FINISHES!

I've had 3 quilts come back from the quilters - one more will be done next week. She's just been amazing and even better fast and cheap! She is a yet undiscovered resource who agreed to take on our quilts as "practice" after Greg spent weeks smoozing and finally wore her down. I am utterly grateful for her as I'd never have been able to get these gifts done by Christmas otherwise.

So Dad's is DONE (Tom's Car Show)
Mom's is DONE (Generations)
Brother's S/O's is needing the binding sewn on (i'm working on it)
Aunt's is the one expected back
and I finally decided to buck up and do the origional patter I'd seen for my brother. The one that I thought would be too hard and had too many fabrics... well We've talked about making a trip over to our nearest ALCO store (about 1 hr 15 min) away to pick up some fabric for it tomorrow. I might actually get all these kicked out and back before December! I'd actually have some time to make ornaments - how cool would that be?

IT'S HERE! A squishy.

My first WON squishy package arrived in the mail today!

Thanks to Jackie over at Canton Village Quilt Works - I'm the winner of the Moda Bake Shop Sampler. Very COOL indeed. 480 (2.5")squares of assorted goodness. I think I'm just going to carry it around with me for awhile but I'll confess I'm already seeing lots of little patchwork projects.

Looking for suggestions.

I've one quilt left to make before Christmas. I've had all these ideas for my brother and keep scrapping them. He's just started college and is interested in wind energy - so I'd thought I'd do a cool windmill pattern for him. I'd also thought about Grandpa's buzzsaw as we were really connected to our Granddad- but it just didn't fit. Then I saw a magazine with one called PepperMill but it requires nearly 14 different fabrics in 2 shades. I prefer ones that have only a few fabrics but I realized I really liked the black and tan. Anyone have suggestions on a begginers pattern related to wind energy??

Christmas Underway

Sent 4 Quilts off to the quilter on Sunday. Since March I've been working on various handcrafted items to give to my family members for Christmas. I'd decided I'm doing a CRAFTY CHRISTMAS and if others wanted to do the same - good for them. I just really hate buying bits of fluff and dust that they either can't use or don't like. So I've just about got a quilt and a set of tea towels for everyone. This quilt is the one for my brother's girlfriend. Isn't in terrible that I've got hers done and haven't even started on his?? I don't even have fabric for his! I sure hope she likes green. My brother thought that was her favorite color, and then later said he wasn't sure. LOL - if she hates it - I'm telling.

Charity Quilt

A few weeks back Melissa talked about the Quilts 4 Kids project. I checked out the website and ordered a kit. It said it would arrive in 4 to 6 weeks. It was here in like 2 days. STRESS.... they expect them returned in 4 weeks fully quilted. So I opened the package and found pre-cut strips and squares along with a nice set of instructions.

So at the first open night, sat down and whipped out the top quilt. No problem. This is Greg trying to hold it on the mini clothesline we have for quilt picture taking. Nice day but very windy.

Now's the part that's stressed me for the past week. It says in the instructions that these must be quilted WITH LOTS OF QUILTING. So I'm thinking, well what exactly does that mean? If I stitch in the ditch - is that enough? or does it need more? So I kept reading bits and pieces over at Leah's blog on how to do these filler stitches and finally got the part where she says for a bed quilt do about every 2 inches or so. Okay. I can do that. I had all these ideas and I played with different patterns and feet. And just freaked myself out more because here's this pretty little quilt that some kids counting on and I'm about to mess it all up. So tonight = I just sat down with the attitude, I'm doing this and it will turn out however.

Top side looks okay. I attempted to do a swirl in the yellow squares to match the mice tails ... and Greg was kind enough to rip it out with it went HORRIBLY HORRIBLY wrong. I just don't have the darning foot down. I did stitch the ditch in both directions around the blocks with my walking foot. Did a wiggle stitch on the diagonal and in the rainbow border with the embroidery foot. Did an edging on both sides of the black border. The back is tucked and puckered where I crossed my walking foot straight lines. The wiggle lines smoothed out okay. From a distance has this cool wiggly diamond pattern. I really think I'm missing a step in this process. I hope to find a local class soon on quilting with a regular sewing machine. Greg has promised me that it will look better after a couple of washings. I'm not so sure. I'm a little embarrassed to send it off and I'm sure I'm going to be blacklisted.

QUILT BINGO!

Greg and I will be hosting this next round of QUILT Bingo. It's great fun. You send in a FQ for a card (up to 4 cards per person). and A number is called per day. The person who gets the design completed first wins the bundle of FQ's!. This last round was an X and took just about 6 weeks. Not a lot of time investment but still great fun. We are thinking of a framed square if everyone agrees. Go check out more at the dedicated blog for QUILT BINGO.

CELEBRATION!

happy birthday to Greg!! He baked his own cookies and we are going to go crafting at the Cottage with Christina tonight!

We had a very busy weekend, worked in the yard today. For the past 10 years we've used this little barrel style grill to act as a protected outdoor fire pit. We used to live in a 3rd floor apartment with a little balcony off the back. Since we've lived in Atchison it's also served as a nice way to burn off the sticks and sometimes larger limbs knocked down during storms. Tonight was our VERY LAST fire in this grill. When I dumped the ashes a good portion of the grill came away with it. Very sad. So I burned off the last of my wood stash with the surviving portion of the grill and sat there with hose at the ready for those escaping embers (and flaming logs out the large hole) but I thought the little grill and I deserved a little celebratory good-bye. So I roasted a few marshmellows between ground dousings. Greg's going to toss it out tomorrow once everything cools down again.