Grandmother’s Choice BOW–Week 39

Barbara Brackman called this week’s block Endless Stairs, but I did a variation of that block by turning my squares different directions.  I just didn’t like the Endless Stairs block done in only two colors … and since that’s the way I’m doing this whole series – I decided to alter the block.

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.