Project Intuition Quilt Challenge

I have decided to do the challenge project with the 15 minutes of play blog. Here are my pictures so far. I think I added too many pictures all at once and the up loader is being a bit slow. While we are waiting, here is the story. As you know I have been cleaning off the top of my cutting table so I can actually use it if I want. I have been cutting larger pieces of scrap fabric from leftover quilts into squares ranging from one inch to 5 inches. (see last post) ooh, yea! pictures have loaded. The one below is of most of the leftover scraps and strings from a pile off the cutting table. You might recognize some of the fabrics from previous quilts. I used the bits and pieces to make these blocks to put up on the wall along with some 9 patch blocks from several, several years ago. I know, the picture isn't the best, but you can kind of see some pinwheels, logs and those 9 patches along with a house and some other things all put together from the scraps. After sewing some of the one inch strings into log cabins (see on the wall) I took what was left over and made the blocks in the next picture and kept putting them together and finished the day with what is on the arm of my sewing machine. Now, don't think that I have been doing all this in one day. No way! It has been a totally space out project. Matter of fact, I had all the blocks on the wall 4 or 5 days before Victoria made her challenge. After reading it, I decided that this is what I am going to do with all those blocks. So, then the below blocks came into being.

I have played off and on for the last two days making a little and leaving it on the wall or small table then coming back and making a little more. Just playing around with what I have in my pile. I put some of it together at lunch today and put it on the wall, moved items around and then just walked away.




I liked some of it like the log cabins down the side, but not all that white. I know that it is going to need some more white somewhere so the initial white of that pinwheel doesn't stand out so much, but not all together like I have it on the wall there. This evening I went back into my studio and looked at the wall and just took the blocks down and played some more. Another house, another 9 patch something else on point. That's the ticket. More and more and voila here is what I have on the wall when I finished tonight.


I kind of like this one. I am going to have to sleep and let this one simmer for awhile on the wall and see where we go from here. I may have to pull out more scraps from the large tub and see what needs to be added. Working on this reminded me of when I worked on another quilt - one of my favorites. It is made in this same vein. I will blog about it in the near future. For now, my brain has been pieced to numbness and I must go see what the boys have gotten into while I sewed away.

After Christmas Sewing

I have been sleeping alot this past week. Trying to get well and back to feeling much, much better. I think I am on the right track, but it is taking a bit of time. I tried to run errands and go to the grocery store today, but got so exhausted after one stop I just picked up some lunch and came home. I guess that I had totally worn down my body this fall semester and am in need of this rest. I only have little less than a week to get back up to speed, so I really need to settle in and work on that and on getting the laundry done. I really am about to run out of clean clothes.

So, when I have been awake, you saw one of the things I made one day while I was playing around with the scrap fabrics from my cutting table. (the Merry Christmas quilt from the last post) I have been trying to clear it off and get the scrap fabric cut into squares or strips so they can be easily used in scrap quilts. I go anywhere from 1 inch square (you know for those tiny quilts I sometimes get the urge to make) up to 5 inch charm squares. I won't let myself go any larger, yet. Now I need to find a place to put these little squares so they will be accessible and not get tumbled around in another scrap box. LIGHT BULB!!! I see two empty recipe/index boxes right here on my desk. What a great way to store these squares. I have several more at school that I have collected that students have left behind. They now will have a home in my quilting studio! What a great idea! Thank you light bulb.

Now, on to two other things I have worked on during the holiday. The place mats that still aren't finished. I just need to hand stitch the binding on two! that's all. Just two of the 4 place mats and they will be all finished.



The other thing that I just finished today and that was because I decided to go ahead and add the flower to the front and then I decided to hand embroider some extras to help it pop a bit more. (yes, it is hand appliqued. Thank you for asking)



it is a Kindle cover. I was going through Moda Bake Shop looking for a quilt that used two honey buns (because I finally found another Arcadia by Sanae for Moda honey bun - yea me only $12!!) Anyway, I was looking through and this is one of the patterns that came up that uses honey buns. Well, how fortunate. My sisters and I got my mother a kindle for Christmas. How much fun would it be to make her a cover? So, I got out my box of 1 1/2" strips - what? I am not using Arcadia for this! - and got to sewing. There are parts of this pattern that I liked and parts that I didn't. One of the things I had to do differently was that I had to draw out my own applique patterns. I tried to download them, but since it had been published so long ago, the site where they are housed wanted me to sign up and pay for membership. I didn't want to do that, so I wasn't going to add any applique. Then this morning I woke up and decide to play around with some card stock to see if I could draw the pieces to my liking. They are definitely not perfect, but that is what I like about them. the second thing is that the pattern calls for a 3/8 inch seam when sewing on the binding. I didn't take into consideration for the extra seam allowance when I turned the corners so my corners are not very good. Nowhere close to being near perfect. Matter of fact, I haven't had any perfectly mitered corners since Gerri's birthday quilt. (feeling great remembering those perfect corners!) Again, I am drifting off subject. Even with those two things, I like the pattern and am going to have to make at least one more. They go together really quick and if I knew more people that had Kindles I might could make some and sell them. Of course, I may have to make some severe changes to the pattern to be able to sell them. I will have to check and see. Wonder if my nephew would want/use one for his NOOK or think it was too girly? yea, you're right-probably too uncool and girly for a 17 year old. (I promise I wouldn't put the flower on the front of his!) We'll see....

Merry Christmas

Here's hoping everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year.

Christmas Cold (Flu that is)

I had such big plans for being off work for two weeks. Sewing, cleaning, quilting, reading. None of this (or at least very little of this) is happening. What is happening is a major head cold. I can't remember the last time it was this bad. Major, major sinus pressure, headache and chills. Which also comes free with fever, runny nose (when it isn't blocked) and sore throat! Yuk, yuk, yuk! And all right here at Christmas time. I crawled out of bed yesterday and went to the doctor. Got a shot and several meds to help me get through this bout of "flu". And before you can ask, I did have the flu shot(first time in 14 years), but I am sick anyway. Today is worse than yesterday. Sure am glad I went to the doctor yesterday.

I drank the last of my water yesterday and had to go refill all my bottles this morning. For those of you that don't know about Odessa water, you don't want to drink it straight from the tap. It really does not taste good at all. The majority of the residents in Odessa either have an RO system at their house or buy their water from the store and then re-fill their gallon jugs. I don't have an RO system at my house so I have gallon water bottles that I take to one of the windmill water stations around town and periodically fill them up. Unfortunately for me, I had been putting off filling my bottles until this week. Since I was already out and about, I stopped at Mickey D's and picked up some breakfast to bring home and enjoy. I sure didn't feel like cooking or even eating much, but it sounded good at the time. I ate a little bit and shared some with the big boys then ended up throwing about 1/3 of it in the trash. It's hard to eat when you have to breathe and eat through your mouth. I think I took a couple of naps sitting at the table trying to eat breakfast! It is crazy how tired I am. I could just doze off anywhere. Unfortunately, I am only getting a few minutes rest here and there. It's the breathing thing. doze, sneeze, sneeze! If I could just breathe I could sleep and let my body heal itself, but I can't breathe!!

I still have to quilt my tree from my previous post and am working on cleaning up the cutting table so I can spread it out and baste it for quilting. I need to finish the binding on two place mats - Note to self, next time to make the binding bigger so you can just turn it over and machine stitch it down and not have to do it by hand. I am headed into the quilt "studio" to see how much work I can get done today before I give it all up and decide to crawl back into bed for an hour or so nap. I watched "Despicable Me" on Monday so I think I will put in "Shrek" for todays entertainment. And, to go along with that and because I am tired of blog posts with no picture, here is a look I get all the time from Taegan:
oops, lost it, hold on, wait for it, wait for it . . . oh foo, I am going to have to go find it once again. back in a second. Okay, here it is:




If you can picture a gray shih tzu with these large black eyes looking up at you. That is what I see all the time. Just like this. (except with those changes I just mentioned)

Tree top done

here is the top for my le petite tree challenge. I need to lay it out and baste it. I plan on putting some beads on it to decorate it after it is all quilted. Stay tuned and for the final product, hopefully before Christmas.

I am currently working on some placemats. But for now, I need to take a nap so I can cheer on our Idalou Wildcats as they play in the state championship game for the first time ever!! Go Cats!!

Edit: OOPS! I forgot you could see the blocks behind the tree. That block is a cakestand block from our year-long-prepare-for-December-stir-fry-class with Debbie Caffrey. More posted later on that class/quilt

Just Talking - No Pictures

Just a quick blog here. I have been wanting to check in, but life was very, very busy last week. My culinary class along with the hospitality and fashion design classes hosted our Holiday Showcase to our friends and faculty. We made lots of food and goodies while our fashion design teacher decorated the restaurant. It was beautiful!! I just wish I had remembered to take my camera with me that day. Thank goodness my mother brought hers and took pictures. Unfortunately, I don't have copies of them to share, but I will as soon as I can.

Now that life has slowed a little bit, well as much as it can at this time of year, I have been able to sew. I finished the binding on "The 3 Crosses" quilt for a friend - see previous post - and added a label on the back. It is now ready to go. I have 2 secret santa parties Friday morning and I only have one gift made- note to self, take a picture of gift before you wrap it - and have absolutely no clue what to do about the other gift. I will have to find something tomorrow for sure. It's not that I am lazy and don't want to shop. I have looked. okay, only a little bit, but I have looked. I just don't know what to get her. Something will come up. I mean, it has to, right?

For the first party tomorrow morning, I have to make cinnamon rolls. I am making the fun and easy rolls that my sister shared the recipe for and I have improved upon where you put them in the oven over night and turn on the oven in the morning and voila! beautiful, perfect gooey cinnamon rolls. The only problem is that if I do them at school and leave them overnight it will be about 16 hours before they are cooked. That is not good. Way to long to proof in the pan. We will have huge cinnamon rolls and dough that has possibly jumped ship (pan). The solution? I will make them at home and take them to school with me and put them in the oven there. I just hope my oven is large enough to hold the huge pans overnight. (little bitty oven here) I may can cover them and put them on the counter top. I will have to find the recipe and see what my options are. I just know that I can't make them at 3 Thursday afternoon and expect perfect cinnamon rolls at 7 the next morning. Lots to do tomorrow and the dogs are barking - literally, along with the neighborhood dogs. I will share pictures, etc. in my next posting.

DONE!! well, almost

Just finished this quilt for a friend of mine that recently became an ordained minister. I didn't get to go to her Ordination ceremony since it was more than 12 hours away, but I have had this quilt in my head to make for her since she told me about the ceremony.

I have been seeing everyone else's cross block quilts and thought it would be fun to make one of those quilts and then this came up and . . . couldn't have been more perfect. I free motion quilted it using the pebbles quilting since I wanted the crosses to really stand out from the background even more than just the color jumping off the quilt. All I need to do now is finish stitching down the binding and the hanging sleeve and add a label. Then I can mark this one done. I think I have caught up with most of the quilts I have had in my head for a few months.

UGG!

Home sick from work yesterday and I got in a little bit of sewing between naps. I took some left over strips from my liberated quilt and cut them up and sewed them back together to create two large mug rugs. they are a bit on the large side - almost small pot holders really except they don't have any insulated batting in them. Maybe they should have. Anyway, I am going back in there to do some more sewing until I can't keep my eyes open any longer and must take another nap. I added a dark brown border around the Butter Churn quilt and I am liking it better. Now to decide on the final border on it and to get ready for Debbie Caffrey's Stir Fry class this weekend. Got to get well for that and our Hospitality Showcase this next week. I will post pictures later.