Time to Get Going

My older daughter raided quite a bit of my stash of fabric. She is not working in the career she was trained to work so money is quite tight. She has an interview this week at one of her ideal places to work so please keep your fingers crossed, pray, whatever you do on her behalf. The bookcase I had built for me by Dave of

I thought I'd show you some of the fabrics I've accummulated.

Busy, busy, busy

This has been such a busy month. We've had family visiting the last three weekends and so although I had time to organize my fabric and buy some new there hasn't been much quilting going on. Last week our younger daughter came "home" for four days and this week our older came "home" for four days. Three weeks ago my sister came to visit for the weekend. We still all call it home although especially for my older daughter it will probably never be her permanent home again. This summer both daughters will be together in New York City. The older one lives there and the younger one will be doing an internship there. They haven't lived in close proximity for a long time and since they are six years apart when the older one left for college the younger one was only twelve. I'm glad they are looking forward to being near each other and developing a relationship on an adult basis now.

DQS8

DQS8,
originally uploaded by sweetlibertygrace.

I saw this today on Flickr's doll quilt swap 8. What an inspiration. I wish I could put it on my wall next to my sewing machine. It has everything done to perfection. The sizing, colors and patterns and perfection in the cutting and quilting. Fantastic. I will at least print it and hang it on my bulletin board. I would LOVE an enire quilt of this. That would be awesome!

Triangles and stars

IMG00185.jpg,
originally uploaded by Butternutlake.

Last night I stayed up late looking at various peoples tutorials on making triangles and stars. There are so many ways to make them. These are the first things I saw when I got on the computer this morning. They are great and I hope I can get the instructions so i can begin to practice making them. I have a great idea to make a big quilt out of one or two of them. Congratulations Butternutflake!

It doesn't get much better than this

Thank you Red Pepper Quilts

You even find things underneath the quilts!

100_2675,
originally uploaded by ruthiequilts.

This was designed and completed by my special quilting guardian angel. She knew I needed someone looking over my shoulder and giving me a pat on the back and out of nowhere... there she was. I will be forever grateful to this marvelous lady.

I Spy Stars- Finished!

I Spy Stars- Finished!,
originally uploaded by MimiPark.

Definitely one of my favorites. Thank you MimiPark, whoever and wherever you are. You are a talented lady. Sometime this year... I wil attempt this and now that I've written it down for all to see I've taken an oath to myself to keep learning until I can do this.

The First Block is Almost Finished

After the few days of frustration last week when my machine wouldn't work and being unable to find the notes about the Fussy Cut Block I finally started sewing it and it will be finished tomorrow! Of course I did all the stupid stuff you do at the beginning like sewing the wrong sides together, measuring and cutting wrong and it is QUITE lopsided but by tomorrow afternoon it will be finished and the pieces are all cut out for the Doll Quilt Swap so I get to start on that tomorrow. It' also my birthday (but I don't talk about that anymore, I don't like the numbers,but I took the day off from work) I'm getting closer to actually starting on a real, normal sized quilt! Now the biggest problem is, what quilt to make and what fabric to use.

I've never had stashes of fabric before. This is great and frustrating. What do I pick? An email informed me that Kaffe Fassett's new book has been shipped. Many aren't nearly as hard as they look, so it could be something totally brand new!

Ready?

Just as I accepted my fate of a non-working sewing machine I asked my husband (who knows nothing about sewing machines and is not very mechanical) to take a look at it and try to help me figure it out. I don't know what I was thinking, that because he was a man the y chromosome gave him some extra power over all appliances. He just stared at it so several hours later I decided to just start from the beinning and I got new thread, a new bobbin and redid everything again and turned it off and went to bed. The next morning I got up, turned it on and found some scrap fabric and ... it purred beautifully. The sewing machine guardian angel had helped me during the night so tomorrow I start sewing. It's my birthday on Monday (we don't talk about the number anymore) and at the last minute (very last minute) my TWIN sister decided she would come "up" which is what people from down state say, to Rochester so we could celebrate together but this means it will cut into my sewing time. I couldn't say no but hopefully I can get sometime in before she arrives tomorrow (it's 12:06 AM) so I guess I should say today and leaves on Monday. I have a really hectic week scheduled so not much time for sewing so it'll have to wait until the end of the week when my youngest daughter comes home for four days. I haven't seen her much in the past year so I can't wait to see her but you can see where this is going so if my blocks are late for the Fussy Cut Block Group and my Doll Quilt is a few weeks behind you'll know why but tomorrow I'll take some pictures (only a small portion of the actual fabrics will be showing) so you know they're cut out and ready to be sewn!!

Tangle of Thread

I cut out a lot of fabric during the week and I'm ready to start on several blocks and doll quilts and my sewing machine isn't working. I can't get the tension right. I haven't used it in a while but it's a Viking and only nine years old so it should be going strong, plus it hasn't gotten much use so tomorrow I'll bring it over to the dealer and hope I just need an adjustment to refresh my memory because it's supposed to rain all weekend and I've got enough cut out to sew all weekend so keep your fingers crossed they don't say we'll have to send it out. Do they rent sewing machines? What do you do when you've got a handful of tangled thread...

Moving faster

The sun is shining and it's supposed to be near 50 degrees, a virtual summer day in Rochester. I don't have to work today but I have some appointments out of the house but enough time at home to cut out the pieces I need for my two blocks for the Fussy Cut Block Group (I decided to do two instead of one) and to get started on the first Baby Quilt Swap with my partner. If I have time I'm going to make two of those also. I have the entire weekend with nothing planned but quilting and the usual weekend errands. My new bookcase is filled with fabric and I'm ready to go! The sewing room is just about all redone, except for hanging up some quilts so there's nothing to do but quilt! Still finding blogging frustrating so I'll wait until my blogging daughter comes "home" for a visit to help her mom, so no blogging for a while. I still can't get used to not saying "home" for when she comes here. She has her own "home" now, even if it's an apartment in New York City but that's where her home is now.

A Really Terrible Day

Lsst week I had a really terrible day and I was really upset and didn't know what to do with myself and my back was hurting a lot (I've been rear ended twice in two years and have a lot of ongoing back problems because of these accidents, which included surgery for two herniated discs) so I took my pain medicine and took a nap. Winston was so worried about me he just kept circling around me and kissing me and looked so distraught(as dogs can) and ended up curling up next to me on my bed (which he usually doesn't like to do) and slept with me until I woke up. He is the best dog and I am so lucky to have a dog that takes care of me when I'm feeling down or sick. He got a lot of kisses and a few treat for that. Trying to be mindful!