Crumbs

 I just finished putting the binding on the crumb quilt from the crumb along at Jos Country Junction.  It started in September of 2011.  September is a silly time for a teacher to start a new quilt, but it did manage to get finished within the same school year.    I quilted black loop-de-loops which don't really show up much on the black background, but they went quickly and were fun to do. I'll save the hand work on the binding for TV time or the next long car trip. 

The green crumbs are next on the list.  I have a green fabric for the border.   I hope there is enough.  If not I might end up with two green borders as I think there needs to be quite a bit of green on the outside.  The yellow ended up being dominant in the center and it needs some balance. If that doesn't work I'll pick something up this afternoon.  Sydney has a birthday party which is down south by the fabric store.  I also need to get some more cheddar for the setting triangles on the bow-tie blocks. 

Kurt and the girls took Lizzie to the beach this morning. All the local beaches used to be closed to dogs, but they have just opened up a section to dogs.  She seemed to like it, though she would only go in the water up to her shoulders.  

Postage Stamp Progess

Yesterday Anna and I went to St. Augustine with a friend of mine whose daughter is also a friend of hers. My friend has volunteered to plan the leader daughter camping trip for Girl Scouts this year and wanted to check out the camping sites and get the plans firmed up. Anna and I went along for company and moral support. We did some walking through the historic downtown while we were there and visited the oldest school along with Anna's favorite candy store. Then we walked through the campground and found places for the catered dinner and the campfire. It is a beautiful facility, and it should be a really nice weekend. Today I had some time to work on the postage stamp blocks that I have been using to try to whittle down the 1.5 inch strip drawer. I am out of the light colored sashing strips and so need to make some design decisions. I had originally planned to make it twin sized, just because that is my default size if I don't have a specific function in mind for a quilt. To grow that big it would need two more rows of blocks all the way around. I considered switching to another similarly colored sashing strip for the next two rounds before adding a border of the green. I also thought about swapping out the light and dark colored separating strips to make the last couple of rounds a little more border like.
Kurt thinks it should just be a smaller quilt. He wants me to take off the outer sashing strips and replace them with a wider band of the green. I thought instead that I might cut more of the strip sets into a wider band and use that as the border. I might also surround the top with half blocks that are 6 by 3 instead of 6 by 6. I guess I could also try to get some more of the light colored fabric. It came from Connecting Threads and they might still have more to order.
I'm not sure yet which way I'll go, but I guess I'll let it sit up on the wall and see which one calls out to me in the morning. What do y'all think?
Here is Ryan hanging out with Lizzie this morning. Lizzie seems to like it when the kids use her as a pillow. Or when she can use them as a pillow. I guess either is good for her.

Cutie Patootie

I thought I'd try to get one more block in this evening after bedtime for the kids. Kurt was playing volleyball so it was peaceful for a bit. This is Old Snowflake and it is block number 26.
This one was simple enough. A darker purple would have been nice in the center, but it's a nice little pattern and came together just fine. What a relief after the last two better done than perfect blocks. The seams are still a bit damp where I spritzed it to get the seam to lie flat. I think that will dry well enough.
Lizzie was helping me sew the binding down on the Girl Scout cookies quilt. She likes to be part of the action.
Most of the afternoon was spent in the kitchen keeping Sydney company while she baked. She made 7 cookies and they cook one a time for 10 minutes each. Attention span is never a problem when she is feeling motivated. Ryan wanted to know why we didn't just turn on the oven and cook them all at once.

Square Root Quilted

I decided to go ahead and finish the quilting tonight. Tomorrow is still officially a holiday so I can sleep in late. I was trying to decoratively drape it over a chair to get a picture, but Lizzie wouldn't budge. So here is a non decorative picture with a little extra personality. I guess binding will be the job for tomorrow. I think I still have two more on the list.

Lizzie Helps Me Quilt

I was going to do a linear sort of water type pattern on square root. It seemed too tight in the border though, so I switched to a bigger wobbly sort of spiral pattern. I'm trying to keep the quilting lines about finger to thumb width apart. I think it's going pretty quickly. Lizzie came in to keep me company. She isn't allowed in the quilting room, but I had to take a quick photo before I kicked her out.



I've just gotten far enough that all the batting is up off the floor and I'm trying to decide whether to go and finish it up tonight of come back to it in the morning.

More Practice and Counting Down

I just realized that I'm almost at post number 500! I've already been starting a collection of things to give away, so stay tuned for more details. This morning I finished up the practice "quilt" using a spiral squares pantograph and some random feathers. The kids are upstairs cleaning and I'm getting ready to start on some school work. Happy Sunday everyone.

Last Post of 2009

The rest of our trip was very nice, but Kurt's brother didn't know the password for his wireless network so putting up a blog entry wasn't possible. Ryan has a great time playing with his cousins on both sides of the family and told us that it didn't quite make up for not having a brother but that it was still pretty fun.
Anna decided to have a little New Years Eve party this evening and invited her friend Sierra over. She was impatient though and most of the festivities occurred at about 4:30. We had sparkling grape juice as well as ginger ale which the kids all thought was pretty fancy. They all wanted to stay up late but finally gave up about half an hour ago. Sierra and Anna went over to her house though, so they may be having better luck with being night owls.

I still haven't figured out how to do one of those fancy picture collages with all of last years projects, but I worked on a list during the car ride, so maybe I'll make that post tomorrow. It is almost time for a new year here and I was trying hard to finish off a few loose ends today.


I will definitely be doing a UFO a month again this year and will be sure to put it out there as an official challenge if Amy doesn't beat me to it. I saw that she is doing a BOM this year so I will have to add that one to my list. In between finishing the unpacking and laundry today I pulled out one last UFO from last year. Double Delight has been languishing without borders for quite a while. I did a thin strip of yellow and then a wide band of blue. I tried some square in a square cornerstones using extra nine patches, but as I look at the picture, I think they stand out a bit too much, maybe because I used different greens. It is done though, which is better than not done. I'm going to keep it as a flimsy for a while and do a batch of quilting at some point when motivation strikes. I keep toying with the idea of investing in a handiquilter, but it is just a fleeting thought for now.
Lizzie is settling in nicely now that we finally have her home again. She has become quite confident and very much enjoys being outside. She enjoyed meeting all of the big dogs during our travels, but seems to like having our undivided attention as well.

Merry Christmas to All!

Santa came to our house early this year. As Sydney is so fond of telling everyone to today. "He knows we are going to travel."
That meant last night was the traditional Christmas eve parade of activities including milk and cookies for Santa and new pajamas. For me it also meant driving down to pick up the one present from Mom and Dad. Our neighbor Barbara agreed to keep her overnight and woke up with us at 5 this morning to sneak her inside. She was much bigger than when I met her at Thanksgiving and will need a new collar and kennel sometime this week.
We opened up all the other presents first thing this morning and then brought in the new puppy who was waiting patiently in the garage. Ryan promptly suggested Elizabeth as a name and the girls readily agreed. It was about a minute and a half before it got shortened. So here she is, Lizzie, our newest family member:

Anna dove right in and started telling us all the things we need to know about dogs. Apparently she learned a lot from visiting Nana and watching Animal Planet on TV. Lizzie is not at all shy and was quickly exploring her new surroundings and visiting each of us for attention. If anyone tries to leave her alone she follows them with a forlorn look on her little face.