My friends quilt pics, and Super Sewing Sunday 07-10-11

Wow Sunday again. Ever think so much about what you are going to do for days, that when the day finally arrives for you to do what you thought about, that you are already too tired, and don't feel like doing any of it??? Well I haven't been in my sewing room for 10 looooooooooong days now. So I finally got to go there today, and blah...... didn't really want to do anything! I did finally get the mojo going, but first............! My best friends quilt!!! Now I don't know if I ever told you or not, but she is a Coke addict.........big time.

Ok so this was the front, till I started working on the back..............then this ended up being the back when I was all done. Sometimes it just works that way ya know!!!

Remember when doing non reversible appliques to trace it in mirror image.............it helps, trust me on this one!

 Okie dokie, fixed that screw up and here it is all cut out and ironed on.

 The only 2 fabrics I had to buy to make this entire reversible quilt.

 I was winging this one, one part at a time. After getting the center done, I added the checkered border, and then cut a crap load of 10inch squares out of about 25-30 different white on white fabrics. Then I had to figure out what to do to break up all that white. Well my best friend has a very bubbly personality, and Coke has bubbles too, so..........red bubbles it is. Got out my trusty GO! and went to town with the 30+ red fabrics left over from the front, err back of the quilt.

 all glued on, cuz I got a little GO! happy and forgot to put the adhesive on them before I cut them out, oops. Did I tell ya I was in a hurry and had a deadline too. I had had surgery Monday, this was all on Tuesday, and I had to quilt it on Wednesday because we were leaving first thing Thursday morning. Well I got it all done, quilted (first big quilt I ever quilted) and bound. Threw it in the washing machine with 2 color catchers at 2:30am Thursday morning, as soon as it was washed and I got it in the dryer I went to bed. Woke up a few hours later, and pulled it out of the dryer, and on the road we went.

My best friend was OVER THE MOON with excitement when I gave her this quilt. I knew she would be.

 Here it is hanging over a half wall, and Minnie is hanging out on it.

 This is where it is hanging in her house for now till she can find someplace where no one will touch it. I told her to put it on the sofa, and let people use it. Hmmm, we will see.

 Here is some of her Coke collection in the kitchen.

Here I had hubby hold it out more, to get a better pic of it. It is pretty big when I got it all done. Bound it with the little black and white checks I bought. I think it turned out pretty good.......and Amy, loves it too!!!


Oh yeah while in the Atlanta area went to a fabric shop, and they had this cute lil quilt hanging outside.......adorable!

Ok so what DID I do today you want to know............lets see.....first thing, I sewed this block for our guild, it is going to be a quilt for a lady that just came to our local Veterans Home, we make all the ladies one.

 Then I started on my HST's for the RRCB. I cheated....kinda of. I printed the lines out on my light fabric, so I could just sew 24 of them at once........so fast too!!!! Man I am glad I did it this way. By the way, freezer papers irons on at least 13 times....just sayin......

 This one above...the very last piece, I was so excited, I printed on the good side of the fabric...ooops. So I had to think about how it goes in and comes out, so I could print on the back side again, and hope the lines lined up....they did, about 1/8th inch off, it will be in the seam allowance. Whew!

 Can you see the 1/8th inch off part?

I layed them all out on the red fabric, right sides together, and cut out the red, a little bigger than actual size.

 I am not doing these scrappy, these will have all the same neutral, and all the same red too,.

 Here is the first way around the line.........flip it over to go the other way,

 and you get this...............now to the cutting table

 Ok all the lines up, down, back, and forth are all cut...........

 space them all apart..............and ta dah...........24 HST's in less than a minute!!!!!

 All pressed open, and chained pieced together in strips of 5.

Sewn on the RRCB block. 29 more to go. Oh, and as I sewed this one together, I realized, I only sewed 8 of the center part of these blocks together..........so I have 22 more of those to do too, 9 patches, corners are sewn and pressed, and so are the 2patch blocks. So not too bad. I am determined to finish this this weekend.

Then to give me a break from all this, I got out my Turquoise and white strips, and stitched all my whites with a turquoise strip, and then started the other side, and turned off the machine to come write this post. I will finish those tomorrow. I have to go back to work tomorrow :( so I had better get to bed, and soon....

Post surgery sewing

Well since my surgery this morning, with not being able to sleep due to the non-stop every 10 minutes I have to pee crisis. I managed to do a lot of sewing again today in between potty breaks. Somewhere during the daytime when I took a potty break, and stopped to be non-productive online, Jethro came down from the sewing room and plopped on my messy desk...........nothing like making yourself comfy!!!

 Well i can sing very loudly today, HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I finally finished ALL the string blocks, (only did the last 10 today) all 60, well actually 61, apparently I couldn't count the day I cut out the phone book pages to make these. Here they all are after I slice and diced them all in half too.

 Don't they look pretty?!?! (Never again)

 Here they are all lined up in my assembly line mode, to get sewn back together.

 It is hard to see in this pic, but I sewed this one on a day I was clearing out all the bobbins with little thread left on them. This one starts out pink, then navy blue, and the last one on the right is black thread. I had lots of blocks like that.

 Here the 2 halves are all sewn back together in pairs, waiting for the pairs to be sewn together............hadn't gotten that far yet, came downstairs for another potty break, at least they are only every 45-60 minutes apart now. I also grabbed a snack, and decided to blog my progress so far.

 This is what the blocks will look like when they have the last seams sewn in them. Maybe tomorrow..........

 Oh yeah, remember these......well half of them are sewn and cut out, this stack is about 7 inches or so tall.

 Here is the other half waiting to be sewn, maybe tomorrow as well, when I am done 100% with those dang string blocks. :D

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh today is the 27th of June already. tomorrows plans may have to change.........a lot. We are going to visit our best friends this weekend, so I only have 2 more sewing marathon days left in this week. So the PhD project ends on Thursday, I finally got the really dark navy blue thread I needed to quilt my snowman quilt, could get one more done off my list before the challenge ends.........since I spent the past 6 months making new quilts instead. Also my daughter just brought me my 5 page printout applique piece I needed for the back of the red/white quilt I made back in Feb?? was it?? Which I would like to finish this quilt so I can give it to my best friend this weekend, so I have 2 days to make the back, and quilt, and bind this quilt. Can I get'r done?!?!?!?!

Right now I am functioning on about an hour sleep last night, and 2 hours surgery induced sleep. I am still running pretty good, but I can feel it coming to an end soon. So I am going to go and see if I can get the back of that quilt started, or at least figure out HOW I am going to do this one. Hmmmmm the gears are churning. Oh and Lortabs, suck!! Don't know why I filled that prescription, when good ol over the counter ALEVE works 100% better and faster. I think Lortabs are just sugar pills..............Just MHO~! HAHA Jethro just jumped back into his comfy spot again........:D

Is it really June already?

Wait, didn't May just start? Wow time is flying by waaaay to fast, wish I knew how to slow it down. It has been 12 days since my last post, really? Let me try and think, what have I been doing for the past 12 days?

I have sewn a few more blocks for the raven stars quilt I am making.

 I have been stringy along like crazy....

don't like string blocks at all! I make myself do some of those almost daily before I begin something else I might want to do, or on days when I ask myself, what am I going to work on today? and I don't quite have an answer, I string. I want them done more than anything else I have going on, because I hate doing string blocks with a passion! These are for the RRCB, when I get these done, I need 600 HST, don't remember how many of those I have done, not too many that is for sure. I have found a few ways I am going to try to do them up quickly, will see which way I like the most, and then give everyone my feedback on those different ways of doing them. Then when I get this whole quilt top finished, I might do one out of all HST!!!

Remember the bright beauties? Well this is what they look like now.

50 of those along with 49 white 5 inch squares, and a small border. Looks really cool, except it is little!!! Very disappointed in how much this technique shrinks. Plus it hurts my hand something awful to cute around the Twister template too. It is a thick template, plus there is little rubber feet to help it from sliding, and holds it above the crisscrossing seams, but it is so thick that you can't cut the left side (right-handed) pushing away, it is too thick to let the blade go up against it, you have to come from the top down, or go all the way around..........well I couldn't walk around that table, I could go on two sides, but man it tweaked my hand something awful. So since this isn't even big enough for a crib size....I am going to make 3 more of these (torture) and hook the 4 together to make a lap quilt. I already have the bright beauties cut for 2 more sets, so I need to cut 50 more of those and then 150-  5 inch white squares, good thing I bought an entire bolt of  that nice white fabric some years ago when I seen it on clearance someplace, nice and thick (not that see thru crap) and I think I only paid $1.00 a yard for it too!!!

I have 1/4 of my Christmas table runner quilted......

.it is on my PhD list, and that list needs to be cleared by the end of June!!! Whoa.......I had 6 months to do this short list, and now I only have 28 days left!!! My O' My! I will finish my 3, I will finish my 3, I will I tell ya, I will!!! I also have Turtle Bay pinned and ready to roll it out next,

Then the Black white & Red one is sitting and waiting to be pinned as well, along with the Monochromatic yellow one

even though that one wasn't on my PhD list, it isn't going to go on a list except the start to finished in 2011 list!!

Other things I have in the works....still need to make a back for the Red & White one.

.....still need to make a back for my Layer Cake Quilt Along one, I had a piece of fabric I was going to use, but now that the top is done, I don't like that piece of fabric for the back anymore..........has that ever happened to you before????

......I know there is still at least 2 BAP blocks I haven't finished, but I did buy the center fabric, and got 3 of the 6 GO! dies I need to finish the center,

so until I get the other 3 (birthday coming up in August) I am in no hurry to finish the other two blocks, what is the point if you can't finish the whole top, right???

Oh and then there is this little bucket I started cutting out 2 inch diamonds, purple and white ones for a scrappy quilt ......more to come on that one later.

 Want to take any wild guess what I might be making with all these, I am sure I will need more, lots more. These were but from one strip of each of the purple fat quarters I have, and all the white ones came from my scrap bin only!

I have another idea in my head for the other nine scrap bins for a really cool scrappy quilt I don't see many of, but I need a lot of white to go with it, and since I don't have much of that left (don't want to use that thicker stuff), I just need to buy a bolt....looking for a coupon and a good sale first though, no hurry since it isn't started.
Then I have this pile calling my name........

I had flipped it, don't know why it flipped back, sorry......but I haven't found "THE" pattern yet to use this wonderful pile of fabrics, got any suggestions, send me a pic via email, or post me a link to a picture, that is all I need to make a flimsy, a photo and I am good to go. Turquoise and chocolate!
My computer is still broke, hubby says it is in a thousand pieces out in the travel trailer........safest place to work on it, so all the pieces will still be there to put it back together. no cats, and no dogs out there :D  Just got his computer back up and running yesterday, finally, and this one I am using at this time had to be rebuilt too.  Looked at buying a new one, an IMac, but didn't want to spend the $2000-$3000 on a new computer right now, too many other things needing to be done. Garage doors, A/C fixed in my truck for starters! Breaking heat records again this year already, and I don't do heat well at all, so I am making an appointment to get the A/C in the truck fixed ASAP, and the garage door guy is looking for a place that stocks 1/2 doors ( only 4 feet wide ones)

Wow this post got long, I need to stop by more often and fill you all in, but I think without having my own computer is what is messing everything up, especially when I didn't have "A" computer at all for a little while, and this one only has one shift key that works when it wants too, drives me bonkers. Well I started this post at 3am and  it is now 5am, I am going to attempt going back to sleep now that my leg quit cramping and flexing all over the place, maybe I will be able to get some sleep before that alarm goes off in 3 hours. Wish me luck, I might need it.

Oh and I just remembered, sit n stitch is tonight too. Took about 10 minutes just now to locate my tin with my project in it..........my purple project from back in February when my husband was in the hospital.

Finally got the other notion I needed to finish that project, so I am going to shoot to finish half of what I have left tonight.