More of State Flower Blocks

I don't have a lot to show for almost a month away from blogging, but I have been working hard on my state flower blocks. Each block takes about 3 hours on the embroidery machine, and a little time to finish the borders and some computer work, so it has been time consuming. I am caught up again though, yeah! I am making two quilts, so I have double everything. I added a little extra to Iowa and Nebraska, as my mother was born in Iowa and my father in Nebraska. I just wanted to make mine scrappy, but as I was adding sea shell material to Illinois, I thought that it would have been nice to use fabric with the state flower from each state as it's border, or maybe even fabric with the state birds. Oh well, I don't think that I'll be making a third one. I have 24 of the 56 blocks done, so I have a long way to go, but I'm getting there.

DH and I haven't been doing so well on our walking, as my daughter has had the flu, and DH has had some sickness also, but we did see this fellow on one of our walks. I don't know why, but he seemed to be fearless and let us get within about 2 feet. Mockingbirds are our state bird, and I'm rather partial to them, so I found it very exciting.

State Flowers and Shirts

I am up to date again on my State Flower blocks, at least until the next ones are posted which could be as early as tomorrow. I am doing 2 sets, one for DH and myself, and one for DD, and now have a total of 14 blocks done for each of us. I'm thinking maybe I will do sashing between the blocks to make them a bit bigger, but at this point have no idea what color sashing. By the time that I have all 56 blocks done, I'm sure there will be every color in the quilts. The blocks are 12 1/2 x 12 1/2.

My brother in Georgia called this morning, he had been to a thrift store and gotten 3 nice shirts for .75 cents and remembered that I had asked him to keep an eye out for me. He went back in and got 23 shirts for me for $5.75, which is just .25 cents each. He got some that were flannel, and some cotton, but he knew to get all 100% cotton. One of the ladies there had told him that they needed to clear them out as they had more coming in, but when he got mine and told the other lady what they were for I guess she got kind of an attitude about them being cut up. The other lady was there and she stuck up for him and said they were just glad to be selling them. He had the right idea though, he told them that shirts would be worn out and done with, and my quilt might be still around in 100 years, and be an heirloom. He hasn't seen my quilts, lol, but I think it was great that he knew the right thing to say. He is a woodworker, and knows the value of crafting whether with wood or fabric. There are some pictures of tables he has made on my blog. I'm afraid that he is better at his craft than I am at mine, but we both get satisfaction, and that is very important.

Projects

I haven't been too productive, but I have been working on a few things in the past week. The first picture is my Thanksgiving hand towels and napkins. I've done 8 of the gold napkins and 12 white napkins for the kids, and when I finished my DH got a brainstorm. Why not put everyone's name on their napkin. I guess that I'll be doing that.

The second picture is the next two blocks of my State Flower quilt. I still have to put the frames on them, and now I'm already behind again, as Florida and Georgia are out now. A woman's work is never done.
The last two messy pictures are the fabrics for my Twisting Turning Twenty quilt. The first is the lights with the dark swatches on top, and the second is the darks with the light swatches on top. I hope there is enough contrast. This evening I got the 20 blocks sewn together, and now hopefully tomorrow, I'll be sewing the lights and darks together and then cutting them apart into two blocks. I'm anxious to get that step done, and then see how my stripes will look. Here is a picture of Donna's from Donna's in the Attic.

I'm getting excited for the holidays. I haven't done any decorating for the past few years, and this year will plan to do a bit of it. I plan on having Thanksgiving at my house this year, although I don't know yet who all will be able to make it. I will have anywhere from 9 to in the 20's. Somehow, our family has a problem with commitment, and they usually aren't sure until it is almost here.

State Flower Quilt

I decided to make a state flower quilt for my daughter too, so it has taken a little time to catch up, but now I am all up to date. The next block will come out Tuesday or Wednesday, and I'm hoping to keep current from this point on. I find myself doubting it, but I'm going to try. This makes 8 blocks done and only 48 more to go. Times 2 of course.

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.