Misc. Pictures

Top picture, my nieces family with their quilts.  Second picture, at least for awhile the kids were so pleased they made their beds, and third picture, two of my great-grandbabies.

Nabby's Dowry Block 6

Block 6 of Nabby's Dowry.  On the left the controlled scrappy for a doll quilt, and on the right the wild anything goes scrappy for my wall hanging. 

Block 1 thru 6 of the doll quilt.

Experimenting.

I was playing with my blocks and with the Paint program on my computer this morning, and I came up with this.  After 4 more months of RSC, I could make 2 of these.  The bottom half, except for the orange and pink, would be filled with 2 each of the new RSC colors from September through December.   Just one idea.  With 8 months of blocks, there are enough to play a little.  I'm thinking that I may make doll quilts for my nieces 3 littlest girls from my small 9 patches.  I have 16 of those now, and 6 each with sashing and borders might make very nice little quilts, the same but different
. 

My great-granddaughter from Germany will be visiting in the fall, and I've already decided to make 2 blocks each week from the Nabby's Dowry quiltalong for a doll quilt for her and a wall hanging for me, and I picked up a doll from Cracker Barrel.  Her outfit isn't exactly the cutest,  I got another coordinating, but more girly outfit to go with her.  So far my little GGD is a girly-girl.  I think there's a bit of tomboy too, though.  PS.   Red hair was a requirement, so she would match, so this was the only one with red hair.
 

And here's her little more girly outfit, it's shiny and lacey. 

Baby News and Drunkard's Path

We have a new great grandbaby, unfortunately, we won't see him for awhile as we are here in the USA and he is in Germany, but we will enjoy him just the same.  Not like the old days when pictures and letters were all there was to communicate, we have the instant gratification of texts, phone calls, skype and facetime.   No pictures yet, it seems that Germany doesn't allow pictures to be sent  the first few days, but his name is Maddox Colwell, he is 6 lbs 10 oz, 20.2 inches long and was born 2:29 pm their time, and 8:29 am our time.   I'm sure that he is adorable.  Mama, Daddy and baby are fine and his big sister is fine too, but yesterday she thought they should just leave him at the hospital, lol.   She only got to see him from several yards away, I'm sure she'll change her mind when she sees him up close.      
Yesterday my drunkard's path templates came, and this morning I cut them out and did one block to see how it went.  Not bad, it's the right size and not too wonky.  I was scardest of  all of these curved blocks and now only 29 more to go for my two blocks.  
About 2 1/2 hours later:
                                                              

It took about 2 1/2 hours to get from the point of 1 little drunkard's path to 16 of them to make a block.  Here they are pinned and ready for assembly line sewing.  Actually, I added 2 more pins each before I sewed them.  On the right is 16 more ready and waiting for the second Craftsy BOM. 

                              

Here's the finished block.  I'd be really proud of myself, except there are some doing this as their first quilts and theirs look good too.   

                     

Misc. The Good the Bad, but Cute not Ugly

Oh, Happy Day!  My table finally arrived the first of the week and now it is together.  My DH has been having a bad time the last 3 weeks and then last week-end he had a bad reaction to a new muscle relaxer.  I mean, really bad.  He could hardly walk, had to have help, above and beyond the walker that he has had for the past 3 weeks, and his thinking was all jumbled up.  He thought that he needed to go to work and he has been retired for about ten years.  He was very very depressed to the point of crying, which is not like him at all, in spite of his health problems he usually keeps fairly upbeat.  Luckily, the worst hit Sunday and my daughter was able to help me and then Sunday evening when I finally didn't give him a choice and insisted on the emergency room, she came and then when they sent him home after some tests (said he was better off home since he is prone to getting an infection and home was safer) she and 3 of her grown children were there to help me get him home and settled.  It was a bad night, but Monday morning my son came (in spite of pain from dental work) and he helped me all day.  He and his father played a 6 hour game of chess, which goes to show that DH brain still wasn't over the effects, it usually takes them about 20 or 30 minutes, but DH was taking 40 minutes sometimes to decide and then he'd try something illegal.  He has always been a very good chess player, so totally not himself. 

Monday evening, I could see that he was getting better but thought that I could still use some help, so I called my brother from Jacksonville and he came Tuesday evening and stayed until Thursday morning.  By then the effects seemed to be passed thank goodness.  Meanwhile, my brother put together my new quilting table, put a light bulb in my shower where we are too short to reach, put in an electric plug for me so that I don't have to do contortions to plug in my vacuum and clean my sewing room, gassed both cars and put air in their tires, and also put new wipers on my car.  He also put in a digital antenna so that we can get local channels.  We have been using a Roku, which is great, but didn't have the news due to no local channels.

I also added this to my sewing room, it's on my quilting table set up, but will have to be moved when I quilt.  I have seen them around the web, and this one was on Craigslist, I picked it up this morning.  Aunt Polly from the link above has an awesome sewing room, see here.  Maybe, one of these days mine will be as full of goodies as hers (my carousel, not my room).   Also, while I was picking it up I noticed that we were next door to a Harbor Freight store, which I read about on different quilting forums from time to time.  It seems that they have carpet cutting wheels, which according to many fit just fine in a rotary cutter and work just as well as the much more expensive blades.  I hope that they are right, as I bought 10 packs of 2 each.  It is about a 30 minute ride and so if they work well I wanted to have enough to last.  I will be so happy to be able to change my blade more often since it will be only $1.00 for each new blade. 

Here is another of my favorite things that my brother did for me while he was here.  When I moved from the bedroom where my sewing room was, to the family room, where it is now, I really missed my ruler rack which DH has been too ill to move for me.  Ta Da, here it is and I'm loving having it in the room with me and down a little lower than it was, so that it is very very handy.  Brother's can be a wonderful thing.  My brother from Brunswick didn't come this time, he is battling health problems and with a very good attitude.  I have the best brothers ever.  By the way, the one who didn't come made my ruler rack.

I've also been working on organization.  I was trying to cut up boxes to make little mini bolts, but that is a hard job.  I read how people were buying comic book boards and so I thought I'd give it a go.  They work just as well (although I used 2 each as I am using rubber bands to hold things together and it gives more body).  Mine doesn't look so perfect as some that I have seen but after all the work I did on the cardboard, they're staying, lol.  The bottom shelf right is holiday fabrics, mostly Christmas.  I have a much smaller stash than many, but I like it that way.  I just go to the store or order on the internet when I have gaps.  The fleece on the top shelf, and the first 5 fabrics on the left on the middle shelf are for a quilt for one of my great-granddaughters.

The containers on the top hold pieces about fat and long quarter size.  The shelves have pieces about 1/3 to 5/8 of a yard.  The larger pieces go on the little bolts.

I also picked up these bins from Target to try to organize my scraps into colors, and I got an accuquilt go which I am hoping that I'll love and get lots of use from.  I got the die that came with it, the 2 1/2" strip die, and saw a really good sale and ordered the small tumbler die.  Everything was on sale, but I think that I have still shot my wad for the year.  

These are my 3 great grandbabies.  I think they are adorable.

Rocker in Use

Dominic shares his new Rocker with his friend Handy Manny.

Mackenzie's Rocker Cushions and Small Quilt to Match

My daughter and I worked on these together also. 

These pieced backings are a lot more trouble as they are like a puzzle, but I think this one is kind of cute, and it's all leftover flannels so is soft and cuddly.  the cushions are also pretty cushy, 4 layers of fabric and 4 layers of batting.  The seat has a layer of carpet liner to keep it in place, but it gives it a little more cush, too.   I like the feeling that I was able to use bits of this and that to come up with something that is also cute.  It is all leftovers except the cushion fabrics and the quilt front. 

Last Minuter Quilt

This is Dominic.  He will be two soon.

I decided to make a small quilt for Dominic to cover with when he rocks in his new rocking chair.  It's leftover University of Florida Gator fabric, and will be about 42 by 42 inches.

The back was more time consuming to put together than the little top.  Piecing backs is like a puzzle.  I'm hoping that my daughter will be able to make her first attempts at FMQ on this.  She is not really interested in being a quilter, but does plan to do a quilt for Christmas for her stepdaughter.  We need this quilt for Saturday, so I may have to do it myself.