Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas!  I hope everyone enjoys a happy and safe Christmas Day!

Design Wall Monday 12/15/14

I was able to do a good bit of sewing yesterday.  This one is coming along nicely - just need to add a couple of borders and the top will be done.  It was very easy and so far, all from stash.  I'll have to audition some outer borders (after another red border).  I already have fabrics pulled for another one in florals.  It will look very different, hopefully more feminine.  However, I'm not sure if I'll get to that one any time soon.

It's finally been raining here in the bay area.  It's a nice relief from the drought we've had all year, but the timing is not great!  I'm expecting packages to be delivered for Christmas presents and they'll get soaked outside our door.  I'll try running home at lunchtime and hopefully rescue them if they are delivered already.  Oh why didn't I have them delivered to my work address???

Be sure to check out what everyone else has on their Design Walls today on Judy L's blog!!

Design Wall Monday 12-08-14

Not a lot of time for sewing these days.  I was able to find some time on Saturday to start on a quick project for class.  The strip set squares on the right are for the new project, but that is not how they are going to go together.  I just put them up there so I could track how many I had made.  Hopefully it will be another project created completely from my fabric stash.  Not sure if I have fabric for a border that I will like, so I may have to buy a piece for that.  I always forget that it takes much longer to work from scraps.  Most of my time was spent pulling pieces, ironing, and cutting.  But now I can go to town on sewing it together.

I've stalled on my wreath.  I already did the hard part, which was making all of those half-square triangles.  I just need to sew them together with the background.  I don't think I'll have it ready to hang this year.  I need to focus on getting my class projects finished first.  January is right around the corner!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone has on their design walls today!

Happy Thanksgiving 2014

Design Wall Monday 11/03/14

I did a little sewing over the weekend.  I have the beginnings of a wreath on my design board today.  I recently bought a Bloc Loc ruler after watching a demo at the recent PIQF quilt festival.  I had heard of them before but never had seen the demo.  I used it for the first time this weekend and I am really impressed.  It is for squaring up half-square triangle (HST) units, and there is a groove in the under-side of the ruler that fits right over the sewn seam.  It locks onto the block perfectly on the diagonal and you can trim without it shifting.  They have other shapes as well, but I only got the HST one.  It works even better than I thought it would! For the record, I am not getting paid to say that I like it - just a satisfied customer.  It's a little pricey, but I think I will definitely get my money's worth out of it.  Now I just need to sew those buggers together!  The whole block has 60 HST's in it.  My smaller board only fits about half of the wreath.  I'm thinking of throwing some red HST's in there to liven it up a little.

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!

Happy Halloween 2014

Design Wall Monday 10/27/14

Not much sewing going on lately...  I tried my hand at making fabric boxes, but I'm not all that  thrilled with the outcome.  I think I made them just fine, but the nature of the pattern causes excess bulk on the inside of the box that needs to be hand sewn down.  They are fine, but I don't think I'll be making any more.  Other than that, I've just been working a lot of overtime and fighting off a cold.  I'm always bummed when the weekend is over and I haven't really sewn anything to show.  Hopefully I'll have some good sewing days soon.  I'll be getting together with my mother and sister in a couple of weeks for a UFO day.  Maybe I'll finally get some of my Unfinished projects done!  I have several that are very close to completion.

Check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!

Design Wall Monday 10/13/14

I had a bit of a fright on Sunday morning when I tried to get to my blog and it had disappeared!  I'm not sure what was going on, but after trying multiple things, I changed my Google password and my blog magically reappeared.  So glad I hadn't lost 8 years of posts!  But apparently it wasn't just me - I tried to go to someone else's blog who uses Blogger and I got the same message that it was gone.  It was kind of ironic that I hadn't posted in many months, and then when I get back into blogging it disappears.  Oh well, I'm back now.

This weekend I worked on several things.  My current favorite is the pumpkin block shown above.  Again I took the picture late in the day, so the lighting is off, but not a bad picture for using my phone.  I made it from this tutorial over at Diary of a Quilter.  Great for scraps.  I have a lot of oranges because it is one of the colors in my Dear Jane quilt, which has been a bit neglected lately.  I plan to make this into a pillow, but she also has variations for a table runner in the same tutorial.

Be sure to hop over to Judy L's blog to see what is one everyone's Design Walls today!

Design Wall Monday 10/06/14

I'm in between projects right now, so I just have random things on my Design Wall today.  It came out a little dark because I took the picture last night with my phone.  There are a couple of pumpkins, and a basket block that I've been wanting to make, but after making one, decided I didn't want to make any more.  The red and black Weathervane block is for the Block Lottery that I hold in the quilting class I teach.  I hand out a pattern for a block, and students can make one or more and turn them in.  At the end of the session, I pull names from people who made them and one of those students wins all of them.  It's fun and a great way to try out new blocks and/or color combinations.

My favorite thing up there is the Preppy the Whale block.  The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman who blogs over at Oh Fransson!  I fell in love with the pattern as soon as I saw it on her blog and bought it immediately (along with a pattern for a fox and one for a hedgehog).  She has some wonderful patterns on her website, and the great thing is that they are available as PDF downloads so that you can get the pattern virtually instantly.

I also love the pumpkin with the dark background because my husband made it!  He said he wanted to make it "caveman style" (I think he's been overhearing my episodes of The Quilt Show).  He free-pieced the center and I put the borders on it. We'll see where it goes from there.  But for now it makes me smile to see it on my Design Wall.

Check out everyone's Design Walls today on Judy L's blog!

I'm Back!

I've been gone for a while, as you may have noticed.  A lot of things happened while I was away.  First and foremost, my husband and I moved to a new city.  This is the first time we've owned a house and we're very excited about it.  It was a lot of work all around, from searching for houses, to putting offers on many homes, to finally moving out of our rented townhouse of 11 years and into our new home.  All of this happened in the first half of the year, but at the same time I travelled for work, sprained my ankle, and was the sole project manager for my company's software conversion.  Of course there were a lot of others things going on as well, but this is what I've been doing in a nutshell.  Sewing went by the wayside for a good period of time. The nice thing is that I now have a dedicated sewing room/area.  One thing about moving is that you get to see just how MUCH fabric you have.  I didn't count, but I gave away at least 10 yards of fabric (probably a lot more than that), and generally got it all in one place.  I started sewing again about a month ago and I'm getting acquainted with my new sewing environment.  I may still change some things around, but for now I'm pretty pleased with the layout.

I'll try to get back to a regular blog posting schedule.  Blogger stopped working with my old computer, and it has been a struggle to get going again.  But things are looking up.  Work is starting to even out and some days I even get to go home on time!  Which is also a joy because we moved much closer to my work - so no more commute!

I'll be back soon with some quilty posts!

Design Wall Monday 02/17/14

I finally got the Quilt of Valor center pieced together.  Again, slowly but surely.  I'm very happy with the progress I have made on this.  I've had very little time to sew lately, but having President's Day off gave me a few spare hours, so I took advantage of them.  I took this picture at night, so the lighting is not great, but it's a fairly true picture of the quilt.  There will be a narrow gold border, and then a wider blue border added to this center.  I love how this is turning out!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today.

Design Wall 02/03/14

I finished four more blocks for my Quilt of Valor quilt.  I'm making slow progress, but still moving forward.  Work has been very busy and it looks like I'll be traveling soon for some training.  I've already scoped out some fabric stores near where I'll be staying!  In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away on this project.

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today.

Design Wall Monday 01/13/14

I did a little more sewing this weekend.  Four more blocks for the Quilts of Valor quilt.  Life is getting busier and busier, but I was able to get these blocks made on Sunday.  Small progress is still progress!  I love the blue fabric in the lower left hand block.  I'm not sure where I got it, but I only had enough for this block.  It's very satisfying to use up some scraps.  All of the fabric (except the outer border) will come from my stash. So happy about that!  I'm going to track my fabric uses and purchases again this year.  I forgot to report some purchases last year and then the reports stopped.  I'm back at it this year though!  Really trying to downsize the stash.

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!

Design Wall Monday 01/06/14

I finally got some sewing done on Sunday.  I'm slowly working on the Quilt of Valor I have in mind.  It's starting to come along now!  I have all the pieces cut for the whole quilt, and was able to put together half of them - the striped blocks.  The rest of the blocks will be the star block shown above.  Those will take a little more time than the other blocks, but I've gotten one of them done.  Just 16 to go...  I'll try to work on them a little after work each day to keep this project moving along.  We'll see how that goes!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!