Design Wall Monday and Questions answered

It's another Monday. While it is the start to another work week it is also Design Wall Monday. Which is something I really look foreword to. I'm not sure what I like best about this week. That I actually have something to post or the inspiration I get by looking at all the other walls. To see them head on over to Judy's site and see all the amazing work that everyone else is working on.

I haven't been posting lately because I have been working on a quilt for a friend and she can't see it yet. No Giz I will NOT post a pic! The top is now done and I am finally working on things I can show.YEAH!!!!

The quilt on the left is a sample for a class I will be teaching at the Quilt Patch. This has been tons of fun to make using Deb Tuckers Rapid Fire Hunter Star Ruler. The quilt on the right has been there a long time but it is finally getting bigger and only needs one more row. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Well one row and one block.

Another reasons for not posting as much is that I have started quilting for others and that has creeped into my sewing time a bit. It has been alot of fun moving on to this new venture in my life. Here is a quilt I just finished. Don't you just love blue and yellow quilts.

When I do finally get to sit at my machine I am gonna be able to sew like a mad woman. Ahhh happiness is a machine full of FULL bobbins. It does not take much to make me happy.

On the non quilty front my girls are now twelveteen. What a good Mom I am I even made them each their own cake.

Call me Crazy: I have an APQS Millennium. The red star pattern is from McCalls Holiday issue of 2009.

Lori: Where did you get those needles from? I will give them a try.

Teri: No I haven't. I will look the site up.

It's Not That I Haven't Been Sewing

It's just that I have been sewing on a quilt that I can't show here. I am making a quilt for a friend and in exchange she is making me a quilt. She picked out the focus fabric that we are both using and then we can add what ever we want to it so that both quilts are unique. As that is the only thing I have been piecing I haven't had anything to show here. Once I give it to her mid April I will post a pic. I just LOVE the way this quilt is coming out. It will be hard to give away, that is for sure.

I did manage to get a quilt on the frame though and it is almost done. This is a quilt my friend made and I am quilting it for her. In exchange she is marking some quilts for me. Seems like I get the better end of the deal. Well that was until she gave me King Tut thread for this. What should have taken a few hours has taken a few days. Can I just say I hate(well my machine) hates King Tut thread. In order to get the tension nice the thread then breaks every few seconds. Even with a not so great tension I am still re threading at least four times a row. Arg!!!! It is too bad because King Tut make the prettiest threads I've seen. I will stick with my Sew Fine thread Thank you very much.

Here is a close up of the quilting. Don't look to close I am not a pro or even close.

I know I shouldn't do this but I did. I pulled out fabric for two new project. Well one new project made twice. I won't start this until mystery quilt and Hunter Star Quilt are done! I won't really!!! But I do need something to do next Wed and I don't want to lug my machine to quilt night so I thought I would spend the night cutting out these quilts. Then nope I won't touch them until above mentioned quilts are done!

Here is the pattern of the new quilts. I am going to go a little more scrappy than the pics. I want to use up a couple of my bundles. Sigh, do you ever find that when you use a bundle you almost never use the creams. I have stacks of lights from bundles that never get used. I am going to have to make an all cream quilt someday.

And here is one of my biggest accomplishments. If you turn his cake around it says 10. My baby is ten years old now. Where did the time ago. So for a few more days until my girls birthday I will have 1 ten year old and 2 eleven years old.

A little of This a Little of That

I decided to sign up for a sew along. The reason behind adding yet another project to my list was easy. I have to make a ton of baby quilts. I think everyone in my family is pregnant at the moment. This quilt will make a real cute little girls quilt. Step one is now complete which is due today. I would have been done sooner but My husband and I took the kids to VA to Kings Dominion for the long weekend. Ten hours there what a long drive. So here is my fabric all cut. I did not cut the triangles as I prefer to sew my half squares while they are still in square form.

Another swap I was in was a summer time swap. This is what I received. Sorry it took so long to post the pic but my camera is usually home and this wall hanging is hanging up at my office. Isn't it so cute. It is right next to my desk so I see it every day.

On a quilty site that I am on I hosted a Quilting Bingo Game and here is the prize that I made for the winner. I just love this! I got to use my embroidery machine to add her name to make it a little more special.

The hardest part was finding the little cutting mat to go inside. My local Joannes only had four so I bought them all.

During our trip to VA I did insist on stopping at one quilt shop. If I was going to spend two days watching(not riding) the rest of the family go on roller coaster after roller coaster then I deserved some quilty time. We went to a great quilt shop called Quilting Adventures. I got the most yummy fabrics there. The four on the left are going to grow up to be a disappearing nine patch. I can't wait to see how it will turn out with these fabrics but it will have to wait until I get a bunch of baby quilts made. The fabric on the right, purple with polka dots will make it into a baby quilt. Just found out my brother is having a boy so I think will work out great with his quilt.

And yet another swap I am in. the winter swap over at Four Seasons . My snowman wall hanging now has a face. I just need to quilt and bind it and it is ready to go along with the gift I made for her. I hope she likes it.

Monday Already

Where did the weekend go? I know I had one and I really enjoyed it but I just wish it was longer.

I got to spend Friday night sewing with Friends. Drove to N.H. for a Friday Frenzy. I got the binding done on a quilt that I can't show just yet. Just needs a label then I hope to have it in the mail tomorrow.

Saturday night was spent at Menopause the Musical. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. I would go to that again in a heartbeat. Although as much as I laughed I did start to get real nervous. Never gave Menopause much of a thought before. I am hoping that maybe I will skip over that portion of my life. It didn't look like much fun to have.

The best part of the weekend was Sunday. We took the kids to the last day of Funtown. We also brought some of their friends along. So it was six kids and the husband and myself. There was not one fight not even so much as a bicker the whole day.

Today is Monday so that means Design Wall Monday from Judy's site. I haven't shown anything in a while because I had a quilt on the wall that can't be seen just yet. I have decided that the left side of the wall is for new projects and the right side for UFOs. I have cleaned off both sides of the wall and now have a new UFO up. Both quilts up before are completed and one is quilted and bound. I am starting to make a dent finally!!! Here is my UFO that belongs to my niece. There is hope that she may actually get this. I do love this quilt so I am not sure why I keep setting it aside. This is the last time it goes on the wall. It will only come down when it is ready to be quilted!!!!!!

The good and the bad

It's been a while since I have been here. I have meant to pop on a few times over the last couple of weeks but things just seem to get in the way. Some good things like playing with my new machine. Here it is A Husqvarna Topaz 20. I have been playing around with this and made a bunch of shirts for my friend. We are bowling in honor of her Mom and so I placed her company logo on some shirts and then our names underneath. She will iron on a In Memory of Logo on the back.

And the bad. My grandfather passed away at the beginning of the week. He had a long wonderful life but that doesn't make losing him any less hard. Plus after 48 hours without sleep most of the time was spent in the hospital it left me wide open to what ever is going around and I caught it.

I have decided to sign up for another swap. This one at Four Seasons it is a winter based swap. Here is the fabric I have picked out for this. It is so much easier to find fabric they screams winter. I already have the pattern all picked out and will start it in Sept.

First EVER Quilt Show

What a great weekend so far. The sun actually came out. It rained 22 days in June and July was trying to go for the same record.

I called my dear friend(My sister in a past life) to come and spend the night at the camp and go to a quilt show with me and the girls the next day. What a great night. We had dinner on the beach and then chilled with some movies.

And then today was my girls FIRST EVER Quilt Show!!!!! They were so excited. I had them pick out their favorite quilt and I took their picks in front of them.

Her is my little vet in front of her favorite quilt. Plus I has to buy the pattern cause she wants to make one now!

Then my little artist decided this is the quilt she wanted her pick taken in front of.but she also wants to make a Bargello Quilt.
They took to the shopping with no problem. Didn't even care if Mom was near until it was time to pay the bill. They new how much they were allowed to get and wanted to make sure they picked out the perfect fabric.

I think they may have liked the shopping more than the quilts.

We all managed to find something we loved. My SIPL bought us all a piece of fabric i honor of the girls first quilt show and here is what she got us and herself. Left to right. Me, artist, vet and SIPL.

Of course we ended up with a lot more than that. Here is what my little vet ended up with. They were told to stick to some tone on tones because they keep stealing mine. And her new quilt pattern.

And my artist. Of course she had to get some red! And was told to stick to some tone on tones as well.

Then I couldn't pass up this fabric. This would go great in a little girls quilt.

I am sad to say that the evening is over and my SIPL had to go home. I was very sad to see her pulling away. I was very tempted to run after her :-(

And for anyone following Judy's "Whats on your wall Monday" My braid quilt top is finished and ready to go on the machine. I will need to take a better picture in the day light.

A Sewing Family

To break up the summer a little I signed the kids up for a few sewing classes. Darling Husband thought the last thing they would want to do during the summer was sew. Well as this turns out to be the rainiest summer in history and we've only hit the 80's once and that was in May, this ended up being a great idea. First up was pillow cases! I don't have pics :-( of theirs. Will get some pics when they come home tomorrow. I love the way they did them. Here is a pic of the one I made.

Look at how nice the inside looks. No raw edges and no hand sewing to cover up the raw edges.

Today was aprons. Don't they look cute. Our little artist used potato fabric and the whirlwind went with animals. Our vet used blueberry plants. They are all so cute. And it gave the sitter a few hours of time that she didn't have to think about what to do to occupy them.

Monday(What's on your Wall?)

Another Monday has arrived! In the Spirit of Judy's What's on Your Wall Monday here is my post. I started working on the last row of my braided quilt and would have had that completed if it wasn't for a slight distraction that ate up most of my sewing time this weekend. I am also considering tearing off a little of the middle row and making it a little longer rather than cutting the quilt down to size.I am hoping to have this top down minus the borders by next Monday. Not much sewing time for me this week so we shall see.

The quilt that was on the frame is now quilted and the binding is almost completed. Just 1 and 1/2 more sides of hand tacking left to go. This picture does not do the colors justice. This is really a very vibrant quilt. Almost to vibrant but my little vet loves it and it is her quilt so that is all that matters.

Here is the back. I used a panto from Willow Leaf . I really like using this panto on children's quilts. It has such a happy feel to it.

I am trying to get more organized in my sewing room and love to keep my projects in these totes but I only had a couple. Joannes had a sale going so I stocked up and it did not take me long to fill them with projects. In fact I had to make a second trip for more. I now have two empty ones and am trying to decide which projects are important enough to go in the totes.

Back to my distractions from the other day. Here are all the blocks done from my girl's friend. Next time she comes over we will have here put them together and then pick out a border. She seemed to have a lot of fun picking out her fabric and did not shy away from mixing colors and prints.LOL

When things don't go as planned

I got the best call at work on Tues. The boss(well I'm the boss) but the owner of the company calls and tells me to put a note on the machine that we are closed on Friday(today) Woohoo!!! My thoughts are I get to sew all night Thursday as I don't have to get up Friday. I know all that I want to do. First get the binding on the quilt I just quilted so I get hand sew at the camp this weekend! And then oh so much more. Now how do I do this and not feel bad about being in the basement all night. Easy I got it I will let my kids have sleepovers so they won't need me. What a great plan!!!!! I rush home and clean(yes I can clean sometimes) so that my husband won't mind be spending the night sewing and all the kids arrive. My son the little whirlwind goes off and plays with his friend PERFECT. But then the girls well the girls are a different story. I am downstairs about three seconds before they decide they want to sew as well.

I pull out their machines. I find my old machine for their friend and then we are off to Joanne Fabrics as we do not have enough thread for us all. And I let their friend get some fabric to make a stash and slash. I will do a lot for my kids but they are not allowed to touch my quilt shop fabric. My girls are all set but their friend has never sewed before. so the lessons begin.

They are all having a great time making their quilts. The girls are excited that they have advanced to more difficult quilts and they can now use the iron. I was able to get the binding on my quilt but that was all between running back and forth help all the girls out. They are getting ready now to go back and spend the rest of today sewing as well until we leave for camp. Here are the results. This is the posie my little artist has started. She has a bunch of blocks done but here are a few.

Here is the posie my little vet has started. As you can see they do NOT have the same taste in fabric! Or anything else for that matter. They may be identical twins but it ends at the DNA.LOL

And here is the Stack and Slash their friend has started. She has half the blocks done and will now start on the other fabrics. There is a leopard and a zebra print making its way into this quilt.

Well my night did not go as planned but I think it turned out much better! I did have to put my foot down at 2:00 A.M. and say bed time! Now I am off to sew before they notice I am down there.

What's on your Wall Monday

After checking out Judy's site and seeing What's on your wall Monday I thought I would post. I reminds me of Motivation Friday that used to be on a prior site in a past life. I hope that this will motivate me to work on some of these. The colors on all of these are brighter in person. The quilt on the left just needs one more row and then the borders. The middle is a BOM called Butterfly Kisses which ended last year. I have three blocks down and hopefully will have another one by next Monday. The right is a double Irish chain. This got put on hold when I realized I had to redo all of the center blue blocks. They are all about 1/4 inch to small.sigh

I also pulled out a quilt top that needed to be quilted about two years ago. I hope that having this out will remind me to quilt it.

This week I want to get the binding on the quilt I finished yesterday and continue sewing on my cousins quilt which isn't big enough for the design wall and of course one BOM block. I am not seeing any cooking or cleaning in my future.

I just discovered a new quilt shop in my area. Well I noticed it a while ago but it is near my gym and I am always sweaty when I am near it. Finally went in yesterday and noticed a kids sewing class. I signed up all three for this yep even my little whirlwind is going to take it. I told him if any of the projects are to girlish he can always make it as a gift for Mommy.

New Member to Our Family

I would like you all to meet the newest member of our family. His name is Cookie. He took about 4 seconds to get use to our house and our dogs and then he took charge. He caught two field mice his first two days at our house and we haven't seen any mice since. He likes to take showers and lay in the sink. We found out he was at the pound for over a year before we got him. Not sure why because he seems perfect to us. He even likes the kids!

Have not had any quilty updates because well I haven't been quilting. I do miss it and am itching to get back in my basement and sew. I do have a friend that just informed me that she is pregnant at 40!!!!! So glad it is not be but she is very excited. So i just ordered THIS It is cross stitch not quilting but I think it is something I can do up to the lake this summer. Easier than trying to plug a sewing machine into the sand.

I have also wanted to sign up for the Four Seasons quilt swap forever but never see the new one until it is to late. Really want to swap with someone overseas. If anyone knows of any other swaps like this please let me know!

Got so many UFO's to work on so want to start on one of those as well. I have had a top loaded on the machine forever just need to square up the back and load that. Should try to do that first. Hope everyone has a great summer. Am really gonna try to post more honest!

No T.V. Here

I have been informed by daughter # 2 that this is turn of T.V. week. I am not sure if this is a school thing or a state thing but it is now a house thing. Daughter #1 is not thrilled and my son is devastated but alas the T.V. has been turned off and it hasn't really made much of a difference I noticed. The weather has been great so the kids have been out riding bikes until dinner time anyways. I think as long as we don't have any rainy days we should be able to fly through this week no problem. Or at least until Thursday which is when I leave for MQX.



My mom just got me a great new coffee pot for my birthday. It is this great new one cup machine. I just love it. It is fast and as I just drink one cup when I do have something it works out perfect. The only down side is my girls have found that it is so easy to use that they can use it. We now a have one cup of coffee a week rule. Which they have already broke. I did make sure that the coffee they use is decaf and as we do not keep soda or sugary juices in the house I guess one cup on the weekend with mom won't hurt.



On the sewing front I pulled out my whole cloth that I designed last year at MQX and I finished marking it. I have decided to handquilt it so it is now on the longarm to be basted. I will do that today and start hand quilting tomorrow.

A flash back in time. I just had to post this pic I found of my baby Bosco when I first got him. this is at the airport when I first picked him up. He was so fluffy back then. He grew up to be a big boy of a little over 6 pounds now!

It's been a while Again

I am trying to get better at posting really I am. I think about posting but I just don't seem to make it to the computer. Quilt wise I can't show what I have been working on. I have been working on a 10 fq challenge. I was given 10 fq's which I have to add an additional 10 fq's or more. I have to then make it into a quilt and give it to the owner of the original 10 fq's. I have one more side to bind then this quilt is complete. I will post a picture after MQX once the owner of this quilt has it. I really really really want to keep this quilt. I like it even more than the quilt I made for my cousins wedding. Here is a pic of my cousins wedding quilt. I think I made this three years ago.
Now the quilt I just made is not anywhere near as complicated but it just appeals to me even more. As soon as the binding is done I need to finish my Mom's quilt which just needs borders then binding.

On the kid front my son just had a birthday. We had a great kids party where I hired a man who brings wild animals to show the kids. It was a great time. We had a couple of owls, a snake, a flying squirrel. And some pretty tamed animals as well.

We got to touch and pat just about all the animals. It was a fun and educational party as he taught the kids about all the animals as well.

The girls had a recital. I was so proud of them. They practiced real hard and did a great job.

They even bought their own outfits with their own money. Boy they sure are thrifty shoppers when it is not mommy's money being spent.