Tina's Top No Borders

As far as I can go until a decision is made on the borders. I ordered the other two colors since they were on such an excellent deal, so can go anyway with it.
Everyone have a
Happy New Year.

Thank You Quilt for Tina

Here are a few blocks on my design wall, I see that the top left one is turned wrong, but no matter, it isn't sewn yet. The blue is like a robin's egg with speckles. I thought that the color was closer to the turquoise in the border fabric than it is, so I'm not sure whether to keep it anyway since there aren't any colors not in the quilt, lol, or if I should get some of the fabrics below instead. Here is a picture of the original quilt that I did like this, which is the pattern that Tina picked for hers.
















On Thousands of Bolts, they call the
one below that isn't pink (I don't know where blogger will put it) purple, but it sure looks blue to me. What do you think, especially you, Tina. I may still be able to get some of the blue or pink background border fabric.

Christmas, Shopping and Math

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas or if you celebrate a different holiday, or it was just a day, I hope it was a wonderful holiday or day. This is the restaurant where we ate, the Columbia in St. Augustine. It was a very pleasant meal with good company and the food was good. I think that their bread and salad was so delicious that I could have just stopped there and been happy. This is my brother from Georgia, Vince and his son Robert. Robert had hat hair, but I hope he wouldn't mind me putting his picture here. We hadn't seen them for several months and it was so good to spend a few hours together. Christmas 2010 was different, but very good. There were 8 of us including DH and I, Vince and Robert, and my DD and her soon to be husband, her son Micah, and his daughter Christi. Three teenagers, but they were all a pleasure.
This is my shopping loot, it almost feels like ill gotten gains as it was such a good deal, and they told me Thank You! Z and S Fabrics had a brief half price on everything sale, and since my fabrics were from their clearance, it was about $1.65 a yard. I got 2 penguin panels, 2 pairs of Mundial scissors, 5 rotary blades, and 17 yards of good fabric for $59.44 including shipping. I wish that I could have splurged more, but then I have to remind myself that I don't want a big stash, I want to keep it small and use it up. I have to remind myself often, especially when I see sales.
I thought that I had enough 16 patch blocks to make my Thank you quilt, but alas, I was ten short. I did some seaching and cutting and then figuring, and thought I had enough for 10 to 11 blocks, but I must need some remedial math classes, as I ended up with 23 blocks. Somewhere along the way I must have forgotten to multiply by two. I enjoyed having my sewing room look nicer for a few days, but I couldn't stand it, I needed to get going on my projects, at least a little.
Have a happy holiday season. Christmas is over, but the season still has a week. Hope yours is awesome.
(Blogger wouldn't let me add pictures today, so I had to go back to the old way. Thank you fellow blogger, whoever you are, for the reminder that we could do that. Sorry, I can't remember which of the blogs I follow that passed along that helpful tip.)

Calling a Truce

I have 20 string blocks now and was hoping that maybe I could catch up in a few days.  Then Bonnie put out step 5 and I knew that I needed to put RRCB aside for a little while.   I did blocks 2 at a time this morning, and 2 take me about 45 minutes, so I figure I have another 15 hours of string blocks to do, then there is step 4, and step five looks to be very time consuming and fiddly, too.   I haven't even put up a Christmas tree yet, and I have two other quilts that I need to finish and get to people, so this one will be there when I get back to it, probably after the first of the year.   The good thing is by that time more clues will be out and I'll have a pretty good idea of where it's going.   Bonnie's quilts are always beautiful, and I'm sure this one is no different.   I think it is funny that on Quiltvillechat some people love these blocks and others are just girding their loins and gritting their teeth and forging ahead.  So far I am in the forging ahead group, but I'm hoping they grow on me as I haven't seen a string quilt that I didn't like.   I find the process of trying to find strips long enough very time consuming and a little frustrating.  My foundation papers are 8.5 inches by about 8 inches and I think that makes part of the problem.  I think that if the papers were as big as the blocks you could tell at a glance.  Next time, if there is a next time, I'll do 8" blocks.  I still have plenty of papers.

The Wheels Turn Slowly

The wheels turn slowly, but they do turn and things are getting done.   This morning I got another six blocks done and hope to get more done by the end of the day.    I found out that I'll be babysitting my adorable little great granddaughter for a couple hours this afternoon, so I won't get as many done as I hoped, but it's all good.   I'm adding her picture, I haven't put one on my blog for awhile.   I can see that I need to be a little stingier with the end strips, these were too big, but added in with the other fifty-three they ought to pass.

This picture was taken on December 14th, and she will be one year old on December 16th, tomorrow.   She already had two parties, one in Nashville, Tennessee, and one here, but since tomorrow is the 'real' day, we are going to Chuck E Cheese.  I think it's more for her Daddy than her.  I'm sure she'll have a good time though.

I think I had mentioned before that my DD's stepdaughter is going to be getting sewing things for Christmas and so DD came over this past weekend and we made up six little kits for making these Scottie dogs from Denyse Schmidt Quilts.   I remember having two granddtrs over to make tote bags and they about wore me out, so since at least 3 of the 6 and maybe 4 will need considerable aid, I think DD and I are going to get together ahead of time and do ours.   Two things will hopefully be accomplished, we'll know what we're doing and we will be able to help with theirs instead of do ours.   We should be able to embelish them as a big group though.   It will be the two of us, Kaylea 7, Tabitha 19 (DGD), and Marcy (DGD in law) and Sarah (DGS's girlfriend) early twenties.   It should be fun and the Scottie dogs look so cute.   I also got five more little stockings done, and Christmas cards done and out, so I'm only gathering a little moss.

One Down Fifty-Nine To Go

I've finally gotten around to starting Step 3 of Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery, and I can see that it is a doozy.  This is my second string block ever and making the first one for the mystery was almost as tedious as I remembered.   Last time I was up and down pressing after each strip, and this time I used my trusty little wallpaper roller, so that was easier, also this block was a trial so I didn't assembly line sew, so I know that doing that will make things easier.  I didn't really have strings, so I was cutting and sewing.  I plan to cut a bunch of varied strips, and that is three things to make life and strings easier.   There is hope!  If worse comes to worse, I will try to get 30 finished and do the other 30 later, as I plan to make 2 lap quilts anyway, unless it is so gorgeous that I have to have it for my bed.  It is one of Bonnie Hunter's, so that could happen.   My brothers visit was very nice, he liked the fleece blankets and pillowcases that I had made for his step grandchildren.  I didn't realize until after he left that I had forgotten to take pictures of them, oh well, if you've seen one the others aren't much different, lol.   I do like to have pictures though, it helps me feel like I'm accomplishing a little bit.  

We have made plans for Christmas, like Thanksgiving it won't be our traditional.  Christmas Eve we will go to my daughter's and see her side of the family, and hopefully sometime during the holidays we will see my son and his side.   Christmas day we are taking one of my grandson's, Micah, to visit with his cousin Robert and my brother Vince in Georgia.  They will meet us in St. Augustine and we have reservations to eat at the Columbia Restaurant, which is one of my favorites.  It will be a nice day and I'll get to see more of my family.

PS  My brother Vince just called me, he is at an estate sale where they have a Singer Featherweight.  He isn't really a sewer, but he does like unusual things and he has taken a liking to my little featherweight and so he's going to get the one he's looking at for himself.  He's bringing it with him on Christmas, and I'll bring mine too, so we can compare.  Both of my brothers are very handy, and I told him that he will be able to take care of his himself, and then he can teach me.  I miss having a sister, but it is great having brothers. 

  

Mini Christmas Stockings

This year our Christmas shopping consists mainly of some small identical presents and when I saw the pattern for Mini Stockings (http://www.marthastewart.com/article/mini-stockings) on the Martha Stewart Crafts email I thought those look simple and they would be cuter than wrapping.  DH added, and you could machine embroider their names, too.  Little did I know that they would take the better part of 3 days.  I enlarged the pattern to 130% and I'm glad that I did or they would have been really fiddly.   I made 29 of them, and I was glad to see the last one, I'm not so much a crafter as a would be quilter, lol. 

I was really wanting to get working on Step 3 of Roll Roll Cotton Boll, and on some quilts in progress, but felt that I needed to finish the stockings.   Now, my brother is coming to visit, which is a good thing and so I am probably not going to get to working on more sewing for a few days.  That doesn't even take into account that I need to do some housecleaning so that I can put up Christmas decorations, etc......    I'm just a retired person with 'time on my hands', how can I be so far behind?