Thanksgiving Weekend

I certainly hope everyone had a wonderful and enjoyable Thansgiving. I hope you all were able to spend it with family and friends like I did. A huge feast and wonderful family and their families made for a blessed day.
And the days that followed, I hope you were able to be off of work as I was to enjoy a very long weekend.

Now, I am not the type of person to do the black friday thing. In my younger days I was out there shopping with all the other maniacs, but not anymore.

I had a more productive weekend.............
I got the sawtooth borders done for my thimbelberries quilt. You can only make out the bottome border on this picture, actually I only attached the top and bottom borders because the side borders need to have corner blocks attached to them. And I won't get those directions till december when the 12th month BOM is handed out.


This is a wool wall hanging I have started. All pieces cut out and fused to wool backing. Now comes the relaxing part of embroidering. No hurry, nothing special planned for this piece.


This lap quilt was an easy pieced project. It starts out with a panel and then multiple borders. So quick and easy to put together. Now all it needs is a backing and the binding. But for now, it really adds something to my livingroom on this quilt rack.

And now, as evening nears, and tomorrow morning it's back to the office, I am sitting here thinking...................man oh man am I tired!!!!!!!

Hard to concentrate

Well I got the snowman table runner done.
And just in time to, because my oldest daughter has fallen in love with it from early on in the production stage. She has a spot picked out for it in her dinning room already.
How funny.

This weekend was a hard one to concentrate. Or maybe just hard to keep my attention long enough on one project.
I did have my share of running and errands to do this weekend, and ofcourse there was the sleeping in part that I loved.
But sewing, well I couldn't keep myself focus on one thing.
I did get the flannel outdoors man quilt all done complete with hand binding work. And I got all materials cut out for the BOM for November for my quilt club. This month's BOM is four sawtooth strips that make up a border. Thank goodness for the thangles, because these small 2"triangle squares would be very difficult for me. I am just terriable with triangles.
I need to make 196 squares to be sewed together and border a 4 1/2 inch strip. I have some squares done but lots more to go.
And then I quickly put a christmas lap quilt together for an adopted elderly lady for christmas. It was very quick and easy, it's made with a panel and three borders. Very cute. All I need now to do is attatch the binding.

I just seemed to go back and forth to different projects, first the 2 1/2 inch triangles, then back to the christmas quilt, then fiinish the binding work on the outdoors man quilt, then press some squares, back to the triangles. Just back and forth.
So I quit for the day. Nothing is keeping my attention other than the couch, which by the way has my knitting sitting on it. Oops, first I need to take the binding off this mini snowman quilt, it looks terriable.......See what I mean

Too much to do!

Why we do this? We start many projects and then try to get them all done at once.
Ok, so maybe it's just me that does it. Here is what I have been busy doing since my last blog.

This is the BOM for November Thimbleberries quilt. Actually it is a border made up of 96 triangle blocks that make a sawtooth border. Doesn't that sound like fun!
I invested in a package of Thangles to help me out with this 2 inch triangle square. And that blue piece in the upper left corner of the picture is my fat quarter for the month that needs to be turned into a block by the next quilt club meeting in December.

And then I have finally gotten around to cutting and sewing my yellow brick road quilt that I have been saving black and white material for the past two years. Here is a container filled with all the blocks, just waiting to be sewed together into the quilt. I even got the binding done for this project already. I know it is going to need a border once it is sewed together, but since I don't know where this quilt is going, I can take my time with it.

And then grandma drops whatever she is doing when the grandchildren need something. Here are four pairs of polar fleece pj bottoms for the kiddo's. These are a snap to make so I really didn't have to stop everything...........
And I am happy to help out keeping them warm this winter.

And this is a wool table runner that I have been sitting in the evening doing the hand work on. I need to get the backing on and it should be done. I just love these three guys. I think I will have to make another one, such a cute project and very relaxing to do.

And ofcourse the deer flannel quilt is still sitting around waiting for the handwork on the binding to be done. Got to finish that.

I have been setting my alarm for an hour earlier each morning before I start getting ready for work. I am using this time to catch up on some of these projects. And a couple of these are christmas gifts. So I am hopeful to finish these soon, cause there is more waiting in the wings.

Overwhelmed !!!!!

Don't you sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the material, kits and patterns sitting in your sewing room?
Well I am feeling like that lately, I feel like I will never get to it all.
I have a few projects started at one time, and every day it is a challege to pick which one I will work on today.
And in between all of this, I am learning how to knit. Yup, I still have not given up. This time I have needles and am practicing my kniting skills.

I look at everything around me and think, why did I buy that? What was I thinking? And who is going to get that quilt.

This weekend my girlfriend will help me sandwich the outdoors quilt I made for my nephew for christmas. Then I can spend my evenings working on the binding and that quilt will be done.
I started a black and white yellow brick road quilt. I have been collecting back and white material for two years now so it was time to start this quilt. I work on it one hour a day and slowly it is coming together.

I also have a christmas wool table runner that I started a couple nights ago and I try to spend some time in the evening doing the hand work on that in front of the tv.

Now that the weather is getting colder, I spend more time indoors, so maybe I will get to it. All my projects for christmas are finished,,,,,,,,,I think! You never know.

Stranded!!!

The car was acting funny friday night when I drove home from work. But I tried not to think about, afterall it was friday night, and I had a whole weekend with nothing planned to do.
But during the night I awoke with a thought about the car and why it acted so weird and what would happen if it died.
I got up bright and early to run out to check out my car, and sure enough it was dead.
My poor car. Luckly I had a friend that owns a auto repair shop. I called him up and it just took minutes before he was here with a battery charger. And after a couple of hours on the charger it started right up. But I was warned not to take it anywhere exept his auto shop. Bummer, now my car is sitting at the garage and I am sitting at home.
Well....................let's see what we can do when stranded.

First thing I did was finish my nephew's quilt top. All done and now ready to be sandwiched and quilted. How's that?
But that's not all, the house got cleaned, floors vaccum, furniture dusted, dishes done, etc etc etc......


And then I worked on my BOM for the month of October. It needs to be joined in on the quilt. So far this is what it looks like and it is starting to look like a great quilt.
And then I took a break and deceided to cover some of my windows in plastic. Need to get ready for that cooler weather. So I tackled a few windows, not the best job but it will work for keeping the cool air out from the cracks.


Oh yes, and then there was maggie. Poor little gal, momma is running around and not paying attention to me. Play with me momma please!!! So I took a break and played awile with my little girl.

the next morning when I got up
I cleaned out my scrap box, and deceided to cut some into 21/2 inch strips and 4x4 squares. I mail these to my girlfriend so she has something to play with while she is learning how to quilt. So far she has made three huge quilts and some baby quilts with my scraps. She is learning and having fun at it.

Then I sat down to work on this little snowman quilt. It needed some embroidery work done before I could start to assemble it.

My brother showed up for a visit, so we sat and watched the football game and ordered a pizza. I was able to finish the hand work on this little hanging......

after my brother left I finished most of it up. Here it is still needing the binding on it. But you get the idea.

Whew!!!!!!!!!!! See what you can all accomplish when you are unable to leave the house!

Now as I sit here quietly on the couch watching tv, I am thinking of what else I could do before bed.............lol

Something new

Sometimes you just have to try something new. Get outside your comfort zone.

This table mat was one of the new items I bought at the Quilt Expo. I was so excited after taking a lecture on "Working with Wool" that I started this project in the hotel room later in the evening.

Now it is finished! I am so proud of it that I will keep it for myself.
But I will have to start one more. There goes the pocket book, and a reason to go to the wool store.

Finally an update on the Quilt Expo!!!!!

I am finally getting around to blogging about the Quilt Expo! (what? I've been busy)
It was fantastic!!!! Wonderful!!!! And very expensive to my pocket book.

These are just some of the many many quilts we saw. I took a ton of pics but can't put them all on my blog. Where would I have room to write?

I found alot of new things to try and took a class and went to two lectures. Tricks and tips to bindings, and working with wool, and free motion quilting. What a weekend!

The quilts were just stunning, the workmanship exquisite. Words can not describe the quilts that were on show.

They estimated about 15,000 people that went thru the doors during the three day event. It sure was crowed as the day went on.

And now I have more items in my stash. Now I have to live longer to accomplish it all!