Is it really August already????

My goodness where has the summer gone?  Seems like work starts to go crazy as soon as the weather turns nice!  Such is life when you work on products that need to get out for the holiday season.    I have had very little time for sewing in the last couple of weeks.  But I did manage to finish the T-shirt quilt.  Looks like it's skipping right over the waiting to be quilted list and settling in the quilts completed  in 2011 bucket quite nicely.

T-shirt quilts, not the biggest fan of them I must say, seeing them and making them, just not a big fan.   And heavy, I was very surprised at how heavy it was.  I don't remember the uncut t-shirts being that heavy, but they must have been.

I've done it and I can say that at least I tried, but I won't be making another one any time soon.  You will have to be pretty darn special for me to make another one of these any time soon.  This one was made for Alexa who is a very good friend to my youngest daughter.  They are both heading off to college in less than 3 weeks so I wanted to make sure I had this one finished.  Alexa fits in the "pretty darn special" group. She has been such an incredible friend to my daughter during their high school years, means a lot to me!!

So here it is in all it's glory.  I used 26 t-shirts that Alexa collected during her high school years.  Some of the backs were just too cute and I wanted to get them on the front.    I could have left it at that, but I decided to piece the back.  I used the remaining backs from the t-shirts and the left over pieces from the my son-in-laws black, white and red quilt (I didn't use the red part :). I just really like a pieced back, this is a fairly large quilt, and piecing it was nice.  I didn't have go out any purchase a large piece of orange!!

Hopefully I can get to something a little more fun this week.  I did have some fun cooking outside today.  Lots of grilled veggies and chicken.  I LOVE LOVE grilled veggies, just wrap them in foil, add a little olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes, yummmy!! We had 3 foil "bags" going today.  One had potatoes and carrots, one had tomatoes and peas, and the last had onions and peppers.  Corn grilled separately.  The only thing missing is the mushrooms.  Man we didn't really need the chicken, but my husband is  a meat eater and not big on the mushrooms!!  And now I have some left over chicken for a spinach salad tomorrow.  

Hope everyone has a fabulous week!!

What a week!!

We had a crazy storm go through the Chicago land area last week.  We were without power for 4 days, without internet for 5.  But the mess is all cleaned up, and the world is back to good again.  Now we just have to be ready for the heat wave coming our way.   Without power,  it makes it a bit difficult for me to sew (I can't do anything by hand!).

This weekend I did FINALLY finish the Baltimore Album Quilt (also referred to by my daughters as the Boston Baked Bean quilt and the old lady quilt).   I am pleased as punch.  I've been working on this for over 3 years, it was suppose to be completed by the end of June for Myra's PhD challenge.  I could have finished by then if I wouldn't have been so crazy about taking those first few quilting stitches.   It took me two weeks to get the nerve to get it started!

Now I know you're all sick of seeing this one, but I promise it's the last time.  I really do have show that it's finished right???  I did have to wash it as the chalk marks did not come out completely, but the washing gives it a nice  little puff I think.    Usually I cut the binding fabric as soon as I know what I want to use and set it aside so I don't use it on something else.  But this time, I looked and looked for that binding and couldn't find it anywhere.  Then I remembered I where the binding went, on my snowman collector quilt!!  Lucky for me I had something close. The binding is just a tad darker than the sashing red, but I'm pleased  with it.  Mostly cuz it's done!! Yippee!!!

So that only leaves 1 lonely quilt on my waiting to be quilted list.  And that one I'm surprised ever even made it to the list!!  But I think it's going to be a while for machine quilting.  I've gotten it out of my system for a while.  All those feathers on a DMS, well it'll be a while before I do something like that again!!

Hope everyone has a great week and stays cool.

Design Wall Monday - T-shirt fun

Well vacation is over. Oh, it was soooooo nice!! I spent time sewing, swimming, biking and enjoying the lazy days of summer with my husband.  I got in 66 miles on the bike this week which I was very pleased with.

I really really really did want to finish the Balitmore album this week.  But the pool kept calling me, then the bike would call me and then 26 t-shirts showed up in my sewing room calling out my name!!!  Daughter number 4 (youngest and just graduated from high school) had a friend who really wanted a t-shirt quilt.  Hey, how can I say no to the kids???  So I made my first t-shirt quilt.  Not my favorite type of quilt, but something that you can get a really big top done in a day!!  Took longer cut the fronts and back, and add interfacing then to sew the whole thing together! I do have one more black border that I want to put on and then I'm calling it done.  What a  nice fun distraction.  How do you quilt these thing?  I'm just not good at an all over design. Recommendations are welcome and appreciated!!

So the Baltimore Album, I did work on it some this week, actually for about 16 hours this week.  I think I really underestimated the amount of time it would take to quilt this one.  I think I underestimated all the other summer time fun distractions that would get in the way!  But back to the progress that was actually made.  I finished all the squares in the middle, finished quilting the sashing. Quilted about all the border applique and started on the border, about 25% done.  I have it all marked so I just need to get quilting.  I noticed I was getting a bit sloppy so it was good to have a distraction.  You know I think I liked this quilt a lot more 3 years ago when I started it.   It should be done soon.   I want to have 4 quilts to change out through the year, this will be quilt number 3.  I have no idea what quilt number 4 will be, but I hope it doesn't take me another 3 years to finish!!

I also finished the True Lover's Knot quilt for my husband's God son. The shower if coming up in a couple of weeks, just need to get the label on it and that will be done completely. I did make a little progress in the kaleidoscope quilt, but it really doesn't look any different than when I showed it last.  Hope everyone has a good sewing week!!

 Linking up with and

True Lovers Knot - done

I took so long to start quilting this.  I really wasn't sure how I was going to do it.   Now that I have the invitation for the wedding shower, well it was time to decide.  Nothing amazing came to mind so I simply did SITD.  Goodness, got it quilted in a day!!  Why did I wait so long?  Sometimes I just need a little push, like the date of the shower.  But it's done, washed and only needs a label.  Yep, this is the second quilt that will have a label.

I've got time off all week which is so nice.  Just taking it easy.  A little time for some swimming, some sewing, some bike riding and in general just enjoying a few lazy days of summer.

This Thursday I'm going to my first quilt guild meeting ever!  Thanks to some wonderful people on line, I found out about Country Quilters of McHenry  which is very close to where I live.  I'm going to give it a try Thursday night.  Wish me luck!  UPDATE - I went, I  loved it, I'm not a new proud member of the Country Quilters of McHenry!  There were very laid back, easy going.  All kinds of projects from modern to traditional.  Lots of ladies doing some hand work, I want to get to know them so I can learn.

Friday I finished the center of the Baltimore Album quilt so close to be done.  I only have a couple more days off and I do hope to get it finished before going back to work.  Trying to stay focused on that.

I've doing some bike riding while on vacation this week, so far 50 miles, don't think I'll be able to get in 100 by the end of the week, but still over 50 is fine with me!!

Linking up with:

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4th of July everyone.   I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday weekend.  It's always nice when it's a 3 day weekend!  My girls are now gone.  We had a great time, with bbq ribs, potato salad, grilled veggies, smores and strawberry shortcake!!  The fireworks were nice with family and friends.  I love a holiday where all you have to do is relax, have a good time and enjoy the freedom that you have!!

And while the girls were here there were a couple of requested projects.  Daughter number three had a baby glider given to her that she wanted a new cover for.   How does this look?  I so want to make a toddler size lap quilt.    Can you just imagine a little toddler sitting down for some reading time in their glider, with a lap quilt over their lap and a nice squeaky book in hand.  So cute, since we don't know if she is having a boy or girl we did some gender neutral.  I think we did pretty good!!

And we made a little progress on the owl squares for the baby quilts.  These are going to be gender specific, one for her little baby and the other to donate.   We made an additional 2 boy blocks, scuba owl and skateboarder owl.  And we also got done 4 girl blocks, scuba girl owl (make it in pink, but a bow in her mask, and there you have scuba girl owl), hula girl owl (one of my favorites), flower and snail, girl sheriff owl (remove the mustache, adjust the color, add a bow - and he is a she).  We just did the fusing, the stitching will wait for another day.  Hmm can you tell I would love to have a little grand daughter :)

Those were all daughter requests, I did sneak in some of my own projects and put together 9 blocks of kaleidoscope quilt.  I am trying very hard to do this all scrappy and resist the urge to organize somehow.   I am getting a little bit of puff in the in the middle of a couple of blocks.  I think I may wait for the other until the actually instructions come out!!  I just couldn't wait to see how it was going to look!!

And the winner is....

Hmm, so this is post 101.  I was hoping to have some fabulous finish, or even  a little progress on any little thing. But nope, I got nothing, empty, not a single stitch this week!!  I did get some back issues of Machine Quilting Unlimited.  Oh what wonderful works of art are in those pages!!!  Very inspiring.

And all my girls are coming home this weekend so I won't get a lot of sewing done for the next 4 days.  Unless of course one of those sweeties or one of the grand son's wants to sew.  Then hey, it would be down right rude of me to say "no" to that right??  Ah, what are the chances.  The grandsons actual do like to sew, but the pool is open, so I know where they're going to be!!

Oh, but really you want to know who won the give away!!! Well Sosarahsew is the winner!!  Congrats to sosarahsew.

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful 4th of July Holiday!!!