Wednesday, June 29, 2011

I really really hate shots

I have always been "needle terrified" for as long as I can remember. Usually after getting a shot or having blood taken I have to lay down for a couple of minutes as I get light headed.

Well a new experience this morning, had to have a shot in my foot (heel area) at the foot doctor. That was definitely not pleasent but not as bad as I had myself worked up for. By the time he gave me the shot I thought I was going to get sick just from the anticipation.

I am definitely a chicken, but glad it is over and it wasn't near as bad as the shots I had to have in my hand or the ones in my knees a couple of years go.

Sewed a couple of seams today but thats it. Just not in the mood for some reason so managed to get a few errands run and chores around the house. Hopefully maybe I can get a binding worked on or something this evening.

Kathie

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Setting Goals

I set 3 tasks for myself to get done yesterday but it was still a surprise that I got them all done.

The first was to make these two blocks......


These are for a sewing group I am in. Everyone is making blocks and it will then be made into a quilt so that if a group member should get very sick we have a quilt in reserve. Recently a past member (I had not met her) was gravely ill and it was talked about making a quilt but she passed away before anything could be done.

My second task was to cut out fall pumpkins etc. using my Accuquilt GO for a friend of mine. I cut out as many as I could prior to my wonder under running out so that task is done until I get to Joann Fabrics.

My third task was to get this quilt at least on the frame. I am quilting this in return for some binding that was done for me. Since my daughter was at dance last night and my husband was gone I not only got it loaded but all quilted.


This was still only a lap quilt but the largest I have done since my surgery. I still don't feel like I can do any quilts larger than this at this point as I still do have some weakness and ache in my hand but I will see what the doctor says later this week.

Today I have been doing a little on a second horse quilt. I had some 9 patch blocks left and some pieces of two different horse fabrics and a fabric with rope on it so combining them all into a second simple quilt. Might as well get a second top done instead of putting all the fabrics back in my stash.

Kathie

Monday, June 27, 2011

Design Wall Monday - June 27, 2011

I finished this small quilt top yesterday but it is still tacked to my design wall. Quick and easy and will make a great craft show quilt. I will have to search my stash and see if I might have anything for a backing for this but it will wait till I get a few other things done.


Yesterday's project was quilting this little hospice quilt. I pieced this. Well really the whole middle is just a panel so I only put two borders on it after shopping Carol's stash for fabrics to go with it. Another guild member Elsie made a backing for it and I will not send it off to one of my binding fairies for completiion.


I am still trying to get used to a different schedule for summer. So use to being by myself during the day and doing whatever (including noisy things) whenever I want to that with summer and a teenager that sleeps late it takes awhile to make adjustments.

Today I am going to try and get a couple of minor tasks done in the sewing room including a couple of block to make for a joint quilt and get another quilt loaded on the frame. This will be a payback to Ann for binding a couple of my own projects for me while I was unable to.

Kathie

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Sunday Stash Report - June 26, 2011

I did spend time in the sew room this week but was doing some quilting and didn't get enough time to work on piecing to make a big dent in stash. I did get a couple of bindings cut, made and on table runners and the center section of a lap quilt pieced. Stats for the week are:

Fabric used this week: 4 1/2 yards
Fabric used YTD: 152 yards
Fabric purchased this week: 1 yard (for binding of my star quilt)
Fabric purchased YTD: 109.5 yards
Net fabric used in 2011: 42 yards

At least the net number is getting up there a bit.

I did have a total finish in the last couple of days and it is my UFO #8 for Judy L's UFO challenge. I finally finished the binding the other night.

Kathie

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Worry

I am a worry wart, in fact I am 4th generation worry wart so this morning was kind of hard. My step-daughter from my first marriage had to have back surgery today. Since she lives in North Carolina I couldn't just run by the hospital, just sat worrying. Luckily she had one of her friends give me a call a short while ago to let me know that surgery had gone well and that she was doing ok.

To many things have been happening in her life all at the same time. I sure hope that once recovered from her surgery that things will start going a little better for her.

Kathie

Mid Week Update

Yesterday I had a pretty productive day with several household chores taken care of and several hours devoted to the quilting room.

I got this baby quilt I pieced a week or two ago quilted.


I pieced some of my horse quilt into rows.....


and I also managed to finish the hand stitching of a binding on one runner and start stitching down a second one.

This morning will be taken up with a trip to the foot doctor (what fun!!) but hope this afternoon to get something else loaded on the frame.

A lady is buying my carpenter star lap quilt from me so need to get that on the frame and quilted so that hopefully I can get the binding done next week.

Have a wonderful day.

kathie

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Week So Far

I flipped my quilt over to take this picture so it didn't clash with this bed runner. I quilted this yesterday for a customer. It measures appx. 34 x 88. I think it is a very cute idea. I could really picture a fall one, Christmas, maybe spring etc. if you wanted to change your bedding with the seasons but didn't want to make all those quilts.


I am taking a lot long to quilt with frequent breaks to not stress my hand but was nice to get a customer quilt accomplished.

I didn't work on my horse quilt yesterday, with extra time after the runner was quilted I made bindings and machine sewed them on two table runners of mine including my UFO of the month.

Have not seen much of my daughter this summer break from school yet. A friend of hers that moved to Florida a year ago is visiting for a week and four girls have been rotating between houses and spending all their time together. Our turn was saturday night. You ever TRY to sleep with 4 noisy 17 year olds in the house???? Doesn't work.

Kathie

Monday, June 20, 2011

Design Wall Monday - June 20, 2011

Wish I had a more interesting picture to post but this is what is on my design wall. The is the start of a horse quilt for fall craft shows. The dark brown fabric has little horse shoes on it and there will be alternating plain blocks of horse fabric. I make one or two horse quilts every year and they have never failed to sell.


I did post a picture yesterday of the thrift store chaise find that I had picked up on saturday. Hubby and I spent a couple of hours yesterday out in the garage starting to strip the old fabric off of it. Managed to get the dust ruffle, back and sides done. For anyone that has never stripped the fabric off a chair there are millions of staples holding the fabric on so is very labor intensive to strip it.

Some mentioned that the chaise looked really big. It was totally the angle of the picture. It is actually on the small side. It is long but narrow.


I need to get a couple of errands run this morning (in the pouring rain) and will then start quilting on a customer quilt. I will try and post a picture when I am done as it is an interesting idea. It is a bed runner. I guess like they sometimes have in hotels. I could see if you had a plain bedspread you could change bed runners with each season or holiday and not have a ton invested in fabric or time to make full sized quilts and would also not be to hard to store.

Kathie

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Sunday Stash Report - June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day everyone. I have great fond memories of my dad and I am sure will spend a lot of today thinking about him but also missing him. If you are lucky enough to still have your dad around give him a hug from me!!!

It was a busy week with appointments, college tour etc. but I still managed to use up a reasonable amount of fabric. I also made some purchases. A couple of yards for borders and binding and a stack of John Deere fabrics from our quilt guild auction. Current stats are:

Fabric used this week: 6 yards
Fabric used YTD: 147.5 yards
Fabric purchased this week: 6 yards
Fabric purchased YTD: 108.5 yards
Net fabric used in 2011: 39 yards (no change since last week)

I did manage to get my UFO #8 for Judy L's challenge together this week. Four crumb blocks made into a runner and quilted it yesterday. Just the binding left to do and I can call this a finish.


I have wanted a chaise for in the bedroom for a long time. New ones are hard to find and just way to expensive. Went in a thrift store yesterday and here this was, so it went home with us. It definitely needs to be recovered but since my hubby used to do that part time that won't be a problem. Went to JoAnn's Fabrics last night and used my 50% off coupon to get some beige fabric to recover this. Now all I need is for him to have time to work on it.


I have a partially cut out horse quilt so that and getting a small customer quilt quilted will be on the agenda for the next couple of days.

Enjoy your day.

kathie

Thursday, June 16, 2011

University of Maryland

We spent yesterday at the University of Maryland at College Park which is just a few miles out of Washington DC. This was our first college tour so it felt very strange for me but very exciting for Mandy. All the years of talking about college and it is only a little over a year away now.

We absolutely loved the campus. It is HUGE with over 26,000 undergraduate students. It is beautiful with pretty brick buildings and lots of trees and grassy areas and the facilities are first rate.

I like the location as it is the closest to home of the colleges we are going to visit but it is also the most expensive and the hardest to get into.

Here is a picture of Mandy and her friend taken in the visitor center right before we started our tour.


Next trip will be in about three weeks to Towson University.

Kathie

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Silent Auction and Hospice Quilt

Last night was our quilt guild yearly silent auction. There was tons of stuff but I was a little disappointed that 3/4 of the fabric was home dec type of fabric that I have no use for. Several ladies were scooping it up to make bags etc. so great for them.

My only purchase of the evening was the group of John Deer fabrics. Should be able to make a cute little boys quilt out of these.


I did come home with a donated hospice quilt top, a backing someone made and didn't use, a quilt job for when my hand is able and a completed hospice quilt.

Eileen made this hospice quilt out of donated pillow panels. Isn't this a creative use of them?


Thanks Eileen, she donates more quilts than most of the rest of us put together. I still think she just must never sleep!!!

Kathie

Monday, June 13, 2011

Design Wall Monday - June 13, 2011

Thanks for all the good wishes with my rotten headache yesterday. It did finally ease off and I was able to do things around the house. My daughter had the same headache last night so maybe it had to do with air pressure changes or something like that.

With that huge FQ bundle I made two baby quilts last week. This is the main one and is still on my design wall.


The one I posted yesterday was made with the left over 9 blocks that I didn't include in this one.

This is going to be a busy week. Quilt guild tonight. This is our yearly silent auction so hope I don't do to much damage to my stash report but I do have a list of a few colors of fabric I will pick up if I see.

Tomorrow is catch up on some things, wednesday we start college tours and thursday I go to the dentist to get a crown, ouch both pain and $$$$ for that.

Kathie L.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Sunday Stash Report - June 12, 2011

I used up a lot of fabric this week though actually didn't spend that many hours a day in the sewing room as it seemed like it was a whole week of appointments.

I did use up fabric to back 5 table runners and used up a stack of FQs and additional border and binding fabric to make two baby quilts.

Here are my current stats:

Fabric used this week: 11 yards
Fabric used YTD: 141.5 yards
Fabric purchased this week: 2 yards (borders and binding)
Fabric purchased YTD: 102.5

Net fabric used in 2011: 39 yards

This is the smallest of the two baby quilts I made.


On the agenda today is getting the rest of my weekend chores done and if I can get rid of a nasty headache plan on spending some time in the sewing room. I need to gather things for our yearly quilt guild auction tomorrow night, would like to get some backing fabric loaded on the frame and I am slowly zig zagging around some flowers on a charity quilt top I made.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Kathie

Friday, June 10, 2011

Melting in Maryland

We have been melting in Maryland the last couple of days. My daughter was on a field trip to the National Zoo on wednesday in 97 degree weather. She said they spent most of the day eating shaved ice and trying to stay in the shade. Yesterday it hit 100 and humid, not my type of weather at all.

I had a couple of appointments but tried to spend as much time as possible down in the basement where it was nice and cool.

I quilted up these three runners yesterday.


Other than these I have been working on a couple of baby quilts and getting small tasks done like making up bindings and stitching around some fused on appliques.

Kathie

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Change of Pace

I loved the comment that I make runners like the energizer bunny!!!

I do usually three craft shows every fall so I make items for it year around. Usually I work on lap and baby quilts the first part of the year and then about June or July I go into high gear making runners. Think I just started the runners a little early this year but still need to make 2 or 3 baby quilts and a couple more christmas quilts before fall.

I am tired of runners and needed a change of pace even though my June UFO is another runner. I will get to that in a few days.

Yesterday I decided to pull out a stack of 15 baby FQs I had purchased in April at a fiber arts conference and start on a baby quilt. I cut 2 or 3 fabrics at a time off and on all day. I have to put my whole hand on the ruler vs. just my fingers like I used to do so it is taking some adjustment. I did get the first 4 blocks together last night.


These blocks sew up so quickly that I should have the top done in no time.

This flower is blooming in my front flower bed now. I don't know much about flowers but it looks like some sort of lilly to me. Does anyone know what it is?


Have a great day. We are enjoying a warm but not to terribly hot day today but sounds like the heat is going to roll in tomorrow so I better enjoy today and spend a little time out on the deck.

Kathie

Monday, June 6, 2011

Design Wall Monday - June 6, 2011

This table runner top that I finished up last night is what is on my design wall. The pattern is called Jacob's Jazz. I think it turned out cute (color is off in the picture) but took a long time to make. The piecing was easy but since there were so many narrow strips it seemed to take forever to sew. Not sure if I will make this one again or not.


I am going to try and get a couple more table runners quilted today. After that I am not sure what my next piecing project will be. I could go back to sewing up all the tumblers but I am very tired of them. I could work on my UFO of the month but that is also another table runner and I feel like working on something else, just don't know what. Does that ever happen to you? Maybe inspiration will strike me after a few errands and quilting the runners.

Next week will start our college tour trips. Gee seems like a couple of years ago we were trying to figure out day care and camps for the summer and now we will be touring colleges. We are going to start off with the University of Maryland at College Park which according to the website is about 8 miles from Washington DC. It is a huge University which I don't like the idea of but Mandy does. It is the most expensive and the highest SAT and GPA requirements of the three state universities we are going to visit but on the good side I believe it is the closest to home.

Kathie

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Sunday Stash Report and Hospice Quilt

I had a good week regarding stash reduction. I made a backing for a lap quilt, used stash to back 4 table runners and made 2 additional table runner tops and DIDN'T BUY A THING. Current stats:

Used this week: 9 yards
Used YTD: 130.5 yards
Purchased this week: ZERO
Purchased YTD: 100.5

Net fabric used in 2011: 30 yards

Since we are already six months into the year 30 yards does not sound like that much of a reduction but since this year I am trying to concentrate more on using up some of the really old stuff and using up some of the smaller pieces that are hard to store and trying to "freshen" my stash some I think I am doing well.


Ann L dropped this little hospice donation quilt to me on friday. She pieced it from a kit I cut, I quilted it and then returned it to her for binding. This will find its way to hospice in a month or two.

My hubby and I delivered 9 quilts to hospice house on friday morning. Seven of them were from my night time guild and two from members of the day time guild I belong to. All very nice quilts and I am sure will be much appreciated.

Kathie

Friday, June 3, 2011

More Runners

I have not sewn much the last couple of days other than machine stitching a couple of bindings on runners and making up a backing. I have had a guild meeting and a couple of appointments that took up so much of the days.

This is the last project that I was working on. More of my tumbler runners but these two with poinsettias fused on the ends. I STILL have enough tumblers cut to make probably two more runners.


Since my hubby is off today I am going to sort through donation quilts and take one huge bag over to hospice house sometime today. I have a second huge bag partially filled so will still have several here on hand if needed.

Kathie

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

May's Completion - UFO #9

As part of Judy L's challenge the UFO for the month of May was #9.

Mine started out as just strips of left over fabrics from a long ago charity quilt project.


Now it is a finished top with binding cut and ready to go. Most months I have tried to have the quilt totally done by the end of the month but with hand surgery 3 1/2 weeks ago it just wasn't possible. I think I did well getting the top done this month so I will call it a finish for purposes of this challenge and will get it quilted as soon as possible and will ultimately be donated to our local hospice house.


Kathie