A Moment of Silence

I banged this pile out this weekend.  Not all of them, but the biggest and most important projects.  This was my stack of quilts that needed binding. 

 I cut and pieced twenty-eight strips of binding.  

 I attached the bindings to six quilts from that pile.  

 This pretty dresden wall hanging was finished.  

And these two babydoll quilts were added to my DONE pile.  

I was literally on fire.  Well, not including flames and such, but after a full day of sewing, something in my sewing area started to smell quite electrical fire-ish.  The hubs and I were really freaking out and couldn't figure out what was causing the smell.  But it was really strong.  We turned everything off in the room and I was worried.   Later I sewed a bit more and my Juki didn't cause the smell, which made me feel a little better..  Today I plugged in Rowenta and waited and waited for her to warm up.  Nada.  She must have bit the big one.  I would like to speak only kind words of my deceased expensive iron, however she leaked like a mother of three from the get go.  Then after awhile she poured water like Niagara.  While I'm sad that we spent all of that money on such a pricey iron, I'm relieved to know what caused the smell and I'm glad I can go get a new iron which hopefully can steam some stuff.  Steaming is such a wonderful feature of an iron.  I cannot wait.  My squirt bottle is temperamental too, I'll bury it with Row.  

One Down

She looks kinda chubby, but she just needs a haircut. 

Thankfully, I was able to get three of the quilt backings the other day. I pieced the backings the other night during commercial breaks of The Blacklist (I KNEW he was her father).  Yesterday after school and Days I pin basted the three quilts. 

 Bonnie, our springer spaniel, always attends my bastings.  It's like our quality time together.  Me yelling at her not to step on the quilt, and Bon giving me sad eyes because she just wants to be close. 

After the basting I was able to get the anniversary quilt quilted.  It didn't take long.  Or maybe it did, but I've been listening to audio-books while I sew, so time gets away from me.   I'm hoping to quilt the Christmas gift tonight, but my back is pretty peeved about all of the sewing and quilting, so I may need to take a break for a day or two.  After the Christmas quilt is quilted I will feel so relieved.  I can finish the bindings, or work on my challenge quilt, or the baby quilts on my list, and take my time finishing up the last few small christmas gifts I have left.  So far I've banged out two flannel baby blankets, three sets of place-mats, three sets of potholders, and two wall hangings(they just need bindings attached).  

I'm feeling pretty good. 

If I indeed get all of my Christmas gifts finished this early I am going to make a big push to finish up a few things before the new year. 

My- Marmalade, Happy Go Lucky, orange and blue squares, Buttercup dresden wall hanging, new Valentines wall hanging,  and The Virtual Quilting Bee sampler quilts would be great to have done. Six quilts in about a month maybe a real stretch. We will see!

I Am On A Roll

 Several months ago I sent out bundles of fabrics to some quilty friends.  I issued a challenge to dream up a quilt and we could see how each of us translated our fabric.  Of course I issued a deadline, and lately I've been wondering if I'd be the one to not finish in time.  I was starting to sweat it a little.

 This weekend however I hit a little break in my Christmas Sewing since I need to buy backings and my allowance was gonzo.  The hubs took over the money and so now I can't sneak fabric money out if I've exhausted my allowance.  Which is probably a really good thing. 

 So I picked up my challenge quilt.  I had seven nine-patch blocks assembled, but hadn't worked on it since August-no joke.  I had an audio-book on my phone and I banged it out.

  

 I am surprised how much I love this quilt.  Even though I picked out the fabrics it isn't what I expected, and the fabrics I choose were a little out of my norm.  It ended up a nice throw size.  

It feels great to have the top done. 

But now I need to buy FOUR quilt backings with my next allowance.   It's gonna hurt. 

still no sewing to share

 ugggg the secrets!  i cannot stand all of these things that are pretty, and a lot of work, and they cannot even be shared.

 but i'm telling you, i have been making serious progress!  you should be proud of me for not letting that urge to procrastinate prevail.  whenever i feel it sneaking up on me i just open a bottle of wine.  and i'm sleeping well. 

i can share that my new bolt is here.  so i shan't be running out of batting in my christmas sewing rush. 

The Season

I have officially jumped into the season of secretive sewing.  I have so many gifts going I have nothing to blog.  But I am making great progress.  I have five small gifts finished, and several quilts going.  Here are sneak peeks.  

I'm feeling pretty good about everything so far!  

59 days until Christmas!

Fall Leaves

 I finished this fall quilt a couple of weeks ago it seems.  I meant to take photos, but it hadn't been washed, then we got thirty inches of snow, and I really didn't want to take photos of my fall quilt in the white blizzard yard.  It has taken a full week for the the snow to melt.  Actually there are still big piles left, but I was able to find a green spot. 

I love this quilt.  I don't often make quilts on a whim anymore.  I used to.  Maybe because I never used to have twelve quilts going on at once.  So starting a new project was fine.  Now with my mile long to do list I have to behave.

 I love that we have a seasonal quilt for the fall now.  I used fabrics I had in my stash or scraps, bought a bit of Kona Natural for the background and I love the way it turned out.  Just in-case you want to make this quilt I used 4.5 inch squares to make the leaf-and for the stem I sewed two 3.5 inch natural squares on the 4.5 inch print square the way you make snowball corners. I think the proportions works well.  

 I bought my backing at Hancock.   It is perfect. 

 I'm not sure how much you've heard about the blizzard here but it was pretty bad.  A lot of cattle was killed.  So many trees were lost.  Many people have spent the last week without power.  Our two trees in the front of the house were hit pretty hard.  One was a total loss.  It's been very sad for us.  However today I realized now I can get a great shot of our new paint job.

Painting and homeschooling really took it's toll on my sewing time in September.  I feel like I lost an entire month.  

This was how the house looked the week we bought it, 

This is how it looks now with new paint and a lost tree.  Much different eh?

Rail Fence

Before this....

I was able to get some nice sunny photos in our still green yard of this newly finished quilt and placemat set.  

I made the set for my mom and step-dad.  They redid their living room and above their TV they had an oddly empty wall.  I told them I would make them a quilt to hang there.  

We made a quick stop at Mary Maxims in Port Huron while we were visiting and my step-dad picked out the fabrics.  The two prints were from the Tapestry line I realized and I just happened to have four of those little candy packs back home.  So once we returned to South Dakota I started making this rail fence quilt.  

Then I whipped together two placemats.  I managed to mail everything out last week before our blizzard hit. 

I'm happy to have finished a couple of things lately.  But of course I have a growing to do list.  I think I'll be in this sort of shape again this year.  Maybe I'll make myself the big deadline list in October this year instead of November.  Oh wait! It is October already!  I might be in trouble.