easy street part 3 and the tree............yeah, the tree

Well part 3 for Bonnie's mystery is out. She wasn't kidding when she said this year would be EASY. Each step takes between 1 hour and 1.5 hours to finish. This could easily become a weekend quilt from start to finish. Here are mine:

 So in between clues I have been working on Orca Bay as well trying to finish that one too. I have all the Ohio Stars chin stitched together, and half of them finished, the other half waits those two pins, and stitch, two pins on the other sides, stitch, and press. Chain style fashion of course. Here is the mess pile of them waiting for me.

 See they are calling out my name. All those other blue and neutral squares they are sitting on top of are those HST's that I still don't know why I cut them or what I need them for. But I am stitching them all up too. I will figure it out, someday and be ahead of the game.

Here is the container I am throwing them in after stitching and cutting them apart. There are a LOT of them in here!

Last weekend I started putting up the cat tree Christmas tree. I knew I had problems when I only had half the bottom layer on. What do you think? Problems in the happening?!?!?!

 Yes he is sitting on TOP of the branch above. Now he jumped off only to attack the next branch. Oh boy.

This is their first time seeing one of these cool Cat trees Christmas trees. Took Merlin no time at all to get from playing with a branch while laying on the floor to the top of the tree trunk.

I did finally get the tree all put together along with the lights on it, went out to the garage and dug out the tubs of ornaments, came inside and 6 of the branches from the top of the tree were MISSING! WTH! Found a few lower in the tree, a few others feet away from the tree. OK, regroup, I am NOT putting all my good glass ornaments on this tree this year, (black streak goes across the room, who was that? Rustle, Rustle, Rustle...........glance towards the tree, Merlin is looking at me from the top of inside the tree, before I can even tell him to get out, there goes that mysterious black streak out of the room, just as fast as it came in). So a week later and there still isn't any ornaments on the poor tree. I will be digging out the other containers, that have ornaments in them with things that aren't breakable. So it will be interesting to see what the tree looks like when we get it finished, hopefully before Christmas gets here too. More interesting is what the tree will look like the first day I come home from work after it is all decorated. Stay tuned for that update.

The first day of May...

the other day as I turned the corner at the top of the stairs to take something up to my sewing room, this is what I seen laying in the hallway, turned around and got the camera quickly.  Delilah hanging out in the sunshine in the hallway.

Within a minute, here was Merlin plopped down in his own square.

 They are so funny, and get into all kinds of things no other cat we have owned has done.


My boss was suppose to be gone for a whole nother week, but came back today. Yippee, no more 70+ hour weeks for me, but man my bank account was lovin it! So I only worked 7 hours today, left at lunchtime.

The first of May also brings other things.......May for Me starts today.

What am I working on (since I got to go home 6 hours early from work.) I am finishing up my towels for my towel swap so I can mail them in the next day or so. Here is all 12 of them, all a little different than the others. I even dyed the toweling they are made from too. I bought a whole bolt of white toweling because I couldn't find any yellow towels in town.

I also am working on my Christmas string blocks, we are swapping next week, Tuesday I think. Oh my. I was half done at 10, needing 20 then the email came, we need 21. Someone that signed up and was making them somehow got lost in the shuffle. Strings are cut so are the backgrounds, just have to sew them up. Too many in a short time now. Urgh.

BUT, once the towels are mailed and this swap is swapped. NO MORE DEADLINES! Sweeeettttt!

Well almost none.

 My youngest daughter is getting married, probably next month, before they call her to ship out for the military, so I do have that to contend to. Between the two of us, we should be able to pull this whole thing off CHEAP. We know everyone that we need to know to make this happen cheaply. She works at a restaurant in town that does catering to everyone. So she will go through them, they make anything you want, she should be able to get a good price too.  A guy I work with, (for the past 18 years, he is like a little brother) has a beach wedding business. His wife said she will do the wedding at her cost to us. SWEEETT!!!  Also they don't do receptions anymore, but have TONS of stuff for them, she is going to loan me whatever I need for FREE! My daughter scored a gorgeous white prom dress for $300 the other day, the weekend AFTER prom. They found previous owned wedding bands online for 1/10th of the original cost. From someone else's wedding plans that didn't work out. No photos yet, but I am sure I will have tons next month. Promise!  I don't ever promise anything to anyone either.

I am doing the Ugly Brown Bag fabric swap. Got my name and address of who to send to this week, I already have the fabric picked out, and it will be mailed in the next day or so along with all the towels too. These are the UGLY fabrics I am sending out, when I get mine in the mail, I will show them to you too.

I think I am also signed up for a charm swap too, will have to search thru the email box on that one, can't quite remember. These past 18 days are just a blur. Have done almost zero sewing in that amount of time up until today.

Now it is May for Me. Oh yeah, the BINGO game started today too. Nothing on my BINGO card yet, but I will check every morning before going to work.

I normally blog in the office or the living room while dear hubby is watching something on TV that is OK. But today I actually took the laptop to the third floor sewing studio because I wanted to make sure I had all the pictures I needed for the blog without having to walk all the stairs today, because it is killing my knee to climb. While I was getting ready to be done, I turned around and seen Merlin, like this:

 Crashed out! It is hard to take pictures of them, especially when there is a window behind them. They look like a block blob.

I went to this yard sale the other day, she had tubs and tubs of fabric she was getting rid of, get this for only fifty CENTS a YARD. yessireeeeee.  This is what I grabbed. I am was in dire need of some neutrals. They are white on white, or some with silver glitter ( which I have some, but not enough to do anything with) also with gold glitter (ditto on the silver) I snagged them all, a few blues, two reds and a purple. The dark brown is micro suede, about 5 or 6 yards of it. She said there was 62 yards in all. I quickly and happily paid her $31.00 and walked quickly back to the truck. I knew when I was digging it smelled funny, it wasn't till after work and I got in my truck, YUK, smoker! I walked in the back door and threw half of it in the washer with some vinegar, when that went into the dryer, the other half went into the washer, more vinegar, I had to do 2.5 loads to get it all washed. I only half dried it, and hung it on the line on the front porch to finish it off drying. It smells fantastic now. Even though it stunk if I could remember where it was, I would go see if she had any more leftover. At .50 a yard, you can't beat it. That leopard print on top is slinky fabric, I seen it at JoAnn's a week or so ago for 8-10 a yard, there is at least 2 yards of it.

 I bought this from someone else that wasn't a smoker, paid more money for it, but that is ok. I needed neutrals and they were cheaper than my coupon for JoAnn's. Grabbed the two green ones just because I don't have much green.

Don't forget to come back on the 5th, I will be giving away the traveling stash box, so I can mail that off too. Almost forgot about that been so busy.

Last but not least, I have been working on the rental house a little bit on Sundays trying to get it closer to being able to have it finished and sold too. Dear Hubby's jobs in Utah got posted last Thursday, they come down tonight at midnight. He is applying, and if they want him to report too quickly he will have to turn it down, and hope they post more later on. I still haven't heard anything from out that way of anyone wanting to swap to Florida. I might have to just transfer, and lose all my seniority. We will have to wait and see on all of that for now.

The sewing is getting ready to begin........

As I entered my sewing room today this is what I found..........

 Merlin and Delilah all crashed out on my Orca Bay mess table. I haven't touched that table since November!

 Here they are looking at me after the first flash went off. Then they went right back to sleep.
I didn't actually do any "sewing" yet today, I have been too busy playing with this new fabric I found last weekend. Check this out............

 It has cats in the sewing room!!!! With a light turquoise blue background. Had to have it!  Here is a close up of them getting into trouble. I even see Merlin on there too.

 At our guild's quilt show last month one of our guild members received a blue ribbon for her "One block Wonder" quilt she made. So now we are all making one. It is kinda like the stack n whack process from the 90's just using different shapes. I have one of those started too, another UFO. But this is what I was doing with the cats in the sewing room. First off this fabric has a 12 inch repeat, 24 inch is better. But I will make it work. After I cut the fabric up into 6 matching strips I laid them all out on the table, and 2 sets of strips were almost identical, about a 1/2 inch off, see......

 But that is ok, because I am cutting 60° triangles, I just took one set of strips and flipped them right side down on top of the other set and I will cut them at the same time.........

 Because then I have one with the triangle pointing up, and the other the triangle points down, giving you two different triangles of the same spot on the fabric. This way I won't end up with any duplicate blocks, I hope. I forgot to check if the triangles duplicated along the strip as I cut them out too. Will have to go check that out.

 Now I took that top set of triangles and this is what you get depending on what corner you put in the middle.........1.

 2.

or 3. These were all the same triangles turned differently.

 Then the other one that pointed downward gives these 3 looks...........
1.

2.

 and 3.

 When I decided which way I liked it, I stacked them all the same and put a pin in the corner I want in the middle. I do know you have to be very, very, very, organized when doing one of these quilts to make it all work out.

I have 8 strip sets, and I get 24 sets of triangles per strip set, so that gives me 192 blocks I have to cut, match, decide, and pin. Then I get to start playing on the wall, then I get to start sewing too. I don't know if this fabric will give the WOW factor that others get sometimes, but even if it doesn't, that is OK. I still think this fabric is great.

This past week, I went and checked the mail, and these was this parcel in the mailbox. I looked at and it had my name on it. I didn't order anything, and I surely didn't order anything from the UK. What could it be????? I opened it up and there was this amazingly adorable picture made out of fabric scraps.

 Angel from The Adventures of Angelcat made it for me! For little ol' me! I had commented on her blog back in January, and she had said if you give her your address she would make you something, what the heck. Forgot all about it. I was the first one she picked. I live in a big yellowish colored house now, and I am wanting to move to the mountains of Utah, so this is actually perfect. It merges everything into one. Thanks again Angela!!!! She even has two black and white kitties that look a lot like Merlin and Delilah too!


Well back to the sewing room, the kitties are still waiting. Talking about Merlin and Delilah. Also I need to check it the blocks doubled lengthwise while I am thinking about it, so I can make sure I pin them differently.

my first finishes for March

I got permission to post away my first finish for March.

I just laid it on top of the kitties, ( and the turquoise and chocolate one too)and then rolled them out from under it and on top of it. hehehe. It is lap size, I washed it and dried it already today too!

 Delilah getting ready to pounce the camera. You can kinda see the quilting in this next one,  it is in a variegated thread with music notes all over it, because that is what is in the borders, music notes. Hence the name I gave this quilt, Stained Glass Musical.

Oh yeah, I also made 5 hot pads today. They only been sitting on my table for about a year now. I have 5 more, I am going to try and get done with in the next week too.

I am linking up my finishes over @ Elizabeth's @ Sew and Sew 
did you finish something this month? You can link it up to!

Found the sewing room today.

Finally made it to the sewing room, found Merlin too. He was crashed out on the quilt top that was on the ironing board waiting to be ironed. He is sooo smart! By the time I went and got the camera that I found earlier today, and started back up the 2 flights of stairs, he was already at the bottom following me. Here is a pic of the top I did finish putting the blocks together in February. I still need to put a small border of brown on it, to finish the edges, then it will go in the waiting-to-be-quilted pile.

It is nice and big for the king size bed too. Hangs down almost to the bottom of the side rails. I am tired of too little quilts on the bed. Then I went back upstairs to bind a quilt that has been at the quilters forever, forgot it was even there! When I came back down to take photos of that one, look what I saw... Little Ms Delilah all stretched out taking a nap! With her bare belly showing and everything.

It wasn't long and Merlin came to join her, as always.........

I should have laid down right then and took a nap with them. I feel like I needed it now.

I will show you the other quilt in a day or so, I want to get permission from the pattern designer first.

I spent a lot of time cleaning and trying to get this house back in order. With all the computer problems ( they are not over either, even with the new one urgh!) and acquiring two new to us desks for the office, it looked like a tornado went thru this place. Paperwork and books everywhere!!!! Guess that is what happens when everything comes out of your office at once. I have half the dining room table cleaned off, and some of the chairs. You can see the floor again, and the filing cabinet is getting full. Almost burnt up the shredder so I started putting it all in a box, and I take it to work on Saturday and use the big industrial one there instead now.