It’s been a crazy week.  I’ve said before that August is one of the busiest months for me and it truly is.  We’ve been super busy working in the garage getting things ready for Antiques in the Park in Clear Lake.  That will be next Sunday in Clear Lake.  We’ve had so much to clean, fix, and price.  It’s crazy.  I hit an auction on Saturday.  I’ll tell you more about it on Tuesday here on the blog.

Kelli was home this week.  She had a quilt that needed to be quilted for her sister-in-laws wedding which was on Saturday.  She had wanted me to quilt it but my shoulder has been acting up and I opted that I’d rather to take time to teach her and make her do it.  She did and did a fine job.  Well being she was home I told her I needed her to help me load a charity quilt.  I think it’s the loading of the quilts onto the frame that bothers my shoulder more than the actual quilting.  Here’s the quilt I worked on.

The top was donated by Laura in Dallas.  It’s a simple nine patch but the colors are my favorite!

Here it is all finished. [Read more...]

Early Saturday morning Hubby and I were getting ready for a long car ride and for some reason working on my hexies (English Paper Piecing) didn’t sound as appealing as I wished….so I quick threw something else together.

Remember that I wasn’t happy about having to pack away my spider web quilt that I started at the retreat?  Well…I confession time, I didn’t pack it away.  I did set it side but not away-away.  A couple night I sewed enough on it to finish the pieces that I started at the retreat so that I could pack it away with everything put away neatly with notes of how many I had done and how many I needed to have done.  It makes picking up a project so much easier if I leave it nice.

Well I really don’t want to pack it away but I have four projects that I NEED to do for gifts so I need to just put it away..but it’s so hard.  So it’s still not put away.  What I thought of to do instead of my hexies on Saturday morning was to grab my spider web supplies.  I had all the papers and the glue sticks I just needed the fabric kites cut….so I opted to forgo straightening my hair and cut kites instead.  It only took a couple minutes as I have a super easy method.

First off, Kelli and I both had “kite” templates cut.  There is a glass shop in Decorah that cuts templates for us all the time.  These were about $3 each to cut.  Kelli cut the template using Bonnie Hunter’s directions that can be found here.  (sorry about the reflection of my ceiling fan in the template)

I cut 4 1/2″ strips of my fabric.  Then I stacked 8 layers of fabric and cut away.  I line the top edge of the fabric to the top edge of the “kite”.  I cut around it and slide the template down to cut another.  As you can see the template fits really well on the 4 1/2″ strip.

It took me just a really-really short time and I had 80 kites cut.  I didn’t take more time as Hubby was almost ready to leave.  I figured this many would take a bit to glue into place.

I loaded a little pop flat with my supplies, grabbed my purse, pop and phone and was on the way with a simple car project to do.  This is what sat on my lap as I rode. [Read more...]

I told you all once the retreat was over that I would be setting everything aside in an effort to get some baby quilts done….Well I did exactly that.  I found this book (which I reviewed on Friday.  Find the post here)  It is A Piece of Cake: Sweet and Simple Quilts from Layer Cake Squares by Peta Peace.

In the book was this quilt….

Well Wednesday over nap I got the squares cut out.  That evening I cut the white part out and got the top the sewn together.

Then Thursday morning I started on the quilting.  I was in a hurry but hoped I could squeeze in time to the machine quilting.

I am not happy with my machine quilting in general.  I do okay but I always wish it was better.  I decided to try to do the quilting a little more like the picture.  I knew I could never do that…and knew my niece who is getting the quilt for their baby would love it no matter how good my work was so I challenged myself to give it a try.

I have learned I am horrible with rulers.  I can almost free hand it better.

Besides working on this quilt, nothing else got done in the sewing department.   Oh…wait it did.  I actually cut out two more sets of squares to make two more of these quilts.

I cut the quilt pieces from fat quarters.  Once I cut a 5″ strip off I could cut 3 five inch squares from the strips so that’s what I did.  Now if a baby comes along, I can grab and sew.  PERFECT!!!

My hope was to have the quilt done by Sunday morning so I could pack it with when we went to the family picnic.  I did get it done but didn’t have time to take pictures and write the blog post about the finished quilt…so you’ll have to live with this much for now.  I’ll tell you more about it on Friday….and show you all the pictures I took before I gave it away!