February NewFO's and Finishes, and Goal Post for March

(I'm trying to streamline my monthly reports so I don't have an onslaught of similar posts all at once.)

This month, I had one NewFO - a baby quilt for my youngest sister's first kiddo. Entirely from stash, so that's all good. The HST's are organized into columns to be sewn web-style.  

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My February Finishes make me happy - I tucked away two of the three UFOs on my January Goal Post (Wheelchair Quilt 3 and Hawaiian Etude), and I have maybe 3 hours left of stitching on Amaretto's binding. Bonuses: I finished 5 Valentine minis that came from NewFOs, and I got that design wall made and up!

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March Goal Post:  Yep. School focus has really put the slow-down on quilting work, and next week will be wiped out by the conference I'm presenting at. So I think these are realistic expectations:

Amaretto Cottage (UFO): Binding finished, labeled, photo-op








Baby English 1.0 (Gift from Stash): Get this pieced and do the walking-foot portion of quilting for stabilization. Matching bookbag cut out.

Run, Kitty, Run (Gift from Stash): Get this marked (or make golden thread papers), baste it, get the walking foot quilting in for stabilization.






  Affairs of the Heart (UFO): However much handwork I can get done on the conference trip.











You Must Be Croaking (NETY - UFO family) - pull this one from storage for the next NewFO: washed, cut. I need something NOT blue to look at!!

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Want some eye candy and inspiration to work on your UFOs and produce some finishes?  Check out the monthly link-up buttons I included above.  :D

WIP - The Owl and the Pussycat for Baby English 1.0

I am so utterly exhausted. Thank goodness for the impetus of WIP Wednesdays and a timely tutorial, or I'd get nothing moved forward today, for sure. I'd go shovel last night's 4" of snow off the drive and then collapse with the next reading I need to do!  

But I'm being good and not giving in - I finished trimming my HSTs that I whipped up before the retreat so I could lay out Baby English 1.0. 

I'm excited to try out the web-chaining method that Linda at Flourishing Palms explains so clearly. Got my columns oh-so-carefully stacked, labeled, and lined up to go for tomorrow's half-hour of sewing.  :D

My Owl and the Pussycat book arrived while I was at the retreat. It's so fun how well the cover coordinates with the fabric. I just noticed that the colors of the characters are reversed between the two. I'll have to read the story and see which one is mixed up.  heh!

Oh! And the main WIP of the week - finishing the organization, printing, and copying of the handouts for my conference presentation next week!  Here are two more images from the U.S. war camps that I just love:

“Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar,” 1943, The Library of Congress American Memory http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/aamsp4.html

Ansel Adams, “Baton practice, Florence Kuwata, Manzanar Relocation Center,” call no. LOT 10479-1, no. 15 [P&P], “Adams, Ansel, 1942- Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs,” Library of Congress Prints and Photographs http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppprs.00135/

I'm off to shovel that snow now. . .   (yippee, let's burn those calories!)

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Linking up at

Lee's WIP

Esther's WOW

BOMs Away Monday - Resurrecting Jane

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.
This week's link-up is at the bottom of this post.

I. Had. A. BLAST. at Cabin Fever!!!!!  Emily put together the best quilt retreat, and Shannon's hubby spoiled us all with his cooking. What a wonderful time. New friends, gorgeous cabin, splendid trunk shows, fun make-and-takes and games, fantastic projects to watch being worked on, a man cooking for us. . . You just cannot beat that.  I'll have to share some pictures when I can get it together better, but here's a shot Jennifer took when we were getting to know each other. 

This was a terrific bunch of people, sure hope we succeed in staying in touch!


But to get BOMs Away rolling, here' my report for this week's work. . .

Had to drive home over the Rockies through a winter storm - was good to see my own steps after that!

It's a winter wonderland right now. This was early this morning before today's blizzard moved in. Fun to dress the Picnic Spruce for a moment before the wind picked up. 

But then they needed to come in and get dry by the fire! Selma graciously accepted the pile of Baby Janes on "her" rug, so long as she could model them.

I had hopes of finishing a lot more blocks than I did, but one of the sets was SUPER demanding. So 10 are completely done, 8 more are half-way pieced, and 12 others have varying degrees of hand stitching to do. 

This block, in particular, took something like 5 hours all on its own. G6 for you Janiacs out there. What an insane block! The tiniest 8-point star you've ever seen (the points approach 1/4 inch) set in a 5-point star set in a 4" square. I can't believe I kept all the pieces straight.

The 10 blocks that were completed added 245 more pieces to my quilt's count for a total of 2595!

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 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.  

Woohoo!!! Let's DO THIS. :D

Fun WIP stuff for this week!!

Still working on the Amaretto binding. Right around half-way finished with that, so that'll make it for a Feb. finish.

But it's getting a break for the next 4 days. I'm goin' on my first true quilting retreat, and I'm taking Jane with me.

Gonna drive 8 hours to lock myself in with a bunch of ladies I've never, ever met. Scares me to death! I'm not good at social stuff. But I'm putting a lot of faith in the fact that quilters are almost all super cool people. That, and if for some strange reason I feel totally uncomfortable being sociable, I have so much work I'm bringing that I can zero in on that.

But who wouldn't have a great time at something organized by Emily of Crazy Old Ladies, with daily trunk shows by Natalie of Piece and Quilt (taking my book so she can sign it!), Amber of A Little Bit Biased, and Katie of From the Blue Chair. Wow!! This is going to be great. 

And I even get to see a cousin that I haven't seen for decades. Since I'm not going to start the 8-hr drive (without snow factors added) at 2am to get there mid-morning Thursday, I'll be driving over the mountains tomorrow. Sharon lives an hour away from the retreat, and she said Sure, I could spend a night at their place. So I'm really looking forward to seeing her, too.

(back in August)

I've got all my Dear Jane stuff packed up and ready to go. I haven't worked on it since we moved from the temporary apartment to this house because some of the to-be-worked things got lost. But I found it just in the nick of time last week, and everything's organized and ready to go. Let's see how many of the 70-block backlog I can put together in 3 days!  How far can I push the chart?!

As of 8 Aug 2012

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Linking up at

Lee's WIP

Esther's WOW

BOMs Away Monday - Beachwalk and Angelina Gallery

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.
This week's link-up is at the bottom of this post.

This week's focus is my McKenna Ryan "Beach Walk" project. Had hoped to get this last block fused together so I could assemble the quilt next month, but two wrenches got thrown in the mix. It's taken up almost all my quilty time this week to get ready for a quilting retreat I'm going to in a few days. I did manage to get all the pieces traced and ready for fabric placement. 

The other thing is that all the pieces in the bag on the right get cut out of Angelina rather than regular fabric, and I'm pretty darn sure the amount I have will not be enough. So I'll have to order some and do all the fusing when this project gets its March turn. But I have some eye candy for you!

You can do gorgeous things with the iridescent Angelina fibers, such as this goldfish scene by Lisa Quintana:

This waterfall scene by Sally Wright:

This turtle mini from Embellishment Village:

This adorable fishing scene by Carol Spalding:

And this amazing waterscape by Betty A: 

It comes in many colors, good for things beyond water, such as this dragonfly by Susan Vassallo:

This fairy by Tami Levin:

This amazing oriental collage by Judith Ferguson:

And check out this gorgeous church by Kay McLaren:

As you can imagine, this stuff looks far better in real life than what the camera can capture.

Pretty cool, huh?  And it's so very easy to work with - comes in many colors. There are far more applications than the 2-D items I've linked in this post. Great 3D play available with stamps and blocks, for example. It's even supposed to be washable for clothing applications. Haven't tried that, so I can't give you feedback.  You can find lots of How-To videos on YouTube like this one from Betty Blais:

(If that doesn't work, just go to YouTube and search for Angelina fibers.)

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 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.  

Finish Friday - Wheelchair Quilt 2

The finish I have today is not the one I thought I'd have for this week, but it's nice because it clears away a UFO that's been sitting in the flimsy list since 2011.

This is a wheelchair quilt. The corners are gone so that they don't flap into the wheel/foot brace areas. See how nice that is for a wheelchair situation?

My old Florida guild makes these for a couple of centers. We'd get fabric packs at the meetings cobbled together from donations, and volunteers would take them home to sew them up. You could bring back the flimsy with the backing for someone else to finish, or just do the whole thing yourself. I liked doing the whole thing since they're small (and quick to quilt), and they provide a great opportunity to increase your FMQ skills. 

This time I worked on a motif that Wendy Sheppard shared at Ivory Spring. I want to use it on the blue bands in Run, Kitty, Run, which I need ASAP. But I needed to try it out first, and this floral flimsy was the perfect place to use it, with maximum hiding power (at least on the top). Love this quilting motif! It's so forgiving while still looking more sophisticated, in the feather family. And still looks terrific when I end up turning her feather plumes into floral plumes. 

I did have a few spots where I let in too much gap, so I just threw in a pebble where the over-puffiness was unsightly.  Worked perfectly. 

Thanks for that tutorial, Wendy.  :D

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TGIFF * Link A Finish Friday at Richard's * Whoop! Whoop! * UFO Sunday *

Little Quilt Monday

WIPs - Sooooo Close to Two Finishes in My Sewing Areas, and Baby Start-up

Making bits and pieces of progress around my conference presentation prep - enough for me to smile about, even though it takes all week to do what many of you can whip out in a half day.  :D

I got this super cool pin cushion from Elizabeth's giveaway at Pieceful Life. 

My husband is happy, I'm sure, that pins are no longer getting plopped onto the side table to occasionally fall on the carpet (and sofa. . . )!  In Florida, my hand-stitching was done on an old cloth sofa that I shamelessly used the arm for poking pins into. These sofas are also quite old and worn (came with the house - we upsized and have no funds for a while to replace them), but they're leather, so I had to act normal with the pins.  ;D

And that's where I sit each evening, stitching, as we watch our dinner-time TV show. Love that lamp. My great-uncle Rudy made that himself, and it looks great in this Colorado home with wood trim.

This station right now is processing my Amaretto Cottage! (Isn't Margaret's quilting LUSCIOUS??) Hmm, and I guess nobody could get this monster handstitched in just a half day and do a proper job. So I feel a bit better. 

My Hawaiian Etude is also SOOO CLOSE! It gets secondary priority at this station - being bumped every time there's a binding/label/hanging sleeve to work on. But the king quilt is just a little large for taking to appointments and wait-times when picking up Marissa at school, so the Hawaiian piece is still making progress. This is the first time I've attached a binding 100% by hand, and I'm almost finished putting it on the front.

My other stations in the "basement" got a good workout this past week to get Amaretto Cottage to the hand-stitching station.

The house is on a slope, so really there's only one small room around on the back side that's a true basement area. I love this sewing nook!!  I fight SADD, so that window bank is awesome when I'm sitting at my FMQ machine in the white desk (it's a Viking Sapphire). You see 1/3 of the window bank.

Having both desks there is extremely helpful when I'm quilting - especially if the back is corduroy or minky. The golden one is an old computer desk that had a hutch. Well, we haven't had a non-laptop for years, and the hutch was just overbearing. So when we moved here and I verified that the desk matched my sewing table's height, I placed them together. I'd intended to buy a white folding table to put behind my sewing table, but Scott came to the rescue by cutting down the supports of the hutch to make it match up. Perfect!

This side is my piecing station, which actually had nothing at all at it last week (a rare occurance, but I really wanted Amaretto Cottage to get full attention).

While we're here - a view of the rest of my sewing area. The ironing board is purposefully several steps from the machines. Sitting for long periods is really bad for anybody, and especially bad for us folks with Lupus and poor circulation. So I make myself have to get up and walk a bit each time pressing is needed. That door next to the iron? The storage room! And it's all mine! It's got fabulous shelves built in aisles, and not much of it is non-fabric related. Heavenly. 

Behind me is the pool table and some more of the basement. Yeah - We're not finished unpacking. I'd wanted to keep all boxes and mess in the garage, but Florida Girl soon found that the space is critical for vehicle storage in Colorado winters! One day this will all look pretty.

Back to sewing concerns. For Amaretto Cottage's 112" squareness, I had to dismantle my piecing station.

See why?! And that's all bunched up and tripled-over on itself!

There's no way I could have worked with all that getting piled behind the machine without the added space of the hutch extension. 

 

Meet Lionel Stitchy.  Love this guy. He's a little squished there, but the college girls gave him to me for my birthday, specifically to keep me company while I sewed. (Thus his name. Am I dating myself?  heh!)

So - now that Amaretto Cottage is upstairs for handwork, my machines are both back where they belong, and I'm getting ready for the next FMQ. Practicing a motif Wendy Sheppard shared at Ivory Spring. That's plexiglass with duct tape around it. Perfect for dry-erase practice and quilt design fussing. You just have to make sure not to get that ink on the quilts. Thus the tape. And when I applied the tape, I made sure the front is wider than the back so that I always put the same side against the fabric. Just to doubly ensure that no faint smudges get on the quilts.

The piecing station will soon get some attention after its break. These 10" squares are my first foray with the the 8-in-1 method for HSTs. Need a baby quilt for my youngest sister's first-born, due next month. Going to make the barn raising layout and practice some FMQ in the white diamond bands.

Found this fun "Owl and the Pussycat" fabric in my stash, along with some other blues to play with it. And man, that bolt of Kona Snow I got 18 months ago is still saving me with this stash-only restriction! I've got a nice hardcover copy of the book on order - it even matches the coloring/theme of this fabric - very cool! I hope to also make a book tote featuring this fabric to go with the quilt and book.

Thanks for letting me sneak in some journaling. I really love this new home. 

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Linking up at

Kate's "Share Your Space"

Lee's WIP

Applique Thursday

Esther's WOW