Sunday, March 24, 2013


Still here....

Just been busy doing some knitting and more knitting. I am knitting this right now. Hey-girl


 I have finished up a few small projects that were made with several charm packs and solids that were part of a club I belonged to at Pink Chalk Fabrics





 
 I made a heating pad cover, a small wall hanging ( for my office space) a small lap top, for at work and also a small bag to carry stuff to work.
 I didnt do anything fancy. Straight line quilting for everything but the small lap quilt. That I did some ribbon quilting on the Avante.


Sunday, February 24, 2013

Starburst Done....

Here she is in all her glory. It took me a week to quilt all the straight lines, but I was so happy looking and touching the faric while doing it, it was worth it.

I decided to sort of mimic the plaid in the binding I choose. I just used several different sizes of blue tape to help keep the lines straight.


She is 76" x 76" and will be perfect for cuddeling on the couch.I am going to go throw it in the wash to get all the crinkly going.

The back was fun to make. I had originally wanted to use gray for the front, but I didnt have enough yardage. I eventually decided to make one of the large starbursts for the back and then use up some of the extra fabric and some yardage to make it the right size.

 
 
 

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Quilting

I am still plugging away at the quilting on my Starburst Quilt. I accidentaly doodled the quilting design on my pad of paper one night and the lighbulb went off. I decided to not do it on the long arm but rather at my regular machine. Yes it takes much longer, but I am constantly smiling when I look at the fabrics in this quilt and that makes it worth all the extra time. 

I am not going to show the quilt till I am done. I should have the quilting done this weekend but I will still have the binding to do.  It will be several more weeks for that as we leave on  Wed. evening to go to Arizona to look at real estate.




Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Top Done....

Well the top is done. I am still working on my backing and putting it together. Not enough hours in the evenings after work and dinner to get much accomplished. Its the only time I take for knitting these days.

I keep opening the picture of the completed top at work, and trying to figure out how I want to quilt it. Part of me says just throw it on the LongArm and get it over with, and the other says do it on the regular machine and spend time with it, as this quilt will be all mine.  Once I can decide on what exactly its telling me quilt on it, I will figure out which machine to use.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Finally...


Got some sewing time in. We spent last weekend flying at the last minute to Tampa Fl. to look at Real Estate. While we did find a house we were interested in, we ultimately decided it is too far away to buy a "sometimes we may get there" house for the time being. We are not ready to pack it all up and move from here in the PNW and our dream house, to another house. We want something that we can vacation at or go for a quick weekend.

We are now going to go look at real estate in the Phoenix area and see what its like, I have never been there. Next month we will go for a weekend trip. its only a two hour flight for us and may be better.  (Besides I am all about living somewhere warm and Phoenix I hear has that in spades)

So I got two of my blocks done and plan to finish the rest this weekend.  My points are far from perfect but I have decided to live with them. They aren't going to be noticed by anyone in my house but me.


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Flying Geese





This was the first time I really make them,  and following Melissa's tutorial and the way she does it was easy to do. I have avoided making a few quilts because they have FG in them. Now I wont be so scaredy cat about making them.  ( Yes Swoon Quilt I am talking about you )

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

HST and Gooses in the Corner

 
 
 
 

I have them done and everytime I play with this fabric I love it more and more. I also love doing HST.
 I can never see why people have trouble with them. They can be time consuming if you are making a lot of them, but if you break it up into small batches it isnt so bad. You can see how much I love doing HST is the quilt picutred below.  This was for a coworker having her first baby. She had told me the colors for the bay would be yellow and grey. After scouring the internet I managed to find just what I wanted. You cant see it in this picture but it was the first time I FMQ circles on my domestic machine. The "quilt police" wouldnt be happy, but I dont care....lol

 
 

Friday, January 18, 2013

Other Quilts

I am working on the piecing right now for the "Single Girl" Quilt by Denyse Schmidt.
I have the rings all pieced but haven't started cutting out the inside and outside parts. The reason is fear.   I have double wedding ring top pieces sitting in a box somewhere, that got stalled because I had trouble making my curves lay flat.
I am hoping doing this quilt will help me with that one. This one the rings are not circleish but more squarish. You can see that in the picture of my ring hanging on my wall.


I have it up on the wall for now as I work on my Starburst Quilt top. Looking at those colors makes me happy.

The other great news right now..we booked a little mini vacation to Florida. Its been extremely cold here in the PNW and I get so cold now. We decided to splurge and go for an extra long weekend. Going to look at potential real estate also while we are there.

Looking forward to warmer weather. 70's sound so much better then the low 30's we are experiencing now.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Starburst QAL


The Starburst Quilt A Long from Melissa Corry has started. This will be a fun one to do. I wanted a large quilt for my lap and have decided to go with the 76 x 76 size.

Julie in conjunction with the QAL offered several different fabric bundles to choose from if you didnt want to use stash.  After looking at the various bundles that were being offered, I went with the Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs bundle.

 
 
I have cut all of the fabric except for some of the sashing. I started to cut it out at realized I may have to adjust the width of the strips. I may not have enough of my white if I keep it at 4 1/2 inches.

 
 

Monday, January 14, 2013

2013

Some people think of a word to follow for the rest of the year. I am just hoping I can keep all my projects documented on here in a timely fashion.

I did set some goals in quilting for myself this year.  They are in no particular order of how they will be done.



Single Girl Quilt
Dresden Plate Quilt
Designer Mystery Block of the Month Avalon
Starburst Quilt Along
Single Irish Chain Quilt
Swoon
Wedding Ring Quilt
Log Cabin
Cat Charm pack quilt
Color Stripe Quilt
 
 
We shall see how it goes. Also I dont make goals for any of my knitting, they just occur to me to do and I do.
 
Currently on my needles I have:
 
Jimmy Beans Downtown Abby Mystery KAL
Cladoniaby Kirsten Kapur
Flintby Samantha Roshak
 
I have some fiber that I have been spinning for a year now, thats a combo of silk and merino. I should get to that soon, as I dont have much left to do before I can ply it. It shall be a shawl that I have had in mind since I got the fiber.

I currently have nothing on the Cricket loom, but thats ok. I have enough going on.

I will try to keep some updates on here but truthfully I would rather quilt, knit, spin or weave in my spare time.