New blogger...

I found a new blog today. Lea from Japan over at Simple Blessings left a comment on my new SLOL block. Lea has more quilts in her Flickr folder by Cheri Payne than I have ever seen in one person's grouping! Her primitive work is stunning! She has also completed the Sweet Land of Liberty quilt I'm working on right now and is in the process of quilting it. Her blog is written in Japanese but a few gals convinced her to also try writing it in English too. The older Japanese posts show up to my computer screen as question marks and weird symbols. I can't read the earlier posts but....the pictures speak for themselves!

Old Glory...

Another block done...and none too soon as I expect the next shipment to be any day now. Lord knows if I don't keep up current on all these things I have going I'll never get them all done. Plus I'm having too much fun doing the blocks. I changed up the colors in this block and I like it better this way. All I have to do is add the button eye. I'm not sure if I should do it now or wait until the quilt is all quilted before adding buttons. Anyone?

I have the flying angel block all ready for sewing,... well now that's not exactly true. The pieces are marked, cut out and ready to be laid out, but I have to measure the background and put them all in their proper places. Then they will be ready for sewing down. I'll get that done before supper so I can relax and sew tonight.

I ran up to JoAnns today after my doctors appt. to pick up some muslin. When did that stuff become tissue thin? Yuck. I promptly put it back and went over to the solid fabrics and picked out a nice piece the same color and a much heavier weight with no pieces of left over cotton stalk bits. I know there are a few more blocks coming up that need muslin, and these fabrics will work perfectly. I also picked up some thin Pellon interfacing to add a little umph to the back of the embroidery sections. Normally, if I am doing a piece for...say the tote bag, or a single wall hanging I back it with batting. But I eventually have to add batting to the quilt and I didn't want double batting, so this stuff should iron on, hide the knots and tails, and give it some heft without feeling too heavy. I'll let you know how it works.

Off to lay out a flying angel!

Tote bag done...

The tote bag is done and I only have a few battle scars from the experience. I swear involuntary reactions suck! I feel like a pin cushion! I swear I hate working with pins, but they do their job.

The tote bag instructions were a little wonky, but I knew how to make a bag so I just fell back on those skills and did what I usually do when I make them and all turned out well. I am really glad that I got these fabrics, they turned out really well and I love the colors. I chose not to make the embroidered handle instead just making one from a 4" strip and folding in on itself it to make a nice 4 layer 1" strap. It will be a good bag for sewing retreats.

A look at the inside...I pieced the lining which worked fine for me. Once it's stuffed with stuff who sees the lining?

I also got my embroidery Eagle done for the SLOL quilt and I faux paper pieced the flag that goes under it. Once I get it trimmed out and sewn together, I'll post a pic for you to see.

A good thing...

This afternoon I was over at Covered Porches reading her latest blog post when I saw her new project and followed her link to where she found the original design at Quilting Adventures. I love to follow links so I clicked. I really love how links lead to new blogs and, new blogs lead to great finds!

Quilting Adventures had this cool stitchery and she mentioned that she was stuck because she couldn't quite get how to do a certain "Fly" stitch. May Brit left this amazing link in her comment and so I followed it to see what a fly stitch was...just out of curiosity! Oh my, I think I have been forwarded to HEAVEN! A page where you can see a wonderful lady do almost any stitch you want done for you! This is fabulous! Called Needle 'n Thread, Mary Corbet shows you every stitch you can imagine. I finally learned how to do a decent stem stitch. I truly sucked at it before and no wonder. I wasn't doing anything near a stem stitch. Anyone who learns visually rather than by written directions...this site is for you!

Thanks ladies for the great trip through the blogs to find a wealth of information!

Another fun quilt project...or two or three...

So the story about the new BOM quilt I promised yesterday. I was over reading at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure and I see this wonderful new Christmas quilt she found on Sharon's blog. Sharon had shown the quilt, which I think actually belongs to Nancy No Blog. Very cool and very fun quilt. You can see the quilt here, here and find out how all this started here. I won't show the picture here since it isn't mine...check it out on any one of her posts.

Turns out that her local shop is offering the quilt as a BOM and now she can find the pattern. If you want the details about the pattern, read the comments to her posts for all the info. Carol at Brown Quilts was in, so was I. Carol called the designer, I called the store and the pattern is on the way to us both! So we will follow along with Kim as her class makes the quilt. The shop was quite amazed to be hearing from people all the way across the country. They don't know how determined quilter's can be.

Speaking of new patterns....right before Christmas, Sharon went to the infamous Country Loft in California. Fabulous store that I'm kinda glad I do NOT live near...otherwise I'd be broke all the time. Anyway, Sharon went to visit and took scads of pictures..part one and part two... of all the great stuff and after drooling over my keyboard I grabbed my phone and called the store to place an order. I did say I was patheically short on holiday decorations, remember? Hubby ran in with my package just a few minutes ago!Here's what I ordered...A kit called Homespun Santa's and a cute pattern that has a funky Christmas Elf and a poem about Christmas. Don't mind the color on the pattern, it got a little weird, but it's a nice muslin. I've actually gotten quite a few stitchery patterns for next year so I should be quite busy. I love doing stitchery at night almost as much as needleturn. Mindless stitch after stitch. There should be no shortage of things to choose from around here to work on.

Which reminds me...get my hiney off the computer and get back to work. I'm cutting strips for the tote bag today and getting it together. Hopefully I'll have a finished bag to show tomorrow!

PS: housekeeping note: I'm still adding old blog posts back to my blog, so if they show up on bloglines or whatever reader you use, check the date for current posts and speed on by. Thanks!

Just puttering...

Puttering is the best word to describe the last few days around here... I'm still trying to get the very last bit of Christmas erased from the house. Everything came down yesterday morning but the tree and by afternoon it was un-decorated and missing the top half. I had 3 strands of lights on this year and one went out, but only half the strand. It's not supposed to do that. I tried fixing it on the tree but that was not happening so I waited until it came off last night to see what the problem was. First I replaced one of the fuses...who knew lights had fuses? No good. Then finally after starting to go light by light, the section popped on and just one green bulb was dead. After replacing the bulb and the green cover it was fine. I still don't know why that bulb took out 2 lights before it and the rest of the strand after it? I'll keep my fingers crossed and try not to use that strand next year unless I have no choice. Nothing worse than getting a fully decorated tree and THEN the lights go out. I still have the bottom of the tree to pull apart and stick in the tree duffel, but I'm gearing up for the job by writing a blog post.

Other than doing chores, I've been getting small things done on lots of projects. I started hand quilting the Little Red Schoolhouse quilt I finished in November. Nothing to show really.

I started the next embroidery block for the Sweet LOL sampler that I'm doing with some other gals as a BOM. In the original pattern, the Eagle block was supposed to be done on muslin with a dark gold floss. I open my packet to get my fabric and see a dark gold piece of background the same color as the floss. Not gonna work. So I picked what I thought was a nice light tan that showed up great with the dark gold floss and started sewing. Once I got the words done and started the gold, I couldn't see the stitches. What shows up as a big lump of thread, doesn't do as well with 2 strands. So I had to decide to toss and start over, or adapt. I chose to adapt. I picked up a very dark red and started sewing. It won't be the stately gold eagle, but I like it. I still have feather stitches to do above the words and I think I might go with a dark taupe color.

I got all my swap blocks done and out to my partner Carol. After I saw these little 9 patches when Darlene and Wendy showed them on their blogs. I fell in love! Since we were kinda done with swapping nickels, I asked her about swapping 15 of these each month and she was more than game. They are a lot of fun to make!I finished my embroidery sections for the cute tote bag if you remember, and I sat down right after Christmas to make the bag. I thought about doing it with homespuns and picked out a set of deep red, dark green and dark tan that I got at the quilt show last year. then I started thinking about what a tote bag demands. You stuff it full, slop it over your shoulder and it ends up slung on the floor. These homespuns were a bit looser weave and I realized that the potential for snagging would be really high. So, I preferred to use cottons. Couldn't find the right combination in my stash and had no other choice but to find some NEW cool fabrics and order them. They came yesterday morning and I am so happy. Just what I wanted. I'll sit down right after the tree is down and get to work on the bag.

I have so many plans for projects over the next year, so I hope to get better at planning out my time and getting things done. Plus I ordered a new pattern to start soon with another group of gals for a cool Christmas quilt. I'll share that story tomorrow. Not like I don't need loads more to do!

2008 arrives!

Happy New Year everyone!

I thought long and hard about making a list about what I accomplished, what I didn't...etc. Not gonna happen. One I lost almost all the old post past April of last year, and the brain doesn't quite remember all the quilts. I might make a tally one day this week and share, but other than that I think I am going to just keep moving at my own pace and have fun! No pressure.

I have my current and soon to be started projects on my sidebar to keep me (and you) updated on where the progress is at any given time. Now I'm off to eat lunch, sew a bit on the machine, and maybe think about getting some decorations put away...no rush, no pressure.