Inspired

Are you inspired in this gift giving season to do for others? I hope everyone is from donating to Toys for Tots, food to the local food bank or our charity sewing.

The absolute best gift I have this holiday season is that the three of us are healthy. So many people I know have illness in their family and I know how lucky I am that we don't.

That feeling of thankfulness has inspired me to work on some charity projects this week. The other day I quilted this quilt for hospice. It was made by Kathy V out of a kit I cut last winter from donated fabrics. It will go off to one of my binding fairies later today.


I also took some time to piece backings for two more hospice quilts. Simple one seam backings but still takes time to find a fabric, press and cut and then sew the seam. To bad I couldn't count any of the fabric as stash reduction but found fabrics that would work in one of the charity fabric boxes.

Kathie

Batik Quilt

After weeks of working on this a little at a time I finally got the batik quilt top done. It is about 60 x 72 so a great nap sized quilt. I wish the colors looked better in this picture as the fabrics are a lot prettier than it looks here.



Everything except the borders was from a fat quarter packet that I got when I took our guild bus trip to the PA quilt show. I am so glad I went back and purchased them. Though I have quilted a lot of batik quilts for customers this is the first one I have made for myself. I can see how collecting batiks can become a habit because I really loved working with these.

kathie

Midweek Update

I did manage to get all the blocks for the center of the quilt sewn together yesterday and then took a trip up to the quilt shop for border fabric. Hopefully the borders will be on the quilt by the end of the day.

I would like to say that the fabric for the borders was the only thing I purchased but some other fabrics found their way home in the car with me. I had been looking for some nice horse fabric and they had that and horse shoe fabric to go with it and then I spied a Christmas fabric that looked like appliqued wreaths but it was a cheater fabric so HAD to get a yard of that.

I only get to this shop every few months. They have so much fabric that I always feel like some of it is going to topple over on me but on the flip side of that I have never gone there on a mission and not found what I was looking for.

I also got another small customer quilt done yesterday so all in all I had a productive time.

Kathie

Project of the Day

This was my customer project of the day yesterday. I wasn't sure how to quilt it since the actual pieced part was really small and the borders so large. I decided to use the Pajama Quilter Ziggle Fern to quilt this using a variegated pastel king tut thread. This was the first time I used this pattern on a customer quilt and I like the results, my spacing was a lot better than on my first couple of attempts.

I would quilt a couple of passes across the quilt and then sit down and sew a few of my batik blocks together. I have three rows done and ready to be stitched together. If I can get that done this morning I might take a run to the quilt shop and try and find some border fabric. I have been working on this project off and on for what seems like a long time (probably a couple of months) so would really like to get the top done soon.

I got the remainder of my Christmas shopping done yesterday and most things wrapped last night so I defintely feel a sense of relief that it is all done and I can enjoy the rest of December.

Kathie

Design Wall Monday - December 6, 2010

Well I do have something pinned up on my design wall this monday even if it something that has been on there a couple of times at various stages. I finally finished all the blocks for the batik quilt and got them all trimmed and squared up this weekend.


I need to piece the middle of this together (or a few rows anyway) and then take it to a quilt shop to try and find border fabric. I have never sewn with Batiks before so don't have a stash of them to try and find something.

I am a lot later posting my design wall today than normal. I had to go out fairly early this morning so decided since it was very cold and windy to go ahead and get all my errands run so that when I got home I could stay home for the rest of the day.

I finished up the last of my Christmas shopping, bank errands and a couple of other places. I even took a quick run by JoAnn fabrics and yes, I did purchase fabric. I saw a really cute snowman wall hanging in a current quilt magazine and I want to make that for next year. Since I usually start sewing Christmas things in May, well before Christmas fabric is out I wanted to pick up some snowflake fabric for the wall hanging while it was still in the stores.

Now to warm up, kick my feet up for a few and then go to the quilt room to finish loading the next customer quilt.

kathie

Sunday Stash Report - December 5, 2010

Well no movement this week in trying to bust any stash. I did take a few minutes for "me" sewing and I did get 18 of the batik blocks all trimmed and squared up. Not to much and since I had already counted the fabric used in all of these blocks nothing to report on my weekly stats:

Fabric used this week: 0
Fabric used YTD: 244.25
Fabric purchased this week: 0
Fabric purchased YTD: 169.75
Net fabric used in 2010: 74.5

It was another busy week with customer quilts, a guild Christmas party and yesterday was my last craft show of the season. I am definitely please with how I did yesterday. It was the second biggest show I have ever done (been doing craft shows since 2001). Since the last show was down so much from last year this one made up the difference. Now that most of my lap quilts sold I need to start planning what to make for next year. Baby, Christmas and anything with horses on them seem to sell the best.

Once I get some chores done today I would like to spend some time in the sewing room but it will probably have to be putting things away and not actually sewing. Maybe I can at least get a few more blocks squared up and laid out if nothing else.

Have a great Sunday.

Kathie

A Calmer Month

November was crazy with my daughters wisdom teeth, dance try outs, drivers license etc., settlement on our other house and two craft shows. Even though I work at home I try and put in a few hours every day on the quilt frame working on custmer quilts.

All that and then coming down with a really bad cold I was feeling very stressed out on getting things done and having some time to just rest and relax.

I have decided to do everything I can to make December a more enjoyable and calmer month. The house is decorated, most shopping is done so now it is time to slow down a little bit and enjoy the season.

I have one more craft show to do and I am only going to take on a few more quilts with promises that they will be done for Christmas and then I am going to take a couple of weeks off around Christmas to do what I want.

In the meantime if I don't get all the cards done I want, or if I need to make for dinner whatever is the quickest or even order pizza I am going to try and not sweat it. I want to be able to make time to have lunch with friends, go driving to look at all the pretty Christmas lights and even just sit in front of the TV and watch sappy Christmas movies. Most importantly I want to have time to enjoy my daughters break from school at the holidays. All to soon she will be off on her own and we might not see her every Christmas so I intend to really enjoy them now.

Kathie