Ouch!

It's been years since the last time I cut myself with the rotary cutter, but today I really got myself good. Put a nice little notch in the tip of my left index finger. Wow did that hurt! Also bled like crazy - but thankfully not a drop on the fabric. I got blood all over my pants and the floor, but the only thing we found on the fabric was a small hunk of finger! My boys were fascinated with it, big surprise there :-)

Before I decided maim myself, I did manage to finish up all of the Strawberry Fields blocks. I need to do some calculating for my layout and possibly some shopping, I am thinking I will need more of the vanilla background fabric.

I have EQ7 and need to reload it on my computer, this might be a good opportunity for me to finally learn how to use it.

I wanted to keep sewing so I pulled out a quilt kit that I bought in 2002. It is Gingham Rose by 3 Sisters. I decided to use the fabrics to make the Misselthwaite pattern by Miss Rosie.

 I was cutting triangles when I cut my finger. Much like running out of bobbin, cutting your finger is a good stopping point for the day, LOL

Top for baby Liam

I finished piecing the top for the quilt I am making for my niece's baby, Liam,  that is due in October.

Notice the lovely green grass under the quilt? I must give Kudoos to my hubby for that, it is not easy to have nice green grass in Phoenix in the summer time!

I am about 95% done knitting a surprise baby jacket for Liam. I just need to seam up the shoulders and finish the neck. I have enough left over yarn for a hat and baby some little socks. So hopefully I'll have another finished object to show off soon.

I started working on a old block of the month I received last year, it is the 2011 designer mystery from the Fat Quarter Shop. When the blocks first starting to come in the mail I was very uninspired by them, I think they were a little too bright and cheerful. I don't know if it is the warm weather or my brighter sewing space or just a cheerier disposition, but suddenly I am really loving these blocks. I have the first 3 all done and a finishing plan in mind.

I will only have 12 blocks, but this is the basic plan for how I think I might want to arrange them and finish the top. Of course I already bought the pattern and fabrics to finish it another way, but my creative license entitles me to change my mind! The real struggle will be to find additional fabrics if I need them, this line has been around for quite awhile and its getting harder to find, so I might have to settle for close enough. I will say though, the Fat Quarter Shop was very generous with the amount of fabric they sent and I am getting a nice little stash of extra fabric, so that will work great for the applique. I bought quite a bit of one of the greens, so I am probably in good shape for my vine and I am sure I can find another Moda fabric that reads close enough to the vanilla background fabric that I am using now - here's hoping the power of positive thinking helps me out!

My sewing room is still a train wreck and I really need to get in there and organize it, but sewing blocks is so much more fun! Nathan and his friend pulled my old early 90's stereo system out of the sewing room to put in his room. It is one of those big stack systems that was so popular then. The speaker wires really baffled them, LOL They were very surprised that they were just wires that had to be wrapped around a post instead of something that gets plugged in. Alas, they managed to figure it all out and all of his friends have come over to see the really cool stereo system in his room. They all have tiny little IHomes, so this is quite a wonder to them. Of course my old Boise speakers can play really loud and turning it all the way up seems like grand fun to a bunch of 17 year olds! I know my Mom is thinking about paybacks right now, LOL

I'm hoping for a quiet weekend of sewing blocks and puttering around the house, maybe we'll throw in a little bowling too. Have a great weekend and Happy Quilting!

Vintage Rouge Month 1

Yesterday's mail finally brought my first kit for the new Vintage Rouge BOM I signed up for. I finished up the 4 blocks this morning, here they are. Aren't they pretty? 

  I love the fabrics in this quilt and am excited to get this done and on the wall. I am planning to hang it in the dinning room during Christmas.

I have also been busy working on a quilt for my niece's baby due in October. His name is Liam, I LOVE that name, it was nearly the name we gave to Zac. I wanted Liam and OJ wanted Orville Zoolu (Ozzy), Zachary Andrew was our compromise, LOL

My Washington Medallion is back from the quilter and she did an amazing job. Getting that bound is next on my list. More pictures to come!

Adventures in Applique

It's been awhile since I have posted an update. My Mom and I took a wonderful and fun class at the Old World Quilt Shoppe last weekend with Tonee White. She taught us her appliquilt technique. I love applique, but have never really felt like I could needle turn very well. I usually like to use the freezer paper method with prepared edges and then make a small slit in the back of my piece and pop the freezer paper out. Well, that was not going to be an option with this quilt, since we are appliquéing through all 3 layers, and the applique stitches are also the quilting stitches. After a little coaching from Tonee I was needle turning with a fair amount of success. Some of my edges are still a bit bumpier than I would like, but each piece gets a little better then one before it. Here is my progress so far.

I still have not forgotten about my goal to get some old stuff finished. I quilted my star and chain quilt and attached the binding, I am absolutely in love with this quilt and am so glad to have it all done.

I have also made grand progress on my English Trellis quilt, thanks to my new sewing machine. Just need to add borders and this top will be done too.

I hope that all of the Mom's out there have a wonderful Mother's day, I have been blessed with 3 beautiful children and so far they have made this a wonderful Mother's Day weekend with dinner out, a trip to the movies and an awesome quilt kit!

 

New Toy

 Yesterday my quilt group made our annual trek to the Arizona quilters guild quilt show, and I came home with this treasure! I have been dreaming of a new machine for quite awhile, I think I just plain wore the other one out. This is the Pfaff Smarter C1100 Pro and it is wonderful! Of course I got a great deal since I bought it at the show, a discounted price and all the quilting accessories. I wasted no time in taking her out of the box and putting her to work! This morning I finally finished up the star and chain top.

It was so nice to sew together all the rows without having to tug the fabric through every time I got to an intersection. Now I need to find the perfect fabric to back this with, some batting and get it loaded on the frame.Sounds like I need to take a trip to the quilt shop.

In keeping with my goal to finish some stuff up, I pulled this project out to work on next. This is another quilt kit that I bought in 1999. The pattern is called English Trellis and the fabrics are still so pretty, even 13 years later. I started working on it during our quilt retreat in August, but it was slow going to get all the strip piecing done and I didn't get it finished during the trip. I have 9 more blocks to make, then borders to add, so it really shouldn't take me more than a weekend or two get this top ready, but we shall see.
I'm still knitting away on my red socks, I am just starting the heel, so hopefully I will have a new pair in my drawer very soon!

UGH

Seems like the month of February was one big UGH for me as far getting any quilting or knitting projects done. It all started with my Noro sock.

This is another project that was started ages ago and I when I came across it, the first sock was about half done. After I finished knitting the first sock I got a funny feeling that there wasn't going to be enough yarn in my 100 gram skein for the second sock. Now I wear a size 6 shoe, so I have never had to worry about running out of yarn before, but I decided I better weigh the yarn and the sock to be sure I had enough. My sock weighed 48 grams and I only had 42 grams of yarn left. Wait, 42 plus 48 is 90, not 100. So obviously I will not have enough yarn to do the second sock - UGH  I went back to the shop where I bought the "light" skein and the owner said she really wasn't surprised to hear that, but she didn't have any more of that yarn. Now, I could just use what I have left and make the toes out of something else, BUT that will never make me happy, so I searched online and found another skein on ebay.

So, while waiting for my new Noro skein to get here I grabbed another sock project. This one had a completed first sock, but the second one had not been started yet. I set out to find the book that the pattern was in and it was no where to be found. I looked in all the usual places, still no book. I called my Mom, we often borrow each others books, and made her search her sewing room, no book. I called my daughter in Minnesota and she assured me repeatedly that she didn't have it. I texted my friend Sue and asked her to look, no book. All the sudden my youngest son was looking on my book shelf, with the other knitting books, and pulls out a book and asks, does it look like this one - it was there the whole time - UGH.

OK, well now that I had my book, I got going on the second sock. I found the pattern, cast on and started stitching. I knit, on and off, for about a week, when I got the feeling my second sock really didn't look like I remembered the first sock looking. I pulled out the first one and Lo and Behold

UGH, they are not same! Good grief. Now what do I do? Well my husband said that all that really matters is that they are both same color, right? WRONG. So, I could buy more red yarn and make 2 more socks so I could have 2 matching pairs or rip out my weeks worth of knitting and start over with the right pattern. I debated over this for quite awhile before finally deciding that I didn't need 2 pair of socks from the exact same red yarn and ripped out my mistake and started over.

Since the knitting wasn't going well I thought it might be time to think about some of my quilting projects. I have been doing the 2011 designer mystery block of the month from Fat Quarter Shop. Originally I was a little uninspired by the blocks when they came and they were all piling up, untouched. Then I saw a picture of the finished quilt pattern, super cute! I went out to order the finishing kit only to find they are all sold out, well of course they are, this is how everything has been going lately. After 2 days of scouring the internet I thought I had found all the fabrics I needed and placed my orders. The first package arrived and sure enough my order was wrong - UGH. The website apparently hadn't been updated for a few days and they really didn't have all the fabrics or the quantities required. They sent what they had, but that really didn't work for me. Apparently this is all my own fault for not telling them specifically to contact me if they couldn't fill my order as placed. OK, whatever, they clearly don't need anymore of my money. So after more online searching, I think I have the rest of the fabric on its way.

This is why I never finish anything - sometimes it just feels easier to start something new.............................

However, March seems to be starting out a little better. I sewed up a couple more rows on my Stars and Chains quilt and I really love it so far .This is the top third of the  quilt.

And as long as I don't have anymore UGH moments, this will soon be the bottom two thirds!

Hope your knitting, quilting or whatever makes you happiest goes smoothly for you and you are not plagued bu the UGHs.

Weekend Away

Last weekend OJ and I got away for a few days when we took a 3 night cruise to Ensenada. We had a great time even though it was a short trip. Aside from a few great pictures, a bottle of tequila, some vanilla and a new leather bag, I also brought home a fantastic cold. Hard to say if I picked up the bug on the ship, the shuttle bus or the airplane, but I  got it in spades. My head is finally clearing up so I thought I would post some pictures of some more finished items up.

This bag was knit my niece years ago, in fact she was still in high school and now she is 21. Anyway, it was her first knitting project and she asked me to bind off and felt it for her - well like 4 years later I finally got it done. It is a beautiful bag and I can't wait to finally give it to her.

These socks were started a couple of years ago. The pattern is Anniversary socks from the book Interweaves 25 favorite socks. The yarn is Nature's pallet and they were knit on size 1s with 64 stitches cast on. I absolutely love the color of this yarn, it has so much depth and the feel is wonderful.
I am working on another pair of UFO socks - so if I can keep up this pace I should have another pair ready to share soon! Hopefully next weekend my stuffy head will be gone and I can get back in my sewing room.

Productive Week

I was able to finish a few more items this week.

A few years ago at the AQG quilt show I starting collecting java themed fabrics to decorate my family room/kitchen area. Last year I made this table runner.

Last weekend I finally finished the coordinating table cloth and quilt for my side table.

The little quilt for the side table was made using charm squares and the little twister tool. Here are some pictures I took while I was making it, it really is a fun and quick project.

I also went out and found the perfect buttons for the red sweater I finished last weekend thanks to Todd at Jessica Knits I was being particularly fussy and was ready to give it up when Todd pulled out these perfect buttons - love them!

Hopefully I will have more finished photos to share soon!

2012 is here!

This is my first post of 2012. I hope that everyone's Christmas was as wonderful and blessed as mine was this year. Emily came home for Christmas and brought her boyfriend Geoff for us all to meet.

This year I made everyone matching pajama pants to wear. The family were all good sports about the whole thing and even smiled in the picture - after all it was all about the picture anyway. Of course we know that I am a pretty darn good quilter and an OK knitter, but I am NOT a seamstress. But thankfully my Mom is and as always she came to help me sew these things together. Why in the world do we have to make such huge seam allowances? Oh well,  they are done, they all fit and no one cried, LOL.

Like everyone else I am starting the year off with big ideas and plans about finishing all my UFOs. Well not ALL of them, I may not live long enough for that, but I would like to make a serious dent in the pile. So far I have finished 2 sweaters and a dish cloth, all projects that were started eons ago. 

It feels really good to get things done, hopefully I will have lots more finished projects to add as the year goes on. Happy 2012 everyone........