Trip to Hancocks a total disaster!

I never got there. My truck decided to be mean to me again and just stopped running. The fuel pump went out, leaving me stranded half on the road and half off on the Rome bypass. I was almost there. I had to get it towed back to Cartersville to Raymond's house. He'll fix it for me. I'll go to Advance Auto Parts in the morning and get the fuel pump. You would think the fuel pump would have at least waited until after I went to Hancock's and was on my way home to stop working. Now I'll have to use the money I was going to spend on fabric to pay to get it fixed. It will probably be awhile now before my Roosting Round Robin gets finished.

On a happier note, I finished a few more blocks for my challenge quilt.

Challenge Quilt

I've been working on my challenge quilt for the Etowah Valley Quilt Guild challenge. I've made 10 blocks so far and have lots more to go. The quilt will be 65" x 85". I decided to do a good sized quilt this year instead of the wall hangings I've been doing in the past.

The fabric in the center of the stars in the middle row is our challenge fabric. The 3 Sister's Choice blocks on the bottom row are the challenge blocks. Plus we had to beg, barter, or steal some fabric from 3 of our quilting friends. I think I have all 3 of those fabrics in these blocks. So if worse comes to worse, and I don't get finished, I can put these 10 blocks together and still meet the rules of the challenge. I wanted to make my blocks with bright colors on a black background. Several years ago I was collecting a block of the month posted on the Internet done that way and it really caught my eye. I'm not sure were the pattern is right now and doubt that it had any Sister's Choice blocks in it. I decided to just make up my own layout.

June UFO

I finished my Bonny Baskets top. So now I'm caught up on my UFO list for this year. I'm supposed to be doing one a month and kind of got behind. July's UFO isn't exactly an UFO, but rather a project with a dead line. It is my challenge quilt for the Etowah Valley Quilt guild and needs to be completed by the third Tuesday of August when we show off our quilts.




Bonny Baskets was the 2004 block of the month at jeanneraecrafts.com

Explosion of Ugliness

I finally got the applique border on my roosting round robin that I'm doing with the Allatoona quilt guild. My daring eldest son has named it "Explosion of Ugliness". I resent that! Although I will admit it is not turning out quite like I envisioned.

I have one more border to add. It is one of "my choice". I have no earthly idea what to add. All I have are fat quarters that may or may not match well and scraps from the other borders. I'm using batiks and hand dyes and trying to use fabric from my stash. I didn't want to have to buy any fabric for it. Hancock Fabrics has batiks on sale, 50% off, 60% off on July 6th-8th. Right now it is mighty tempting. Maybe I could find something to pull this mess altogether.

I've also finished up my April and May UFO's. Better late than never.

April's is above. It is a Christmas panel that I've had for several years. I finally add a couple of borders and quilted it. May's is my very first T-Shirt quilt. It just needed the binding put on. I had commissioned to make one for a client and thought it might be nice if I had a little experience under my belt before I did theirs. So I used some of my old shirts to practice with. I made two before I tackled the customer's quilt.

I wonder if I could finish my "Bonny Baskets" top before the end of the month for my June UFO. I wonder what I did with those blocks and the fabric to finish the top. I really need to get started on my challenge quilt for the Etowah Valley guild. It is due at the Aug. meeting. It will be my July UFO. It is not really an UFO, but the UFO Challenge is with an on-line group that I'm in and they allowed us to but current projects on the list this year. I find the challenge helps to at least get a few of my UFOs done that might otherwise not get completed.

Quilt Camp and Mother's Day

Quilt Camp

Last week The EVQG had quilt camp at the Civic Center. We had lots of fun. There were several class, plus we worked on our own projects. I wish now that I would have signed up for the tote bag made from the pet screen and the bucket cover classes. I did do the other tote bag class. There was also a class for a very cute, but quick and easy quilt.

This is the tote bag that I made on Thursday. It went together real easy compared to some that I've made. I may still try to make the bag from the pet screen. I bought some Friday when we were in Lowe's, but I got the insect screen. I haven't unwrapped the roll yet, but am hoping it will work just as good. I'd better make it pretty soon, before I forget what it is supposed to look like. It will pretty well be my way, anyway, as I don't have the directions. I also bought the Simplicity pattern for the bucket cover Friday. I'm wanting to make the 5 gal. size. I didn't realize that it was included in the pattern, if I had, I might have signed up for the class. The ones the ladies made in class were for the 5 qt. bucket.

The main project that I worked on at quilt camp, were these little bags for the Civil Air Patrol. I made around 40 of them.

I did managed to start a scrappy star quilt that will be a wedding present.

Mother's Day

I got this red basket filled with fabric and a hand made card from my daughter for Mother's Day. She scanned some floral fabric I have in my stash and printed it out and then cut out the flowers, rescanned it and printed it out on the card stock.

Roosting Robin - Triangle border

The triangle border is now on my RRR. I'm not sure I like the little applique heart Flowers in the corners. I ran out of green and had to think of something for the corners. I've just got a few narrow short strips left to use for the leaves on the next border, which is applique. Think I'll do a vine with heart shaped flowers.

I got the community service quilts for EVQG back Thursday. I still haven't put the binding on them. Maybe I can find time today to start them.

Community Service Projects

I've been working on a couple of community service quilts for EVQG this morning. I used some duck panels that were donated to our guild. As I haven't had much time for quilting this past month, I decided the easier the better, so I used Anita Grossman Solomon's pattern "Super-Sized Nine Patch". It is a free pattern on the Quiltmaker Magazine web site. I still need to get the backings ready and fix my binding strips. With any luck, I will make contact with the machine quilter tomorrow and give them to her to quilt. They need to be turned in at the May guild meeting. Think I'll use that same pattern to make baby quilts for next years community service project. If I follow her directions, I can get 3 crib quilts from 3 - 1yd pieces of co-ordinating fabrics.