January Friendship Block Swap..

Its here again...our Friendship Block Swap. Always a fun meeting, and this one was celebrated at Luigi's. We meet Wednesdays on our lunch break and have decided to go out to eat on swap day. Sure makes for fun and a little excitement as we eagerly share our blocks. Carol made the Heart on a String - quite elegant with that black bow. Cheryl is sharing a cup of coffee with us in this beautiful china cup. And mine is the pansy, which truely is purple, but the purple seems to always photo as blue.

Caught up on Helen's Summer Mystery. This is going to make a nice quilted throw for the living room I wish now that I had used a light blue, the same as the background on the floral blocks instead of the dark green, but it is what it is.

Guess it will do for now as the colors do look nice in the living room, and it will be awhile before we get to that room in our redecorating project. Seems we now are going to build a new wall in the kitchen(which I thought was all done but the flooring!) and shelves in the laundry room before we move on to the dining room and then the living room. This is the result of a new washer and dryer which we had to have as the old one was leaking. Its going to be so nice when its done....if it is ever really DONE.

Quilting in the Pines......

This past weekend I was at a retreat I have gone to for the last few years, Quilting in the Pines. It was a great time with friends , beautiful quiltscc,

show and tell of finished projects:

And what did I work on?

A little redwork

Some hand quilting

And of course....my KScope quilt

It was a great 4 days!

South Carolina Snow

Good Morning, from Snowy South Carolina. Here is the view from outside of my sewing room window. We seldom get a snow like this so it is just beautiful to see. It is now 8:40 in the morning and its still snowing - should continue until around noon if the weatherman is right, and you know they are always right! I am watching the tv waiting to see what Michelle is wearing, LOL...that seems to be the issue of the day. It is an exciting day regardless of what your political beliefs are, and I am happy that the snow arrived and they closed my university so now I get to stay home and sew and watch the festivities. I for one would much rather be in my nice warm home, sewing and watching all this on tv than standing in that cold. I wish the Obamas and Bidens a wonderful day and wish the Bushs a fond farewell.
And just what am I working on? My KScope quilt. I discovered pretty quickly that I needed to get some organization for the colors. So I cut out 1/2 inch squares of each of the dark colors used in the star points, and taped them onto a chart so that I could tell which color star to make next. The block between the center star block has a color point of each star it touches - which really take some coordination. It also gives me a way of keeping track of my

progress.

(Just saw the Obamas - love the yellow suit Michelle is wearing!)

One thing I have discovered looking at these pictures, I need to redo the border to not use the same color on the outer square that I use in the half border star. I kept looking at that corner block and wondering what was wrong - and then the picture showed me the problem. Soooo, gonna have to do some ripping. I wish I could figure out how to get the colors to come out right. The first star is actually a very deep rich purple and the second star a deep blue.

OK....I made the change, what do you think? I also played around with the color balance and the colors do look a little better, but still not true to the real colors.

South Carolina?????

Can this be South Carolina? This picture was taken of the fountain on the campus of the Winthrop University. The low today was 9 degrees, I think - but whatever it was, it as C-O-L-D!

After getting out in the cold to buy groceries and Hobby Lobby run for quilt batting and backing material, I got home and stayed there the rest of the day. I did some work on Step 3 of the Hugs from Helen "Summer" Mystery Quilt.

I also completed one more block for my Friendship Swap - but can't show that to you yet.

Hope you are all keeping warm!

Just how big is a queen size quilt?

So here it is...my KScope quilt top, all 91" x 115" of it. That's 1,968 wedges; 1,000 corner triangles and 144 border squares and it all fits into these four little baskets - well, just about fits. I know 91" x 115" seems a little big, its the size we need for it to lie on the bed like a spread. Whew - that's a lot of quilting!

Now to sew all these little pieces back together!

Bendable Light

Several of you have asked about the "bendy light" and if I like it. Well I like it very much. It comes with these little clips to hold the cord across the back of your machine to keep it out of the way. I found out you can order an extra attachment kit so that you can use the light on more than one machine. The kit cost $9.95 from the manufacturer's website.

Now in case you are wondering, the material you see in the machine is for Helen's Summer Mystery. Here are the fabrics I have chosen and the first step - had to make 5 of these square in a square blocks.

Thanks, Julia!

I received the nicest prize in the mail today from Julia over at Scrap Happy Quilter. The panel is just beautiful and came with 9 fat quarters. This will be great for Winter decorating. The panel is called Snow Bird.

And then an added bonus - a late Christmas gift from my husband. One of the new bendable lights for my sewing machine.

Great mail day, huh?

The bad thing about EQ6 is........

.....not really a bad thing at all, just an addiction of sorts. Tonight I started cutting out my KScope quilt and wanted to check the design one more time to see how I laid out the colors,
and sure enough, one hour later, I had a blank "design wall" of sorts set up in EQ to post my colors on as I cut out the blocks, just like you would put blocks up on a real design wall. This is so much fun, not really bad, but I get lost in the design aspect of the quilt and then get behind in the cutting it out. I did cut out a few blocks and am liking the fabrics I selected for this quilt. I have subsituted a light gold instead of a white I originally chose, which was partly why I wanted to redo the design in EQ. Oh well, any excuse is as good as another to play.



I also got the borders sewn on my French Braid quilt tonight and tried it out on my bed. My husband gave it his stamp of approval. Now to get this one quilted...its a monster quilt size at 93" x 115". That's a lot of quilt for my old New Home machine to handle. I use my old New Home machine as it has all metal parts and can take a beating and keep on going.

Speaking of my husband, remember those wonderful storage benches he made for me? We went to get foam rubber to make the cushions and I nearly had a hissyfit right there in the store. Good gracious, that stuff is expensive. Anyone have any suggestions for how to make inexpensive cushions? We were looking at close to $500 just for the foam rubber!!!

A Mystery Quilt...

I just couldn't resist. Helen over at Hugs from Helen is sponsoring a Mystery Quilt during her "summer vacation". I just love her designs, both in quilts and stitchery and just could not resist the chance to make a quilt she has designed. So, I am in and very excited. If you would like to join me, hurry on over and sign up!

January 1, 2009

Good Morning and I wanted to wish you all a Happy and Healthy new year.

Last night my kids came over for a spaghetti dinner and some family time, and of course some fireworks. We bundled all the grandkids up in quilts and they stayed in a van parked in the front yard as it was sooooooooo cold, and the "Daddys" set off the fireworks. It was fun for all, until they set the front yard on fire and found that the water hose had been disconnected. But all is good and my son assured me that you are supposed to burn the dry grass as it will grow back greener.

I have not accomplished much these holidays other than starting another Be Attitudes block, but my wonderful husband got inspired to build storage benches for the play room to keep the Christmas tree and decorations in, well some of the decorations. He is going to build another one in the dining room to keep the rest of the decorations in. I think the idea of carrying all the boxes and heavy tree back to the basement was his inspiration. But once I get the cushions made, I will not only have great storage for Christmas decorations, but also extra seating when the whole family gets together. The train table found a new home in my grandson's room - making him and me very happy. The kids had so much fun playing on the bench last night, its a great play table and is right now coverd in blocks, trains, cars, etc.

Today we will have another gathering at my brother's house with the traditional New Year's Day lunch which has to include pork, mashed potatoes, saurkraut, lima beans and of course, pecan pie. Do you have a traditional New Year's Day lunch?