Two More Finished

This is the last manly quilt (4 out of 4) finished for my grandson Jacob.  Now to get them delivered, the house back to where I don't mind living here, and then on to my pumpkin table mats.   I'm going to use this pattern, but am going to be lazy and probably skip the leaves and stems.  I think they will still be cute.

This is one of the quilts that looks pretty good if you own a horse to gallop by it on (not my best quilting ever).  It is finished, and hopefully DGD will be happy.   The heart at the bottom was my sad little attempt at shabby chic and to cover up a fraying seam. 

The four fabrics on the left are for the pumpkins the middle is the background,  the stripe is the narrow border, and the large print below with the black background is the wide border.  I think I have enough fabric for about 3 of them.  A quick and easy project, especially using my lazy way.
Between blogger and my ignorance of its new rules, we can make a 20 minute job last 2 hours easily.

Manly Quilts #2 and #3 Finished and Shop Hop

 These are for my brother in Jacksonville and his son.  They are both dedicated fishermen so the borders on both have fish and the little sub-borders at the top and bottom of each quilt have the others border fabric.   The top one is my brothers.  DH and I are driving to Gainesville about 2 hours away or so on Monday to meet both my brothers and deliver these.  My Georgia brother already has his and loves it, and he will just be coming along for the company and so we can see each other.  It has been since the spring since we have gotten together.















DH and I went on a shop hop the other day, a different one than we had been on before and much more stressful as so much of it was in dense traffic.  The little snowman panel above is one of eight that you received at each shop, I'll eventually make a quilt or table runners or something with them.   The fat quarters and charm pack were at various shops and just because, except for the one that looks like bricks.  I hope to use it when I eventually get to a trees wall-hanging from this tutorial from Joanna of Applique Today.  She does a lot of cute things on her blog. 
The fabrics below were from a shop that I used to visit a lot over twenty years ago, I haven't been in probably ten years and it had hardly changed except they used to carry Bernina and Singer, and now they carry Babylock and Brother.    The fabrics that I purchased were half price and if I had been in the money I would have been tempted to get more.   No particular plans except for the Lady Liberty, unless I can work them into Bonnie Hunter's new mystery in November.   Last shop hop I had gotten some red and blue fabrics for this flag tutorial from Lola and her blog "and Sew On".   It is still on my list of to do's and I thought Lady Liberty might fit right in.
The bottom picture is fabric from the $5.00 rack at my local quilt store, again no particular plans for them at this time.  
One happy surprise at the last shop was they are a Juki dealer.   My Juki is a couple years old now, and it's nice to know that I have a place for service and parts and such.   I spent too much money, but I did learn something, lol.

 

One Basted and Family Pictures

One of the four is basted.  I was going to continue my assembly line, but I think I'm going to go ahead and finish this one and get it in the mail.  It's for my Georgia brother, and he is probably the only one of the four who cares if he gets it now rather than later.   It's not at its prettiest stage right now, hopefully even my mediocre FMQing will work it's magic.  The Lands End flannel sheet that I'm using for backing sure does feel soft and cushy.
Then it will be on to my Florida brother and his son.  I wish theirs were already done, as my nephew recently had an accident on his four wheeler and it fell on his head and damaged his ear about 30 something stitches worth.  It's so lucky that he wasn't hurt worse.   I don't think that he even knows he's getting one though so hopefully it will be a nice surprise and my goal is still to have theirs in the mail and hopefully received by the end of the month.   The last one for my grandson will be hopefully done by then, too.   It's for the grandson below in the red shirt with lots of pretty red curly hair.
Today I had my nose to the grindstone except when I got a visit from 2 grandsons, grand daughter-in-law, great grandbaby, and my daughter.  It was a nice visit and my daughter had picked up a disc of pictures from Walmart.  I'll try to  add a couple to this post if I can make blogger like me, lol.


















My daughter's children, six of my many grandchildren.

 My grandson, grand daughter-in-law and great grandbaby




















My oldest grandson, his girlfriend and her baby, Dominic who received my three day quilt.

My daughter and two of my grand daughters, her daughter and her stepdaughter.

A Little More Progress

 I have had distractions, but have gotten a bit done.  I have the backs made, just simple from sheets, the right for my brothers, flannel from Lands End and on the left for my nephew and grandson, 220 thread count from Target.  Quite a difference don't you think.  Not only that, I had looked up the dimensions on Lands End and cut the Target sheet first.   Unfortunately, Target's are 10 inches shorter and 10 inches skinnier.   A couple of extra seams, it would be farfetched to call them design elements, lol.  It's for a 22 year old single guy who lives with other guys and a dog.  I don't think he'll care too much.  All the names are machine embroidered on the backs, too.  The funny looking stuff is wash off stabilizer.

The picture below is all the parts assembled and ready to be put together.   Just need to get some finger cots to protect my right pointer finger from extreme pain (maybe a slight exaggeration) and I'll be ready to spend hours and hours basting.  Can you feel the love.  I'm anxious to get these done, as other projects are tempting me.   I need to keep on with my finish it up state of mind though, so I'll either bite the bullet and finish my monster quilt (Iowa Christmas) or finish up my Paintbox quilt.   The Paintbox quilt sounds like more fun, so that's probably what it'll be.

I had purchased a 30 yard roll of batting, and the last of these took the last and had to be pieced together with some leftover pieces.  I'm glad that it is getting used, but I sure hate to have to buy more.  The corner of my family room looks better though, lol.

Quilting in Bulk

I've been working on my Manly Quilts and have all the tops done and the bindings prepared.   Now on to the backs, labels, batting, basting, quilting, and bindings again.   Hey, this sounds like work, lol.

I changed the template on my blog and picked the books as I recently got one of the new more inexpensive Kindles.   I have read 3 books so far and am enjoying it a lot.   I probably have about 75 books on it now and have spent less than 5 dollars on books.   If only I could stay awake better, I could have probably read 10 books, lol.   I take medication every day that makes me sleepy and at times I keep dropping my Kindle which wakes me up.  Getting older is truly not for the weak.

I also got a thank you card for my 3 day baby quilt.
   Thank you for being so thoughtful.
   Thank you so much for the quilt you made for Dominic.
   It is absolutely beautiful.
     -Sarah and Dominic
Luckily, she hasn't seen some of the "absolutely beautiful"  quilts made by so many in blogland.  If so, she would have had to say it was cute, lol.

Manly Quilts and Baby Quilt Label

My three day baby quilt is officially done done. I got the label made and sewn on, and now just have to check with my grandson to see if he prefers washed or not. I think that I prefer washed, especially for a baby.

My four manly quilt centers are done, now on to the borders. At least now they will be a little different one from another.



PS Dominic Carmine - do you think the little guy may have some Italian in there.

One Center Down Three To Go

One center down, three to go, and then on to the borders.

Getting Going on my Manly Quilts

I've got four to finish before the end of next month, so I figured I'd better get started. They don't look like much now, but hopefully the finished product will be good. They'll be colorful anyway, but hopefully not too colorful, as I don't think most men like that.

Taking a Break From This Project

Here are the blocks for my 4 manly quilts. As you can see there isn't much to them, but it still seemed like a job, lol. There are 45 different fabrics and just about every color, so either they will look scrappy or chaotic, I'm hoping for scrappy.
A family friend has done a very nice thing for us, so I thought how can I say thank you? I'm sure that you can guess what I came up with. I was trying to think how I could make a quilt quickly and I decided to use my nine patch blocks and finish up my last nine patch quiltalong quilt from Crazy Mom Quilts. I think this time I'll go with her original colors and use the white sashing. There are blocks in every color, so hopefully she will have a place for it, it should go with something, lol. She has 3 homes so I think there should be some place to use it.

No Imagination!

I've decided on my next project and gotten a start on it. I think that the strips pictured will be enough, if my figures are correct, for 4 manly sized quilts. The reason that I have no imagination is that they will be the same as the big boy quilts (which I made 5 of) except for the fabrics are different and they will be a little larger. It is such an easy quilt, and I need 4, 1 for each of my 2 brothers, 1 for my grandson Jacob, who is the only one of my daughters children who I haven't given a quilt to yet, and 1 for my brother in Jacksonville's son Joey, who also hasn't received a quilt previously. I told my brothers that I would probably have them done by the end of October, so they need to be time friendly. Last night I made an order at Hancock's of Paducah. Fabrics for borders for 3 of the quilts (I already have some USM fabric for my brother who was in the marines). My brother from Jacksonville and his son are both avid fishermen, so I ordered fish themed prints for them and my grandson Jacob is another musician in the family, so I ordered some fabric with guitars and other instruments for him. Instead of red narrow border fabric, on these it will be a shade of green. I hope Hancock's comes through this time. Last time I ordered they had everything, but I have had orders in the past that were very disappointing in that they were out of much of what I ordered. I was lucky in that the only fabric that I ordered that wasn't on sale was the musical themed.
We made a short trip to Ikea this past weekend, didn't look around much, just went straight to the section that we were looking for, and the green trash can was my main purchase. I have a large white one in my kitchen which I like very much, and every time I go back I covet the small ones. I don't care too much for green, but this cheerful little trash can appealed to me. Now, I have 5 trashes in my small sewing room, I think it is probably enough. They are all necessary though I'm sure, 1 by my Juki, which I quilt on, 1 by my embroidery machine, 1 by my faithful old Bernina, 1 under my cutting/ironing table, and now 1 by my desk. I must be a trashy person, lol. We had originally gone to look at their fabrics. I didn't get any of that, but I got a little bud vase for less than a dollar and a wire curtain hanger to hang the small quilt over the fuse box. That was Saturday, yesterday was DH and grandson Jacob's birthdays, so we met him for lunch. It was a nice day although not as planned. We were supposed to go to Busch Garden with my daughter, her fiance and some of the grandkids, but DH had one of his sleepless nights so we had to cancel. Hope you had a nice weekend, too.