Fun with Friends

Neen and I hit the road after work to head to N.H. to have fun sewing with friends. Well okay I might have left work a tensie bit early for this but it was worth it. We headed to our favorite quilt shop The Quilt Patch For her Friday Frenzy. We sewed and then left for dinner then sewed some more. I'm not sure if I did more shopping or sewing though. My poor credit card is all worn out but look at these great fabrics I got for a swap I am in. I am doing a wall hanging for "Good Ol; Summertime Mini swap". I hope these fabrics read summer and who ever I get for a swap partner likes them.

If the fabrics above don't read summer the fabric I picked out for the backing sure does. Doesn't that fabric just make you want to go jump in the lake. Either that or go run on a treadmill for a few hours.LOL

And one goal done for the week. I did get one of my BOM blocks done. Not sure why the pic came out so light. Sure does not do this fabric justice at all.

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.

Something Accomplished

I decided it was about time I got back into the sewing room. I never even unpacked my sewing machine from MQX in April. I made a promise though that no sewing until I got this quilt done. The top has been loaded on the machine for over a month. This is the quilt I made for my husband's friend who has cancer. He is a cop and very proud of it. The blue fabric is cop fabric. I got the back loaded night before last and started quilting it today.

And yeah I also finished quilting it today as well. I did an all over panto of swirls which I love. Now all I need to do is get the binding on this. I will get that sewed on this week and do the hand sewing Friday night at Friday Frenzy.

Here is a close up of the fabric. I really like how this quilt turned out. I was nervous with my fabric choices. I never know what to use when making a quilt for a guy. Most of my fabrics are either for females or kids.

To bribe myself to get the above quilt done I let myself start a new quilt. This quilt is on my UFO list so I don't feel guilty about starting it. I would alternate cutting the kit and attaching the other quilt to the frame.

Of course once you start cutting you just have to get a little sewing done. So I did start on this but I promise I will get the binding done on the other quilt this week. I just need to sew a little more on the new quilt first.

On the non quilt front I got myself a new treadmill this week. The old treadmill has a new home at the RV. It is over 9 years old and needed to retire to a place where it would not get used as much. I am so excited about the new machine. It has auto incline and the tension on it is amazing plus built in speakers that my Ipod plugs into. Tomorrow is my first run on the new treadmill. The question is do I get up early or do it after work. Or do I get up early hit my snooze button and then run after work anyway.

Oh and the best part do you see the pretty red buttons. Well apparently the manufactures prefer blue buttons so this machine was $500.00 off because it has the old red buttons instead of the new blue buttons. I can live with red for the price difference and I prefer the read anyways!

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.