Hugs and Kisses

well my list of waiting to be quilted quilts is longer than my list of in progress quilts.  I think I need to start a couple more ;)  I can only finish quilting the baby quilt Amanda (the machine I do the quilting on) is in the shop.  She's having a spa week, getting all tuned and cleaned up.  Hopefully she'll be back soon and ready to get some quilting done.

Hugs and Kisses is the quilt that I made for my husband, it was another mystery quilt.   If you tilt your head you can see the x's and o's.  I used up some more scraps on this which was very nice.   I think I'm going to piece the back together as well.  Some flannels would be nice and cozy for movie night.

RRCB Part 6 - Done!!!

Oh I so wanted to get this part done before going back to work tomorrow and I did!!  My sister left early in the morning so I had no helper today and I felt it!!  That was a lot of sewing, ironing and snipping today.  And I'm now ready to go back to work tomorrow.

What a wonderful Christmas

My sister was in the Chicago area from Florida and we spent time catching up with each other in the sewing room.  Yep, she helped me with a couple of projects which was wonderful!!

The Snowman collector quilt has moved from the projects in progress to the waiting to be quilted list.  Hugs and Kisses, blocks and sashing complete, just need to finish the border.  And I made a bright and crazy ironing board cover.  I love to iron on that, just makes me smile every time I look at it.

On my last day of sewing before heading back to work tomorrow:  hugs and kisses, would be great if I could get that one on the waiting to be quilted list, and working on  RRCB.  What are you working on today?

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Holiday Season

However you celebrate, I wish you peace, happiness and good health!!

600 HSTs done!!

I finished the 600 HSTs for RRCB, holy smokes those went really fast.  I hope the next batch for a different project goes just as fast!

Thanks to everyone for the input, I went for Gold!  So I was thinking while I was trimming up those squares....there are 600 HSTs, there are 60 string blocks.  10 HST per block, 5 fit on one side and then there's that little solid square for the corner....maybe???  Oh and I sure hope we are done with the neutrals, I'm at the bottom of the barrel with those!  Santa, are you hearing this?  I need neutrals :)

And I also designed the black white and red quilt for my son in-law.  I am really loving the black and white string blocks so that's what I'm doing.  I'll add some more red to it than what shows in the picture and the red will be brighter.  Should be a lot of fun.

Going for Gold

I took a break to make my sewing buddy a little bed (Rocko, a German Shorthair Pointer who loves to snooze in the sewing room while I sew).  He's now very cozy and I have a whole bunch of HST's to get to!  Going with the gold on this one.  It was my first instinct and others think it'll work just fine, the brown being a bit busy (I do like busy quilts...but the gold is just something that has to get in a quilt).

RRCB Part 5 - should I change the constant color?

I finally finished all my Christmas sewing and started on the 600 HSTs for RRCB.  I have about 100 sewed and ironed.  I have a deep red, med to dark blues and green as my colors.  I was torn between a brown and gold for the constant and chose the gold to brighten things up.  But my neutrals (the few I have left) are on the darker tan side.  Do you think the Gold will work?  I'm worried there isn't enough contrast between the neutrals and constant to really stand out.  Should I switch to the brown for constant?  

Finally done with all the Christmas Sewing

Yippee!!!  I finished the last thing for Christmas gifts.  I made a table runner for my daughters in laws. She is blessed with wonderful in-laws and I wanted to make something small for them.  I love making the table runners so it all worked out well.  It's a whole lot more traditional that what I normally do, but I think they'll like it.

And you know what that means.....on to all the HSTs for the two mysteries I'm doing.  Yippee!!

Another Item moves off the waiting to be quilted list

Finally finished my sisters quilt.  She lives in Miami so I thought brighter colors were required for this one.  Lots of free motion quilting on this.  One of these days I'll learn that less is more, but today wasn't the day that lesson came into play.

Now only one more Christmas table runner to make and then 600 HSTs for RRCB and 170 HSTs for hugs and kisses.  Can't wait!!

New Quilt to make for my husband

For those that haven't heard, the dog ate my husbands quilt.  I"m doing a mystery that is called "hugs and kisses" which I thought was totally appropriate for a quilt for my honey.  I'm a little concerned that hugs and kisses will be a little to simple of a quilt for my husband.  I'm still going to do it, but just in case I have a back plan!  I made this on the computer while I was travelling for work.  It looks pretty challenging, but I think I may be able to get this done in 2011!  What do you think, am I crazy?  Can I really do it?  It looks nice on the computer!  I think it's definitely manly enough.

RRCB Part 5 is a really something!!

600 2 inch HSTs!!  Holy smokes.....600 of anything is a lot of something!

I walked into the sewing room this morning and on the sewing table was the Christmas quilt for my sister anxiously waiting to marked, quilted and finished.  Oh the dilemia.  My sister would be pleased as punch with quilted place mats ;)  There's always her birthday in June for a nice quilt.  Yes I know, finish the quilt for Christmas, who wants a quilt in June!

Ok, I'll just cut for an hour, then mark for an hour.  Cut for an hour, then quilt for an hour.

That seems like a wonderful compromise.  It's going to be a fun weekend!!

Great weather for quilting!

The snow storms missed the Chicago area, but we still had a lot of wind and cold.   So I spent the day quilting.  One of my daughters gave me a a very special Christmas present!  She helped me get all of the Christmas Lights (without the the Christmas) together, how wonderful!!   I have 2 rows of 2 sewn together, so excited as I didn't expect to this far until January!  I think I'm going to use the pink as the first border (1 inch) and then the second border will be random strips from 1 inch to 2 inches of the jewel tones and purple.  Still need to figure out the second border and then followed by another thin 1 inch border of orange.  Any suggestions for the second border are greatly appreciated.

I also started quilting the Ricky Tim's quilt today.  I love free motion quilting.  I'm doing a simply echo quilting around the shapes.  I have to have this one done by 12/24 as it's for my sister for Christmas, but still have time and it goes quickly.

Christmas lights (without the Christmas)

Hope everyone is staying warm!

The dog ate my husbands quilt

Can you believe that?  And it's the not the first quilt this dog has nibbled on. Why do they like to get the quilts???

Since I'm having so much fun with the RRCB mystery I decide to try a new mystery.  There is one called "hugs and kisses", now isn't that so appropriate for a replacement quilt for my husband?  I think so.  It does call for lots of lights, more than colors so I'm switching it around.  It will be darker than it will be light, but hey it's for a guy.  I used sooo much of my limited neutral stash on RRCB ( I really hope we don't need a lot more neutral for that one). This quilt is a two color quilt so I'm going scrappy with the blues and then adding a tan, just one fabric.  

RRCB Part 4 - and easy one!!

All done with this part.  I have no idea how this is going to look.   This is my first mystery, is this how they all are?  It's just killing me!!  Can't wait to see how it turns out.  And what about that constant color?  We haven't even used that yet.  Where do you suppose that will go?  I hope there aren't too many more requirements for neutrals, cuz I'm just about here....

Another item moves off the waiting to be quilted list

I finished the 6 snowman place mats last night, yippee!!  The snowman pattern is the same that I used on my table runner at the ends.  Is it bad that I finished the one for me first???  Nah, I think of it as warming up so the ones I give as gifts have all the kinks worked out!  Had a little extra time so I jazzed up a couple of kitchen towels (one of my favorite things to do).  No sewing today.  But at list the lists are moving a bit.

So close!

I had the perfect green for the 4th border for the snowman collector.  When I was done, I had 2 1 inch strips left....oh man that was way too close!  I measured like 3 times and said I think I can do this, I think I can do this.  And yeah, I did!  Sad that there is no more of that perfect yummy green left for the scrap pile, but very happy that only one border is left. Then I can move one more project from the "in progress list" to the "to be quilted list".

Finally did a little machine quilting

I can move at least one small item from the "to be quilted" to the "finished in 2010" list!  Yeah, small victory but I'll take it.  I finished the snowman table runner.  All my girls will home next weekend for our Christmas together so I wanted to make the table festive. 

I did finish all 60 string blocks for RRCB.  A couple of people mentioned using the back of the fabrics which I did unintentionally on a couple but then intentionally towards the end.   I wish I would have thought to do that from the very beginning as I would have had a bit more variety in the blocks.  I love seeing all the different blocks.  The purple as neutral - one of my favorites.  I think a string quilt in 2011  will be on my to-do list. Especially since I cut soooo many neutral strings!  I've been seeing a number of quilts that I really like with strings.

I can move at least one small item from the "to be quilted" to the "finished in 2010" list!  Yeah, small victory but I'll take it.  I finished the snowman table runner.  All my girls will home next weekend for our Christmas together so I wanted to make the table festive. 


I also got the snowman collector quilt top almost done.  Still have two and a half more borders to put on and then the top will at least be done.   I hope I'll have it quilted before the snow starts to melt here!!  I really like pieced borders better than solid borders, but at least there are a few of them and that helps.

All in all not a bad week for quilting.  Won't get much done the rest of this week nor next week end.  Hey I had 3 good sewing weekends in a row, it couldn't last forever ;)

RRCB Part 3

Well this one is going to take a while!  I've got 10 blocks done, 50 to go.  Turns out that I'm not that big on neutrals.  Had a hard time finding things and not as large of a variety as I would like. But I did finally get to use the chicken wire fabric that has been in my stash for a very long time!  So what do you think? Too dark?  I tried to limit the number of white on white fabrics but think I might throw a few more in the mix.  This is the first time I'm doing this type of block so not really sure what to expect.  My red, blue and green are are fairly dark so there will be a lot of contrast with these.  Oh and I cut way too many strips.  I'll be looking for another project in 2011 that needs these types of strips.  I think I cut enough for more like 160 blocks.  I just couldn't stop!!

Christmas Lights quilt without the Christmas

I was able to get a few rows sewn together rows sewn together on this one this weekend.

I know I'm suppose to be machine quilting, but the scraps were screaming to me when Bonnie posted Christmas lights.  I had a lot of batik scraps from a couple of Judy Niemyer quilts (did anyone else get some of her patterns when they were on sale?   I got 6 for under 30, sooooo happy).  Scraps where mostly hot pinks, hot orange and jewel tones.  I love the Christmas lights pattern but wasn't sure how to do it with the scraps I had. So I made the block in EQ7 and started playing around.  I think I finally decide on the using only one of the blocks (not using the star block) and twisting things up a bit.  I"m using a purple as my constant.  Everything is cut and I'm trying to do this as a leaders and enders quilt, so I don't feel quite a guilty.  We'll see how it turns out, I think for a teenage girl it'll be nice.