Saturday, October 21, 2006

Now that his cast is off my laid-back-never-get-into-trouble-puppy has turned into a get-into-trouble-all-the-time-puppy. The latest chewing fest included my card reader which is why I haven't posted for awhile...but I've been busy.




I finished up the snowman mistake block in a small wall hanging. I still haven't found a thin batting I like for wall hangings. The batting is too stiff and thick. The Silly Snowmen Quilt came out cute, I added snowflake & mitten buttons. You can see the correct block for the tall snowmen in this quilt.


This is a sample I made for the shop out of the Jo Morton Repro line. I decide to hand quilt this, its been a long time since I've hand quilted and this is a small enough project that my hand won't hurt too badly when its finished.

Lots of tops to be quilted, now that I've made friends with my Brother quilting machine more thing will get finished...or at least that's the plan. This weekend I'm going on a retreat and need to plan what projects and supplies to bring.

That's it for now.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

For a mistake the block still looks ok, the rectangle was suppose to be vertical, it will make a nice little mini wall hanging. Maybe some blue & white half square triangles?? I'll have to do the math, or I'll let EQ do the math.

Finished the purse, did the zipper 3 times before I finally got something I was happy with. Next time I'll definitely read the pattern directions before I buy. It was hard finding zippers this the color I wanted, couldn't get the 16" zip length the pattern called for, used an 18" and tuck the excess into the lining.

Had a great road trip yesterday to NE Quilt Supply with Mary, Pat & Lillian. While we were picking through the sample they sell buy the pound a gentleman came out and said he open up the remnants room. It was like we hit the mother load. The remenants were huge pieces, some as big as 4 yards. I bought 2 bags weighing 20 lbs total, my pieces where half yard to 4 yard pieces. Now to make room...

Sunday, September 10, 2006

The shop received some 2.5inch fabric swatches and of course I took them home. Time to make something for me, a larger version of the bag I made Kate. I took out the Paris Flea Market samples and added a few with some soft yellow solid squares.

I love the fabrics but decided it looked to spring/summer to use now. But I still needed to find fabric for the top border, handles & lining. So I head over to one of my favorite Quilt Shops Stitched In Stone only to discover they are closing at the end of Oct. The owners husband is very ill and she needs to devote her time at home, it was too hard trying to run the shop from home. I did mange to find 2 fabric the went perfectly and bought more for a fall bag but trying out a new pattern.




The floral with the berries will be the top border and the small dots will be the handles and the lining. I'm putting that aside the awhile, mostly because I lent the magazine out that has the pattern.




I picked out these browns & yellows to make the new bag. I got home I read the pattern now I am in search of fusible flannel. This is the second bag pattern I've seen that calls for fusible flannel. Of course the shop is closed on Sundays and my shop doesn't carry it. Monday is a work day and Tuesday I'm crazy busy with appt at school, Mom's Dr appt and guild meeting in the PM. So I'm not sure if I have anything here that would be an acceptable substitute. Timtex??? I'll read the directions again and see if I can't work around it.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

It was sooooo busy at the shop yesterday. With the kiddies back to school everyone has time to sew again. Did a little babysitting today, my little buddy is Joe who's 4 and a very busy boy. By noon I had enough fun and picked up Spencer at school and he played with Joe.

Finally I got to sew! Put the tablerunner blocks together with borders. Picked up some variegated black, gray, white thread for the cats and bats. Maybe next time I'll use a gray thread instead, wasn't overly excited about the way the applique came out. In the 9 patches I used a black swirl from the Carol Doak Star Bright line. I arranged for her to do a workshop & trunk show with the guild in June and she gave me a bundle of 1/3 cuts for putting it all together. I use a lot of black and absolutely love this swirl fabric. Looked online and only found 2 shops that have it, its from 2005 and most shops are out of this. I will have to be one the look out for this one I love it.

I think Camille gave me the border fabric, she was cleaning out her fabric closet and she knows I can't refuse free fabric.

When I stopped by school today I forgot to bring the quilt ribbon to Spencers teacher. I misplaced it then found it again over the summer. In the past I would do a quilt project with Spencers class. In second grade when they studied the rain forest we did rain forest quilts. The kids were so proud of them, we donated them to David's House, the Ronald McDonald House at Childrens Hospital at Dartmouth Medical Center. I had to make wall hangings out of the blocks because some used fabric paints.


In third grade the studied light houses and they made a large light house quilt that was also sent to David's House. I entered it into my guilds quilt show,Seabreeze Quilt Guild and they won a Vendor Ribbon. They were so excited, we hung the quilt at school with the ribbon for all to see.


Sunday, September 03, 2006

It was a rainy, yucky Sunday. One of those days I was always doing something but didn't seem like anything we getting accomplished. Grocery shopping, made a lasagna, having a friends over tonight for dinner and watching a little of the race. Work tomorrow so probably won't be staying up late to watch the entire race...unless Robby is doing well them maybe I'll sleep a bit late tomorrow, nobody to get up for school.

Cut out appliques for the solid squares in the tablerunner. Don't have any thread that goes well with the pumpkins, hopefully work will have a color that works.

I would like to make another fish quilt to give to my father-in-law for his birthday. I think I will do a few photo transfers of his fishing trips to Rangley Maine. If I make a few of the fishing lines shorter the photos would look fine. Or maybe ('cause I hate making the same quilt twice) I'll make him a quilt with animal blocks to celebrate his 50th anniversary of being a veterinarian. I'll have to think on that one.

Friday, September 01, 2006


Semi-productive, semi-lazy day today. Slept in this morning, quilty friend Mary stopped in, swapped magazines to read, love the BGH Quick Quilts/Projects Mag. We each bought a McKenna Ryan pattern at the Machine Quilters Expo in Manchester NH, thinking we could buy a few batik piece and pull the rest in from our stash. What the heck were we thinking??? New rule, if its batiks...buy the kit. Bought some fabrics online and a few Hoffmans at Stitched N' Stone, SNS had them on sale so of course I bought what was left on the bolts. Will get together with Mary and go through the fabrics to see what we have and what we need. We also bought a few more Pineneedles patterns at the Keepsake Quilting tent sale, picked up a kit 50% off. I live for the Tent Sale, books, patterns, fabric & kits at least 50% off.

I pulled out this Join At The Hip wallhanging I made in last winter, machine appliqued blanket stitch around the stars, moon, stem and the cats hat. Can't decide on what to do for the quilting. Will leave it up on the wall and ponder what to do.


Picked through my yardage stash piles and found this piece of Halloween fabric and pulled a yellow, orange and black FQ's. Made (8) 6.5" nine-patch units in black & ivory and will alternate them with 6.5" squares of Ivory. Will applique a moon (yellow), pumkin (orange) and bats on the solid sqs, skinny border and wider border & backing with the blue Halloween fabric.

Then I washed the kitchen floor, mostly so I could point to something I did for housework besides the few loads of laundry and the dishes when hubby comes home. Now I'm sitting in bed with Opie watching Nascar Cup Qualifying in California, trying to keep him quiet. The Benadryl seems to be working, he wants to follow me around the house so I have to put in his crate at points during the day. Tomorrow I'm going to Joann's for 40% off batting and will pick up some foam to make him a cushion for his crate and a dog bed for the quilting room. Terri is joining me for quick shopping and lunch. But it might be a quick lunch on the road and maybe a trip to Marden's in Sanford if I can get out of the house early.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Today started with a trip to the Vet's office to fix Opie's cast. Last week Opie saw his boy in the back yard and ran a straight line to him...off the back deck with a 12 ft drop. Dr. Hill said to keep him quiet, how do you get a 6mo puppy to be quiet? His cast slipped quite a ways down because he just won't stop running around. Putting him in a kennel made it worse, now he's on Benadryl. If only I could do that to the boys!

Then a quick trip to the Orthodontist and a nice lunch with Taylor at the Bratskellar Pub. Then home and some sewing!

I finished Kate's bag, I left a step out, there was supposed to be another band of fabric around the top...opps Didn't like the directions for the handles, will definitely put some webbing in the next time.



Today at the high school I notice a lot of the girls were using a larger version of this for their book bag. I'll have to play with the block sizes and make a bigger version, with the fabric band around the top of course.

Last month I went shopping with my friend Cathy aka Queen of Thrift. After hitting my favorite Salvation Army she took me to a store called Savers. Considering it was a for profit thrift store it had some really good stuff with low prices. I found this little basket and made a cute sewing basket. I'm going to get a paint pen and write Quilts on the shop with the striped awning. I quilted the fabric for the lining and used sticky magnets on the inside lid for needle & pins. Can't wait to take it to guild for show n' tell.






I have some quilts I need to get out and match with backing fabric to get to my friend Terri for machine quilting. Need to get them to her before the Christmas rush starts. Tomorrow I'm home and with any luck I'll be sewing.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006


Here it goes... my first posting on my blog...

I actually got some alone time with my machine today, not much but some. Working on a bag for my niece's birthday (June...opps), Kate turned 16 and just got her license. Just what every 16yo wants from her dorky aunt a batik bag, well at least she'll like the ITunes Gift card inside.


Need to quilt the front and back, will use a blue varigated thread and hopefully my quilting machine will play nice. Its more like hopefully I won't have a brain fart and will do overall quilting on it. Not sure why I can't make friends with this Brother 1500S, I sit or stand in front of it and have the biggest brain farts. My most common mistake is when I've been using my Viking DII then hop over the the Brother, I forget to put down the presser foot because the DII does it automatically. DUH

Yes, that is a Lindt Chocolate on my cutting board, hubby had a meeting at the Lindt Chocolate Factory today...the only thing better than fabric....chocolate.

Work tomorrow, no Thimbleberries class, maybe I'll get a chance to sew between cutting FQ's and scanning the new Thimbleberries Flannel.