5th Annual Crafty Ladies Retreat

On October 7 I leave for retreat. I cannot wait!

I have three projects chosen. The first is a BOM project that is a year old. The second is some more pillow cases for my grandson. The third is my current Breakfast Club project Cherry Cobbler.

More later.

Rhapsody from Strip Club

The last two evenings have been filled with laying out the strips for the Rhapsody design. My quilters design table is just not large enough to spread out everything. I will have to get out my side table tonight to continue with the pattern. Since I am using a scrapy look the pattern has be to layed out piece by piece before any sewing can be done. I think it will turn out nice.
REMEMBER: Self, take pictures to share.
Have a great day.

Danish Scones

The quilt top is complete. The binding and backing have been chosen. All is in a separate package for the day when I get my quilting frame up.

This morning I had an epiphany on the way to work. My studio design was to include the quilting frame in the same room as the sewing machines. Now I am thinking that once I get everything out of the old sewing room and into the Studio I can set up the frame in the now empty sewing room and name it the quilting room. I can run a cable from the Dish transmitter in the Studio into the Quilting Room and set up a TV to watch my quilting and sewing programs. I will put the old DVD player in there and can watch all the movies that DH does not like.

What a mind bender!

Have a great day.

Fed Up and doing something about it

I have finally decided that I cannot stay in the living room while my husband soaks up "Ghost Hunter's", "24 Hours"(a cop show) and similar programs that I do not enjoy. This week I issued my desire when he is watching these shows. I will go into my sewing studio and sew. WOW.l

The last two evenings I have been working on my project for "Breakfast Club". We are currently doing "Danish Scones" and I want to finish my quilt top before the 3rd Saturday in May. May will be the start of a new project "Blueberry Cobbler". I will need to go through my stash and pick out a light green shade, a background fabric and two tones of blue...unless I decide to may mine "Cherry Cobbler" and choose two tones of cherry red.

Have a great day.

Tonight is Friday Night Sew In

Right now everything is still packed up from our very recent second trip to Gatlinburg. I really don't want to unpack because I have Saturday Breakfast Club to attend tomorrow, so I will just have to do something other than sewing.

I am leaving in two weeks for the 4th Annual Crafty Friends Retreat starting October 1. I am really anticipating a great weekend with many successes. I haven't decided what projects to take with me. Last year I had several and left all that I wasn't working on in the car and only went out for another project when I had completed the first. It was the most productive retreat I have ever been on.

I am leaning on my paper pieced BOM Crystal Reflections. I started one block during the first trip to Gatlinburg and I feel that I am getting the hang of it. I would really like to make a major dent into that project during the retreat.

Have a great day.

Friday Night Sit In -- July

Sorry that I haven't posted anything. I did work on the Breakfast Club Dutch quilt and have 24 blocks put together. I have additional blocks under construction. These blocks will continue until I have run out of fabric or do not have enough to add logically to the top. It will be either lap size or twin size.

Have a great day

Are you getting tired of Dutch Breakfast Club?

I finished squareing up the HST in red and sewed the final pinwheels together Sunday evening. The next challenge is to sew the sides to the newest pinwheels. After that is completed I will sew the dark HST and med light HST to the rectangles. Once that is completed I will sew the top, center and bottom strips into blocks. I believe that I have in excess of 25 blocks to sew. At a finished size that will be 40" by 40".

There are still additional fabric to sew more HST and rectangles. That will determine the size of the final project. A lap quilt needs 56 blocks to finish up a 56 by 64 lap quilt. I definitely have enough fabric for that. A standard / queen size quilt needs 192 blocks to finish up at 88 by 104. I think that the queen size is beyond my current stash. However, I bought the red and background fabrics within the last 8 weeks and it should sill be available at my LQS.

All depends on my desire for a new quilt in the master bedroom. Also, it would be the 2nd quilt on my new quilting frame. I have no intention of it being the first!

Have a great day

More Dutch Breakfast Club

Friday I finally finished the half square triangles in red. I started sewing them together and then realized that I had sewn the wrong side together. There were almost 20 HST to unstitch but I got it done. After I finished the HST in red I sewed them together to create a pin wheel. A little more unstitching and I finished up with 12 center pin wheels.

Then I started sewing the top row together. I pieced all the light blue HST to a background rectangle. The I pieced all the medium dark blue HST to the other side. I chain pieced them all.

Next was to chain piece the background rectangle to the pin wheel of red HST on both sides. I got all the pin wheels that were done fastened to the background rectangles before bedtime.

This morning I made 50 more red HST for pin wheels. At the rate I am going this is going to be a queen sized quilt top. I would love to have the top totally pieced before the next meeting of the Breakfast Club in May.

Have a great day

Dutch Breakfast Club update

Well I am getting there. Only a few red and pale blue half square triangles to square up and on to the blocks.

Last night was a brief time working on my quilt. DH bought Avatar yesterday and we watched it. I could see this one over and over. What a great movie with a good plot.

Have a great day

Dutch Breakfast Club Quilt

Last evening I spent 2 hours sewing half square triangles for this quilt. Then I squared up each one. I still have 24 red hst to square up and I will start making the blocks. Hopefully that will be my goal for this evening.

It seems that every time I plan something there is an interruption or change in plans. What can I say. Life is a whirlwind and I am caught up in it.

I am waiting for my BOM for the Civil War Tribute quilt. I will sew it the weekend after it arrives.

Have a great day.

Dutch Breakfast Club

We had a blast Saturday morning. As we sew together each month we get to know each other better. We talk about everything under the sun. It is so wonderful to have quilters as friends.

Breakfast was brought in by Carol F. and enjoyed by all. She made a sourdough, egg, cheese and Italian sausage casserole. WOW. It was great.

Then we got down to business. We had a show and tell for two of our members who had finished the tops of the Mexican Fiesta Eggs Breakfast Club. One quilt top was in muted pinks, greens and yellows of the tropics. It was beautiful. The other quilt top was a black background with brown and blue for the blocks. It was very Amish and the blocks floated on the fabric. WOW. Beautiful quilt tops.

I continued to work on my half square triangles and started putting the center of my blocks together. At 12:30 I had to clean up for the next class coming in.

During the evening at home I continued sewing and cutting half square triangles. I have enough fabric for about 80 full blocks but I think I will go with 56 blocks to make a twin size quilt top.

Since Monday is Wash Day I will be washing laundry tonight after work and continuing my homework from Breakfast Club this evening after work.

Have a great day

Dutch Breakfast Club

Yesterday evening I started cutting out fabric for this project. I have 100 half square triangles to sew and cut. Then I will be ready to start putting the blocks together.

Fortunately tonight is Friday Night Sew In. I have another excuse to sit downstairs in my sewing room that is becoming a Studio. I am sure that DH will have something to say about this. I cannot blame him. This will be three nights in a row that I have not joined him in the living room to watch TV.

This is the most straight forward of the Breakfast Club patterns. The last one was a total disappointment. It is almost impossible to square up the blocks to meet my absurdly logical requirements. That one is going on the back burner for some time to come.

Tomorrow is Breakfast Club and I am looking forward to seeing my fellow quilters. It is nice to talk and sew together.

Have a nice day.

More progress on Studio Makeover

Wednesday is the night DH watches his "Ghost Hunters" programs. So...I went down to the family room to sew. Oops. I forgot that I had laid out four boxes to go through for the keep, recycle and shred process. I finished all four boxes. By then it was time to go to bed and I never got my sewing done. Drat!

Tonight I am going to go down to the working studio and cut fabric for the "Breakfast Club" Danish pattern. I need to get all the fabric cut and the half square triangles sewn. Then on Saturday I can start putting all the blocks together. How exciting!

Have a great day.

Studio accomplishments

I have cleared the one bookcase and moved it and a display case back to back between the office area and the hallway from the studio to the sliding glass door. I have started putting quilting magazines into the bookcase. It looks so empty, but when I bring all the magazines from my upstairs office down it will start to take shape.

I move my quilt design table into the official studio area last night. Currently it is being used as a laundry folding table and a sorting table for magazines. I will also start to sew blocks from my BOM club as well as my Breakfast Club.

I still have quite a large area of the family room to turn into the studio. But with the warmer weather it will be easier to work down stairs. I hope to have it all completed and the quilting frame erected in the studio by Mother's Day. What a present for myself and my quilting.

When I get it all finished I will take some pictures and post them here. I am just getting used to posting pictures and cannot wait until everything is set and I can show it off.

Have a great day

Saturday morning Breakfast Club

The third Saturday of each month is Breakfast Club at my local quilt shop. In November we started a pattern called Fiesta Eggs. This is supposed to be a simple pattern that a beginner can use.

Well we learned different about 1/2 hour before we were scheduled to be wrapping up. Therefore, we scheduled a December third Saturday to complete the project.

In December we all thought things were going well and basically they were, but we made slow progress. Since there are only four regulars we decided to continue with the project in January.

I do have my homework cut out for me. Since my project is in red and green I decided to make the corner stones of the shashing into an eight pointed star in gold and the shashing in blue. I need to get all my shashing done before the January Breakfast Club meeting