A Few Photos from the Week

I've been perusing the links on Judy's Design Wall Monday. (click here) My design wall in the other room is empty, but here's a shot I took of the two projects I'm working on. I had just tossed both the quilts on my cutting/ironing table the other day. Later I glanced over and they were such a lovely jumble that I had to take a picture.

I'm making progress on these quilts, which are part of my February Get It Done list. The Spiderweb needs one more border and the sandwiching and quilting. Wait until you see what I picked out. It needed a dark border to tie it all together. I went and found a gorgeous, plain midnight fabric. It is a dark blue, or wait--is it dark purple? It's one of those fascinating colors that have two colors that show up different depending on what color they are next to. I love fabrics like that!

I have to sandwich and quilt the spiderweb. I'm doing a beginner's class for our quilt guild teaching them how to make a spiderweb. I showed it on Wednesday night last and seven people have signed up. If you're interested, the pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog. (here)

The square in a square is just a teensy weensy way away from being finished. I worked on it all weekend. Mondays are my wonderful quilting day. My husband works late on Mondays so I get three hours of quilting after I get home until he arrives home. I worked on it today. I've got the sashing finished on the two long sides. It's pinned and ready to sew for the two short sides. After that it's just the binding. The square in a square was my first QAYG (Quilt As You Go).

I told my husband I was trying to think of the name for the quilt. It is almost completely 70s fabric. The 70s were an interesting decade for me. In the space of those ten years I graduated from high school, graduated from college, got married, and had three children.

Hubby came up with a winner: The Seventies Are Calling, They Want Their Fabric Back!

This is the same guy who helped me name an all-blue batik quilt: Jacques Cousteau's Undersea Adventure. You should hear the interesting names he gave his stuffed animals as a child and gives our cats!

A few pictures from this week:

Calla Lilies my hubby gave me when Newt died

Our swallow who is building a nest in the eaves above our front door.

TGS with one of my granddogs, Ginny

OSLW with the two granddogs

My dog, Miko, looking cute

Get Her Done February 2013

It's almost like I took a vacation this week...but never down for long!

Here's my February Get It Done List:
1. Do 5 arcs on DWR.
2. Sandwich Spiderweb and quilt half
3. Finish Marie's Square in Square
4. Cut scraps 1/2 hour every day I quilt (very ambitious)
If humanly possible, and there is a four-day weekend in February:
5: Do 1 block for Blue And White quilt (7 left), and 1 block (7 left) for Farmer's Wife.
6. Hand quilt 1 hour/week on String Quilt

Don't forget to go over to Patchwork Times (here) to see other's reports.

Here's my Saturday Get It Done:

My Saturday pattern is to quilt for two hours, do a household task, repeat for the day! I always start Saturday with quilting. I used to get the house tasks done by x:00, then quilt the rest of the day. I found that x became x+1, then x+2, then x+3 until I was finally left with maybe one hour to quilt. It's obvious why I switched formats!

So besides Quilting, here's the tasks in priority order:
1.  Clean kitchen, aka do the dishes and load the dishwasher
2.  Trim the roses
3.  Package the Taylor and Lilly Club package for February.

Yippee I'm get to quilt most of the day! Ta ta!

Get It Done January

Well, well, well.
Well.

That's all the wisdom I have for today. No, come to think of it, here is a quilty saying:

My Great Grandma used to say she made a quilt] "by guess and by gosh". Then if it didn't turn out right, she'd say "I guessed it was right but by gosh it wasn't".*

That's about where I'm at with my January Git It Done... Judy over at Patchwork Times (click here) has a fun thing going. Each month anyone who wants to participate can make four quilting goals to accomplish in a month. On the last day of the month, everyone reports by linking into her blog. I'm here to make a full accounting.

My Get It Done January Goals and Progress:

1.  Finish Spiderweb top and sandwich.
I have one more border to put on and the top will be finished. I fell behind when I made a pieced border and then found it looked like a sock on a chicken's lip with the rest of the quilt.

2.  Finish Bricks & Stepping Stones top and Sandwich
I didn't do anything on this one. It's going to the back burner now; I have to start on my DWR.

3.  Finish Square in a Square
Not there yet, but close. It's a Quilt-As-You-Go. I have to hand-sew the last column. Add the columns around the edge by machine and hand-sew. Bind, with purchased binding, then it's done.

4.  Start DWR.
The first goal I actually finished!
I took down the box with all the DWR "stuff" in it.
I pulled out the pattern and read it.
I looked at the template and the tissue foundation.
I looked at my colors again, decided I needed more blue. Figured out whether to do random or planned method. Decided on both: blues will be in the same position throughout all, other colors will be random.
I decided what color for the background AND purchased it.

There's a lot of detail on this goal because my TGS and OSLW are going to be looking this over very carefully. I wanted to show them that "started" was more than opening the box, looking in and then closing it back up.

Tune in tomorrow for the February Get It Done.

* Pasted from <http://www.quiltingboard.com/pictures-f5/crazy-quilt-antique-hankies-t191083-3.html>

Stash Count Wk 4

I have been putting a lot of time in on my Get It Done quilts.
1.  One more border to go on the Spiderweb, then piece the back
2.  Put border on Marie's Square in a Square, bind and it's done.
3.  Bricks & Stepping Stones has been put on the back burner.
4.  I've "started" the DWR. I pulled it out, read the pattern and looked at fabric templates.

My Stash Count:

Used This Week: 2.5 yds.
Added This Week: 3.5 yds.

Added 2013: 18.5 yds.
Used 2013: 9.5 yds.
Net Amount for 2013: -9 yds. 

Head on over to Patchwork Times (click on this) and see how Judy and everyone else did on Stash Count this week.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and got up at 5:00. My usual rising time is 6:15. I like morning time because it seems you get so much done, so today was, perhaps, a bonus. I'd rather get my full 8 hours of sleep though. My alarm just started ringing--time to get up and get at 'em.

As I go, here's a couple of pictures to enjoy: The first is a picture I took of Hubby feeding the squirrel at a local park. Next is a picture Hubby took of me feeding a duck. Hmmm, what's missing in that second picture. This is why I have a school picture taken every year, so my grandkids, years from now will know what I looked like.

Time for a Check-In

I just read in Judy's blog that we're half-way through January. Not that I didn't know the date...it's my only sister's birthday. But thinking of it as half-way was a bit scary!

1958: Left: Jan, 5 yrs old, Right: Me, 3 years old

 So in the interest of where do I stand in the race to finish all my Get It Done items, here is an update:

1. Spiderweb top finished and sandwiched: I'm still working on finishing the top---arrrghhh! I looked at the border that Bonnie Hunter has on Quiltville, which is where I got in trouble. I liked her piano key middle border so much that I just had to do it on mine! As I shared before, I've made all the keys and currently am sewing them together.

2. Bricks & Stepping Stones top finished and sandwiched: Nada

3. Finish Square in a Square:  Nada, but I have thought about it!

4. Start DWR: uhmmm, errrrr, moving right along to the next thing.

In my defense, I finally got to quilt a couple of hours last night. Before that I hadn't quilted since Saturday. I need to speed up...a lot! I won't be able to quilt tonight, but for a great reason. I'm taking  The good news is I'm taking Bright Sprite, my oldest daughter, and my grandson, Firstest, to see the Harlem Globetrotters! Lovely fun!

This weekend is a three-day weekend so that gives me a glorious amount of time to quilt!

Stash Report

I've been joining Judy L at Patchwork Times in her Stash Count for 2013. Actually I'm also doing "Get Her Done" and this weekend I participated in her first "Quiltathon" of 2013. Judy sure is a fun lady and her blog is a treat to read.

Without further ado, here is my 2013 Stash Count Week 2.
Used this week: 1.5 yards
Used YTD:  2.75 yards
Added this week: big fat 0
Added YTD: big fat 0

I'm not using a whole lot of fabric, but I'm in that stage where I'm finishing up some quilts. Just wait until I get to the backing!!! YeeHah!

Soooo, where did that hefty 1. 5 yards go?

Looky here:

This is my Spiderweb quilt that is on my Get It Done for January. What you see above is the completed, sewn together, waiting for borders Spiderweb blocks! Hurray for me!

I spent my Quiltathon, which was only Friday evening and all day Saturday making the "piano keys" border. I don't know what their real name is...but it is an adapted form of piano keys. It will be the middle border on the quilt.

First you cut 2 . 5 x 4 . 5 blocks from scraps; I had about half already in my stash. On to the neutral blocks, in cream white, for Step 2. I only had a few in my stash since they had to be cream and also no print of other colors. It took FOREVER to cut those out.

In the meantime I whined to my hubby about how much faster it would be if I had an Accu-Quilt Go. I spent a few hours cutting and sub-cutting. In all honesty I cut way too much. Arggghhh. But 130 sounded like soooo many! With the Accu-Quilt dream, I thought it would take only 30 minutes! But you know how that probably turns out. The Accu-Quilt is #5 on my list of quilty things to buy from my pin money.

Onto step #3...sew cream squares to rectangles. I especially love that pink and turquoise plaid! Yummy!

Times ticking and it's step #4. Sewing them in pairs...

chaining style!

I want you to know I'm being very brave here, or is that foolish, showing you that I still have my Christmas tree up on January 12th? I am going to take it down this week! Of course, I said that last week (I'm an inveterate truth-teller--meaning I don't know when to stop babbling!) then school started and it was so busy and I didn't sleep well, and oh, you know...

From here on it's sewing pairs to pairs, etc. etc. etc. and they're all pinned now. I did that during the SF 49ers game! They won!

This week: getting that border finished and sewing on all three. It'd be nice to accomplish more, but it's nice to stay in reality once in a while.

Getting It Done

You know the saying...A day late, a dollar short. That's me. Monday is the day my husband works until 6:00 pm. This gives me 3 hours home alone which is always my quilt time. It's wonderful to quilt for a whole 3 hours straight! Last night I had to do my favorite task: Budget. It took the beloved 3 hours. Then at 6:00 when hubby was home, we scrounged around for dinner. At 7:00 we settled in to watch "our team" Sacramento Kings play basketball. I was so tired from my first day back at school that I went to bed at 8:00! So, no blog.

Without further ado, here's my Getting Her Done list for January!

1.  Get Spider Web quilt top finished and sandwiched.
     All blocks are finished, need to put Fray Check on red fabric that turned out to fray amazingly fast. Sew blocks together. Put on borders. Sandwich.

2.  Get Bricks and Stepping Stones finished and sandwiched.
     I have the top finished. Put on borders. Sandwich.

3.  Finish Marie's Square in Square. 
     This quilt was done Quilt As You Go, my first attempt! I need to  hand sew the last column. Put on borders. Attach binding.

4.  Start my son & wife's wedding quilt: Double Wedding Ring. 
     My son and his wife had a 6-week engagement. So very nice of them in letting me make a wedding quilt! I am using the Quilt Smart piecing to make it. It's basically paper piecing, except they provide the patterns printed on a very light woven material-which I can't remember the name. I already have the material. So it's getting it started, which might just be sewing one piece onto the foundation! At the same time, start my #1 daughter's quilt as a Leader/Ender.

This is fairly ambitious for me. I am back at work; I'm a teacher. I don't get much quilting in during the school year. I am committed to quilting at least an hour a day. Hard to do, but I am especially committed to starting the DWR (Double Wedding Ring) and working furiously to get it to them on their first anniversary, June 7, 2013.

Let the quilting begin!