A Good Day

It was nice out today. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain and the forecast was predicting snow for Sunday. Next week it is supposed to be below freezing at night.



I mailed off the quilt this morning. It is expensive to mail a quilt, especially when you insure it. Then I wen to Wal Mart, all before going to my bee meeting. I enjoy getting together with the ladies. I finished the binding on a baby quilt and started on another.

This is a "Quilt in a Day" pattern that I bought last year when Patty spoke to our guild. She will be here again this April.




After the bee meeting I went to Dollar General store to get more plastic storage bins. Last week they had the shoe box size bins for $1.00. They were out today. They had the sweater size bins for $2.50, so got two of them. I plan to use them to store my shirting strips in. The bigger ones look like they'd hold two layers of strips. I still have 2 of the smaller ones that I got last week. Guess I'll wait until I get all the strips cut to see which size works best.




My daughter has been trying to talk me into getting a laser printer. It is a little cheaper to print each page compared to my ink jet printer, about 1 cent cheaper per page for the black ink and about 3 cents cheaper for color pages. But.... I just don't thing I could afford to replace cartridges at $80.00 for black ink and $200 for the 3 color cartridges. That is a lot of money to come up with at one time. It is hard enough to come up with the money for the regular ink cartridges some times.

T-Shirt Quilt Finished

The T-Shirt quilt is finally done!

That is 2 off my to-do list. Unfortunately today I'm having a hard time getting started on the next item on the list. It's not that I haven't been doing anything, just not anything on the list. I have 4 boxes and one bag of fabric that someone gave me. I went through two of the boxes this morning and started washing what I want to keep. Then filled up one of the boxes again with what I want to donate to some one else to make charity quilts out of. I kept some big pieces for backings and some shirtings for making scrappy quilts. The shirtings aren't 100% cotton, but think they will be ok. I'll eventually cut those up into strips in readiness for making scrappy quilts.

I'm going to make more strip sets for the "Strip Twist" blocks. Maybe I'll end up with enough blocks to make community service quilts for both guilds. I could have used those shirtings in those quilts, if I'd thought to go through the boxes sooner. Oh, well. We make quilts every year, I'm sure the fabric will get used.

Got the quilt I made for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law ready for mailing. I'll try to mail it tomorrow.

Don't guess I'll be doing any sewing today. I'm out of sorts now. All I feel like doing now is playing games on the computer. Dora sold a phone on ebay using my ebay identity and her pay pal account. We wanted to verify that the payment was received before mailing the phone, but between her typing in her e-mail address wrong and forgetting what her pass word was, we couldn't get in. I ended up having to call pay pal and pretend I was her in order to be able to reset her pass word. Part of the problem was I hadn't cleared the cookies out of my computer in a long time and the link in the e-mail that pay pal sent her wouldn't work. After clearing out the cookies, everything worked fine and I was able to verify that payment had been received. Hope she mails that phone out today. She is in a big hurry to go to Dave and Busters to celebrate her birthday.

1 Down 16 To Go

I finally did something on my to-do list. I quilted the T-shirt quilt Of course I had to practice with the clear thread first and decided to practice on a small quilt I made a couple of years ago. So I also quilted a quilt that isn't on my list. But that is one less quilt needing quilting.

Think I'll make a list of the quilts that are waiting to be quilted. I'd like to get them quilted this year. There are around 10 or 12 of them.

The binding is ready for both quilts, I just have to get it sewn on and then hand stitched down on the back. I need to get that T-Shirt finished this week.

I also got all my strip sets made for the Strip Twist quilt, or I hope I do. I tell myself, this is it, I'll add more borders if I don't have quite enough blocks. I even have them cut into 6-1/2" squares. Now to cut those squares on the diagonal. Then they will be ready to sew together as my beginners and enders when I start my next project. So I'm actually also working on another item on my list.

I Won a Door Prize!

I won one of the door prizes at last night's guild meeting. I'm so excited about it. I don't win that often, so it is a big treat for me. I won a book "Hearts And Flowers Hand Applique From Start to Finish" by Kathy Delaney.

We had a nice meeting. Our guest speaker was Nancy Hutchison. She is training to be a quilt show judge. She talked to us about quilt judging. Afterwards we had show 'n tell. Here are a few of the quilts.

This is Helen's Blooming 9-Patch. I still have to get the borders on mine.

This is a Bonnie Hunter patter, "Crayon Box", that Barbara made. She suggested it as a quick and easy quilt for our community service project.

The above two pictures are the Eight Strip Table Topper that the ladies made at this year's retreat. Bev is also going to teach the class at our quilt camp in April. I'm planning on taking the class.

Love Quilt

Well it is Monday and I haven't started on my list yet. I made a label for the Love quilt that I finished putting the binding on last Thursday at bee.

This is a transfer from a book of labels I have. This is only the 2nd one I've used and I've had the book for several years. The labels aren't permanent unless you draw over the lines and color them. This is what I did this morning. Now to get it on the quilt before tomorrow night's guild meeting. I want to take the quilt for show 'n tell.

This is the finished quilt. I got the directions for the letters from Tonya's Alphabet pages. I think this is one of the cutest scrap quilts I've made so far.

I still have to sew the binding down on a community service quilt and practice quilting with the clear polyester thread. Then I can get started on my list.

It's Next Week Already!

It is the first day of a new week and I decided to make a Mini (?) Sewing/Quilting To-Do list for the next 3 mo. Here it is:


01. Quilt T-Shirt quilt
02. Bind T-Shirt quilt
03. Make Curtains for spare bedroom
04. Make Pillow Covers for spare bedroom
05. Piece Log Cabin quilt
06. Quilt Log Cabin quilt
07. Bind Log Cabin quilt
08. Finish piecing EVQG Mystery quilt
09. Piece blocks for Strip Twist top as beginners & enders
10. Quilt Seth & Courtney's quilt
11. Bind Seth & Courtney's quilt
12. Quilt Simply Squares quilt
13. Make AQG Challenge project
14. Make EVQG Challenge project
15. Make 2 Tote bags from McCalls Quilting magazine
16. Finish UFO tote bag from a couple of years ago
17. Make Purse



Hope I can get all that done by the end of May. That's all the quilting/sewing projects that I want to do RIGHT NOW. It seems like I no more than get a project planned and two more come along. My goal for this year is to get all the quilt tops quilted that I have laying around. There are around 12 tops I think. Two of them made this list. Hopefully most of the projects won't take more than a day or two and I will get them all done.





Friday the Needle Turner's Bee met. Dot brought the Cathedral Windows quilt she has been working on.

It is so pretty. Makes me want to make one. There is supposed to be a class at our next week long sew in. I'm planning on taking it.

Here are the rest of the ladies in our bee.

There are six of us when we are all there. We meet once a month.

I've got a file cabinet and small book case to move today from the pool table room to the spare bedroom. I'm quickly running out of space for everything.

This Week is Almost Done

This week is flying by and I haven't gotten much quilting done. I still have a little to go on the community service quilt that I'm quilting. Maybe I can finish it today so I can start quilting the T-shirt quilt this week-end. I've got drapes, pillow shams and a quilt to make for the spare bedroom. Plus, I finally got everything I need to make the tote bag pattern in the McCall's Quilting magazine.


Tuesday was the AQG meeting. Lots of ladies brought show N' tell. Here are a few of the quilts.

Terry made this quilt from exchange blocks the guild did a few years ago. Maybe some of my blocks are in there.

Sandra made this quilt. I really like it, but she is sick of looking at it and is giving it away.

These are community service quilts.


Phyllis made this quilt for her son.



There were lots more great quilts shown. We also found out what our challenge will be, "What Color Is Your House" We have to use at least 2 colors that start with initials from our name. It must be a quilted item, and include a house that measures at least 3" in size. I'm thinking about taking a picture of my house and printing it on fabric and making a wall hanging. We have to the June 9th meeting to get it done. I also have the EVQG Challenge to do yet.



Wednesday I went shopping and that evening helped Paul put the new felt on his pool table. The lady I'm making the T-shirt quilt came by with the backing, batting and binding fabric.

Today the Paradise Piecers met. We decided to buy 12 twin size battings for the EVQG community service quilts. Sandra and I will go buy the batting tomorrow. JoAnn's has packaged batting 50% off.

Another Busy Week!

This week is a "Gad-A-Bout Gal" week. I have AQG meeting Tuesday, grocery shopping on Wednesday, Paradise Piecers Bee on Thursday, and on Friday the Needle Turners Bee meets, plus a trip to JoAnn's is planned for the afternoon. Looks like today is the only day I'll be home all day.



On top of all the running around, I have lots of things to do around here. Paul painted the spare room on Saturday and now I'm in the process of moving back in most of the stuff I moved out when I needed the room as a bedroom. I can't use Paul's room as a computer/junk room any longer. He wants his room back. He got a pool table and wants his billiards room.



Finally, the T-shirt quilt top is finished. The lady is supposed to bring the backing, batting and binding fabric over Wednesday afternoon.

I'm a little nervous about quilting this with the clear polyester thread. I've never used it on a long arm before. As I haven't had my long arm that long, I'm not real crazy about the idea of messing with the tension. I'm afraid I won't be able to get it set back right again. Before I can quilt this though, I have to quilt the community service quilt that is already on the frame. I hope to start it today. But then I've been saying that for the last 3 or 4 days.

I started the Super Bowl challenge quilt, from quiltsville blog. I made a few blocks and found out right quick that I didn't have enough. I'm in the process of making more strip sets. But I'll have to put that on hold until after I get the quilting done. I'm hoping to do the strip twist quilt as my beginners and enders as I work on other projects. I have until Sept. or Oct. to finish it.

Another T-Shirt Quilt

I have another T-Shirt quilt to make. I'm finishing one someone else started. So far I've finished fussing the shirts and started sewing the sashing around the shirts. The strips were ripped, rather than cut and they aren't exactly all the same width. I'll have to square up the blocks. I didn't have a 16-1/2" ruler, so I ordered one from JoAnn's. It will take 7-12 days to get it, so guess there isn't any hurry to get the blocks finished.

This is what I've done so far.



I noticed that Quiltsville has a little Super Bowl challenge going on. Wish I'd seen it sooner. Think I still will go ahead and see what I can get done today. I've got lots of 2.5" strips already cut that I can use. Guess I'd better get started.