What a Cool Daughter :)

My high school senior just got home from a trip to Spain with the Spanish teacher's group. . . and she brought me home the most perfect gifts!  You can tell she's a Quilter's Daughter, because her choices were:

a really cool silver and enamel thimble from Toledo. . . 

And "Chocolate Olives" to sustain me during long stitching sessions. . . 

but also to leave me with a really cool tin for safety pins or something!

WIP Wednesday #3

Wednesday already??  wow! The top WIP this week is Dad's Wagon Wheels West heritage quilt. Marco guards it for me when I'm not actively stitching the binding. Aren't cats and quilts perfect for each other?

I do have a wee bit of quilting left to do on this. Patty long-armed most everything (which I'll share when this is finished), but I'm going to free-motion family names into one of the borders around all the edges after the binding is stitched down. Have plans for a really fun label, too.  The guest's quilt show at our last local guild meeting really inspired me to dress up my labels. I need to get her name from the coordinator so I can send her a little thank you note! :D

Marissa's Moment has moved along this week (I've already shared that), as well as the applique block that lives in my purse.

This week's stats:
New Projects - None (Good Girl!!)
Completed Projects This Week - 0
In Progress - 4 (Dad's Wagon Wheels; Marissa's Moment; What a Hoot, Devon; Lori's Butterflies)
UFO Firing Range - 33 (not counting untouched kits!)
Finishes for 2011 - 4

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Three charity wheelchair quilts
Katie Loves Christopher
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Mr. Hernandez's)
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Heather's)
Be Attitudes
We Love Kelly
Sailing with the Flying Needles
Wagon Wheels West #2
Poor Forgotten Orphan from 15 years ago
Devon's Silk Spinners

Love those McKenna Ryan projects

I really love McKenna Ryan projects, and fortunately I had one in my UFO stack and a local shop's BOM that I signed on to before I made my 2011 committment to the Big Crackdown. I realized I haven't shared my Beachwalk pieces yet, so even though I don't get more than 40 minutes of sewing time these days (the length of Scott's evening show), I still have something fun to share in a blog post between assignments.

This was done for January. Beachwalk sucked me right in, being so apropos for those of us who live in the Destin area. Can't wait to see what happens with all these blocks when I get around to adding thread art!

And the castle with crabs for February: (Again, thread art will make it really amazing)

For March we're doing the umbrellas, but mine has to wait until school work is caught up and Dad's quilt is finished. Won't happen until well into April.

But I did get my Seabreeze block done this month (mostly because I'd traced the pieces and placed them on fabric last month while working on the pelicans).

Back to the essay.  :)

Stitch Therapy, for sure

Well, we had a bit of a scare this past weekend and ended up in the ER Friday night and the hospital 90 minutes away all day Saturday. Everything is fine now, but I was too worried to be able to focus on schoolwork. No "higher mental" functions when you're focused on remaining calm, being there for your spouse, and helping your teen learn to deal positively with a scary crisis. (Poor girl had to go straight to her flight back to college 800 miles away without getting to see Dad come home 97% fine.)

Fortunately, I was able to grab some handwork to work on in the hospital - really soothing, isn't it? Especially when the project is a special project for an immediate family member and you're stitching Mommy Love into every step. Got most of the yo-yo's sewn onto Marissa's Moment. I was going to do that step after the quilting was done, but as I've been machine blanketing the leaves on, I've been getting fun flashes of free-motion inspiration. So, I decided I could go ahead and put the yo-yo's on now while it's easier to do.

My girl really, REALLY wanted the backside of the yo-yo's to show instead of their "bellybuttons," so I obliged. (It *is* her quilt, after all!) I went ahead and poked a little puff of fiberfil into each one before stitching it down. Very cool effect that should be even neater when I do the quilting.

Now I'm back home and shoving through my behind-schedule coursework so I can bind Dad's Wagon Wheels West quilt and do the free-motion names around the edges. Patty did a SUPER FANTASTIC job of long-arming all those wagons and hand carts for me in each block. She also quilting the sashing and ditchwork, as well as the outer border. I picked it up from her a few days ago - can't believe how quickly she finished when its frame turn came up! I hope to entirely finish Dad's quilt before April, but things are nasty with schoolwork and the third kiddo's Spring Break comes in another week, which means she'll need Mommy time. (And Mom will need that connection time, too!)   :)

Public Service Announcement - Sew Protection into your wallets and purses :D

So, I overheard a very interesting conversation at the airport yesterday, and after Linda at Stray Stitches reminded me of it by bringing up aluminum foil, I thought I'd spread a tip for clever prevention of credit card info theft.

Have you heard yet that thieves can scan your credit card info right out of your purse when they're standing nearby?  It's true.  (partly)

This is a good source of info about how the "new generation" of credit cards is vulnerable that way: How Do Thieves Scan Credit Cards in Your Purse? Our "old-fashioned" VISAs and MCs are still safe, but to be honest, I don't know how to recognize if I receive a new one when they're automatically replaced at expiration.

As mentioned in the article, plain old ALUMINUM FOIL can block thieves' readers! Makes for a simple fix if you stitch up any wallets or purses. Just include an inner layer of foil with the batting or interfacing. You can sew right through it.  :D 

Top O' the Mornin' to you!

WIP Wednesday #2 for me

It's a CRAZY month at our house.  Schoolwork is backing up and sewing time is rare, indeed. With 4 different Spring Break weeks, everything is insane. Still, I've managed some progress this week.

Needed a good station for free-motion quilting to move forward on several projects, so Scott put my new table together for me. (That deserves its own blog post when I have time!) I couldn't bear to tape a lunch bag to the new table the way I do at my piecing station, so I sewed up a Thread Catcher/Pincushion doohickey. What should have taken a couple of hours took 4 days! (No sewing time, not bad instructions.) Thank you very much to Elizabeth Hartman of Sew, Mama, Sew! for the terrific tutorial: Weighted Pincushion Organizer. Now I need to sew up a machine cover some day!



As far as quilts go, I finished the LeMoyne Blues Tabletopper and moved on to Marissa's Moment.

Managed to get a lot of the leaves made and will have about 2/3 of them sewn on by tonight.

Heather's home this week!!  She's been meticulously removing the tear-away foundation from her Geometrics quilt. This is a paper-pieced pattern that she started two summers ago before we knew what we were doing, so it was monstrous to work on at first. Once I learned easier technique for working in this style, she whizzed through the second half of her top over Christmas break. Now we're finding that it's a REAL PAIN to remove tear-away. Don't use tear-away interfacing-style stuff for your foundation piecing!!  It's too stiff to leave on - will make for nasty draping, and is AWFUL to remove. Paper. Use paper!  Even normal printer paper is much, MUCH better than this stuff.  She's a real trooper, though, plugging away at it a bit each day.


This week's stats:
New projects - Thread Catcher and Pin Cushion (justified because needed at new station, and used ONLY materials already in-home)
Completed projects this week - 2 (LeMoyne Blues Tabletopper; Thread Catcher)
Actively in progress - 5 (Marissa's Moment, Dad's Wagon Wheels, Devon's What a Hoot, Lori's Butterflies, Heather's Geometrics)
UFO Firing Range - 33 (not counting untouched kits!)

Finishes for 2011 - 4

Completed tops awaiting quilting:

Three charity wheelchair quilts

Katie Loves Christopher

Wagon Wheels West #1- AT Katydids LongArm Studio

Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Mr. Hernandez's)
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Heather's)

Be Attitudes

We Love Kelly

Sailing with the Flying Needles
Wagon Wheels West #2

Poor Forgotten Orphan from 15 years ago

Heather’s coming home!!

I just love watching the plane on the map!

So happy her Spring Break is finally here. :) One more short flight to go, and a drive home from the next airport. . .

Fun Mail!! And a bit of stitch therapy :)

So, I went through last night's mail, and I got a packet from Oklahoma!! 



Not only did Elizabeth make me a GORGEOUS Mother's Dream block, but she also sent me a hexie flower! I've been drooling over several people's hexie projects in blog land, but can't start any of my own until more UFOs are squared away, so it was especially nice to find this little friend.  :)

It's beautifully sewn, too - such tiny stitches!

 

I did get one more UFO BOM sewn today from the Selvages set. (Another that's been cut out for months!)

And. . . I played with some scraps and made some notecards like the ones I'd seen at Teaginny's tutorial. So much fun and a great way to use those little scraps that are just not big enough, really, for much else.  Thanks, Teaginny!



Slipping one in! (And some family smiles)

So much reading to do today, only got to sew a block because it was cut out months ago. From my Wild Rose Cottage UFO:

Pink is subtler, yellow stands out more, and it's a white, not a gray.  ;D

And. . . some non-quilting fun!

My Honey got a new shiny for his uniform from his Afghanistan tour with the Army and an international contingency at Camp Alamo outside Kabul! (Please, please tell me WHO in the Army thought *that* was an inspirational name???)



His face is saying, "Are you seriously making me get out the door later than I like so you can blog this??" 
hehehe

We love him and are proud of him. (And hope he never has to go to Afghanistan again!)



He also recently made the front page of the base paper (for good stuff!), so he's had a pretty good week. 

I think he likes those whole-base training days, even though they're a pain.

Back to "Major Problems in American Constitutional History". . .

BOMs Away. . .

Just *barely* got my Flying Needles March BOM sewn in time for today's meeting. I was lucky there was still food on the buffet when I finally got there! It's a Union Square block, in honor of Patrick Henry's famous Liberty or Death speech.

Oops - It spun when it uploaded. Oh well, just tilt your head to the left if you have a strong need to see the birds right-side-up.  ;D

And I did get the block made for my Swap Adventure March partner on Sunday, but she's active online, so you get the same peek she did.  ;D

I loved working with this fat quarter. Had to make a copy for myself!

Finish #3 for 2011 :)

Here it is, the third finish of the year:

LeMoyne Blues

Not sure what's going to come out of the dryer. . . the white fabric looked like it was trying to be funky when I pulled it out of the washer. We'll see!

Addendum, Thursday March 10:

Well, that white fabric got whipped back into line by the dryer - enough to make me happy again, anyway.  :)  It's a weird fabric that stretches unpredictably. Been in my stash for quite a while. I was worried when I saw it hanging all baggy-saggy from the more open areas (moderately quilted, no huge spaces!) - especially since this fabric is used in a queen-size quilt that is going to my favorite long-arm gal, Patty, when my turn comes back around. It'll just need closer quilting done on those parts to keep it looking really sharp.

Lookin' Good!  

And it's a BEAUTIFUL follow-on day after a nasty tornado/thunderstorm day with the wildest thunder and scariest-looking radar line I may have ever seen.  :D

WIP Wednesday #1 for me

I think I'll join along with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday gang, if they'll have me.  ;D
I have such an amazingly long line of UFO's, I can use every motivational tool to turn those into WIPs and FINISHES!

This one is Marissa's Moment of Freakishness. So named because at 13 years old, she does NOT like sweet pinks and "girly" colors - give her black and neons! For some strange reason that we don't understand, though, the 3 Sisters Aviary charm packs grabbed her heart. Of course we had to buy a couple and some of the yardage, and this is (most of) the design I came up with. I need to put some leaves on those stems this week and then add the diagonal-print yardage around the edges to bring it to twin size. It has a coordinating pillow case, too! The heart yo-yo flower heads are only pinned on until the quilting has been done.

Marissa's Moment is not my only WIP, by far. In January I ransacked every storage space in my home and rounded up every single unfinished quilting project I could find. There were 36. No kidding!!!  Now, to be fair to myself, 3 of those were my children's (but they need my help to do the next stage) and 6 of those were adoptions from my cousin's WIPs when she died last year. But still - 27 of my very own UFO's!!!!

I like having a UFO list, even though most quilters shy away from the acronym and use the more positive WIP.  With "UFO," I get to have a "Firing Range" - and it sounds so fun right next to the BOM list.  (hehe - whatever makes the daunting list more fun!)

I have three more of those UFO's on the active WIP table, alongside a new project from my local guild's retreat last week. I was loathe to add that project because of my personal rule: No new projects until 8 UFOs have been completed. But I had a committment from months ago for the retreat, so there it is.

The new WIP is a tablerunner using 15" LeMoyne Star blocks. The class taught us a quilt-as-you-go technique that I really needed to learn in order to move forward on an old UFO king-size quilt. (So, does it really, REALLY count for being an entirely new project?)  ;D

Here it is after last night's progress. I only need to sew the borders on and bind it. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the borders today around my massive history readings. I've been snapping shots to work up a tutorial when I'm finished.


Dad's Wagon Wheels West Heritage Quilt is almost there! It's on Patty's longarm frame right now. She's putting the covered wagon and handcart motifs inside circles in each of the full blocks for me and I trust her to do something really cool with the sashing. When I get it back, I'll free-motion the family names of his pioneering ancestors on those Golden Threads papers around the edges in that triple inner border. Then I'll send it off to Dad, who's been patiently waiting since Christmas to get this really neat quilt. This should be finished before month's end!!  Three years in the making.

Devon's What a Hoot! Graduation quilt is also on the active table. I got the bodies glued on Monday, ready for satin-stitching in the next few days. 20 of those cute little buggers. I made this quilt last year for her sister, and it's really fun. Perfect for cheering up a blah dorm room! She chose blues and raspberries for her colors. (The owl blocks alternate with 16-patches and are surrounded by a white border with triple "ribbon" borders and Celtic-knot corners.)

The last active WIP is Lori's Irish Butterflies, which has a really fun story involving her kids. You can catch the full story at my blog from last week.  :)







This week's stats:
New projects - 1 (to learn a technique needed for an on-hold quilt)
Completed projects this week - 1 (free-motion quilting station is created!!!)
Actively in progress - 5 (same as last week)
UFO Firing Range - 34 (not counting untouched kits!)
Finishes for 2011 - 2

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Three charity wheelchair quilts
Katie Loves Christopher
Wagon Wheels West #2
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Mr. Hernandez's)
Trip Around the World with Mr. Hernandez (Heather's)
Be Attitudes
We Love Kelly
Sailing with the Flying Needles
Poor Forgotten Orphan from 15 years ago

One of Life's Bumps

Thought we could all use a smile - Isn't this rose beautiful? One of the few red roses I've encoutered that actually smells pretty, too.  Too bad there's not a scratch-n-sniff widget!

I've been eagerly anticipating our guild's quilt retreat that starts tomorrow - all signed up for three terrific classes, have my totes of supplies ready to go and everything! (Boy, was I good about using stash pieces!)  But now I won't get to go to at least the first day. It's OK. The reason I have to suddenly drive to a meeting 8 hours away is an important one. Family business. Well, Life does tend to pop up and slap our best-laid plans around - but those are the important moments, aren't they? 

I finally got more batteries, so I can share my UFO BOMs that I barely managed to slip into the February check-off list. I love these two projects.  :)

From Wild Rose Cottage:

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE this block. The colors are so much prettier in real life - yellow and green are vibrant, rose is less saturated, white is crisp.



(This was done in January, before I got my blog organized.)



From Selvages:

I just love this quilt, too. :D

This was the fourth month of work on the project. Previous blocks:

From June 2010 ~~>

<~~ From July 2010 - Hey! check out that fun swirl in the on-point block - looks like a cowlick on a forehead!  lol

 





From Oct. 2010 ~~>



<~~ And these are the alt blocks. I've put together 4 so far.

Not doing bad at all this year on moving UFOs along around my studies. Those studies really annoy me sometimes, getting in the way of quilting!!!

Why I can't sew very much at all these days:

For some strange reason I thought it was a good idea to pursue my old goal of doing a Master's in History.  ::sigh::  I just want to be a quilter when I grow up, so why am I doing this?  Oh yeah - future job options.  well, ok - I suppose   ;D

This semester will bring me half way through my pre-thesis courses. What will I do for my thesis?  I have no clue!!  Better figure that out soon and line up some faculty advisors. . .


In the meantime, take another smell of this gorgeous rose and then go make your day productive!!