Clambake – Day 1

After my MAGIC (Mohican-Area Genealogists Interested in Computers) meeting this morning, I did my weekly CVS trip, and then stopped at JoAnn’s to use my coupons … I had two 40% coupons and two 50% coupons, plus my normal 10% discount card.  Got a magazine while I was out – and found a cute project in it … called Clambake.  Started cutting out the pieces late this evening.

Winter Strip Quilt

Quilted this one this afternoon.  Will work on the binding tonight.  Used a variegated green LAVA thread (from Superior Threads).  On the cone, the green variegated thread looks like something you’d use to stitch out a swamp creature.  But on this winter (sort of Christmas looking) quilt, it REALLY worked.  I’ve extolled the virtues of LAVA thread before, but it just continues to amaze me.  The various colors have worked on SO MANY of my quilts!

Little Bricks 9/26/2012

Finished up my Little Bricks quilt today.  Even though this is one of my small wall hanging quilts, I decided to do the quilting on my longarm.  I set my Pro-Stitcher to do a Baptist Fan pattern and used that as an edge-to-edge quilting pattern in a dark golden yellow thread.  (unfortunately it’s hard to see the quilting in the picture)

Little Bricks

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 3

Are we at block #3 already?  Eeek!  Barbara called this block Union Square.  With our other activities this weekend, I’m just now getting the block made.

“T” Is For Temperance 9/17/2012

Finished up the binding on this little wall hanging this evening.  I did some “big stitch” hand quilting on this one several months ago – and it was just waiting to be finished up.

This afternoon I got my Sands Of Time hourglass swap quilt top put together.  This was the product of an 8-month long block swap with a group of quilters on the internet.  The original pattern called for it to be bigger – but I like it this size.  It’s about 62” square.  I won’t put a border on it – just want it quilted and bound.

Also finished quilting the quilt for my youngest nephew whose first birthday is at the end of next month!  Don’t have any pictures of that quilt yet.

Saturday update …

Well, this was one of those mixed bag weeks.   I was anxious for Tuesday to come so that I could call to check on the status of my HQ-16.  When Tuesday came, I was hopeful for a little while – it really did seem like there was hope of it being ready.  I left the house to go run errands thinking that there was a chance that I could hop on the highway and head for Columbus.  But alas, it didn’t turn out.  On Wednesday, Hubby got off at 2:00 p.m., and we were able to go down and pick up my machine after that.  And, like I mentioned in my post that day – we had a nice supper at Max & Erma’s before heading back north.  On the way home, my right leg and right foot kept acting like they were going to start cramping – so we stopped THREE TIMES during the hour drive back home.  Needless to say that added extra time to our trip!

My Jo Morton sampler arrived on Wednesday, which cheered me up too.  I got to open it while holding the heating pad on my leg and toes (which seems to help).  This shipment added two more cheddars to the pile.  The one on top in the picture is a darker cheddar.  The striped fabric under it has light and dark shades of cheddar in it.  Can’t wait to use these! 

And then … the avalanche of hourglass blocks and nickel squares started arriving this week too.  About 90% of the packages arrived Thursday … so it was like Christmas morning.  This was an EIGHT MONTH LONG block swap with an added 300 nickel square (5” squares) swap at the end.  I doubled up on the nickel squares, deciding to swap 600 squares.  It was nice of Jo Lynn to take over the management of the swap when our original swap mistress had a crisis in her life and couldn’t finish out the swap.

I had time on Thursday night and Friday afternoon and evening to work on my HQ-16 and the newly updated Pro-Stitcher.  Thursday’s session did NOT go so well.  But Friday’s session was a little better – and I was able to make up some “cheat sheets” to use with the new system until I get used to the new way of doing things!

HQ-16 is home …

My HQ-16 was finally ready to pick up, so we drove down there after hubby got off work early yesterday.  After we picked her up, we had a nice dinner at Max & Erma’s!

I was so hopeful …

I was so hopeful that my HQ-16 would be able to come home today.  My machine has been down at the dealer’s shop for repair for two weeks now, and I’m sooooo anxious for her to be back.  Hopefully tomorrow!

Pink Patches Doll Quilt 9/10/2012

Decided to do another one of the patterns from Kathy Tracy’s book, The Civil War Sewing Circle.  It was kitted by the folks at my favorite store, Good Wives Co. (Marion, Ohio).  I’ve never done so many quilts out of one book in my quilting life.  It was really worth the price of the book.  I quilted it with #100 silk.

More cheddars coming …

My cheddar collection at this point.  Will need a few more in order to make each of the 49 BOW blocks with a different fabric.

VFWGC BOW – First 2 Weeks

First two blocks of this new BOW.

Votes For Women: Grandmother’s Choice – Block #2

This block was named Amethyst.  I ended up hand piecing this one.

Votes For Women: Grandmother’s Choice – Block #1

Finally got a chance to work on this week’s block.  Love the fact that Barbara Brackman has started another BOW!

Three quick things …

I didn’t like the photos that I posted yesterday … so I’m posting two different photos of the same projects.

The photo that I posted for my Summer Stars Sew-Along BOW was actually a duplicate photo from the previous day … and it was just the finished top, NOT the quilted final picture.  So here’s the finished little quilt!

And the table topper picture that I posted was really orange-y … Here’s a picture of it on my kitchen table.  Now I think I have to go out and get myself a more neutral tablecloth for that table – since that sage green doesn’t go too well with this table topper.  But at least the colors are a bit better.

And finally … Barbara Brackman started her new BOW this past weekend.  I have had a reminder set up on my iPad to alert me when it came time … and it went off on Saturday.  But when I looked for it at her website, I didn’t see anything about it.  So I was surprised today to see a note from a fellow blogger, Betty Lou, about the BOW.  Apparently I was not looking carefully enough – or I hadn’t looked in the right place.  She has started the new project – and I need to get in gear and get started!!!  You can find it at http://grandmotherschoice.blogspot.com/.  (scroll down a bit to find block #1)

Two Projects Finished – Concentric Log Cabin & Summer Stars BOW 9/4/2012

After lunch I finished the binding on my Concentric Log Cabin which will be a table topper on our kitchen table this Fall.

And then I worked on the binding for the Summer Stars BOW … it’s done now too!

Summer Stars BOW – Finished Top

Got the 7th. star made today (since I was a week behind), and put them all together and added the borders.  I was hoping to get it layered and quilted tonight – but that just didn’t happen.    This is the block-of-the-week that I’ve been doing from the Temecula Quilt Co.  It’s kind of an interesting layout … I’ve never done a quilt that was arranged this way.  When they first posted the layout at their blog, I wasn’t sure that I liked it – but it has really grown on me.

Concentric Log Cabin – Day 3

It got too late to actually do the quilting tonight … but I got this table topper layered with some thin cotton batting and picked out which orange #100 silk I will use for the quilting.

My Aurifil Wool

I found a great container to hold my Aurifil Wool collection at JoAnn Fabrics the other day.   It’s the Deep Utility Box (Item 2-3730) by Creative Options.  It was around $14.99 from what I remember, and I used a 40% coupon of course to bring that down a little.  The little dividers are adjustable, so I can move them around when I add more colors to my collection!  (which I will)

Of course the Aurifil cotton spools would fit in there too .. but I keep those in one of the drawers in my sewing cabinet.