Snow and Sewing

Saturday I went to a lunch for a family member. I rode with my brother, his wife Robin, and son since the restaurant was about an hour away. Robin needed a baby quilt for a friend that was expecting. I only had two boy quilts in my stash so I put a label on the recently made blue and tan multi layered quilt and gave that to her.

It rained hard the entire way back. On our way back we stopped at a high end grocery that carried the smoke gouda that I had eaten at the Art & Ale event at the art museum a couple of weeks ago. Robin and Michael got some bagels and then we headed back to their house. My brother walked me out to my car and the rain was turning into sleet. I stopped at the grocery store where I usually shop and picked up a few things. When I walked out to the car the parking lot was slick with slush. It continued to sleet then turn to snow. By Sunday morning this is what it looked like.

We got about 2 inches. I am sick of this weather! Today since I went back to work it is suppose to be 58 today. Again another case where the weather is crappy on the weekends and nice during the week when I am at work. I spent all day in the studio and worked on a couple of boy quilts for my stash. I was playing around with the multi layer cutting technique. I need to cut and sew more border for one quilt and then get the border sewn on, but I felt like I got a lot done.

A bit more fabric

I decided to participate in the American Made Brand Farm to Fabric Challenge. You can read more about it over at http://www.oliveandollie.com. I did a search and found Hancock's of Paducah had 47 of the 50 colors. My order came Wednesday, but there are a few pieces on backorder. I sure hope it doesn't take too long to get my order filled. Here is at least what I bought so far.

I have some grays, a dark yellow, and a piece of cream yet to come. I did wash what I had and it washed up very nice. It is not as heavy as Kona. It is more like Moda Bella. It pressed up nicely after washing and the pieces I received stayed true to grain - meaning after the fabric was washed the raw edges lined up nicely and not all askew so you end up cutting off 2 or 3 inches of fabric to get a straight starting edge. Since most of my work is improv piecing this is not an issue for me, but for many of you this is important.

I will have a busy weekend finishing up quilting the pieces I can't talk about and maybe get the next project underway. I have to spend some time figuring out deadlines for several projects and get my fabric organized so I don't miss any of my dates.

Have a great weekend!

Movies, straightening up, and more snow

I had borrowed a copy of Despicable Me 2 from the library. It was due back so I needed to watch it last night. Very cute movie. I would like to see them make more of these movies. They are entertaining even for adults. Loved those bad minions with their crazy purple hair!

At lunch yesterday I got a lot of the mess cleaned up in the studio from the three pieces I can't talk about and then I finished after work by ironing fabric that had been washed and dried that was piled up on the table, folding clothes piled on the table, and taking the clean sheets and putting them on the bed. I then had room to lay out the third piece so I could pin baste it. I got my three pieces posted yesterday to the site and now it is a wait until April 1 to find out if any have been accepted.

I had planted an canna rhizome in a pot several months ago. The pot is located in the living room and it gets plenty of sunshine. It took awhile, but it is now growing! The green leaf is a foot tall - I know you can't tell from the photo how tall it is. It will be fun to see this grow.

We got 1 1/2" to 2" of snow last night. The sun is shining so maybe it will all melt by noon. It is very cold again this morning - 15 degrees. I am so ready for it to be in the 50's.

More fabric? It is not all my fault!

I received a package from my brother yesterday and it contained four pieces of fabric he bought when he was in Melbourne touring with Bruce. Aren't they wonderful? There is a meter of each which translates into about 4 1/2 yards. The store was Clegs Dress Fabrics. This is his way of thanking me for the baby quilts and taking care of his house. This is the second time he has done this and I am now starting to amass a collection of these fabrics. They will be going into the fabric storage room and have their own space on the shelves.

All of this fabric was manufactured by Nutex Co. in New Zealand. It has a lovely hand to it.

Now the fabric I can't blame on my brother is this Halloween fabric that came from Nuts & Bolts Fabric in Edgemont, S.D. Earleene, the owner, sent me all she had of this spider web fabric which came to 8 1/4 yards all in one piece and three FQs. I got a really good deal because it was on sale. I will report at the end of the month the damaged I have done to the stash this month. I still have some more fabric coming from Hancock's in Paducah for a special project.

Last night I got the third piece pieced of the quilts for the project I can't talk about. I was so relieved to get it done. I worked like a crazy person and had no time to be neat about my surroundings. I will go to the house at lunchtime and clean up the mess. I am very happy with the way this third piece came out.

The weather is still very cold here. It was 17 degrees! The weather this week looks like it is going to be all over the place, but it doesn't look like we are going to get hit with the next system coming. Right now the east coast looks like they could be in for another hit of nasty weather.

A busy weekend

Friday evening I went over to my brother's to see the newly remodeled Silver Swap Studios. It looks fantastic! I know the band will have a great time making music in this studio. My brother built an enclosed space for the sound board using a sliding door. This was the family room in the house, but once Michael was into playing music the space was taken over with drum sets, speakers, keyboards, and mountains of equipment. Now it is all organized.

Saturday and Sunday I spent working on the second piece I can't talk about. I got enough of it quilted that I could attached the facing binding. I have a little more than half of the binding hand sewn on. I have to post my pieces tomorrow so tonight I will be getting as much done as possible tonight.

I spent a fair amount of time running upstairs to the kitchen from the studio making sauce and a big pot of beef vegetable soup.

I had bought a chuck roast for the soup. I used only half of it for Sunday's batch, so I got out my new toy and vacuum packed the other half. This is the first time I used my Food Saver since I bought it several weeks ago. It took me a couple of tries to learn where to place the bag in just the right spot for sealing. Once I did get it right it worked great.

The weather has been wacky here. It snowed Friday morning hard, but we got less than 1/2" and it was gone by afternoon. It is still cold and the temperature didn't get above freezing yesterday. The high was 27 degrees. This morning it is only 16!

More fabric?

I think I done lost my mind! Yes, I bought more fabric. This time it was Halloween fabric for two more Halloween quilts - twin sized - I want to make for gifts. I got a good deal on this fabric - 15% of the sale price.

I am going to have to collect more FQ of Halloween quilts and after looking at them it dawned on me the color pallet I need for each quilt. One will be made with green and orange fabrics and the other with at least purple. I have yet to find pink Halloween fabric.

I ordered a bunch of spider web fabric with a off white background and black spider webs for these quilts as the fabric that would be in each block, but apparently their inventory was incorrect so I got none. I was not happy. Fabric.com was having an extra 15% off so the white spider web fabric was also a great price. I had to spend some time yesterday searching the web for this fabric. I found 8.5 yards in a shop in South Dakota and it is on it's way to me. I need to figure out how many more yards I will need.

I have been working on the project I can't talk about. I started machine quilting it a couple of days ago and I plan on working on it all weekend.

Have a great weekend!

More fabric!

I finally received my backorder from December. This came from Hancock's and it is one more drum fabric to add to the pile. I know when I do my stash report at the end of the month my stash will have grown more than what I used. I still have another order of fabric coming this week.

I now feel I have a great start on a collection of fabric with drums on them to use for the next baby quilt for a drummer. I will keep adding more as I find them and will place them in their own separate pile on my fabric storage shelves so I won't have to sort thru all my music fabric when looking for drums.

I got started on pin basting my second piece I can't talk about. I am really going to have to focus to get this piece done and the next top completed as I need to submit photos by next Tuesday.

Progress on the project I can't talk about

I finished sewing together my second piece. Tonight I will get it pin basted and then I will work on getting my third piece constructed.

Today at work I have to make a road trip to deliver Operation and Maintenance manuals to the school district. I have been collecting these from the contractors and I now need to pass them on. Here is my load today which consists of 25 binders. I sure hope I can get all of these in the car!

Student's work and Art & Ale

I received an email from one of my students from the workshop. Jane included a picture of the piece she made and it is wonderful! Jane did a fantastic job!

I worked at the Art & Ale event at the Akron Art Museum on Friday night. Here is the view from my station before the crowd arrived.

They had tasty food too. Pulled pork sandwiches, perogies, beef stew with mashed potatoes, cheese, and mini cupcakes. The mini cupcakes only had 30 calories each!

Sunday I made cookies for the guys at work for St. Patrick's Day. The second batch got a bit dark, but they still taste good.

I finished my first piece that I can't talk about. I really need to work hard this week and get at least the tops done for the other two pieces I want to submit. The date for finished pieces was extended which is a big help. Here is just the back corner of on of the pieces. Sorry this is all I can show.

I wore my shamrock socks today for St. P's day in honor of my great grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side who immigrated to the US from Ireland.

This morning as I getting ready to leave for work I heard a bird with an unusual call. I keep looking around to try and figure out where the sound was coming from. Then I saw a large bird in the neighbor's tree. I think it must be some kind of hawk. If you make the picture bigger you can see the bird in the center of the picture. I zoomed in as far and I could with my camera and took a few steps closer, but I didn't want to get too close. Pretty cool!

Oops I did it again!

What a person to do when Timeless Treasure musical novelty fabric is on clearance and the shipping is free? Well, you have to buy some! This fabric came from Hancock's in Paducah.

I have another order of fabric coming - clearance fabric with an extra 20% off and free shipping. Wait to you see that load!

I was channel surfing last night and found a sports channel that I didn't know I got. Most of the commercials are in Spanish, but the commentators all speak English. What caught my eye on the menu was CYCLING! I already missed a couple of races, but now that I found this channel I will be able to keep up with the smaller races. This race is in southern Italy and oh the scenery!

Here is the scenery I am looking at

And the daffodils are probably wondering what is going on!

We were very lucky and only got 1 or 2 inches after the rain turned to snow. One of the fellow had a hard time driving on the interstate this morning because it was covered with ice. He saw a lot of cars in the ditch on his way to work.

How can I resist a sale?

I buy much of my fabric on-line because I look for specific prints especially in the area of music novelty fabrics. I need to keep stocked up on music fabric - I never know when my brother will need another quilt for his music friends. Here are pictures of my newest fabrics and I just love them

I love the scale of these large musical notes! The large notes are Andover fabrics and the small notes are makower uk.

Then I needed more fabric with drums on them. The large scale ones are again Andover and the gray one in the middle is makeover uk

Then I can always use another guitar fabric - Timeless Treasure - and the stripe was just another fun Andover that was part of the music fabric collection.

After washing I will add these to my music fabric stash. Does this seem like a lot of music fabric to you? I like using a lot of different prints in my quilts so I am happy to add a few more pieces to the mix. More choices is better as far as I am concerned especially when you get it on sale!

Here is what the daffodils looked like on 3/8/14

This is what they looked like last night

They might be thinking about retreating with the weather rolling in today. It is raining right now, but supposedly it is going to turn to snow this afternoon. We'll see.

Next project

Last fall I started collecting fabrics in tans, teals, and blues. This is for a project that is for a art competition. I don't know how much I will be able to show - I am trying to contact the organization to get the official rules as I cannot find them on their website.

The piece will have an island theme. I have these two fabrics that I will dye the light background with Cayman Island Green to go with the teal fabrics. The prints did not come with a teal colorway so I will make my own!