Whatever have I been doing???

It has been over a week since my last post - well just one day over, and I have not accomplished much other than work, work, work. I have been working long hours - and very frustrating hours, too. We are implementing a new computer system at work, and it does get overwhelming.

So, what have I done to relieve the stress???

Saturday, my quilt club met at my house and I gave a lesson on back basting applique using the A Tisket A Tasket blocks. We had a great time. I fixed a lunch of Tortilini Pasta Salad and Peach Cobbler. Yum!

That evening my daughter has us over for a hotdog cookout and some BIG news - I am going to be a grandma again in November!! Woohoooo.

Sunday was church, then over to see my folks and then back home to start working on my friendship blocks for April. Here's a little peek at what I am working on, and yes it is applique, back basted applique to be exact.

Monday was a fun day!!! I took the day off work to attend a workshop being sponsored by my local guild. Cindy Blackberg was our guest speaker for the meeting on Monday night, and the workshop I attended was on hand quilting. I am not sure you can see much in this picture, but I actually made some improvement on my stitches. Cindy taught us how to quilt sideways and using a spoon underneath to keep from sticking your finger. I still have a ways to go, but felt encouraged after the workshop that I can learn to handquilt with little even stitches. Cindy's quilts and stitches are amazing.

The rest of the week was pretty humdrum - to work, home, bed, to work, home, bed. I dare not complain though, as I am thankful to have a good job that I enjoy. Thursday night after work a friend (Darlene R) and I went to Mary Jo's to get fabric for the May club project. Now that was fun.

After work today, my husband and I packed an overnight bag and headed for Bishopville, SC. Our goal is to relax, have some fun and spend tomorrow roaming around seeing what we can see. Specifically we hope to see the Pearl Fryer Topiary Gardens - more on that tomorrow.

And the battle is on.....

I showed pictures of my pin basting the French Braid quilt a couple weeks ago. Since then it has been draped over a chair in my sewing room..taunting me, daring me to start quilting it. Today, I took my weapon - my trusty ole faithful New Home Machine - and attacked my French Braid Monster quilt. I am proud to say, I am

winning! This faithful machine has its battle scars, which if you enlarge the picture, you will see. But not from pins and scissors and monster quilts, but from my sweet innocent looking Felicia...yes, she attacks my machine, biting and scratching. Now what is up with that?

But the machines of the world can relax, Felicia sleeps in her Rubbermaid bed. (Notice the window frame..that has felt the sting of her claws as well.)

Spring has Sprung!

Easter Sunday was breathtakingly beautiful in South Carolina. I hope you all were able to enjoy the holiday weekend and spend time with family and in worship. The dogwoods and cherry trees are in full blossom and I could not resist clipping a few branches to grace my dining room for the family dinner. I think the trees are more beautiful this year than I remember them being in a very long time.

On the sewing scene, I finished my first A Tisket A Tasket block which just happens to be the February block - it was too beautiful outside to work on the first block (January) which is a snowman. These blocks are so much fun to make! Thank you Anne, Bunny Tales, for the free BOM. Check out her blog!

Spring decorations

I have never been one much for decorating, other than at Christmas. Reading blogs though and seeing all the pretty things you are all doing, just inspires me to try and do a few things too. So today, I had to go to Hobby Lobby anyway in search of teal color machine quilting thread, which I did not find, and while there I wandered over to the Easter decorations and lo and behold, everything was 50% off. Go figure, after all, doesn't everyone wait until the week before Easter to start thinking about decorating? So I find these really cute little bunnies in a basket and Easter egg garland which, although it looks white in the picture is bright lovely shades of pinks, lavenders, blues and yellows. My very first Easter decorating purchase.

Now the next step is trying to determine where to put these lovely bunnies. Over the fireplace mantel of course, so I take down the family tree wall hanging that I have there and unpack my summer stained glass window quilt flowers that I normally hang up in the summer and add my bunnies to the mix. I think it looks kind of Springy and Eastery.

Now that is the extent of Spring - Easter decorations I own. My snowflake wall hanging is still up in the dining room and I think my family is pretty tired of looking at it. The problem is I don't have many wall hangings or table runners for that matter - I make large quilts as a rule. So, I go digging in my hope chest and come across this one that I made years ago at a Linda Cantrell workshop. Down go the snowflakes, and up goes my Lady in a Red Hat. I would like to think that for the next week I can call her Easter Parade! (If you enlarge this picture and look at the quilting you will see that I hand quilted this with silver metallic thread - before I knew how totally insane it is to hand quilt anything with metallic thread. )

Now for the front door, yes, believe it or not, my Christmas flower wreath is still hanging up. Somewhere in the depths and dark corners of my basement hangs a beautiful Spring wreath with yellow daffodils. I have no idea where it is, and no desire to fight throught the masses of boxes and stuff to find it, so for now, the Christmas wreath comes down and I guess I will go shopping to find a Spring wreath for the door. And that is the extent of my decorating today. A trip to Michaels is due tomorrow - so stayed tuned, no telling what I will find there!

Good reading...

Tonight I went by Books a Million in search of the Spring/Summer Quilt Sampler magazine as I thought it was time for it to be coming out. Well, I know now that it won't be until next month - but while there, I had to pick up a few books.

The first - The Lost Quilter - I did not even know this one was out. I just love the Elm Creek Quilt Series and so had to pick this one up. I have them all, and even enjoy re-reading them.

While there, I always check out the sales tables, and I found these books for cheaper than what a paper back would cost.

I have been wanting to read the Endless Chain, but I noticed on the cover that it says it is the second book in the Shenadoah Album series. Have any of you read it? Do you know what the first book is? I might want to read it first.

Then I found these two Jan Karon books. I started this series a long time ago, but I think I will get book one and start it again. Felicia was checking them out as well. I keep telling my kids she is really a very smart cat!

March Friendship Blocks & Pin Basting

It's been awhile since my last post and that is primarily because I have been working a lot of very long hours. Sometimes work just interfers with fun - I have got to learn to manage my time better so that does not happen anymore. We did swap our March blocks this past week and here they are. Carol made the Square in a Square block with the fussy cut flower center. I grabbed it up real quick before Cheryl even got a chance to see it. Cheryl did the crazy patch block - and a very nice job she did. I do think she needs to finish it though with all the embellishments and embroidery, hmmm Cheryl want it back? Actually I think it is very pretty just as is. And then mine is the Snail's Trail in Spring colors. I was feeling right Springy when I put these together, but believe me, by the end of the week I had slipped back into gloomy winter. Nothing that a couple days off work and some R&R won't fix.

I did a little work on my French Braid - one of my PhD requirements. I have read and seen in pictures how many of you spread your quilts out on the floor to baste them together. That just makes my knees and back hurt to think about it. So I thought I would just show how I do mine.

The first step is to brew a pot of coffee. That is how I start off most of my quilting projects. I'll take a little hazelnut creamer in mine, please.

Then I layer my quilt sandwich on my cutting table making sure that I have the layers centered. Using binder clips I clip the quilt to the table, making sure that all wrinkles are smoothed out.

Then for my all time favorite tool to use in pin basting. I don't know what this little gadget is called, but it is a finger saver for sure. If you don't have one, you need to get yourself one. I think I found this one on a clearance table for $1. Didn't even know what it was for - just thought it interesting. Then I saw someone using hers, and bingo...I have loved it ever since.


I pin baste when I am going to machine quilt and thread baste when I will be hand quilting. I have often thought about contacting a long arm quilter and seeing if they would just baste a quilt together for me to do the quilting on it - have any of you ever done that? Just wondered if professional long arm quilters do that.

Soon I can show you how I set up my work space to quilt a monster quilt like this. For now, I am going to enjoy another cup of coffee and read some blogs.

Elijah's Quilt - DONE!

This is a work of art.....a beauty to behold....and wonder in and of itself.....you may ask, huh? You see, this is an EMPTY project box. Now in my sewing room, an empty project box means just one thing - I finished something, and by tonight I can assure you, there will be something else in that box. But for now - isn't it lovely?

And what did I finish?? Elijah's quilt! Now he will not receive it until I have a chance to show it off to my friends and my guild, but maybe someday I will let him have it and take a picture of him on it. For now, it is mine to cuddle with.

The pattern is by Quilt Soup and is called Smooth Sailing. These patterns are fun to do and include a soup recipe. In honor of completing the quilt, I made the soup, which is Navy Bean Soup. It called for Hamhocks, which my store did not have, so I just used some ham slices. Hubby made his famous cornbread, and it was GRRRRRReat!

And lest you think I am not working hard on my PhD, I completed the March Redwork block at 1:45am this morning. Ah, the sleepless hours

and time involved in earning a degree.

Hope you all have a lovely day. I plan to spend mine doing some more work in the yard and hopefully I will have some pictures to show you by tomorrow of my efforts out there.

PhD Challenge

Hey y'all..I am working on my PhD. Working at a University, it is very important that I have a Ph.D. in order to advance in my position, but I am not sure this one will count. Our guild is sponsoring a program, through the efforts of Carol, a 2009 PHD Challenge. In this program, we select PHD (Projects Half Done) that were begun in 2008 or earlier that we will complete this year. Then, if we get them all done by November, we will be awarded our PhD at the guild meeting. We will also display our projects at the November meeting. The program began in February and you are allowed to pick up to 7 projects, but you can do less - just have to be realistic.

Well there is nothing realistic about me. Of course, I had to pick some projects that will take a bit of doing to complete, but hey it is a challenge, and I would love to have these done by November. So here is my list:

1. Complete hand quilting on my Fall Wall Hanging . Remember this one? I did minimal machine quilting just so I could use it this past fall. So now I am removing the machine quilting which really looked bad, and handquilting it.
   
2. Machine quilt my french braid quilt. This one is going on the bed in our bedroom and I have some beautiful fabric to make a dust ruffle for the bed as well. We also have to paint the room, make a window treatment and get one new piece of furniture. So, this project is more than just finishing the quilt.
   


3. Complete a crazy quilt project that my sister-in-law is helping me with. I made the crazy quilt blocks and she did the embellishing. She did a great job, but I have never finished the quilt. We had a great class on crazy quilt this past week at guild meeting which got me to thinking about this project. Someone at the meeting brought a crazy quilt block she had stretched over a wooden frame and used as a wall hanging. I just loved it - so that is what I am going to do. No picture of this one yet - but keep on the lookout, its a beauty and maybe just the thing to hang in our new bedroom.
   

4. Complete the Redwork BOM being sponsored by QBee Quilts. I have four more blocks to do the stitchery on, then need to complete the quilt. I am thinking of tying this quilt to give it a real traditional look. Whatever I decide, I have to get 'er done by November.

So that's my four goals. Not to worry, I almost have Elijah's quilt finished, but it doesn't count as I started it this year. I also have not forgotten my friendship quilt, my Be Attitudes and my Kscope that I have been showing you all pictures of - but these will be for next year's challenge!

Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday, Levi!

Today is Levi’s birthday – his 6th one!

Happy Birthday! 

Love you bunches,

Granny 

All hands on deck....

Here is the final deck hand - or Swabbie he is called. I have the quilt top finished and in the process of quilting it now and hopefully can show you the finished quilt in a couple days.

For those interested, the pattern is by Quilt Soup and it is called Smooth Sailing, if you want to take a gander at what it looks like...or just wait and you can gander at mine all you want in a few days!

Thank you, Joann!

Isn't she just lovely! I received this beautiful angel in the mail yesterday from Joann at Pieceful Afternoons.

I think she is just so pretty in pink and I am blessed to receive one of Joann's creations. Be sure to click on the picture and enlarge her so you can see the detail better.

Thank you again for a lovely surprise and gift of friendship.

Captain...

Elijah's quilt - First Mate

Like this little fella? Its the first mate for Elijah's quilt. Fun to make and just makes me smile when I see him.

Its been a great weekend. I couldn't have chosen better weather if I picked it out myself. Did a little shopping at QBee quilts and picked up my next redwork block, which I hope to show soon.

Next one is the Captain....stayed tuned (please).

Starting a new project....

I know, I know...I need a new project about as much as dog needs kitty litter, but none the less, I have started one. This time it is Lynette Anderson's Noah's Ark BOM. I have watched many of you showing your sweet blocks on your blogs and envied them all, and wanted to join the fun, but resisted until.....Cathi came along and said "let's do it!" And of course, being the strong, determined person I am...I said "OK!" So we have formed a group of Cathi, Cheryl, Carol and me to work on this together. So far we have had two meetings and this is what I have accomplished:
Picked out my fabrics.....





And my threads....



And my project box - got a deal on this one, $3.99 at Tuesday Morning - one of my favorite stores.


Got Organized...this box is so cool. One side has compartments and the other side has none and is just perfect for holding the pattern and hoop.


And yes...I made a block! This is block #1 - Rabbits. The stitchery block is only 2.5" square - probably the tiniest embroidery block I have ever worked on. I oversized the sashing strips so that I can trim the block down to size later.

Thanks Lynette for a great project and for sharing you wonderful talent with us!

Snow Day!!!

I just love snow days. We don't get that many of them in South Carolina and today was really fun. This was the view outside my sewing room window this morning and I am so glad I got a picture, because by 2:30 this afternoon this was just about all gone. Gotta love snow in South Carolina. I got the day off work and spent most of it working on Elijah's quilt. I finished the first two appliques - the two sailboats. Hope you have all had a good day!