work gift

At the new office I work in there are 5 other women besides myself. So, I figured a table runner would be a great gift for the dirty santa exchange.

I added a candle and candle holder.

patterns...

You ever get a pattern that is totally goofed up? This a really cool quilt but the pattern is hopeless. The first one turned out really pretty but I thought it was too narrow and a bit too long. It has two blocks, a corner block and a straight block. The corner block had a whole bunch of unnecessary pieces so I redrafted it. Then they wanted you to make a jillion strip sets for the straight block, cut it into blocks and then sew it back together. I skipped the cutting it into blocks and sewing back together part. For the second one I redrafted the corner block again to make it larger but keep even cutting measurments and I refigured the size of the whole thing so it'll come out wider and a little shorter. By the time I get done fixing theirs I could have just done my own pattern!

The next quilt made from this pattern is going to be blue, gray, lime green and black. I know, it doesn't sound all that pretty but the fabrics are just gorgeous together and they go with the recipient's room perfectly.

fabric folding...

Is almost as good as actually sewing. I have a cupboard that most of my stash goes in. It was a huge jumbled up mess after moving and I'm just now getting around to organizing it. I'm refolding most of the fabrics so they fit in the shelves better. I still have the bottom two stacks to take out and refold. I'm trying to refold it so it doesn't take up as much space height wise so I can get more in it.

After I get the cupboard done I'll start on the fat quarter dresser. I got a bigger dresser for fqs and when I moved the fabric over I just stuck it in the drawers so it needs resorted by color.

I'm hoping to work on the Posh quilt later today. I have the blocks with the pink squares sewn into halves. I just need to sew the halves together and it'll be ready to lay out and set together.

back to work day

I went back to work today. I was only there 3 hours. We have tomorrow off and then go in at 10 on wednesday. It'll probably be 10 to 6 the rest of this week. We start doing the advance loans on the 19th.

baby quilt

I finished a baby quilt for a great niece. The colors refuse to show true though. The blues are actually lavender and the background is lighter than it shows.

baby quilt in progress

I'm kind of leaning towards the peach for the border and binding. I think the yellow seems too bright and the lavender blends in too much.

Loblolly

This area has gotten over 4 inches of rain over the last three days. Which really isn't all that much but there's only about 8 to 12 inches of clay over calichee. Right now my car is stuck just off the road. We had hubby's truck stuck and the neighbor came down and pulled him onto the road. We'll get my car out tomorrow or the next day after the rain soaks in a bit and the ground firms up a bit.

A load of gravel has suddenly leaped to the top of the "must have" list. Hopefully it'll dry out at least until we can get it.

the continuing M. Problem story

Madam Problem has officially quit the guild. She didn't pay her membership and didn't attend the retreat. She did post to an email group we're both on about how she'd gotten emails and a phone call about how she was missed at the retreat. Yeah, right. Nobody was happy with the project kits she got. She spent a little over 900 bucks and the kits were short on background and backing fabrics. There were only three or four people that even said they were going to do the project. Most of the rest said it was too complicated. I know she knows the skill levels of most of the guild members and I think she picked the pattern just out of spite.

The email group we're both on is planning a retreat and Madam Problem was trying to get them to have it in March since she thinks I would be less likely to be able to attend since I do taxes. She couldn't get anybody else to go along with her since there is at least one other lady in the group that does taxes and the place they have the retreat isn't open to the public until after March 31st. I guess that means she'll just have to put up with me.

She quit talking to me after I emailed her and told her all guild purchases have to be on a receipt by themselves. She's furious she can't bill the shipping for her purchases to the guild. Too bad, so sad.

To be honest, I don't really want to even be associated with someone that thinks the rules don't apply to them. The guild is not there to enhance her budget or to boost her ego. Several of the original guild members are sick of M. Problem's "it's all about me" attitude and don't wish to see her back unless there's a drastic change.

Progress

Progress has been slow but fairly steady. The sewing room is mostly unwrecked now. I can actually sew in here. I bought 3 of the plastic storage drawer carts and put them and the little brown dresser in the closet. I bought another dresser for the fat quarters and it's way bigger than the little brown one so there's tons more room for fat quarters.

I went to a retreat over last weekend and got caught up on the Butterfly Kisses and Decadent Victorian block of the month. I need border fabric and instructions for the Butterfly Kissses and I can put them both together.

I'm still behind on the wall hanging of the month though and several other things. I'll just have to stay behind for another couple of weeks though since the inlaws will be here sunday.

settling in

We got to actually move to the house the 8th. The a/c was the final thing that had to be done and he finally got it done that afternoon.

Since then it's been one giant puzzle. Remember those slider puzzles we had as kids? The ones where you had to slide several squares half a dozen directions to get one square where you wanted and then you had to slide that square plus all the rest to get the next one in place? Like that only worse. Thank heaven for self storage units!! We gave up and took a lot of non essential stuff and put it in storage for now.

We need to do some more shuffling on monday when son 1 will be here. There was a fairly large cupboard next to where the fridge goes but with my fridge the cupboard would stick out from the corner into the hall 2 to 3 inches so we decided to take it out and put it in storage. I really wanted my upright freezer here in the house too. Well, that's not going to work. We have to put the freezer in storage and bring the cupboard back so there's room just to get everything put away in the kitchen. We also need to move the hutch. It has to sit in the living room and it's on the wrong side of the living room right now.

And the sewing room isn't as big as my last one. I must have measured wrong. It's actually smaller and it's shaped different. Good thing there's a really big closet in the master that can be used for storage! I may get this room unwrecked in another month!! It's the worst puzzle of all. There is a huge stack of boxes in front of the credenza* and half the stuff in the boxes goes in the credenza. I am going to go thru this stuff and be more selective about what gets put away and what gets tossed or freecycled. I don't think anyone actually needs all this stuff!!

*short for "big ass piece of really heavy ancient motel furniture."

trapped in a motel

The whole move has been one giant cluster f***. They set the house on the lot last monday. I finally got electricity yesterday. I STILL don't have water. The town was out of meters!! How the hell do you not have at least one damn water meter????

the flames!

Aren't they cool???

throw stuff in a box

I'm in the throw stuff in a box phase of the move. Middle granddaughter helped yesterday and oldest and middle granddaughters are going to help the next two days. We knocked out the entertainment center, hutch, cookbook shelf and the tins off the top of the cupboard yesterday. I'm hoping we can knock out the whole kitchen today and tomorrow. I'll go buy paper plates and plastic cups and silverware to use for the next couple of weeks. Since hubby isn't here I'm not cooking right now anyway.

I doubt if I get much sewing time at all over the next few weeks. I'm going to leave the machine until last to pack though. It'll go in the rolling tote and be put in the car anyway so there's no reason it has to be packed right away.

A girl and her car

My oldest granddaughter turned 16 the 7th. She got a car from her uncle. She's so pleased with it. Today was the first time she's driven to my house all by herself. So naturally I had to have a pic to commemorate the occasion.

Sail Away

I finally got the July wall hanging done. I am just not that crazy about red, white and blue. That probably has a lot to do with why it took longer to get this one done. I even had to buy fabrics for this one!

flames! flames! I get flames!

On my car that is. I'm so excited. I have a PT Cruiser and I have always thought it would look cool with flames. So yesterday we went to some friend's for the 4th and I asked him who did the flame paint job on his pickup and he said he did. One of the things he is most fond of in the whole world is my carrot cake. So I asked how many carrot cakes it would take to get flames on my car. He said five. We agreed to one carrot cake a month for five months and I'll get an overlay of pearl flames on my car. They'll start out white and go to orange. It'll be weekend after next when he paints it. I'll even post a pic!

A spot to land!

We found a lot we can buy. They're nice big one acre lots. We'll go pick which one we want next week. They have city water and electricity but a septic system. We can live with that.

Now to get started packing and get moved as soon as they get the house set up.

My new sewing room is bigger than the one I have now so I know it'll all fit, it's just a matter of arrangement. The closet is smaller though. There's an extra closet in the master bedroom that can take the overflow.

landing a house

I feel like Dorothy. I have a house, I'm just waiting for a place to land it. LOL The deal with the house and the lot fell thru so we found another house that we qualify for the loan and we'll rent a lot... somewhere.

I expect to be on the road three more days this week. Monday was the trip to find the house and then thursday, friday and saturday will likely be spent setting up the money situation. I'm hoping I can get away with just thursday and friday on the road but with the way things have been going it probably won't work out that way.

This part of the year I call insomnia season so I haven't gotten a whole lot quilt wise done. Well, between the insomnia and running back and forth to Oklahoma.

a cool giveaway contest!

http://cvquiltworks.blogspot.com/2008/06/bag-cat-and-giveaway.html is having a contest to give away quilting! She'll quilt a quilt up to twin size if you guess the right colorway she's using.

go, go, go

I've been gone quite a few days over the past week or so. We went to Guymon Oklahoma last week so my hubby could do his physical for a new job and so we could house hunt. That was thursday and friday. Then saturday and sunday we ran over to Lamar Colorado to my family reunion. Hubby started orientation at his new job monday so I've had the house to myself for a day so far.

We didn't find anything at all to rent. Not even something that would do in a pinch until something better opened up! We zagged and filled out an application for a loan on a mobile home! At least it would be clean and new and we would own the lot too.

Today I'm going to get some work done on two of the quilt projects in progress. I picked up three more of the Butterfly Kisses BOM saturday so I'll cut those pieces and cut the Decadent Victorian pieces too and maybe I can get the blocks made tomorrow.

Last wednesday I made two pillow tops for the family reunion craft sale. I forgot to take pics though!! We have the craft sale to raise funds to rent the shelter and provide the meat for the next year. The pillow tops raised $20 each.

Quiltovers

I'm not calling them scraps anymore. From now on it's quiltovers. Scraps doesn't make them sound nearly as useful as quiltovers.

That said, I cleaned out the scrap bin. It had a bunch of cheap fabric strings in the bottom and then better quality quiltovers on top. I sorted it out and all of the cheap stuff went in the trash. There was actually less than I thought of the cheap fabrics. Then I took all of the quiltovers out of the fat quarter dresser and put them in the quiltover bin.

It would have done some good but I have gotten a whole lot of new fabric recently so the fat quarter drawer filled right back up with two bundles of fat quarters, a jelly roll, several charm packs and some yardage to go with some of the charms and the jelly roll.

"Gone Fishing"

The June block is finished. I really like the way this one turned out. The jewel colors really improved it. The fish are my favorite. I have a fabric that actually has fish faces in just the right size.

shopping

I love shopping on the internet. I'm waiting for 4 orders now, two have already come. Fabric, thread, rulers, and project boxes are all on their way or have made it here. Oh, and an iron for the guild.

Then I made an appointment to get a kick ass stereo installed in my car. Ooooo, ahhhhh, I can't wait!! Alpine am/fm cd, with 4 Memphis speakers and a sub-woofer. Under a grand!! Gramma's car really will rock!!

Madam Problem update plus sewing day

Apparently she had a shit fit and fell over in it and is quitting the guild. I don't think anyone is going to miss her. We should be able to move forward on several items next meeting.

I worked on the June block. This one is "Gone Fishing." The original uses mostly Thimbleberries colors and it's dull and not all that pretty. I replaced them with jewel tones and it's turning out really nice. Hopefully I can get the top done in the next day or so so you can see it.

30 hours out of 72 in a car

I need a new stereo.

On friday I drove across the state, picked up my granddaughter and drove all the way back and into the next state, 15 hours. I drove home on saturday, 2 hours, and then did the trip all the way across the state and back on sunday, 13 hours, to take granddaughter home.

I'll be getting my bonus check this week and after the requisite fabric purchases I'll be getting a new stereo for my car. A nice Alpine with a subwoofer thing. Oooooooo, ahhhhhh, tunes!

rant n rave

I went to guild today but I didn't get much done. I got the Butterfly Kisses BOM cut at least and I got the backing measured, cut and ironed for the John Deere quilt. I'll sew it together tomorrow.

The main thing I did today was submit the funding request to the board of directors at the rec that sponsers our guild. I'm the president of the guild this year so I had to do the actual appearance before the board. We had to have a special meeting last saturday to get our request together since one member insisted at our last regular meeting that "we'll have plenty of time to do that at our next meeting." Our scheduled time before the board was 40 minutes *before* the meeting. Several people were really irritated about having to have a special meeting. I typed the request up and emailed it to the members for suggestions and proof reading. I got a call from the member that insisted we would have plenty of time to get the request done at this meeting telling me that I had done it all wrong and had to remove all the financial stuff, blah, blah, blah. I told her that I was shown what the board wanted from the various clubs and organizations they fund and followed the same template. She informed me I was lied to and that's not how they do it and blah, blah, blah.

The same person droned on and on during the meeting about what another very large guild does when they put on a quilt show. People were actually turning and rolling their eyes at me!! We don't care that big city guild has a 50 member commitee to put on their quilt show. That's not really helpful information. How much is the venue going to cost? What are the advertising rates for the large and smaller area newspapers? How much is it going to cost to rent the quilt stands? Those are the things we really needed to know!!

After the meeting another member pointed out that the reciept that was submitted by that person had personal items on it and shouldn't have been approved and paid since the rule is all guild items must be on a reciept by itself. And not only that but she had charged most of the shipping and sales tax to the guild instead of apportioning it to each item and paying her share. The treasurer pulled out a couple of her other reciepts and discovered that we're paying a fair share of her shipping and sales tax every time she orders stuff for the guild. I'll bet she doesn't order supplies and equipment for the guild again!!

The guild has had some growing pains and has lost and gained members. For a long time I thought the problems were with some of the members that have dropped out. Madam Problem hasn't been to meetings for several months until last month. All of the meetings she missed were actually productive and we moved forward on several things. The last two meetings we haven't made any progress on any thing and Madam Problem seems to have irritated and pissed off a fair number of members. It appears since I am president it has fallen to me to tell Madam Problem to knock it off and get in line with every one else.

Well. I feel better now.

in a binding mood

I will finish the binding on all of the little wall hangings today. I only have one and about half of one left to do. It'll be nice to be caught up on all of them.

I am going to go to a quilt group meeting tomorrow. I belonged at one time but they dismantled and reformed in another little town under a different name and I haven't been since they did that. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends. Since it's been quite some time since I've been I'll bring lots of show and tell. All of the little wall hangings and 5 of the unfinished tops I have. I really need to get several of them finished!!

May Basket

I finished the May Basket wall hanging this morning. I even got the binding hand stitched to the back! I didn't put a ribbon on the dowel for this one. I like the way it hangs almost flat against the wall.




The close up. I really like the basket fabric. It's a "quilter's candy" square one of my LQSs gives away when you make a purchase.

finally!

I finally got the binding done on the guild's opportunity quilt. Now I can move on to other things. I have 4 more monster block wall hangings to get done. 3 of them are ready to fuse the monsters onto the background and put together with sashing and borders. I need to trace the monsters and fuse and cut them out still for the 4th one. Then I'll quilt all four of them.

I got thread to go with my grandson's quilt yesterday so I'll get the backing made and get it layered and basted and quilted soon. Once I get it basted it won't take long to quilt since I'll just do straight line diagonal quilting on it. Pics to follow of course.

I finally found quilt journals at a reasonable price so I can start keeping track of all the ones I make.

stinky quilt

I finished the binding on a quilt for my guild last night. I don't think I have ever been so happy to finish a binding!! The quilt actually has 8 corners plus it smelled funky. You know that funky musty smell fabric can get after 15 or 20 years, yeah, that smell. It's going in the washer this morning. There's just no way we're going to give anybody a quilt that smells like that!

Then I'll get started on the binding for the ra... opportunity quilt. Hopefully it didn't pick up the odor from the other quilt! I had them in a bag together. It's a full size quilt so it'll take me a few days to get it done.

I don't use a whip stitch to finish the back of my binding. I don't think it's very attractive or very sturdy. I use a hidden stitch that has as much stitch in the binding as in the back of the quilt and is completely hidden.

Tax Lady rant

I do taxes. I actually like doing taxes until the 14th of April. The 15th you get all sorts of people with the look of panic in their eyes. Most of them just have wage income on a W-2 and no deductions. Those I'll do and get them done in 30 to 45 minutes.

But there's always one. This one brings a bag of receipts to the Wal-mart kiosk at 4pm on the 15th. She says she just has a couple of deductions and her house. I question what deductions and she says her car and cell phone because she uses them for work. So does everybody else, no deduction. Then she claims everybody she works with deducts theirs. So I ask what she does and she tells me she's a patrol officer. Mmmm, right. I told her I'd have to research those two items and get back to her. Then I look at the house stuff. She doesn't even have the damn form the bank sends. All she has is the last two statements from this year. I'm not going to guess how much interest or property taxes she paid last year and told her she had to go get that information.

Then there was the truck driver. He didn't piss and moan nearly as much as the patrol officer. I told him his return would just take too much time to do and I had several people waiting in line. I told him to go to the office and make an appointment for the next week.

Why in the hell would you wait until the last damn minute if you don't even know what you need? Wouldn't it make sense to find out at least a few days before the deadline?

Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. I refuse to be sympathetic to anyone that can't get their shit together in 3 1/2 months time. Or even care a little bit.

A Question of Time

I love the way this quilt turned out!! I can't wait to get it quilted!! Too bad my quilter is booking clear into November!! The close ups are truer to the right colors. The border fabric has all sorts of interesting quotes about time and several of the stars have clock faces in the center.

grandson's quilt

I wouldn't call this quilt pretty. It turned out really, really neat though. Now all I need to do is find John Deere green and yellow thread to quilt it with! LOL

Feathered Star

I made my first ever feathered star block yesterday. This one is just over 19 inches square. I think it turned out really nice. It's for the Galaxy Quest quilt. I'm not sure I've settled on a name for that quilt yet. I'm working on getting the sashing on all the other blocks so I can get started setting it together.

April Showers

We could really use some April showers! It's getting pretty dry around here.

But I did get the April Showers BOM wall hanging done. I like the way it turned out.

Then I also got a hanger done. I've been putting triangles in the top corners of each of these wall hangings so I could use a dowel rod and hang them from a nail anywhere and not have to install any special hardware to hang them. As you can see I still need to get the binding done!

I also got my grandson's quilt set together and most of the borders done. I still have top and bottom borders to do. It's going to require cornerstones though and I didn't have that fabric with me.

I have also been working on the "Time has Come Today" quilt. The pattern is the Galaxy Quest BOM. I really, really don't like blue so I hunted thru my stash and found a really cool clock faces fabric, a time quote fabric and enough tans, browns and blacks for the block and a neat fabric for the background. I have two blocks left to put together and then I can set that one together too.

grandson's quilt

Since I'm stuck at Wal-Mart in the H&R Block kiosk with tons of time on my hands and a computer in front of me I'll tell you about the quilt I'm making for my grandson. The pattern is a modified disappearing nine patch. To make a disappearing nine patch you make a nine patch and then cut the block thru the center into quarters and then turn the quarters. I decided I'd like the squares in the finished block to be the same size and I thought making a block and then cutting and resewing it too time consuming. So I drew the block out on my graph paper and figured out the new measurments and strip pieced it.

I have a day off tomorrow so I should be able to finish all the blocks for his quilt and maybe even get started setting them together. The focus fabric is a John Deere tractor print. The "coordinating" fabrics don't coordinate really. They're to look like fields. There's a tan print that from a distance could look like ripe wheat or maybe summer fallow. The green print could be any thing growing in a field. The backing is a medium scale wheat print I found at a good discount on thousandsofbolts.com. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do for the borders. I'm kind of leaning towards some kind of pieced border but I haven't gotten that far yet. The quilt will tell me what it needs when I get that far.

stuff I'm working on

Right now I'm working on a twin size quilt for my grandson, a twin size quilt for a great niece, and two block of the months.

The grandson's quilt is a variation of the disappearing 9 patch. The great niece's quilt is a square in a square with sashing. One block of the month is thru the lqs and is the butterfly garden. The other bom is thru the guild and it's the "Year in a Snap" monthly wall hangings.

January's wall hanging. I put triangles in the top two corners and I'm going to use dowels with ribbons so I can hang them anywhere from just a nail. I'll post a pic of that when I get one made.

February's wall hanging.

I'm really happy with the way this one turned out. The original used grays instead of the white and I just don't think it was as pretty. I also changed the bird to blue.

And March's wall hanging.

The original used fabric bows but I thought

they were too fussy and a huge pain to make

so I just used ribbon and I left my kite tail strings loose.