FINISHING UP SOME UFO'S AND FOOTBALL

It has been a crazy week.  Husband and I spent a good 70 hours between Tuesday of last week through Monday of this week helping daughter and her husband get their house ready for sale.   We saw the photos on line last night and it looks wonderful.  
Now it is time for me to get back into my quilt studio and do something productive in there.

I know I have mentioned several times that I have a habit of having multiple projects going on at any one time.  I get distracted with a project and start another and sometimes it gets set aside for months and lets be truthful even years.  This is one such project.  I pulled it out yesterday and need to just get it quilted.  That is sort of my dilemma now.  How do I quilt it?

 Another project waiting for finish.  This block is done.

And this one too.  

And this one needs some more work.  I got inspired last night at my guild meeting by a mini lecture on inks, pastel sticks, and intense pencils.  I pulled this project out this morning and decided to work on it again.  It would have been nice to have it in my entry hall earlier this spring.  Well there is next year!  So I plan to finish it up.

Always time for this activity.  Our oldest grandson Elijah's football games.  This guy just won the game last week for his team.  He intercepted the other team's pass and ran it to a touchdown.  They won the game in the last final minutes 6 to 0.  More of that for sure this Friday.

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BRAIDS AND PAINTING

This has been a really busy week.  I have had only a bit of time to knock out another row on my scrappy braid quilts.  

I have laid out fabrics to get each block started.

I will cut them to their 7 by 14 inch size once each row is pieced together.  I have a template I made for cutting them to line up the center seams.  It takes 9 blocks for each row.

And two rows are done and sewn together.  I think I will need 3 or 4 more rows.  

I think I have lots of scraps to finish it off.  I have them all cut in 3 inch by 9 inch strips ready to go.

The real reason this week has been so busy is this project.  My youngest daughter, husband and boys have purchased a new home on about 2 acea, and their existing home is going on the market on Tuesday.  There is a bit of painting to ready it.  We tackled the hall, not an easy task as the ceiling of it goes up to the top of the second floor about 15 feet.  A ten foot ladder angled from stairs to wall is not a fun position to be in holding a paint roller on a long pole.  The stairs are really steep too.  One really nice plus about the new home is it does not have two floors, all one level!  We have a bathroom to paint and a couple of the boys bedrooms.  We have been busy.  

This one job is almost done.  We got the upstairs bathroom painted and I am almost done with one of the bedrooms.  The second bedroom should start today.  This all has to be done by Tuesday morning when it goes on the market.  We are busy girls. 

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BIRDS OF A FEATHER ARE COMING TOGETHER

These blocks are coming together really nicely over the last few weeks.  Block number 9 is almost done.  Just some leaves and stems to finish off.  

Once this one is done I can work on one more larger blocks and then two smaller ones and a couple of pieced fillers.  

I laid out the finished blocks this past week just to see how things were coming along.  This is not the order they will be on the top when all are done, but it gave me an idea of how things were progressing.  I just need to get busy now and finish this projects up.

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SOMETIMES JUST BECAUSE

Sometimes you have to do something different just because.  On a blog I saw a picture of some runners that intrigued me.  I have all sorts of projects going right now that need my attention, but earlier this week I just decided to take a different path just because for no other reason than to do something off the wall.  

I pulled some fabric left overs and cut two 3" and one 2.5" strips.  

Sewed them together.  

Cut 30 degree triangles and laid this short runner out.  

Done!  I did have a bit of a challenge getting the seams pressed in the right direction so the grey and red centers laid flat nicely.  

I had to make two strip sets as I needed one more triangle of each cut more, but then I had left overs so I made this little candle mat with what remained.  It was a fun escape from the rest of my projects and I'll get these little guy quilted and bound and gift or use them myself. 

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To Do Tuesday

SUMMER ENDING

Summer is ending here.  School started Monday and the football season has started.  

We watched a scrimmage on Saturday with our grandson Elijah playing.  He is a Sophomore this year and his second year of football at the High School level.  He also played football in Middle School.

We had a time trying to pick him out in the players on the field.  No numbers on their shirts for these practice games.  Their first actual game is on Friday.  

No trouble finding this one.  Our oldest granddaughter's first day as a new High School English teacher.  We are very proud of her.  

It has been pretty toasty outside this past week.  Time to stay in with the A/C on and sew.  I continue to add to my Dresden quilt.  I have the backgrounds cut and the centers ready.

Here are the blades cut with their background fabric sample attached.  Sort of an assembly line.  I need the reminder of which blades go with which background.  

So far I have about 8 done.  However, non of them have the blades or centers sewn down yet.

The last six star blocks for my summer quilt are ready to go.  

Yes, here they are a total of 132 blocks when those last six are complete.  King Size 99 by 108 when done.  Just two pillow shams left to figure out and make.  

This week has been pretty eventful so far all the way around.  Lots of wonderful starts to finish off the summer.  

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QUILTING GONZO

I started Gonzo well back in June last year, Gonzo Begins.  Almost a year ago exactly I finished Gonzo.  Odd name I know, but that is the name of the pattern.  I finally just in the past couple days quilted it.  It has been hanging in my quilt studio that long waiting for some inspiration to get it done.  

It has so much going on in it that simple curvy quilting seemed the best choice.  I did select all sorts of different colored threads for each row.  

So row by row I worked on each one.  

And here it is finished.  Just a binding to pop on and a hanging sleeve.  It is a finish!!!!!!

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LEAF QUILTING AND OTHER STUFF

Lately other stuff seems to be getting in the way of quilting around here.  

The deck outside our bedroom has started to look a very worn, so staining it seemed like a needed chore.  It is HOT here, so early this morning we were out getting it started.  

Almost done.  I do the trim work and husband rolls it.  I think it is too bright, but he says as it dries it will fade.  The color is supposed to be redwood.  Looks like red/orange to me.

The class I took a couple weeks ago is ready to quilt.  I have decided to quilt it in leaves.  I love these leaf templates and have used them so often in projects for appliqués and quilting.

So far I have it about 2/3's done.  Just the last large leaf block to get quilted.  

And it is done.  Very happy with this finish.  Still not too sure about the deck color.

To Do Tuesday

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TWO FINISHES

This has not been much of a productive week for some reason.  It is HOT here almost 100 every day.  There have been a number of must do chores around the house, and a couple events that took me away from home.  

I did finish my Hungry Caterpillar top.  The next adventure will be to quilt it.  However, a back needed to be found first.  I thought I had one in my stash, but any fabric choice that was large enough didn't match well, and the ones that matched were not large enough.  I do not like piecing backs, so a shopping trip was in order.  Quilt stores in our area are pretty much non existent.  My husband suggested Hobby Lobby.  I have purchased Kona solids there in the past, but never other fabric.  I was not too sure of the quality of their other fabrics either.  It was worth a try.  

Well what a find.  The colors are perfect, the quality really nice, and only $8.99 per yard instead of the going rate at a quilt shop of around $12.00 plus per yard.  The real bonus was that it was on sale for 30% off.  

One event I did attend this past week was my guild's warm wrapping sew day.  These 22 inch blocks were done by me ages ago, but I had fallen out of love with them and decided to donate them to the guild.  We finished the top off on Wednesday.  Much prettier than I thought once finished.  It will go to an agency once quilted for a fund raiser event.  So I guess more was accomplished than I thought.  

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