What's on Your Bed?

Bonnie Hunter posed the question today, "What's on your bed?"  I had to laugh, because Bonnie Hunter is on my bed today.  At least her quilt design is.  I think this pattern was called Spinning Stars.  Originally is was in Quiltmaker magazine, and I seem to remember that it used 2.5 inch strips.  I used 2 inch strips, I guess because I had more of them at that point in time?  Hard to say, but after sewing a few hundred blocks, I thought they needed to be broken up a bit and added the extra green strips to separate the quilt into quadrants.  The checkerboard border followed along with a few more to make it fit on the bed.  I don't have that many quilts that fit on this bed, so this one gets quite a lot of use.  So what is on your bed today?  Go over to Quiltville to play along. 

Spinning Stars

All that remains of Spinning Stars is the binding.  I've got the fabric pulled already so I might get that ready to go this afternoon.  I fought with the quilting on this one from start to finish. Glad to have it done though and it will go straight on my bed as soon as it is ready.  Oops, first I need to do a couple of touch ups in the border, then it is going straight on the bed. 

Pieced Backing

So after finishing off the front of Spinning Stars, I threw all the leftover bits and bobs into a nice pile.  Then I went to the stash cupboard and pulled a few neutrals and such that looked like they were ready to move on.  Finally, I went to the orphan blocks stack and searched for green, yellow or brown.  After four hours of sewing and chopping and measuring, I have a back ready to go.  Now I just need to get it loaded onto the frame so that I can start reassembling the house again.  I've sort of taken over most of the main floor at the moment. 

Finising on Friday

I don't think I was able to sew a stitch all week, but I had plans.  After the longest school week ever I was SO looking forward to the weekend. As soon as all the kids were gathered and dinner was cleared from the table I hopped up to get the binding on RRCB.  It was too dark to get a good snapshot though, so I'll have a celebratory photo shoot tomorrow.  Then I got the last border on Spinning Stars.  I don't think I'll start on the backing tonight, but I've got a stack of likely fabrics that I plan to piece together into something suitable.  I'd like to test the size out on my bed, but that will have to wait for morning as well.  I still have a couple of small bits that I promised to quilt for a neighbor, and after that I can get this ginormous fellow loaded up on the frame.  Sydney wants to see a movie and have breakfast out, but generally things look pretty calm for the weekend.

So Close

The plan was to add a yellow border at 3.5 inches because it was the same size as the basic block unit in this quilt, then to add a wider green border to make it all fit onto the bed.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of the green, leading to another 3.5 inch border instead.  So now I still need to do something to make it just a wee bit bigger.  It will fit on the bed and even hang over the edge like this, but it would have to be carefully arranged in order to cover all the edges every morning, so I'd rather add on a few more inches.  I don't want to add another green or yellow, but a green and yellow print might work, or maybe a brown and green print, or even a solidish brown to frame the whole thing?  What do you think?

Borders Again

 I seem to be doing a lot of borders lately.  Though it isn't my favorite part, It is a good sign that I'll be quilting again soon. 

  This one still needs one more border for size.  I think I've got enough of the dark green and then I'll use the yellow again for binding.  I think yellow thread for quilting would be good, I think it would looks good with a pantograph. 
Today was a day of odds and ends.  With Kurt back in town after being gone most of the week, I enjoyed getting out and about without kids for a bit.  The rest of the family went to Art of Sand while I took a trip to get border fabric, a new pillow and some odds and ends for the kids Halloween costumes.  The kids were in and out all afternoon with friends from the neighborhood and then we had a cake after dinner to celebrate Kurt's birthday.  For now I'll take a look at lesson plans for the week and settle in for an early night. 

Fall is in the Air

It is starting to feel quite brisk around here by Florida standards.  We had to dig out jackets this week and I saw my students wearing long pants for the first time this year.  Sydney seems to have outgrown all of her jeans from last year, so a little sorting and organizing is definitely in order.  It was even feeling a bit chilly at night which made me pull out this quilt that I started last year specifically for colder weather.  My little planning notebook says that I started the design in February of 2010 based on a Bonnie Hunter pattern.  I thought the spinning stars needed to be broken up a bit though and so separated the quilt into quadrants and added a border of simple squares.  It is going to need at least two more borders size wise, I was thinking a 3.5 in the yellow from the center and a 6.5 in the same green.  I don't have quite enough of the four patches though, so I'll need to whip up a few of those first.  We are going to see the school play tonight though, it is the Wizard of Oz.  I have been warned that the flying monkeys are quite scary, but I think the kids can handle it. 

Design Floor on Monday Nov 8

 The end of a year always makes me want to cross things off the list so that I can start new projects with the new year.  Spinning Stars was one of the projects I started near the beginning of last year.  I'm glad I wrote down a plan or I never would have remembered exactly how it was supposed to come together. 

My plan calls for 3.5 inch strips between the quadrants and then all the way around before a double border of four patches.  I've got the four patches all ready to go, so I just need to decide on a color for the strips.  I think I know what I want, but could use some votes.  Beige or green, which one looks better? 

Tangential Quilter

Last night Kurt was in bed by 8 (still recovery from his business trip), so after the kids were asleep I decided to catch up on ironing.  I went though most of the scrap basket and a couple of flimsies and some yardage that had come out of prewashing.  Taking advantage of daylight savings, I thought I'd use my extra hour last night instead of this morning.

My original plan for the morning was to cut up some more scraps with the GO.  I laid out all the dies and sorted everything out into stacks.  Instead of actually cutting anything though, I shot off on my first tangent of the day. 

Part of the ironing last night was four quadrants of a spinning star quilt that I was making for our bed.  Kurt requested something warmer for our harsh Florida winters, so I've been looking into ordering some wool batting (it's not something they sell here).  I pulled the sections out and was auditioning sashing colors when I stumbled across the fabric that I bought for a raw edge applique quilt I wanted to try out. 

I had already cut out circles from scraps, they just needed to be placed randomly onto the background fabric.  Sounds like a perfect job for a 7 year old.  Sydney was happy to be my quilt designer and helper for the morning.  She arranged the circles to her liking and then went back with a glue stick to make sure they would stay in place until they could get sewn down. Then she chose fabric for the back and binding, all while singing Lollipop. 

She is a pro on the handiquilter and was anxious to get to the quilting part.  It's the first time I've used it since the new carpet though, so it still needed a little set up and adjustment.  By the time the quilt was loaded and ready to go, her 7 year old attention span had been spent and I had to go find her to help with the sewing.  I've never done raw edge applique before, so I'm a little anxious about how it will turn out after the wash, but time will tell.  I did a little spiral in the circles, staying about a quarter inch from the edge and then filled in the background with swirlies.  It's not quite done yet, because the afternoon was booked solid.  I'm debating now whether to go finish it or just call it a night.  First though, I'll go take a peek at what other people got done over the weekend. 

Tic Tac Toe

I cut out most of the blocks for Tic Tac Toe last night while watching Free Willy with the kids. After that I laid out all four quadrants of Spinning Stars and made sure the colors were well distributed. I've got those carefully pinned and sitting next to the machine getting sewn together. In between the rows and columns, I've been working in these blocks and throwing them up on the design wall. They sure are bright! Ryan is at a football game with Kurt and the girls are wanting to go on an outing. I'm going to try to work a trip to Joann's into the mix so that I can pick up some of the solid colored flannel that is on sale right now. I've got two more sets of blocks ready that would like some nice cozy backing fabric.

Hoppy Easter!

Sorry for the bad pun, they are very popular around our house right now. We all had a great time at the Easter party last night; chatting, and playing games and finding confetti filled eggs to smash on the heads of unsuspecting observers.
Our family won the big prize for the games, which were these matching bunny ears. We also took home a family pack of chocolate bunnies which the kids all ate for breakfast this morning. I have been picking bits of confetti and Easter grass up all day, but it was all well worth it. The kids look forward to it every year.
I didn't accomplish any major projects over spring break. Unlike last year when I made the Welcome quilt from start to finish.

I did take care of a lot of loose ends though. I spent an entire day washing, ironing and folding fabric to put away, and another cutting strips and squares from the leftover basket. I also got the rest of the blocks done for the main part of Spinning Stars, as well as planning out the setting and borders. There are going to be four quadrants with 25 blocks each, separated and surrounded by a stripe of dark green. That should cover the top of our bed exactly. The part hanging over the side of the bed will be made up of two rows of four patches, or maybe three depending on how the size works out. Kurt has requested a thicker batting to keep us toasty during those harsh Florida winters. We have a couple of quilts that fit our bed, but they all fairly light weight.

I don't feel ready to go back to school tomorrow, but it is getting very close to the end now. Summer is an even more exciting concept now that my HQ 16 is on the way. I'm already lining up the projects. I hope everyone else had a great holiday.

Break Time

I've done quite a bit of relaxing so far, interspersed with supervision and entertaining of kids. I'm slowly working my way through the rest of the spinning star blocks. I think I'm going to make four quarters of these blocks separated with a 2 inch sashing strip and then a wide border of something different. Maybe some string blocks?

It isn't really warm enough to swim yet. (Unheard of for this time of year in Florida) But I've been turning on the hot tub for the kids and they've been in and out of the pool quite a bit this week. Anna is convinced that Lizzie likes to swim and has been giving her lessons. Lizzie isn't so sure. I think we are going new car shopping this afternoon for a new mini van for Kurt. Yesterday was a trip to see How to Train a Dragon and tomorrow I think the zoo is on the itinerary.

Day at Home

Kurt has taken all three kids off for their Odyssey of the Mind competition. It is an all day affair, leaving me at home to entertain myself. I've been happily cutting and sewing since the car pulled out the driveway this morning. Right now I'm in the midst of ironing strip sets for another round of spinning star blocks. I've worked all the way through the last batch and I'm learning that it takes lots of small blocks to make a quilt. I may end up with these blocks in the center and then a big border of the extra four patches from the cutting process.
Spring is trying to happen, but it has still been unusually cold. It doesn't look much like spring with all of the dead foliage from the winter cold snap, but some of the trees and bushes seem to still be alive. I think it is late enough now that we can start to get rid of some of the dead stuff.

Camping

This weekend was the annual Girl Scout Leader Daughter camping trip. Both girls went with me and we had some serious mother daughter bonding time. Sydney stuck pretty close to me most of the time, but Anna had two friends along who were her own age. I haven't managed to find my camera yet in all of the unpacking, so instead I stole this from my friend Ashyln's facebook page. I was lucky enough to be able to have two of my own friends along this year, so much fun was had by all. I even got to carpool with my friend Meisje, so we got caught up on all the things we've missed discussing since I became a lazy bum and stopped running with her.
It was a bit cold and rainy on Saturday, and we were ready to call it quits after dinner if the campfire wasn't going to happen. We were lucky enough to be "camping" in heated cabins, but it still wasn't quite as much fun after most of the outdoor activities had been rained out. It did clear up though in time for s'mores and campfire songs all around. We were home on Sunday in time to sell some more Girl Scout cookies and get ready for our OM meeting.
OM is next weekend, followed by Girl Scout Camporee the weekend after. I think the next one is Cub Scout camping and pinewood derby. We might be clear after that, although now that I add up the weeks, that might bring us up to Spring Break. My mom is planning to come and visit, I hope that all works out because otherwise we had been planning a trip up to see her.
I didn't do much sewing this weekend, although I did push through some more of the star blocks. I got them all ironed and trimmed tonight, so I can put the blocks together the next time I get a chance.

Spinning Stars and Cookie Booths

This morning was ice skating as usual. I took the girls to that while Kurt took Ryan to football. We aren't always so sexually stereotyped, but he is one of the assistant coaches and I take rotary cutting to work on during ice skating. Last night I pieced together some green and light 2 inch strips and got them all pressed and ready. Those went with me to ice skating and I worked on cutting the parts and pieces for Bonnie's Star Gazing quilt from the Scraps and Shirttails book. The pattern calls for 2.5 inch strips, but I'm using those for the GS Happy Blocks, so I modified the pattern a bit to help out my overflowing 2 inch bin. I was feeling an urge to work on something new, and this pattern keeps popping back into my consciousness.
I couldn't do much more until after cookie booths. We did a pretty good business in front of a gas station with a carry out pizza shop. It was lunch time and there was a lot of traffic as people came and went with their pizzas. Sydney came with us even though she is in a different troop, she did a fabulous job and stuck with it for longer than some of the bigger girls.

Finally, I was able to get back to my machine and start putting some blocks together! I think most of the quilt is somewhere in the pipeline, but these are the only blocks that are done so far. I put my design wall in the family room and asked Kurt for his opinion, much like a cook would ask someone to taste a dish and to see if it needed more salt. I was getting a mish-mash kind of vibe from the quilt and he is a fan of uniformity. Imagine my surprise when he said that I should try using more colors! He thinks all of the greens look too much alike and he thought they were all the same at first. Really? Maybe we just need better light in the family room, because those greens look pretty different to me. It isn't too late yet, so I'll work a few more blocks through and maybe mix in a few more fabrics. I'm not sure how big this quilt is going to be yet, so I don't know how many blocks I will need. I guess I could figure those things out and plan accordingly. I tend to skip that part and end up with lots of half finished extra bits at the end of a quilt.