Last Stitch

I just finished up the last stitch in Christmas Lights. This was a mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter published in three consecutive issues of Quiltmaker magazine last year. I've had the top and back done for quite a while, but was saving it for the HQ 16. I am planning on giving it to my sister for Christmas and am quite pleased at how it turned out. I will resist the urge to point out all the mistakes when I give it to her, though I can see them all of course.
We took the kids to see Toy Story 3 this morning. It is rare for Kurt to want to come to a movie with us, but he is quite sentimental and enjoyed it very much. We all had lunch together after that before driving Anna to Girl Scout Camp. I took along my quilt and got most of the binding finished up during the drive there and back. I don't have any more binding machine stitched and ready for handwork, so that may be my project for tonight. I think there are still two more in the pile waiting for edges and I'd very much like to add them to the finished list. I like the growing list in the sidebar, it makes me smile.

One More for the Binding Stack

Just pulled Christmas Lights off the frame. I meant to keep track of how long it took to do the actual quilting part. It's hard to say with all of the starting and stopping for life and such. Each quilt gets a little better and a little easier. It was a lot of fun to see the stitching coming together.
I like the way it looks when the yellow hits the yellow and all you can see is a little bit of poufiness.

It was a pieced back, and the quilting really shows up on the black. Now that I look at it in the picture I can see all the mistakes. I'll turn it back over and admire the front some more. It's only 11:14 so I'll go and get an early night tonight. It won't quite make up for the wee hours from last night, but it will sure feel good.

Handiquilting

I decided to load another quilt up today and give pantographs another try. So first thing this morning, after ice skating and mowing the yard and feeding the kids which was about 12:30, I went in to load up Christmas Lights. I chose another pantograph from the packet I ordered from Golden Threads which is called Dandy. I'm using a yellow thread and so far all is going well. I have a bunch of thread that I ordered from Connecting Threads that seems to work very well. It does give off a bit of lint, but am halfway done with the top and have yet to break a thread. The bobbin was even kind enough to be empty at the end of the row so there isn't a single start or stop on the top yet. I'm off to quilt, I'd like to get this one finished off tonight so I can add it to the binding stack which is getting quite tall right now.

Bliss

I just love quilt marathons! Somehow saying, "I have to quilt because I'm part of a marathon" has so much more weight than "I'd like some time with my machine this weekend if there's nothing else that needs to be done." Kurt was off to work again today, so it was a stop and start sort of day, but I did get two flimsies assembled. Christmas Lights had a bit of a disaster. Lizzy has figured out how to get over the baby gates we use to keep her in the kitchen. Each time she got out today she went straight over and made a mess on my quilt blocks! First was a number two on the edge and I sort of sponged it off thinking I could wait to wash it after it was quilted. Then she returned for a number one right in the middle and I had to go ahead and wash it. Wow was that a disaster. I got it to the flimsy stage and used a gentle cycle, but it still raveled madly. Getting it flat with all the seams going the right way was tricky to say the least. It is ready for borders now, so hopefully I can get to that tomorrow.
Whirlygiggles has been my leaders and enders, and there were more than enough for this 6 by 7 snuggle quilt. I'm not sure whether this one wants borders or not, I'll sleep on it and see what it tells me in the morning. I am getting to bed at a decent hour tonight after working to the wee hours last night. The Golden Globes just ended and I am fading fast. I will pop in though and see what everyone else got done today. Happy Quilt Marathon.

Hitting My Stride

That's more like it. I finally convinced everyone here about the importance of my quilting marathon weekend and started to make some good progress. I got the Christmas Lights blocks all put together (even though two of them seem to be MIA) and am ready to get them all sewn together into a top. I'll probably play with the blocks some more, and I'm thinking of going with a different yellow for the triangles, but it is starting to look like a quilt now. Especially if I can track down those other two blocks.
I got some more bonus squares trimmed up during bath time and will probably work my way through some more of the ironing basket before I turn in. I've been working whirlygiggle blocks through as leaders and enders, so those will be next on my list. Now it is starting to look like a marathon around here.

Mistake or Design Decision?

Christmas lights is first on my list for the quilting marathon weekend. All the star blocks are done, but I'm having a dilemma with the bow-tie blocks. While madly chain stitching away, I accidentally sewed a red strip onto the wrong side of the HST. The dark portion is meant to turn out as it does in the second block. The orientation of mine would have the dark portion on the inside. I had convinced myself that I was going to sew them all backwards to avoid unsewing, but as I look at the pictures, I think the balance is off in the first block. I guess the frog wins.
My plans for a nonstop quilt marathon have hit a few small snags so far. I left work nice and early to get home and get busy with my sewing. The weather is nice today for the first time in absolutely ages though, and all the kids flocked outside to play. At one point we had at least 11 kids on our swing set. Amongst them all were three kids belonging to our new neighbors, so we spent time chatting about things and getting acquainted. Kurt was off to football practice after that, leaving me with just Sydney. We had dinner and baths and were just ready to settle down for the evening when Kurt came back and let me know that he was going to have to work this weekend. He never works on the weekend, so that struck me as odd. They are being called in for crisis support in Haiti though, and it is all hands on deck. He doesn't need to go to Haiti (thank goodness) or even to Miami where they are staging all of their support people, but he does need to go in and get everyone who is going set up with the proper equipment and software. They did a similar thing during Katrina and it was intense but short lived.
So that leaves me to handle the kids tomorrow, which means ice skating and rock climbing. Those promise to suck up a good portion of the day. I will take some handwork though, maybe the depression blocks I've been patiently trimming for my January UFO. I think I can get in just a bit more ironing before calling it a night. We hit the ice at 8:45.

Step 1

Step 1 of Christmas Lights is done. With Kurt out of town, I had to rely solely on stash. I'm not horribly happy with the gold and I still don't have a red and green print, but other than that, I think I'm done for now. When I order fabric with no particular purpose in mind, I usually do it in small quantities. That means of course, that when I get ready to actually use it in a project, there is never enough of any one thing. So there are a several similar blacks and two different reds, three different yellows.... I even tried to find more of the same fabrics, but I also tend only to order things on sale, so those particular fabrics don't seem to be available anymore. I'm sure I'll be able to slip out at some point next week to a fabric store of some sort to add to the assortment. Two out of my three are in camp and Sydney loves to shop. When she was a baby, if she started to get fussy on a weekend I'd go to a store and wheel her around in a shopping cart. She would get busy waving and talking to all the strangers that she would cheer right up.
The shuttle didn't go up this morning so we made to ice skating with no problem. After that it was a very quiet home day around here. Playdates, board games, stories, all sorts of good stuff. My big activities were mowing the yard and doing some laundry. Ah, so much glamor and excitement! I'm not sure how I manage to contain my enthusiasm.

Stick a Fork in Me.....

......I'm so done. We drove back over to Orlando this morning to get in just one more morning of theme park fun before our cousins go home. Anna was on her sleepover, so it was just three of us today. Then I had to book-it back home to meet the bug guy at 1. We had barely finished lunch before Sydney was off to play with her friend next door. I was a little ragged around the edges by then and puttered about with my puzzle for most of the afternoon. Between kid stuff of course.
I wandered into the sewing room after the kids were in bed again and got the second week of my calendar quilt put together. It is mostly theme park and swimming related to represent how my time was spent last week. I went ahead and cut out a few blocks to prepare for next week. chess fabric for Monday when Ryan starts his camp and ice skating fabric for Anna's lesson in the morning. I don't have any space shuttle fabric, but Endeavor is due to launch at 7:17 in the morning.
I also got some of the sock monkey blocks put together. I decided to try out the "quilting in sections" that Amy has had such good luck with. If I separate the top into quarters it works out to a nice, easy to manage size. l also pulled out the fabric to cut out the last of the Christmas Lights squares. I might finally get those blocks squared up and collected together to await the next step.

Little Bits of Lots of Things

I keep waiting for one of those lazy days of summer where the kids will magically entertain themselves and I can sew the day away in my jammies. I could be waiting for years before such a thing happens. Until then, I'm carving out little bits of time after the kids are asleep to move my projects along one step at a time.
We started today with a free movie. On the way home, we had to stop at Target so that Anna could use a gift card she got for her birthday (thanks Aunt Barb!). We also picked out a puzzle to work on together. We worked on that together after lunch. Before the dishes were done, we started negotiations for a sleepover and tried to get in summer reading and a few chores. By then it was time to drop Anna off for the sleepover. Ryan and Sydney wanted to pick up a movie and then we stopped for an early dinner. I did manage to drag the kids through Books-a-Million in the midst of all of that where I found my very own copy of Quiltmaker with the Christmas Lights mystery quilt! I read through that while the kids did baths and such and then we watched the movie while working on the puzzle some more.
They were nestled all snug in their beds by 8, when I zoomed through blogs and e-mail and got in a little machine time. I got the Sock Monkey blocks finished off! This is going to be the sample for the happy blocks pattern that I am using for the Girl Scout service project. I've got about three quilts worth of blocks cut and kitted up so far. I need to finish writing up the directions to go with those. They are based on the pattern at Mary Quilts (sorry, can't do the link, bloglines seems to be broken). I don't think I mentioned that I got a community service award at the last Girl Scout leader meeting of the year. Myra, the leader of the troop who is organizing the service project, and Ashyln, who runs the service unit, both wrote really nice letters about the service project and the quilts I had donated. It came with a pin and a lovely bunch of fresh flowers. I got the yellow HST blocks done for the Christmas mystery and have the black HST blocks ready to cut out. I still need to square up the split squares, but they do look all bright and cheery together.
We're supposed to head out to the theme parks again in the morning, so I should really get to bed early tonight. The kids have each taken a turn to sleep downstairs one of the nights that Dad is out of town. I've got Sydney tonight so I'll be fighting for the covers for sure. It's amazing how strong she can be from the depths of sleep.

Recovery

I decided to use brights for the Christmas Lights mystery quilt. I didn't have any good blacks to go with the muted selection, so I'll save those for something else. I made way too many four patches and then sewed all of the little split diagonal patches the same way. I got those fixed, but still need to square them all up. The HSTs are cut but not sewed.
I would have loved to sew the day away, but the house was in need of a little attention. I took this "before" shot of the kitchen which had become a drop off point for all the post vacation refuse that seems to magically collect while the house sits empty. 3 days of newspapers and mail, unpacked snacks, groceries and assorted random stuff had filled the counters and begun to overflow onto the floors.


We have a babysitter coming tonight so I can go to a spa night with a group of ladies from work. I need to go and put together a veggie tray to take along. Not before I admire my shiny clean kitchen though. I am so easily amused it is silly.

Just for me Day

Kurt had the day off today and I took advantage of it by getting out of the house without the kids. I had an appointment at the bank and then headed into school to get a little more work done in my classroom. After that I went to see Demons and Angels before heading to Jason's Deli for a late lunch. I chose Jason's because it is right next to Joann's. I was hoping to pick up the new issue of Quiltmaker magazine which is supposed to have the first set of directions for a Christmas Mystery Quilt by Bonnie at Quiltville. I was so disappointed that they still had the May/June issue with no Quiltville mystery to be found. They did have Home Dec fabrics for half off, so I got some more fabric to make organizer boxes and cover a bulletin board. I've been working with the box pattern to make it sturdier and had good luck with one made from heavier cardboard. I then got out my rotary cutter and went to town cutting all of the boxes that I cleared out of the pantry in my cleaning of recent days. It is so satisfying to take a jumbled mess of random boxes and turn them into an orderly stack of 5.25 inch squares. Much like taking a tangled mess of a scrap basket and turning into organized piles of strips and squares.
I thought my me day was over when I got home around diner time, but a girlfriend came to drop off Anna after a play date with her daughter, and we headed out together to have a quick drink and some appetizers while we caught up on girl talk. We used to have plenty of time to talk on our weekly long runs, but we haven't done those recently and were feeling out of touch. I knew it was bad when she said it was OK that we hadn't talked recently because she kept up with me on my blog.
I'm still a little bummed about not having the directions for the mystery quilt, but I know it involves 52 3.5 inch four patches, so I can dig those out of the leader/enders basket and get started. We are headed to Orlando tomorrow to meet up with visiting family members on vacation, so I won't be doing much sewing for the next few days anyway. After that I'll try to get the magazine again or maybe finish off some WIPs so I don't feel bad about starting something new.