I'm made a lot of progress over the past week. About a month or so ago I made a baby quilt as a gift. I posted a pic of it on my blog and facebook. My SIL's mother wanted me to make 2 of them for her as gifts for twins of her niece. They will be 2 yrs old this summer. I added a border on these to make them a little bigger so they could use them for several years.
They ended up being 52" square.
I quilted a simple stipple on them.
I did the binding on them Saturday morning and she picked them up Saturday afternoon. She seemed very pleased with them.
I also made a few pin cushions. :) I did not make the pretty one with the tiny flying geese. That one was a gift from a dear friend several years ago. I use it all the time. I actually made 4 but didn't get a pic of the other one. These were all made from leftover blocks or small orphan blocks. I filled them with crushed walnut shells. I like the weight that it gives to them.
I have a huge jar of vintage buttons that I picked through and used. I want to make several more when I get a chance. I think I would like to use some of them and also put several in a basket to display.
I also started a new quilt for myself. I feel the need to work on a few things of my own between customer quilts. I need this!!! LOL!
These colors are not my usual so it's totally out of my comfy zone! I guess that is a good thing! My plan as of right now is 30 blocks. I was going to do just a bunch of random fabric colors but once I started I wanted to do blues and greens.
By the time that I got ready for bed last night I had 10 blocks pieced. I'll get better pics of it when the lighting is better.
I signed up for the Fat Quarter Shop monthly subscription of reproduction fat quarters a few months ago. It alternates between Civil War and 1930's. This is what I received this time. Love them!!!
This is the line that they are from. It's not the whole line but just 12 each time.
These purples are my favorites! I have been on a purple kick lately. I need to make a purple quilt!
Other life happenings this week...
Andrew's cash offer on the apartment building was accepted!!!! He is very excited and this momma is very proud of all his hard work. I'll post more details as time goes on with it.
I was out shopping with mom and Chantal a few days ago and found a big cactus that I bought! Actually in the cart you can see two but we actually bought three. We each got one. I've been looking for one of these big ones for years and finally found one. 20+ years ago I had one that was over 6 ft tall. I had over 50 houseplants. At that time I was married to my first husband and went back to get my plants about a week after I left only to find that he had poured bleach in every one of them. I lost them all. The huge cactus was my favorite. Anyway...that was a long time ago and I now have another one. :)
Today my niece, Addison turns 4. Hard to believe that. :) Her birthday party was Saturday. She had a blast of course. She owns my heart. :)
Here is a pic of her cake! She had a beautiful Barbie cake and 36 cupcakes. :)
Hunter has been on Spring Break this past week and goes back to school today. I will sure miss him. I have always loved it best when everyone is home with me. That is my "happy time"
Oh and I didn't get pics but Richard and I were able to take another short motorcycle ride on Thursday while he was off and the weather was nice. I think sometime in the near future we are going to get a GoPro to attach to his helmet to video some of the beautiful rides that we go on.
Today I have a customer quilt that I need to do some repair work on and hopefully get it quilted and the binding done as well. Fingers crossed that I get it done. LOL! The top belongs to a coworker of Richard's. Her sister had purchased it for her in PA. It's all squares and hand pieced. Someone has washed the quilt top and it has came apart in several places. The seam allowance is very narrow and the stitches are pretty big. I actually worked on some of the repair work yesterday but I hope to finish it up today. I also need to quilt and machine bind it too. I'll post pics of it tomorrow.
Thanks for the wonderful comments on my SIL's quilt. :) She gave it to my brother and he loved it. :)
I worked on my applique block. I had it ironed to the background but hadn't stitched around it. I got all of the green done but not the tulips yet. After I get this first block done I will prep another.
While I was working on the applique Richard built a grape arbor for me!!! He is just so awesome!!! I love it!!!
He's still on vacation and Thursday had some nice weather so we took the motorcycle out for a little ride. It was nice but a little windy. We had a wonderful time. In the pic we had stopped by the lake. We rode about 110 miles. Can't wait for warmer weather so we can do more riding. :)
Friday we had errands to run. Richard took his bow and had some work done on it. He loves archery. Picked up a few things from Sam's. Stopped by Joann's and picked up these fabrics. Not for any particular project but just to add to the stash. :) I got 1/2 yard of each.
This came in the mail so I thumbed through it a bit after we got home. I was tired so I really didn't feel like doing much. I've been eyeing this book for a while. I love the quilt! I know that I really don't have time to start this quilt but I did do a block. :)
This is Block #1. I'm not using the fabric colors suggested in the book, I'm just going to use my scraps for it. Not in any big hurry for this quilt but I figure I could do a few blocks a week on it and eventually get it done. As the cover of the books says, the blocks are 4x5 inches.
Shew...this momma is nervous. LOL! Andrew put in an offer on an apartment building. It's a 3 unit building. He has always wanted to have rental property even as a child. He is now 26 and works 100+ hours a week. He has been working hard for this. Praying that the Lord will guide him in the right direction with this. Right now the building is full with tenants but he may end up living in the smaller unit and continue renting out the other 2 apartments. Not sure yet. Anyway he put in an offer and now we wait...
Today I hope to work on a couple Lori Holt blocks and maybe another Anthology block. Oh and maybe work on the purple tulip applique. I don't like much finishing up that block. I also have a customer t-shirt quilt that I need to work on. I am so grateful for the customer work but I'm feeling a tad burned out right now. I'm sure that will pass. All that I can think about is wanting to work on something of my own. LOL!
Roughly 6 weeks ago or so my SIL, Kellie found a panel on Ebay I believe that she fell in love with. My brother is a huge Civil War buff and she wanted to piece a quilt for their upcoming 19th anniversary.
She mostly does English Paper Piecing but is really good at piecing on the machine too but she just doesn't have enough confidence in herself. I've quilted her machine pieced quilts before and they are good and square. :) Sooooo....she told me what she had in mind for the quilt that she wanted to make for my brother. I told her that I would help her get it assembled.
I did cut and frame up the panel and attach it to the surrounding tumblers and she pieced and pieced hundreds of these tumblers. She did every bit of those tumblers at WORK! Yep! At work! She is a nurse at a peditrician's office and he is awesome about letting them quilt. There are 3 ladies that work there and all 3 of them do EPP. He says that as long as all the work is caught up and patients are taken care of that he doesn't mind at all. He actually encourages them to be productive with something. LOL!
So we decided to do a fairly loose stipple and not over quilt the panel. I also made sure that I quilted around and not over their faces because I didn't want to distort them.
She has a ton of awesome fabrics in this quilt. Their anniversary is Monday April 1st so I figure she will give it to him this weekend. I told her to video it as I can't wait to see his face.
After I got the center panel ready and back to her she sewed like a crazy lady getting all of those tumblers done and back to me. I then trimmed it up and sewed the outer borders on. Now like I said, it's not like she didn't know how to do it but she also didn't have a place to actually use the machine and get those sewn on without him seeing it.
Oh I forgot it is backed with a brown Minkie and we used Hobb's batting. I will be doing the binding on it today. She is so excited to give it to him.
In the mail yesterday I received this charm pack. I signed up for a monthly delivery at Green Fairy Quilts for a charm pack each month. It's $9.99 and FREE SHIPPING! The charm pack that I got is called Remix. Not really my style but I'll keep them and use them in something. :)
All for this post...
Here is a pic of my design wall last night.
After Church we had dinner at mom's then I came home and pieced a few blocks. I am trying to catch up on my Lori Holt's Block-Along.
These fabrics are so not my normal but I'm really liking how they are all looking.
Then I moved on to this pretty red print block...
Another view...
This was the last one for the night.
They are all actually big blocks.
Of course the purple tulips don't go in this quilt but the rest of the blocks do. I'm anxious to see how they will all fit in the quilt. I'm hoping that in the end my colors are spread out pretty evenly.
So the rest of my weekend was spent running here and there. I was exhausted by the time it was over. Here is a pic of Hunter and his girlfriend, Paige. This was her Freshmore Dance (Freshman/Sophomore). She is a freshman and he is a junior. It was semi-casual that's why he has jeans on. LOL! Most of the guys did. They looked so pretty. She is a sweetheart and of course he's my baby boy so I'm kind of extra proud of him....long hair and all. LOL!
Last but not least...a pic of my brother John and my little niece, Addie. I took this pic right before Church started. :) John is the oldest of us 3 siblings. He is 4 years older than I am. We have always been extremely close. Addison is my sister's daughter. She was being silly with her little glasses.
I guess that's all for this post...
I didn't get everything done that I had planned. LOL! I knew that wasn't going to happen. :) I did get the binding sewn by hand on the cardinal quilt. I also got this queen size quilt loaded and about 2/3 of it quilted.
I'll have to say that I'm anxious to post a pic of the whole quilt once I get it finished. This is a customer quilt that is pieced from 10" squares. The most awesome thing about it is that none of the fabrics go together normally but once pieced together they look awesome! Does that make sense? :) The more that I look at it the more that I love it. The lady's mom is the one that sent it to me and she said that they were planning on making a duvet cover with it. She just wanted a simple stipple quilted on it.
I also made 20 Breakfast Bombs for the freezer before 6:30am yesterday! LOL! Freezer meals changed my life many years ago and I use them a lot. These are for breakfast and consist of hash browns, sausage, scrambled eggs, mushrooms and cheese. I just lay one out the night before to thaw and pop it in the oven while Richard is in the shower and they are done by the time he gets out. Sometimes he puts a little salsa on them and eats. A good filling breakfast that saves me time. I don't eat them because I'm diabetic but Richard and the boys love them.
I mentioned in my last post that Richard was on vacation starting yesterday. He is so bad to just pop it on me and not tell me. He thinks it's funny because I'm a person that has to plan and schedule everything and something like that rocks my world. LOL! So yesterday he tells me that he is actually off for 2 WEEKS!!!! Oh my! That really throws me off. :) I love having him home but it just really throws my routine off. Does this make sense? :) We really don't have any plans, he's just going to catch up on a few things outside.
So this morning I am going to finish quilting this quilt. Then I plan on trimming and adding borders (hopefully) to my SIL Kellie's quilt. Oh I can't wait to show it to you. It is awesome!!!
Yesterday I quilted this beautiful customer quilt. I just love it! She did an awesome job piecing it too. As I was quilting it I kept thinking that I needed one of those Cardinal panels. I may end up buying one but then again who knows when I would have time to sew it up. :) Anyway...I enjoyed quilting this beauty.
We decided to use this quilting design because she didn't want the quilting to compete with the cardinals. That's also another reason that I love Glide thread. It's so fine that it doesn't take away from the quilt.
She also requested that I do the binding for her. She wants it done by hand. I got it all sewn on by machine last night so I will work on the hand sewing today.
Oh I almost forgot... I've used Hobb's 80/20 batting for years and never had any issues but look at this mess that I found today. :( I had to cut around the area because there was no way that I was going to try to quilt through that. It was very hard so I would probably have broken a needle not to mention it would have felt horrible in the quilt. From now on I will double check all of the batting. I buy it on the big rolls and as I said this was the first time seeing this. Thank goodness that I caught it.
A few nights ago I was up late and on Pinterest. Pinterest always gets me in trouble. LOL! I cut and pieced this block just to see how I liked it. It's an 8" block. Right now it's just a block up on my design wall for me to ponder over for a while. It will NOT be a project for the near future as I have too many other things going on right now, but it was fun to make. Maybe someday...
Last night before bed I worked on this UFO. I just pieced a few strip sets. I hope to press and subcut them today. These go into a two color quilt. I absolutely love two color quilts! I have several that I would eventually like to make. :)
So my quilting plans for today are to press and subcut these strips sets. I also would like to get most of the hand sewing done on this customer quilt. I also hope to get another block pieced of the Lori Holt Block Along. We will see how it all goes because Richard is on vacation starting today so who knows.... LOL!
I spent part of Saturday trying to catch up on some blocks. These are from the Lori Holt free Vintage Block Along. Here is my design wall when I stopped for the day. The applique blocks on the far left are not the same project. :)
I did this block and if I remember correctly it was 20"
I also pieced these 4 and they are 5" blocks.
Also this one....
Then I was finished for the day. Actually my mind still wanted to quilt but my body said "stop" LOL! In the end I am pleased with what I got finished.
Richard and I took a short motorcycle ride. It was in the mid-50's so still a little cool to go far. It was nice and I'm anxious for the warm weather so we can get out a little more on it.
I also did a few customer quilts that I can't post yet. I will try to remember to post them later. :) Several quilty things coming up this week, so today I took time for some "me sewing" :)
Now it's time to fix breakfast and get ready for Church. Have a wonderful and Blessed Sunday.
They ended up being 52" square.
I quilted a simple stipple on them.
I did the binding on them Saturday morning and she picked them up Saturday afternoon. She seemed very pleased with them. 
I also made a few pin cushions. :) I did not make the pretty one with the tiny flying geese. That one was a gift from a dear friend several years ago. I use it all the time. I actually made 4 but didn't get a pic of the other one. These were all made from leftover blocks or small orphan blocks. I filled them with crushed walnut shells. I like the weight that it gives to them.
I have a huge jar of vintage buttons that I picked through and used. I want to make several more when I get a chance. I think I would like to use some of them and also put several in a basket to display. 
I also started a new quilt for myself. I feel the need to work on a few things of my own between customer quilts. I need this!!! LOL! 
These colors are not my usual so it's totally out of my comfy zone! I guess that is a good thing! My plan as of right now is 30 blocks. I was going to do just a bunch of random fabric colors but once I started I wanted to do blues and greens. 
By the time that I got ready for bed last night I had 10 blocks pieced. I'll get better pics of it when the lighting is better. 
I signed up for the Fat Quarter Shop monthly subscription of reproduction fat quarters a few months ago. It alternates between Civil War and 1930's. This is what I received this time. Love them!!!
This is the line that they are from. It's not the whole line but just 12 each time. 
These purples are my favorites! I have been on a purple kick lately. I need to make a purple quilt! 
Other life happenings this week... 
Today my niece, Addison turns 4. Hard to believe that. :) Her birthday party was Saturday. She had a blast of course. She owns my heart. :)
Here is a pic of her cake! She had a beautiful Barbie cake and 36 cupcakes. :)
Hunter has been on Spring Break this past week and goes back to school today. I will sure miss him. I have always loved it best when everyone is home with me. That is my "happy time" 
