MORNING FLIGHT AND BUTTERFLIES

 I am back to normal life here at home.  I weathered my guild's quilt show last month and all the financial ups and downs of closing the reporting for the guild membership.  My daughter spent 9 days the first week of this month with us and we enjoyed a good deal of family and friends visits and lots of quilting time.  Now I am back to doing something on projects in my sewing room this past week.  

I am back to working on Morning Flight.  I am ready to start the final block on the top row.  After a bit of appliqué thread woes things are going smoothly.  

I have a ways to go on this project for sure.

I can only manage an hour or two of machine appliqué before I reach  
the point of going cross eyed.  I then have to find something simpler to work on for bit.  So I have started this butterfly scrap quilt.  These little guys are fun and go together really quickly.  I'll need 35 of them to have a quilt complete, and every one will be a different fabric for the wings, a bit of a scrap buster.  They will have borders around each one of them in the white dot fabric.

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A WEEK OF SEWING FUN

 I spent this past week with my daughter.  We were able to spend a lot of time with family, a high school graduation event and party with one of my grandsons, and visits with an old childhood friend she went to school with, and her husband's brother as well as doing a good deal of sewing on several projects that she brought with her. 

On a trip to my local quilt store she purchased the coffee theme fabric.  We put together three runners two will be Christmas gifts for friends of hers and they were so cute that she had to have one for herself as well.  A neighbor of mine gifted her with the Kansas Prairie fabric and that will also be one of her friend's gift for Christmas.  Plus my daughter that is new to quilting taught me how to finish binding on the machine.  I have always hand sewn the finishing of my bindings. Just never was able to finish them on the sewing machine that looked good.  Well, you can teach an old dog a new trick.  These binding finishes are just perfect.

This is also a project she brought with her to bind.  It is a birthday present for a friend that is a college librarian, and yes she also has a cat.  The quilting she had done even included a couple of book worms quilted on it.   

And yes one more project sewn together and ready to take home, add borders and off to her quilter. 

My daughter has returned home after a wonderful 8 day visit and it looks like these two think it is about time. They look a bit sad, like they are thinking it's about time Mommy came home.    

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NEW PROJECT IN THE WORKS

Quilt show over and time to have some fun with my daughter and work on a couple of her projects.  

Monique brought this project all finished and ready to take to a childhood friend we are seeing on Monday.  Now have several other projects we plan on working on.    

The last of the 2-1/2 inch strips used for scrap quilt number 6.  All the rest of those scrap strips have been given away to someone else to use them.  

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LUCKY COWGIRL FINSH

My guild's quilt show is over, and as treasurer I spent almost all of last week on the computer finalizing the income and trying to gather up all the reimbursements for expenses.  Still working on that.  But finally almost a week after the show ended I am back in the sewing room working on my most recent project for my charity group. 

Lucky Cow Girl is finished.  Off this week to the charity group to quilt and then possibly back to me to bind.  It was a fun project except I did end up making the dark two hats in the right top and left bottom corners over.  I got both finished and realized the hat band was placed in the wrong position.  I spending several minutes fuming about it, but  decided I could not live with the mistake and remade them, had plenty of fabric so I forged ahead and finally finished the quilt top.

Scrap quilt #5 is also finished and ready to take to the charity group.  One more in progress and all the piles of 2-1/2" strips are gone.  Time for me to get back to my smaller appliqué project.  Plus our daughter is coming out from Colorado for a visit and more quilting lessons, some fun shopping and family gathering for one of our grandson's high school graduation.

Our little dog Zoey is relieved to have all the quilt show activity over.  All the hustle and bustle is over we can all relax and spend some quality time on the sofa lounging.     

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QUILT SHOW FUN

 Last week was full, overflowing, and exhausting, but I survived my guild's quilt show.  I am the treasure for our guild and quilt shows are not only filled with just setting up and taking down all that it involves with putting on a two day show, but I have all the finances to manage as well.  I think if I had one of those watches that counts the amount of steps you take each day, I would have registered at least 30,000 or more each of the 2 days of set up preparations, the 2 days show and the take down.

I spent a several months working on items for the show's boutique.  We spent almost an entire day setting the boutique up.  I was a great success.  

My two favorite quilts displayed by our two guild featured quilters.

Of course there is also vendors for shopping.  Lynn Wilder was our guest celebrity.  I could not resist one of her appliqué patterns and 2 fat quarter bundles.

And these three yards from another vendor.

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LUCKY COWGIRL UPDATE

 This past week had me busy for sure.  I spent a good part of Monday with a group of us pricing a huge amount of items both quilted items and a lot of donated fabric for our guild's quilt show on the 17th and 18th this coming week.  Over this past year several families have donated family members quilt stashes after they passed away.  Like so many of us several of the families found enormous fabric stashes of really lovely fabric.  Every thing was measured and cut by us into every thing from 1 yard pieces up to even 8 yards.  We priced most at $6.00 per yard.  

An update on my Lucky Cowgirl project.  I have 5 blocks of the 9 done.  The fabric in this kit is so much fun to use.  

The hats were a bit of a puzzle in the beginning.  The pattern called for embroidery of the lines to create the bill of the hat and the crease on the top.  I do not do embroidery, so ended up using 12wt thread and a triple stitch on my machine.  Worked out really well.  

I came home with two huge bags of fabric from the donated fabric we priced for the quilt show.  With what we do not sell at the show and what we just had no time to prepare for the show we are using for charity quilts.  One group we work with makes twin beds with mattresses for foster families when they do not have a bed for the child they just took in.  We make a quilt to go with the beds.  My job is just to cut 9 1/2 inch squares, yes 63 of them and a binding.  I cut and give them to another lady that sews them together and they move on to quilting and binding by others.  I spent an afternoon cutting these three.  Lots more to come.  

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QUILT KIT MISHAPS

This past week I attended my usual charity group and was asked if I would make a quilt from a donated kit that could be used as an auction quilt for one of the agencies we work with.  Over the last two years I have sewn 2 previously for the group.  I enjoy doing it and since I was asked again figure they must be happy with my work.

The kit came with the pattern Wanna Be A Cowboy, and the fabric matched the pattern, but the Lucky Cowgirl pattern was also tucked in with it.  

However there was a problem.  I went over the pattern requirements and discovered that there were a number of fabrics missing in order to complete the Wanna Be A Cowboy quilt.  In fact, many of the pieces that were there had more fabric than required.  I know that kits sometimes modify the fabric, but after a good couple hours it was easy to see that the intended pattern was not going to work.  So no real choice it was going to be the Lucky Cowgirl pattern.  I do love appliqué so did not upset me and frankly was my personal preferred choice.  

I got the nine center blocks completed and the first appliqué on the center block of the quilt.  This is going to be fun. 

Our little Yorkshire Terrier Zoey has found that the early morning sun at this time of year comes in from a window above our fireplace.  It shines for about half an hour every morning on the end of the sofa, just enough for her to get a brief sunbath.  This dog's life is good!  

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APPLIQUE RELIEF

This week I have done a bit of shopping for my sewing room.  Once I was able to finish up with all the painting of a good part of the house and the painters were finished and the house returned to a normal state I figured to do something about the carpet in my sewing room.  It is old, we figure about 20 plus years old.  Time to replace it.  I considered laminate as most of our home is wood floors or laminate in the office.  Not sure how all that thread and pins that seem to end up on the floor would do rolling around on laminate flooring.  So we opted for carpet again.  They install next Friday.  So have to empty the room for a day or two, guess I will move the machine and ironing board into the dining room.   

I did manage to get another scrap quilt top put together for my charity group out of the scrap bins of 2-1/2" strips I cut up.  My idea was to rid myself easily of all my ever growing scrap bins.  It has not helped at all.  I still have tons of the strips left.  I now have a third quilt top  ready to put together.  However, making these is a bit of a relief from dealing with my current appliqué project.

Last week I got the first block, one on left side, completed and thought that I might have bitten off more than I could chew with this kit.  I figured will just forge ahead and see what happens.  These blocks and the pieces are tiny like 3-1/2 by 6-1/2 inches for the little block in the middle and the other two not much bigger.  I have been  surprised that they are not that bad.  So plan to just keep going until either I get them all done or lose my mind, which ever comes first.   

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APPLIQUE AGAIN AND BIRD OF PARADISE

 This past week has been nice and quiet with very little on my to-do list to accomplish.  I vowed to set appliqués projects aside for a while.  That didn't happen.  I have pulled out a kit hiding away in a drawer and started working on it and added another that I really do need to start working on as well.

These pieces are tiny.  I did talk myself into doing 1/4" bias vines.  I have always avoided them and used 3/8" for them, but this block at just under 9" by 11" needed the small vines.  Not sure why I have avoided them all these years, as they were not nearly as difficult to master as I thought they would be.  

This is the kit pattern, I don't expect this to be finished in a very long time.  The entire quilt is only 35" by 45" so some blocks are really small.  

This project is on more of a priority list.  It will be a wedding gift for a family member.  No real hurry as I have time, but do know that in the next year or two it will be needed.  It will be king size, so these 10.5 inch blocks are a start to the 100 needed.  Figure to make a few each month, off and on.  

Now here is a master piece.  Our Bird of Paradise is in full swing.  Never have we seen this many blooms on it.  Seems our recent amount of rain this spring has made it very happy to show off.   

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LOCK DOWN IN THE SEWING ROOM

It was very busy this past week at home.  We have needed some painting done in our home for sometime.  I usually do the painting, but this was a much bigger job than I felt able to handle.  We have a fairly large home and the laundry room, kitchen/eating area, living room/family room, dining room, entry area, and guest bathroom, along with 27 doors through out the home needed painting.  Painters arrived on Monday and finished on Wednesday.

I did manage to finish this small quilt which was originally the sample of a class I have been teaching beginning quilters at our local quilt store.  The painters contributed greatly to me getting it done.

This was my doorway in my sewing room.  On Tuesday the painters were spraying the ceilings and walls throughout the home.  Everything was covered in plastic including and all the doorways into rooms not being painted  I was told it was best to find a room I wanted to stay in for a few hours.  I selected my sewing room.  If one is going to be imprisoned in one room, it was a great choice.

The rest of the house looked like this.  

During my sew room lock down, basically from 10 to 3, I also managed to finish my last two pillowcases started in March for the children's hospital.

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