Saturday news

I had a wonderful afternoon with Becca today. Matt and Scott were over at the house priming all the drywall that is now finished, so she came over and helped me with the seemingly endless job of sorting out and organizing my fabric stash. She sorted through my fat quarter drawer, and ironed and refolded so that they are all the same size. Then she put them into some IKEA containers that fit into the drawers. I want to eventually refinish the dresser that acts as my cutting surface, and also some fabric storage. With the fabrics all in easily removable containers,
it will be really easy to take stuff out of the drawers before refinishing it.
While Becca was working on the fat quarters, I continued with making the mini bolts out of my yardage. It's almost done.I think they look rather pretty all lined up in rows on the shelves. And it's amazing how much less space the fabrics take up this way. I've been putting everything under 3 yards onto these mini bolts. Everything over 3 yards is going to go onto regular sized bolts, also made out of the foam core boards. But, that's for another day. For the rest of the evening, I'm going to sit with my feet up, and stitch.

Design wall Monday, Dec. 10, 2012

Another Monday with nothing new on my wall. I've finally decided that it is time to start doing more than thinking about packing up my studio and getting ready for the move which is about a month away. I've been trying to figure out a good way to store fabric in a neat and orderly fashion, since my sewing area is going to be in our main living space, and not hidden from view. I saw an idea. on this blog for making up mini fabric bolts. She used comic book boards to form the center section that the fabric wraps around. However, I couldn't find any here, and for some reason, the online stores wouldn't ship to our address. Amazon.ca had them, but they were combined in a package with envelopes, which I didn't need. So I had to come up with another solution. This is where our local Curry's art supply store came in. They sell sheets of acid free foam boards for $4.85 each. The boards are 32 x 40, and bout 1/4 inch thick. So what I've done is cut them up into 8 x10 inch little boards using an exacto knife and my trusty quilting rulers. That gave me 16 mini boards out of each sheet amounting to 30 cents per little mini bolt...... not bad. Plus they have a lot more body and strength to them than the cardboard would have, which means they will last longer.
Of course, it isn't as easy as taking the fabric off the shelf, wrapping it around the board and setting it aside. A lot of the fabrics have been sitting on that shelf for a long time. They are wrinkled and crooked. So each of them is being ironed, the selvages lined up,
and then folded  again along the length.
The mini board is placed on the fabricand the whole thing is rolled up into a lovely little packageso that they are ready for use. All I will have to do is take a fabric off the shelf, unroll it, cut off what I want and then put it back. Sounds simple, doesn't it? It's always the putting it back part that I fail miserably on. Especially when I'm all excited about a new project and pulling fabrics to see what goes with what. They tend to spill onto every available flat surface, and then onto the chairs, and then onto the floors. I will really have to change that habit, or else my very patient, long suffering husband might just lose it. Anyway, it took me about an hour to do the ones above. So my job for today, before going in to work this afternoon, is to see how many more I can get done. I'm thinking I can put them into boxes, but leave the boxes open in the sewing room until just before they have to be moved, just in case I should get taken with a sewing fit. It would be terrible to be taken with a sewing fit, and have nothing her to feed it with. LOL!! Of course, that assuming I can find some floor space for the boxes to sit on........
I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday post.

Stash Report and Sunday Hand stitching, Dec 9, 2012

 I finally have some hand stitching I can show. The past month or so has been occupied with working on Laurie's stocking, which I will show pictures of after Christmas. But all 4 stockings fronts are now finished, and 2 of them are complete, with backings sewn on, and linings sewn in. Matt's  is one of them. His was the first one I started, way back last February. He is an avid golfer, so when I saw this golfing snowman, I knew it was his. Those golf clubs in the golf bag actually come out!! It is lined with a Christmas feeling plaid.
 I am working for the next week, with the exception of Wednesday, so I will be taking the others to work with me and soing the finishing hand sewing on my breaks. I have really enjoyed doing these, but will be glad to have them done. With the exception of the Promises and Borders blocks I have done, these have taken up all of my hand work time for the past year. Come January, or maybe even before, depending on when I get these done, I want to get back to working on applique, and maybe some knitting too.

There has been a bit of stash usage this past week, bindings, some 9 patches for a swap at the guild, and the fabric for the stocking linings.

Used this week:                                            3.7 yards
Used this year:                                         125.7 yards
Purchased this week:                                       0 yards
Purchased this year:                                  159.5 yards
Balance:                                                         33.8 yards more in than out.
I won't be hitting a zero balance this year, but that's OK, since it never was my goal to do that. But I'm really pleased with the yearly use number. I have one more backing to make for a quilt, and then it will have to be bound, so the usage number might top the 130 mark by the end of the year.  And I have a leaders and enders project that is about 15 four patches away from going into assembly stage, so I might be able to count that by the end of the year, as well.
I'm linking up with Judy's stash reports at Patchwork Times And Kathy's slow Sunday stitching report at Kathy's Quilts.

Grandmother's Choice, Votes for Women blocks

 I have last week's and today's blocks finished.

 Last week was a block called Bride's Knot.

Today's is called Centennial.

They are now sashed and added to the growing quilt. I really like this idea of sashing them and sewing them together as they come out. There are now 2 rows completed and sewn together. At the end of the year I will have a completed quilt, rather than still having the job of sewing it all together. I'm not sure whose blog I saw the idea on, but it was a great idea.
 
The lighting is really bad in the room where these are hanging. I tried adjusting the light exposure in iphoto, but it is still quite dark, but it is good enough to give an idea of what it looks like.

Two finishes this week.

I have 2 great finishes this week, both Christmas gifts for our Grandsons.
The first is what I've been calling Avery's Truck Quilt. I'm not too terribly good with creative and catchy names for quilts.

I first saw this particular quilt design over on Jamie's blog here. I asked her if I could use the design, and she graciously said yes. I quilted it with an all over design called Hotwheels, designed by Dave Hudson, and purchased from Digi-tech Designs. 
The design shows up really well on the white areas on the backing. The bindings were done with my now normal faux-piping technique using the border fabric as the binding, with just an accent of orange in between. The backing was made with leftovers from the fabrics for the quilt top, plus other fabrics that I thought said something about Avery. There is book fabric in there, because he loves his books, yellow and chocolate lab fabrics, because he has a chocolate lab named Shelby. There are sailboats, because he loves the water, and lives quite close to it. The back was almost as fun to piece as the front.

Then the other finish I have is Jack's quilt, which is a pattern by Judy Martin, called Celebration, found in her book Scraps.

 I quilted it using a very simple continuous curve. I wanted all the fun fabrics in the quilt to be the focus, rather than the quilting. His binding is a diagonally printed stripe, with red as the piping contrast.
I'm looking forward to being able to give it to him and to explain to him that it is more than a quilt, that it is a game, called I Spy, and start him looking for all the fun things in it..... good things to eat, things found on a farm, things that live in the water......
I had some really fun fish and ocean themed fat quarters that I could never quite bring myself to cut into, since they are just so much fun to look at whole. So I pieced them into a backing.

Here's a close up of one of them. These were such fun quilts to make. There are still 2 more, waiting to be finished, as well. I'm linking up to the blog Crazy Mom Quilts for the Finish it Friday posts.

Christmas decorating .....

Matt and Becca invited us over to their new house to help decorate for their first Christmas in their house. We had a great time. They have been using our old artificial tree for the last few years, when they were living in their apartment. Putting that tree in their new house has emphasized just how much more space they have there. We always used to struggle every year to come up with someplace to put it in our house, since it took up so much space, and our house is so small. Well, over at their place, that poor tree looks lost. LOL!









           We aren't doing any decorating here this year, what with planning for the move in January, so they graciously offered Scott the top of their entertainment unit for his annual Christmas village. It looks so pretty.


 Here they are, sitting on their lovely staircase. You know the only thing missing, that would have made it perfect? Grand kids!! LOL!! Oh well, they are young. Maybe in the next year or two.
I am so thankful to God for these 2 people, and so filled with joy for  them, too. They have worked very hard in the last couple of years to achieve their goal of buying a home, and God blessed their efforts. A couple of years ago  they went for a 2 month course on Bible based stewardship and money management, and they have been faithfully following those guidelines. And I continue to be so thrilled and thankful for their gracious offer of a home for us with them. The work on our space continues to go well. You would think that while we were over there, I would have taken a picture of it, but I somehow forgot. Probably because, while it is looking a little better,  it is still hard to see what it will be like when the work is done. This week they are supposed to be doing the tile in the bathroom, and starting the framing for the sewing room/studio space. Next week, the kitchen cupboards arrive, and the gas fireplace goes in, and then they will probably start to dry wall the ceilings and the small parts of wall that need it. That's when it will start to look finished, and I'll get some pictures of it.  Very, very exciting!!

Design Wall Monday, Dec. 3, 2012

There is nothing on my wall...... zero, zip, zilch. I'm focusing on getting quilt tops quilted. I have Jack's I Spy quilt on the machine right now.
I debated with myself for quite a while just exactly how to quilt this. The first thought was a pantograph of some sort. And then I thought of diagonal lines going from corner to corner through the I Spy squares. But the more I looked at it, the more I thought the the quilting should highlight the fabrics, and not compete with them. So, I am going with a very basic continuous curves. This will keep the fabrics and colours the focus of the quilt. This is the second of the grandson quilts that have been quilted. Avery's Truck Quilt is finished, and waiting for a trip through the washer and dryer. I'll have a picture of it later this week.

I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times Design wall Monday. Lots and lots of great stuff to see over there.