Sunday, October 30, 2005

A Good Quilt Day

This is the Labor Day Madness quilt with a 2.5 inch dark purple border -- and that's where it's going to stop. I decided I didn't need to add anything else to it and it's a good throw size -- I might even be able to quilt it myself.

And this is the Pinwheel quilt made from the reverse blocks from the above quilt. I sashed with one dark tan fabric and cut 2.5 inch corner stones from leftover 5 inch squares. Haven't added a border, but I really like the way the sashing looks on the outside of the blocks, so may just leave it at that. This is the same size as the Labor Day Madness, so it's a good throw size, too.


Spent the rest of the afternoon working on piecing a backing with leftover HST's and nickel squares made into four patches. I think I have it designed on the wall, so just need to stitch it together and it'll be a backing for one of the two above quilts! And that's been my day!


Indian Summer 2


Today as I was laying in bed deciding whether to get up or not, I decided I was too sore and too lazy to go play in the dirt (actually I decided I felt like playing in the sewing room today!).

This picture is the one from the lily bed that has been cleaned out, north to the driveway of the flower bed that still needs to be cleaned out! Maybe next weekend!




And this is a shot of the front porch rockers -- hence the name! Now I'm off to quilt! I'll post pictures this afternoon of the Labor Day Madness top and the Scrappy Pinwheels top!

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Indian Summer


Saturday in the midwest, mid-60's temps and time to get some things done! Yesterday I took all the screens down and washed the windows on the outside -- I hate washing windows, but might as well do them all at once and not drag it out!
Today, I swept the front porch, weeded the flower beds next to the porch and garage and emptied 10 bags of mulch into them.



Then, went around to the back, swept the back porch and then hauled in loads and loads of black dirt from across the lane to the beds in front of the porch. Had to clean out the frosted impatiens first and then filled in the beds -- this job should have been done a few years ago, no less!



DH put the screens away in the space above the garage, then blew the leaves out of the garage and drive and then ran the mower to mulch the leaves in the front and back -- this will be done numerous times before the snow flies!
Even though my back was aching, I took myself down by the road to clean up some flower beds.

This is a bed of hybrid lilies that was covered in weeds (we're in the midst of a drought -- down 12 inches of rainfall this year -- the only thing that did well were weeds!). Thankfully, the mulch is deep, which helps in pulling weeds! Still have a lot to do, but feeling good that I got this much done today!

Well, blogger is being tempermental again -- so will try to upload some pictures later or tomorrow!

Did manage to finish the Labor Day Madness top -- ended up with just one plain border. Have almost finished the Pinwheel blocks quilt, too, so will get those pictures up tomorrow, hopefully.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Labor Day Madness, once again!


I've been playing all day! Labor Day Madness is now a top. It's about 48" x 58" and I ran out of the fabric I was using for the rectangles, so that's as large as it's going to get. I have some very dark purple that I also used in some of the blocks that I think will make a nice 2" inner border and then I have a lot of leftover half-square triangles that I think I will leave as HST's and march them around the purple for a scrappy outer border. I'm pleased with the top so far -- it's a little brighter than the picture shows.
Next project will be to make the pinwheel quilt with the leftover blocks from this one. If I can get them both finished, I'll have Christmas gifts for two of my kids -- bonus!

Saturday morning

I want to thank everyone for their nice comments on my quilt and blocks and such. I try to reply to everyone, but most of the emails bounce. Just want to say Thanks anyway!
Today I get to play all day on the Labor Day Madness and Finn is going to be playing with the blocks sometime, too! It'll be fun to compare notes. So, guess I'd better get off the computer and back to the sewing machine. I'll check back later this afternoon.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

It's Finished!




It's finished! This is a queen size quilt I started I can't remember how many years ago -- It's called Shakespeare in the Park and the pattern is by Judy Martin, from her Creative Patterns book -- I made it the same year the book came out, but the book is on the second floor and I'm in the basement and no -- not running up two flights of stairs for it! Anyway -- I quilted the center of it a couple of years ago, on my Handiquilter -- then took it off and had to frog stitch part of the top, and long story short, finally finished quilting it last week, put the binding on and finished stitching it down today - washed, dried and on the bed and that's where it's staying! Feels good to have it done, plus it's totally scrappy from stash, all blues, yellows and lights!

Felt so good, I pulled out the Labor Day Madness blocks and spent the rest of the day playing with them -- I have 12 blocks finished and another 18 or so are subcut and stitched, just need to square up (which is a pain -- I'll do it later! LOL). Here's the 12 I have done:



Tomorrow I have a road trip to a quilt shop in Fulton, IL (on the Mississippi River), so won't be sewing, but will be fondling fabric (not buying -- just fondling!).

Now I need to catch up on email and the Mavericks -- haven't been able to spend much time on the computer reading what you'all have been up to!

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Sunday evening mellowing out

DD, Stephanie, brought our dear grandson down to our house last night (they live an hour and a half away), so I managed to snag a couple of pictures! This first one is Grandpa and AJ, who is saying "cheese"! He'll be 20 months old tomorrow. He and Grandpa have a mutual admiration society going.
We have three kids, all married, but the two oldest boys and their wives couldn't have kids. Our daughter got pregnant on her honeymoon! So, AJ is our first. We also have a beautiful 7 year old step-granddaughter that lives with DD and DSIL -- but she usually goes to her mom's on the weekends.




This is Stephanie and AJ -- he has that look of "another camera being shoved into my face -- take it quick, Grandma, 'cause I'm moving on!"

This is the most photographed kid in the world -- both his mom and dad manage camera stores! His dad is a videographer on the side, too and a great photographer!

And my kitchen floor looked like Cyclone AJ hit it -- he pulled all the toys out of the toybox and then played with the ball all night!

Okay, I won't bore you with any more pictures from a doting grandmother!

Sunday Afternoon



This is the quilt I made for DD's friend, Darcy that was in the car accident. She was supposed to be married yesterday -- but that, sadly, has to be postponed indefinitely. As of yesterday, she's slowly coming out of the induced coma, but will require therapy for the tracheotomy, and then therapy in a rehab facility -- still unsure of the extent of her injuries. I designed and made this top this summer, then set it aside because I thought it was too boring! So, I pulled it out and quilted it and gave it to DD last night to give to Darcy.

It's been a really strange week for me -- kinda ruled by Murphy's Law since about Thursday! I'm afraid to touch anything for fear I'll screw it up! LOL So far, I've printed off twice as many pages as I need for a new pattern because the printer keeps messing up. I ran out of paper (who was it that took the last ream of paper and didn't buy more -- oh, wait -- that would be me!), ran out of ink, had to run into Rockford on a Saturday morning (hate to drive in Rockford on the weekends!)for more paper and ink. Fought with my Brother machine trying to finish a ufo -- finally figured out that it changed its own tension setting while I was doing some high-speed quilting - honest! Got three sides of the quilt finished and then realized I hadn't finished frog stitching the top side of the quilt! Gave up completely and started a new day! Came down to the basement this afternoon thinking I need to shred a whole pile of old papers (after seeing an ad in the paper this morning for a nice cross-cut shredder and thinking I might think about buying a new one), and the shredder died - think I burned out the motor! Will definitely be picking up that new one this week!
Spent the rest of the afternoon watching the Bears win! GO BEARS! and frog stitching on the ufo! I'm done for the day -- don't want anything else to go wrong! Tomorrow is quilt guild and planning on being there all day and half the night!
Now I have to go catch up on all the bloggers in the Maverick ring -- I'm a week behind!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Tuesday, Oct 11

Guess I've been MIA for awhile! Have spent most of the weekend working on a quilt top -- it's now quilted, labeled, and the binding is in process of being stitched to the back side! I'll get a picture up when it's finished. I'm feeling pretty good about this one, 'cause it's a ufo I finally finished and I'm giving it away too!

Got to spend last Monday with Grandchildren and Daughter and she took pictures of the fun they were having. I had DSIL email one to me -- AJ was so serious when he got on the motorcycle ride, I just knew it would be a great picture. However, DSIL never sizes the picture down when he sends it to me (he has cable -- I have dial-up -it literally took a 1/2 hour to receive! Grrr! Anyway -- I put it up on my isp home page at: http://home.xta.com/porchrocker/ if you'd like to see my grandson -- oh, and he really has blue eyes! LOL The little girl in the background is our darling granddaughter, Briana, 7.

Back to the quilting stuff: I've been "itching to stitch" lately, so pulled out another ufo and have been hand appliqueing in the evenings in front of the tv! This one is a pattern and class I took at least two years ago. I did go back a few months back and pull all the rest of the fabrics for it and cut all the rest of the pieces and "kit" them, so all I need to do is pull a bag out and work on it -- it's great! This one is "Tulip Farm" by Blackbird Designs, I think. The pattern was not well written, so it was a good thing we had a yearlong monthly workshop on it.

Anyway -- that's what's been happening around here in a nutshell!

Friday, October 07, 2005

Friday

It's done, finished, completed, fini....you get the picture. I finally finished the "commission" quilt from *&^$#! And, I will never, never, never, do another quilt for someone who says, "Would you make my mom a quilt with cardinals and birdhouses on it?" Like it's an easy thing to do -- NOT!


I also managed to sammich and pin baste the next quilt to be quilted -- that's about it for quilty things today! Still haven't gotten back to the Labor Day Madness or any or scrappy stuff -- but definitely on my agenda after this next quilt is finished.

It was unbelieveably cold this morning! No frost, but cold enough to have a fire in the fireplace in the kitchen -- first one of the season and from here on out, the fireplace probably won't have a chance to cool down til next spring! I even sat in the kitchen to finish stitching the binding on the quilt this morning! It was heaven! It is supposed to warm up to the 60's this weekend, but there's also a chance of frost tonight! Welcome to the midwest!

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Tuesday

Haven't been around lately, so need to catch up! Yesterday, I spent the day with DD and DGD, Briana, and DGS, AJ! Been a few weeks since I've seen them because we've been sickly around here and certainly didn't want AJ to catch another cold. AJ is 19 months old and a real card! I met them at the mall, DD bought a dress for a wedding coming up in 11 days -- we were going to babysit AJ for the weekend. However, today DD called and the bride (who works with DD) was in a horrible accident last night, may have a broken neck, definitely has head injuries that they've put her in an induced coma for right now. They don't think she's paralyzed, but she wasn't breathing on her own when they brought her in, so don't know the prognosis right now. I've talked to this girl on the phone and she sounds like a real sweetheart. We can only pray that she'll be okay. The wedding was going to be huge, with the reception in Lincolnshire, IL. In fact, my DSIL had the contract for videotaping it.

Quiltwise: today I worked on the commission quilt I hate! I actually finished the top and just finished pin basting. Don't know how I'm going to quilt it yet, but want to get it done and out of here!

Bonnie -- sorry I didn't get back to you -- the Labor Day Madness blocks are 10" unfinished. I think when you're working with 5" strips, you end up with odd sized blocks -- each section squares up to 4 - 1/4".
Love your newsletter -- haven't had a chance to play at your website lately, so will try to do that today!

I have one more thing to finish up before I can get back to my scrappy blocks, but I plan on working on them by the end of this week!

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Back on Track



I did manage to finally get the rest of my fall quilts out and hung yesterday. So this is the full view of the Fall Star Trip quilt.

This hangs in my "Clutter Room" which is also the sewing room, the room between the garage and the kitchen, where the pantry is, the microwave, and a half bath -- guess that's why it's known as the clutter room. It hangs on the wall going to the garage but it fills the doorway going into the kitchen, so you can see the quilts hanging there from the kitchen, the dining room and the library!

'Course, immediately after I hung it, I covered it with a piece of batting and went back to work on my Labor Day Madness blocks. I separated out the light colors from the 5" squares and some of the mediums that blended in too much. I'm still chain piecing parts, so I haven't sewn the blocks together, but I have 9 blocks on the wall: I do like the darker background rectangles, too (thanks for everyone's opinion!), so that's what we're going with!



Spent most of today at a quilt show/Autumn on Parade in the next town over. Good craft show, although I didn't buy anything. Quilt show was smaller than normal, but it was okay. Also went to the lqs and picked up the next "Buck A Block" this morning, so have other things to work on when I get that far!

Otherwise, tried to find a flight out of O'Hare for Vegas and gave up -- prices are about double. So, we cancelled the trip and notified the Navy Reunion people and the hotel. I'll get back to Las Vegas sometime! We'll be babysitting our precious grandson, AJ on the weekend we would be coming home anyway, so that's almost as much fun -- he's 19 months!
Tonight I need to do some checkbook balancing and cleaning up some paperwork around here, so I guess I'd better get busy!