Turning the Last Corner

I have just turned the last corner on the border for my green Broken Dishes Quilt.  It is a fitting metaphor as the last week of summer vacation begins.  It is a good time to start finishing up odds and ends while trying to wade back in to thinking about the new school year.  I'm even talking to Mari about a challenge quilt for next year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I think that it is going to be awesome!

I am anxious to finish off this green quilt so that I can start quilting on my Orange Peels quilt.  I want to use pearle cotton for the quilting on it which will be something new for me.  

 Yesterday Kurt and I took his sailboat out for the first time ever.  He's been working on building it for the last year and a half.  There are still a few finishing touches he will work on now that we've taken it for a test run, but it worked great.  We were out on the river on a beautiful sunny day, sailing alongside 4 dolphins.  Not a bad life at all.  This morning I was up early to get in a quick run before it got to be too hot.  Then Anna and I did a few errands to start getting some supplies for school.  It is hard to believe that summer is almost gone!  I'm soaking up every minute.

Border Patrol

As soon as a quilt get spread out on the floor, Lizzie is right there to help with the final inspection.  Both borders are on and the back got partially pieced before pizza showed up for dinner.  Sunday is usually pizza night, but we postponed it in honor of the three day weekend.  

After the pizza was safely away, I pulled out the broken dishes quilt to take a few more stitches.  Even though all the center blocks aren't quite done, I cheated and got a start on the borders.  I got quite a bit done while we enjoyed Alice Through the Looking Glass as a family.  

I Exist!

Life happens. Even with nothing special going on, just a home and husband with three kids and a job and a lot of normal stuff tends to take all the hours out of the day. All of it is good.  I am so thankful for every minute.  It is nice too though, to have a little bit of empty time to fill with beautiful fabric and creativity.

I started this quilt a very long time ago.  At first it was just a stack of tiny nine patches.  I can remember planning it in my head on a family vacation when the kids were just tiny.  They are giant now, how does that happen?!   It comes from the humblest little strips of leftovers.  1 inch strips and 2 inch strips.  But look what they can turn into with a little patience and perseverance.
In honor of the happy scrappiness, I am linking up with Oh Scrap!  at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.  

I was happy after returning from all of the recent travels to pull out this small broken dishes quilt and take a few stitches.  There is something so calming about those little quilting stitches.  I think that the kids want to see Finding Dory this morning.  I have two gallons of paint calling my name.  Nothing is urgent though.  I might just go and fondle some fabric first.  The calm before the day begins.  I'm also linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts.  

Quilting Interrupted

Company is coming.  We thought that I was going to keep my machine set up instead of taking it up and down each time, but my in-laws can't manage the stairs, and so the machine has come apart again.  Kurt's parents will take our bed and his sister will sleep in the study/sewing room.  I'm not all the way done with putting things away, but it is a start.  It always goes well for a while and then I grab a big basket and hide the rest away until later.

 I got the first third of the OMG Churn Dashes sewn together yesterday.  It takes quite a while to match up all the seams.  I am loving the way it looks though, so I will keep sewing slowly but surely.

The other two thirds are ready to go.  Maybe next weekend when company has gone?  

Until then, I made sure to  keep out the Broken Dishes quilt for hand quilting.  

And the basket of circles is all prepped and ready to go.  Between those two, I should have plenty to keep me happy until the sewing room is mine again. 

Sunday Funday

After the Dear Jane was finished last week, it was time to start a new hand quilting project.  These bonus HST squares made tiny little Broken Dishes Stars and they were ready to go next.  After reading Kathy's post about marking quilts earlier this week, I was ready to give my Frixion pens a try.  I like to wash my quilts anyway, and I'm not too worried about the temperatures getting below freezing here in Florida.  So I marked some simple diamonds in the lattice strips and orange peel shapes in the star points.  I even found a border stencil that was just the right size.  I think that will do it.  Simple and to the point.  

I also got the binding on the postage stamp quilt and then went to find the wonder clips.  Someone has been playing with them apparently. Maybe they didn't want any to get lost?

Sunday Scraps and Stitches

I took my Dear Jane with me to Science Olympiad yesterday.  Even though the kids are all running around madly most of the day, once they are in their events, it gets very quiet.  So I moved the hoop twice during the day.  The weather was absolutely beautiful.  A perfect day to sit outside and hand quilt.  Just three more moves of the hoop should get me back to the begining!  While cleaning out the blue scrap bin, I even found the binding that I had made from the same fabric as the inner border.  

Knowing that Jane is almost done, I pulled out the broken dishes stars and got two new spools of hand quilting thread.  I had wanted to try pearl cotton with some big stitch quilting, but I couldn't find just the right combination of sizes and colors.  I think that regular quilting will work better with the scale of the blocks on this one.  

I was going to do the Bonnie Hunter Mystery last year and cut out the first step before I changed my mind.  That left a lot of pointy spikes which I sewed together into a long strip.  I think that I will use them as a border for these bonus triangles which have been hanging out for many years.  They could also go as stripes into a Chinese Coin type quilt.  I think there are enough of them that I could do both.

Finally, I will use today to catch up on my Leap Year quilt.  I've chosen the fabrics and rough cut circle to hold the days toward the end of the week.  Tuesday has stars from the state of the union.  Friday has tiny buckets for all the rain.  Saturday is a rocket ship for science and today I chose little ice skaters in winter coats for the cold front that moved in last night.  Monday is a school holiday which means an extra day to sew!  Looking forward to every minute of that!  I'm linking up with Kathy for Slow Stitching Sunday as well as Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

World's Slowest Hand Quilter

I might just be the slowest hand quilter ever.  This small Dear Jane Quilt has been in the works for years and years.  The last quilt that I hand quilted was an Elm Creek Sampler, done in 2011.  It took 4 years to get it quilted.  So I guess that makes this one about due as well.  Everything is done except the last half of the border.  That shouldn't take too long, right?

Usually I use a plastic quilting hoop  I switched after breaking of couple of wooden hoops in quick succession.  For the border though, I pulled out a rectangular PVC frame, I think it will make it easier to work on the feathers near the edge of the quilt without having to reposition the hoop so often.  An added bonus is that I can break it down for compact storage during travel.  

This little broken dishes star quilt got layered up yesterday to be next on the list.  It is made from bonus HST units that got squared up to 1.75 inches.  They weren't quite big enough for 2 inches, but 1.5 seemed too tiny.  I even cut the inner border to 1.75 inches, just to remain consistent.  I'm thinking about doing two lines in the sashing strips, a quarter inch in from each side, them maybe some diagonal lines through the blocks and cornerstones with something fancy in the border.  I'll link up with Kathy for Slow Stitching Sunday, but also with Cindy at Oh Scrap.  Nothing is scrappier than bonus HST units after all.  

Frantic Finishing

 So I was having trouble with the quilt frame.  I had split the rails in order to set it up to a smaller size which would fit in the sewing studio/guest bedroom.  Splicing them back together to get the frame back to full width was a bit of a problem, so I ordered a set of replacement rails.  I thought that they would be here last week, but they won't arrive until Wednesday.  So instead, I went back to the list and worked again on getting some more flimsies ready to finish.
Broken Dishes Stars was first up this morning.  These were bonus HST triangles that got put together a while ago.  I never had just the right border fabric, so instead I pulled out two random greens and got it finished up.  This is a small quilt, meaning the backing fabric came from a single width of fabric -- no piecing involved!  It is layered and pin pasted.  I think this will be my next hand quilting project.

Next up were the Chevron Postage Stamps.  The blocks have been sewn together for a while now.  There was some hot pink flannel yardage on the hanger with the quilt, so I stretched that out with some extra green plaid flannel and it is ready to go.  Lizzie is my always patient helper in trying out anything on the floor.  

 Here is the finished flimsy with a small grey border, ready to go on to the frame whenever it is free again.

So obviously I wasn't the one who ended up taking Sydney down to West Palm for lacrosse today.  Kurt volunteered to drive her down.  They have more games tomorrow, so they are in a hotel overnight.  That means more sewing time for me!  Can't wait.  

Puttering the Day Away

 I did get a little bit of sewing done today, amongst all the rest.  These are the broken dishes that were finished last weekend.  Finally together forever.  They need a border of some sort.  Fairly wide I think.  Maybe green?  Applique would be nice, but I'd like to get it done sooner rather than later.

 Here are the baby nine patches so far.  There isn't so much contrast in the yellows.  Not sure yet where these are going.  Originally I was thinking of an Omigosh Quilt, like this one.  Or maybe a Birthday Quilt like this one.  But now I am thinking of choosing a different alternate block.  Time will tell.

 Speaking of birthdays, I don't think I ever posted about the big party last weekend.  We had a giant water slide for both Ryan and Sydney.  Anna had a few friends too of course.  Much fun was had by all.

Each of the kids was supposed to choose a summer project.  Anything at all they wanted to do to keep busy this summer.  Mainly it was so that if anyone got bored, I could say, "Hey, why don't you go work on your summer project?".  Ryan is doing some i-pad app programming, Sydney is going to read all of the Sunshine State books, and Anna signed up for a photography class.  Every time I go to take pictures off of the digital card, it is full of all of her "homework".  This was here first assignment.  Something that represents her.  So she used her lacrosse gear.  Honestly, it looks like a baseball in the background there, but who am I to second guess?
Tomorrow is the big power lifting competition....match....round....?  Whatever it is when you go and see who can lift a lot of weights.  Anna and Ryan are both competing.  I'll be sure to take lots of pictures, maybe even a video or two.  Who would have thought my kids would be into power lifting?  Never would have predicted it.  

Bonus Triangles Quilt

 All of the blocks for this quilt were bonus blocks harvested from the flip and sew triangles of Mom's Sister's Choice quilt.  They have been hanging around for 4 years waiting to make them into a quilt.  With an awkward 1.75 inch unfinished size, they needed to go with one another rather than other blocks.

Today is a lazy Sunday and putting blocks together seemed like an ideal plan.  Lizzie is feeling lazy with me.  I think I'll get these blocks layered together for webbing and then have a little break.