The calm after the storm

Here is what my all purpose table looks like today- nice and neat and orderly. I spent some time cleaning up and getting everything laid out for the work I need to get done by Sept 11. Other than the quilts I do have to get my brother's football jersey altered by Friday. I can't believe it took me so long to figure out to put a small box on the table when I am cutting to throw my scraps in instead of tossing them on the table or on the floor. Gosh I must be slow! It just made clean up so much easier.


Remember this quilt? I got it back out on Sunday and finished quilting the sashing. I have four blocks that need quilted and then the quilting will be done. I would like to get the binding on by the end of the week and get this off the to do list.


I started these two crib quilts Friday night. The father is a Notre Dame fan and even though he and his wife are having twin girls, ND colors are going to be in their room I just improvised these with either cutting or tearing strips and pinning them to the design wall. I had the tops done Saturday morning.


Here are the backs done layered on top of the fronts.


Pinned basted and ready for quilting. These need to be done by Sept. 11 along with the pink whirly gig quilts, and the jean quilts.


I made these two receiving blankets Sunday morning. They are 36" x 36". White on one side - hockey flannel on the other side.


Before I went out to weed I decided to make an armband holder for my Ipod. I dug thru my odds and ends so this make with scraps of velcro, elastic and untrasuede. It worked very well.


The before weed pulling shot.


The after. Pulling the weeds wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The ground is very dry so after pulling the crabgrass and weeds I gave the plant a drink of water.


Can you tell where I weeded? I pulled a wheelbarrow full of crabgrass and look what I have left to do. It just was too hot in the sun on Sunday to pull any more. I keep after it this week so hopefully it will be done by Friday.


My brother stopped over Sunday with this small dresser. He has had it for more than 20 years. Our dad had made it for him out of plywood. He doesn't want it anymore so I am going to refinish it (just a quick sanding and paint job)and pass it on to my son who needs one. It is well built and I think with the paint and new hardware it will be great. Add that to the to do list.


My brother also brought me a big box of t-shirts left over from the t-ball program. He wants me to make a quilt for the community center out of them. The oldest one we found so far is from 1997. Add that to the to do list.


To say the least I think I will have a lot of finished projects to show over the next several weeks. Wish me luck!

What a week!

I have been putting in 10+ hour days all this week at work. I have been so tired by the time I get home that I have not acomplished anything this week. I have set a date for my exhibit at the library for September 18 for hanging. I still need to finalize the date and find someone to help me hang everything. I have a couple pieces I need to finish and hanging rod pockets to stitch. They do have a wall that I can T-pin on which is great. I will be very exciting to see my work hung in a public place.

I won this t-shirt on ebay and I also won a yellow one too. The yellow one is in the mail. These are for a piece I want to make for the library show. I think it would just be the perfect piece to bring my series together.


This navy, green, and gold fabric needs to turn into two crib quilts ASAP. No messin' about this weekend - nothing but serious sewing!

Have a great weekend!

Need help

No pictures today. A twenty minute trip to my son's turned into an hour - the interstate was all backed up so I took the scenic route. By the time I got home it was late.

What I need help with is finding Phhiladelphia Flyers cotton fabric yardage. I searched the internet this morning, but I have had no luck. JoAnn carries no NHL fabric at all. If someone knows someplace that carries this please e-mail me. Thank you.

A change of plans

My plan for the weekend was just to stay home and sew. Well, the best layed plans...
I did get this baby quilt done. I was happy with the result and I gave it to the future Mom this morning and she loved it.


I used the eggplant thread in the bobbin since I didn't do any back art.


I found these great casserole pans at a discount store Saturday morning and they said buy me and fill me with stuffed shells - so I did. I ended up taking one casserole pan and the small square dish (see the next picture) over to my brother's house. He had called and his son had to tell me all about going on stage with the Counting Crows in Columbus, Ohio on Friday night and playing a solo on guitar. I wanted to see the video so I told them I would bring lunch on Sunday. I only had one jar of sause so I had to make a quick trip to the store and ran into another sister-in-law and another nephew who gave me the longest hug! So instead of staying home sewing which was the plan for all weekend I spent all Sunday afternoon at my brother's. We had a great time watching the video and looking at their pictures from their recent trip to Woodstock and NYC. The video on you tube is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRuCglphwA8&feature=search if you want to see it. Tonight after work I am taking the round dish of shells to my son. The other casserole dish will serve as my lunches for the week. I just got done with my lunch while typing this and they were delicious!


Ready for the oven.


All baked - my house smelled so good.


I have had my nephew's (the guitar player)baby quilt for at least 8 or 8 years. I made this for him before he was born in 1997. It needed repaired due to one of the black fabrics I used in the quilt fell apart. I had used the bad fabric in the logs and the binding. I have no idea what possessed me to finally take on this project and repair his quilt this weekend. Maybe it was seeing him in the video of the concert and spending time with him Sunday.


Here is a close up of one of the areas I fixed. I cut strips of black fabric, pressed under the long sides and one end and then just started appliqueing the strips down with a blanket stitch. I ended up replacing over 30% of the black logs along with the binding. Maybe it wasnt't the "right" way to fix the quilt, but I wasn't about to take the whole thing apart. If I did that I might as well just make a new one. The point was to give him back the quilt I made for him when he was born.


SO here the quilt is freshly washed and ready to be given back to my nephew.

We are on our way

The African fabric baby quilt is pinned together and ready for quilting this weekend.


I wound all the empty bobbins I had. The eggplant ones are for the African fabric piece and the white is for the whirly gig quilts. I will have to wind more white. I will end up using between 12 - 14 bobbins for each quilt.

The binding is cut for three out of the five quilts. I like to use a binder clip and hang the strips on the design wall so they don't get misplaced or used for something else.


I have been visiting second hand stores, yard sales, and the Goodwill stores looking for t-shirts with rock n' roll bands on them. So far I am not having much luck. I have a project that I want to pursue now its a matter of gathering the materials. I looked at E-bay also, but when you add in the shipping the prices are more than what I want to pay. I am going to try and hit a couple of yard sales this weekend.

Have a great weekend!

It's Thursday already?!

I can't believe how fast this week has gone. I have been very busy at work and the evenings go by in a flash. I am working on prepping projects for this weekend. I don't plan on going any where except a quick trip to the grocery Saturday morning. After I spent 20 minutes looking for this quilt top, I managed to get it ready for pin basting this morning. I was up at 5 am - not on purpose - I just could not go back to sleep. This quilt is for a woman I work with that is due in November, but I want to get it to her before the shower.


I finished pin basting the second pink whirly gig quilt and I pinned it up on the design wall with the other three quilts that are also pin basted. You can see that I put a row of fabric down the back with scraps of the pink just to add a little somethin' somethin'.


I have this pile of fabric waiting to be ironed which I plan on doing tonight along with winding bobbins, pin basting the quilt on the table, and cutting out binding for all five of these quilts. This weekend will be nothing but machine quilting.

Crazy weekend

Friday after work I decided to weed wack and mow the front yard. It was so freaking hot! I didn't get the weeding done because it never did cool off even in the morning. Sunday at 7:30 am it was between 78 and 80 degrees. It is suppose to be a little cooler this week with less humidity so maybe the weeding will get done then.

I got a last minute e-mail that my nephew's band, Retro, was going to be in a battle of the bands on Saturday so of course I had to go. It was suppose to be outside, but it rained so they held it inside at a library - yes, a library! The room was only about 50 x 30 and it was hotter than haities in that place. We couldn't open the windows - they had latches that could only be opened with a key - and it sure didn't feel like the place had any A/C. I stayed until Retro played, helped pack the equipment and left. My sister-in-law called to say Retro made the cut to advance to the next round.

Sunday I spent pin basting the baby quilts I had previously shown. I got three done and the fourth one is on the table ready to pin. After I got them pinned basted I hung them back up on the design wall. In the afternoon I had a visitor that needed a backpack fixed and help with threading a sewing machine.



And I thought it was going to be a quiet weekend!

Up to my eyeballs in ...

Crabgrass! Because of the hot and humid weather the crabgrass has gone nuts! My poor flower beds are a mess. It has been too hot to work outside in the evenings, but right now my plan is to get up very early tomorrow morning - maybe about 6 am - an attack it.



I want to get the pink whirley gig quilts pin basted and start quilting them this weekend. It is suppose to be hot and humid so I will stay indoors and sew except for the crabgrass eratication.

Binding and dry erase surface

I sewed on the binding on the museum piece last evening. I wavered between regular binding or facing binding and I decided to go with facing. One of these day when I have a lighter colored piece I will put together a tutorial on how I do this. Tonight I will hand stitch the binding down. I want to take it to the museum Thrusday evening since that is the last Downtown at Dusk event. I won't be back to the museum for volunteering any event until the wine tasting in October. I won't have all the hand stitching done, but at least it will look like a finished piece.

I found these wipe off calendars at a area chain called Marc's. They are a cross between a discount grocery store and a Big Lots. You just never know what you might find. A few weeks ago I found these dry erase calendars. They cost one dollare for three of them. I bought three for work, but then I thought I wonder if you could write on the back and erase? Yes, you can so I bought three more to make my to do quilting and sewing lists. I have a small framed dry erase board, but it is too small.

(Oops, sorry this is sideways!) So here are the sheets hanging on the closet door right next to my quilting studio. I walk past them all the time so with a quick glance I have a remindered of what's next.

Thank goodness for leftovers and a stash

I made this quilt this weekend as a substitute for the one I showed last week that had the blue and yellow striped bindng. I ended up with more time than I frist thought so I wanted to make this more personal than the generic blue and yellow one. I had strips left over from another zig zag quilt I had made a few months back and had the yellow and black stripe fabric in my stash. Now all it needs is a label and I may throw it in and wash it so it gets all wrinkly. I need to have it dropped off by Wednesday and I don't see that to be a problem.

It's twins!

Look who I saw in my backyard when I got to the house from work. I got a pretty good picture of one of the fawns, but at first I did not see the other one. I can't get over how big its ears are! This is just the second time I have seen the twins this year. They are old enough now that they wander off by themselves. I am assuming the mother was down the hill in the more wooded area.

I know this is a terrible picture - I took it thru the window and the screen, but you can see both of them. After I took this I went outside to the backyard and they took off into the wooded area behind the house. I had another set of twins about 3 or 4 years ago that spent a lot of time in my backyard during the day napping. They are cute, but they eat my plants!

Quilting challange

I started the hand quilting on the museum piece. I am using pearl cotton. The challange was finding a needle with a big enough eye. I found one and it is pretty long. All the fabrics I used are batiks so they are a little tough getting the pearl cotton thru, but I love the results. I am starting to get a system going so the more I work on this the easier it will get. I had to figure out another way of securing the ends - a knot will not pull thru the batik.

Machine Quilting done on the museum quilt

I finished the machine quilting on this piece this weekend. I plan on adding some hand quilting with some pearl cotton. I managed to get most of the fabric I bought last weekend washed and pressed. I still have two pieces to wash - one piece is over 8 yards and I think the other was over 7 yards.

The last two weeks at work have been crazy. We had someone leave their position for another company and since we are slow right now I was elected to learn the job. It is hard to learn from a scattered drama queen, but now she is gone and I will manage with everyone's help. I was asked to write work instructions for the position for the next person. I know my estimating position will come back and I will be busy with that so they may need to hire someone for the contract administrator job sometime in the future.