I'm making a little more progress on my Remember quilt blocks. These are large 20" blocks. Only 2 of these have the machine applique done on them. The other 2 need to be finished. I just have the pieces ironed to the background. I really like this quilt because it is so different from any of my others. Don't worry, I am still working on my Trail Mix quilt as well. I am just sewing together some diamonds on it.
I am so excited about the photo below! This is from one of the ladies that took my hexagon class the other day. I think she has been bitten by the hexagon bug!!! I love it!!! I know that some of the people that took my class will never make this quilt BUT when I see someone this excited, it makes me feel great! I love seeing new quilters getting started with this stuff. I think she made a wonderful selection of fabrics and her hexagons look perfect. I can't wait to see more of her work in the near future.
Richard was off work Monday and Tuesday and when he is, it is hard for me to get much accomplished. LOL! Oh well, I love having him home. I ended up canning 12 pints of chili and 1 pint of leftover taco meat on Monday.
Tuesday I canned 7 more quarts of pinto beans.
I also made a batch of these for Richard and Hunter. Richard could eat his weight in these babies. :)
We also ended up getting a new propane tank set. They should be back in a week or so to fill it for the winter.
Richard is back to work today so after I get my housework done I will work on my quilts. I hope to make a lot of progress on my Trail Mix diamonds and maybe even do a little more applique.
Another block for my "Remember" quilt. I'm loving this so far! Sunday I switched back and forth between this quilt and my Trail Mix. Both are by Edyta Sitar.
I got 100 of my 176 diamonds cut for the Trail Mix quilt.
Now to finish the last 76 diamonds, I have to do a little bit of piecing. Let me explain how I will get these. The pattern tells how to do this. When cutting the diamonds from my strips, I have leftover scraps. (see below)
Cut those apart and you get two triangle shapes. You then take a scrap strip that is the same size as the strips in the strip set and sew between the two triangles. This then gives you a larger diamond shape. Take the template and cut out the exact diamond shape. No waste!
After cutting my 100 diamonds I am left with a big pile of triangles that need to be pieced as mentioned above, then cut to size.
I ended up getting a lot of sewing time in yesterday! Richard worked all day. Andrew being the wonderful big brother that he is, took Hunter to the drag races. So I was home alone until 7:30pm. I made simple healthy tacos for supper which did not take too long to prepare. I made two versions...extremely lean beef and chicken which I used a jar of my chicken breast that I canned a week or so ago.
I decided to try out a new block from another Edyta Sitar pattern. Right now she is my favorite designer. I have a few of her patterns but each of them so far take some work. :) This is a 20 inch block.
The pattern is called, Remember. It's not real big so maybe I can get it done. LOL! I am also doing it by machine applique.
The machine that I usually sew on downstairs is a straight stitch machine and I have several vintage machines that have zig-zag but I decided to open this machine up. It was given to me still in the box. I changed out the needle to a 70/10 and I am using smoke nylon thread on top and cotton thread to match the background in the bobbin. It is working out nicely. I will say that it seem odd not sewing on an old machine. I can really tell a difference in them.
Meanwhile, I am still cutting diamonds out of my strips for my Trail Mix quilt which is also designed by Edyta Sitar.
I have several cut but I need a total of 176 diamonds and I get sidetracked. :)
I also baked more homemade buttermilk biscuits for the freezer.
I ended up putting 3 1/2 dozen in the freezer and that does not last a week. Shew...they are vultures!!!
I'm hoping that I can get most of my diamonds cut today and maybe assemble another applique block and have it ready for the machine. I also have lots of laundry and housework to do after Church so we will see what all that I can get done.
I started cutting some diamonds from the strip sets for my Trail Mix quilt. Honestly this is all that I got cut. LOL! This is just from one strip set so they will be all mixed up once I get them all cut. Lots of scrappy goodness. I think I need something like 176 of these diamonds.
After cutting the diamonds you have these little triangle pieces leftover. The directions say to sew a strip in the center to connect the two triangles, press and cut out a diamond shape from it. No waste!
My hexie class is this evening!!! Very excited about it. I'll post photos in the next post. I know most of the people in the class so that makes it really nice. Actually two of them are young girls that are in Hunter's class. Their mothers are taking the class as well. I love that!
I also did some canning yesterday. I bought chicken breast on sale for .99 per pound. I cooked it, pulled it off the bone, shredded it and canned it. I ended up with 9 pints of chicken breast and I crammed all that I could get in those jars and also 4 more quarts of chicken broth/stock. Let me tell you....I WILL NOT do anymore canning while the water is off!!! Shew....I have jugs of water all over my kitchen but it is just too much of an aggravation trying to do it that way and not just run to the sink and turn the water on.
This is some dehydrating that I have been doing over the past few days. The dehydrating is much easier to do since the only water it requires is to wash the veggies off. Anyway, the tiny jar is my tomato powder. The other jars are quarts, the first one is 5 pounds of carrots! I was shocked at how much they dehydrated. The next jar is 2 bags of celery, mushrooms and tomato slices. I also put more jalapenos in the freezer.
That's all for now......
I got all 20 of my big strip sets finished!!!
I was hoping that I would get them done yesterday and I did!
Now I am moving on to the next step of making 17 of the small strip sets that consist of 4 strips. I will get those done today...hopefully.
A few of you have asked what the quilt is going to look like (hopefully) and here is a photo of the original.
This is a Edyta Sitar design for Laundry Basket Quilts that she is doing as a Craftsy class. The quilt it called, Trail Mix.
I'm sure that this quilt will take me a while but I am not in a hurry. Lots of pieces in this one! I will consider this my Fall/Winter machine project. I always have lots of hand sewing projects in the works but I will consider this one my main machine project right now.
I have this quilt hanging on my upstairs balcony wall. I've had it there since we moved in. As you can see in the photos below the house was not finished or the wall painted. :)
That is 22ft to the ceiling so I want something that will be substantial.
I've been thinking that I need to change it....will this be the quilt that I replace it with??????? I don't know, I will have to wait and see.
It was a busy day yesterday. I accomplished lots of cleaning in the house and also got some sewing done. I may be a little slow going on this project but I have a million other things going on too. I'm not in any hurry, just want to enjoy the process. I now have 12 of the 20 strip sets needed and I also added another postage stamp block.
Now on to the other things that had me so busy yesterday. Hunter has a friend over for the entire weekend so I cleaned the house up nice.
I mentioned that I had been asked to teach another hexie class sometime in September, I should have a date on that sometime Monday. I started cutting out some kits for that.
Now I have 2 more classes lined up!!! The exciting part is...a childhood friend of my sister's asked me if I would possibly do a small class at her house during the day as my other class will more than likely be scheduled in the evening. She has small school age children and it is hard for her and a few others to make it to the evening class as their evenings are crazy. She asked how many that I would have to have scheduled for me to do a class at her house. I told her and we now have it scheduled for Wednesday at 11am!!!!! She is probably around 6-7 miles away from me so it's not too far. :) I'm excited and I will be cutting more kits for that today!!!! I certainly never expected that someone would want me to do a private class in their home for a few people. This should be lots of fun!!! I will have to make sure that I take photos too.
I guess that is all for now. I'm actually typing this the night before and scheduling it to post at 5am. It's almost 1:30am right now and I need to get in bed because I will be getting Richard up at 4:20am for work. My plans for the day...after I sleep in after he leaves...is to get all of my 20 strip sets finished. Will that happen? I don't know but I sure hope so!
So far I have 7 of the 20 big strip sets needed for my Trail Mix quilt. I have all of the strips cut, just need to get them sewn together. I also have a postage stamp block on the wall. I have one or two more of those somewhere. It is pieced from 1.5" blocks....64 squares in the block.
I snapped some photos of Mammy yesterday as I realized that I had not posted any of her for a while. She is crazy! Love her but her energy is just too much sometimes. :)
She is 112 pounds of craziness! That's what she weighed last time at the vet, I think she actually weighs more now.
A photo of my girl! Does she look rotten or what? LOL! Love her.
I'm still canning and baking...Richard insisted that I make him some cookies before he went to bed. LOL! He's such a baby.
I canned another case of Cowboy Candy. This case is for my brother. He loves this stuff.
I also put some corn and jalapenos in the freezer.
Richard works all weekend and Hunter has a friend coming over. Hunter has decided that he wants to play basketball at school. I'm worried about his feet. He has so many issues with them. I called his doctor and he said to let him try it and if he has problems then let him stop. I don't know...I worry but I also understand that he is a kid and wants to play. He has practice once a week for a hour. I'll see how that turns out.
I took a break early yesterday morning to do some cutting before I did anymore canning. I am starting a new quilt!!! It is a Craftsy class with Edyta Sitar called, Trail Mix. I am very excited about this new quilt. I love her patterns and she is very informative in her Craftsy class. This is one of those quilts that you have to cut and sew very accurate.
To start I needed to cut 300+ 1 1/4" strips. I got them all cut!
The next step is to sew these into strip sets of twelve. I only got 3 strip sets sewn and pressed. At least I got a good start on it.
I haven't posted about these machines but they are piling up waiting to be cleaned and serviced. Let me tell you about these. The Singer on top, I bought at a yard sale for $5. It sews, it just needs to be cleaned, oiled and such. The middle machine...my mom bought a Singer machine in a cabinet at a yard sale and they threw this one in FREE just to get rid of it. She gave it to me to see if it worked. The cord is missing so I haven't been able to really check it out yet. It is a Euro Pro. The one in front, mom bought today at Goodwill. It is priced $4.99 but she got it for 1/2 price. I have one just like it already. So $7.50 for 3 machines!
My mom has always sewn for as long as I can remember. She still has the sewing machine that she pieced all of my clothes on when I was a young child. I think right now she has a total of 4 machines and when I service the Singer Fashion Mate (in front) I will send it home with her as well. I think she is planning on doing a lot of sewing once she retires! LOL!
I did a little more canning. 5 more quarts of green beans and 9 pints of spicy chicken veggie soup. I have about 4-5lbs of jalapenos that I will be canning later today. I gave my brother a jar of the Cowboy Candy and he LOVED it! So I am going to can him a batch.
I should know the date for my next hexie class later this afternoon. They are having a meeting and setting the date and will contact me afterwards. I gave them the dates that I was available in September so the rest is up to them. I'm excited about doing this second class. I just pray that it goes as well as the first one did.
I am so excited about the photo below! This is from one of the ladies that took my hexagon class the other day. I think she has been bitten by the hexagon bug!!! I love it!!! I know that some of the people that took my class will never make this quilt BUT when I see someone this excited, it makes me feel great! I love seeing new quilters getting started with this stuff. I think she made a wonderful selection of fabrics and her hexagons look perfect. I can't wait to see more of her work in the near future.
Richard was off work Monday and Tuesday and when he is, it is hard for me to get much accomplished. LOL! Oh well, I love having him home. I ended up canning 12 pints of chili and 1 pint of leftover taco meat on Monday. 
Tuesday I canned 7 more quarts of pinto beans. 
I also made a batch of these for Richard and Hunter. Richard could eat his weight in these babies. :)
We also ended up getting a new propane tank set. They should be back in a week or so to fill it for the winter. 
Richard is back to work today so after I get my housework done I will work on my quilts. I hope to make a lot of progress on my Trail Mix diamonds and maybe even do a little more applique. 
