Old Tobacco Road

Bonnie of Quiltville and Quiltvillechat has started another mystery 'Old Tobacco Road'. I plan to make one, but so far all I've done is choose some fabric. This time I'm going to do a little different from Bonnie's colors as I have been wanting to do a pink and brown quilt for awhile now. My scrappies will be the bottom 2 rows, and I am just hoping that there will be enough contrast, if not I'll learn to love it. I threw in a little bit of black as per Bonnie's suggestion, so we'll see. Her mysteries are always fun.

Quilts Back From Longarmer

Yesterday, I got my Orange Crush and my Baby Crazy Big Block back from the longarmer, and I am pleased with them. The baby quilt is already washed, I hope she likes crinkly and doesn't just think it is wrinkly, as it is very crinkly. I love that effect, but I know that all don't. Now I am hoping to finish my Turning Twelve by Tuesday as that is when I have a dentist appointment and am hoping to give them to them that day. They are for the dentist's new baby born July 13 and their 4 year old so he doesn't feel left out.

At some points I didn't know if I was going to like my OC, and had considered making 2 quilts out of it, or setting it straight, and I love all the quilts that were done those ways, but I am glad that I stuck with Bonnie's original plan as now I have a nice big quilt for my bedroom queen sized bed, and I and DH love the way it turned out. Today I hope to get it washed and dried and on my bed and also do a little spiffing up of the actual room so it will do it justice. Sorry about the crooked picture, but the room is small and I was wedged in between furniture.

Embroidered State Quilt

This is what I've been working on since Sunday. There is a wonderful group 123 It's Almost Free Embroidery
where there is absolutely free a new state flower or a filler block each week until you have 56 finished blocks and a queen sized quilt at the finish. I had gotten a bit behind, and so Sunday I did the 4 embroideries, and today I finished up the blocks. I added the state outlines and the flower names, the flower names because I am horrible at flowers and would never have been able to identify them later. The Arizona block just came out this week, and I am anxious to do it, as it is a beautiful cactus and I like cacti. I had wanted to do a state flower quilt, but the designs I have seen were expensive up to $200.00 and more, so this is a wonderful thing to me. Now, I need to get busy on quilting my Turning Twelve. I was thinking this morning that I keep putting it off because of fear, and I need to take a lesson from Nike and just "do it". I will be mowing this morning, but I plan to work on it this afternoon or evening, and hopefully, I will have a finish to share soon. I seem to be the world's worst procrastinator.
Also, for any of you ladies who machine embroider, I tried my new electric screwdriver with my hoop and it was wonderful. It got it nice and tight, but not too tight, and my hooping stayed flatter and nicer as I was handling it less. Then when it was time to undo it, it was a snap, so no more sore fingers.
The one I got was from Sears, less than $40.00, model 9-11398. It is small so it fits a ladies hand well and very light, almost cute. After all, I am female, and I like cute even in tools. When we went tool shopping my grandson was with us, and he said, "you like little things don't you grandma?". He was right.

Hens and Chicks, Baby Quilt, Sewing Manuals, AC

Today has been long and tiring, but a lot has gotten done. I started the day early, and looked out my back window to see what looked like 2 large foxes in the field behind my house. I am almost 100% sure that they were coyotes, and that they live under the tree in the field about 50 yards from my back yard. After seeing them, I realized that I don't see stray cats anymore, and I have been missing my quail, and I wonder if the coyotes ate them, if so I'm not too fond of coyotes.

The two pots of hens and chicks are new to me. I had mentioned how much I like them, and Julie of Julie's Blog was kind enough to send me the plants in the pot with the mushroom, some real beauties, and the plants in the pot with the gnome I ordered from Mountaincrest Gardens. I had to wait a little while, but I ordered 2, and they sent 4, so I was very happy. Aren't they great, and it was so nice of Julie.
This (below, and in the closet) is a picture of what took all day today. We had 2 workers here working from about 9 am until about 6 pm installing our new AC, and they will be back tomorrow morning about 9 am to finish. They still have to do some odds and ends, and some attic work. Since we live in Central Florida, the earlier they get started the better, as the attic can be brutal. I hate that we had to spend the money, but it will be so nice not to be worrying practically on a daily basis about our old one breaking down.
The notebook is a project that I thought of, and hope I don't regret. I have several machines now, a serger, an embroidery machine, a Janome Jem, my old trusty Bernina 1130, and I seem to never be able to find the manuals when I need them. I made copies of the ones I could, so if I ever sell them I will have the manuals individually still, but I took the copies to Kinko's and had them put them all in a spiral binding with dividers. Now I have a big manual all in one place, I hope that it will simplify my life. If you ever do anything similar, copy what you need first, as they don't copy anything copywrited.

While the workers were working, I was working, too. I started and finished this baby quilt today, I'm still amazed by myself. It is a simple little quilt, but for me it was an accomplishment. I embroidered the back, and got the binding ready, too. It is another Crazy Big Block from the Stashbuster workshop pattern. DH is holding it up, and the border is a lighter purple than it looks like in the picture. It's 9:20 pm, and I still have more to do, I hope to mail the baby quilt and OC off tomorrow to the longarmer and need to pack it up and do my click and ship. That is what inspired me to work work work on my baby quilt today.

Starting and Shopping

I hope everyone had or is having a nice day today, and for those who celebrate Independence Day, a happy holiday. It is a day to enjoy, but also a day to reflect on the sacrifices that have been made for us. There is a very informative and inspiring post on Julie's Blog on that very subject. It is about the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and how their lives were affected by there choice for liberty.



I spent part of my day shopping at JoAnn's today. I thought that the needles that I purchased awhile ago would be what I needed for my 'green' grocery bag, but they were too short, so I purchased needles of different types, and yarn for my bag. I hadn't bought any for years, except for the ones that didn't work for this project, which were on sale and fancy with a tapestry case, so I had a little bit of sticker shock in the needle department. I hope I can figure the pattern out and see it through. If not, I guess I will make dishcloths. That is another knitting project I have been wanting to do.



While I was at JoAnn's, I also got the fabric for the new mystery quilt from 'StashMystery' yahoo group. I know that I have lost my mind, as I am still working on the Orange Crush and Carolina Crossroads, but this is a simpler project, and looked like a change of pace. I am kind of defeating the purpose, as it is supposed to be from stash, but I don't have a big stash, and I wanted a change of colors, too.
I thought of the Boxy Stars, but this one lured me.

Crazy Big Block Back

Today was another good mail day. I got back my Crazy Big Block from the LA'er, and I am very happy with it. It is on top of the quilt on my sewing room bed. We are going next week to Iowa for my mother's memorial service, and it will be going too, as shortly after my mother passed away my cousin's husband did also, and I will be giving it to her. The backing is an oxford cloth sheet that I got on sale from Land's End, and I'm real happy with how that worked. It was really reasonable as a backing and washed up nice and soft. I'm glad that it came this week, as when I got my Bargello back, it went back out in the next day's mail, and I will be able to enjoy looking at this one for a week before I give it away.

Orange Crush Step 4 and Moment of Insanity

After all the work, I finally have a block. I am including steps 1 and 2 of the CC in that work. Only 100 more triangle sets to sew together, and 29 more blocks to piece, and I will be done with step 4 of the OC. I can see I need to mix things up a bit more, but I was so excited to put a block together that I guess I didn't really look that hard. As careful as I tried to be, I had to do a little ripping. I had my red where the black should be, and my black where the red should be. Luckily, I only had to undo 3 little seams. As usual, my angle is bad. I don't have a design wall, but I'm thinking that I will make myself a small flannel board so I can at least put up a block or two.

Now for the moment of insanity. I don't need a machine. I have my 18 year old Bernina, and my Janome Jem, and even a little blue Sears machine that I bought for an uninterested granddaughter. So why when I saw conversations about featherweights did I look on Ebay, just out of curiousity? I don't know, but when I did, I got the impulse to put in a bid, and then another bid and another. Finally, I reached my absolute limit, and was waiting in anticipation, half hoping to win, and half hoping to lose. As you have probably surmised, the win half won. I had always liked them, even before I knew what they were. I used to sew with my friend in Massachusetts about 35 years ago, and she had a cute little black machine. I'm not positive, but I would bet that it was a featherweight, and as you can see, it stuck in my mind. Then when I started quilting and learned what they were, I wished that I had one, mostly because they are so cute. According to the information, it is in good condition and works. I am hoping to study up, and get it in really good condition, but I also am wanting just to display it in my sewing room. Again, it's so cute.

Orange Crush - Step 3

A more subdued - Yeah me. Step 3 is done, and it was a snap after steps 1 and 2. The fabric they are laying on is my yardage for step 4. Thanks to Bonnie's needing another week, I think that I will finally catch up. I may even have time to work on step 3 of my CC. I think that on my scrappies many of my lights are too dark, and many of my darks are too light, so I am hoping that the pattern will show up correctly. I am anxious to see how mine and everybody elses OC's turn out. I am just trusting Bonnie, and all the beautiful quilts on her site. I tried to copy her colors, but I can see from the picture that my black shows up more as a gray, so I guess I'll have to wait and see. I'm hoping the blue and the orange (yeah, Gators) (that was for my brother) give it pizazz.

Orange Crush Step 2 - Finally

Finally, my step 2's are finished. I did 50 last night, and 73 this morning. It is amazing how much faster it goes when you actually work on it, instead of thinking about working on it. I am tempted to skip step 3, and go on to step 4, but I am fighting the temptation, as it goes against my sense of order. It is silly, but that's how I am. Hopefully, I can skip all (or at least most) of the whining and thinking, and go right to the actual cutting and sewing.

Today has been a fairly nice day. The weather has been beautiful, and after I finished step 2, my DH and I met my daughter and my grandson, and her boyfriend and looked at some model homes. It is tempting, but then it seems to make more sense to stay where we are. My daughter would love to buy a new home, as her house is old and not exactly what she would like to live in as it has a lot of old memories from her marriage, which had a lot of unhappy times. There doesn't seem to be a perfect house, not in our price range anyway, and our house has most of what we want.

After that, we met DD and her boyfriend at an Italian restaurant, as we were all starving, and I had my usual baked ziti. Now we are home, and my husband is watching his Red Sox. After that, we are going to go for a walk. We missed 2 days, and I don't want to get back out of the habit of going. I'd like to take some pictures of beautiful flowers to share on my blog, and living in Florida you would think that they would be all over the place. Unfortunately, it has been so dry that you don't see too many yards with flowers. I'm thinking of cheating, and going to a nursery or some such place, and taking flower pictures.

Bits and Pieces

The weather has been beautiful lately, and my husband and I need exercise badly, so yesterday and today we have been taking walks. Yesterday, we went to downtown Clermont, and walked and visited the quilt shop. I didn't buy anything, just looked around a bit. Today we went down to the lake. We need rain, so the water is down, but it still is pretty, and there was a nice breeze most of the time. We were hoping to see a little wildlife, but all we saw was a squirrel or two, some ducks and birds. The bird ab0ve caught a fish while we were watching him. We hope to walk every day.

We worked up an appetite, and I had seen Basil Pesto on someone's blog, I apologize that I couldn't find it again, but I will post who's when I do. (I found it, it is Sophie Junction.) We stopped at the grocery store on the way back and got what we were missing and boy was it quick and easy and delicious. I would recommend it to anyone.

This is the picture from her blog, and here is her recipe:

Pesto Sauce
INGREDIENTS
2/3 cup packed, coarsely chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 clove garlic, peeled
DIRECTIONS In a blender, combine all the ingredients. Makes 4 servings. Toss with cooked pasta–I've become a fan of Barilla Plus angel hair pasta–and save the rest for something yummy later in the week.

My husband and I both liked it a lot. The only thing was my blender wanted to just spin, so I put it in my Magic Bullet. If anyone wonders if those are any good, I can tell you that I sure do like mine. I got it when my mother was still able to eat, and it was great for pureeing her food. I would buy one again in a flash.

Then the mailman just came and brought a package that included the luggage tags for our trip in June, so it has been a pretty good day so far.

I will now try to work on my OC for a while. I have the small squares cut out and the small triangles half done. I just need to finish those and then cut out the large triangles, and I'll be ready to sew step 2.

After that, hopefully, it will have cooled off a bit, and I will mow the front yard and maybe pull some weeds. This weather is great.

Orange Crush Step 1

Yeah me! I have to have my little triumphs when I can, so even though I am still 2 steps behind, Yeah me!

I have them (the step 1 blocks) 25 to a ziploc bag, and they aren't as scrappy as I would like, but they are done. This step made me aware that I am kind of light on lights, so I may need to get a few more for the next 2 steps. I did buy a bundle of fat quarters to use for the scrappies, but now I decided to possibly save them to make another of the Crazy Big Blocks. I am trying to have a woman's and a man's quilt in reserve for things that come up, and maybe a baby quilt, too. The Crazy Big Block that I just made, and sent off to the quilter today was supposed to be my reserve ladies quilt, but it has somewhere to go. Now on to step 2, and the scary triangles. I am the queen of squares and rectangles, so this will be good for me. "When you're green you're growing, and when you're ripe you're rotting." or so my favorite saying goes. It helps me get through things that are outside my comfort zone.

My other favorite saying is Shakespeare I believe. "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." I think that is beautiful, although some days I feel like changing it to trust none.

Crazy Big Block IV and Digital Cameras

Finally, the last entry on my Crazy Big Block quilt until it comes back from being quilted. I messed up my measurements, and thought I didn't have enough room on the oxford cloth sheet I got for a backing to add my extra border, but had looked at the wrong measurement. So, it only ended up 60 x 72. I am thinking of giving it to a cousin who just lost her husband, but since I don't live near her and haven't spent much time with her since I was in fifth grade and we shared a room for about half a school year (my father was USN and on a Med cruise so we stayed with her family for a few months) I need to do a little research through my niece to see if she is the type of person who would like a quilt. The good thing is she is short like me, so 72" long would probably be enough.

I was thinking the other day about how great digital cameras are. It is so nice to just grab the camera upload the photo and add to to a forum or a blog or email it to family and friends. Are we spoiled or what? No more buying film and waiting to take all the pictures, then waiting to get them developed, and the expense. One roll of 24 was probably about 11 or 12 dollars, so with what you save with the digital camera it really does pay for itself in a relatively short time. Just my old mind marveling about the new-fangled.

Crazy Big Block III

Here is my Crazy Big Block quilt with the sashing. I still intend to do a small border of the cream color, and a large border of the not quite right roses, and at the two long ends another strip of about 3 inches wide, possibly of bricks. For me this is going along pretty fast, and I hope to finish the top today or tomorrow. It should end up about 58 x 76. Landsend had some oxford shirting sheets on sale, so I ordered a twin sized pink striped sheet to use for the backing. I figured if people buy the shirts at thift stores, why not for a backing. Well, back to life, we have errands to do and then hopefully my husband will be up to helping me with a little yard work. Have a nice day.

Crazy Big Block II

Here is my quilt after completion of step 2. This is my stack of 9 crazy big blocks waiting to be sewn together. I have decided that I want to put sashing between the blocks, and also that I need to choose a border, so I think that I will take an undeserved break (as I haven't really done anything much yet) and go to JoAnn's. I may check first and see if a cut of rose print fabric with a black background that I have had for many years (probably at least 17 or 18) would do, or if it would clash big time. I got these fat quarters at Conncecting Threads, and thought about checking there, but I don't want to wait that long.
I just went and got the fabric that I was speaking of, and I can't quite make up my mind. I guess I'll think on it, and if anyone has an opinion, I would like to hear it.

Crazy Big Block

One more picture of our family gathering. My brother sent me this one which has all my mother's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren except for 1 out of state and my husband and I who left early due to his illness.

Either tomorrow or Sunday, I plan to do the Crazy Big Block workshop on Cyberquilters 4 C-Bees, and these are the fabrics I chose. It starts with 9 fat quarters, and I had bought a pack of thirty something to use for the OC, but since these were mostly mediums, and I need the darks and lights for the OC, I decided to use them. I think I may try to applique a heart or two on it, too, and so I may rob 1 more fat quarter. I have a lot more actual scraps than I thought though, so I will still have plenty for the OC. We may go to see our son and his family this week-end, so which day I work on my quilt will depend on that. The actual workshop is tomorrow.

Orange Crush

I have plans to start my Orange Crush and have gotten the fabrics. I am grateful that Bonnie is taking 2 weeks before the next clue, as I am still lagging behind as usual. The sunflower material is for the back, just because I like sunflower material, and the fat quarters I will use for the lights and darks for my 4 patches, along with whatever else I dig out of my "stash". I use the term loosely, as mine is not very impressive, but we will see what I can come up with. The only fabrics I haven't gotten yet are whatever will be used on my borders. I plan to make 2 lap sized quilts rather than 1 queen sized at this point. Who knows, I could change my mind.

Carolina Crossroads

I have been plugging along slowly on my Carolina Crossroads (mine will be a Carolina Straightaway lap sized) and was thinking about using a red, white and blue in the center instead of a neutral, but I think that it would be too busy, so will follow the plan. Also, I got my rail fences turned the wrong way, but this was good enough for me to kind of get the idea.

Granddaughter's Christmas 2006

Well, here I am again, I can't seem to stop. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I'm about to run out of things to write about and it's only my second day. I'm the queen of squares, and I'm hoping that I will get out of my comfort zone. I have a feeling that the Orange Crush is going to help with that problem. I'm still working on the Carolina Crossroads (my version of it) and it has been mostly squares again, but tiny ones, so still a challenge. For Christmas a couple of years ago I made quilts for all my granddaughters, and yes they were all charm squares. In my defense, I did have six of them to do, so quick and easy was my excuse. I also make rectangles, quite a stretch. For the past 4 years I have made pillowcases for family children, and have probably made about 125 all together. They are kind of like potato chips, and I make the ones that start out a tube and end up all finished even without the serger. It's almost like magic.

New Year's Eve Sudoku

Not a mystery, but still comeraderie and sociabiltiy involved, was the Sudoku quilt on Stashbusters. Stephanie Driel, came up with the idea to get a group together for the Sudoku, and I liked mine enough so that I use it on my bed. I have a queen sized bed, and it is a little big for my sudoku, but my DH and I like it there just the same. I got to use my new embroidery machine on this one too, as I did an embroidered Sudoku in each corner of the quilt. I'm posting 2 pictures of this one, one on the bed. I call it Sumo Sudoku, as it got a little bloated compared to the original.

Simply Squares Mystery

The first mystery I took part in was the Simply Squares Mystery by Marge Gordon on CyberQuilters 4-C-Bee's. I liked the experience so much that I have taken part in more since, and plan to hopefully finish the ones I have started and do more. I am posting a picture of it, although I only have a picture of the top with borders, I didn't get another picture of it after it was finished.

Another SIL had surgery for breast cancer recently, so this one also had a home to travel to. She called it lovely, and said that she used it when sitting or laying on the couch, so it will hopefully be well used. I sent some rice bags for my BIL with it, and she says he uses them everyday. We live in Florida, but they live in Rhode Island, and I guess that feet really can get cold there.