and so it goes....

I know- no photos! however, progress is being made- I machine quilted what I felt needed on the diamond wall hanging and now I am handquilting the golden thread parts...two and a half diamonds done, several to go. I trimmed up the giant string quilt and had it bound by Sunday night. I went ufo treasure hunting in the hardest to reach corner of my sewing closet. I truly had forgotten some of the stuff in those baskets...I was looking for Christmas themed guild blocks I had won years ago-no luck finding them-maybe I stuck them with all the Christmas fabric in the fabric room (insert big sigh, getting to that corner will take an hour of shifting more stuff out of the way). So instead I decided to go through the ufos in the sewing room closet.
I did pull out some swap blocks from 1999 and with them, found "birthday" squares and siggie squares all bundled together. 1999 and 2000 I was on a quilting list that did some fun swaps-these were all from that list. I sorted through the blocks and realized I could come up with a design of combining the blocks and siggie squares. I needed one additional siggie square and Linda kindly agreed to pop one into the mail to me. The leftover blocks/siggie squares will go on the back and I can enjoy the final result. I also pulled the perfect fabric from stash to make the sashing around the siggie squares-cut and pinned a set -ready to stitch, even wound bobbins for this project too. However, after all that prep, I of course switched gears and since Sunday night I have been pressing all the scraps crammed into a small woven basket from the sewing room. I set the ironing board up in the living room and sat and pressed while we watched the Oscars etc. I just finished pressing the last of that fabric tonight. Saturday Patti and I are teaming up to have another cutting scraps day together. I promised I would not waste any time by having to press and by gosh, I have accomplished that goal. I found lots of leftover blocks and parts of blocks stuffed in there. It's going to be great fun when I have time to play with my scraps. I have another charity quilt pinned waiting to be quilted-that should go pretty fast. I managed to unearth my bin of cut and labeled scraps too. I bought a larger bin for them which I will need by the end of Saturday. That leaves one last tall container of scraps to be dealt with. I need to round up any stray bags stuffed with scraps as well. I am happy to see more floor emerging from these efforts. All in all, I have been off the computer more in favor of doing quilty things and I am pleased with my progress.

tidying up

Each morning I am taking some quilty time-some days that means reading blogs..but lately-I have been finishing up the challenge wall hanging. Last night I picked out all the paper from the top-ugh! I told M, remind me to get rid of all those old phone books I thought would make great paper for pp'ing! I am going to invest in lightweight tracing paper hereafter. This morning's task is to sandwich and pin baste the top. I fell asleep thinking about quilting...hand or machine? I was considering gold shiny thread...but, now, maybe not...I don't want to blind folks!
So...get it basted and then...tonight dive into quilting....and a reminder- no photos until after the April 14th quilt show.

a gift bag

This is an art bag for my Aunt Naomi. We are running down shortly to visit her as she is recuperating in an assisted care place. She misses her kitty and her art work so much I bought some watercolor cards/envelopes and a few watercolor pencils/brushes to tide her over. Then it occurred to me she might appreciate something to keep her supplies in-being away from home as she is. And, won't this kitty fabric cheer her up? She has the best sense of humor and I know she will be grinning just to get this bag, let alone what it contains. I had some velcro to use for closing it up-easy for hands that don't quite work like they used to.
Not much stash busted, but, a quick and fun little something to whip up. This took maybe ten minutes. And that was after stitching, unsewing the bottom corners, and restitching them because I had sewn them the opposite way they needed to go! This is how I keep my title of favorite neice... coming up with little things that she gets a kick out of receiving.

a new challenge

M asked me which quilts I have planned for this year-and I said at least five to ten are on my list to either finish or create during this year. We took yesterday off and had a lovely Valentine's Day together. At some point I found myself in my quilting area reading my quilt guild's challenge rules and studying the fabric that makes it the challenge. Oh my. There were more rules than I thought...and the deadline was not as far off as it used to be! Without giving away my design totally, I am sharing the fabrics I pulled to "go with" the challenge fabric and the start of the blocks I came up with. [by the way, all fabric is pulled from stash...and this also fits Judy's challenge to cut into special fabric you have been saving..most of this fabric I bought years ago for a Hoffman challenge quilt I wanted to do] The show is in April so a photo of the completed wall hanging will be posted on that day.
Yes, it is as shiny gold as it looks...it will be a small wall hanging and probably a gift for someone whom I have been racking my brains to come up with something unique. I have shiny gold quilting thread already and know how I want to quilt it. I have two blocks made. I did some cutting tonight and refolded all the fabric to make this pretty pile to photograph. Because the quilt for this show has been done long ago...I was very casual about starting this challenge-now I have put it on the top of my work on it now list! I am so happy that this is a small project and should go together quickly. Next post I will have another charity quilt by Eloise to share...it is quite stunning...

Mary's string quilt

I mentioned sharing the string block idea with my once a month charity group-and the next time we met, Mary brought a finished string quilt in. She did a great job-though these are of course strips and not really strings! I still need to finish stitching binding on and set up to quilt..later today/tonight as I mentioned in my last post. It was go spend time with my granddaughter earlier today and then I clicked around the stash ring and caught up with everyone. whew. On some I was way behind in reading, on others, nothing new posted since the last time I visited. Now I can stay off line for long enough to do something quilty! It's raining and cold today-but I still need to take our dog for a walk ...and it seems right now works for her.
Hope everyone gets to have some great quality quilting time this weekend.

something to show

This photo shows about 30 hours of cutting, plus some sorting. I did not include the large bag of strings-which is the same size as the one shown which holds 2 inch strips. It's overflowing as I tucked in a few more after the last bout of cutting. Now that I have a photo I can put all these scraps away-still need to find proper containers for them as for now I will put them back into labeled bags and into one container. The other bagged fabric is the leftovers from my Christmas row robin quilt. It will go into the Christmas fabric stash-another goal of mine to bust this year.
All this cutting and not a specific pattern planned for any of it, other than they all fit within Bonnie's suggested sizes. I added a few more sizes but may recut those or just use them up in crumb blocks. The smallest squares are 1 1/2 inch - for that postage stamp quilt on my one day to do list! I discovered another large-ish container of scraps I thought had been dumped in the large bin, now empty-so there is plenty more cutting up time ahead of me before I get to the end of my collection of scraps. You will note-a fairly cleared off sewing top- I even scrubbed it and look forward to stitching a binding on a quilt next, then it's quilting mode for me. I have to adjust my lift and use my new insert and then, my newest machine the 6600 Janome should be a much more comfortable height to quilt with. Each morning I am spending at least 15 minutes doing something quilty- this is it for this morning...though I may find some time tonight. My quilt til you wilt for Saturday night has been cancelled. Looks like I will just have to do a personal at home one instead. If you are not busy - feel free to join me-I am going to start after supper and go until midnight. I have a wonderful ufo waiting for that night!

2nd not pieced by me

Funny how I can be reading something, stop, and turn to my sewing machine. That's right-I was reading about many of you promising to read online less, and therefor sew more-when it occurred to me-I too needed to stop and get something done. So, last night I stopped and got one side of this binding stitched on. This morning-I stopped and finished the other side and that enabled me to post a photo and new post. This is the 2nd quilt sandwich by Evelyn, one of our Portland Piecers members that is a topper-most of her tops I end up quilting and binding. Finn-do any of these look familiar to you?? I spotted several fabrics that I have in my stash as well...so..not sure where these fabrics/blocks came from but I love the result! Now, I can go on to the next thing-guilt free. Tomorrow our group meets and it will be nice to have both of these for show and tell-they were basted at the last months meeting. I picked up another quilted top by a fellow member that needs trimming and binding added. There were also 2 more donated tops left.
I think I am going to tackle those tomorrow at the meeting.
Next up is cutting-I want to follow up on what little remained from my cutting party a week ago with Patti, and then pull and cut for the twin quilts on my new stash busting list. I have signed up for a quilt til you wilt session next Saturday evening. My goal is to have these ready to stitch by then. I will be pulling my most loved bright fabrics for these quilts...I can hardly wait! So, that carrot is there-once I finish cutting the scraps...dive into my brights.