Orca Bay Step II Start

I wish that I loved making string blocks, but not yet. I don't dislike making them as I did at first, but they aren't my favorites to make yet.   These are my first 16 3 inch finished purple blocks for Orca bay, so I guess that I finally made up my mind and turquoise blues will be my main color.  I feel kind of left out when people talk about how fast they are to make, it seems like I spend a lot of time trying to find a string long enough, or short enough, or thin enough or fat enough.  Only 56 left to go.  They are kind of cute though. 

When I started on Friday and posted on Saturday, I had 16 little blocks.  I have 52 now (Monday), so 20 more to go.  I love how they look, but find the string process a little slow going.   I did get a couple of suggestions though, I'm sorry I'm not sure who from, but I precut lengths and that speeded up the process a bit.   I hope to finish step 2 today and then spend some time on my Iowa (Carolina ) Christmas.
If you'd like to see more cute little string blocks visit Bonnie here .

Step One Done

Step one is done.  I got it mixed up in mind somehow and was thinking at the end that I needed 244 instead of 224, so I ended up with 251 as I wanted a few extra.  Oh well, I'll use them somewhere, maybe on the back.  I still haven't decided on whether to use blues, mostly turquoise, or purple for my main color, I like them both and have mentioned before how wishy-washy I am.  I'm not having a big Thanksgiving at my house, but I am having everyone over Friday for a ham dinner, and my DD is moving this week, so it's a busy time.  I'm hoping after that is over and I do step 2 (which I'm hoping will be one of the smaller steps) to get my monster Iowa (Carolina) Christmas basted and quilted and on my bed.  I'd love to use it this Christmas, it's about time.  I've decided to not add the border, as it is already huge, and  to use the border blocks for something else.  I'll make sure they don't go to waste. 
I've kind of gotten attached to the crazy lady concept, I may call my quilt "Orca Bay Crazy Lady", lol. 

PS    As I was working on these I kept picturing in my mind the Alaska gold rush.  I could see the turquoise water, the purple and orange sunset, the black and white orca's, and an eccentric, maybe even homeless, "crazy lady" wandering the town (I don't know if there was a town, but in my fantasy there was).  In real life, I don't think I'm really a "crazy lady", but I guess that any of us could be if life wasn't kind, so I am going to call this "Orca Bay Crazy Lady", and I guess that it is dedicated to those who really are eccentric, who have had less fortunate lives.  I mean no disrespect in this, and I hope no one takes it as such.  I have worked in the city and seen ladies walking the streets and talking to themselves and in no way do I think myself superior, just more fortunate. 
There's my deep thought for the week.
If anyone feels that I have been disrespectful please let me know and I will change the name.  At first when I posted about the "crazy lady" I was just thinking about myself and my crazy colors, but quilting gives you time to think and my fantasy evolved.  

Crazy Lady

113 down and 111 left to go if my math is correct.   WooHoo, I'm over half way there.  I was looking at all the pretty combinations on Bonnie's Linky, and have decided that I'm the Orca Bay crazy lady.  My colors are surely the wildest of the bunch, orange, black, purple and blue, and my scrappy is among the scrappiest.  Last mystery I went with Bonnie's colors, and I love my Roll Roll Cotton Boll, but this year I'm definitely out of the box, lol.   I haven't seen an ugly Bonnie quilt, and so I have confidence.   
If you want to see more progress go to Bonnie's Linky here.

A Few Hour Glasses Done

I don't belong to Facebook, but DH does, and so I joined a group called "A Quilt Block A day" under his account.  The block of the day is hour glasses, and since I'm doing Bonnie's new mystery and the first step has "a few" hour glasses I thought this will be good, I'll use them for both.  I guess that hour glass blocks were on my mind, as I looked at this little strip twist (also one of Bonnie's patterns, except for the corners which I changed up a bit) and thought my goodness another type of hour glass block.

I quickly read step one of Bonnie's new mystery "Orca Bay" yesterday, and then did what she warned against this morning.  In my defense, I was up at about 4:30 am.  These are my first 19 blocks, and the next 205 will be 4 different fabrics, not just 3.   They have a Halloween look right now so I added some of my blues and purples to the picture. 

Orca Bay

I decided on these colors for this quilt.  I hope to keep up, but my record isn't the best.  I will do my darnedest.  I will probably leave out some of the more colorful blacks then add some plainer ones, and as someone suggested the lightest orange will be out of there, also a few more oranges added.   I appreciate the opinions and suggestions, I was leaning heavily toward the creams and whites, but DH loves black in quilts and his vote swayed things, lol.  I still haven't decided which colors will correspond to which of Bonnie's.  Also, I live on the other side of the country, about 45 minutes from Sea World and Shamu, so I may have to think of a different name for mine. 

PS   Oops, I didn't have a finish for October and maybe not this month, so I didn't make my goal of a finish a month.  I think I did pretty well though, as I did finish 17 quilts so far.  If I get going and put the Orca Bay off until after Thanksgiving, I might be able to finish my Iowa (Carolina) Christmas by the end of November.  What to do, what to do.  Hopefully, my indecisiveness won't turn into inactivity, lol.   

Update

I had a suggestion from a kind lady at Quiltvillechat to use cream instead of black for the neutral as it would give the eye a place to rest.  (I had already considered that, but the suggestion sent me to my camera)   Now I've got four choices, and I haven't even tried "green" instead of blue, which was another thought.  I can drive myself crazy.   This is an edit to an edit, I originally started out with only one photo.

A few changes have occurred over the past few weeks.  One, I started my job with XBox, and quit my job at Xbox.   It just wasn't for me.  My stomach hurt constantly from the stress, and I'm just not a gamer type, and I felt that I wasn't doing justice to XBox or their customers or myself.  I know that jobs are scarce, and I am not sure that I did the wisest thing, but it is done, and my stomach isn't hurting anymore.  I do need to think about putting in some work applications though.   My daughter's quilt is almost all quilted, but then I ran out of thread.  I had purchased a spool of the King Tut number 929, and I think that I gave it to my daughter and she thinks I didn't.  I have reordered, so probably in the next few weeks it will turn up at one of our houses.   I have been debating trying to take part in Bonnie Hunter's new mystery.  I had an order all filled out for Hancock's of Paducah and then thought that I would be better off to see what I have.  I'm not sure that I'm going to participate, but if I do these are possibly my fabrics.  Then again, maybe orange instead of yellow, or maybe creams instead of black or maybe.........    PS  I added the orange, just to see.   

Yet Another Gator Quilt

My son-in-law loves the Florida Gators and so does my new granddaughter.  My daughter wanted to do something extra nice for Christi's Christmas this year, so I think you can guess what she came up with.  Yesterday we got everything cut out, and today after some machine problems she sewed and sewed.  Here is the result, a top complete except for the borders.  I wanted her to be in the picture, but she said she didn't have makeup on, so she is holding up her creation.  We are under a time restraint as we start training this coming Wednesday for our new jobs, and she is going to have different hours and different days off (after training) from mine.  We will have to work something out.  Also, Christi will be here for Thanksgiving, but not Christmas, so that also means hurry every chance you get.

New Sewing Room, Office, Guest Room Combo

There are a lot of pictures in this post, but I love to see pictures of sewing rooms, so I hope that they won't be too many.  My old sewing room was about 11 1/2 by 13, and this one is about 16 by 23 feet, so you'd think lots more would fit, only it doesn't seem that way.  I pretty much got everything in, plus a couple of chairs, but I don't see where I can fit a design wall in this one, so I guess I'm back to a design bed.  My new job requires me to be hardwired to the internet, so it was necessary that I move into what was formerly the family room and DH's office, and he move into my sewing room.   We even had to give my daughter a recliner that wouldn't fit, go figure.  This view is from the door that goes into the kitchen, the closet and laundry area are to the right.

This is the wall on the front of the house, the opposite end from the closet and laundry.  I did have a computer in my sewing room and in the family room, now I have two in the same room about 10 feet from each other.   My laptop is on the little laptop desk that my brother made for me.

This is my new office area, and it backs up to my sewing cabinet and Bernina 1130.  The cabinet also hides lots of black spaghetti wires.

The closet is on the left, and the laundry on the right. 

Looking into my office area to the right.  My embroidery machine is on the grey cabinet beside the bed.  Can you tell that I like to know what time it is?  There are at least four clocks in here.   I also have a thing for garbage cans, I think I have 6, but what the heck they're cheap.  It makes for more efficient working.

Looking into the desk that I will work from.  I didn't realize it was so smeary until I took this picture.  I have since wiped it down a bit.  This desk is actually a small oak farm table, but I bought it about 28 years ago to be my desk.  How long before it can be an antique, lol.

Another view from the dining room door.  I got to keep the 50 inch TV.  My laptop desk is on one side of it, and my cutting/ironing table is on the right.  On the wall to the right of the TV is my Small Strip Twist that I made out of leftovers from a grandson's quilt to cover the fuse box.  It is from Bonnie Hunter's pattern.  My Daughter and three of her son's came to help and the boys said that "grandma" has baskets under everything.  What can I say, I like to quilt and they are a necessity.   They came this past Sunday and put in about 4 hours.  It's Thursday and we're still working on it.  Too much "stuff".

The funny shaped conglomerate of tables, two wooden oak typing tables of the same vintage as my desk, and the two folding plastic tables are where my Juki lives, and where I quilt.  Leah Day recommends this configuration, but that it be against a wall.  I don't have a wall, but hope that it will still work out ok.  My Janome Platinum is between the Juki and the cutting/ironing table.  It used to be in the family room, and hasn't moved.  I have four machines in here, the Juki for quilting, Bernina for piecing, embroidery machine, and my Platinum, I think that I'm pretty well set up as far as machines go.  I also have a featherweight on top of the bookcase.  It works, but I don't use it as of yet. 

Another view from the dining room door.  I do have more floor space in here.

Looking into my new work area.  It also holds much of my stash.  It was a quick move, and I'm not well organized as far as areas.  My desk area is mixed with my stash area, my embroidery area isn't very close to my threads, etc.

View toward the dining room door.   The cabinet by the door was already there and I kept it and my DH's bookcase.  He got my bookcase, cabinet and TV.  The quilt rack is new and holds my Roll Roll Cotton Boll, and my Christmas Unstrip Road

I made this double hourglass block this morning, the only sewing that I've done in a week or so.  It's from 'A quilt block a day'  from facebook.  This particular version is from Cluck Cluck Sew.

I didn't use the home made template that she recommended though.  I used this as recommended by Amy and Bonnie.  I made this sample block with 2 1/2 inch strips and the block ended up 8 inches finished 8 1/2 inches now. 

As an after thought I remembered the inside of my closet. 

The batting, quilt top, king sized flannel sheet, and the container they are sitting on are going to be my Iowa (Carolina) Christmas.  Hopefully, I will get to it soon I think it's time that it was on my bed and not "closet clutter".   I made the top when it was a mystery, but now it's in Bonnie's "Scraps and Shirttails II".   Here is a picture of it without the borders, which are in the container above.  It's huge.

Looking to the right of the closet.  The closet is about 3 by 7 feet.

Looking to the left of the closet.  That's the tour.  If you are still with me, I hope that your eyes haven't glazed over. 

New Job

Things have been crazy here.  I got a job.  It's work at home on the computer and so I've been trying to get my working area prepared.  My sewing room is becoming my husbands office, and our family room where he had a corner is becoming my sewing room.   We had a lot of help getting started on the process, my daughter and 3 of her boys came over yesterday and helped for about 4 hours, but there is still a whole lot to do.  It's getting there, but the old bones ache and slow things down, lol. 

Rocker in Use

Dominic shares his new Rocker with his friend Handy Manny.