10th Finish of 2011

I really rocked on the quilting this weekend and I am ahead of schedule for once! I finished Claire's quilt and for Sophia's is quilted and the binding is machined sewn on so all that is left is to hand sew the binding and put on the label.

Sunday I spent some time spackling holes in the fabric storage room walls, made a batch of yogurt, doctored up some blueberry jam that was pretty tasteless, and worked on alterations. I managed to get a lined skirt hemmed, shorten sleeves on a lined jacket, and hemmed a pair of lined pants. I have lots more to do and most of my evenings will be doing alterations this week. I have a bridesmaid dress, a flower girl's dress, another lined jacket that needs the sleeves shortened, and a skirt that needs a new zipper. I need to find the time to go buy a zipper - I don't have one the right color. I hate that when that happens! I will be glad to get this stuff done and out of the house!

And let the quilting begin!

I started quilting a bit on the I Spy quilts last evening. It's a start. The weekend is here already and on the schedule is machine quilting and painting the trim and extension jambs for the fabric storage room windows.

Have a great weekend!

Giveaways, fabric and midgees oh my!

I packaged up the fabric I had in my two giveaways last evening so it will be off to the post office.

Here is what I won in a recent giveaway by Lark Books and on Laura Wasilosk's blog. It was a blog hop for an autograhed copy of the new Masters Art Quilt Vol. 2. It is a beautiful book although I have not had time to throughly look at it. Thank you so much Lark Books!

My brother was home for three days and he brought me a present. He was in Anchorage, Alaska on tour with K.D. Lang and ended up in a quilt shop called The Quilted Raven! Now he is the most unlikely person to go into a quilt shop! He must have been bored out of his mind. Well, he said he went in and asked for some of the most Alaskian fabric they had and this is what he brought me.

I love it! There are two fat quarters of each of the fabric with the bear and the fabric with the Native American bear claws, and one fat quarter of each color of the deer fabric. I showed the fabric to a lady I work with and she pointed to the deer piece and said "Bubba"! This fabric will make a real manly boy baby quilt!

Speaking of baby quilts I am know of 10 people that are having babies! Holy cow! I guess once I get the I Spy quilts and the family xmas quilt done I will be working on building my stash of baby quilts. I have about 6 ready to quilt so I will work on those first, but they are mostly boy looking quilts. I have been building up my girl fabric stash and since several people are having girls I will need to get some girl quilts done.

This time of year I finally get to buy one of my favorite treats - vanilla tootie rolls. They carry them at Giant Eagle only at Holloween. Yum!

More progress on the I Spy quilts

Last night I pin basted Sophia's quilt. I also got Clair's pined basted after sewing on the last row of patches. Tonight I will wind bobbins and get ready for some serious machine quilting this weekend.

I Spy quilt progress

Thanks to the novelty fabric Glen, Janet, and Karen sent me I am finishing up the I Spy quilt tops. Here is the one for Sophia ready for pinning. I am now down to 17 days to get these quilts done. I need to have them done by Oct. 6th. The birthday party is Oct. 9th, but I am working in Charm, Ohio at Miller's Dry Goods Quilt Shop Oct. 7 and 8th for Charm Days. No problem - I will quilt and bind one this weekend and one the weekend of Oct. 1 and 2 so I am money!

The fabric that cracked me up the most was from Janet - a cow that just bought itself a two pair of cowboy boots!

Here are a few of the great novelty fabrics from Karen. All of them were wonderful!

I had to do some cleaning up in the garage last evening. My brother who is home from California for a few days is planning on moving his car out of my driveway today. He has been storing it there for almost 3 years. He needs to get into the garage to get to the air compressor in case he needs to add air to the tires and I had a bunch of stuff sitting in front of the man door. I had to move that stuff , dig out the dehumidifier that I am giving him, and put his keys where he could find them. His car has been in my driveway for so long it will be strange not seeing it there.

I Spy quilts progress, the next house project, giveaway winner

I had a crazy busy weekend. I tried real hard not to waste any time.
Here are the backs of the I Spy quilts.

I drew lines on the fabric with a Sharpie like school paper and then stamped the numbers 0 thru 59 using fabric paint.

Here I stamped using fabric inks some basic colors and then with the fabric paint I stamped the alphabet. I did goof and print a couple letters backward so I just X then out and stamped the letter correctly. What the heck, I wasn't going to start over and it is a lesson that life is not perfect - make lemonade out of those lemons!

I decided the next room I am going to finish is my fabric storage room where I sleep. So the first thing was to move the five shelving units and all the fabric. Gosh fabric is heavy! I decided to tackle the job one shelving unit at a time. My system was to take every thing off the shelf unit, place it on the bed, and sort into piles as I went. After I move the shelf to it temporary location, I moved the pile of fabric back onto the shelves. There was a lot of going back and forth between the fabric storage room and the temporary storage area when I would find fabric that needed to go on a particular pile already moved. I worked for hours and hours on Saturday sorting and moving all the fabric and moving the other decorative items that were displayed in this room.
Before:

After:

You may ask "Where are you storing your stash for the time being?" Well, hold on to your hats - I moved it next door into the bedroom I just re-did!

The fabric storage room will not take as long to re-do as the bedroom I just did. The closet and the electrical are already done and so is the floor although I may have to do some fixing up on the floor - I get into that later. But the room is cleared out and ready for finishing. So did I find any suprises? Not really, but there were some spools of quilting thread that were under the shelving units and I found a bunch of strips of Kona snow I had cut for zig zag blocks.

As I was moving I came across the PITT fabric I wanted to make a pillowcase for my dentist out of. My dentist was on a National Championship team 30 some years ago. He is not a very big guy so looking at him you would never know he played college football. I went ahead and make the pillowcase so it is ready to give next month at my next appointment.

I went ahead and made the second set of tie back for the drapes.

8:30 Saturday morning Bubba and Mom were in the front yard munching on my lovely weeds
Bubba

Here is Mom stomping her feet at me and giving me the evil eye. You can just see Bubba in the middle of the bed

I did pull some weeds this weekend and tore out a barberry bush, but the bed in which Bubba was standing did not get done. It is one heck of a mess!

The giveaway winner of the gray and yellow fat quarters is Marie from North Carolina. Marie send me an email with your address and I will get your fabric in the mail this week. The next giveaway will happen when I get the fabric storage room/bedroom done so keep tuned and get ready for another crazy ride!

Roadblock

After work I went upstairs to wash dishes and no water. I tried the faucet at the laundry tub and the cold was spitting a bit and nothing was coming out of the hot. I called the water department and here there had been a water main break down the hill from where I live. They said the water had just been turned on and to wait a couple of hours before trying to get the air out of the pipes. So the dishes did not get done and the backing for the I Spy quilts did not get washed, but the water is back on although the chlorine smell is very strong. So tonight I will get those dishes done and the backing washed and I will have busted down the roadblock and be back on schedule.
So I worked on cutting and sewing up patches with the musical fabric and adding another row to Sophia's quilt. Another blogger has contacted me and is sending me some novelty prints. With her's and the ones coming from Janet, and the ones I received from Glen, I will be in great shape to finish these. Thanks everyone for your help!

I have a long list of things that need done around the house and I have no idea at this time what I might get into. Much of what I do will depend on the weather.

Make sure you sign up on my 9-12-2011 post for the fat quarter giveaway. One of the goodies I decided to add in was some selvages. I know there are a lot of quilters using selvages and I would love to make a selvage quilt, but I don't see that I am going to have time to make one in the near future.

Have a great weekend!