Sunday Stashbusting Report

Only used 1/3 yard this past week (binding on the Valentine table toppers)….well, since we were in Jamaica I didn’t get much sewing done, plus had to be in the office to play catch up.

In, well, that big tub that my customer gave me? No way to even guess how much is in there, so I have decided to just not count it. Most of it will go to the guild for charity projects anyway….

So, year to date….+11.2….

I did get another top pieced, but this one was for my best friend’s soon-to-be-born grandson and she had purchased the fabric, I pieced it and will get it quilted next week. No picture yet, I’ll take one when it is done.

Update on Asher….momma is in labor as I type….but not getting anywhere so they are going to do a C section

Another snow storm in progress as well today. Right now NWS has forecasted 6-12″ before this storm ends on Tuesday night. Was going to take DD and DS’s girlfriends for a Girls Nite Out on Tuesday night…we were heading to Texas Roadhouse in Des Moines…but looks like that will be postponed…rats!!

 

Asher’s Quilt

This quilt was made by DD and I for a good friend of hers (I have blogged about her already, so will spare you…). Anyway, she has been off bedrest for more than a week and is still hanging on!! So glad as the longer that baby stays put, the better chance he has…

The parents have painted the nursery a light blue, and added bubbles in bright primary yellow, orange and green…with a ‘fishie’ theme. So here is the finished quilt:

I quilted swirls all over, quick and easy, as I wanted this to be done before we left on vacation, just in case…  The backing is a very busy white batik with spots of green/blue/yellow/orange…very cute, but too busy for quilting to show.

I think I said before…our inspiration for this was a quilt that was in a kit by Connecting Threads. I guess I should have checked my plan out first…the green and yellow pieces should have been the same width…oh well….I still think it turned out cute!!

 

I dot a toad in by noz….

Nothing worse than returning from an awesome vacation….with a miserable head cold!! DH and I spent a wonderful week in Jamaica at a Sandals resort. If you haven’t done an all inclusive, do it!! Everything is paid for up front, so no need to carry any cash. Food (way more food than you can ever eat), drinks (WAY, WAY, WAY more drinks that you ever should drink)…no tipping allowed (even tho we snuck some to our favorite staff).

Just a couple pics to warm your day…first, the beach…

The main pool….(no, that isn’t me in the bikini…)

And a sunset over the ocean….see the moon? It was full while we were there and oh, so pretty!!

While I was gone, with no cell service, of course two customers called with projects. One t shirt quilt which I’ll pick shirts up on Monday….and one of my dear ‘little ole ladies’ called…she is having some serious heart problems and probably facing some pretty major surgery…she has one grandson left that is getting married next year and she always makes them a quilt. She is just not able at this time, so asked if I would make the quilt. She had purchased a kit from Fons and Porter in 2003…called Prairie Stars. The fabrics are interesting to say the least. DD and I sat down and discussed the pattern and she did a mock up of one of the 20 stars. It took nearly an hour and it still wasn’t fully finished. So, 20+ hours just for the stars, then they need to be inset with plain blocks, stitched together, then borders added…we are probably looking at 35-40 hours. Our ‘normal’ fee is $15/hour for piecing. That would be $600 and I haven’t even quilted it yet!!  I called her, told her what we had done and asked what her top dollar would be. She said to just get it done and try to do it as economically as possible. So we will….

The other thing…she has decided that she needs to clean out her fabric and craft supplies so that her family doesn’t have to deal with it. She gave me a whole rubbermaid tub of fabric…some large pieces, some small, but all good quality fabrics. I know, I know, I am supposed to be reducing my stash….but I accepted her gift and told her that it would all be put to good use. She says there is more and that she will have it ready for me next time I stop by…  So I will adjust her bill accordingly…I know, I know…soft heart…but she needs the quilt and there is no other way she have it for that last grand child’s wedding if we don’t help her out.

Need to head into the office for some billing this morning, so guess I better get off this computer and get busy. Thanks for reading…I’ll be back later with some quilting stuff hopefully!

 

Wednesday WIP (Works in Progress)

On the MQResource forum, Wednesday is the day we post our WIP. Photos are most welcome. It is fun to see what everyone is up to!

Today, I finished a wall hanging for a customer that has been on my frame WAY too long for such a little piece, but I just wasn’t quite up to long periods of quilting yet after my surgery. But it is finished now, and this is ready to go on next:

I’ll use monopoly smoke for SID around the little ‘panels’, and for some line dancing in the stars and maple leaves. Then I’ll switch to a King Tut variegated that is green/orange/purple (well, kind of anyway) and will do a molar/leafy feather in the outer border.

DD Sara and I are also working on a baby quilt for a dear friend of hers who has been on bedrest for the past 17 weeks of her pregnancy. She will be 36 weeks on Thursday, and then they will let her deliver instead of stopping labor as they have had to do multiple times. So we best be getting it done! We took our inspiration from a quilt on the cover of a Connecting Threads catalog. They had applique on theirs, which I don’t do…so I pieced some fishes and Sara is making the other blocks which will make the zig zag pattern. Here are my fishie blocks:

As you know from previous posts, I have solicited donations of red, white and blue fabrics for use in Quilts of Valor. I have received three care packages of fabric!! Here they are…

From Peggy:

From Sammi:

And from Mel….Mel’s box weighed in at a whopping 27 pounds!! I had to take two pictures to get it all in!!

After opening Mel’s box, I have decided to do a red/cream two color quilt. From the same book, Scrap-Basket Surprises, I am going to make her pattern Scrap-Basket Blues. Thought I could find a picture of something similar, but I can’t…so you will just have to wait and see! Unless you have the book….

Guess I best get busy or I won’t get anything more done today! Back to the frame….

 

Ice Storm 2010…can you say deja vu??

Most of the state of Iowa is in the grips of severe ice storm. We have nearly 1/2″ of ice on everything…trees, roads, sidewalks…and of course, my driveway. Not nearly like we had a couple years ago, but still scary! So we are going nowhere….DH is home from work…again. I ventured out far enough to take some pictures…

Here is the railing on our back deck:

This is the front yard…guess we’ll have some clean up to do in the spring…

A little bush in the flower bed:

And the ash can in the driveway….we have a pretty steep drive and when there is ice, we need this to get our cars in the garage. It is ash from the fireplace and we just spread it all over to get traction…

 

God has an awesome sense of humor…

Most mornings as I wake, God gives me a worship/praise song that sticks with me throughout the day. This morning, as I laid there thinking..”oh, it is freezing rain, the roads are terrible, I am cooped up at home again, I don’t want to get up”..guess what song he gave me??  “I Will Rise”….  Ok, ok, I’m listening Lord…

Now I have a whole, uninterrupted day of quilting!!

 

Talk about timing…

Suzanne Earley of Knots and Bolts in Traer, Iowa is closing her downtown storefront and moving back home. She has come awesome fabrics and some really awesome sale prices!! Check it out at Knots and Bolts!!

Now, how am I supposed to work on busting my stash when she does this?!?!

You can also win fabric or yarn in her give away…just comment on her blog, make a purchase, or tell your friends. Here is the link to her blog post: Suzanne’s Great Big Giveaway

Now I am going to go finish up a customer quilt so I can try to pay for some of the things I bought on Friday..and will be buying from Suzanne!!

Back to the frame….

 

Stashbusting Report #1 for the year…

On her blog, Judy Laquidara, hosts a stashbusting group which reports each Sunday. I decided to play along and see how I do. I don’t have a specific goal to bust X number of yards…but thought it would be fun to keep track of what I buy and what I use, just for grins and giggles.

Sure wish I had better numbers to report…but with one local quilt store going out of business, another having an after inventory sale…and another that was just too close to not stop…my numbers definitely went up.

BUT…everything I bought is intended for very specific projects.

12 yards of batiks: for a baby quilt for a dear friend of DD (joint venture, so maybe I should only claim 1/2?) We’ll get this together this week as baby will arrive shortly…so I get to take it back out at that time.

1 yard for background in the quilt some of us are making at our guild retreat in April

1 yard sewing themed for thread catcher bags-I have to do a demo on these at next month’s guild meeting, and I don’t have any, and it has scissors and needles and thread….yeah, I could have used something I already had, but…I didn’t!

3 yards of adorable cats on skis…my best friend has a condo in Keystone, Colorado..we go there several times each year and I like to make something to take along as a hostess gift. So..the skiing cats will be ruffles on a couple throw pillows for her couch!

3 yards of patriotic fabric will make a nice QOV backing

and one final yard of a pretty fabric that is going to be OBW placemats for my kitchen

See, I can justify ALL the yardages…so do they have to count????

Anyway, final totals: out=3, in=21, net=+18…sigh….

 

We’re melting! We’re melting!

Sunshine! Temps hit 42 yesterday, and upper 30’s today. What a mess! LOL

DH left on a ski trip yesterday morning. I spent the day with my Scrapyard Junkies group and actually emptied my first container of scraps!! I had one of those huge, blue XL ziploc bags stuffed full. Now all pressed, cut and sorted for my scrap quilts.

Visit to dentist today. I broke a piece off a front tooth. Thought I had bitten something (I was eating popcorn and hadn’t even gotten to the old maids yet), but he says it is because of the way I grind my teeth at night. I have worn the front teeth thin…great. So now I have to wear a plastic guard at night to keep my teeth from breaking each other apart.

Tomorrow, a road trip to the Amanas…one of my favorite shops is having a post inventory sale. And since it is more than an hour away, of course we’ll have to have lunch in one of the wonderful restaurants.

I have gotten a couple wonderful donations of both scraps and yardages for my QOV quilts. DH took the camera with him, but when he gets back I’ll take some photos and post them. There is another shipment due to arrive soon…27 pounds worth!! Can’t wait to see all the goodies in there!

Drafted a pattern for a baby quilt and have fabrics all ready to cut tomorrow night with DD Sara. Believe it or not…all batiks!

Guess that’s all the update for now…back to the frame! Still working on the second wall hanging…ran into a design snafu and just not sure yet what to do….

 

Back to work..

Decided it was time to ‘go back to work’…I have five customer quilts/projects waiting to be done, so today was the day. I quilt for a while, then sit and rest, then quilt some more.

So far, I have nearly finished this wall hanging:

This is a new customer. The LQS gave her my name and number to call. She wanted more ‘custom’ than what the gal that normally does her quilting wanted to do. Hope she likes what I do…supposedly she is a pretty steady customer. She sells quilted items on Ebay or somewhere online. I have two Christmas items, both small wallhanging type, then one lap size quilt that is Thanksgiving/fall themed. She might intend it for a wallhanging, I am not sure.

Anyway…quilted holly borders, SID around the panels, loops in the inner green border. The bottom comes down to a point (I seem to have cut that off when I took the picture, sorry) and I will put a feather motif of some kind or another in that triangle space. All is done except the feather…just had to sit down for a while…

Finished the second heart wallhanging/table topper. Just thought it was too cute and had to have one for myself. Since I used the polka dot fabric to make the second one, that option was out for borders on the first one. The red/black check just made it too dark…so I went with the 30’s reproish brighter red. I had enough for backing, so that was a plus.

Hmmm…hadn’t thought about the binding. Maybe I’ll use the red/black check for that.

Think I’ll take a little snooze…then back to the frame!