A "What was I thinking" Moment

Last week I got an email saying www.fabric.com had designer quilting fabrics at 50%. I immediately went shopping. All of these 1/2 hard cuts were $2 each. And one was miscut and a full yard! But why can't I notice that the darn thing says (or does it??) "canvas"?? I mistakenly got these six Denise Schmidt pieces as canvas. Makes me so angry because I LOVE them.
Fortunately all of these are just fine. Managed to cut the brown one on the far left out of the picture - it's just like the turquise print.

There's just one fly in my ointment now. Three days ago I awoke with severe pain in nearly every joint. I have been whooped tired too. I spent 2 hours at an ER yesterday with all 3 youngens in tow. No fun. No real idea what has happened. Maybe Lyme disease. Maybe RA (not liking that prospect). Maybe a mystery. Today my hands and feet are swollen and partially numbing. Blood work will be back today on the Lyme, but I have another visit to a doc today on account of the sudden swelling. I haven't sewed in 3 days which is making me stirr crazy. My quilt must be delivered tomorrow too for the quilt show next weekend. And as if that's not enough, my SIL and neices are here for 2 days from Italy - haven't seen them in 18 months. AND (there's more...) looks like I need to locate a jeweler to cut off my rings. Kind of depressing to be in pain and immoble, AND to have to have my $10K wedding rings hacked off. Sigh-

...I just wanna sew :-)

Not Really Making Quilts

If you have been following Emma's blog lately, you'll notice that she has great blog titles, as well as fantastic quilts to see. There's been Inspiration, Speculation, Celebration, Obsession, Anticipation, just to name a few. In keeping with this simple thought, here's my take on why you haven't been seeing finished quilts here lately...

1. Loneliness - I had proposed to my mom to jointly make a donation quilt. I thought she'd love it. I had a bunch of fishy novelties I wanted used up too. I made my 6-12" blocks. Turns out she doesn't really want to make "fish", sigh. I think she just doesn't want to sew. Oh well, here's 3 of my 6 brightly colored fish blocks. I will gather the fabrics I gave her this week and make my other 6 blocks for this Linus quilt myself.
2. Meticulation (is this a word??)- I spent time last week doing bullion embroidery on the front of Sophie's birthday dress. Very time consuming, but well worth it! The roses blend a bit, but are quite pretty.

3. Perfection - A lovely bodice/neck is done. The "Coin" Fairy Frost is absolutely perfect with this fairy material. It shimmers perfectly. I also used it on some sleeve and bodice piping, and the bottom of the dress will have a band of it. She'll ring in her 3rd year next month in high toddler style.

4. Obligation - I'm working on blocks for the row robin I am doing. Diane has selected "Monochromatic, Big-Small" as her theme. We are making a one color row with a larger and smaller block. Here's a couple of my blocks. The blocks are now done and need assembling into a 60" row. I love the aquas, and my styles for blocks turned out nicely I think. Of course I did one of these blocks (like I haven't seen enough of them lately in the 4SQS summer block swap!). I did 4 different blocks - I'll post the finished row soon so you may see the others too.

5. Exhaustion - I am just tired of this quilt. It's Sophie's dress quilt and this Saturday is the day it's being turned in for the Maine Quilt Show. The longer it is around, the more I find to do on it. It needed a label, but I did more hand quilting too. It needs a cloth bag made and it is DONE. The picture on the label is hard to really see well, but it's a shot I took recently of her wearing a dress I started kindergarten in. It was a cute profile shot, or so I thought. The inscription reads:

"My sweetest little girl, My only little girl, and my favorite reason for making pretty dresses".

Seemed appropriate~

6. Pandemonium - As if sorting nearly 1100 blocks to over 50 recipients is not enough, the 1st mailing of the 4SQS summer block swap left me with other things to do/worry about. I discovered one person should have gotten 40 blocks not 20, but I discovered this after all the "choices" of blocks were expired. I had 4 different blocks left when I realized it! She'll get her blocks at the next mailing. I also discovered over a dozen blocks with errors when I was sorting the packages. I pulled these aside and used my personal blocks. I had no way of knowing who to send them back to at that point. Talk about more Frustration. So, yesterday I took each of these apart and resewed them so that they could eventually be used. Not fun, but productive.

.

7. Procrastination - Procrastination sewing because our summer weather finally arrived. It rained much of June, sew or so I chose to sew at naptime. Last week the rain stopped. There are few things that I love as much as sewing/quilting - few places that I get absolute peace and serenity. My gardens are one of them. Here are a few pictures I added to my other blog last night of the glorious colors that surround my house. It's a magnificent spectacle of color!! As all of you Australians are suffering with the middle of your winter, let this bring you some warmth :-)

Flannel Scrap Give Away WInner

I always am drawn to those that make donation quilts in their spare sewing time so I was delighted when http://www.random.org/ selected #4, or SewCalGal as the winner of my flannel scraps. Please contact me at msolomo1@Maine.rr.com with your snail mail addy. Happy blankie making!~

Lovely New Additions

My Spring Fling Round Robin-3 piece has come home to me this week. This is the 3rd session of this swap which I host, and in this session the recipients of each quilt were allowed to make their own center 8" square. This was the mechanism that each person was given to convey their style, color preferences and general likes to the other unknown people that would work on their quilts. Here is what I made. And here is the finished 20" quilt...
I selected fabrics that are in the quilt currently on my bed (and with incomplete quilting in this picture) as well as in the flimsy which I hope to have quilted by the Amish later this summer (also destined for my bedroom). My desire was for this to be a busy, colorful piece, in shades of cranberry, greens, aquas, limitted soft beiges, etc.

Here is the back. The quilting is an all-over pantograph-style quilting. It doesn't show up too much in this picture.

And here you can see how it might coordinate with the new quilt. It doesn't have as much of the aqua, but the cranberry and beige carries it well.

And it's actually a dead ringer with the old quilt. I say "old" - This has been on my bed just 5 years. It's not old, but it's before I really got meticulous about triangle points and some details which today drive me nuts. I created the center block using EQ6, and modeled it after some of the geometric blocks on this quilt - wanted a somewhat "flower" and star look - with lots of triangles. I think the 8" center block had 120 pieces in it!

The quilt is very nice. My thanks to Marlene, Alicia, and Amy for working on this for me (even if they didn't know it was for me!). Marlene said she suspected that it was my quilt she was doing a 1st border for, but I don't really know why she'd guess that! And the green that Alicia selected is just perfect for coordinating with both quilts. It couldn't be a better match.

On to my second nice delivery this week... This (the runner) came from Lisa and was PIF gift. It came with a couple nice pieces of Martha Negly prints which I can't wait to use. She's got great fabric taste (despite her love of brown :-)))

I thought that her choice of runner was ironicly unique. I never would have guessed Lisa do make anything not paper-pieced, as she's fantastic with this medium. The cathedral windows and excessive handwork really surprised me. I just told her to make something that she loved (preferably not brown), and that I'd appreciate it too. It's totally lovely, and coordinates fantastically with the two NYB pieces in red and purple in my dining room. Pretty convenient that my smaller buffet didn't have a matching piece, huh? I just finished a small 9"x12" piece for Kate as a part of a swap in this same Cathedral windows pattern. I cannot fathom making another, so I love that someone else did it for me. Look below...The detail is sweet - Little birdies in the center and on the two ends. It's very pretty - Thank you. And, Lisa, my trick to not make the white thread show, was to use a black sharpie to cover up when I had to take white stitches on the black material (it was a black&white print)!

Now, back when I signed onto Lisa's PIF, I did post about one of my own. Apparently nobody was interested. I will repost soon, or hold some form of another giveaway. Stay tuned..

The rest of this week is dedicated to working on a smocked birthday dress and the finishing points on Sophie's quilt, which must be delivered for the Maine Quilt Show next Saturday!

OPERATION: ERADICATION for a GiveAway Cause

That's right. I've decided to eradicate all flannel from my stash. Over the past few years, and few children, I have acquired many pieces of flannel. I rarely use the remaining scraps of flannel as I do regular quilter's cottons. Last week, I made up 4 double flannel layette-style blankets. These will of course be donated to Project Linus, and will likely go to the local premie wards. They are soft & colorful, but I have had my fill cutting up flannel. It's hard on my rotary cutter and mat, and harder on my wrist.
So, in celebration of my 300th post (whoo-hoo...! HA), if there is anyone interested in a healthy box of flannel scraps, leave me a post. If anyone's interested, I'll select a recipient this coming weekend. Here's what's in the box...

There's a gallon zip loc filled with scrap pieces, MANY strips of different pieces ranging in width from 3-5", and a number of 3" charm squares, some stitched together, some not. If you know someone having a baby or make donation baby quilts, there are more than enough to do an "I-spy" or small charm square stye quilt. I'd do this myself, but I am out of the mood to cut them and to store the fabric for a few more years.

Later this week, I'll post pictures of two fantastic quilts I received today. Stay tuned...

Happy Independence Day!

In keeping with our 4th of July, and my quest for making more seasonal table runners this year, I completed this a few weeks ago. It's a quick, simple piece - did it in just a few hours. I like the stars, and beach pails and the watermellons - just reminds me of summer (not this past month, mind you, but summer in general!) Though it's on my table, it is a better fit for my buffet (which just means I really need to get busy when some of those 4th of July fabrics are onsale next week!) and make a longer piece for my dining room table. I am all about having "the matching set" - table, buffet & wall hanging. I am doing a yahoo bloggers round robin right now, and my theme is for a 4th of July mini. I should have this back next July I believe.
The quilting is kind of pretty I think - basic, but a nice overall pantograph. Sadly, I thought that using this bold red "holiday glitz" Fairy Frost on the back was a great idea. Oh, was I wrong... It was like machine quilting with rubber as the backing. Moving the quilt nearly killed me. I ordered the stuff kind of on accident - all the other Fairy Frosts I just love, but this one was to "glittery"

Hope you all have a good day too. We're just thankful that it appears the rains have ended, and we may get out of the house for a bit. Might even be able to squeek in a little BBQ.

Backing, Fronting & a few in-Betweens

I've been sewing lately, just not quite as much as usual. I have a 3rd kid now out of school, which makes things more hectic. He doesn't sleep in as late as the others, and naps are off his agenda! Plus the dynamic between he and his 5 year old brother leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, making me too mentally frustrated some of the time to be an efficient and accurate quilter.

None the less, there has been a little progress. I have learned of a local machine quilter who's price is very reasonable (~$100 for a queen). I'm going this afternoon to see some of her work. I saw a small piece she did that my mom received as a retirement gift and it's nice. If all checks out OK, then she will be quilting my older son's quilt. I spent time the last 3 days getting the backing (below) pieced. It's all from leftover Bento blocks and pieces of the Kona/Bella solids. It's busy, but I like it.
Yesterday, I had just had enough of working with the very large backing (above) pieces, and needed to make progress on a flimsy that I could quilt this week. Sooo...I pulled out 12 6-1/2" squares from my dwindling pile of Kaffe Fassets, and bordered them up. The borders are bold, in-your-face type prints, but colorwise, they coordinate well with the center squares.

I hope to get this quilted and finished this week. That should leave things wrapped up nicely for starting the sewing on my daughter's birthday dress next week.

(the Foxgloves pattern is one of my favorites...I may have to stock up on some more :-)))

And, one week later, as expected, I have all 20 of these pieced stars for the Tree of Life quilt. They finish at 4.5" square (on point). It took until about the last 5-6 before I really had a good rhythm on the piecing! Needless to say, I'm not disappointed that this part of the quilt is done. It was some of the tiniest and meticulous piecing I have done. ...On to the center tree~

And last but not least, here is Kate's birthday block, and the end to the swap she so patiently hosted. She asked for texture, and short of glueing burlap to a square, this is what I came up with. It gives me a new appreciation for this type quilt. This is 10"x13", and took about 6-8 hours of hand work. I'll need a lobotomy before I make a full bed quilt in this pattern!!