filled with clippings, file folders and, yes, more projects and fabric plus an antique rocker piled high with projects and odds and ends. You can see the buried rocker on the left of the third photo.
 On the last wall there are more boxes plus bags of fabric, my Janome, a 4 drawer plastic bin and the heater which keeps me unfrozen in winter - it's portable.



Then come the large drawers under the closets - 3 of them - 2 stuffed with projects and fabric and one only half filled with more stash.
 


and finally in the guest room closet there are 2 boxes of fabric.  In the addition there are 2 boxes of fabric and stuff.  How did this happen?  Sadly 2 dear quilter friends died in 08 within months of each other and their husbands decided I needed their quilt stuff.  I gave tons away and the rest you see.  This year I hope to get rid of a lot more as I do stash reduction and get rid of some of those ufos - mine, Becky's and Dorothy's.                                                                                                                                     

So where do I start?

Progress Report 12/16

Well, next week I'll have two charity quilts to turn in.  This latest one was made by my daughter, Emily, a while ago and she had me bind it - so it is a duo quilt, AND another UFO that becomes a CQ!  She found it while going through her craft/sewing room which is becoming the nursery for Alan.
I love the flannel fabrics in this one!

Some baby girl is gonna love this one - her momma too!

Quilt as you Go Festival Quilt

Good morning!  I've had several quilters ask how I quilted as I went my Bullseye Blossom quilt that I entered in the Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival. So I've decided to give a little info on that. 

I cut a center backing 2" bigger than the final piece would be and cut a piece of batting to fit it. I then sewed a row of flower squares with the flowers only pinned on top of each block. Then I positioned the row where it was suppose to go on the partial sandwich of batting and backing, and quilted each layer onto the block it rested on. Some of the leaves I had to leave loose because they overlapped onto another square. I did this for each row working from the middle out. That way I worked with roughly half of the quilt under the machine. Made it a lot easier to quilt. Then I sandwiched each border and attached them and quilted the bullseyes and the remaining loose leaves.

I've attached a photo of the back in case the above doesn't make sense - LOL.  Let me know if you have any further questions.

Design Wall Monday 12/13

Something new on my design wall - now that doesn't mean the rest are done - LOL - just had to do these to be ready for next week's LQG meeting.  They will be used as examples for the BOM for January.  These were quick and easy to make  I used 3 wof for building them.  I made 4 from those three strips.  Took me about half hour counting even the cutting time.  I like how one can set them in several ways.  The BOM queen called them Irish 4 patches.  They measure 8 1/2" unfinished.  To see what others are doing, check out Judy's blog.

Stash Report 12/12

Despite the depression last week, I did use some fabric

1 1/4 yds out
"0" yds in
Woohoo - my stash did not get bigger.

Did you apply to be part of the Quiltmaker Scrap Squad?  I did and now I'm wondering what was I thinking, but no matter, I probably won't get picked.  You can learn about it at http://www.quiltmaker.com/index.html  They have a pretty cool site.  One of the requirements to the application was to submit a scrappy quilt you have made.  This was one of my three:

My question to you is do you think it made color sense?  That's one of the things they're looking for.  I just went for bright with this.  Bet there were thousands of applications.  Just pushing my envelope.




Late again, but Some Progress was made

Well, I got into my quilting corner and actually finished a project.  It is a table runner for an upcoming exchange.  I just pulled out my scrap batting, zigzagged a piece big enough for this runner, found backing, and got my bag of scraps strips.  I then pulled out strips and quilted as I went to finish this table runner.  I can't say I'm a fan of this slap-sew method, but if I'd stopped to think about it and arrange the order, it wouldn't be done.  Next time, I'll go through the strips and take out anything that really doesn't go with the others and then do the blind picking- might come out more to my liking, but it's okay.  Measures about 16 1/2" by 32.  Actually, the hardest part was choosing fabric for the binding.  The back is an all over floral with a black background, and that's what made choosing a binding so hard.  I could have used black, but the black didn't look so hot with the front.  I would have used a solid green, however I've used it all up this year. Only 21 days before I can just go shopping for fabric. I started this thursday, so I'm counting it as thursday progress.

Late Design Wall

Well I'm in a funk - I can't seem to get myself over to the other half of this room and do quilting!  Weekend was busy!  A class, a shower, a headache - all kept me from feeling par.

Some good news - fun was had by all at the shower. Mom gave daughter a darling quilt - but I forgot my camera and can't show it to you.  There is nothing on my design wall at the moment.  I should be working on a table runner for our Christmas exchange at the LQG meeting in two weeks, but just don't have the energy.

Some great news.  Baby Alan now weighs 5 lbs!  Yeah!

Ah me!  Can hardly wait for the days to begin earlier - today I got up at 6am but it was so dark I went back to bed.

Send hugs, please,
Angie

Quilt Book Winner

is Lisa who wrote:


"This book could be the solution to my hesitancy to just go for it...I usually just do straight line quilting and can really use this information. Thanks for the chance. ~~Lisa

Congrats, Lisa!  and thank you to all who left comments and follow.  I have a copy of another favorite quilting book of mine.  So please come back and see what I have in store soon.

Have a quilty week,
Angie

Post Thursday

Well not much quilting has been done lately - our 42nd anniversary had to be celebrated.  It was tuesday.  As we had two going out to dinner Christmas obligations, we decided not to go out that day, instead we went to a Cactus Society potluck on Wednesday.  We took our grandson as he usually spends his wednesday evenings with us. It was great!  Today my DH gave me these: 
and I baked him a carrot-pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting which I took to our thursday out of the house dinner at the Sons of Italy - a fraternal club that serves the best lasagna in the area.  Four other friends came with us.
    So maybe some quilting tomorrow!

Quilting Book Giveaway

To begin this season of giving and celebrating the Birth of our Lord, I'm giving away a wonderful book (I'm keeping my own copy) for all levels of quilters.  It's Harriet Hargrave's Heirloom Machine Quilting - A Comprehensive Guide to Hand-Quilted Effects Using Your Sewing Machine.  This is the Revised and Expanded Third Edition.  Beside Diane Gaudynski, Harriet has been invaluable help in getting my quilt tops done.  Mind you, I haven't gotten as fancy as these two Queens of Sewing Machine quilting, but I have begun to finish some on my own.

Follow me on this blog and leave me a comment and I'll give you 2 entries in this giveaway.  This ends Sunday, Dec 5th -plenty of time for it to get to you before Christmas if you want to give it as a gift or be a gift for you! Includes some quilting patterns for your use in your quilts!

SAHRR Round 5 and 6

  Ready to show rounds 5 and 6. Actually, the prompt for 5 was make 4 of something. So I chose four patch, and actually since that made my q...