Super sewing sunday 09-11-11

Had a wonderful week of sewing and getting things done. First off I took these two piles,

and stitched them all together to make these........

I have 2 more piles to go, then I can sew them together to make a top.

Then I did a few of these.......

Oh I am getting soooooooooooo close to being able to sew this top together. Can't wait to get this one off the table. :D

Then I pulled some blocks off the design board and started sewing the pieces together to make the blocks. I no sooner put the 2 piles on the table, and Jethro came out of no where and took his spot. These stitch up very quickly. Hoping to have the whole top done by the end of the week. I did 2 sections out of 5.

 Then I grabbed my Block A Palooza blocks and stitched them together awaiting me to finished stitching down the flower garden center so I can attach these around the flower garden part. 6 more blocks are hanging off the table that you cant see.

I also quilted half of my snowman quilt, forgot to take a photo. Trying to figure out what to quilt in the rest of the areas.  I also reswed a binding back onto a blanket ( it isn't a quilt) that came undone two years ago. So now that is off the bench.....I almost cleared the bench off. Almost. I have just been cruising right along with all my projects this week. Gotta keep it all mixed up though so I don't get bored and burnt out on one project. Since a lot of them are all at the almost done stage, I should have a very exciting week coming soon when they all hit the top is finished stage!!!

I also found me a black and decker stowaway iron at the goodwill for $2.99 yesterday. Works great too!!! Now I can throw those other two pieces of junk in the trash.

Well I had 5 more hours I could have spent sewing today, but since the humidity was coming back last night, and hubby felt like a furnance, and the dogs wanted to bark non stop all night long, I didn't get much sleep so I am going to watch TV and be ready for bed really soon. I also start working at a different building tomorrow from where I had been the past 5.5 years. I am really looking forward to it for now, I needed a change in pace. Plus I have a few really good coworkers down there too.

Super Sewing Sunday 09-04-11

Well it is Labor day weekend so that means I also have tomorrow off of work, YIPPEEEEE! Not sure what we will be doing tomorrow, but it has been raining her non stop for the past 36 hours due to whatshisname tropical storm.
Do you want to see what I have accomplished since last week? Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't be here right! Oh I am so proud of myself.

First off check out this lovely piece of fabric I picked up yesterday to make me a new nightie. It is black with silver and turquoise butterflies all over it, and it even has little silver shiny things all over it too. It is a slinky satin type of fabric so soft and flowing. Going to use my favorite nightie for the pattern, it is starting to get ragged, and I have fixed it more times than I can count.

Ok I was working on the Garden Fence QAL, this is all that is leftover from 33 fat quarters.

I finished the last 2 stacks, the last 36 blocks. Now onto the design wall we go..........I have all the centers pinned on the board. The straight ones there are 3 each, and the on point ones there are 6 each. Except the top left there is only 1. Now to get the side pieces arranged so I can match them all up.

Here they all are.....

Now lets start pinning and matching, 100 blocks, with no duplicate matches. I know I can do it. Even though there are 19 polka dot middles. Whew, all done, now I will have to have a chain piecing marathon to put them all together.

But right now something else is calling my name. Sunkissed that I used for the Black A Palooza QAL.

I counted up my blocks, seen that I still needed to sew 2 more blocks, so I had to go through and find out which 2 I was still missing. Found them and got them pieced, finally!

So now that those are done, I can move onto the center part..........the flower garden. I haven't been able to do this because I needed some more of the GO! dies. Well I have all of them now, gotta love Mother's Day, & Birthdays too! Also finally found a silver permanent marker so I could mark the dies, and see where I was going to be cutting.

And now away we GO!..........What is that I hear, I hear snoring........what?? Look what I found under the cutting table!

on top of the cutting table are these two............surprise?! NOPE! They are always there, somewhere!

Oh on the otherside of the room is Riley...

Had to go look for Ressie, she wasn't at the top of the stairs where she normally is. Seems they pulled all the blankets out of the box my daughter had stashed up there, they are not stupid that is for sure!!! Reesie made herself COMFY too.

Oh yeah.............and away we GO!..............got so busy making this, I forgot to take pics as I went along, so here is the center of the BAP quilt, my Sunkissed Flower Garden.

It will measure 24X48 when it is in the center of the quilt. Big smile on my face, it is done. Well I still have to stitch it all down. and boy what a mess I made too. I guess I will clean this up next time I go up in my room.

It was nice listening to the rain all day long today while getting all this done. I am pooped today, and ready for bed. I have a lot to do this week, so I hope I have more mojo than I had this past week, because I just couldn't get with it, till today.

Happy Birthday to meeeeee!!!

 
Oh yeah, it is my birthday, but they aren't all that big of a deal around here most of the time. Got up and went to work as usual. Well actually didn't get to sleep till about 1am, and I was back up again at 5am.......I went and sewed till after 8am, then I got ready and went to work.  As soon as I got to work the power went out, and stayed out for more than 2 hours. We had flashlights trying to find peoples mail.  The girls I work with brought in a veggie tray, and fruit tray, chip, salsa, bean dip and a cake too.  Took me 20 minutes before I even noticed it sitting there. Opened up the veggies and fruit since it was really dark and told everyone to come try the surprise buffet, it was a surprise because when you reached out and grabbed a piece of food to eat it, you didn't know if you were eating a grape, or a grape tomato!!!!   I didn't even get to eat any cake till 4:30pm we got so busy later in the day.  When I went home for lunch dear hubby and I went to the Pizza Hut buffet for lunch since he is working swing shift still. Then when I got home from work the oldest daughters boyfriend took us all out to dinner. Went and got mexican, and have enough leftover for dear hubby and me for lunch tomorrow too!!!! All in all it has been a great day, now I am going to do more sewing. Almost done with my Rockin Row Robin top, deadline is Monday, so I am trying to get it finished today or tomorrow.

Yesterday I had a Manic Madness Monday sewing session. First off let me tell ya something else. You know those sci fi movies where machines come to life and have a mind of their own??? Well for years I have said that is how my sewing machines are.....when I am too tired to be sewing and to stubborn to go to bed, my machines will purposely do thread lockups so I quit and go to bed, only to come back the next day and do nothing but turn on the machine and push the foot peddle and it works perfectly, even though you never fixed the problem. Well Sunday was one of those nights........both machines did that too me. I guess they were tired after an 11 hour sewing marathon. But yesterday, turned it on, and pushed the peddle and it purred! Sweeettttt!!! So, I had a Manic Madness Monday sewing session!!!  

I finished ALL the rest of the HST's!! They are all sewed into 4 rows of 5, waiting to be attached to the 29 blocks, so I can assemble RRCB!! Yippeeeee, it is almost finished.  Then I finished 2 rows on the Rockin Row Robin too. Started doing hexies.......not the little itty bitty hand stitched ones, bigger 6 inch pieced ones all done by machine. I need them for my RRR, and the Hexalong too!

I would post pics of all this, but the camera is on the 3rd floor in my sewing room. So I will have to post all the pics either tomorrow, or Sunday when I do my weekly update post as usual.

Alright my daughter told me she got me some solid brown for my Garden Fence QAL, so I need to go check out my prezzy, not sure if I want it brown or white. She bought all they had, and left it on the bolt, in case it isn't right, and I want to exchange it. Cool!!! I know the other daughter bought me GO! dies, the other flowers, so I can finish my BAP quilt, that is waiting on the flower garden I am adding to it. Well off to my other world, stayed tuned for more pics!

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???

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.