FNSI Update

I got a late start on Friday night sew in.  Kurt was taking girls to their first actual performance of the ice skating show so I went to go hang out with Ryan.  We brought the Lego Robotics board home for the holiday and he spent most of the afternoon and evening programing and running trials.  I don't know much about the programming language he is using, but I can certainly offer advice on scientific method and problem solving strategies.  He had his robot successfully putting a cast on a broken bone before he did something to merge the program and messed it up again.  I'm sure he can get it fixed again tomorrow.  It should be a very calm home day. 

So as soon as he was off to bed I jumped back in to my Christmas BOMs from Amy.  I had all the sampler blocks made but was still in the process of finishing up the chain blocks when it got put away last time.  The first one is the bright version. 

The second one is the more muted combination of colors.  I got some fabric for the border, so now I just have to decide whether to find the energy to start webbing the top now or wait for morning.  

Making a List and Crossing Things OFF

While everyone is getting ramped up for Judy's UFO challenge for 2011, I am still trying desperately to finish off a few more from Nancy's UFO challenge for 2010.  Double Delight has been in progress for quite a while.  It was one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts and  I was so happy with the way it turned out that I didn't want to do anything to mess it up along the way. 

I finally decided to take a deep breath and jump in.  Continuous curves grace each of the yellow and green square in a square units and a very odd feather flower looking thing is in the double nine patches. 

I attempted some feathers with blue variegated thread in the borders. I'll just call that a learning experience. I need to do a little reading on the best way to do borders on a frame. I ended up quilting the top and then working my way back down one side, across the bottom and up the other side. I'm not sure if that was quicker than taking the quilt off and turning it, but it's done now, so I'll think about it some more later.
For now, I've added a binding that matches the gold inner border and I'll sit to sew it down when it gets calm.  I'm not sure whether calm is going to happen anytime soon.  The kids are now officially on winter break so we'll all be bouncing about the house together for the next couple of weeks.  

Last Minute Christmas Gifts

I've been seeing lots of really cute mug rugs on other people's blogs.  I kept thinking it would be fun to make a few for gifts.  Most people are smart enough to start on handmade gifts a little bit earlier.  I bought some mugs to go with the rugs and I'll fill them with tea or coffee or hot chocolate.  First though, I'm headed to bed, I've finished giving and grading my last final, but I've got a conference scheduled for tomorrow, so I still have to go in to work at some point.  After that I'm going to sew myself silly though.  That's my plan and I'm sticking to it. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Now is the time that people to start making plans for the new year.  In honor of fresh starts, I am organizing a challenge to encourage people to use their scraps.  One color theme will be presented each month along with some ideas for using scraps in fun and new ways.  I am inviting anyone who would like to play along to try these ideas or some of your own.

The plan is simple: comment to let me know that you want to participate in the challenge and I will start a list in the side margin.  Each month will bring a new color or theme along with some ideas on how to use scraps.   At the end of the month, let me know what you have made. I will put up a Mr. Linky box so everyone can come by and see your scrap creations. 

Already participating in another challenge?  Not a problem, feel free to deviate from my colors.  Don't have any scraps of a particular color?  Of course you may substitute and change things up to your hearts content.  No rules, no quilt police, no worries. The goal is simple, to use more scraps by focusing on a single color each month and using it to try out different scrap friendly projects. You can work on a series of small projects or create individual blocks to go together into a single quilt at the end of the year.  The choice is yours.

How do you get started?  Go find some scraps.  Collect them together and start sorting.  We'll be using a particular color or combination each month, so the easiest way to start is to separate some of your scraps by color.  Don't feel like you need to overhaul your whole scrap organization system, just collect together a nice little assortment.  Put it in a bowl or a bag or a jar.  January is going to be blue, so you can start by looking at your scrap basket, box or tub and pulling out some blue.  Crumbs, strings, strips, leftovers, it's all good.  Just find something blue. Then leave me a comment and I will start making my list and checking it twice.  I'll even figure out how to make a nifty button that links back to my sight.  I think I can, I think I can.

Tiny Tuesday

I made a valiant effort to finish off the next Midget block in honor of tiny Tuesday.  I got out the foundation pieces and marked the red parts, I cut some little squares fabric and even got the first couple of sections sewn onto each of the 8 sections.  Then it was dinner time and we ended up going out.  Dinner was right next to Joann's, and they still have polar fleece on sale.  I was checking out this tutorial for kids snuggies today and thinking about making a few for Christmas gifts for the kids.  Sydney goes crazy every time she sees the commercial and SO DESPERATELY wants to have a snuggie of her own.  I found no sew fleece throw kits at half off that were cheaper than yardage, so I bought a couple to try out the pattern.  Maybe tomorrow afternoon if I can finish up with stuff at school.  Today was the first day of finals so its crunch time with everything needing to be done right NOW.  I've only got one exam tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get some serious work done before the teacher appreciation luncheon. 

Design Wall Monday December 13

I had an overwhelming urge to start something new this weekend.  Not because I had finished anything old, just because I could.  It started simply enough.  I was sitting at an ice skating rehearsal with my cutting mat and some extra fabric from RRCB step 4.  The girls still had an hour on the ice and Ryan was busy playing games on my computer.  So I sliced up some green and neutral fabric into 3.5 and 2 inch strips.  The nice thing about these blocks is that even though they need two strip sets, you use about the same amount of each,  making it is easy to plan.  I love making nine patches, but its a chore to make matched sets when you need twice as much of one arrangement as the other.  When I came home I found some yellow to go along with the green.  I seriously considered red for a Christmas quilt, but I think the yellow is cheerful.  I'm still playing with the layout, it was a straight diagonal at first, but now I'm working on a V like chevron shape.  Maybe if it gets big enough I can work on a W or M.  Maybe I should do some math and figure out how big I want it to be?  Mabye I'll just keep going until I get tired of making blocks.

FNSI

I just popped over to Jill's blog and saw that there is a Friday Night Sew in scheduled for next Friday.  What perfect timing.  School will be done for winter break and I will be ready to stitch into the wee hours. 

Play Day

Having Kurt home again allowed me to take a little time today and just have some fun in the sewing room.   What a wonderful luxury it is to take turns carting the kids around town.  Yes, I have a bajillion ongoing projects that I should be working on.  Instead I started something new.  One day last week I had extra green and neutral fabric from RRCB at an ice skating rehearsal along with a rotary cutter and an i-phone.  I zoomed over to quiltville and started cutting 3.5 and 2 inch strips for Bonnie's Road to Camp Gravatt quilt.  I didn't think I wanted to do the wonky star points in the sashing, but knew It wouldn't work to just set the Puss-in-the-Corner blocks straight together.  I considered a simple green sashing strip with a white cornerstone, but decided to use a different colored alternating block instead.  I was SO close to doing red and green for Christmas, but at the last minute changed it to yellow and green instead.  I reversed the color placement in the yellow blocks so that they would mesh nicely with the green blocks.  I've got a stack of strip sets ready to go, but wanted to get a few up on the wall to see how the blocks played together.  I'm kind of liking it.  It isn't a complicated quilt, but I am enjoying the simple geometry of it.  It is going to be called Kitty Korner, mainly because I always want to snicker when I have to say Puss-in-the-Corner (or Norfolk Virginia for that matter). 
Sunday is pizza night, but I should really get everything cleaned up and do some work for school.  Midterm exams start on Tuesday and I need to do a final proofreading so that I can make copies.  I also want to finish off all the odds and ends of grading so that I can call that officially done.  5 school days until Christmas vacation!  I am looking forward to staying home and sewing all day in my jammies.  Especially now that I have someone to help me with the rest of the Christmas shopping. 

31 Blocks and Whole Lotta Halves

 I spent the morning working on Anna's teddy bear costume for the ice skating show.  I think she has 5 costumes, but this is the only one I was asked to make.  I needed to leave the legs big enough to fit over her ice skates, but I might have gotten a bit carried away.  I can put some elastic in the sleeves, but I'll have to think about what to do with the legs.  It still needs a tummy and some velcro in the back, but I'm not going to get too carried away for an outfit she's going to wear for 10 minutes during each show. 

This afternoon I spent some more time working on RRCB step 3.  These string blocks are taking a REALLY long time.  On the bright side, I did finish with step 4 at ice skating practice this morning, so I feel like I have the rest of the week to work on step 3 and I still won't actually be behind.  Strange logic, but it works for me. 

45 hours in Transit

Kurt is almost as happy to be home as I am to have him back.  I just drove over to the airport to give him a car key because his were in his luggage which is still in London.  It's been 45 hours since he first got on a train to go the airport.  I think a good nights sleep in his own bed will do wonders for his disposition.  Then in the morning we can coordinate our schedules and figure out who gets which activities.

I used my unexpected down time this morning to work on some more string blocks.  I felt like I was getting lots done, though only 16 seem to have come out at the end so far.  I think they look very nice so far, but I have no idea how they will fit into the finished quilt. 

Then I took the fabric for step 4 to ice skating this evening to get the cutting done.  That didn't take the 3 hours we were there, so I looked up another pattern on Quiltville and cut out the pieces for The Road to Camp Gravatat as well. If I can get them sewn in the morning I can take them along wherever I end up and do the subcutting. 
It's been a long and painful week, so I think I'll head to bed.  Goodnight all.