Wahoo!!!

They all got here on Saturday!!  I was into that package quicker than ice melting in July!!  They are beautiful and range from light light to light tan.  Thank you so much swap partners!!

This is my first attempt at something scrappy.  I have been quilting for about 15 years now and have NEVER done anything like this-I can't even see the architect of a block if it is shown as scrappy-I have a scrappy mental block.  Yesterday I was putting together the reds and had to stop myself from trying to group them, make a pattern, sort, organize....UGH!!  It is funny now but was not funny yesterday!  Then to top it all off-I decided to make the quilt bigger so that I can use it on my bed.  I suppose I am into self punishment on this one!

I think I will be doing the 1/2 square triangles using triangle paper.  I figure the paper will cover the fabric and I won't be able to see the scrappy, the lack of rhyme or reason.....  ;)

Love seeing the progress on the other blogs!

Mr Postman-bring me a dream.....

the dream has been ivory/off white/cream/light beige strips which I will NOT open until I have all my packages!  My packages are traveling the world as we speak.

I thought I was going to make this using the gazillion yellow fat quarters I have collected the past 10 years.  But after seeing everyone else's red versions-I switched it up and dug out the reds.  Holy cow did I have a lot of reds and it was funny because some of my favorite ones I had 2 or 3 pieces.  At least I am consistent.

I washed all my reds and used 2 Color Catchers and then re-rinsed using 2 more which still turned pink!!  Good thing I listened to Nicole!

I finally got my book in the mail this week and had a panic attack when I couldn't find the red and cream snowball quilt in the book....took me a second peek through to realize it was the scrappy directions we were doing-consistent but not quick....

I cannot wait for this weekend-we have no real plans and I hope to be able to sew!
Take care,
Shelly

Still Here!

I have no real excuse as to why I have not blogged in 2 MONTHS!!  Holy Cow!  One reason that is a good one is that my sister got married.  As the Matron (HATE that word-Matron) of Honor it was a lot of work even with a wedding planner.  I was in charge of the RSVP's, table favors and a secret shower.  There had been some sewing going on-I made a wall hanging for my sister and her hubby and mid stream decided to quilt it with black thread instead of the King Tut that I had bought for it.
I loaded it on the frame, made some extra bobbins and away I went with the WalMart special thread....BIG mistake!!  I am now the proud owner of a birds nest wall hanging and my sister and her hubby got a last minute gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond.  I have been working on ripping it out with my best friend's assistance (the seam ripper).  I have since bought the only thread to use in my machine while on the frame and once I get this mess ripped out, I will have what I need to make it beautiful.

I was able to finish "Jack" he is so cute and I love the random Halloween fabrics I picked up here and there. My holder is a mantle wreath holder and I used triangles in the corners and chop sticks in between-Cute and Green!
I like the seasonal quiltlets so I think I will keep my wreath holder dressed appropriately.  I already have one going for Fall-it is a wrought iron fence with a tree and you sew leaf buttons on the ground.  Can't wait to have that up on Sunday!
I am participating in a scrappy snowball quilt challenge that is the brain child of Nicole at Sister's Choice Quilts and Allyson at Fat Cat Quilts.  I am even doing the light fabric swap-how cool will that be!  I am finding though that I have  A TON of ivory/cream fat quarters but not much yardage.  I might have to shop to follow through with this swap.  Not a bad thing either ;)

BOM's

I love the concept of Block of the Month's (BOM's). I love to sew and this allows me to ease into a project instead of having yardage hanging around as UFO's.

Currently I have the Thangles Buck a Block going from my local quilt shop: www.ogpquiltshop.com and the Natural Wonders by Debbie Mumm: http://shop.debbiemumm.com/p-4509-bom-2009-quilt-1.aspx

Enough to keep me busy yet still work on other stuff-well not so much of either lately.

This morning as I was cruising through my favorite blogs I saw this at the the Jolly Jabber-Beautiful and such a mix of material!

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Green-Piece-Moda-Block-of-the-Month.asp

Loving it and will head back there shortly to sign up-Hubby is in the same room-can't be whipping out the quilt only credit card-too many questions I don't want to answer!

Then while I am there I see this one!

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Pennsylvania-Dutch-Block-of-the-Month.asp

Now I am all about the Americana-RW&B color combo-OH yeah the Project House 360 BOM is being printed but not necessarily sewn at this time.

http://www.projecthouse360.com/bom2009.html

Now I am debating which one to do....Ok I got it.....

BOTH!

Oooooo the hubby left-time to place an order-or two!

This & That

3 weeks since my last post? Cannot be possible...where has the time gone, oh yeah-work. That necessary evil that allows me to support my addiction (fabric) and pay the gazillion dollars I owe in student loans-what was I thinking going back to college 20 years after high school????

Not much sewing going on here for various reasons. I am still recovering from the 10 day/bi-annual visit of our 11 year old nieces!

I will start that 2 years ago we took the then 9 years old girls for a week, I cried more than they did-it was horrible-I felt so inadequate. I took vacation time while they were here, we planned all these day trips and had great activities planned we were excited....

Went to Hershey Park for the day (5 people-not cheap) only to learn that the girls do not like amusement rides-so while the hubby and the son or me and the son sought our thrills the other adult had 2 feet firmly planted on the ground with 2 pouty young ladies.

Went to Penn's Cave, bought tickets only to learn that one or the other didn't like boat rides or bus rides.....got my money back on that one luckily.

Went to a swimming pool with slides and water sprays and cool stuff to find that one didn't like getting their head wet. We sat on the blanket and she pouted while my son and the other had a grand time.

They are allowed to stay up past a decent hour and`1 sleep til noon-at that time we lived in a ranch house with our bedroom right off the living room and Hannah Montana at 1AM is NOT COOL to me!

Then there was the cool Aunt Shelly saying I would buy them an outfit for school....ended up at the Limited Too-because they are picky dressers and they would defiantly find something there.....can I saw that was almost as much as a student loan payment!!

So that was 2 years ago.....This trip had some thought into before they got here-laugh I know the best laid plans....

This year I did not take any time off-the hubby wanted to do this and he is retired so he could schlep them all over and not have them like it. We would do bigger things on the weekends, together. During the week they would do day trips and cheap activities.

I also planned the menu around exactly what they would eat-we had a LOT of steak those few days.

We established some ground rules about bedtime, behavior and language right off the bat.

So we started off good-hadn't seen them in a few months, how is everyone, do they like their new school, was your summer good....then they spotted my sewing toys-OMG don't you know THEY LOVE TO SEW!!!

My husband got all gushy-awww-look you can be their mentor as you would a daughter(not even closely related duh? As if!)....I grudgingly opened up my sewing toy shop-laying out a few ground rules:

1. Not buying anything-so whatever we decide to do has to be from the stash and something they could work on while I was at work-figured this would give the hubby a break during the day.
2. I had to approve the fabric they wanted to use
3. They could not just use the toys-I approved what they used on what IE Gingher scissor must NEVER EVER TOUCH Paper!

We decided on raiding my stash of 4" squares and making pillows. Easy enough. OK a headstrong 11 year old on a sewing machine scared the HELL out of me! I corrected her finger placement a million times then finally decided I couldn't watch and if she sewed her finger than at least she would learn....even the scissor usage was painful to watch.

So after an evening of sewing squares together one decides that they don't really like sewing and the other decides it is too hard and needs a break...2 days later they want to know when am I going to finish their pillows-uh never...you wanted to do this you finish them.

Heartless? May seem that way but what you don't know is that during the two days it took them to make that request, the hubby and I had been following them around picking up glasses of table tops, wet towels off bedding, wet towels off carpet, wet towels off wet towels, throwing away half eaten items, gathering shoes from all over, closing doors, closing the refrigerator, shutting off lights, reminding that we don't call each other names, you must take turns on the video games, being anti-social in public with arms crossed is UNACCEPTABLE-don't go or stay in the car, No you CANNOT be online after I go to bed.....

After about a million re-threads on the machine (the ghetto machine NOT the Viking!) Exasperated-I finished putting them together. At the end of the visit we had 2 cute pillows somewhat made by them-only 1 twin agreed to having her picture taken-this would be the professional pouter niece.

That is how the visit was sewing related-the rest of the drama and the reason I will NOT do that again for AT LEAST another 2 years is not for this blog. I did walk away with a DEEP appreciation for having only 1 child with the bonus being his MALE gender! They are great young ladies-just moody 11 year old girls who have different rules than at my house which results in being allowed to do more grown up things.

Whew!

The drama did not end yet with this quilt! Can you believe it??!!
I found a piece of batting that was exactly the right size if I were to not use the quilt frame.

I decided to just do one diagonal line in the plain white blocks to maintain the flow of the triangle blocks. I used a red chalk pencil to mark the diagonals. When I tested it the line rubbed right out with warm water as directed. So I layed it out on the floor and safety pinned it-picked it up to find a pucker deep enough to LOOSE the BABY in!! So unpin we go...the next round of pinning I taped the backing to the floor with painter's tape. Worked perfectly!

The diagonal sewing was uneventful as was putting on the binding. The additional drama came when I went to gently rub out the RED marks on the WHITE blocks-I know, I know just the idea should have been a red flag! They DIDN'T RUB OUT!! Let me tell you my husband heard me cussing words he has never heard me say! I was angry and had no clue what to try....Mom was here so that we could attend the Hershey show and suggested just putting it in the washer with warm water. I had nothing further to loose. Thank you Mom because it worked!

It is finally done and headed to NY tomorrow!!

Hershey or BUST!

For one day only Hershey is good for something other than the obvious, CHOCOLATE and outlet shopping...today the Quilt Odyssey is in town and I cannot wait to get to the Merchant Mall! I don't think this year's shopping will be as cool as last year-Hubby went with me and authorized the purchase of my amazing Sapphire 870. The Hubby is not going, he has opted to go to Harry Potter at the IMAX/3D theater with Zach and Poppa. Mom and I are on our own. Not a bad thing but the pocket book won't be as plentiful.

The Thangles quilt is quilt and has the binding sewn to the front waiting to be hand sewn. THANK GOODNESS-have you ever had one that did not go away to the completion pile? This one has been that for me and will be glad to see it land with it's new owner. In the end it turn out very nice, thank goodness despite all the issues I have had with it.