Design Wall Monday – 2/8/2010

Can you believe I have stuff on both sides of my design wall? The blocks on the left are from my guild’s round robin exchange in 2008. My challenge quilt is off the right wall which means I am almost done with the top! Woo hoo! I have only a small amount of hand sewing left to do, then I need to get the back finished up, and get it quilted.

The blocks on the right are some I will be sewing together for a friend. A woman in my friend’s church came to her after the woman’s husband died, crying, and asking my friend to make his shirts into a quilt. I am a softie and offered to help piece the quilt.

I put them up on the wall to begin to see about a layout. We already decided on a nine-patch with no sashing. I placed half of these up randomly and half with the blocks coordinated.

Not really sure I liked the random layout, so I switched it up a little –

I think I like this much better.

See what inspiring projects everyone else has up at Judy’s blog!

Stash report – 2/7/2010

Wow, this has been a busy week and I have gotten almost NOTHING done. I did cut apart my fall dugout table runner and place mats and cut enough binding for them. The binding is from stash so that  is all I have used this week. I also almost have the borders on my challenge quilt – woo hoo!

Here are my stats for this week.

Used this week:  0.5 yards
Used this year:  19.69 yards
Added this week:  0 yards
Added this year:   18.31 yards
Net used for 2010:  1.38 yards

I did pick up fabric for my Civil War Tribute BOM and my First Saturday BOM, but I haven’t even had time to open those packages so am not counting those.

Run over to Judy’s blog and see what everyone else has done!

A lobster in the living room…

Mini-me turned a lobster loose in the living room! Watch out if you come to visit!

Yesterday’s happenings….and Honor our WWII vets!

It has really hit home during the last few weeks that I have only 6 months home with the kids before they start school. No more playing games, snuggling on the couch watching videos, trips to the library or zoo – at least not at the relaxed pace that is possible today, so on top of all that I am doing (or trying to do) I am really trying to make SPECIAL time for Mini-me and Munchie. They won’t be at this stage forever….

doing silly things like spinning until they’re dizzy and fall down (they call it “getting busy”!)……

drawing awesome pictures they can’t wait to share with me…….

 hugging and loving on me. Nothing melts my heart like they do when they come up to me and say, “Momma, I need some lovin’!” Now how can you turn that down?

My personality doesn’t slow down and play well, plus all my life I have had to “go…go…go” if you know what I mean, so it is NOT easy and I really have to make the effort. Today after Women’s Bible Study, we went to the library, picked out a few books and videos, and the kids played computer games for about half an hour. Normally I would want to get home as soon as possible because the stop at the library would make lunch late, naps late, and so on. But they had fun…and so did I.

When we got home they watched the beginning of a video while I made lunch, then they napped after lunch. I was down stairs doing a little sewing when Munchie fell out of my bed with a thump, which woke BOTH of them up, and had me running up the stairs. She was fine, didn’t even know she had fallen out of bed, but naps were definitely over! We planned to make cookies yesterday as we had decided we were going to take our dentist some cookies when we went back so we whipped up a batch of oatmeal cookies.

See the little measuring cup? That has oatmeal in it. Munchie likes to eat it raw. The apple sure doesn’t fall far from the tree as I did the same thing when I was a kid!

Finished product!

Today we make chocolate chip cookies…an alternative for those who may not like oatmeal at the office (and when one kid likes oatmeal and the other likes chocolate chips, you tend to make more cookies!) 

What is up with taking sweet, baked goods as a gift to a dentist and his staff? LOL – I really AM nuts!

After baking, we all cooked supper. We had pasta, so I let them pick out what kind of noodles they wanted to use, and Mini-me picked bow-ties – so here is our supper (no gourmet meal here! Don’t look, Judy!)

After reading some books and putting them to bed, I worked on some of my stuff. Here are the first two blocks of the 2010 First Saturday quilt at Merrily We Quilt Along.

and a close up of the one I finished yesterday (one of my goals completed! YAY!)

And I have changed up my design wall. I looked at my herd of cows long enough to know I really need some bull to go along with them. I am going to put them away for a while then add enough more blocks to make a lap quilt. I am also going to add the bull, just because Deb really needs a bull and they are so handsome looking, and maybe a couple of horses. Deb’s horses are a sorrel Quarter Horse and a gray Arabian…surely I can make a horse or two to go with the cows!

So here is what is now up on my design wall -

The incredibly famous Alycia (of No Soldier Forgotten fame) recently posted an email to a list I belong to that she has volunteered to coordinate Quilts of Valor for World War II veterans who take a trip called Honor Flight where they fly to see the WWII Memorial and other sites. She helped out supplying quilts for a September 2009 flight and the Veterans were touched, impressed, and many brought to tears. Anyway, there will be 120 vets on this flight and Alycia still needs about 50 quilts. The deadline is April 15, 2010. I had a UFO that only needs borders in mind, so asked Alycia what size quilt is needed. She said about 50″ X 60″. My UFO will be too big so I thought of these blocks.

These are my 2008 Round Robin exchange blocks from my local guild. I think I could piece these together with some sashing and they would be about the right size for this project. My thoughts are to “build” the quilt in three vertical rows, use black frames around each block to bring them up to size, then sash it with some of the focus/challenge fabric. I ought to draw it up in EQ 6 so I could visualize it first, but I don’t know if I have time. I would have to quit blogging for a bit…computer time is limited….blog or draw up a quilt in EQ6…blog…or EQ6…..blog….or EQ6….blog….

Anyway, if you have a spare quilt lying around and would like to honor one of our incredibly brave, deserving WWII veterans, go over to Alycia’s blog and give her a shout about the Honor Flight!

Quilter’s Accountability Report – 2/3/2010

I so can’t believe it is February 3rd already!

I did better this week meeting my goals and actually met my goals for the month! My accountability commitment for January was to work on Keith and Angie’s wedding quilt, due in March, or the Mirage quilt for 20 minutes per day, six days a week (or for a total of two hours).

Here is what I have done since last Wednesday’s report -

• Mirage quilt – total time 3 hours and 45 minutes (more than made up the 50 minutes from last week and the 2 hours from this week)
• Keith & Angie’s Pineapple Blossom – nada, zip, zero, zilch…you’ll see why in the next paragraph….

One thing that was not in my accountability list was my challenge quilt due this month. I had some hand applique to do on the borders and really wanted to finish it up. I finished it yesterday! Woo hoo! The borders are already almost on, and just have to add another border around that and it will be ready for quilting. Unfortunately one of my goals from last week was to totally finish this top. I sure didn’t make that goal, however looking at my records I was only in my sewing room last Thursday and this Tuesday! These basketball games are killing me!

Here are the two Sante Fe Sky blocks I am working on for the Mirage quilt. Both are put together, one has all the paper off the back and the other still needs it ripped off. I was tired and wanted to go to bed, and each of those blocks have 64 pieces – and that includes even more little pieces of paper on the back to be removed! Once the paper is off I will put the frames around each of them, and all the regular blocks for the quilt will be done.

Notice the center points? A little better than trying them my own way, but blimey I hate those lumpy paper pieced seams!

January Recap

My total time working on the Mirage quilt for January was 15 hours and 55 minutes! That was well over the 8 hours I hoped for. Add to that the time spend on Angie and Keith’s wedding quilt as a leader-ender project and I definitely met my goal for the month!

Here is where I am as of February 1 compared to January 1 -

1. 7 flimsies (up one from January – this is a GOOD thing!)
2. 6 PIGs – unchanged…at least I haven’t started NEW projects from these even though I’m tempted!
3. 2 quilts that need only binding  finished, both were older UFO’s (none last month)
4. 11 UFO’s – down from 14 (This includes the fall dugout blocks that will end up being place mats, the purple butterfly quilt, and I have moved the Jinny Beyer Mirage quilt to WIP status)
5. 8 WIPs – two of these have February deadlines and one a March deadline, two are block of the month projects, one is my string block challenge, one is a carry-along handwork project, and one is my row quilt. (This category is up one because of moving the Mirage quilt – see UFO’s above)

So progress HAS been made!

I am going to kind of change up my accountability a little because in January I worked on a lot of different things that weren’t included in my challenge and should have been – such as the UFO’s turned to almost finished quilts and my challenge quilt due this month. So my goals are broader for this month (I told you this challenge would be a work in progress and to re-evaluate as you went along!).

February Goals

1. Complete my challenge quilt by February 15
2. Jinny Beyer Mirage quilt – continue to work on it 2 hours per week
3. Keith and Angie’s wedding quilt – blocks completed and put together
4. February It’s a String Thing Challenge blocks
5. Binding on the purple butterfly quilt, pack it up and mail it with my Quilts For Kids quilt
6. Finish and bind the fall dugout place mats and table runner
7. Bowtie Blues – borders, quilt, binding
8. Finish ripping out the quilting on my black and white string quilt - re-quilt and bind
9. Complete my First Saturday BOM
10. Complete my Civil War Tribute BOM
11. Finish quilting Jeremiah 29:11, bind

Wow – I am really being ambitious here! We will see what happens!

Accountability report links……

Here is Mister Linky - join in the fun and let us know what you have accomplished this week! Remember with my WordPress blog, you have to actually click on the link to see who has joined up and visit their sites, even if you don’t actually want to link up!

 

I will be away from the computer until later this afternoon. I will check on you all when I get back, and I hope you had a very productive week!