My Own Little Boycott

Well, my little boycott of Joann's craft stores is over as of this morning. You probably don't know I have been boycotting them since shortly after the first of the year because I haven't been too vocal about it, but I am mad at the corporation because of their refusal to carry last month's Quilters Home magazine. It had an article called Shocking Quilts and was shrink wrapped, but Joann's refused to carry it because of the graphic nature of some of the quilts in it. I haven't actually seen the magazine yet, but I still think that it is a shame, and I think it was short sighted on their part in terms of the statement I think it makes against art quilters.

Anyway, today I was in dire need of fusible interfacing so I went to the one place where I knew I could get the weight I needed. I got what I needed, and used my 40% off coupon. In the course of the last 6 weeks or so, I have been more supportive of my local quilt shops for small notions, and I enjoy going to them much more than the big box, so although my official boycott is over, I will still be thinking twice about how much of my money goes there vs. my local shops.

And one more thing!

I forgot that I finally gifted #1 of the baby presents so I can show a pic of it - a big baby nine patch for Edison. It was finished a few weeks ago, but didn't make it into the bag and to the recipients until this week!

Our Week

No catchy title on this one, just a few cute pictures from the week. The kids have both been in good moods this week and Jack is gearing up for his 2nd birthday...I can't believe that 1)it has gone so fast, and 2)when Jenna was this age, I had a two month old!

Here's the princess in her new bed. We've had it in their room for a while, and have been talking up how 4 year olds get to sleep in the big bed (she has been in a toddler bed up to this). Last night, she decided it was time to start sleeping in it. Doesn't she look nice and stretched out?

And, here's our boy in his best evening wear. Stripped down from a day at "school" playing around before bedtime...don't you love the black socks? (he blinked right as I took the picture!)

Another One Quilted

I loaded the "former mystery quilt, soon to be baby quilt" onto the frame sometime last week (I can't remember exactly when) and started on it with a few stops and starts, but had time today to finish it. It really didn't take all that long to complete once I had a full bobbin and a block of time (the kids slept well after a trip to the dentist - with no cavities - this morning). I decided to play around with this one, and had a little fun and learned a little about thinking ahead. This one had lots of starts and stops, which I don't particularly care for, but I trudged through anyway. I will show the whole top when I have it bound (yet another challenge, since I am all out of fabric for that...will need to dig into the stash or more likely find something at a local shop that is close enough to work). There were four blocks in each row, so I did a different design in each block, then followed that through diagonally, similarly to how I had put the top together.

Here's the hearts...

And the swirl...

The crazy echo quilting (called line dancing)...

And my favorite, a big flower...

For each of the other quilts that I have done on the HQ16, I have "signed" my initials in thread, and didn't know if I should do it for this one as it will be a gift. As I got to the last block, I thought the center square would be a pretty inconspicuous place to put my initials, so here they are.

I was hoping to get back to my orangey UFO tonight, but started taxes instead...fun, fun. It always amazes me how much I still need to find/pull together to complete them, which is why I start early. So far, so good though...right now we're looking at a $1 payment - you can't get any closer than that - and the only things left that I have to put in are deductions, so the end result should be in our favor...which means more toys for the HQ for me! Hahaha....I don't know that Mike will agree :)

Slow Moving UFOs

In the quilting world, UFOs are unfinished fabric objects and anyone who's been quilting a while has a few...some more than others. I have done fairly well at finishing what I start, but a few projects have lingered. Part of the problem is that it is more fun to start new projects than to finish up old ones, especially before I started doing some of my own machine quilting. Now I am enjoying the quilting process a lot and so I am trying to get a few of my UFOs to a state where they can be quilted.

Here's the first one - this is a fat quarter quilt that I started in March 2006! I was doing well for a while on this one and adding a row each time I finished another project, but then it got shoved to the back of my cabinet.

I've added two more rows this week and then have about 5 more to go, plus borders. The problem with the borders is that I did not buy any extra fabric when picking out the fat quarters. I probably have enough of the orange to do a small inner border, but didn't know what I'd do for the outer border. On my trip to Oregon last summer, I picked up some of one fabric thinking that I could use it for border, but I don't think I really like it all that much. Last night, I tossed the quilt on top of "Do you see what I see" and today glanced into my sewing room and saw what may become the outer border. I have enough of the purple left that I could use it for the outer border - what do you think?

I've also been working on my Mystery Quilt re-do and have it on the frame. I've quilted almost 2 of the four rows and am having some fun with it. I ran out of bobbin thread today so decided to take a break. I will probably get back to it in the next few days and finish it up. I'll take a picture of the quilting once I have it done.

Third Time's the Charm

Tonight, I settled into my sewing room to make a few quick and easy placemats. I should know by now that quick and easy in concept never seems to equal quick and easy in practice!

I started by going through all my fabric to find some that would work well - after warm weather today, I was looking for springy fat quarters that were dark enough that they could get food spilled on them without too much worry about stains (with a 2 and 4 year old, there will be lots of food on them....). Found a couple that I liked, but then discovered that a few of them weren't really fat quarters, but other odd cuts. They are among the first pieces of fabric I ever bought, so I guess I didn't know what I didn't know. So, got two fabrics finally selected, cut, and decided to sandwich them, because I don't think placemats really need binding - too much fuss for something that is going to be used so heavily. Sewed the sandwich - and here's what happened....

I put the batting in the middle of the sandwich, which means that when you turn it inside out, the batting will be on the outside instead of the inside...called mom to tell her about my mistake and quickly ripped it out....put it back together and didn't check twice....wound up with the wrong sides together....arrrgghhh! Second time to rip it out and now I am thinking that it would be so much quicker to just run to Kohl's and pick up something springy. But I am a little too stubborn to stop now....got them sewn together, turned, and then decided to quilt them a little, trying something new - I thought flowers would be cute.

Here's the end result...notice that the picture isn't too close because my flowers look like they have odd globs on them instead of petals...and at the end of this, I am thinking that it really looked a lot more crisp before I quilted them...oh, well, at least the kids will have fun picking out the animals on them.

So, at the end, the project that should have taken about 45 minutes wound up being a 2 1/2 hour project....better luck next time! Oh, and in case you're wondering if I've really lost it, they are supposed to be wedgy - we have a round table, so this shape should work well when there are 4 on the table...that is, if I ever make three more!

2 Days, 2 Tops

I have been a busy little beaver the last few days. After recovering from a bout with strep throat, I was anxious to get into my sewing room. On Sunday, I got the binding on my red, white, and blue quilt. A friend is going to hand sew it for me in exchange for quilting on a turning twenty for her. I think it is a great deal! After that, I got to work on finishing the blocks for my Mystery Quilt re-do. I finished all the blocks and didn't know how to set them since I had 16 blocks, but odd numbers of each colorway. I took them to our bee work day on Monday and my bee-mates got them set perfectly. I got the top put together and I am so pleased with how it turned out. This has been a UFO for over a year, so I am glad to make progress on it and am now excited to figure out how to quilt it. I already have the backing for it, so I just need to get that ready to go.

After I finished that, I started on a table runner. I bought the charm pack a couple years ago and didn't quite know what I wanted to make with it. I later found this pattern on the web and thought it was great for this charm pack, well, because, that's the charm pack she used and I could steal mercilessly! I cut out all the pieces one day a while ago and I must say that was one of my best decisions ever. I loved just being able to start piecing. I got all the pieces put together last night, left the layout on my cutting table overnight, and finished it up tonight. This will be a fun one to have on the table this December. I don't quite know how to quilt it - easiest would be to meander all over it or do some loops, but if you have any other ideas, please do share...I am up for a challenge on this one to expand my skills a little more.

Sorry that the colors/detail aren't great on these pictures...I will take better ones when they've been quilted.

Don't know what I will start on tomorrow....

January Accomplishments

This will be a quickie post with more promised later this week....lots of good stuff going on in Feb already!

I started off sailing in January with the excitement of putting together and then quilting a quick project on my HQ 16. After that project was done, I feel like I just piddled around for the rest of the month. I had lots of hours in my sewing room, but I can't really see that I accomplished a lot for it. Much of my time this month was spent on the selection/cutting/replacement/seam ripping/construction of the cat blocks. All in all, my total for the month was 21 hours! I was even surprised when I added it all up. Here's what I got done:

• Valentines Wall Quilt - pieced, quilted on HQ16, bound, and hung in the living room!
• 2 Cat blocks for Barbara
• 2 State blocks for Mom, winner of the monthly Quilting in Indiana block lottery
• 2 Dog blocks (I had to balance out the cat blocks)...what I will do with these is yet to be determined! Oh, and they still need eyes...am going to raid mom's button jar later this week.


• 2 Thangles Buck-a-Blocks (didn't take a picture of these...you'll see them all someday when I have a set of 12)
• Dog bed for Humane Society donation
• Hand sewed hanging sleeve on Do You See What I See (ok, just realized I haven't even taken a picture of it and it is too dark now to get a good picture, so will post that soon.)

I also went on one small shop hop with my mom to Ady's and Shiisa and spent very little. Got some backing fabric at Ady's and a couple FQs and a book at Shiisa. Had a great day that day tooling around the state with mom and the kids. Oh, and I posted 10 times this month on my blog, which is more than I've ever done in a month. I am trying to post more often so that it doesn't seem so daunting to update it when I finally get around to it! We'll see how that goes this month.

Goals for February are going to be light. I want a little freedom to work on things that inspire me this month.

• Finish a UFO - haven't decided which one, but would like to get one of them taken care of.
• Blocks for bee and Quilters in Indiana lottery
• Catch up on baby presents - three to complete and more babies due this month! I'd like to get at least the three that are already here their presents.

I also have a couple friends who are bringing me quilts for the HQ16 so that I can practice on them. I am going to stay with meandering or loops, but hope that I can get some time on the HQ this month too.