Semi super sewing Sunday. 07-31-11

 Earlier this week I put the borders on Laith's quilt, but haven't figured out yet how I am going to quilt it, so it is still hanging on the design wall for now.

 I got all 600 HST's for RRCB sewn and cut out this week too. Sure doesn't look like 600 does it????

 Here they all are in a shoebox, heading over to the ironing station, which at the post of this blog, they are still sitting.

 I finished piecing my Kaleidoscope quilt together, it is 10 feet square, I am NOT quilting this one on my lil' ol machine. That is a fact!

 Here is a view of the other side.

 And a view from the end. Can you tell which nightstand is mine? Hint: It is the one piled high with quilting books. Which I did put away today, the pile was getting toooooo tall.

 As soon as me and my gang went upstairs to sew today, Bailey layed her head on Hershey and just looked at me, so I snapped a picture.

 Then Hershey looked up and said, Hey take one of me too!!!!

 After taking those two's photo's, I looked around to see what I need to finish up and get off the table. I started with the scrap pile leftover from the Kaleidoscope quilt. Somehow I am going to use all this to make the back of the quilt. Because I don't want anything going into the scrap buckets that I am trying to empty. I cut out a lot of squares, and sewn a lot of the pieces together, no plan here like usual. Just look, sew, press and repeat. Eventually it will be 10.5 feet square.

 Next on the table was the rest of the 22 blocks I needed to finish for RRCB. I got all the centers done. Now I just need to start pressing those HST's, and sew them into strips of 5 and attach them to one of these blocks, only 29 more left to go. Then I can piece the top, and add the border too. My birthday is coming up in about 2 weeks. I want this one done before then. So I have made me a goal now of when I want this done. Oh yeah and my dinner from today too, a big bowl of Kettle Corn Popcorn! MMMM It was delish!

My daughter wanted me to make her a baby quilt to go with this fabric that has frogs on it. Guess I forgot to take a closeup of the frogs. So she picked out some fabrics and told me she liked the red and white one I did on the back of the Coke quilt. She wanted all the greens to go one way, and all the bluey ones to go the other way. She wanted it square too, not long and skinny like the red and white one. So here is her simple rail fence quilt top. She is going to buy more yellow, (It has dragonflies on it) so I can add a wide border, and she is getting lime green Minkee for the back of it. I will have to get a better pic of it later, because from here some of the blues and some of the greens look the same, but they aren't.






We drained the pool Friday and Saturday morning, and tore it down Saturday afternoon, and cut up the liner and toted it to the curb Sunday morning. Put all the pieces out of reach of the Lunatic gang too. Now my back is killing me, so I am done sewing today. Normally I would have sewn for another 4 hours. I do have another secret project I thought I would have done by now. Guess I will do that one tomorrow.
The dogs are loving that we got rid of the big pool, and gave them a HUGE sandbox in its place. I will try to take pics tomorrow, it was downpouring rain here again this afternoon. It is a daily thing lately. So now I am off to watch whatever is on the DVR, and flip through a pile of OLD magazines I found upstairs. I brought down a dozen, have at least a dozen more dozen to go through. Got really behind on reading all my magazines.

Super sewing Sunday 07-25-11

The little Lion that could.......  There is this lady that comes into the Post Office (where I work) who just had her first child. She was soooo excited leading up to her due date. Not sure what happened, but she had to have an emergency C-section, 4 weeks early. The first 13 minutes of her sons life, he wasn't breathing. She is glad they never gave up on him. When they finally got him breathing, he was swollen ready bad, they said he had edema ( I think) and he was in a lot of pain because his skin could only stretch so far, and his body was still pushing. They didn't give him too many days to live. Then a week later, they said he more than likely has cerebral palsy, she was devastated. As the days ticked on, he kept defying the odds. Every time they said he wouldn't be able to do something, he would do it. They were both in Shands hospital in Gainesville Florida for about a month before she could finally bring him home. I finally got to meet the little guy this past week. He is doing great. He might grow up to have absolutely nothing wrong with him. When I asked her what she named him she said "Laith" it means little lion. He has been fighting for his life everyday so far, and he is a strong fighter. So I am making them a little lion baby quilt. I am not done with it yet, but here is what I have so far.

White minkee in the middle!! I have to add the borders yet, and piece the back with a special label. She is going to be super surprised. :D

I also quilted and bound my secret project I did last weekend, here is the sneak peak...

I also have my Kaleidoscope quilt almost all pieced together, I have 5 more seams left to do, but I have to press, and pin, pin, pin and pin some more before I can sew them. Soooo I will do them tomorrow. Glad to have that one off the design board.

Ely Mae, steals stuff out of my room all the time, today I caught her running around with a piece of lace, that had a ribbon in it, so..............

I tied it very loosely on her like a queen or something.


Good thing Jethro has a stub for a tail, otherwise I might have stitched it into my Kaleidoscope quilt.

See the fluff on the right, that is his stub, and he was trying to sit in the hole where I was sewing, I had to push him out.


Oh and CONNIE>>>>>>>>this one is for you. Connie made this flower for the flower quilt along, and I told her I had done the same one about 10 years ago, and she asked to see it, here it is.

Super Sewing Sunday 06-27-11

Wow, I did miles of sewing today. First thing I did, was fix that screw up on the lil twister.

 Then I found my lil goose that disappeared a month or so ago, so I finished that block from the BAP QAL.

Yesterday (Saturday)I cut out all my fabric for the Kaleidoscope QAL. What else am I suppose to do at 5am on my day off. During the week I can't get up at 8am with the alarm, so why is it when I can sleep in, I don't???
So now that all that fabric is cut and sometimes I am an impatient person, I started sewing my King size quilt top together, it is almost finished already. So much for the QAL part huh? The actual piecing part of the QAL isn't until the 30th of June.

This is my day.......... here are my stacked fabrics ready to roll..............

 The assembly line sewing together pairs of primary fabrics with alternates, and primary fabrics with backgrounds.

 All of them sewed together now, and pressed ( I think there is only one set in this picture)

This is what that set looks like laid out........

here are the pairs of the pink/red fabrics sewed together and awaiting the iron, again!

 All the primarys/background pieces lined up........onto the design board we go.....

 Tried to figure out how these would look the best, color wise, this is what I came up with........

 The table rearranged in order according to the design board so I don't screw it up. 25 different primary fabrics, don't want to get any of them out of order.

At this point I had the 4 corner blocks done, and the 16 partial blocks for the edges. Working on the 16 secondary blocks.  Can you see the mistake with this one????

 What about now????  I left it just like that too!!!

 Filling in the design board. This quilt will be HUGE when it is done, and my lil design board is only lap quilt size, so every thing is overlapping, a LOT!

 Almost there..............

 Had to take a 5 minute break and wind me up 10 more bobbins........ready to go now, at least for a little while.

 When piecing I flipped this piece over, and seen this wad of thread, What the heck,,,,,,,,how did this happen in the middle of the seam?? Oh well keep on stitchin...

 Last two blocks........the table is cleared.......whoo hoooooo!

 Full board of the secondary blocks ONLY!

 Now when most people make a kaleidoscope quilt this is what it looks like with 4 1/4 squares in the middle to fill it in............see the 4 pink points in the middle................well I am not like most people............

 This is what I am putting in the middle of mine!!! The squarish shape next to the black ones will have 4- 1/4 squares in them of the gray background fabric once I get those corners sewed to the blocks.

 Now I am finish piecing the 25 primary blocks and pinning them to the board..........did you know design boards only hold the first layer of fabric, I have like 4 layers now........HAHAHA. Plus my daughter has a psycho cat that likes to stand up and race like she is in the Nascar race on my design board, and make all the pieces fall off. If one stays on, she will jump up and hit the board till every block is on the floor. SOOOOO this quilt, is all pinned on the board, because of Ely Mae, the psychoo cat!!!!

 Neat little surprise with this block, didn't realize it was a directional fabric, looks kinda cool!

 Here are all the primary blocks in there place..............with all the secondary blocks behind them.

 Now all I have left to do is cut this stack in half, and then sew all 208 pieces onto the corners of the hexagons, to make them all square, then stitch all the pieces together.

Here is what the SQUARE block will look like once I get the corners sewn on, they aren't sewn in this picture. But that will have to wait till Monday afternoon, or Tuesday. Having outpatient surgery first thing Monday morning, in fact as I write this I have to be up and in the shower in 4 hours! so wish me luck, and hopefully I won't be too doped up to finish this top later today, since it is already Monday by now.

What did YOU do today???