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!

Easily Distracted

I really have the best of intentions to make a big dent in my UFO list this year. But as we all know some times we have to stop and put something a little more important in the list. As I mentioned before a dear friend of my Husband has cancer so I had to stop and start make him a comfort quilt. I am now at my favorite part(NOT) of the quilt. The border! we all know how much I love borders. And to make matters worse this is a pieced border. So while sewing I was daydreaming about other quilts. Unfortunately not one of my UFO's but a a mystery challenge noted below from Judy's site. So I decided to do It. as you can see when I make up my mind a make it up right then. Yep I stopped mid strip to pick out and cut fabric. This used to drive my mother up the wall that I could just stop. So there this poor strip hung while I happily picked out and cut fabric.

Here are the lights that I picked out. I really love these fabrics. These all came from left over fq bundles. I took the remaining fabric and cut it up into 2 inch strips so that I can some day make a quilt from one of my 2 inch strip books.

Here are my darks. Don't love them as much as I love my lights but we will see what happens when it is done. It is just fun to be working on a quilt that doesn't already have a home and I can sew just because I want to.

Now I was a good girl and did finish that poor little strip after I was done and got the border almost all sewed. Now to make the corner stones and get this border on. Oh wait I see Judy has up the next set of directions. Maybe I will have to work on that first.

Squeak Squeak Squeak

As I am in my sewing room(a.k.a. the basement) and I am ironing fabric for a quilt I should not be working on over at Judy's site and listening to a book on tape(Pride and Prejudice) I hear squeak squeak squeak. I start to think I have finally worn my CD out as I have listened to this book numerous times. Pause and yep I still hear Squeak Squeak Squeak. Start to think okay maybe it is the pipes as we have forced hot water. Call for the husband he might as well be good for something. He listens but can't find the noise either. Of course he only looks for a few seconds.

I go back to my ironing but now I have visions of a mouse running across my feet and I don't have on any shoes. So I start to look again and I find it. A teeny tiny little mouse stuck in our ant trap. Scream for the DH! Now if this was a nice healthy mouse I could have taken care of it myself but I can not handle seeing a sick animal of any kind.

And then the fight begins. My husband is as bad as me when it comes to a hurt animal. I tell him he has to take care of it. he tells me I should. I tell him he is the man of the house. This does not happen often but I know I can't take care of this poor little mouse. I give him a bag and shove him down the stairs. Tell him he better make sure the poor mouse doesn't suffer. I did not get a very nice look for that comment.

The mouse is gone. I should get back to the quilt I am sewing on but I think I will throw dinner in the oven and start cutting fabric from my stash I pulled.

This and That

Isn't it amazing how you always run out of thread when you are almost done. Yep just this little corner to go and the whole quilt would have been quilted and I ran out of bobbin thread. But happy dance the quilt is quilted and I am half way done with the binding then this can go to it's new home.

I did have to stop for a while and start a quilt that is not on my UFO list. My husband friend was just diagnosed with terminal cancer just months after beating a different cancer. He is going to do the chemo so I start this lap quilt for him to take with him. He loves his jobs as a Police officer so I thought this fabric would be perfect for him. I was able to make the entire quilt from stash but I want to make it a little bigger so I did purchase some fabric for the border.

This quilt will knock two off my UFO list. This is my Super Bowl Sunday mystery quilt. I had a blast working on this. I had a couple of friends drive down from NH Saturday and spend the night. My husband woke up early and fixed us all breakfast. Then we got to spend the day at the quilt shop sewing up out quilts. This does have one more section to go and then a border. I am going to also use this for the baby quilt for my godchild so this will knock two quilts off my UFO list. I was really tempted to keep this quilt. I just love the colors.

I am wondering how long it is going to take my dogs to realize that they can just walk over the fence in the back yard. I snow is so high and the dogs are so light that they can walk on top of it. So far they haven't figured it out yet.

Top Completed!

As promised I spent the weekend working on borders. Well okay I waited until Sunday but hey they are done. Backing fabric is washed and ready to be pieced. I hope to have this on the machine tomorrow and be all ready to go as soon the the panto comes in the mail from Willowleaf . It is going to be a while before I attempt another king size quilt! Now off to get my jog in and maybe some more piecing on my nieces quilt.

Borders

I don't know what it is about borders but every time I reach them my quilt always seems to come to a grinding stop! I promised myself that my current quilt would not become a UFO and that no other quilt would be worked on until this quilt was finished. I have been doing a great job keeping that promise well until last night when I reached the borders. ow I have never met a border that I like add to that this is a pieced king size border. Arg!!!! So I spent the night piecing.

An turning my pieces into strips. and dreaming about other quilts that I could be working on. I would start to stray but I would catch myself and come back and work on the borders some more. So I made a compromise. I finished and attached the pieced border. Proud of myself except there are still two more borders to go. But it is late and the thought of laying out the quilt is just to much to bear at this point. So I promise these borders will be done this weekend.

In the mean time just look what I dug out of my UFO pile. I wasn't tired so I figured I could do a little piecing. Just had to take a few minutes to remember where I left off.

Went through the box and refreshed my memory with the directions. Made sure I had all the pieces. And started to sew on something that wasn't a border. Ahh it is so much more relaxing to sew this way. Of course eventually I will hit the borders with this quilt as well. at least it is not a king size border.

And look how much it grew. I am making this for my niece and she has been waiting a very long time for me to finish this. Once the Soccer quilt is finished this will be the next one I complete this year. Well until I reach the borders.LOL

On a side not it is only -3 outside. I am not liking this could weather. I am used to it but still not liking it.

It's a New Year

Okay so it has been a real long time since I posted last. No excuse other than well life just kinds of getting in the way. I haven't sewed in months but this is changing this year. I have been working pretty steady on the quilt below. I am making this quilt for a dear friend of the family. His only request is that it have soccer fabric and be King size. I think I kept a straight face when he said King size. But yep this should be about 120x120 when it is finished. This is from a real old Fons and Porter Mag. Here is a close up and the completed top minus the three borders.

Here are the pieced borders that I am working on at the moment. This should have beendone by now but my iron keeps gunking up and I am not sure why. I use distilled water and I washed my ironing pad. I am going to clean it again and try using new fabric on the iron pad.

And here is the backing. I recently used this backing on a quilt for a friend and loved how it looked and felt.