Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Nonsense #38

Got a chance to finish this week’s block this evening … Barbara Brackman calls this one Nonsense.

Lost Tooth, Clips, Bobbin Cases, Bags and Blocks

We celebrated Mother’s Day last night with my sister and her two boys coming to town … we all went out to dinner and then over to Mom’s house afterward.  It was a fun evening!!

Today for me started out surprisingly enough by losing part of a tooth!  I’m not really in pain … but worried about whether I’ll be able to get in to see the dentist tomorrow, and what kind of $$$ we’re facing.

I bought myself a Mother’s Day present from our dogs and cat yesterday while I was out … some of the larger sized Wonder Clips and a box which will work great for my HQ-16 bobbins.

The box is an ArtBin Solutions box (3003AB) which was about $5 at JoAnn Fabrics!

I made another of the roll up tote bags for me …

I made bags for my Mom, my sister and my Grandma for Mother’s Day, and as a fun little surprise for my little 3-year-old nephew too!  Hopefully I’ll have a picture of those others to share soon!   Doing these projects lets me use some of those great fat quarters that I pick up when they’re on sale, or when I get a freebie FQ but can’t use them in my Civil War repro projects.

The tutorial can be found at …http://zaaberry.blogspot.com/2011/05/tote-tutorial-totorial.html.  Or you can do one with ribbon ties which can be found at http://www.needleandspatula.com/2010/11/roll-up-shopping-bag-sewing-tutorial.html.  I used the one with the button instructions at zaaberry’s blog.  I also modified the instructions a bit so that I could use just 2 coordinating fat quarters for each bag.  Check out the sites for their instructions.

And then this afternoon I did this week’s Grandmother’s Choice block from the BOW …

I’m going to grab the magazine that I bought last night … go downstairs and try to figure out what I’m going to make for dinner that I can eat with a missing tooth!  Eeek!  Maybe noodles??

Churn Dash – Day 5

I didn’t feel well this morning, and that continued most of the day.  It’s probably some kind of sinus infection … enough to have me feeling lousy.  I really wanted to spend the afternoon down at the longarm finishing up the last three borders of my Churn Dash piece – then the quilting would be done.  Instead I was on the couch for the majority of the afternoon watching the Indians game and sleeping off and on.  That was probably the best thing for my cold.  My husband got home from work around 5:00 and had to hurry out to mow the front lawn.  While he was out there, I went down to the basement and worked on my quilt.

and here’s the back …

Late Sunday evening I attached the binding to the front, so Monday I can start doing the hand finishing and it will be done!

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 35

Was not too happy today when I cut one of the pieces for this block incorrectly.  Actually I was pretty mad at myself, because I only had a small piece of this fabric – and couldn’t re-cut it.  So …. should I keep going, knowing that one of the spokes will look different?  Or start all over again with new fabrics – and the pieces cut for the original would totally go to waste?  I opted to go ahead and put the block together – even with the mistake.

It was nice to finally get into the quilt room and work on LAST WEEKEND’S block!  This has been a strange week. 

• Monday night I had a meeting. 
• Tuesday we were gone ALL DAY babysitting for my sister’s boys out-of-town, and then celebrating her 37th. birthday. 
• Wednesday was a do-nothing day.
• Thursday was an all-day quilt day with my potholder group (our first meeting of 2013 would you believe). 
• And now, here it is Friday, and we’re ready to head into another weekend!  Eeek!  I spent the morning at the computer starting to get caught up, and the afternoon down at the longarm working on my churn dash quilt.  (pictures coming soon!)

Carpenter’s Star

I finished this Carpenter’s Star quilt a couple of years ago … right after I got my original Pro-Stitcher.  But I discovered the other night that I had never photographed this quilt when I finished it.  Well, I took at least a couple of photos to send to my mother-in-law, who bought me the pattern and materials as a Christmas present.  But for some reason the photos never ended up in any of my regular quilt folders or sub-folders.

The outer border fabric is very unusual – with gold metallic stamping of a fennel bulb image across the print.

Saturday afternoon stitching …

Loaded the churn dash wall hanging today, and did some stitching!

Some quilting this afternoon …

This is a Yellow Brick Road quilt.  The design being quilted on it is called Crepe Myrtle.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Block 33

This week’s block is called Contrary Husband!

Always cool!

How neat it was this morning to see two of my blocks from Barbara Brackman’s Dixie Diary Block-of-the-Month showcased at Barbara’s Civil War Quilts blog!

 

She chose one of my blocks the last time she did an update of that BOM program … 

Dixie Diary BOM – Block 4

Here’s block #4 for Barbara Brackman’s Dixie Diary Block-Of-The-Month.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 32

This week’s block was a rather plain block … Barbara calls it Mr. Roosevelt’s Necktie …

… and unfortunately I did absolutely nothing to spruce it up at all!  (boo)  The photo of the block that Barbara used had some fussy cutting, but I didn’t really want to mess around with that.  The angles involved just would have made that a nightmare.  I’ll blame it on the dull headache that I had, maybe that’s why I just didn’t feel like doing math, fussy cutting, etc.

So my version of this block is very, very plain.  The cheddar fabric does have a very, very light stripe – but it really doesn’t show up too well.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW–Week 31

This week’s block is called Tinted Chains.  The photo isn’t that great – it kind of washes out the cheddar print.

New iron arrived this afternoon … Woo Hoo!

Since the other iron was on its’ last leg, I ordered a new one a couple of days ago.  The trusty UPS guy delivered it this afternoon! 

My slippers and a couple of kitchen gadgets came in the same box.  The present for my nephew and my Frango mints won’t arrive ‘til next week.  (I was really hoping the candy would make it here in time for Easter – boo hoo)

Grandmother’s Choice – Week 30 (A)

Here’s the arrow block variation that I did this afternoon.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 30

This week’s block from Barbara Brackman’s block-of-the-week is called Broad Arrow. 

It took me longer to pick out the fabrics than it did to cut out and put together the block!  And I can barely believe that it’s week 30 already!  Eeek! 

Barbara gave a second option for this week’s block, and I may do it Sunday to make up for the fact that I never finished last week’s block.  It was a bit of a disaster – even with the time that I put into hand piecing it.

St. Patrick’s Day (from about 7 years ago)

Okay, I didn’t do any kind of special St. Patrick’s Day project this year.  But since I didn’t do anything for Christmas, New Year’s or Valentine’s Day – I’m keeping up my solid record!  So I thought I’d share (again) a picture of a St. Patrick’s Day wall hanging that I did back in ‘06.

And here’s the back!

It’s rare to show a picture of the back of a quilt top – but I was so proud of how neat and crisp this was turning out that I just had to show it.

And once again, being the beginning of March, we had to travel out of town TWICE this week.  On Tuesday we drove to meet the family for dinner to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday at one of his favorite restaurants.  (They make a really good grilled pork chop!)  Unfortunately my parents couldn’t make it because my Grandma was in the hospital at the time.  And then yesterday we had to trek up there again for my nephew’s 3rd. birthday!   They had pizza delivered for lunch, and of course there was a mountain of presents for him to open, cake & ice cream and then some Sloppy Joes and chips for supper.  I think everyone had a good time!

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 28

Finished up this week’s block – guess I was in a polka dot sort of mood again!  Barbara Brackman called this one Ocean Wave.

Churn Dash Block Swap – Day 3

This morning’s progress.

Churn Dash Block Swap – Day 2

The other day I posted a picture of the churn dash blocks that had come back to me from a block swap.   I had three different layout ideas in mind.  I finally decided on this one – a sort of modified log cabin.  Here’s how things are starting out!

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Block 27

Barbara Brackman called this one Grandmother’s Dream.  I tried the original directions, which included some wicked Y-seams everywhere you looked, but my first three tries didn’t come out too well.  American Homestead’s version of the block made the block construction a little easier, but my first version didn’t come out the way I wanted with the original set of fabrics that I had chosen.  So finally I tried it one last time with a different set of fabrics.

Dixie Diary: Month 3

I decided to tackle this month’s block despite being exhausted.   Barbara Brackman named this block Shouting Yankee Doodle.

Churn Dash Block Swap

The blocks from the Churn Dash block swap arrived in yesterday’s mail.  Now begins the task of figuring out what layout to use to make these blocks into a neat quilt!

Mini Nine-Patch Swap – April (Set 2)

Got my second set done this afternoon.

Mini Nine-Patch Swap – April (Set 1)

I’m signed up to participate in a nine-patch swap.  The sets are due in April, August and November.  I’m going to do two sets per month.  Here’s the first set …

Simple Strip

I finished this little piece a few days ago – but didn’t like the pictures that I took.  This picture isn’t fantastic – but it’s a bit better.  It was a quick little mini quilt.