Checking in...

More than anything, I'm checking in to see if blogger has made any huge changes while I've been lost in my sewing adventures.  Seems like every time I let a month (or three) go by, I come back to a format I am not familiar with!
Anyhoo, that's my story and I'll see if I can post a few pix.  I spent this past weekend sewing.  Made my days, I tell you!  I am feeling the effects of the recession in my transcription business, but the upside of less work, is more time to sew.  I could get used to this "weekends off" stuff! I sewed with Ellen and Karen on Saturday and got to meet and enjoy the company of her delightful cousin Melanie.  We had a ball!

These are from a red, white and blue sampler I'm doing...  Ellen and I are both making this one.  I've been working the blocks in scrappy goodness while she used some fabric that was bought specifically for it.  I'm enjoying these so much (they are 12 inches finished - LOVING the size increase from the Farmer's Wife types!).  We've got another one planned to begin! Sunday I joined everyone at the Orange Quilt Bee, and made two more blocks!

I have two more to do, and then I'm ready to throw on setting triangles to make the blocks even bigger, and will make a twin sized quilt, sashing in a dark blue, I think.  As a friend pointed out recently on Facebook, it's less than 200 days until Christmas, so I need to get hopping on this one and get it quilted! While I was at the Bee, I saw some pretty awesome quilts that were calling me....this one even had my name spread across it!

Jenny was working on binding a quilt she has made as a wedding gift!  Pretty!

Karen persevered, drank coffee, frogged mis-sewn portions, and persevered some more . She now has a finished flimsie ready for the quilting frame.  AWESOME!

I saw this wall hanging, caved in, and placed an order for it.  This will be made from Christmas stash drawer(s).... that justifies it, right!?!  (sorry, dark pic!)

I saw this cute Sunbonnet Sue being pinned!  It made me want to run home and make a few more of my  Sunbonnet Sue blocks.  I've been doing about three blocks a year and getting side tracked! Snicker!

So cute!  I enjoyed spending time with Karen, Ellen, Jenny, Yvette, Nancy and Pat.... (We missed Beth!!)  Such fun ladies!!  The shop hop is going on this weekend and next, and that means extended hours.  We're planning to get together early before our final class with Janet 'Sensei' for June, and sew the day away again!


This week I'm going to quilt a lap sized quilt Karen has made for a girlfriend, and this weekend Jason is finishing the flooring in Laurie's old room - the Great Move (of the sewing room from the loft to that bedroom) will commence after that.  Combine that with three dog sits over the next two weeks (two overlapping for seven days!), sewing time will be at a premium, and most of my time will be spent knee deep in dog hair and wagging tails.... It will be a while before I have much to show here.  But I'm seven blocks from done with Farmer's Wife and two blocks from done on the Red/White/Blue sampler, so hopefully, I'll whip those out and be ready to start new projects in the "new" sewing room.  That's all, folks!  I'll see if this posts successfully!  :)

Pictures from my pea-honie!

That's what Karen sometimes calls her phone.  Her pea-hone.  or Pea-honie.

Anyway, been way too long since I posted.  I have finished a baby quilt I will try to remember to post a pic of here, must get it in the box and on it's way to the now week-old little one! 

Just wanted to share some glimpses of spring here in my neighborhood.... I live very close to a reservoir and there is a paved trail around it that I really enjoy walking.  Here's my take on today:

 I think the caption for this one should be "bloom where you are planted".  That is a wild flower blooming from the open end of a pipe near the water's edge!

 One of my favorite backyards that backs up to the trail...

Chugging two or three miles around this path is a pleasure! Now, up to my sewing room to play!

Whew.  I got the last two rows attached after dinner tonight.  Discovered one "error" in placement that I couldn't live with and swapped two blocks for my picky self. 

Now I need to put the four or five inch wide borders (a bright navy wallpaper print pattern) on.... and I will CONQUER the mitered corner(s) in the process.

But for tonight, I stood on the stairway and gazed down at my Civil War Block of the Week quilt top (http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/).

Me likee! 

Except that now that I can see it as a picture, I see one more block to correct.  Middle of bottom row...block four from the left....

...my  Apple Tree block is upside down.  Sigh.  I will fix that tomorrow!  Here is how that block should look!  http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/11/46-apple-tree.html

This was a truly fun quilt to make.  The blocks are 8 inches in size, which was of course, a tad easier to work with than the Farmer's Wife blocks and the Sylvia's Bridal Quilt blocks.  It was interesting reading the history that inspired the blocks. 

After this has borders, it is going to visit Cotie and her long arm quilting machine.  It's just too big for my little quilting frame.  Cotie is planning to use an all-over meander in a "sandstone" color thread and then it will come back to live at Chez Bury! This one is staying right here!  :)

Next up, the next row of Farmer's Wife, Sylvia, some string blocks, and a date with a Diva!!

Feeble mind....

Two posts in one day....

Can't remember if I've posted these, but I finally (after a year of having one hanger holding nothing at all!) have three months of "Home Is Where the Heart Is" blocks displayed....

Here is one of the ones I just completed (February).

And here are the three over my sofa.....

I am loving these.... but I need to get going on the next three!  Six or seven weeks until I need to put the next quarter's blocks up - April, May and June!  One of my goals is to have these blocks completed and check this off my UFO list for 2012. 

Sew many projects, sew little time!

Time's flying....

Time's flying way too fast!  Christmas started early for me when Yvette gave me a special gift that I just LOVE!!!  She made a sweet mini-tumbler quilt and then framed it into a wooden serving tray! 

I kept my little GingerBread Boys in it for the Christmas season, and now it holds three pretty candles and Karen and I light them when we watch TV downstairs.  I don't know how Yvette did it, but the tray is so cute and I love the mini quilt in it.  :)

Christmas came and went and it was a special blessing for us, a really precious memory maker.  One of the funnier moments was my first gift which began ringing as I looked at it.  Michael gifted me with a SmartPhone....  I love it!  I'm not any smarter, but I am really enjoying this phone!

One of Karen's gifts was Rock Band....  And though we've not had playing sessions as often as she would like, we did have one Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and even Michael got in on the action.

Jason brought me a special surprise after Christmas!  He had a tiling job in Los Angeles, and the homeowner mentioned he could have anything left in the soon-to-be-sold house that might be helpful to him...  He snagged a great sofa, and look at what he brought me....

And inside?

I am so excited, both that he thought of me when he saw it (he knows what makes my heart go pitter-patter!) and for the opportunity to restore the cabinet and stool.... and maybe someday, the machine!  Laurie has requested leopard print for the upholstered portion of the stool.... and I just might do that, because the idea makes me smile, and because when I contacted Singer, Co. with the serial number, I got the machines birthplace (Elizabeth, NJ) and birthday, September 25 (Laurie's birthday!), 1947!!  I will refinish the cabinet/stool first..... the machine will have to wait until I can find someone who restores old Singers!

January found our living room converted into Laurie's Storage Unit.  As she prepared to move to her new apartment, she stored things in boxes/piles....  We had a fridge by the front door and a queen mattress/box springs in the dining room....
 

And then February 1st rolled around, and all the boyz with pickup trucks descended on the house and cleared it out in no time.

Once we recovered from all the excitement of the Big Move....I promptly got a cold.  Sigh.  I haven't been good for much except

I did start to put together my Civil War BOW (by Barbara Brackman)..... I'm getting excited about getting this quilt completed.... I think I will be seriously considering sending it out to be quilted.  I don't know that I could get the finished size on my little frame upstairs and I really want to to be quilted beautifully.  There was a lot of work in it, and it's going to be mine, all mine! heehee!


I've also done some chili canning, and tried a number of new recipes.  Oh, and one other project I am happy to have completed:  I framed the puzzle Jacque gave us LAST Christmas and it hangs in my dining room area now!  We all four worked on that puzzle and it is another one of those special memories I treasure!

Thank you Jacque!

On this week's list?  Painting a bathroom, and hopefully more quilting!  I hope to get together with quilting buddies soon, and this is the year of Finishing UFOs for me.  That's the plan, man!

Settling in....

I'm enjoying getting back to the Farmer's Wife blocks.  I've done a couple more....

I did take a break and quilt Karen's baby quilt on my frame.... Love her mitered border! She bought a panel, cut it up, made squares of coordinating solids, arranged it to her liking, and called it done. I think it's Sew Cute!

And she pieced a binding with left over fabric and bound it.  This was her first machine bound binding - very durable for frequent washings and baby chewing, etc! 

Way to strike a project off the UFO list!

I caught this cute pic of Laurie wrapping her present for Jason (a humongous score at Target on Black Friday!)...

She eventually yelled for assistance/moral support from Karen.... 

And the job is done.  That thing is in front of the tree now.  It hides half of it! Mr. Jason will be thrilled!

Next up, another FW block tomorrow night, and the baking of our cookie tree for Mr. B.

This is the picture from the Wilton site showing how the tree should look.  Ours never end up quite like that, but Mr. B. doesn't seem to mind!

Sigh!

That big sigh was my reaction when I realized today that I had finished every single Christmas present, right down to the barbeque apron for my brother in law!  (who does not read the blog, so I can show it!)

I love that one!

I finished a quilt today also that I can't show until after Christmas... heh heh!

All done!  So I cleaned up the sewing room a bit, vac'd the floor real fast, and dragged out a project to work on.  Back to my regularly scheduled projects!

Yvette had "assigned" us the next row of Farmers Wife back a couple months ago!  I tackled my file of paper piecing sheets for the row and managed to get three blocks done today! It was fun to get back in the swing of this one!  Once again, I used OleFrogEyes to pick colors and keep track of what blocks I'm doing!

After that, Karen had gotten all industrious and made a List of projects for 2012.... and her momentum carried her right through piecing the backing for the first project on her list.  So once she was done, we set up the frame again and loaded this baby quilt. 

I should be able to meander this one tomorrow afternoon and then she can bind it and mark one item off her 2012 List!  And then it will be back to Farmers Wife blocks for me!

I'm contemplating making a project list for 2012 myself.....  but I'm overwhelmed with the mere list making! Maybe I will tackle that this week.....

Black and white and red! It's all over!

Black and white and red seems to be a very popular color combination these days.  I've found myself drawn to red in my kitchen (all the fault of Mr. B who fell in love with and purchased a nice new deep red colored Kitchen Aid mixer!)  Laurie likes the red/white/black combo....

And a young lady we've known since my girls were in high school recently married and she picked that combination for her new apartment.  I did a quick search online for black/white/red fat quarter bundles, and scored some nice ones on a couple of ebay auctions.  So far I've made two easy quilts from that pile of fats, and I have another one to go!

Here is some of what I used for Dani's quilt that I made as a wedding present.

Dani and my girls wore (and still wear) converse tennis shoes - I HAD to incorporate that fabric!  I found some fabric with music notes on it also, to add for her new husband Steve, who is a musician!

Here I'm auditioning layouts on the floor.....

And here it is finished and ready to wrap!

When Dani saw the tennis shoe blocks, she pointed to the shoes she had on that very minute!

She can't wait to curl up with it and her new puppy Coda (Koda?), who by the way is adorable! And speaking of adorable?  Here's our 'Studio Kitty', Tiger, doing her duty as Quality Assurance tester of the batting for the next black/white/red quilt (a piece is peeking out of the batting pile at the top of the frame).  That quilt is now loaded and ready to machine quilt!

I'm slowly getting used to this new blogger method of posting - I think I like it for the most part!