Progress…

Not much sewing took place this past week but there was a lot of activity as we get closer to closing on our other house.

The inspection report called out a few electrical things, some minor repairs to a few roof shingles and a few windows where the seals had broken. DH drove up on Thursday to take the windows to get an estimate so we can offer a credit at closing. We lined up a roofer and he took care of the issues the next day. We’ve lined up an electrician who will have the work done by this Friday.

The house is on well & septic and the Buyers had those tested last week too. The well came back with minor traces of bacteria – which we’ve been told is normal because no one has lived in the house for 4 months. We’ll need to line up someone to ‘shock’ the well next week and that should take care of it.

The appraisal is scheduled for tomorrow – that’s the last hurdle to get us to closing. Please send out all the good vibes you can spare that it goes in our favor!!! 🙂

Last but not least, this is the first time in my life I’ve put my Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving!! We bought a new tree during ‘Christmas in July’ so we’ve been anxious to see what it looks like. It’s a slim-line tree, it has LED lights that can change colors and motion all with a remote control. It needs a bit fluffing up but I’ve got plenty of time to do that and decorate it!

Lazy Holidays

It’s been pretty low key around here for the last week. I was sick with a stomach bug on Christmas day – ugh!! I woke up at 3:30am with diarrhea, chills and a very sour stomach. I was able to go back to sleep for a little while but was back up before 7am again. I moved to the couch and around 10am finally ‘tossed my cookies’…sorry if this is too much information. I suffered through the rest of the day feeling like I’d been hit by 17 buses (no clue where that saying came from !?).

Needless to say, Christmas was postponed in our house until the next day. I felt a little better so we exchanged gifts and just hung out on the couch most of the day. Later, I fixed dinner but I couldn’t eat any of it 😦  I feel much better now so all’s well that ends well.

There was no sewing this past week – ugh – but I did talk with my neighbor about making changes to her commission quilt. As you may recall, in it’s current state it’s about 30 inches longer than it is wide and it will be too long for the full-size bed she plans to display it on so, we’re going to move one of the rows of shirts to the back side and position it at the top so if the quilt is folded down there is a little surprise of more shirts! (A big Thanks to Quilt Mouse for the suggestion!)

That will be my mission this week – unpick and resew the top and piece the backing.

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Let’s hope the new year brings lots of good health, joy and adventure!

 

Two weeks worth!

***Fair warning: this is a picture heavy post***

I missed posting last week but I had a really good reason – I was in Maryland visiting my new Great niece!! OMG she is just the cutest, sweetest baby EVER! (Ha, I’m sure all Great Aunts say that…lol). Just look at Miss Campbell Elizabeth:

 

It was so hard to leave but after 6 days (!) I was ready to get back home. I missed DH and my fur baby…and I was itching to get back to my sewing room too!

First thing I did was finish up an old UFO (unfinished object) I started a few years back when I wanted to learn applique. This was a block of the month I followed from Jacquelynne Steves called Cozy Afternoon. The top had been done for a long time so I finally pulled it out, basted it and quilted all over it.

No specific plan for this – it measures 45″ square…I’ll offer it for sale on Facebook for $70, if there are no takers it’ll sit in my ‘done’ pile until I decided to donate it.

I’ve also started working on a Washington Redskins quilt for DH – after their extremely poor performance Thursday night I’m really not excited about making it but I’ve had it on my ‘to-do’ list for way too long so I’m just going to get ‘er done! Here’s part of it on my design wall, I still need to add a section on the right of the t-shirts. When it’s all done it should measure 75×84…whew!

I took a break today to put up a few Christmas decorations. As you may recall we’re supposed to be moving to Myrtle Beach (yeah that’s taking much much longer than anticipated) and I really didn’t want to pull out all my decorations just to have to pack them up when we move so I’ve only pulled out our pre-lit tree and a quilt I made last year to decorate the living room.

I then realized I didn’t have a Christmas table topper so I went right into the sewing room and made one! When I flipped my wall calendar to December there was an adorable snowman quilt which gave me the idea for this table topper. I pulled out my small bin of Christmas fabric and went to town – I really need to embellish this with some buttons for his eyes and mouth, and for his mid-section 🙂

And to top all that off, I’ve re-started the Couch-to-5k program (again!). The temps here in SC have been pretty mild so it was really easy to get outside. Week 1 Day 1 in the books…and it wasn’t pretty. My lungs are definitely out of condition – I was huffing and puffing through the first 4 intervals and I was only running 60 seconds!!! Ugh! More evidence that I’m sorely out of shape

That’s all for now…have a great weekend and week ahead!! 😀

 

Big News!

I’ve got lots to share quilting wise but the biggest, bestest news is: I’m a Great Aunt!!!

My niece gave birth to a 5lb 11oz, 18″ long little girl on Friday, Nov 10. Her name is Campbell Elizabeth and she’s perfect!! She came about 2.5 weeks early and they’re keeping an eye on her but she’s doing really well 😀

I’m just so tickled…my niece has been trying to have a baby for many, many years so this is such a blessing. I’ll be traveling to Maryland later this month to spend a week with them, helping out in any way they need me to – squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

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A few weeks ago I mentioned that I made some seasonal table toppers for a friend who lives near Seattle…and here they are! She saw me post about my own Pumpkin topper and asked for one, as well as a Christmas topper.

I used decorative stitching on the tree to mimic garland…I love it! Now I need to make myself one 😀

I added to my Honeypot Bee collection with this October block…every time I make one I get all giddy because I still love that Blueberry Park fabric!! Can’t wait to put all these blocks together 😉

As I usually do, when I’m knee deep in a big project I just have to pull out some fabric and start a new project :-s I had a charm pack of Batiks and I was feeling the seasonal change so I added a brown background fabric and made up this little baby top. It’s sitting patiently in my ‘tops’ box until I get back around to it.

I also finished the Quilt for Vegas and put that in the mail this week. I used fabric from a half-yard bundle of Mini Bracelets I’ve been hoarding for a few years. I did straight line quilting to mimic the block pattern and used text fabric for the backing.

 

Last but not least…I F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. finished the Memorial quilt. This one really challenged me because of all the different clothing fabric – velvet, satin, crepe, and rhinestones – wow! The customer picked it up yesterday and she was thrilled which makes all the hard work worthwhile 😉

I did double straight line quilting in each row…used Kona Navy for the back and binding. It measures 67″ square.

Now that I’ve finished these big projects, I think I’ll spend a few days cleaning up my sewing room before I dive into anything else…yeah, that sounds good – let’s see if I can do it 😉

ttfn…

 

 

Sickness and sewing

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted on the blog and I’ve got several projects I need to get caught up on. I’ve completed quite a few quilts and this week I’ve been focusing on getting ready for the trunk show coming up on Sunday. This will be my first event ever where I’ve sold my stuff to the general public so I’m a bit nervous and anxious to see how it will go.

I put all the items I’m going to be selling at the trunk show into a spreadsheet and between quilts, oven mitts, table toppers, table runners, zipper pouches, I have over 40 items that I could sell! I’ve put a target price for each of them into the spreadsheet and if I were to sell all of them at that target price I would bring home $2,000! HAHA yeah, I’d be happy if I sell just one thing!

In other topics I’ve put up all of the Christmas decorations, there aren’t a whole lot but at least they’re up.

 

I have this coming week off work so I hope to get quite a few more quilting projects completed. I have one specific that I’d like to get finished before Christmas and get it shipped off to that special person but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get it done – we’ll see how focused I can be next week.

Last week was a complete washout, I picked up a stomach virus from dear hubby and was really down for the count for almost an entire week. I didn’t step into my sewing room for FOUR STRAIGHT DAYS so you know I had to be really sick!

And now the gratuitous display of my finished items and WIPs:

I finished the commissioned “Beachy” table topper and mailed it off to Maryland.

I started another Halloween top with the Cheeky Wee Pumpkin fabric I won. The center is a panel that came with the FQ bundle…how cute is this!! It’s now basted and ready for quilting.

Here’s the stack of basted quilts waiting for me to ‘get er done’! The top one is Acorn Park which I finished up last weekend (picture below). The second one (turquoise) is the quilt I hope to finish this week and send off to a special friend. The middle one is a project that’s been sitting in the closet for a year. I pulled it out when I was basting all the other quilts – I have no idea how I want to quilt it!! The bottom two are my Halloween quilts (I’m sure all the black & orange didn’t give it away!)

I finished up the Sugar Block club December block…ugh, now comes the hard part of figuring out the layout I want to use…this could take a while

I saw this really cute tree farm quilt on Pinterest and decided to make a table runner…I’m taking this with me on Sunday, if it sells I’ll just have to make another one for me!

Last but not least, here’s the finished Acorn Park quilt. I just love all these bright autumn colors. Yes, this is going with me on Sunday too.

ttfn…

Summary for the week

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve got a 10k coming up next weekend so I need to get back to running on a regular basis and surprisingly enough I completed 3 runs this week!

The second run on Friday was more of a walk because I was feeling quite creaky and stiff from the run on Wed…but hey, it counts!!

The third run was this morning. I slept in a little and didn’t leave the house until 8:45…I paid for it with the heat & sunshine. Thankfully I took a route that had lots of shade and I brought 2 bottles of water. I purposely did not look at the weather before I left – I was afraid I’d talk myself out of it if I knew the numbers! But I can tell you it was HOT!

I decided to use a 2 min run/2 min walk interval and that worked out perfectly. I started off running a little slower and I can see I picked up my pace during intervals 4-7. I took an extended walk break through interval 8 and then got back to running the rest until I hit 3 miles. Whew, was I ever happy to hear the c25k lady say that!

I’m planning to get two more runs in next week – about 2 miles each – and then we’ll see how I do for the 10k on Saturday… wish me luck!!

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On the sewing front, I’ve been quilting on my Christmas quilt – trying all sorts of new free-motion quilt stitches. Since this one is all mine, I’m feeling quite relaxed about doing whatever I want.

First I traced a poinsettia design on all the blocks using a Frixion pen and then free-motion stitched around it…they turned out really great! However, since I used white thread they don’t really show up all that well in photos 😦

Then I added curved lines in all the red & green fabrics, going from corner to corner – point to point…again hard to see it in the photo. Then I added ‘ribbon candy’ in the sashing strips and I’m working on adding ‘icicle lights’ in some of the other open areas.

I’d like to get the quilting finished today because I have to work late almost every night next week which means there probably won’t be much time to sew (waaaaaaaaah!) 😦

ttfn…

 

Warning: Lots of pictures

I’ve got a ton of sewing projects to get caught up on … so be warned there are a ton of pictures in this post!

First up: The Splendid Sampler

Although I’m still about six blocks behind I have completed quite a few blocks since my last blog post…

#48

#49

Bonus Flip Flops

#47

#46

Block 50!!!

#41

And here are all my completed blocks up on the design wall (taken before I finished #41)

I’ve also finished and shipped my very first t-shirt quilt!

Next up – I had a friend ask if I would FMQ a baby blanket she made and of course I said YES! I just love an all over meander!

And as if I didn’t have enough going on, I jumped into a 12 days of Xmas in July QAL hosted by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. You can still follow along with the steps on her blog – her directions were very clear and easy to follow and I especially love how she made sure to provide pressing instructions so all the seams nested – double win! I’ve pieced the back and it’s ready for basting – hoping to get that done today so I can start FMQ snowflakes all over it!!

I’ve also managed to stay current with the Sugar Block Club BOM hosted by Amy at Stitchery Dickory Dock. I’ve been using the same color palette that she uses in each of her blocks – not sure how it will all end up! Here’s the August block, I just love this navy fabric with clouds & rain… must.get.more!

And last but not least…I was itching for a finish so I pulled out an old UFO and got the top done this morning – whoop whoop! Don’t quite know what I’m going to do with this but it measures 54×48 so it would make a generous sized baby blanket…if someone is really into purple!

Ok, I think I’m all caught up now…whew!

Off to watch the Olympics (GO USA!) and maybe do a little more sewing…ttfn…