More Pictures

Hello,

I am back with more pictures. This first photo shows Hubby with the toilet roll holder. You can get a better idea what it looks like. It is very cute. The second photo, I forgot to rotate it before uploading it. Can't figure out how to do it now. Sorry.

This is a photo of a quilt top that will be finished and donated. The pattern is called "Hen and Her Chicks" from the book "Quilts from the Heart". I love this book. I have made several patterns already and have almost every pattern started in my UFOs. The small 9 patches are made with 1.5" squares. This is a great scrap user, as is most of the patterns in the book. Only the border was cut from yardage. The rest of the quilt, including the white, was all from scraps. I had the 1.5" and the 3.5" squares all pre-cut in my scrap boxes. I dug through my scrap basket and pulled all the white from previous projects, spent a little time pressing and trimming and in no time was ready to put this top together.

Over at a yahoo group I am on called Heartstrings, there is a project going on called Happy Blocks. Basically they are a framed square. This is a picture of just a few of the 116 blocks I have made so far. I pulled as many different brights out of my scrap basket and my stash as I could find. Dug around and found two baggies full of pre-cut novelty squares. This is going to be an ongoing project for me this winter. Not sure how many I am going to use per quilt. Will decide that when I am ready to put a top or two together. These will be donated quilts. There are several of us who make children's quilts and donate them to a local family crisis center.

This is my computer companion, Smokey. She often sits up on that shelf and keeps me company while I am at the computer. The quilt she is laying on was the second quilt I ever made. It is a full sized scrappy Irish Chain. It is completly hand pieced and hand quilted. It was a gift for my then 12 year old son. What was I thinking???!!!! Giving a quilt with so much white to a 12 year old boy? I must say, he absolutely loved that quilt. He was very rough with it, so now it needs some major repair. He keeps asking when he will get it back. I really need to make that a priority in the next few months. That quilt took me two years to complete start to finish. Every little 2" squares was traced from a template and then seam allowances were added. No rotary cutting. I did win a second place ribbon at the county fair. Was very pleased at that.

As you can see by the picture, this is also an area where I keep most of my stash. Those messy shelves actually hold boxes of pre-cut scraps. I trim my scraps into the largest size I can. I have boxes ranging from 1.5" up through to 6.5" by half inch increments. If I took a photo of the other part of this little room, you would see larger boxes where I store my stash by type and/or color.

Now, a bit of an update on my goals for this week. One goal was to tidy up some of my sewing areas. This picture shows my cutting and sandwiching table. It is now all cleaned off, so that I can work on another of my goals. Please ignore the messiness around the table. I keep my UFOs in large ziplock bags under the table. I have several laundry baskets into which I sort my UFOs.

The folded quilt on the table is the one I will be basting later today. The backing is washed and just needs to be pieced together. I have my tin of pins next to the quilt, so all is ready. I have several drawers in the white cabinet. There you will find my duct tape and junky scissors. I use duct tape to tape down my backing while basting. I find it works so much better than masking tape.

This final picture brings me to another of my goals for this week. This is a mystery quilt that I did over New Year's Eve. I love how it came out. I am planning on putting a small inner border of the light green. Then an outer border of the focus fabric. I have the borders all pieced and pressed, just waiting to go on. Will bind it in the dark green. I haven't decided if I am going to donate this one or keep it on hand. It is larger than the children's quilts I usually make, but would be a nice quilt for a boy.

That is what I have been up to so far this week. What have you been doing??

Darlene

Busy Week

Hello Everyone,

This has been a busy week for me. I spent at least 16 hours sewing this week. One thing I did was to put a group of string blocks together that my DH, Rick, has been working on. He made these blocks all out of bright and novelty strings. This will be donated locally to a family crisis center. I am sure it will make some child smile. Here he is with the completed top. It still needs quilting.

This is his first quilting project. He started the blocks last winter when he couldn't get out to his workshop because of snow and ice. He finished them this week and when tried to put the blocks together, his sewing machine kept jamming up and he was getting frustrated. Because the blocks are pieced on a foundation, there is extra bulk. So as to not discourage him from more sewing, I agreed to put the blocks together. He did a wonderful job on the blocks.

Here are some pictures of woodworking projects he has been making. We will have better pictures later. The camera batteries died and needed to be recharged.

This first picture, you cannot really tell what it is, but it is a little wooden toilet that holds a spare roll of toilet paper. It really is cute. I will get another picture at a different angle, later.

This is a picture of a duck planter, painted red, although it looks pink. He can just imagine some red geraniums attracting humming birds in this planter.

Here is another duck planter. This one he stained rather than painted. This was made out of a very lovely cherry wood, so the staining shows the beauty of the wood.

Rick gets a lot of his wood at the recycling center. Brand new wood that people toss out.

I finished the top of the NYE mystery that I was working on. It came out cute. I decided it needed borders, so I have those all cut and ready to put on. When the borders are on, I will post a photo.

I have decide to try and post some weekly goals. I am hoping this will help me stay focused. So this weeks goals are..........

1. put borders on NYE mystery

2. sandwich, quilt and bind Jeff's quilt

3. tidy and organize sewing areas

Okay, that third goal is an ongoing process. It seems I am always trying to tidy and organzie. But, I figure, if I write it down, at least I will spend some time doing it.

I am off for now. Will post again soon.

Keep Sewing!!

Darlene

Fabric used

Good Morning!


On one of my groups, Stashbusters, they have had a challenge the past few years called "100 yard dash from stash". One year I kept track and was amazed at how much I used.

This year I have decided to keep track of all my fabric usage. To be counted, the project must be done with binding or my part is done and it has been passed on to someone else for finishing. For example...I make children's quilts to be donated to a local domestic violence center. I make the top and then pass that on to a friend of mine who has a long arm. She finishes the quilting and binding. So, once the top is out of my house, for my calculations, it is "done."

This being said, I have already used 56 yards of fabric this year. Yesterday, I mailed out three boxes to a friend who makes quilts for homeless shelters. I sent her 210 string blocks, 2 completed quilt tops, 100 log cabin blocks, and 24 chinese coins blocks. Roughly estimated at the 56 yards. All of those blocks and tops had some work that needed to be done. That is what I did the week between Christmas and January 4th.

I am going to try and keep track of the amount of time I spend sewing, also. So far in January I have spent roughly 20 hours sewing. I was working really hard to finish up the things I mentioned previously.

So far this year I am off to a good start. Let's hope I can keep the momentum going.

Keep Sewing!!

Darlene

Happy New Year

Hello Everyone!

I hope your 2009 has started out well. Mine has. I have been very busy working on some mystery quilts. This first picture is called "Mosaic Tiles" and this was a mystery posted on Christmas Day. I got the chance to pop up and get the clues and get some sewing in that day. Finished the top on the 26th. It meausres about 40" square. What looks white in the photo is actually a very light lavender. The focus fabric has butterflies. I thoroughly enjoyed making this quilt. The directions were very clear and easy to follow. I shall make more of these. What a perfect size for a baby quilt. And I am very happy to say that ALL my fabrics came from stash!!!!!

This second picture was also a mystery quilt. I bought the fabric before I had the clues. Since this was the very first mystery I was going to do, I decided to just make a lap quilt in case I didn't care for it. Well, I think it came out gorgeous!! Wish I had purchased enough fabric to make it a queen. However, I think this is big enough for a twin bed. Again, the directions were very clear and easy to follow. I want to make another like this with snowman and snowflake fabrics. This is called "Swirling Snowballs".

My friend, Mavie, has recently gotten me hooked on mysteries. She always makes these beautiful quilts and I asked her where she gets the patterns or ideas and she tells me they are mysteries. So I recently signed up for three or four mystery groups. Be on the look out for more pictures.

I have a New Year's Eve mystery that I am still working on. All the clues were posted throughout the day NYE. I got over half the quilt done. It is next on the agenda to finish. Again, I am really pleased how it is coming out.

I had to set that mystery aside to finish some string blocks and two tops for a friend who makes quilts for several homeless shelters. She wanted to make sure she had a quilt for every resident. I enjoy making quilts for others, so today I was able to send her three boxes full of blocks and two tops. There was the equivalent of 9 quilts. This should help her have enough for both shelters.

One goal I have for this year is to be a better blogger. I am going to try and post at least once a week. I also would like to keep track of how much time I spend quilting. I think that would be very interesting. I plan on keeping track of how much fabric I use, also. Here is hoping that I can keep to those goals. I do need to figure out how to do things more on this blog, too.

Have a happy day!!

Darlene

Challenge

Paula, over at Coffee Time At Home, has announced a challenge entitled "Need This?". I have decided this is a good kick in the pants for me to tackle some cluttered areas in my home on a regular basis. Here is the link http://coffeetimeathome.blogspot.com/

I decided to start with two drawers in my kitchen that hold various gadgets. One drawer is mostly for baking gadgets. Here is a before picture.

And here is the after picture. I threw away a few things and put several things in a box. Now there is just what I need, measuring cups and spoons, rubber spatulas, candy thermometer, biscuit cutter, pastry blender and a few funnels.

The second drawer is by the stove. It holds all the odds and ends that every kitchen has. Here is the before picture.

And here is the after. I am amazed at what I found. I threw a bunch of stuff away. Some of it I didn't even know what it was for. LOL I probably haven't organized that drawer since we moved in 12 years ago.

It now holds my garlic press, pizza cutter, soup ladle, spaghetti utensil, potato masher, and can opener.

I can't believe how good it felt just to do that small organizing. I am hoping to get brave enough to tackle some of the bigger clutters in my house over the coming weeks and months. Breaking it up into small chunks makes the entire task less daunting. Thanks, Paula, for a great idea.

Christmas in July

Hi Everyone,



I was reading through different blogs and I came across http://bluebirdquilts-lyn.blogspot.com/2008/07/giveaway-christmas-in-july-giveaway.html

Thought this might be fun. Check it out. Hmmm, I don't know how to get the link to be smaller. Blogging is relatively new to me. Maybe someone could help me. Thanks.



It also got me thinking about the various projects that I have been working on for the Christmas Craft Fair that the ladies in my new church put on every November. This will be the first time I am involved and am very excited about it.

These are three scraves that I knitted over the last few weeks. They are done with that fun fur and a soft worsted weight yarn for warmth. Left to right the are purple, red/black, and blue.

These are crocheted pony tail holders. I plan on making a bunch more in other colors. They are made with crochet cotton thread. I pick up crochet cotton whenever I find it at yard sales. Sometimes I make Barbie doll clothes or doilies. I haven't done those recently.

These are butterflies made out of crochet cotton thread. I plan on putting a magnet on the back. They look really cute all over the refridgerator. Who wouldn't want a bevy of beautiful butterflies. By the time the fair comes around, I will have butterflies of many colors.

I also have many baby bibs that I have made out of flannel and about a dozen purses. I plan on finishing at least one of the many quilt tops I have made. Not sure what else I will make, but I am enjoying these little projects.

Any money the ladies make at the craft fair will go to helping with the church's winter fuel bill. With today's prices, that makes lots of sense to me!

Is anyone else working on Christmas projects yet? Let me know.

Darlene

Lighthouse cross-stitch

I decided to start a new cross-stitch project to work on while in my air conditioned bedroom. I have had this one for awhile, but hadn't started it yet. I plan on keeping track of the hours I put into it, just out of curiosity.

I will begin the stitching today. We are in for some hot and humid weather, so it is a perfect time to start. I love lighthouses. Can't you just hear the waves crashing into the rocks? I plan on posting monthly updates on how it is coming along.

I have a number of cross-stitch and embroidery UFOs, probably close to the number of quilting UFOs. I am going to try and stick to this one to the finish. Hopefully, that will motivate me to work on the others. Stitching is a great project to do while watching television. It is time I got back into doing that.

Have a great 4th of July!!

Darlene